Avery rubbed a hand across her eyes tiredly.
Nightmares again last night. Nightmares every night since the incident. Waking up every night in a cold sweat, feeling like her heart had turned to stone, ice cold blood running through her veins.
She had no control over her hands, couldn't stop them shaking as she reached for her water, couldn't force the faces and voices from her mind, could hear people thinking all around her, next door, down the hall, in the next street, further than that.
Could feel herself wrapping around the mind of another, and squeezing, applying pressure just enough. Knew which buttons to press to shut down a brain, didn't want to know that. Could tear through thoughts and memories, rip through shields, walls, whatever regular and telepathic defences were in a mind. DIDN'T WANT TO BE ABLE TO.
She glanced down at her hand to see it was still shaking. It was doing that a lot lately. She'd wake up shaking and sometimes it would last through until the next night. It was almost as if she'd become afraid of herself... or rather, of what she could do. Of what she almost did...
She should've told her family, they would've been there for her. But she didn't want help. She needed to figure this out on her own.
It was just the way she had to do it, or she'd never grow up.