Chapter 25
25
Raze
M y Monday and Wednesday morning Clinical Psychology lecture has easily become my favorite course to teach for the simple fact that I get to spend the entire ninety minutes picking at Penelope Ellery’s weak armor. She is a welcomed variation in my otherwise mundane existence.
Murdering, sleuthing, hiding my involvement in the Midnight Syndicate from the unsuspecting students and staff at Ravenshurst—it all pales in comparison to the thrill I get each time her stubborn glare practically saws me in half across the lecture hall.
Her mother took from my family. Each day I spend standing before her and her ignorant peers is another day closer to ensuring Divina Carmichael pays for every way she’s destroyed my life. I wake up eveey morning with a new sense of purpose and a pep in my step that never existed before.
There’s quite a bit of mystery surrounding the woman claiming the Carmichael legacy. Inconsistencies that stack up against her each day.
Those purple eyes. The offputting vibes. Then there’s the detail about her not knowing Ravenshurst is for the gifted.
It drives me mad if I think about it too long.
So, I take every opportunity I can get to humiliate her before her peers.
I grade her assignments on a skewed scale—one that will undoubtedly hack her near-perfect GPA to pieces.
I toy with her when she tries to confront me about it.
It’s exhilarating and fresh.
She’s activated a side of me that no other woman ever has without even realizing it.
My plan to poke and prod at her shiny little armor until it’s filled with nothing but knicks and scratches has worked handsomely. She’s absolutely tortured by the concept of not being liked, specifically by a superior. I did enough digging into her school files to learn that she thrives on outside approval.
I’ve decided that regardless if I have the right woman or not, I’m going to continue with my games. She is very clearly tied to Dovina Carmichael in some personal way. Her suffering will still affect my nemesis in the end. But I’ll keep her secret close to my chest until I decide how to leverage it against her. Nothing has excited me this much in a very, very long time and I’m not ready to spoil it.
By the time I’m through with her, she’ll be begging for me to kill her.
And I will. Happily. Eagerly.
For my mother.
For my father.
And most of all, for Bane.