Ill Wind by Rachel Caine

in a country full of starving people? Would you save the property, or the lives, if by saving lives you starved even more?”
    â€œI don’t know,” I whispered. My hands were shaking. I made them into fists when Bad Bob’s laugh sawed the air.
    â€œShe doesn’t know. Well, that’s typical. This is what we end up with these days, a bunch of kids raised on free lunches who never had to make a decision in their lives more important than what TV show to watch. You want to trust her with the power of life and death?” He snorted and shoved my folder into the center of the table. “I’ve heard enough.”
    â€œWait!” I blurted. “I’m sorry. I didn’t understand.”
    Marion Bearheart looked at me from the other side of the table, her warm brown eyes full of compassion. “And do you understand now, Joanne?”
    â€œSure,” I lied. “I’d save the power plant. And—and the food.”
    Silence around the table. Bad Bob stood up. Nobody argued with him; nobody moved so much as a muscle as he raised his hands at shoulder level.
    A cloud started forming above our heads. Just mist at first, clinging to the ceiling like fog, and then getting denser, taking on form and shape. I felt humidity sucking up into that thing, fueling power.
    â€œHey—,” I said. “Um—”
    Power leaped through the air, jumping from each one of the Wardens in the room and into that cloud. It was feeding on them, drawing energy. It was . . . It was . . .
    . . . alive.
    Bad Bob watched me with those eerie, cold eyes. “Better do something,” he advised. “Don’t know how long it’s going to be content to just sit there.”
    â€œDo what?” I yelped. I didn’t remember standing, but I was out of my chair, backing away. The power in that room—the uncontrolled, unfocused menace—the sense that the cloud overhead was thinking —
    I felt it click in on me as if a channel had opened, and something hot and powerful tore out of the cloud at me. I didn’t have time to think, to do anything but just react .
    I reached up into the cloud and ripped it apart. No finesse to it, no control, just sheer raw power—and power that got loose, manifested in arcing static electricity from every metal surface. Glass shattered. The pitcher of water on the table hissed into steam.
    I ducked into a crouch in the corner until it was all over, and the room was clear and silent.
    Very, very silent.
    I looked up and saw them all still sitting there, hands on the table. Nobody had moved an inch. Marion was the first to get up; she walked over to a covered cart and took out a thick beach towel, and went about the business of mopping up beads of water from the conference table. Somebody else—probably a Fire Warden—brought the lights back on-line. Except for a couple of burn marks around the power outlets, it all looked normal enough.
    Bad Bob sat back down in his chair, slumped at ease, and propped his chin on his fist. “I rest my case,” he said. “She’s a menace.”
    â€œI agree,” said the snippy-looking librarian typefrom Arkansas. “I’ve rarely seen anything so completely uncontrolled.”
    Martin Oliver shook his head. “She has plenty of power. You know how rare it is to find that.”
    They went around the table, each one putting in a comment about my general worthlessness or worthiness. Marion Bearheart voted for me. So did two others.
    It came down to Paul Giancarlo, who stood and walked over to me and offered me a hand up. He kept holding my hand until he was sure I wasn’t going to collapse into a faint on the floor.
    â€œYou know what this is?” he asked. “What it is we’re deciding here?”
    â€œWhether or not to let me into the Wardens,” I said.
    He shook his head, very kindly. “Whether or not to let you live . If I