Metawars: The Complete Series: Trance, Changeling, Tempest, Chimera Read Online Free

and … well, I didn’t have any to spare.
    Milk helped sometimes. Did I have milk in the fridge? I squeezed my eyes closed and tried to picture the contents of my wheezing icebox, an original installation in the aging apartment. Two cans of soda, half a loaf of bread, a few slices of faux cheddar, maybe a Styrofoam carton of last week’s filched leftovers. If I had milk in there, it was curdling into cottage cheese.
    With nothing to save me, I curled onto my side and pondered the tip money in my back pocket. Five hours and only twenty extra bucks. My jackass of a boss docked me for kicking that guy in the crotch. As if firing me wasn’t humiliating enough.
    I wished I’d controlled my temper.
    This was the fourth time in three years that I’d been fired for not reining it in. Sooner or later, I’d run out of noncareer opportunities in Portland and then I’d really be screwed. And I had to go job hunting tomorrow if I didn’t want to end up on the street by the end of the week. Work and sleep—there had to be more to life than this. Oh yeah, there was. Pain.
    Those invisible hands returned and twisted my intestines into knots. Scalding tears pricked the corners of my eyes. Drawing my knees up to my chest, I ground my teeth and waited for it to pass. No such luck. I tried to stand, preparing to run to the toilet and yak. Threadbare sheets had tangled around my ankles and legs. My left elbow scraped against the industrial carpet as I hit the floor.
    Had to be my appendix. I was going to die after all.
    The pain spread as I lay on my cold apartment floor—had I bounced another check on the heating bill? The water-stained plaster ceiling pressed down on me. No, it couldn’t be my appendix. That pain stayed in the abdomen and lower back. This pain was spreading all over, from my stomach to my chest to my throat. It radiated outward from my belly button, nothing like what I’d earlier mistaken for heartburn. Gooseflesh dotted my arms. My nipples hardened. Searing heat, like swallowing a gallon of boiling water, raced through my veins and arteries, heating my extremities and curling my toes. My mouth opened to scream—no sound came out. My eyes burned; I squeezed them shut.
    Had I really worked so hard and survived so much only to die alone, on the floor of my crappy apartment?
    The blazing heat ended as abruptly as it began. I curled into a ball and pressed numb hands against my chest. Chills tore up and down my spine. Something was happening to me, something bad. Fear warred with an odd sense of déjà vu. I longed to cry, but no tears came. My eyes still burned. I slit one open. The chilly apartment air cooled the hot cornea, and I opened the other for similar relief.
    I tested the muscles in my abdomen. Nothing twinged. Legs and arms seemed equally okay for use. I rolled onto my right side. A lock of hair fell across my face and into my mouth. I spat it out. It tasted as bad as it smelled. A flash of misplaced color caught my eye. I grabbed a handful of hair and inspected the strands. Thin streaks of purple colored half of the light brown.
    Crap.
    Every six weeks, I splurged on a box of cheap hair dye to keep up the pretense of boring nut brown. The purple streaks had existed since I was a toddler, a random side effect of being born the daughter of two superheroes. But the heroes were gone, and while people still did funny things to their hair, I had wanted to forget the life I’d lost when my powers were ripped away. More than anything, I’d wanted to be normal.
    The last box of dye wasn’t temporary, so why was the purple back? I rolled the colored hair between my lavender-hued fingertips.
    What the huh?
    All ten fingers had adopted a pale, violet hue, like the beginning of a bruise. Or like I’d played in permanent finger paints.
    I stood on shaky legs and padded barefoot to the bathroom. A colorful towel created the only privacy barrier between bed and bath. I pushed through it so hard two of the tacks popped