RAVENWOOD BOUND

"You really thought hiding in the corner would save you today, freak?" A hand slammed into Genevieve’s face, cracking her head back against the cold steel lockers. Pain exploded behind her eyes, but it was nothing compared to the deafening roar inside her mind. Hate her... look at her weird eyes... kill her... flush her head... The thoughts of the students standing in the hallway bled straight through the locker room walls, sharp and jagged, piercing Genny’s skull like hot needles. "Please," Genny gasped, tasting copper as blood welled over her lip. She held her hands up, trembling. "Sasha, please... I didn't do anything to you" "I just hate looking at your pathetic face," Sasha sneered, tossing her styled blonde hair over her shoulder. She grabbed Genny by the front of her shirt, shoving her violently into her two sidekicks, who kicked Genny's legs out from under her. Genny hit the wet tile floor hard. This was her daily nightmare. Ever since her eighteenth birthday three months ago, the world had turned into a chaotic hell. It had started that rainy night when she suddenly heard her parents' hushed, terrified voices from all the way downstairs discovering they weren't her real parents, and that a seer had warned them to cast her out before she became dangerous. They had abandoned her to live alone in a rented room three days later. And ever since, the sounds had only grown. Heartbeats. Whispers. The filthy, secret thoughts of every human within a hundred yards. "Look at her, crying like a baby," one of the girls laughed, raising a designer boot to stomp down on Genny’s wrist. "Get up and face us, monster!" Monster. The word echoed through the locker room, colliding with the thunderous chorus of a hundred minds outside. Freak... menace... worthless... kill her... STOOOOOP! Genny wanted to scream, but the air caught in her throat. Suddenly, the air temperature in the locker room plunged below freezing. The flickering overhead fluorescent light burst with a violent pop, plunging the room into shadow. A surge of terrifying, icy heat rushed from the base of Genny’s spine, wiping out the pain in her body. Her vision flared an ethereal, glowing violet. You will not break me again. It wasn't her own voice in her head. It was something older. Darker. "What... what is wrong with her eyes?!" Sasha gasped, taking an instinctive step back. "Sasha, look at her hands!" Genny didn't feel herself stand up. She didn't feel her arms move. She was trapped inside her own body, watching through a fog as an invisible pressure wave exploded from her chest. BOOM. The metal lockers slammed shut all at once. The three girls were thrown backward through the air, crashing hard into the far wall. Metal bent. Bones cracked. Screams filled the air real ones, raw and terrified. When the violet mist cleared from Genny’s eyes, the locker room door had been blown off its hinges. Dozens of students stood in the hallway, frozen in silence, horror plastered across their faces. On the floor in front of Genny, Sasha and her two cronies lay groaning, bruised and covered in crimson blood. Genny looked down at her own trembling hands. They were dripping red. "Did I... did I do that?" she whispered, her voice cracking. She’s a witch... Is she a demon?! Call the police! She’s going to kill us all! The flood of terrified thoughts crashed back into her skull, so loud it brought her to her knees. She grabbed her head, weeping as blood stained her uniform. 🎙 MISS GENEVIEVE DOUGLAS. REPORT TO THE PRINCIPAL'S OFFICE IMMEDIATELY. The announcement blared over the loudspeaker, cold and final. An hour later, Genny sat in the back of her adoptive father's car, watching her hometown blur past the window. Her bags were already packed in the trunk. "I didn't mean to!" Genny sobbed, pressing her forehead against the cool glass. "They attacked me first! I don't know what happened to me!" "You put three girls in the emergency room, Genevieve!" Mr. Douglas snapped, his hands white-knuckled on the steering wheel. He refused to look at her in the rearview mirror. "It's manifesting," Mrs. Douglas whispered from the passenger seat, her voice tight with absolute terror. She clutched a silver cross against her chest. "Just like the seer said. The power in her blood is waking up. We can't keep her in this city a single night longer." Genny closed her eyes as tears spilled over her cheeks. She wasn't just a bullied high school outcast anymore. Whatever was inside her had woken up and her nightmare was just beginning.