Crushed (20 page)

She had a new master? A new person to hold her invisible leash for her? That explained why she wasn’t dead. They should have gone with plan number one and tried harder to get their hands on the locket. Zach had the spell written on a piece of paper in his pocket. If only he could get his hands on that necklace somehow.

“Who’s your owner now?” he asked.

“That’s for me to know.”

“What are you planning to do?”

Her smile grew. “I am going to kill your stupid girlfriend.”

Fists clenched, he tried to break through the invisible barrier again, but it was too solid, too strong.

Morgan laughed. Turning away, she began to walk down the hallway in the direction of the door.

Zach yelled her name. He didn’t have any power, but there had to be something he could do. There had to be a way to stop her.

“Leave Kristen alone! I’m warning you, Morgan. I will hunt you down and kill you if you don’t stay away from her.”

Her voice called back to him with no emotion whatsoever. “That’s not a very nice way to talk to your sister.”

“I repeat, if you go near her, I’ll…”

“What?” Morgan returned to the doorway, cheerful smile in place. “What will you do without your powers? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. That’s what you’ll do. Just so you know, I put a spell on this entire room. The windows are unbreakable. The chimney is blocked. You’ll be stuck in here until someone finds your dead body. Ironic, isn’t it? You kept me prisoner, and now you’re the one trapped. Goodbye, Zachary.”

He continued to shout at her, but she didn’t return a second time.

She was going to kill Kristen, and there wasn’t anything he could do to stop her.

The dream began.

Kristen walked with hesitant steps down Titan High’s main hallway. The lights flickered. The building seemed to be empty, but she wasn’t fooled by the lack of activity. She hugged her books to her chest, fearing what might happen next. Any second now, students would appear, and they would accuse her of being a witch. Usually, she was already surrounded at this point. The silence bothered her more than anything. Were they going to jump out and scare her?

Kristen trembled. This was the worst nightmare yet. She squeezed her eyes shut and scrunched up her face, concentrating on waking up. It didn’t work. She opened her eyes to find she was no longer alone. The sight of an extra body startled her, and she nearly jumped out of her shoes. A closer look made her realize that she knew this person. Hope flared in her chest. She was safe.

Grandma Noah was at Kristen’s locker with the door open, peering inside. She couldn’t see her grandmother’s face. It could be a trick. If this nightmare were anything like the other ones, Grandma Noah would be a bloody mess, or she’d be missing an important facial feature. The woman in question closed the metal door and turned, holding her hand out to Kristen. Relief flooded through Kristen when she saw her grandmother’s face.

For a second, Kristen thought her grandmother wanted to touch her. She reached for her outstretched hand, but it wasn’t empty. The gold medallion dangled from her grandmother’s fingers. The elderly woman said, “Take this, and go to the gym. Go alone.”

Kristen reluctantly took the necklace. She held it up high and glared at it. Her grandmother wouldn’t offer it to her if she knew how dangerous it had turned out to be in Kristen’s hands. She’d almost injured Brittany and several boys in the gym not that long ago. “But it’s too powerful for me to control. I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

“Take it and go to the gym,” her grandmother repeated. She sounded like an automated response that people sometimes got when they called for show times or directions. “Go alone.”

“I don’t understand. What am I supposed to do in the gym?”

Grandma Noah looked to the side, and Brittany stepped out of the shadows. Their grandmother went to Brittany, handed her a crystal, and said, “You are going to need this if you’re going to survive the night. Love is your most powerful weapon. Remember that.”

Kristen waited for Brittany to mouth-off with some random complaint that she thought was funny even though no one else did.

Brittany simply nodded.

Zach stepped forward next. He approached with a grim expression on his handsome face. He put an arm around Kristen’s shoulders, kissed her on the forehead, and said, “I’m sorry I can’t help you. She’s my sister, and I can’t do a blasted thing to stop her. I shouldn’t have given up my powers so easily.”

Grandma Noah handed him a square piece of paper and said, “You have your part to play in this little drama. Don’t let my granddaughters down. They need you. You are the
only
one who can stop your sister. It has to be you.”

What could Zach possibly do without powers?

Her grandmother returned to stand directly in front of her. “Tell Cyndi that being an individual isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. I want her to keep dressing like Brittany. Do you understand?”

Kristen shook her head, totally confused by the statement. “Are you serious?” She looked around again and asked, “Where is Cyndi? Why isn’t she here?” Hurricane-force wind whipped through the hallway. Kristen tried to grab on to something, but her hands closed on air. Zach was gone. She continued to reach out with both arms, eyes squinting. The wind blew harder, and she slid backwards on the shiny linoleum. Something loud that sounded like an invisible vacuum sucked up the wind. Total silence remained. For a moment, she wondered if she’d gone deaf.

Once again, she was alone in the hallway.

Her grandmother’s voice echoed in her ears. “Cyndi is in Room 210.”

Grandma Noah’s face popped up in front of hers, so close she almost bumped noses with her. The woman shouted, “Wake up!”

###

Zach tried everything he could think of to escape Morgan’s trap. He slammed heavy objects against the window, but the glass refused to crack. He started on the opposite side of the room, ran at the doorway full-force, and crashed into the invisible wall again and again. It didn’t budge. He did it until he was out of breath, his body was bruised and battered, and he felt like one more hit would break some bones. It was no use. Nothing worked. He couldn’t save Kristen.

Defeated, he sank onto the floor next to the doorway and buried his face in his hands. Since there wasn’t anything else to do, he began to play the ‘what if’ game with himself. What if he’d paid closer attention to how Morgan was behaving? He could have stopped her. What if he’d killed her after realizing what she’d done to their parents? That would have been the best solution.

In hindsight, he could see things more clearly. Morgan had slipped up on occasion, momentarily dropping the act, but he hadn’t wanted to know the truth about her. Deep inside, he’d fought to hold on to the illusion she was his sister, because the alternative had seemed worse to him at the time. The bad boy of Titan High had been afraid to be alone. What a joke.

He groaned. “I should have killed her. I should have killed her a long, long time ago.”

A new voice followed his. “Does my sister know you talk to yourself?”

He lifted his head slowly, afraid he was imagining things. No way was he this lucky. But there she was, standing in the hallway outside the family room, his last hope. He leaped to his feet and shouted in desperation. “Brittany! Get me out of here! Morgan is going after Kristen, and we have to stop her.”

“What?”

“We don’t have time for long explanations. Morgan is going to kill Kristen if you don’t get me out of here.”

Brittany stepped into the room and stared at him with narrowed eyes. “What do you mean get you out of here? What is your problem? Can’t you walk?”

“Morgan put a lockdown spell on this room. I need you to pop us out of here. It’s the only way for me to escape. Grab on to my arm, and let’s go.”

“I can’t pop,” she said and sneered at him, “have you lost your mind?”

“I think you can. I’m willing to bet my life on it… and Kristen’s life. Morgan transferred herself to someone else so I couldn’t get rid of her. I think she’s attached herself to you, and if I’m right about that, then you can pop in and out of places now.”

“How would she even do that, transfer to me?”

“By taking a strand of your hair.”

Brittany’s face lost all color. “She popped into my room this morning and took my hairbrush.”

“Let’s go. Do it quickly, or we’re going to be too late.”

Brittany threw her hands up in the air. “OMG! I cannot pop. Read my lips. I’m telling you I can’t do it. Even if I have that power now, which I don’t, I don’t know how to use it. If I tried, we’d probably end up in the Pacific Ocean, and I can’t swim that good.”

Zach took a deep breath and tried hard to calm down. He spoke to Brittany in the same voice he used to use with Morgan. “It’s simple, okay? Listen to me. This isn’t rocket science, you know. A monkey could do it. Take my hand, close your eyes, and concentrate on your home. Focus on being there. Convince yourself that you are already inside your house. It’s that simple.”

With an irritated expression on her face, she took his hand in a hard grip and closed her eyes. Zach squeezed his eyes shut and silently prayed that Morgan had chosen this girl to be her new master. Otherwise, they’d both be stuck in the family room forever.

###

Wake up
!

Kristen bolted upright, surprised to find herself on the sofa. She lifted the hair off her hot, sweaty neck. The cool air felt good against her damp skin. Her memory slowly returned in confusing fragments. She’d stretched out on the sofa after Cyndi had gone upstairs to rest. Cyndi had had a headache since the accident. Kristen decided to check on her before going to her own room to finish the pile of homework that needed to be done before morning.

She glanced at the digital clock on the table near the stairs. The lit-up numbers told her it was only a few minutes after seven. The sun was almost gone, and the house was dark. No one had turned a light on while she slept. Careful not to run into the furniture, she went upstairs to peek inside Cyndi’s room before heading to her own. Her sister was snoring softly beneath a sheet.

Once she got to her own room, Kristen sat on the mattress instead of at the desk. She reclined against the row of pillows and spread her books in front of her bent knees. It was hard to concentrate. She hadn’t heard from Zach since he’d left her at school following the loss of his powers. She’d tried to call him, but he hadn’t answered. His silence worried her. It was possible he blamed her for killing Morgan.

And why wouldn’t he?

Kristen sighed and forced thoughts of Zach to the back of her mind. She had a ton of reading to do, and if she didn’t get started, she’d be up all night.

A short hair tickled her forehead. She swiped at it. An itch brought her hand to her scalp again. She scratched. Another second and another itch. Something was crawling on her. It felt like tiny feet moving from her hairline to her eyebrow, probably an ant. She swatted at it. Then it happened again, only this time it was in a different area.

She hurried to her dresser and picked up the handheld mirror, hoping she didn’t have lice. That would really be the topper of an already horrible year. She would have to transfer to another school.

There was a tiny, white spider on her forehead. She smacked it hard, smashing it against her skin. Before she could set the mirror down, another spider appeared.

What the hell?

She watched in horror as a few tiny, white spiders crawled out from her hairline. The few turned into several, then hundreds, then thousands. Kristen screamed and dropped the mirror. The glass broke, but she didn’t care. She repeatedly smacked herself in the forehead, trying to kill them as she ran to the bathroom so she could drown them in the sink.

Cyndi came out of her bedroom to see what the noise was about. She blinked her sleepy eyes several times. “What’s going on?”

“Spiders!” Kristen kept hitting herself and pulling at her hair, desperate to kill them.

“What are you talking about?” Cyndi grabbed at her hands, trying to stop her from hurting herself.

Kristen blasted past her and ran into the bathroom. There wasn’t time to turn on the light. She had to kill them. She shoved the stopper into the sink and turned both faucets on full blast. Millions of tiny feet crawled over her face and neck. She screamed, hitting them with her hands again and hitting herself in the process while waiting for the sink to fill with enough water to drown them.

“There are no spiders!” Cyndi shouted.

“Get them off me!” Kristen crashed into the wall and almost knocked herself out.

Zach came out of nowhere. He grasped Kristen’s wrists and pulled her hands away from her face. He tried to talk to her, but she couldn’t hear what he was saying over the sound of her uncontrollable screams. He forcibly turned her around, wrapped a tight arm around her waist, and made her look into the mirror as Cyndi flicked on the overhead light.

From the doorway, Brittany said, “Wow, you have totally lost it.”

The spiders were gone, but how? Kristen stared at her reflection in stunned silence. Her skin was red in several places where she’d almost beaten her brains out. She shook her head slowly, trying to understand what had just happened. “There were spiders everywhere. I saw them.”

“They weren’t real,” Zach said. His grim eyes met hers in the mirror. “Morgan isn’t gone. She did this. She’s messing with you, torturing you, and she isn’t going to stop until you’re dead.”