My Life As a Teenage Zombie

Dirty Night Clowns

Lyra invades my mind with ease. I imagine a wall to block him out, but his waves aren't coming at me like a tide; They're a lot more focused than mine, and come at me like a sword, cutting straight through the wall. As soon as they hit me, my legs freeze up.

"You've got a lot of power in you, kid," the boy tells me, then leisurely sits down where Carson did just a few minutes prior. "If you knew how to control all that, I'd be in serious trouble." Great. That helps me a lot right now. I need to get stronger to beat stronger opponents. Who knew?

"Your boss going back on his word already?" I ask, sending the full torrent of waves at him. He simply cuts through them, then blocks the rest, and not a psychic wave reaches him.

"His word?"

I guess they're not communicating the entire time, after all. I feel something strange happen with Lyra's waves. They're not leaving his body, but there is something off about them now - almost as if some other waves have joined in. Is he speaking to John right now?

"He really plans on fighting you himself," the boy tells me, making a sour face. "I don't much care about that. I was promised I'd get to claim you, so that's what I'm gonna do." Oh, boy.

"Won't he be pissed at you for betraying him?"

"My mother and her followers are with him. He won't do anything to me, even if I do make him mad." His waves come at me like several whips, and I start feeling pain for the first time in two weeks, and scream.

"How?" I ask, teeth clenched in an attempt to contain my voice.

Lyria gives me a small smirk. "You don't feel pain because your nerves are all fried up from dying. I'm now temporarily reviving them. I can go beyond that, though." Suddenly, my sense of pain doubles, but I don't scream. My whole skin feels like it's being poked by thousands of tiny needles. "You feel that, right? That's my ability to increase a person's sense of pain. Right now, it's only slightly heightened, so the air is doing some minor harm, but let's see your reaction to it being amped up a notch." Once he's done talking, I scream as loudly as I can. The wind blowing on me feels like someone is trying to skin me alive, and every little twitch of my muscles feels like there are fire ants chewing their way through me. He keeps amping it up, and I keep screaming louder and louder, puncturing my vocal cords several times, only to have them heal. "Now," he says, grin widening, "let's see how you react to actual applications of pain."

He touches my shoulder, then squeezes lightly. My entire body feels like it's being torn away, and I feel my bones cracking. He then punches me, which feels like a meteor just landed on top of me and crushed my head completely. He starts hitting me harder and harder, and each hit is worse than the one before. I'm incapable of getting used to it, and then he pulls out a knife and brings it to my cheek. Being cut would normally hurt a lot, but now it's like someone's covered the knife in salt and acid, and I just keep on screaming.

I glance behind Lyra, and see that Mason is slowly getting up, his eyes a dark red. He takes a few silent steps forward, knowing he can kill the boy with a single hit to the head. I avoid looking at him, and glare at Lyra. I need to keep his attention on me. Keep on grinning, asshole. Keep bringing the pain. Karma's about to bite your head off.

Then Mason steps on a small piece of wood, and it cracks beneath his boot. Lyra's head snaps around, and he hits Mason with at least a dozen whips made of psychic waves, bringing the alpha down. "Large guys are horrible at sneakiness," he says, walking toward him. Don't you dare, fucker. "My build's a lot better suited for that sort of thing." He reaches forward with his knife, then makes a cut across Mason's forehead, but fails to draw a scream.