Bringer of Fire by Jaz Primo Read Free Book Online

privacy of my home, I practiced moving objects both large and small. For the first time in recent memory, I was actually excited about something, and I practiced relentlessly. Maybe it had been the results of my additional treatment on Monday evening, but my progress was shocking.
    By Wednesday night, I’d managed to push the dining room furniture across the room, resulting in a throbbing headache afterward. To my relief, I discovered that replenishing my body’s electrolytes with sports drinks reduced my fatigue and lessened the severity of the headaches.
    The probing of my limitations revealed a number of unexpected capabilities. While bouncing a small rubber ball against my living room wall one evening, I spontaneously generated an invisible “shield” that kept me from injuring an eye from a wayward bounce.
    With practice, I gained a nuanced proficiency in shifting small objects or substances around. Granted, I was using hand gestures as the focal point for my actions like some stage magician, but I did manage to swirl a stack of magazines, newspapers, and a layer of furniture dust into midair, as well as relocate a cloud of steam across the bathroom that I had generated from my hot shower.
    Hell, I was playing around just like a kid on summer vacation; but to be honest, it was the most fun that I’d had in a long time.

Chapter 5
     
    By Thursday, I felt confident that I could push somebody over with my newly-refined skills. Still, nothing beat actual physical exercise; the feeling of endorphins surging through my body was invigorating.
    Some people were runners, but I preferred jogging immediately following a workday, typically during early evenings. I’d given up that oh-dark-thirty morning workout crap when I left the army. Nowadays, I alternated days between jogging and weight lift training.
    Whether jogging or lifting weights, both were great for working off the day’s stress. I’d converted one of the spare bedrooms into a weight room, but I did my jogging in the elaborate park located in the heart of our model corporate city.
    I had to admit, Nevis Corners was a nice city, despite having been co-sponsored by a consortium of some of the largest profit-hungry corporations. Frankly, a number of the nation’s shrewdest corporations seemed to be at the center of all the major political and financial corruptions of the past few decades. Still, the politicians catered to them as if they were family.
    Hell, I still remembered a few years back when one boastful ultra-conservative senator even tried to sell the idea that corporations were just like people .
    What an asshole.
    Half of the world’s economy was in the shitter, and it seemed as if the only people hurting in our nation were the breathing kind. Meanwhile, the “corporation people” were wallowing in cash reserves and not creating much in the way of jobs for us “breathing people.”
    At least I had a steady job at the tag agency.
    Count your blessings, they say.
    During the second mile of my jog, my cell phone rang. I paused and looked down at the phone’s screen.
    Out of area.
    “Hello?” I answered, catching my breath.
    “Hello, Bringer,” replied a gruff male voice.
    “Who is this?”
    “The time’s come for you to start making choices,” he said. “Preferably, smarter ones. The less that you discuss with the FBI, the better.”
    “And just why should I take advice from some asshole with no name?”
    The guy chuckled in a way that oozed self-satisfaction, which annoyed me to no end.
    “I think it’s important to keep those close to you safe, don’t you?”
    My throat tightened.
    “That so? Maybe you’d like to convey that in person?”
    The only response was silence.
    Jerking the phone from my ear, I quickly realized that the connection had ceased.
    Given my sister’s proximity, my first thought was of her. I immediately dialed her house, but got no answer. I glanced at my watch, realizing it was relatively close to dinnertime for