Almost Midnight (Shadow Falls: After Dark #3.5)(47)

She’d been playing for two weeks, and so far, this Perry-like villain had escaped her wrath. But no longer. “Victory is mine!” she declared in a cold voice.

The swish of the door opening brought her out of the game. Since it was too late to pretend to be doing anything other than killing, she continued to watch the touchscreen on her phone. She didn’t even bother straining her neck to see who was invading her privacy.

She didn’t have to.

If the sweet perfume wasn’t a dead giveaway, the sound of the high heels tapping on the wood floor announced her visitor. And since Miranda knew she was gonna get hell, she figured she should enjoy the win as long as she could. The dying shape-shifter slowly fell to his knees.

His light blue eyes stared up from the screen. They looked sad. In pain. And damn if she didn’t feel guilty. No. No. No. This was supposed to feel good. Not bad.

“What are you doing?” her mom asked in a clipped tone.

“Nothing.” She groaned when the shape-shifter found a magical bag of healing herbs, preventing him from taking his last breath. Before she could hit a few buttons and claim victory as her own he healed himself, bolted to his feet, and attacked.

“No!” Miranda yelled.

“No, what?”

Miranda’s finger pushed the kill button and her avatar grabbed her weapon, but it was too late. The shape-shifter ran his sword right through her heart, killing her. The screen went red. Red for blood. Red for death.

Her breath caught. Her chest actually burned. Tears moistened her eyes. How appropriate. The real Perry had accomplished the very same thing.

“Since when do you waste your time playing those silly cell phone games?” her mom asked.

“I don’t do it all the time.” Feeling her mom’s stern gaze, she got up, slid her phone into her jeans, and blinked away the beginning of tears. Her gaze shifted to the window, where only recently the sun had beamed into the room.

Now, everything felt dark. She reached for the light switch, but her mom magically turned it on.

“You know, if you used your powers a little more, you might…” She paused as if she regretted saying it.

Only then did Miranda meet her mom’s calculating stare. Her mother’s eyes, the same hazel-green color as Miranda’s, were tightened in frustration.

“Are you getting nervous again?” her mom asked. “You can’t. You know you always screw up when you get anxious.”

No, I screw up because I’m dyslexic. I get nervous because I know I’m going to disappoint you.

After seventeen years, you’d think her mom would have pulled her head out of her butt and accepted the truth. She’d given birth to a screwup. Miranda Kane was a screwup.

“I’ll do the best I can, that’s all I can do.” Not that Miranda’s best would be good enough. It never was. Last month, she’d taken third place in the North Texas Wicca competition. It was only because of that fluke that she was in the competition today. You’d think her mom would have been proud. But nope. Third place just means you were the second loser. Ahh, but Miranda wasn’t accustomed to being in the top twenty-five losers.

“Have you even practiced your spells at all this morning?”

“Yes.” Just one and just once. She didn’t know what spells came second and third—but her mom didn’t need to know that.

“Why aren’t you dressed?” The bright green A-line dress with a flared skirt still hung on the hook on the back wall.

She’d planned on getting dressed. Even a screwup could have good fashion sense. “I’ve still got thirty minutes.”

“Do you know who is in the competition with you, young lady?”

Yikes. The “young lady” tag always came right before trouble. Miranda didn’t want trouble. All she wanted was to go back to killing shape-shifters.

“No, I don’t know,” Miranda said. Nor did she give a shit. She’d been beaten by the best. Even by the not-so-best. Screwups didn’t do so well in competitions. Another thing you’d have thought her mom would have learned.

“You’re up against Tabitha Evans—the one you caught spying on you at Shadow Falls? You locked her in a cage?”

Miranda’s mouth dropped open. “How did you know about that?” She hadn’t told her mom. If there was one thing Miranda prided herself on, it was that she wasn’t a tattler.

“I know about a lot of things, young lady. Are you going to let that … redheaded twit show you up?”

Twit? Her mom’s choice of word seemed harsh. Not for Miranda, she’d called Tabitha a twit and even worse. But for her mom, “twit” felt severe.

Not that Miranda could deny it was going to sting being beaten by Tabitha, her archenemy, but … there wasn’t anything Miranda could do. The fact that she even had an archenemy blew her mind. She wasn’t archenemy material. She honestly tried to create positive energy, put good out into the world, and hope it came back.

For that matter, Miranda didn’t even have a clue why Tabitha hated her. Or why her mom hated Tabitha so much. Or Tabitha’s mom. What was so dad-blasted important about cookies? Because if her memory served her right, that had been what the fallout had been about.

Miranda and Tabitha had been buddies in kindergarten. Then their moms got into some huge argument about whose turn it was to bring cookies, and the next day, Tabitha, her mom, and her cookies hadn’t come to school. Gone. The girl had disappeared from her life.