Apex 3: Shaylo Attacks by Adam Moon Page B

your force field inside out?”
    “I don’t know. Why?”
    “Because I need you to. Will you join me? It’ll be dangerous. We’ll probably die.”
    His mom cried out, “No!” but he ignored her.
    Sally whispered, “Yes, I’ll come with you.”
    “Good.” His features became ugly, veins popping out of his temples and color draining from his face.
    His hands were shaking uncontrollably as he teleported himself and Sally away from the others.

Retribution at all Costs
     
    They appeared at the scene of the crime on the street in Ault, Colorado.
    Melanie’s wrecked body was ten feet away, cooling in her own spilt blood. Jack knew better than to run over to her but he did it anyway. If Shaylo ambushed him, then that was fine by him.
    Jack took a look around for the camera that had shot the grisly footage and immediately found it attached to a stop sign next to Melanie’s body. It was small and alien, and wasn’t recognizable as a camera in any way, but it was in the right spot so he knew it was.
    Sally hung back, swiveling her head around, trying to catch a glimpse of Shaylo, but he was nowhere to be seen.
    Jack knelt down, hoping beyond hope that this was all some kind of elaborate hoax, but he could immediately tell that it wasn’t. The ruined body was his friend Melanie’s.
    He touched her cheek and tears welled up in his eyes. He felt his senses tingle as he phased in and out so rapidly that he appeared to not be moving at all. He was afraid he was going to get whisked away by his powers again, against his will. He had to act quickly or else Sally would be left behind with Shaylo as his teleportation ability dumped him in the damn desert again.
    He stood up and screamed as loudly as he could, “Come and get me, you coward.”
    A figure appeared at the end of the block. It was floating off of the ground by a foot, moving their way slowly , inch by inch.
    It was Shaylo.
    The sight of him had Jack’s hairs standing on end. In a weird way, Shaylo was magnificent. He exuded an aura of ultimate confidence.
    Jack yelled to Sally, “When I say so, wrap us all up in an inverted force field.”
    “Why?” When Jack had mentioned reversing the fields back in Alabama, she’d imagined he simply wanted to imprison or otherwise contain Shaylo inside her force field, but now she knew how wrong that assumption was. In a way she was thankful because she already knew she couldn’t keep her field up indefinitely. It always fizzled out after a few minutes. But why would he want to trap them inside with the menacing Grey?
    Jack said ominously, “I want to trap oxygen inside with us.”
    She hardly knew how to respond to that so she ignored it and voiced her concerns. “I don’t know if I can invert it. Buy me a minute to practice flipping the fields around.”
    “You got it.” Jack teleported towards the approaching Grey in three foot increments, disappearing and then reappearing just a bit closer each time.
    The Grey, for his part, didn’t seem too surprised by his ability because he just kept coming forward. Guns of all varieties sprung up all over the Grey’s armor. He was a floating arsenal of alien technology.
    Jack looked back in time to see Sally erecting a force field. Her face was screwed up into a knot as she concentrated with all of her willpower.
    She touched the shield and yelled, “Ouch,” before letting it dissipate and trying again.
    Jack dodged a laser blast but all that did was put him in danger when another one hit him immediately after he dodged the first one. He teleported twenty feet above but the guns must have had some sort of lock on him because they were already firing when he appeared. He phased in and out to avoid being hit but the blasts came so quickly he’d never be able to keep at it for long.
    He tried to focus on Shaylo but he couldn’t because he couldn’t stay in one place long enough.
    Sally yelled, “I got it. What now?”
    Jack yelled back, “Just keep it up,” right as a