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Reflexively, I pushed Julie down and leaned over her.

The ice hit my back hard, but I didn't care. Since my body had changed, pain wasn't the same as it used to be.

The hard, sharp ice cut through my leather jacket, probably destroying it.

Eventually, it stopped. The frozen parts became smaller and smaller until all that was left was snow, which fell down on us in a light flurry and settled on the melting ice shards.

I looked at Julie, who was cowering, trembling. Horror raged in her eyes.

“Hey...” I tried to reach her, but she stared into space.

“Damn it,” I hissed and wrapped my arms around her body.

Automatically, I tried to hear the second heartbeat and breathed a sigh of relief when I heard the strange little thumping. Then I lifted Julie's surprisingly light body and carried her out of that miserable house.

She trembled in my arms, and I felt the urge to put her down and run back in to make the witches pay.

And I did.

Cake

Melanie Martinez

I dropped Julie off on the front steps, and within seconds I was standing in the girls' room, right in front of Vivienna.

Everyone's eyes widened.

“What have you done to her?!”

Anger crept from my stomach to my chest, and I felt my eyes change, their menacing red color ensuring that these bitches backed away from me.

“What. Have. You. Done?!” I hissed, and Vivienna flinched.

“We taught her a lesson that was long overdue!” she snapped.

Her eyes began to glow gray, but before she could do anything, my anger took over. I grabbed Vivienna by the throat and pushed her against the wall.

She opened her glowing gray eyes even wider.

Concentrated aggression whipped through my body, multiplying with every memory of Vivienna's nastiness toward Julie.

How could anyone be like that, damn it?!

In the corner of my eye, I saw a mirror flying toward me, so I lifted my free hand and clenched it into a fist. The mirror shattered and blood ran down my hand. But that was it. No pain. No feeling. Just the rage that made me squeeze even harder until the glow in her eyes began to flicker erratically and ultimately fade.

“You're killing her!” Kelly screamed hysterically.

Abruptly, I let go of her, fully aware that I could have continued.

But that wasn't me. I didn't kill.

Nausea overwhelmed me.

I had killed someone. I knew how it felt... How liberating.

The nausea threatened to crawl up my throat, but I swallowed it back down. Somehow...

Vivienna slumped down the wall, gasping for breath, clutching her throat, her eyelids fluttering.