Page 110 of Zero Happily Ever Afters

“You bitch.” Darla swiped her arm quickly, three times, carrying counters in every strike meant to capture any of the buzzing magic building from The vile True Witch.

Vile. That word clung to Theodore’s throat, preventing him from shouting, from warning Darla. He wanted to tell her to flee, to escape. He wanted to move beside Vincent and hug himduring this excruciatingly agonizing death. He wanted to plead with The True Witch, tell her to stop, tell her the point had been made.

Instead, he froze.

“Fool me once.” Amara flicked a finger back and forth, waving it with disapproval. “Shame. On. You!”

Her tattoos sparkled. Somehow, they diverted Darla’s hex magic. Between the spelled makeup and the tattoos, neither Theodore nor myself considered this timely preparation. She’d had these magical defenses stored and at the ready upon her arrival to the MDC. It was merely happenstance that Theodore’s crew caught The True Witch off guard earlier. An opportunity that wouldn’t present itself again.

With a twist of her hand, Amara balled a fist and dropped an ocean into Darla’s mind. The warlock who’d sliced into me a hundred times over, the one who nearly killed Tara, had now collapsed to her knees, locked inside her mind while she held her breath—truly believing she was drowning.

“Stop,” Theodore forced the word out. “You’ve made your point.”

“I do not believe I have.” Amara stood tall, her stance imposing and godlike in Theodore’s memory.

He shuffled toward Darla, crawling on all fours as he reached his friend, his lover, his perfect killer. Now, he’d lost Vincent to some sick, perverse entropy magic, but he knew The True Witch’s ocean could be pulled back.

“Awww, Theodore.” Amara channeled magic into her fist. “It pains me to see you suffer so.”

With a sudden whip of her arm, she lifted Darla’s body and hurled her headfirst into the rocky floor, bashing her skull in.

Blood splattered over Theodore’s face, his stunned, baffled, and frightened face.

“I still get my vengeance; you don’t have to watch her slow death.” Amara giggled. “We both win. It’s compromise. I do not offer compromise lightly. It is my love for you, Theodore. Remember that.”

“Your love for me?” He seethed with rage, with hate, with power. “You’ve struck what is mine. You’ve harmed two of—”

“Three,” Amara corrected, pointing a finger at Ernesto. “Because he’s not leaving here alive.”

Theodore’s eyes widened, staring at his fidgety frightened friend. His skittish ally. His gentle lover. His soft murderer.

“Run,” he mouthed.

“Four, technically.” Amara chuckled. “I forgot I killed that trollop doctor of yours. To think your father sought to keep her alive, to continue using her research for merging magics where they don’t belong. Despicable.”

“You killed Kendall?” Flashes of the doctor telepath that soothed Theodore’s destructive desires funneled through his thoughts. Her image was beautiful and dangerous and seductive and now coated in a red filter of death.

“Ages ago, darling.” Amara had this smile that faded into an expression of utter contempt. “She was meant to guide you, teach you while I was away. Instead, she exploited your youth, your ignorance. No, no, no. She had to go.”

Crystalized blue shimmered throughout the cell, and Ernesto leapt through a portal.

“Her death was truly exquisite.” Amara licked her lips, almost like she relived the torture she’d most certainly dealt Dr. Kendall. “Nothing like this fodder that you play with as if any of them were your equal.”

Ernesto screamed and shouted; his body flailed and fought to escape his own blue doorway, splashing water into the room and blood and chunks of flesh. Theodore leapt to Ernesto’s aid, gripping his hand to pull him to safety. It didn’t help. Somethinghorrible dragged Ernesto back, and his portal door sealed, slicing off his arm that now lay in the cell, rotting.

“What’ve you done?” Theodore collapsed to his knees and dry heaved.

“I thought thehackto his destination was quite skillful.” Amara stepped over to Theodore and patted his head. “You’d think with all the time he spent at your side, he’d have done better when swimming with sharks.”

“I hate you.”

Amara mused, her vibrant green eyes softening ever so. “What child doesn’t hate their mother when being reprimanded?”

Child? What? The True Witch was Theodore’s mother? The memory swirled as I struggled to fathom this revelation. The True Witch, a pillar and leader for an ancient coven that sought to control the world was Theodore’s mother. Tara’s mother.

“Your tantrums have gotten much worse in my absence.” She shook her head. “Your father was never any good at discipline. It’s why my sweet goddess still lacks in harnessing so much of her power.”

“This was never about me, was it?” Theodore looked up at Amara, at The True Witch, at his mother. “You finally came back because it’s time for Tara to fulfill her destiny. The MDC, my release, all just a minor pitstop on your destination to supremacy.”

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