Page 83 of Zero Happily Ever Afters

“Wonder how much of this you’ll feel.” He pressed the blade below Milo’s eye, intent on slashing his face to pieces.

“Stop,” I roared.

Not out loud but the thought created a thunderous response, literally conjuring a storm above the academy. It swelled and lightning crackled. Not real lightning. Maybe. I couldn’t be sure. The raindrops felt real, but they also felt like my sorrow, my sadness manifested into the weather. That wasn’t the case. It made no sense. It was timing. The weather had gone foul, and I created a similar projection of telepathic energy.

The lightning. Christ, I loved watching the crackle hit Theodore’s gnarled tree. Each spark of electricity brokebranches off the warlock’s sadistic fantasies. I flew across the auxiliary gym, stopping in front of a bewildered Theodore.

“What’s the matter?” I knelt. “You wanted me to dive deep into your mind.”

Theodore panted, uncertain how so many of his thoughts trembled, boiled, burned, faded, stretched into infinite loops. It wasn’t that my abilities startled him. He fully grasped the capabilities of a telepath. I even unraveled his most intimate and tender moments with the telepath who loved him.

Dr. Kendall. I remembered our brief encounter where her telepathic touch dropped an anvil into my thoughts. Twisting my magic, I decided to try something similar to Theodore, shattering huge chunks of bark from the tree of his inner core.

“You can’t do this.” Theodore pressed his hands to his head, attempting to squeeze me out. His years with Dr. Kendall, the way she’d soothe his every thought while dancing naked in his most depraved fantasies, had taught him how to control psychics who entered his mind.

“You should’ve stayed locked up.” I balled a fist, dropping a mountain of telepathic energy onto Theodore’s skull.

He screamed. The torment enticed me, encouraging me to unleash further devastation. He’d pay for everything.Everything.

Tears welled up in Theodore’s eyes, his hauntingly hollow blue eyes that begged for pity, for me to stop shattering pieces of his memories, of his desires, of his horrible passion for mayhem. It wasn’t like I was destroying them forever. That took a lot more time and continuous breaking while also risking the entire psyche. A level of power I didn’t plan on committing because, “I’m just going to kill you here and now.”

I simply wanted to hurt him first. Like he’d hurt Milo. Like he’d hurt Tara. Like he’d hurt Kenzo. I wanted Theodore to feelthe agony of death the same way he’d struck down his victims. I wanted to break his lust for blood. I wanted him to beg.

“Please.” He shivered. “Please help.”

“All that torture and murder, and now you’re afraid to die?” I crept closer, straddling Theodore’s waist and wrapping my hands around his throat.

“Can you do nothing on your own, Theodore?” Amara flicked her wrist and lifted me away, pulling me high into the air and then slamming me down.

I gasped at the sudden crash. Everything ached.

Dammit.

Obviously, I needed to contend with her first. I forced my way back to my feet, ignoring the throbbing pain that burned along my torso. As I winced, I locked onto the minds of students, enduring a small piece of the suffering they dealt with while trapped inside an ocean. It reminded me not to complain about a few bruises.

“You’re bold and foolish.” She tilted her staff toward me, aiming the hundreds of glowing gems in my direction. “I could kill you with a thought.”

I stifled a laugh. “Funny you should say that.”

Honing in on the multitude of magic stored in each of the stones The True Witch wielded, I heard the many slumbering thoughts. Whispers, dreams, comfort in the will of the Celestial Coven. These weren’t unwilling victims but pieces of magics and minds broken off the fallen members of Amara’s foul coven. A coven that had many followers, many members who each strived to join the four pillars. Only the pillars never changed, not for as long as The Sisters Three could recall. Still, those gems held dangerous branches that’d make my battle difficult and drawn out.

“I don’t have time for that,” I muttered, eyeing everyone who fought against the ocean currently drowning them in their heads.

“Seems we’re both on a firm schedule.” The True Witch lifted her staff, preparing to slam it down, and cast some god-awful magic.

“No.” I waved a hand, hurling every ounce of telepathy I could muster.

It sprang forward like a net that wrapped around the bone staff. I yanked my arm close to my chest, reeling the psychic energy with me and ripping out half the gems in one fell swoop.

Not the stones themselves, merely the minds buried in each tiny jewel. The sparkle in the rocks cracked and the glow fizzled away as the magical link had become splintered.

“What have you done?” The True Witch stared at the dying lights of her godly weapon. While she surveyed the losses, I reached out and pulled more fragmented minds from their final resting place, warping the delicate enchantment magic meant to store these magics into the bone staff.

Whether it was from my experience with the chimera’s ability to store magics or the fact that I’d harnessed the full capacity of my branch, this proved easier than anticipated. Not in some overly prideful way. No. The world revealed itself to me and I knew that no one could touch me, not unless I willed it. And right now, the only thing I willed was destroying that horrible bone staff.

“Stop it!” The True Witch extended a hand, throwing an ocean at me, boiling hot and icy cold at the same time. Such an enigma, her arcane branch.

I conjured a sun as bright as Milo and Finn’s joy, a sun so powerful in my mind it dried up every drop of water instantaneously.

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