Page 91 of Misfit Monsters
Jonah’s mouth twists, and Mirage winces.
They don’t understand. If my former captor tried to aim his sorcery at my companions too, they didn’t recognize the effect.
Of course they didn’t. I’m the only one who knows this sorcerer. I’ve been recognizing him all along and not wanting to believe it.
I don’t even know for sure that he’s gone.
“We have to be careful!” I blurt out. “He was close—I could feel it. If he tries again?—”
Hail sneers. “You lost your head in more silly paranoia and exploded your crazy energy all over. Now we’ve got to go back and get new equipment to start the whole job over again. What do you figure Rollick is going to say when he finds out how everything got broken?”
A clammier chill sweeps through me. I’ve caused anotherincident, and this one was so much more destructive than the one before.
Destruction we can’t gloss over.
Before I can say anything, Jonah rakes his hand through his hair. “We have to give Rollick the whole story. I don’t know, Peri. I’ve tried—but maybe you need something more to get you stabilized than any of us can offer.”
“No!” Another tremor shakes my body. “Please. I was only trying to help. The sorcerer was trying to catch us like he always does?—”
Raze holds out his hands, a flicker of worry crossing his face and wavering through the air between us. “Just calm down, Peri. We’ll figure it out.”
They think I’m freaking out over nothing again. They’reafraidthat I might lose control.
What can I say that’ll convince them?
Isthere anything I could say that’ll matter?
I finally got some handle on my powers and pointed them toward the right target… but I still ruined everything we were working on.
And when Rollick finds out, even he’s going to want to banish me.
A sob breaks from my throat. I can’t protect anyone. I only make things worse.
Blinking away tears, I hurl myself into the shadows and dash away as fast as I can go.
34
Mirage
Her name breaks from my throat automatically. “Peri!”
Our rainbow-vivid companion has already rippled away through the shadows. I move to leap after her, but Hail stops me with a burst of frost that melds my feet to the ground.
“Don’t you go running off too,” he snaps. “We don’t even know how else she might lash out.”
Jonah has taken a step in the same direction, but he halts with a firming of his jaw. “If she needs some space, we should probably give it to her.”
Doeshethink she’d explode at us again?
A memory wavers up: her plaintive voice carrying through the night when I left her behind in the forestseveral nights ago. “She might get lost—not be able to find her way back.”
Our sorcerer aims a firm glance at me. “I’d imagine Peri can look after herself.”
I think I hear a thread of uncertainty in his voice. But it also occurs to me that he might believe it’s better if she can’t return.
Coming back means facing the judgment of the school administration. Maybe being banished.
Does Peri deserve that?
