Psychic

XXIII

"Happy Birthday!" Amy rejoiced, throwing confetti and smiling like crazy. Rick cut the cake with the same expression mirrored on his face.

When they said small party, they were lying. Apparently they called Bella told her to invite some people over. She rounded up a couple of her dancer friends that I got along with and their boyfriends. It was still a small party, but it was larger than any one I'd ever had before. Usually it was just me and maybe my social worker.

As the cake was distributed around, I couldn't help but to think of the events of last night – no, this morning. I'd been hoping around so much during the night that I hadn't even realized how much time had passed. By the time I was kidnapped for the second time that night, when Hawthorne brought me to their hideout, it was passed midnight. It was March 20th and no one had even realized.

The prophecy that Victoria figured was about me depicted me taking down a bad leader, so she immediately assumed it would be Hawthorne. When she saw what Hawthorne had done, taking out the royal family so he could have the power, she assumed he would be that prophesized bad leader. She thought that the people would reject him because of the mysterious circumstances revolving the royal family's death. What she didn't see was that Hawthorne would rally the magical community against all psychics after he imprisoned her and blamed her for the royal family's deaths. He blamed her for their death, hereby rallying the people against a common enemy – not him.

I had to admit the smart planning.

But by telling Hawthorne the prophecy, perhaps at a try to scare him, she gave him even more reason to find the next psychic. He thought, like Victoria, that the prophecy foretold himself being overthrown, so he rallied his forces against me. By blaming Victoria for the deaths of the royal family he had also gained a good reason to hunt me down. The only other psychics were old and definitely not strong enough to protest, so the people directed their anger towards psychics without a second thought, ignoring Hawthorne's ruthless ruling and unfair judgements in the process.

By telling Hawthorne the prophecy, she accidently gave him a reason to search for me and use her 'betrayal' as an excuse.

Hawthorne had been bullied as a child, so he craved power, if anything to prove the bullies wrong. He'd also fallen for my mother, a woman who was also craved by the same men who used to bully him. He thought of marrying her as sort of winning, but it still wasn't enough. He wanted absolute power, something taking the place of the royal family would give him.

He also accidently set his plan in place because of marrying my mother. Victoria was my mother's cousin, something I learned from Hawthorn's memories. Victoria never mentioned this, probably because she resented my mother just a little bit.

Victoria was taken with Hawthorne, for reasons unknown to me. She fell in love with him during all the time he spent with her cousin. Being locked away in a house doesn't leave much time to crush on boys, unless they were over almost all of the time. Victoria fell for the first boy who looked at her as something more than to be feared for shied away from. Of course, he just wanted to use her power, but she didn't know that.

Victoria fell for the man, and therefore swore to herself to never use her powers against him. I understood where she was coming from. If you really loved someone, you would want to trust them, and you would never use something like that against them.

Flash forward to when he betrays her and her kind. Feelings of betrayal and anguish build up inside Victoria. She goes crazy with hatred for the man she used to love. Over time the feelings just deepen and darken. So, when she starts to hear that Hawthorne possibly found me, for real this time, she tries to reach out to me. She probably got some new recruit to help her, one who wouldn't know the dangers of weakening Victoria's prison. She is able to send visions to me with the little power she can wield with the partially weakened prison. Soon she breaks free, slowly taking over this recruit's mind until he takes down her prison, setting her free.