#third draft

Well, fuck.

The thing nobody tells you about hatching a perfectly brilliant villainous scheme is that no matter how meticulously you plan it, you can’t ever fully account for heroes. Because the thing is, they’re stupid. Hero types are soppy, sentimental idiots who can’t be relied upon for rational behavior. They’ll pitch themselves on the tracks just to make you step over their entrails after the train’s gone by. It’s fucking ridiculous, is what it is. 

But once in a blue moon their idiocy pays off, and that’s why instead of being stronger than God right now, Electra is slumped over, arms bent back around a support beam, magic suppressants flooding her system, rendering her harmless as a mouse. 

Ten more seconds was all she’d needed; she could taste the spellwork’s impending climax, sweet and vicious, sugar and raspberries on the tip of her tongue. The epicenter of her own storm, the architect of the changing of the world, the creator and the destroyer, and you could bet your ass she’d looked good doing it. And with the terrifying, precise control of an eldritch deity, she’d connected nearly every strand. It was transcendent. It was unfathomable. It was, according to any morality-infested plebeian, impossible. 

So, yeah. Casting arcane magic on a scale no one’s ever seen before, she noticed Simon fucking Bell’s presence ten seconds too late. And that miss - minuscule, barely even worth noting - will be the reason she’ll go down in history as the most overrated villain of all time.

He knelt in front of her now, his hand in a splint, his battered face looking strangely bare without his glasses. 

Had she broken them during their fight? Damn, she didn’t remember doing so but if she did, she dearly wished she could watch it back. It’d be funny.

“Where’s Grace?” he asked her, and it took all her restraint not to laugh in his face. All these years, all the trauma she’d inflicted upon him, and the first thing he asked after was the kid.

“She’s dead,” she replied flatly, and then, in case there was any confusion: “I killed her.” 

Watching Bell try to mask his panic sent a helpless prickle of hysteria up her throat. He cared so much, even about a child he had seemingly no connection to whatsoever. Incredible.

“You’re lying.”

Her silence could do the talking now. She just tossed her head to the side, a futile attempt to dislodge the hair stuck to her sweaty brow, streaking her vision in red. Where was she, anyway? Well, obviously inside the castle somewhere, but some kind of utility closet, she reckoned, based on all those interlocking pipes and rusty wall boxes. 

Probably the best they could do. Schools didn’t have holding cells for criminals and headmasters weren’t interrogators, even ones with abilities like his.

“You’re going back to prison either way,” he told her evenly, setting his jaw. “And you won’t escape this time. You’ll spend the rest of your life in solitary, with no one but a host of the most highly trained guards in the world to keep you company. It’s over. The least you can do is tell me the truth.” 

Christ, just take the bait already. Last thing she needed was another reminder of exactly how many dazzling possibilities the future held. 

“You never change, do you?” she groaned. “Glutton for punishment to the very end. Fine by me. I shapeshifted into the kid to get in here and killed her when I was done. You want the rest? Hearing me say it at the trial on TV and in the papers wasn’t enough for you? Okay, here we go. Twelve years ago, I saw something I wanted, and I took it. I used you to get close to him, and one night when you were gone, I told him to come out to the woods with me and he followed me like a little lamb. And then I took his power, and I killed him.” 

She paused for breath, waiting for that wounded-animal face she knew was coming. “That’s the truth,” she stated. “The simple, obvious thing you’re just gagging to listen to over and over.” 

“Then say his name.” 

Shit. She meant to. Well, she was tired, alright?

“Peter,” she spat, holding his gaze before twitching her head to the side again – the hair stuck in her eyelashes was driving her to distraction. 

Bell reached for her and she flinched. 

It happened too fast to steel herself against a telling reaction, and bile rose in her throat at this latest failure. The last thing she wanted was for him to know she was afraid, but she could not have him inside her head, excavating her secrets. No, no, no-

“I’m not reading you,” he said quietly, his face set in stone. “I’m just fixing your hair.” 

Hopefully her scowl would make him forget her slip and treat her like the monster he ought to, if he knew what was good for him. But all he did was stare at her with disgust and tuck the errant strands behind her ear. 

Oh, if she wasn’t suppressed there’d be nothing left of him but a scorch mark on the floor. No more gentle hands and acts of kindness, no more of that shimmering purity that made her want to empty the contents of her stomach onto his Oxfords. 

“So are your guard dogs gonna keep this a secret?” she grinned, desperate to shift the mood. “The cops must be on their way. You knowyou shouldn’t be alone with me, naughty boy.” 

At last, a crack in his facade. Averted eyes, hung head, like a retriever caught chewing the furniture, because he knew she was right. Direct contact with a telepath would render any of her actions legally hazy within six-to-twelve hours after. She could say he made her do it, and they’d have a tough time proving otherwise. 

Wouldn’t that be hilarious? 

“I just want to know why,” he said, almost a sad sight in his bloodied dress shirt and disappointment in his own imperfection. “I deserve to know why you killed my best friend when you could’ve chosen anyone. His sister deserves to know why her brother is dead.”

Ha. The sister knew all that and a hell of a lot more. Riley came to her mind’s eye unbidden – her immaculate poise, bright eyes, frighteningly strong grip. 

She shoved it away, thanks but no thanks. The woman’s sterile visage was not welcome in her mind and even less welcome to guest star in an episode of Bell’s Creepy Mind-Reading Freakshow. “I did it because I deserve his power more than he did,” she stated evenly, recovering herself. “I’m above him, and above you. I’m more. I’m special.” 

Watching him flush with hatred was an absolute thrill to witness. The way he held himself back, like for the first time in his life, something was bubbling up inside him that needed to be restrained. Twelve years of uncertainty burning up in a single flash-bang as devastating as it was simple and for one giddy, terrifying moment, she actually thought he might kill her.

But the tension snapped before he did. He exhaled sharply, wiping a hand across his forehead and back through his hair. 

“No,” he said, in response to a question she hadn’t asked, shaking his head like he was waking from a dream. “You’re a murderer. You’re nothing. You were right about one thing, though. I shouldn’t be here. I’m finished with you.” 

Any semblance of a plan went up in flames when he stood.

“You stupid bastard,” she shouted, pitching herself forward hard enough for the cuffs to cut her skin. “You pathetic, spineless, useless, weak-”

If a perfectly laid plan goes to shit, maybe an uncalculated outburst is the next best option. At any rate, it got the job done. He was back in her face in an instant, and if she wasn’t mistaken, every muscle in his body was just itching to put his hands on her. Him, truly and properly angry, was actually scary. It was precious for its rarity. Would he actually hurt her?

“I don’t know what you want from me,” he choked. Oh, she just had to push a little harder and- “But you only have one thing I want, and you’re holding it back.” 

She steeled herself and spit the nastiest thing she could think of. “Why don’t you just take it then? Be a man, Bell. You want it, fucking take it.” 

His eyes burnt through her.

“If you think I would ever do that to anyone, even you…” he muttered, hurt etched so clearly on his face it was obscene, “then you don’t know me at all, and you obviously never did.”

And that was… if she could conjure up a single smart ass reply, she’d lay it on him. But he was right - she was a fool to think he could ever be a fraction as despicable as she was. Such extensive plotting she’d done in preparation for this, and all she’d managed to really do was hurt Bell’s feelings by thinking so poorly of him. 

If Electra was being honest with herself - something she typically avoided at all costs - she had nothing left to lose. All he wanted was to see the truth from inside her own mind, where she couldn’t lie about it even if she wanted to.

And Electra, meanwhile, didn’t want anything anymore. Actually, the distinct lack of wanting slammed into her headlong at that moment with a sickening, crushing sort of finality. It really was over, just like he said, and for good this time. 

If he wanted the truth, he could have it. 

Shock rippled across his face - she hadn’t been trying to hold the thought inside, and he’d heard it. Still, he waited and he watched and she couldn’t stand one more moment of electrified silence, so she opened the door.

No, that wasn’t quite right; she stopped holding it shut. Years of poisonous secrets had been bulging the boards, creaking the hinges, seeping through the cracks for a very long time. So she just let it go. She let him feel her letting it go. She thought, deliberately, straight at Bell himself, do it.

He heard that too, and this time he didn’t hesitate. Reaching for her unbruised temple, he crashed over her like the wild sea. The relentless undercurrent of his power pulled her back, all the way back to where it started, and she let him see the whole miserable, heinous, vile atrocity that was her life on this earth and the choices she filled it with.