XV. The Girl Who Toyed With Hearts

She knew how to weaponize kindness. Not in a sincere way. Her kindness was strategic. Measured. Precise.

This version of her was…different. She had found a way to channel the A’hura. A natural empath, of sorts. She didn’t just feel what others felt. She could turn the dial. A touch, a glance, a murmured word, and they softened for her. But what she enjoyed most was twisting people’s emotions just to watch them spiral.

The first time I saw her, she was sitting on the bleachers next to the football field, laughing with a boy who couldn’t stop groveling. His hands shook nervously, his voice cracked, as he begged her not to break up with him. She reached out, touched his wrist, and he flinched—then smiled, because she made him want to. When she left, he cried. She didn’t look back.

At home, she used her power differently. The father who drank too much and hit her out of anger and resentment now knelt to her moods. The neighbors brought her food they couldn’t afford. The teachers bent rules that shouldn’t be bent. She moved through people’s minds like a thief, taking what she needed: affection, obedience, adoration.

I unveiled myself to her behind the gym after school, as she sat on the curb with a cigarette she didn’t know how to smoke. She noticed me before I said anything.

“You’re not from around here,” she said. Her tone was light and laced with curiosity. “And you look like trouble.”

I shrugged. “Depends who’s asking.”

I felt her thoughts ripple against mine, and for once, I didn’t shield myself. I wanted to know what she’d find when she looked inside.

She smiled faintly. “You’re angry underneath. But quiet about it. People like that are easy.”

“Easy?”

“To manipulate.”

The air thickened. A pulse of warmth rolled off her. She was trying to press further into my mind, trying to nudge at the calm she thought she could bring forth. I felt her power like the brush of static against my skin. It was crude and elementary.

“Stop trying to make me like you,” I said.

She winked. “You already do.”

I laughed softly. “You’re clever. But you’re a child playing with energy you don’t understand.”

She ignored me, as I knew she would. And then she pushed deeper. She reached in fast and confident, like someone who’d never been refused. Her mental attack was one of desperation. She tried to make me feel something for her—love, fear, pity. Anything that would give her leverage.

For a moment, I let her believe she’d found the core of me. Then I turned it.

And suddenly, she wasn’t seeing me anymore. She was looking into a mirror.

I gave her herself.

Her composure cracked. Her pupils widened. She inhaled sharply, like something had reached inside her chest and pulled.

She saw the things she’d buried. The scream she had never let out when her father’s fury unleashed on her. The shame she had swallowed whenever her classmates laughed at her second-hand clothes. The guilt for her brother, for not stopping him, for thinking she wanted to die too.

Every emotion she’d numbed came rushing to the surface, multiplied.

Her voice broke. “Stop! Please!”

I didn’t. I let it build instead. Every feeling she’d ever stolen from someone, every emotion she’d twisted, folding back through her like a collapsing lung. Hatred. Jealousy. Rage. Hopelessness. She tried to speak, but only a choked sob came out. Tears spilled down her face, and she stared at me as if I’d set her on fire.

“Make it stop,” she begged, when I finally let off enough for her to find her voice. “Please! I can’t—“

“This is what you do to them,” I said. “Not so much fun when you’re on the receiving end, is it?”

Her sobs turned ragged and raw. “It’s too much—“

“Then you’re not strong enough.”

I released her. The silence that followed was almost sacred. She sat motionless, mascara streaking down her face, cigarette smoldering on the ground, forgotten, as her entire body shook with tremors. Her violet eyes were hollow. The manipulator was gone.

“How disappointing,” I said to myself, as I stepped past her. “She’s not the one.”

Her eyes followed me blankly. “Who are you looking for?”

“Someone who can feel everything and still survive it.”

When I reached the end of the block, I glanced back once. She was still on the ground, arms wrapped around herself, her eyes vacant. A small girl who’d spent years manipulating emotions just to avoid her own. Now there was nowhere left to hide.

I will report this one to the Sha’harai. They will be interested to know that this anomaly exists.

The search continues.

M.

Up Next: The Girl Who Played to Escape