Page 73 of Zero Happily Ever Afters

“Or maybe we could test the stones.” Vincent shrugged, aloof but trained to temper Theodore’s whims. “See if one already has a teleporting branch.”

“I don’t have time for trial-and-error bullshit on hundreds of gems.” Theodore chuckled. “Chaos is on a stringent schedule, Vinny.”

Calculated chaos. That was Theodore’s new life motto. One that would help him obtain his goal and achieve the impossible. Stay off The Inevitable Future’s radar. Destroy Whitlock Industries. Dodge the ire of the Celestial Coven and whatever backlash using them might cause. Eviscerate everyone in his path for the sheer pleasure of their agony. How he wanted to feel it. How he wanted to feel.

The new strategy allowed him to conceive every possible idea he could fathom, then abandon it for a new plan. One he’d be ready for since he considered every possibility despite the whim of the moment, which he hoped would make it harder to track. He literally prepared ways to be impulsive. Who did that?

As his warlocks worked, Theodore tilted his head, almost gazing at me. No. He was looking at me.

“I told you that I never forget a psychic’s touch.” He shuffled toward me, twisting his hateful thoughts into something softer, kinder, phony. “The way our minds melded before I slashed your throat. Truly artistic. The way you pursued me, chased me in here, stalking my every footstep in the MDC of all places, and bringing a demon with you as a gift. A tribute. I never thanked you.”

I floated backward, wanting to flee.

There was a wicked cautiousness, like he suspected me a deer he didn’t want to startle. “As much as I like the touch of a telepath, the subtle embrace…”

He paused, thinking, thinking deep in his mind in some futile effort to lure me somewhere I’d never step foot. Then he reached out and rubbed his hand along my ghostly torso. Even as an invisible apparition of magic that he couldn’t form physical contact with, Theodore sensed my presence.

“I prefer when psychics delve into my thoughts.” He bit his lip so hard it drew blood. “I’d love for you to come inside me. Come, come as deep as you desire.”

There was a smirk growing on his face, eager for me to share in the laugh of his crude joke. The playful expression fell away into this yearning gaze that seemed genuine. Maybe. I couldn’t know for certain, and I never would because Theodore Whitlock was not to be trusted. Ever. Not for a second.

My bloody image surfaced in Theodore’s mind. The faint agony on my face while I took shallow breaths. The anguish as I lay in a pool of my own blood. It tantalized Theodore. It stirred curiosity in him.

“I’m glad you lived.” He smiled, soft and boyish, almost embarrassed. “I can’t wait to see you again. There’s so much I want to show you, show Tragic Tara, show the world.”

Ideas leapt from one branch of his gnarled thoughts to the next, but his words offered me a lead on the calculated chaoshe weaved. Theodore was going to attack the academy. He’d decided it the second the wards in the solitary chamber dropped. He painted the plan in blood at the roots of his tree, of his inner core where no psychic energy could penetrate without risking his murderous ire.

I had all the information I needed. While Ernesto, Vincent, and Darla tinkered with the bone staff to usher them out of the MDC and to Gemini Academy, I had to run and reunite with my other half, warn myself and everyone at the Spring Showcase.

I flew across the city, seeking my other half.

“It wasn’t enough time,” I whispered as the memory finished and Theodore stood proudly in front of the fifty-some-odd inmates he’d dragged through a portal to Gemini Academy.

Those who’d been tattooed by Vincent didn’t have time to react. They fell and writhed in pain as their ink glowed and subdued them.

The tanks surrounding the arena erupted, unleashing every single fiend prepared for the showcase.

“The arrogance of the industry.” Theodore threw his thoughts out, fishing for my telepathy. “I planned on wisps, here at the schooling home of the future guild witches, or perhaps luring the wisps of the wild, the ones dancing around the city.”

There was a cackle from Theodore. It almost outshined the horrified screams of torment from the inmates who were consumed by fiends. Their tattoos drew demonic energy toward them; it weakened their defenses and prepared Theodore to unleash Hell upon the world.

“The delicious serendipity of the universe delivering me a bounty of fiends.” Theodore roared with laughter. “God really does believe in calculated chaos.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Fiends were unleashed everywhere, immediately wreaking havoc and causing fear. Each heeded the command of Theodore, whose hatred for the hubris of the guild industry outshined everything in his mind, in my mind. Fuck. The gnarled tree of his inner core cast a shadow over the auxiliary gym that I couldn’t escape.

The only relief that came from Theodore’s vile mind was how it almost distracted from the searing head-splitting pain of hearing thousands of screaming thoughts whirling about. The audience who stampeded out of their arena seating, shoving and harming anyone too weak to stand in the pack of frantic survival. The staff who cycled through every extra training they’d been forced to attend after my incident last year, the one that nearly got my homeroom coven killed.

“Fuck,” I muttered.

My homeroom coven. Their thoughts became entangled among the hundreds of students who scrambled with ideas of how to react.

Were they ready for these fiends?

Could they face off against warlocks?

Were those prisoners here to kill them?

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