Free Peachville High Demons 01: Beautiful Demons by Sarra Cannon

control. Tell me what it was.”
    I took a deep breath. “It was like anger was boiling inside of me. Like it had a life of its own, in a way. I felt all of that anger sort of focus in on her and everything else in the room went blurry. Before I knew it, some of the things on the side table...” I couldn't go on. How could I explain what happened that night? She'd think I was crazy and lock me up for sure. I wasn't even sure why I'd told her this much, but I couldn't seem to help myself.
    “They rose up from the desk?” she asked, her voice excited. “Like they were flying around the room, right?”
    I stared back at her, heart racing in my chest. I thought of Mrs. Meeks words to me that night. “No, that's insane,” I said. “Things don't fly around the room on their own.”
    “I told you not to lie to me. The lamp on the desk.” She narrowed her eyes at me, then tilted her head slightly. “You hit her with it.”
    “No,” I said. “I didn't do it on purpose. You don't understand-”
    “Oh I understand. You were angry. And when you get angry, you move things with your mind, don't you Harper? You're different from other people, aren't you?”
    I hung my head down. How did she know all this? I waited for her to say I was some kind of witch who deserved to be punished. A freak who belonged in an institution.
    “That night, your anger was focused on Pat Sanders. That's why the lamp hit her. You might not have known you were doing it, but it was you that hit her with that lamp, Harper.”
    I looked away. “I...”
    “Sometimes, it's fire, isn't it?”
    I shook my head. “No.”
    “Yes. Just like with Heath and Jill Madison when you were eight years old. When you let your anger get out of control, you start fires and burn people.”
    “No,” I said again, louder. “That's not what happened.”
    “And that's what happened with Tori Fairchild on Friday night, isn't it?”
    My eyes widened. “You think I killed Tori? I would never do something like that.”
    “You just told me you hit a woman in the head with a lamp when you were angry with her,” she said. She slammed her hands down on the desk and I jumped back, frightened. “And you killed your adoptive father when you were eight.”
    “No, I told you I didn't mean to do it.”
    “Then maybe you didn't mean to do this either.” She flipped three pictures over and slid them toward me. “Maybe Tori just made you angry. She was burned alive, Harper. Cooked from the inside.”
    The pictures were gruesome. Tori's body was burned and bloody. I brought my hand to my mouth and looked away, shutting my eyes tight. “Oh, God.”
    “Look at these pictures, Harper. Look at what you did!”
    “I didn't do that,” I said. I felt like I was going to throw up. How could someone think I was capable of such a horrible thing? The images of Tori's blackened skin were horrifying.
    The Sheriff came around to my side of the table and stood behind me. She placed her hands on my head and forced my face straight down toward where the pictures lay spread on the table. In my ear, she said, “Then why was she holding your necklace in her hand?”

No One Ever Believed

    My stomach clenched as I forced myself to look at the pictures of Tori's body. I kept my eyes focused on the part of one picture that showed her hands up close. My eyes widened as I saw what Sheriff Hollingsworth was talking about. My mother's sapphire necklace was tangled around Tori's limp right hand.
    I couldn't speak. Where would she have gotten the necklace? It was possible she picked it up at the field that night, but why? She didn't seem like the type of person who would pick up a random necklace off the ground and keep it with her. None of this made sense. My mind spun.
    I pushed the pictures away from me. I didn't want to look at them any more.
    “Here's what I think happened,” Sheriff Hollingsworth said, sitting half on top of the desk in front of me. “You're a troubled girl who lets things