The People v. Eleanor Warwick
Her Problem

The tick and tock of the clock is deafening.

Eleanor sits in the study. Eyes closed tight. Fingers move through the air as she organizes random thoughts. The room is bare apart from her and her chair, the clock, and the fireplace.

The sound reverberates off the walls at a thundering volume. She’s oblivious to the booming noise.

“You know what her problem is?” Henry asks as he suddenly appears and circles his protégé. “She wants to save the world. How foolish is that? It’s the dream of a child.”

The critique brings no reaction from its target, but Penny appears as well, nodding in agreement. “Too true.” She paces back and forth in front of Eleanor, her scathing green eyes never leaving her. “However, I think her problem is that she thinks she’s smarter than everyone else. She seeks your counsel but then ignores it if she finds it inconvenient.”

“Hence why you are here,” Henry adds as he walks past Jessie, also present.

The hellblood glares at Eleanor, arms crossed and eyes burning. “You two are missing the obvious. Her fuckin’ problem is that she struts around doing whatever the fuck she wants and then thinks good intentions are just gonna make it all okay. Self-righteous bitch.”

“Why, Jessica;” Penny says with fake exasperation, “are you implying that the noble crusader, Eleanor Warwick, leaves collateral damage in her wake?”

Henry scoffs. “Let’s not forget her propensity for making everything about her. As much as she seems to discourage my alleged narcissism, she’s the one who seems to believe the world revolves around her.”

“Very observant, Henry.” Penny ceases her pacing. “By constantly thinking that she can solve everyone’s problems, she interjects herself into everyone else’s business.”

“Enough,” Eleanor finally says, but her voice is so soft no one hears her over the clock.

“Her problem is that she thinks she can do all this shit to begin with. What makes her think she’s got that kinda power, anyway?” Jessie tacks on.

“Enough!” Eleanor’s eyes shoot open. Her accusers freeze and stare at her. Rising slowly from her chair, her bespectacled gaze scans across them. A stern expression focuses on each one of them in turn.

“My problem,” she says quietly. “My problem? What about your problems?”

Henry huffs and turns away, only to find Eleanor right in his face. “I’m a narcissist? You, of all people, are calling me a narcissist?”

Henry meets her eyes. “You never could handle unpleasant truths.”

“You want an unpleasant truth? Allow me to give you one. You are a shameless suck-up from a worthless House who attached his lips to my father’s backside and never let go.” Henry bristled but says nothing. “You hated your lot as his crony and resented him. But you couldn’t lash out at him, could you? Of course not. So you take it out on me. All your snide comments and your arrogant attitude are all the things you never had the guts to hurl at my father!”

“Girl, you- .”

Eleanor suddenly reaches out and seizes her mentor by the throat. As Henry’s eyes widen in shock and his hands grasps Eleanor’s arm, a sneer forms on her face. “Well, I have had enough.”

With a twitch of her arm, Henry’s neck pops and his body falls limp.

Dropping the corpse to the carpet, Eleanor turns her burning glare to Penny. The Mistress swallows nervously as she steps backward. Eleanor closes the gap between them in the blink of an eye. “I don’t think I’m smarter than you, Penny.”

Bumping into the wall, Penelope brings her hands up to try and halt Eleanor’s advance. Her emerald eyes are wide with alarm. “Eleanor, please. I…I didn’t- .”

Eleanor’s fist slamming into the wall beside her head makes Penny flinch. Eleanor brings her face mere centimeters from Penny’s.

“How could I? You take every possible opportunity to flaunt your superiority.” Eleanor’s icy, emotionless voice disturbs Penelope. She wishes Eleanor would yell at her instead. “But to my credit, I can accept my flaws and rise above them. You, on the other hand, would shatter like cheap glass if you didn’t surround yourself with boot-licking worshipers. If you ever had to face your faults and fears and insecurities, you’d curl up in a ball and cry like a pathetic child.”

Penny’s lip trembles as she searches desperately for something to say. After a moment of terrified silence, a shocked, painful gasp escapes her. Looking down, she sees a large blade buried deep into her stomach. Bringing her eyes back to Eleanor’s, she stares into her gaze as her life ebbs away.

Eleanor pulls the blade out of the body. It disappears into a wisp of dark smoke. Flexing her fingers, she tightens them into fist. Her expression hardens as she turns to face her final accuser.

Jessie stands her ground and stares back at her. The room falls silent again, save the unnaturally loud chime of the clock.

Stepping over Penny’s body, Eleanor approaches the hellblood. “And you. You are the worst of all. I saved your life. You may not want to admit that, but I did.”

Jessie opens her mouth to retort, but she can find no voice.

“I’ve tried everything I can to get along with you. To be your friend. I brought you into my home, and yet you have thrown it all back in my face time and time again.”

Reaching up, Eleanor gently brushes a few strands of hair away from Jessie’s face. It’s the kind gesture that could get someone’s arm yanked out of its socket, but while anger burns in Jessie’s eyes, her body does nothing. “If you’re so convinced that you’re nothing more than a slave, then maybe that’s exactly what you should be.”

Eleanor can practically feel Jessie’s skin crawl as she runs her fingers down the side of her face. She doesn’t care. She stares into the hellblood’s furious eyes without a hint of hesitation. “And if that’s the case, then I should just take what I want from you.”

Without another word, Eleanor takes Jessie by the hips and pulls their bodies together. Jessie stares at nothing as Eleanor kisses her neck and runs her hands along her figure. The rage burning in her dark orbs soon gives way to fear and pain, a woeful expression of helplessness and violation. Try as Jessie may, tears follow as Eleanor finds her way to her most intimate areas.

“No!” Eleanor shoots up in a sweat.

Glancing around in a panic, she relaxes slightly when she finds herself in her own bedroom. Wiping sweat from her brow, she tries to shake the images of the horrible dream out of her head.

They were far more vivid and jarring than any she’s experienced before. The disturbing nature of the events depicted guarantee she won’t be going back to sleep.

Tossing her sheets aside, she ponders how such horrible thoughts could exist in her mind. It would be nice if the images fled from her memory as most dreams do, but instead, they hang there, making her view them over and over. She remembers each and every word she spoke.

The truly disturbing thing is she’d thought many of the things said in the dream. Never to that intensity, but the thoughts come to her from time to time.

Minutes after waking, the images persist. They replay in her mind to the point of madness. She focuses intently, but the nightmare will not relent.

The snapping of Henry’s neck. Penny’s gasp of shock and pain.

The look in Jessie’s eyes as she…

As she forces herself to think of something else, she feels something strange. As soon as her mind begins to drift away, something tries to pull it back. Something tangible.

She gasps and jumps out of bed. Storming through the hall and down the stairs, she enters the study. Without hesitation, she activates the hidden passageway. She ducks under the doorway before it can finish opening and steps up to the massive orb of black magic.

The cold surface of the Dark Force ripples slightly. Eleanor stares as light mist drifts off the orb. She reaches out. Her fingers are perilously close before she pulls back.

“Are you in my head?” she asks out loud.

The black orb has no response.

“You’ve been calling me. What do you want?”

Silence.

“Why are you putting these things in my head?”

Silence.

“I’m…talking to myself, aren’t I?”

Taking a deep breath to settle herself down, Eleanor turns away from the Dark Force. She leaves the chamber and returns to the study. Sᴇaʀᴄh thᴇ Find_Nøvel.ɴet website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

As the hidden doorway closes, Eleanor approaches the window and peeks through the curtains. Flashing lights and uniformed officers still hold their ground outside. They know she can’t stay inside forever. She does, too. Deciding they can wait until morning, Eleanor heads up the stairs. When she reaches the top, she recoils when the fade pops into view.

“Holy heck! Don’t do that.”

The fade grumbles and groans in a nearly panicked manner.

Eleanor’s brows furrow. “What about her?”

Scurrying down the hall, the creature stands outside the door to Jessie’s bedroom. It gestures toward it like a hunting dog. Eleanor quietly approaches the door. She raised her fist to knock but stops just before doing so. “You better be right. If I wake her up, she’s going to be violent.”

The fade assures her in its way. With a nod, the wizard knocks gently. “Jessie?”

After a few knocks elicit no response, Eleanor gently opens the door. Glancing around the dark bedroom, she doesn’t see any sign of its inhabitant. Light emerges from the cracks in the doorway to her bathroom. Stepping inside, Eleanor pushes the door open.

Jessie kneels on the floor, motionlessly leaning against the toilet. Crouching down, Eleanor carefully places a hand on her shoulder. “Jessie?”

“Warwick,” she answers. Her voice sounds labored and strange.

As Jessie looks back to face her, Eleanor nearly recoils. Jessie’s skin is as pale as ivory. Sweat rolls down her face and stains the front of her shirt. Thick, black veins creep across her corneas and into her iris.

“There’s something wrong with me.”

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