Page 54 of Rebel Fae
Images of Chan, Wally, and Danielle played through my mind. She was killing them. This was all my fault.
“What did you do to her?!” Ronnie screamed, but Crescent didn’t answer. Instead, she rose her hand toward her temple again.
Ronnie tried to cast a defensive spell with his newly healed hands, but as soon as Crescent’s fingers touched her head, he too fell lifelessly to the ground.
I stared at his motionless body. This couldn’t be happening.
“Stop! Stop hurting them. This is my fault. Not theirs.”
Crescent was about to kill me next when something attacked her from behind.
Antonio and Regina had used these moments for a surprise attack. I stared in wonder at their quick work as they subdued her easily, tackling her to the ground and pinning both her hands, each one taking a side.
“Try to attack us now, bitch,” Regina said, her fangs extended. She looked as though she was about to tear Crescent’s throat out, full belly or not.
Crescent lay still. Her fight was over. Relief flooded my body until Regina and Antonio fell over and didn’t move again. I stared at their lifeless bodies in horror.
She didn’t need her hands to attack. Oh, gods. She’d killed them all.
Crescent sat up. Her blindfold had come off, revealing milky-white eyes. They seemed to give off a glow of their own as she stared at me. She adjusted her simple black dress and stood.
“What have you done?” I whispered, staring at my friends’ bodies.
“I didn’t kill them if that’s what you’re thinking.” She smoothed long black hair out of her face and turned to me. “They’re in a dream state. They will stay that way until I’m done punishing them.”
Relief that they were still alive mingled with concern about this idea of punishment. This was some sort of mind game. A prison they couldn’t escape because it was inside their mind. I remembered her foray into my mind and shivered.
“That’s... cruel,” I said.
“It is.” Her mouth twitched when she said this, and I knew she enjoyed torturing people. Thisbitch, as Regina put it, was cut from the same cloth as The Bane. Evil to the core.
“And now it’s your turn, Tally. I’ll enjoy teaching you a lesson the most. You’ve been a thorn in my side this whole time. Why someone in the dome is protecting you, giving you this opportunity that you squandered, I will never understand, but it doesn’t matter. They’ll see what you have done and realize what a mistake that was.”
Her words seemed important, but all I could focus on was her right hand as it floated towards her head. She didn’t need to touch her temple to use her mentalist powers, but she seemed to enjoy doing it, a physical act that could strike fear into her victims. She moved with deliberate slowness, watching my face the whole time. It gave me enough time to wonder what sort of hellish nightmare she would thrust me into.
My heart pounded as her fingers made contact with her temple.
An object whistled past my head, startling me out of my trance just in time to see it smash into Crescent’s forehead.
It was her turn to drop to the ground.
I stared at her unmoving body for a moment. Then, blinking, I whirled around.
Bael climbed out of the fountain, dripping wet. One hand held a smooth stone similar to the one that lay beside Crescent’s body.
His eyes tracked from her to me. “Tally, are you okay?”
I nodded slowly. “You?”
He spread his black, crow-like wings wide, showing off all their glorious splendor. He was healed, whole. The fountain had worked.
He hefted the rock in his palm and smiled for the first time. “She forgot about me.”
“She did.” I smiled back. “Now, let’s tie her up before she wakes up and remembers.”
Bael helped me rip strips of cloth from what remained of our pant legs and sleeves. We tied Crescent up, but it didn’t feel like enough. She was powerful. We’d need to do something else.
Ronnie groaned and sat up, rubbing his head. They were all starting to twitch and moan. I ran over to him and shook his shoulder.
