My Ex From Hell (The Blooming Goddess Trilogy, #1)

If you play with fire, you're gonna get spurned (Part 4)

I snuck out after bed check in warm, loose clothes. I decided to practice as far away from the school as possible while still staying on the property. It put me back where I'd seen Kai that first night.

As soon as I got outside, I had an uncontrollable urge to take off my shoes. Even hypochondriac fears of frostbite couldn't keep me from being in bare feet. The grass was cool and ticklish between my toes. I wiggled them deeper, needing to be as close to their roots as possible.

I ran over to a maple tree that still bore a few leaves and pulled a branch down, rubbing the leaves gently across my face. Had I been asked last week, I would have chosen the city over the country, hands down. Now, my nature girl tendencies were going from zero to a billion. Every little detail about the outside fascinated me, from the lone calls of owls, to the texture of bark.

Focus. I had the rest of my life to satisfy my new passion. Now I had to draw Ms. Keeper out so I could discover Cassie's whereabouts and rescue her.

Time to see if I could blast light without have the poo scared out of me. Come to think of it, time to get a cool name for my power. Hmm. Ribbons of Death? Binders? Stranglers? I'd work on it. Meantime, I raised my hands and focused.

Half an hour later, I was sweaty and the only thing I'd achieved was a headache. No one had shown up. My palms remained dazzle-free. I felt like an idiot.

I decided to give it one last try and then call it a night. Maybe Theo and I could break into the school office tomorrow and see if they had a file on Ms. Keeper. Yeah, guess that should have been step one.

Instead of concentrating with every ounce of intensity I possessed, I decided to stay relaxed. It worked. Presto. Two moss green beams about fifteen feet long flew from my palms, dancing like ribbons in the wind.

I did it. Thunderous applause and Nobel Peace prize for saving humanity, please. I experimented with moving the light to the left and the right. It was no harder than using a joystick. I sang a catchy little tune about my light ribbons. "Move them to the left, then I move them to the right. I'm an ass-kicking superfreak, I'll do it all night."

Let me be a lesson to you, kids. There is a reason you shouldn't get all cocky. Because if you do, the universe will come along and kick your ass hard.

One minute, I was feeling all smug about my powers, the next, I caught sight of about a dozen Infernorators hovering just outside the fence like a firing squad. Yikes! I froze in terror as they advanced en masse toward me, reaching out their flaming tentacles.

Bless Theo and his wards. Their fire simply bounced harmlessly off the air above the fence. I really was in a giant protective shield. I smiled, thinly. My turn. I figured that since I had the upper hand, I should take these things out.

In my defense, it never even occurred to me that this was a two-way ward. In my head, it was all about me, me, me. So of course I'd be able to fire outwards.

Yeah ... no. I sent my ribbons lashing out toward those bad boys. They hit the invisible shield at full speed, then bounced off it to rebound back at me.

That was the point at which I totally forgot how to control them and just yelped, wildly waving my hands around as I ducked and bobbed and tried not to trip over my own superpower.

A low laugh penetrated my fear. I glanced over, wide-eyed, to see Kai smirking from over by the back fence. For a second. The smirk quickly disappeared as I sent the creepers directly for him.

I will swear on a stack of bibles or whatever that I didn't mean to take him out. It was instinctive. Better him a target than me.

"Duck!" I yelled feebly. He just glowered at me and put out his hand to stop them in their path. I might have felt like a busted bottle of Silly String, shooting these puppies out willy-nilly, but it was pretty impressive the way Kai had them twisting in place like that.