"You're not strong enough for this," Morris' mother said smugly. "You are just a scared child."
"You're weak and dangerous," Jordan's mother said. "Only your mother could truly help you and train you, and she was going to train you, but you threw that option away."
"We are justice and guilt," Kara's mother said with a slow, evil smile. "We will never leave you now."
"Your nightmare is just beginning," Morris' mother said calmly.
Anguish pierced me like a thousand spears, and suddenly, I was horribly afraid they were right.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
"STAY AWAY FROM HER," Haley commanded, his deep voice rumbling loudly over the screams of Jordan and Kara and the others who had trickled out the back of the gym with them. "You harm one hair on her head, and I will end you!"
"Will you allow that?" Morris' mother turned to me with a gargoyle-like grin. "Will you allow your 'boyfriend'," she sneered the word, "to kill? To take three innocent lives and leave three children motherless?"
"No!" I exclaimed, horrified at the idea, yet also horrified to know that it might be our only chance of ending all of this.
"Are those women still in their bodies?" Helen called out, pushing Zack aside and walking through the dome toward me. "Are their souls still there?"
"Stay back!" I warned her frantically.
"Ma!" Morris cried out, breaking free of Zack's distracted grip and sprinting toward his mother.
"No!" I screamed at the same time as Morris' mother barely turned to look at him before swinging her hand out at him, striking and sending him flying through the air. He landed with an awful crunch on the ground at the feet of my own mother.
Mom looked down at Morris' scarily still body and smiled nastily.
"This was one of your little friends," she snarled. "You would abandon me and disrespect me for the sake of this little miserable creature?"
She kicked Morris, sending him rolling onto his back so I could see his closed eyes and the blood dribbling from his mouth. He didn't move. I couldn't even see the rise and fall of his chest. I swallowed hard as I realized his body lay at an angle that a whole, healthy back shouldn't have been capable of.
Behind me, I heard Helen hiccup through a sob with muffled cries of, "No, no, no!"
The last straw of my patience broke with a crisp little snap.
"Is this justice?" I screamed at my mom, feeling my eyes and the tips of my fingers grow hot. "Is this the way you would treat life? Some goddess of life you are! You suck at protecting and nurturing anything!"
Mom just smiled at me, madness dancing in her electric blue eyes. She stepped in front of Morris, blocking anyone's ability to get near him to help—if help was even possible...
I rounded on the Furies.
"When you pull that kind of shit and kill innocents, you lose all right to lecture me about anything!" I hissed. "I reject your judgment of me! I judge you and find you guilty of murder!"
"What will you do to us, Stephanie?" Jordan's mother laughed. "You can't use your power without losing control. You can't hurt us. You have no authority over us. No one has! We are justice, and even you gods must submit to us!"
"You can kill these mortal bodies," Kara's mother smirked. "But, we will simply be released back to our true forms and continue to torment you!"
Morris' mother remained silent, her face twisting with the pain and confusion of some kind of struggle.
"You are powerless, Stephanie Starr," Jordan's mother taunted. "Just like you always have been and always will be."
There's a funny thing about anger. Usually, it makes you lose control, but in that moment, my pure white rage gave me a precision and focus I never knew I had in me.
Narrowing my eyes with a nasty smile of my own, I slowly sank down to my haunches and deliberately placed my hand on the grass of the football field. In that moment, it wasn't just life that rushed from my fingertips. It was a precise cellular plan and set of genetic instructions that touched every living thing around the Furies.
Grass shot up and wove itself into thick, vicious ropes that bound the three women, tendrils wrapping around their mouths to mute them. A small, prickly dandelion weed exploded into a thicket of thorns encircling them.
"Stephanie!" Mom shrieked, obviously shocked by the use of my power.
"That's right," I said calmly. "I know exactly what I am, and what's more, I know exactly what I'm capable of. You can't take that away from me now. Never again."
Turning back to the Furies, I said, "You're supposed to be justice, right? Then you're going to hear my side of the story."
The wild eyes of the three women signaled their resistance, and a breath from me sent the grass ropes squeezing tighter about them until pain made them relent.
"I never disobeyed my mother," I stated. "I was never disrespectful. I never was ungrateful. When I did challenge her and question her, it was because I had a right to the answers."
Rounding on my mother, I pointed at her. "Do you even know who my father was? Or was he just a one night stand? A biological requirement your body needed in order to have me?"
"The day I turned eighteen human years of age, I became an adult in the eyes of the law and no longer legally required to obey my mother," I continued, turning back and pinning the Furies with my glare. "Even then, I wanted to continue to have a good relationship with her. I..." My voice broke as grief welled up in my heart and spilled over into throat-constricting sadness. "I loved her. I still love her. I did not deliberately disobey her. I began to make choices for myself, simple ones that every mortal begins to make. I wanted to experience the world, live my life, spend time with friends, find love. Is that so unnatural, so against the order of things, especially when she hid my true nature from me for so long!" I was yelling by my final words. Nightmarish words from the night before rushed back, unwelcome, into my head.
"You have been trying to kill me!" I accused Mom through my sobs. "How many times did you kill me over thousands of years? Just because I grew up? Just because I wanted more than just a mother in my life? How could you do that? I'm your child, your daughter! You're supposed to love me, not kill me when I begin to become my own person!"
"This woman has committed so many crimes and has not been held responsible for any of them," I spat out, beginning to feel shattered from dragging my broken world into the light. "She kept me from my natural balance with death, and who knows what that has done to the course of human history? Not to mention the destruction of the town at your hands, the people who've died as a result…and…M-Morris! Well, that was your fault, but you did it because you're carrying out her orders. But you're wrong, and she's wrong, and I demand judgment on HER!"
"Stop!" Mom shouted. "You can't listen to her! You can't believe her! She's a lying, deceitful, willful child!"
"Look into my eyes," I demanded of the Furies. "Find deceit in my eyes, and you can have at me, but if you don't, then you know what I'm saying is true."
"No!" Mom yelled, making an unnaturally fast lunge for me.
I wheeled on my heels, trying to brace myself and figure out how to stop her, but I tripped over my feet and went sailing backward to land hard on my butt.
Two more fast, blurred strides, and Mom would be upon me, and I knew what she would do...because I knew she had done it before. She would rip me apart, only she didn’t know that doing that would end all life everywhere, including hers.
Before I could think of a way to protect myself, I was trampled by twelve little paws, a cacophony of high-pitched barks filling my ears. Cerberus stood around me, defending me. The three Min Pins snapped and growled and barked in unison at Mom, and the sight of it must have surprised her so much that she actually stopped in her tracks and looked down at them with a half-puzzled, half-enraged expression on her face.
Apparently, that gave the Furies just enough time to work free of their bindings, now that my attention wasn't on maintaining them. They rushed to surround me, and I closed my eyes.
This was it. This was the absolute worst case scenario. I was going to die.
Well, not really, since I was immortal, but the thought of losing this mortal body still left me speechless and terrified.
"Step away from her," Haley bellowed, his shadow falling long and dark across us. "This is your last warning!"
"Haley, no!" Zack yelled, starting to run over to us.
"Deborah, wait," Katie Jones called out, weakly crawling on her hands and knees, as Helen rushed over to Morris' body, Rob Furlong not far behind her.
Everything fell silent for a handful of seconds that turned into a small eternity.
"Judgment is rendered," Morris' mother spoke, but her voice sounded odd, like it was split in half with another voice, one with a Chinese accent.
I held my breath and waited for the blow to fall.
"The child is innocent," Jordan's mother proclaimed.
"The mother is guilty," Kara's mother stated.
"Vengeance and justice is ours," Morris' mother hissed.
Suddenly, the three women's bodies jerked violently, then fell to the ground, completely limp. I was too scared to look closer to see if they were alive or dead. I didn't know if I could handle any more death.
My mother stiffened then screeched in agony. She was lifted high into the air and then thrown to the ground by the invisible Furies. She lay there, twitching and silent.
Haley was instantly by my side, his arms around me as he helped me to my feet.
"Oh God," I whispered, catching sight of the three still women on the ground. "Are they...?"
"No," Haley replied with a relieved smile. "And, you can trust me on that."
I couldn't summon even the weakest smile for him because my eyes immediately went to Morris, who was now surrounded by Zack and Katie Jones as well, who were bending over him.
Shock and tears made my face and throat tingle, but before I had a chance to let my grief loose, I heard loud wails behind me as Jordan and Kara stumbled to their mothers' sides.
"She's dead!" Jordan howled, her face entirely swollen and splotchy, but the pain in her voice was real and found its way to my heart.
"Mom!" Kara sobbed, clutching her mother's body to her.
"They're not dead," Haley said gently, still holding me close as if to reassure me as well. "They'll be okay."
"What did you do to them?" Kara demanded, scowling at me through her sobs and the teary snot that dripped from her nose.
"I didn't do anything," I replied, trying to sound compassionate. "They'll wake up. They'll be fine."
Unholy screams of pain filled the air as my mom began thrashing about on the ground, clutching at her head, ripping at her hair and her clothes. She flailed her arms around her, trying to fight off her unseen attackers.
"No," I wailed. "No, this isn't what I wanted, either!"
Pain for pain solved nothing. Seeing my mother suffer wouldn't bring Morris or anyone else back. It wouldn't rebuild the town. It wouldn't ease the hole in my heart.
Before I could think it through, I was running down the field and to my mother's side.
"No more!" I yelled as I flung my body over hers to protect her.
Underneath me, Mom jerked, fighting me while she babbled nonsense in a terrified voice.
The air around us stilled except for Mom's moans and incoherent sobs.
"What did you do to her?" I demanded of the Furies.
"They broke her mind," Haley said, catching up to me and taking a protective stance over me and Mom, his eyes scanning around him. "They showed her what her true nature was and the reality of her crimes."
"Holy shit!" The thought of my mom being enraged was one thing. The thought of her being actually insane was a whole other can of worms that I was not ready to open.
"She has gone mad with the suffering," Haley said, crouching down and gently taking one side of my mom's arms and helping me to hold her still. "There is nothing you can do. Her suffering will be eternal until she can truly ask you for forgiveness."
"Wait!" I exclaimed. "That's not fair! If she's mad, then how can she think about her actions and figure out what she did wrong? She can't ask for forgiveness if she's too crazy to realize that's what she needs to do!"
Haley paused and cocked his head to the side, as if listening to something. Maybe he was hearing the Furies. Maybe I could, too, if I knew how. But, all I knew in that moment was that my mom was still kicking and trying to bite at our hands, in between groans and shrieks of anguish.
"She has paid for her crimes in the only way possible," Haley replied finally. "She's a prisoner in her own mind, now. She's too far inside herself to remember she has powers or to know how to use them. She won't be a danger anymore."
At the other end of the field, Zack was looking up at the sky, his arms extended upwards as if to touch the clouds that now rolled in. A cool breeze began to blow evenly over the field, and gentle, cool rain started to fall.
"This is part of it, too?" I asked, glad the rain was hiding my tears.
"Yes, she's no longer controlling the temperature, and without her anger, the fires will start to die out of their own accord. Things will grow back in their right season, and everything will be in balance again."
"But the damage is still done," I whispered, hurriedly glossing over the truth of that damage in my head.
"Yes," he said, his expression sympathetic.
More tears than rain ran down my face now, and my anger was tempered by cooling grief. It was all over now, but it didn't feel over because it wasn't right. This wasn't how it was supposed to end.
"No," I said finally. "I don't accept this. Tell the Furies to call off their vengeance. Mom needs care and compassion, not madness and pain. Tell them to stop."
Haley paused, then shook his head, looking at me sorrowfully.
"Their justice has been delivered already," he said. "They will do no more, but it cannot be undone."
"No!" I yelled. "No! They can't just kill Morris and drive my mom insane and hurt those women back there without fixing anything! They have to fix this! This isn't justice!"
Haley started, then drew in a quick breath and looked around us.
"They're gone," he announced grimly.
And with them went my last hope.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
I LOOKED DOWN at my mom, who was now nothing more than an exhausted, shaking shell of a mortal body.
She was whispering rapidly to herself, tears streaming from her reddened eyes. I let go of her arm and nodded at Haley to do the same. She wrapped them around her knees and rocked herself.
My heart was sore, as if someone had beaten it with ten thousand baseball bats and a grudge. Choking on my own tears, I looked over to where Morris still lay. Cerberus sat erect and fierce at Morris' head, as if guarding him.
"Will you stay with her for a minute?" I asked hoarsely.
Haley nodded and simply touched my cheek, catching one of my tears on his fingertips, then running his thumb under my eye to catch more of them. I stood up shakily and went over to Morris.
He now lay straightened out on the ground, his hands limp at his sides, and his eyes closed.
"Oh, God," I whispered, falling to my knees next to Helen. "I'm so sorry, Morris! I'm so, so sorry!"
Helen wrapped her arms around me, and we shivered together with our tears. Rob put his good arm around both of us, and I was glad it was Rob. He may not have been part of our Snub Club, but he had grown up with us. He was just an ordinary human like Helen, like Morris, like I had been. It just seemed right that humans should grieve together for one another.
Katie Jones and Zack had been staring intensely at each other, as if having a silent but complicated conversation. Finally, Zack shook his head but shrugged. She turned to us.
"There's a chance," she said breathlessly.
Helen looked up. "A-a chance? What do you mean?"
"I might be able to save him."
"What?!" Helen and I cried at the same time.
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"It might not work, but it's better than trying nothing and letting him die like this."
"Is that really a good idea?" I gulped, remembering my almost-zombie incident in the graveyard. "I mean, I want Morris back, but not if he's going to be mangled and miserable, or worse, like dead but not dead."
Helen and Rob looked at me oddly. I gave them an apologetic look, but no way was I telling them about the zombie thing.
"If it doesn't work, Haley will give him the mercy of release," she said. "But, I think we should try."
"Does this involve me?" I asked warily.
"Yes," she replied. "But, Zack and I will help you. You won't lose control between the two of us."
"I knew it," I groaned, terrified at the thought of trying to bring Morris back to life and making just one more fantastically huge, awful mistake in what felt like a long line of fantastically huge, awful mistakes.
"Come over here, kneel by his heart," she ordered me, and reluctantly, I obeyed. "Place your hands over his heart and imagine new cells bursting into existence, their proper function set and working as everything begins to start his heart pumping blood again. Zack?"
"You can do this, Steph," he murmured in my ear as he knelt behind me and leaned in, moving his arms so they were touching mine and his hands covered mine over Morris' chest.
I felt the flow and ebb of his power as it rushed into me then pulled back, taking some of mine with it. For a moment, I grew weak and a little dizzy, but then I was able to focus once more. It was amazing the amount of my power Zack had been able to absorb into himself. He really was one almighty god if he was able to take what I could dish out and suppress it, leaving me just enough to sustain myself and channel a laser-like beam of life straight into Morris' heart.
Morris' body jolted under me, as if I had put cardiac defibrillator paddles on his chest. The small still-mortal part of Stephanie Starr had a wildly inappropriate urge to shout, "Clear!" She thought that Morris would have appreciated it.
"That's enough," Katie Jones said calmly.
Zack carefully pulled me back from Morris, taking a breath and slowly releasing my power back into me. I'd never been drunk before, but the rush of power, even controlled as it was, seemed pretty close to what being drunk must feel like.
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