Do As I Say

Chapter Six

Cree had never felt so ready to face the day and inevitably, Opal. She pecked Gran's forehead, tugged on her combat boots, and headed out the door. The black cat meowed idly at her as she left; it was soaking up the sun on the dried-up grass by the front door. Cree smiled at it and in a tiny whisper, told it to get up. It did, thus denying Cree's anxiety that it was all just a dream.

It didn't take long for her to trot to Mortal School, and it didn't take long for Opal and her pawns to take notice of the oddly good mood she was in.

"What, did you find a magical unicorn?" Opal snorted. The others laughed too, and taunts of "psycho" and "freak" rang painfully in Cree's ears.

Taking a deep breath, Cree stood her ground and reminded herself that she was powerful. She could bring them all to their knees. And she would.

"What you looking at, Freaky Creaky? Seeing invisible aliens again?" Opal sneered.

Cree walked leisurely toward Opal as she said, "Actually, there's one in front of me right now." She smirked, "And it's rather ugly."

Mocked gasps echoed throughout the small crowd that had gathered. Opal, though, wasn't fazed.

"Looks like Freaky's getting braver every day. How's about we bring her back down to size?"

Opal shoved Cree, tauntingly at first, but then with more force. She slammed Cree up against the brick wall, bashing her shoulder so that it burned.

The other students started chanting for a fight, and Opal decided to give them one. She laid a hard punch into Cree, who bashed her head against the wall in recoil. Opal snatched a fistful of Cree's hair and dragged her over to where the dumpsters sat. Repeatedly slamming her against the dumpsters, Cree felt blood trickle down her neck. This wasn't going as planned. She needed to make them kneel. Kneel!

The slamming suddenly stopped and Cree stood, cowering against the dumpsters with her hands raised to protect her face. She lowered them shakily when she noticed that the beating had stopped. She looked down.

Opal knelt, silently with her arms covering her head. As did the twelve other students that had gathered round to watch the fight. They knelt, perfectly still, before Cree. She stared for a moment, reveling in the strangeness of the moment, drinking in the control.

She hadn't even realized that she had commanded them to kneel. The power was coming naturally now, subconsciously. She returned her gaze to Opal, who still was cowering at her feet. Curious and feeling oddly...separate from these people, Cree tested something. She daintily lifted one greasy hair from Opal's still head. And with one effortless tug, the hair was torn out of her scalp. Cree grabbed a small fistful of her hair and ripped that out too, leaving a bare, red patch.

Cruel thoughts started whirring in Cree's mind. Drawing one leg back, Cree had an idea. She kicked. And kicked. And kicked. It wasn't until Opal had fallen over and had begun to twitch did Cree pause. The momentary spur of human dignity didn't last long, as Cree continued to attack Opal senselessly until thick, red blood started to well up in her cuts.

It wasn't enough. Opal needed to hurt. She needed to feel all of the horrid pain that she had put Cree through all her life. Opal was a bully. She needed to be punished.

"Pain." Cree whispered in a dark manner and Opal started twitch.

The twitches led to spasms, which led to gurgled shrieks. At last, Opal lay on the ground, shaking from fear and shrieking an inhuman and bloody shriek that no one deserved. Cree started laughing. Darkly, madly, she laughed. The black euphoria rolled off her tongue easily until she was shaking like Opal from all of the hilarity. Her cruel amusement suddenly warped into sobs. She fell to her knees as Opal's eyes rolled back into her head and blood dripped from her nose. She screamed and cried with the bully as she watched her actions play out.