Unanswered Prayers-Book 6 Of The Mad Mad World Series

Chapter 3

Never braid hair when you're angry. Especially your own hair.

The painful yank I gave my hair as I jerked it back into a braid pulled me out of my snit fit and back to reality. I finished the braiding job a bit more carefully and tying the braid off, flung it over my shoulder and stared at my reflection in the bathroom mirror. My eyes were hard, bright blue with pupils blown in frustration and my cheeks were pink, but at least I'd managed to corral my hair into something professional looking. With a strangled sigh, I leaned into the cool, concrete wall and shook my head.

"Men. Can't live with them and can't sell them on eBay for a decent fee," I grumbled.

Richard was lucky that the runner had interrupted us, one more moment of him insisting that I needed time to get used to a whole new country and I'd have mentally splattered him all over the dressing room. Damn it, I had to stay busy, I had to run my ass into the ground as much as I could because if I didn't, I'd be the one going splat all over the place. Even though on the outside it probably looked like I was just fine, I knew that my empathic talents were growing stronger as well as harder to control. And it hadn't been all of a sudden, it seemed that my bad temper and loss of control had been developing over several weeks.

The moment I realized how badly out of control I was getting was when the weedy little guy named Jason who was Flake's temporary keyboard tech started arguing with one of the Catering staff over her bumping into him while he was running some kind of diagnostic on the main computer that ran Flake's keyboards. The young lady had been carrying two pitchers full of ice water, intent on where she was going and not spilling them, he'd been wandering about with his laptop open and up in his arms, not looking where he was going when they'd collided. I had no idea how she'd managed to dance out of his way and not spill the pitchers but she had, but Jason had tripped over a loose electric cord and almost wiped out on the slick floor. He'd saved his laptop from crashing to the ground but had barked his shins on a piece of lighting truss.

"You stupid fucking cow, watch where the hell where you're going!" he'd yelled, snapping his laptop shut and carefully putting it on the floor underneath the stage. "If you'd made me drop that laptop or spilled water on it, that would have been several thousand dollars out of your paycheck! Not like you could afford it."

My head shot up when I'd heard the yelling begin. Before I could stop myself, the memories of being bullied and not having someone to step in and stop it coming back in a rush, I reached out and "pressed' against Jason's brain to give the arrogant little fuck the migrane to end all migranes. He broke off in the middle of his yelling, face turning pale as he pinched the bridge of his nose. He looked around the arena as if he was trying to figure out what was going on; I pressed a bit harder and saw the veins in his neck begin to rise out of his skin. I could smell fear-sweat begin to break out on his skin, could hear his heart begin to pound, feel the blood racing throug his veins as I put more and more pressure on his brain. I could see a tiny trickle of blood begin to drip from his nose and I thought, Good, you son of a bitch, I thought to myself. I hope you hurt as much as you've hurt her.

::LILLY! Stop that!::

The contact I had with Jason snapped as if it had been an elastic band breaking. An elastic band that was not only on fire but was made out of acetone. The pain crashed back into me, making me immediately sick and a headache blossom in the backs of my eyes. With a hiss, I spun around and saw

Flake standing not three feet behind me, a horrified look on his face.

::What the fuck do you think you're doing, Flake?:: I snapped. ::That...he deserved a headache after yelling at that poor girl!::