19: Game Of Cat And Mouse

I walk a slow lap around the room. Gradually, I feel her presence return as she calms down.

Now — that won't do.

Let's keep getting her to activate her abilities until she learns to consciously control them.

I pop up behind her, standing there — watching. I see her peek out from the block, trying to determine where I went.

Then, I get a brilliant idea.

Creeping closer until my head hovers just above her shoulder, I peek out with her.

"Whatchu looking for?" I softly whisper in her ear with a breathy giggle.

"KYAAA!!!"

She jerks up, almost headbutting me and scrabbles away. Her presence almost instantly vanishes after a few unbalanced steps.

"Hehehe!!"

This time, her footsteps grow muffled, her presence is even smaller, and the distortion around her is even stronger.

With quiet steps walking towards her new hiding spot, I repeat the process once more. However, it is much harder to tell which direction she is in.

Once again, I find her, walk up to her, and scare her; then, I let her relax slightly as I walk around the perimeter.

Unlike before, she doesn't repeat the same mistake.

When she no longer sees me walking around the perimeter, her presence vanishes right away. After checking behind her, she dashes to a new location.

However, I expected this. I wasn't going to insult her by trying the exact same trick twice.

Amelia… She forgot to look up.

I stand on top of the block — the block she just hid behind — and watch her dash away.

This time, her ability is much stronger, as it's hard to sense her even though she is right here. I need to use other methods to track her. Good.

The slightest change in the breeze tells me where she is without me needing to physically see her. All I need is to follow the disruptions in the air.

But, she passes this stage, as it is unlikely her bullies will learn to use this technique any time soon.

Time to move on.

I leap from the block with a graceful flip and land in front of Amelia, blocking her path.

"HYAA!!" Her sneakers screech on the floor as she stops mid stride.

With no expression, I casually fling my knife at Amelia, grazing her arm. I watch her wince in pain and blood drip onto the floor. She freezes up like a deer in the headlights, looking at me wide eyed through her mask.

In the same nonchalant attitude, I reach into my jacket and pull out an entire box of white, plastic cutlery. This seems to be enough to unfreeze her, as I doubt she wants to become a plastic porcupine.

My shoulders jerk in silent laughter as I pull out four of the knives, holding them between my fingers.

Amelia backs away, never daring to take her eyes off me.

I see it dawn on her that this is real, that she is truly dealing with a villain — a monster — that has no qualms about hurting her… and would even enjoy it.

Regret flashes across her eyes, and I see her glance towards the exit.

Staring her down, I raise my other hand and snap my fingers. Large steel slabs rumble out from all four sides of the closed doorway, locking together and blocking it off further.

She returns her panicked gaze to me, but I catch a glimpse of her admirable determination to survive the night.

Ahh… Delicious…

I should have done this sort of thing much sooner.

I can barely contain my excitement and hold myself back.