3: Justin

The mind is its own place, and itself

Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven

- John Milton, Paradise Lost

It's a strange feeling, to be a predator. You look at the world differently. The people around you aren't people - they're prey. Like a tiger looking over a herd of gazelles, you look for the young, the injured… the vulnerable. Those you can pick out of the herd and run down.

Sometimes, though - sometimes, they come to you.

Miranda Hampson looked into the mirror in the girl's bathroom at Tribeca Prep and sighed. Why do I always wind up with the assholes? she wondered, as she got out her makeup kit and went to work on touching up the foundation around her left eye, making sure the bruise there was well-hidden.

The goth makeup helped with that. No one thought anything of it if Miranda came to school with her face covered in pale foundation. For that matter, expecting goths to be hanging out all night and such, they didn't really notice if she had dark circles around her eyes.

It hadn't been long since they'd moved, and the bruise was left over from her 'boyfriend' back in Chicago. They'd lived there for three years, the first year with Miranda's aunt Allison, while Miranda's mom had been getting a job. She finally got one with McGraw-Hill there, and they'd moved when she'd been offered a promotion that involved transferring to the company's headquarters in New York.

Not that I knew any of this at the time, of course. But that was her situation - fresh off a bad relationship, looking for another, but not wanting to get caught in the same kind of thing again. She was looking for someone who wasn't a 'bad boy', and who wasn't part of the popular crowd. Someone who seemed nice, and she didn't care if a little bit of weird came with it. In short, she was looking for someone who wasn't like her dad.

What she found was me.

Let's be clear here. The other Justin obviously wasn't nice - but like a lot of high-functioning sociopaths, he pretended well. You know how that goes, I'm sure - he was the kind of guy who, if people found out about him, they would have said 'oh, he was such a nice person. Wouldn't hurt a fly.'

We went to the junior prom together. Here, that was a fiasco - Alex had used murrietta animata on a pimple I had, and… well, let's just say the evening didn't go well. There, things didn't happen like that. Instead….

I walked down the hallway slowly, smiling. There wasn't any need to run - not for me. Down the hall, Miranda cast a glance back at me, ran around a corner. I heard her trying the doors there, grinned as I heard her frustrated cry. Those doors weren't going to open. Not for her.

She shook the doors again, and her cries became actual crying at that point, loud, wracking sobs. I turned the corner and found her there, huddled up against the doors, squatting down and turning her face against them, as if by not seeing me coming, she could make me not come.

So I turned myself invisible. Then I moved over to the side, against the wall, over to what would be her left when she faced away from the doors. Leaning against the wall, I watched her cry there, looked up and down over her beautiful body. Her hair was dark and shining, with red strands. Her dress was black and tight, with red trim and accessories to match her hair.

Sneaking out of the dance had been as much her idea as mine. And I have to say, it wasn't the most exciting dance ever. Heck, I half wish we'd done that here. Getting past the chaperones was easy, and once we were out in the main part of the school, we found a classroom and went into it. We kissed a little bit, and then Miranda wanted to go back to the dance.

I didn't. At first, she was reluctant, but willing to stay a little longer. Kiss some more. What she didn't know was that I'd been reading her mind all night. It didn't take much to find out about her past boyfriends, or about her dad. She thought about them a lot.

That bothers me a little, really. I know it shouldn't, but - if she'd trusted me with that, in our world, I can't help thinking I could have helped her some. Although, I suppose she was doing well enough. At least, without me messing with her….

I pushed her to stay a bit longer, to do a little more. And then, when she wouldn't, when she tried to leave - I grabbed her and put her against the wall, whispered to her that she was a dirty tease, and now she was going to get what was coming to her, as I edged by hand around her ass, pulling that tight skirt up a little at a time.

She struggled, of course, and I let her get away, let her think that she'd managed to get free. Miranda bolted from the room, and I pulled out my wand and went to work. She wouldn't be able to get away, not once I was done.

First, of course, she tried to get back to the dance. Those doors I locked and soundproofed, so she could bang on them and scream all she wanted, and the chaperones watching behind them would never hear her.

"Nobody's listening," I called out, coming toward her. "Nobody but me. But that's how you want it, really, isn't it? That's why you keep picking guys who beat you, who make you do things. Because really, deep down inside, you want it, but you just don't have the guts to admit it."

"No! I wanted to go out with you because you were nice!" She swung her purse at me, and I knocked it aside with my hand. I grabbed for her, but slowly, let her get away again.

I chased her for a good ten minutes, locking every door she tried, before she finally broke down. Then I turned invisible, watched that pretty face get streaked with tears, until she realized that I should have been there by then, went and peeked around the corner. I let her venture out into the hallway, let her start to feel relief that somehow, the nightmare was over.

Then I became visible behind her, cast another spell as I did. It was complex, but didn't require much real power - a target-sensitive illusion, one that would fill in my appearance from her own expectations. I'd been reading her mind the whole time she was running, and now I knew what she was most afraid of.

In my best guess as to her father's voice, I said, "It's time to go home, pumpkin. Daddy's here for you." She turned then, looked at me - looking about half a foot above my eyes, as she looked on the illusion of her father - then screamed and fainted.

I hadn't been expecting that, and for a minute I was angry - angry that I couldn't keep the game up, couldn't torture her more right then. But then another plan came to mind, and I grinned as I took out my wand.

I opened her vulnerable, unconscious mind to me, then instructed her that she would remember what had just happened only as a dream. That further, she would remember me as having been a perfect gentleman at the dance, and that she'd gotten tired, and wanted to go home early, and I'd acquiesced, walking her home. When she awoke, she would call me, and apologize for having cut our date short, and ask me if I'd like to have another. Lastly, I told her that she would feel guilty about having included me in her dream, when obviously it was about her father.

I teleported Miranda to a place not far from her home, duplicated her, then used the duplicate to control her, made her walk back to her home, answer her mother's questions briefly, and go to bed.

Once Miranda was home and in bed, I dismissed the duplicate. It's strange - it's like he didn't have any interest in sex itself. He just wanted to hurt someone, to control someone. The duplicate wasn't real, so he didn't bother with it. Instead, he went home, and went to Alex's room. And that's when the trouble really started, that night...