SIERRA LEAPED TO HER FEET, but Colonel Charles was faster. He slammed something down over her head, and Sierra shrieked, collapsing to her knees.
“Ah, I wasn’t sure that would work,” the colonel said, grabbing a pair of handcuffs from his desk and placing them on Sierra’s wrists behind her back. “I’ll have to give Oppenheimer credit for that, if he ever regains control.”
Sierra thrashed around on the floor in pain, and Fort finally made out what Colonel Charles had put around her neck: a protective mind amulet. With Sierra’s mind inside Dr. Opps’s, there was no telling what kind of damage the amulet was doing to her.
“What are you doing?” Fort shouted, jumping to his feet too. “Stop it! She’s in pain!”
Colonel Charles stepped between Fort and Sierra and pushed Fort back to his seat. “Ah, now that’s disappointing. Here I was hoping you were under her control as well. But considering she’s barely able to think right now, I think we can safely guess you’re here all on your own.” He gave Fort a curious look. “What exactly did you want with me? To take over my mind, and control the entire school? Wipe my memories again? What was the plan, Forsythe?”
Fort just stared at him, then launched forward, trying to pull the amulet off. Unfortunately, the colonel was faster, grabbing Fort by the wrist before he could reach Sierra. Colonel Charles twisted his arm painfully, pushing Fort’s head and chest down against the desk, pinning him there.
“She’ll be fine,” Colonel Charles told him. “Unless, that is, you pull a stunt like that again. Now, can we talk like civilized adults, or do I need to keep this up?” He wrenched Fort’s wrist again.
Fort gritted his teeth to keep from crying out. “Okay,” he hissed. “But please, let her go.”
“What… what are…,” Sierra tried to say, slowly pushing to her knees, only to drop back to the floor. “I’m… you’re… splitting me in… half!”
“Really?” Colonel Charles said, looking back at her. “Honestly, that’s news to me. Oppenheimer never claimed it’d be painful. Just thought it might be a last-ditch way to drive one of those monsters out if it took over a student again.” He leaned down to give Sierra a closer look. “But instead, I’m guessing it’s interfering with your spell, while not allowing you to leave his mind. That’s actually perfect.”
“Take it off, ” Fort said, practically begging now. “Please! We weren’t going to do anything, we just wanted the Summoning book.”
“And why would she need that?” Colonel Charles asked. “She has Damian, and he can summon whatever he wants, clearly.”
“It was for me,” Fort said. “Dr. Opps thinks my father might still be alive, and I had to use the magic to get him back!”
This made Colonel Charles stand back up in surprise. “Oppenheimer thinks that?” He seemed dumbfounded for a moment, then leaped forward and grabbed Fort by the uniform, his eyes wide. “What proof does he have? Why has he never told me this?”
“I don’t know,” Fort said miserably. “He just thought it was possible.”
“My son was taken by the same creatures!” the colonel said, releasing Fort and turning around. “Why would he never tell me this? It can’t be true, not this long after… can it?”
Sierra whimpered on the ground, and Fort’s stomach hurt just hearing her. “Please, I’ll do whatever you want, just let her go!”
“Ah, no, we won’t be doing that,” Colonel Charles said, barely giving Fort a look. “Now that we have her, I intend to keep her. I don’t know how we’ll get her out of Oppenheimer’s mind, but even if we can’t remove her, she’ll still be an asset.”
Sierra slowly looked up at him, her face—Dr. Opps’s face—contorted in pain and fear. “You… you can’t… keep me… locked up!”
“Locked up?” Colonel Charles said, still distracted. “Of course not. You’ll be working for us. Oppenheimer wasted you while we had you. Think of the good I could do around the world with your magic. I’ve been testing both the Mind and Summoning books for the last week or so, but Oppenheimer declared that they had to be put back in storage for safety. I agreed at first, then realized this was ridiculous. His passivity has been holding us back, keeping us in danger, when we should be using the magic we have! So I took them back.”
“I… will never… be your… prisoner !” Sierra shouted, and Dr. Opps’s body seemed to bulge strangely, like it was too full or something. Fort’s eyes widened, but Colonel Charles didn’t notice.
“Call it what you want,” he said. “But you will—”
And then his mouth dropped open as his own amulet floated up and off of his chest, then over to Sierra’s hands behind her. As it did, the handcuffs around her wrists ripped in half, freeing her.
“How did you do that?” Colonel Charles demanded, stepping back to pull a glowing red orb out of his pocket.
But Sierra just stared at him with hatred in her eyes as she slowly rose from the floor, floating in the air now just like the amulet had. “You have no idea the power I have,” she hissed, her voice low and dangerous. She clenched her fist and crushed the amulet in her bare hand. The one around her neck cracked, then tumbled to the floor.
The walls around them began to creak, and Fort backed into the center of the room, scared for Sierra, but also now terrified of whatever magic she was using. Where had it come from? How could she be doing this?
The chair behind Sierra exploded into pieces as a strange wind picked up, swirling around Colonel Charles. The colonel held the glowing orb between them, his eyes now wide with fear. “You… you don’t have this kind of power! This can’t be happening. The amulet protected me. Stay back!”
But Sierra just sneered at him as Dr. Opps’s body fell to the floor, leaving Sierra’s glowing yellow form still floating in midair. Unlike the other times Fort had seen her in his mind, he could actually feel her presence now, just like he’d felt the Old One in the mess hall at the previous school. Magic emanated from her like heat from the sun as she slowly reached for Colonel Charles.
“You were going to keep me locked up here?” she said, squeezing her hand again, and the red glowing ball in his hand shot away, cracking against the far wall. And then Colonel Charles rose into the air, hanging by his shirt collar.
“Please, let me go!” he croaked. “I wasn’t going to hurt you. I just… just wanted to… protect…”
Fort started to stand—he couldn’t let her just choke the man. But as he got up, Sierra’s magic seemed to surge in power, like her anger was feeding the magical energy, making her almost too bright to look at.
Fort dove back to the floor, hoping to escape the power that he could now feel throughout the room, like the air before a lightning strike. He crawled under the desk as the room creaked again, and something fell from the ceiling. Someone screamed, but he couldn’t tell who, and then…
And then the light faded back to normal, the eerie wind died down, and there was only silence.
Fort slowly pulled himself out from under the desk, terrified at what he might find. Sierra stood on the ground again in front of him, glowing normally now, with Colonel Charles lying on the floor, breathing steadily, but otherwise not moving. At least he was still alive!
“I will take your memories of this moment,” she said, raising a hand, and Colonel Charles’s head glowed yellow. His mouth opened and closed without any sound coming out. “And I will take your memories of the books of Mind and Summoning magic.” His head glowed again. “But I will leave you with the memory of me holding your mind in my hands. And any time you even think of coming after me or my friends, you’ll remember this moment, how I could have wiped your mind completely. And you’ll know fear.”
Colonel Charles nodded over and over, breathing faster now. “I… promise… please—”
She lowered her hand, and the colonel’s head slammed back to the floor, not moving. Sierra’s glowing self also returned to the floor, and she fell exhaustedly against Fort, only to stumble right through him. He reached out for her, but just like in his dream, there was nothing he could do to help.
“Are… are you okay?” he asked, unable to hold back his fear.
“I… no,” she said, looking up at him with a scared expression that he knew matched his own. “What did I just do?!”
And then she collapsed to the floor and disappeared.