Psi High: Dark Thoughts

By Robin N Greenwood

Ripper!
Katie had never thought one word could change a life, but it did precisely that. Cornered by bullies Katie Sullivan found herself drawn into another world, a world where young psi are trained how to use their abilities a world of St Jude’s or Psi High.
Katie is a ripper, one of the few psi able to kill with her anger alone.
Drawn into this world she finds herself part of a team, finding new friends under the leaves of an astral tree. She meets the twins Zack, a precog, John a physical psi and Isabelle an empath. Soon enough she finds that the world is far stranger and far madder than she ever suspected. For a start she must learn how not to use her talent.
She also learned that there were far scarier things than bullies, unfortunately, she’s one of them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Robin N Greenwood
• Release date: Jun 7, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005018948

Robin N Greenwood

I am a mild-mannered tutor by day, writer the rest of the time and lives with his wife and two bonkers but lovable Bengal cats on the Isle of Man.You can contact me at [e-mail].

Book preview

PSI HIGH

Dark thoughts

By Robin N Greenwood

Copyright 2021 Robin N Greenwood

Smashwords edition

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organisations, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Cover design: foverr.com/deign9creative

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

About Robin N Greenwood

Chapter 1

RIPPER

The single word arrived into Katie’s mind without passing through the air or her ears. The voice dry, filled with a sense of hunger. Katie did not even bother to mask her responding shudder. At the best of times, she would have tried to ignore it, but it had come at anything but the best of times. The bullies had been waiting for her.

There are some things an adult cannot understand, some things that are lost forever when they fully go onto work and having kids of their own. The biggest is the terror that a set of bullies can cause a child. The threat of the sort of random, unthinking cruelty that kids inflict on those smaller than themselves for no other reason than fleeting amusement and a flush of power. Normally weird voices in her head would have top of her agenda, but the bullies had a way of making themselves the priority. Charity did not stop for introductions, instead punching Katie in the face with such force that Katie wondered if they had broken her nose. In a moment she went from frightened to on her back and terrified.

I found me a scrawny chicken, Charity bleated with more than a small measure of cruel triumph. Charity did not have much in her life to feel triumph about, so she took more than a little pleasure in punishing others for that fact.

Katie Sullivan had been in the world for thirteen years, during that time nature had possibly not been too kind for she would never be tall. Some people grew into a strength, Katie would never be that child. In fact, there were times she felt the term ‘scrawny chicken’ which Beth had used kinda fitted. Some girls at St Pancras school had started to blossom, Katie had wondered if she ever would. Not that those thoughts bothered her right now for a single, frightened imperative took their place. They wanted her to be their entertainment for the day. Bullies often liked the small and Katie had not reached the point where she started growing rapidly, she even doubted if she ever would. This left her looking up at classmates that had been the same height of her a year or so ago. Now she looked up at the three faces she quietly loathed.

On TV the girls were always shown as sweet and considerate, nice to adults and ready to give care. Katie wondered if any of those TV people had met Charity, Kylie and Jane or as some called them dumb, dumber and so dumb and so dumb everyone wondered how she walked and managed to breathe at the same time. Charity had not so much blossomed as thickened. She carried the sort of build of someone that lifted weights as if she had gotten someone else’s share of muscle, possibly a professional weightlifter. Nature had been kind, or perhaps unkind to Charity depending on the measure used. Kylie on the other hand looked older than her fifteen years, this was added to by the sort of make up that made her face look bright orange under the right light or even any light. Most girls went through the age that they started to experiment with make-up, but Kylie had gone the full mad scientist cackling over jar after jar of foundation and beakers full of mascara as if sunlight happened to other people. Kylie often served as the mouthpiece of the group, possessing slightly more wit than the other two combined. Given her orange skin, that might not have been a wide gap.

Last and most definitely least would be Jane, who managed to add a sort of hur hur to every witticism Clarity achieved. Every group of bullies had someone like Jane, a sort of living snigger. Physically she had height, possessed a rangy sort of strength but clung onto the bullies in the sad hope it made her somehow more than a full stop in school history. Katie knew she should have started the walk home through the park rather than Preston’s damp and murky streets. The streets might have been more direct, but the bullies hung around there, like dopey predators looking for someone smaller than them. Charity filled Katie’s field of vision, glowering eyes that showed all the warmth of a dead fish, somewhere behind her Jane added her hur hur, once more informing all people present that she existed.

Katie wanted to say something smart, like on TV but TV characters never faced consequences and Charity gave often when it came to her fists. Instead, she managed a leave me alone.

They are nothing Ripper, break them. We have much to discuss and these insects are distractions.

The voice arose again within her mind, like foul gas rising from a fart in a swimming pool only even less welcome and certainly less pleasant. You too, leave me alone, Katie snarled out loud.

Once again, like so many times before Katie found herself wishing she could find friends, proper friends rather than the popularity obsessed girls at her school. Once again, she found herself wondering if the fault lay within her, if she would ever have friends or perhaps something about her drove people away. She had told dad about the bullies, but he had just said ‘tell a teacher.’ She had and that had solved just about nothing. The bullies had been told off and had taken it personally. While she knew she would have some nice bruises to present to parents and school alike tomorrow, that did nothing to help her now. Katie wanted to reach for her mobile phone, but she knew one of these kids would snatch it from her hand and steal it. She had seen them do it before, instead she got up as rapidly as she could.

Charity brayed,Aw, the scrawny chicken wants to be left alone.

Another hur hur happened, from somewhere behind Katie. Jane had two means of expression, one involving violence and the other that stupid gormless laugh.

Kylie stepped up, showing the sort of smug, superior smile that bullies wore everywhere throughout history. After all, even though Katie had been put in the shade by all three of them, they only felt confident enough to approach her with all of them there. Filing a nail, probably into a pointier shape she regarded Katie as if she had found her stuck to her expensive shoes. If it’s not the scrawny chicken, you ready to pay your street tax?

Katie looked Kylie in the mascara, wincing as her thoughts cleared. There’s no such thing as street tax.

Showing that Jane had seemingly caught up with events, a snigger sounded behind Katie. That should have been warning but Katie only figured out what had started when Jane pushed her forward sharply. Katie staggered forward, into Charity and Kylie and barely had time to raise her hands as Kylie lashed out with those sharpened nails, causing a stab of pain down Katie’s left cheek. That would have been bad enough had not Charity landed a fist into Katie’s stomach as well. Katie’s knees crumpled below her and she found herself on the pavement, struggling to breath and bleeding.

Like I said scrawny chicken, there’s street tax and unless you pay Charity here’s going to introduce your face to the street. You pay in cash or in pain, your choice?

I thought I’d just paid. Katie wheezed in reply.

The three of them moved in, ready to start kicking. Dread tightened around Katie’s stomach; she had seen this before. They would kick her with the coordination of a sort of violent line dance.

Leave me alone.

The words seemed to have no effect, Kylie had never been known for warmth of spirit and her eyes lit up gleefully. She loved to spread a little suffering. Nah, looks like we’re going to have to kick your skinny arse into the street. You’re going to be chicken roadkill.

Eliminate them Ripper, I can feel the anger boiling within you. I can see the ability in your mind. They are intent on hurting you and you need not tolerate this. Hurt them first. Whispered that dry and hoarse voice again. To Katie’s horror, she wondered if it had a point. The first knee caught Katie in the ribs, knocking the wind out of her, the next leave me alone. exploding out of her more as a forceful cough. The second hit her in the backpack, hurting nothing more than books. Kylie looked down at Katie with the same sort of arrogance as if she had arranged something brilliant, that smugness sublimated the fear within Katie further into anger.

Anger at these three bullies, anger at how they hurt people to fill in some hole in themselves. Anger at their pathetic little selves who hid their inadequacies behind the infliction of pain. If the future could hang on moments, Katie’s and theirs could have gone either way at that moment. It went against the bullies. There are times when something about a person changes, something snaps. After months and months of abuse and violence are heaped on a person who has done nothing more than exist in the wrong place Katie wanted to hit back and make them bleed. Everyone has a point where they hit back at the source of pain and Katie had reached hers. Even without the mental voice pushing her on, she would have lashed out. It merely added to the force. At that moment, more than anything Katie wanted to hurt them. These ignorant savages felt it their right to hurt other people that had done nothing to them. Even the existence of this group of stupid bullies caused rage to bubble up from a well deep within Katie’s thoughts. So much so that she had no control over what happened next as dammed up emotions finally expressed themselves.

She had no understanding of the fury that blossomed forth, no clue of what part of her screamed without words and filling their minds with such force that all three of them staggered back. Her thoughts ripped through theirs like a tidal wave filled with blades.

Leave me ALONE!

The telepathic broadcast hit with more force than mere words, instead striking like hammer blows against their minds. None of them had any defence against the force that washed over them and knocked them back off their feet. Katie noticed when the kicking stopped and horror filled her as she glanced around to see each of them with blood streaming from their nostrils.

It brought her no pleasure to hear them scream in pain, like they had wanted her to seconds earlier. Instead tears streamed down the cheeks of the frozen mask of her face, guilt stabbed at her heart warring with horror. The bullies staggered to their feet and then did what all bullies do when faced with strength, they ran away sobbing.

RIPPER.

The thought once more blossomed within Katie’s mind, though from someone else’s thoughts than her own and it took a moment for her to construct anything like a reply. Hearing another’s voice within her mind only rated as the second strangest event of the day.

What?

Ripper, come with us. You don’t have much time before the psigs come along and leash your gift. There is an alleyway to your left. Run down it and I’ll direct you. You are one of us now, better than them and more than they could ever be. Come to us ripper for you are the most beautiful, the most terrible of psi.

Katie’s legs twitched, she found herself staring down the alleyway trying to fight through the terror of what the voice might want and terror of what she might be. She had heard the term psigs before, a merging of the word psi and an insult about the police. The use did not make her more inclined to find whoever used it.

We can train you ripper, we can turn you into something great and something terrifying. Come to us. You will never be bullied again.

Something in the voice kept Katie immobile, something that hinted at the darkness within, something that scared her even more than what had just happened.

No!

The voice faded without further comment and Katie wondered if she had missed an opportunity or perhaps avoided something horrible or that she had managed to avoid both.

In the distance, sirens announce to the world the birth of an uncontrolled psi. Her world had been destroyed and commemorated by the mournful wail that signalled everything that this world had grown to fear. In a second the bullies had become the bullied. That should have brought Katie some measure of comfort, even the fact that they had stopped kicking her should have allowed a tiny crumb of solace. However, in that moment Katie knew the truth, a truth that no sane person would want to acknowledge. She learned that something dark and dangerous lay deep within her. In that moment she had a crystal clarity on something that had remained silent for so long it had taken violence to draw it forth and when it emerged it had done so with a callous fury. Whatever a ripper might be, it could hurt, it could probably kill with a thought, that alone filled Katie with terror.

Katie remained still, wondering what had happened and what it meant when the psi police arrived with their silver psi blocking helmets and deep blue uniforms. Every town had detectors dotted around them and it would take the work of seconds to detect a psi event. Miss Brown’s lesson on psi echoed in the back of her thoughts, something about the history, something else about the new laws and that one in a thousand people were psi positive, out of that less than one in a hundred presented a danger.

Katie had never thought she would be one of them.

The psi police were kind, they were caring but most of all they were firm as they placed a heavy limiter circlet on her brow and examined the readings the circlet gave off. The circlet had wires that hung over her vision and yet those were a distraction as it seemed a part of Katie that she had never known existed, somehow vanished. It felt almost as if a colour that Katie had never realised, she could see had been stripped away leaving everything around her flat and lifeless, their emotions just flat things expressed merely in voice and their expression. Katie had never realised she could be a psi in the say way a fish does not question water, until it had vanished leaving her feeling cut down. A three-dimensional word somehow had been cut down to two.

One word kept being used, over and over in that way adults do when they think the teenager cannot hear them. That one word that Katie suspected would come to rule her life from here on. They had a word for what she had done, for what she had become and she knew it to be a word so many feared among the psi active.

They used that word, ‘ripper’ over and over and each time she heard it used, it burned like acid into her soul. At that moment Katie wondered if the next thing she would see would be a prison cell. It came as a pleasant surprise when they took her home. Even as she saw her parents on the doorstep waiting for her, she knew everything had changed.

Her life would never be the same again.

Chapter 2

Isabelle Smith stared up at the dinosaur in the entrance hall of London’s natural history museum and the same thought occured to her that no doubt had occured to many stood where she was right in front of a creature that probably once might have crushed her flat without even noticing. The dinosaur was enormous. So enormous that Isabelle found herself wondering if insects thought ‘that thing’s huge’ just before the newspaper hit them.

She glanced down at the plate and muttered the long name ending in what Isabelle always thought of as the obligatory ‘Saurus’ and found herself wondering if anyone could miss it, the animal must have been massive. To her mind she thought all dinosaurs should have been called ‘Ofcoursetheysawus’She turned her head to where her mother, Shelley Smith, waved her arms, discussing something with a guard who’s expression was drifting from a bored and into the realms of a stunned silence. In a few moments Isabelle wondered if he would move straight to the familiar ‘looking for an exit’ stance.

There had been a Mr Smith, a long time ago though he had left, it seemed a long time ago to Isabelle but not so much to her mother. Her mother had carried on, raising two daughters by herself while on a small budget. Her mother had always possessed the ability to talk about anything that came to mind and she would not only talk at length but with immense enthusiasm, such enthusiasm that the person on the recieving end was often rendered dumb and unable to do much but nod in the onslaught of words. Her mother might have been an attractive woman, but many were the men who retreated sharply after finally managing to sneak away...probably between her mother’s sentences. Isabelle had often got used to seeing that look on the face of people that her mother talked to. She had heard it called ‘Shelley shock’ and it usually preceded a rapid withdrawal along with muttered apologies. Isabelle and her sister Karen used to laugh about it often, though she saw less of Karen these days since Karen caught being a teenager and all that entailed.

Her mother worked as a struggling artist, as if those words were permanently glued together and no artist would ever be called such without the word ‘struggling’ appearing somewhere. Perhaps the struggling thing made the person the artist? Since mother struggled, Isabelle had been introduced to the historical and cultural wealth of London as long as that wealth required no or very little outlay of actual wealth.

It had been odd, all this time going through museums while oddly missing certain art galleries but during the last year and culminating in the long holiday her mother had been watching her with almost a disturbing intensity as if she had been expecting something to happen. And nothing had happened, even with her mother watching her like a hawk and growing concern. Isabelle first wondered if she had contracted some form of terrible disease and not been told or perhaps her mother expected her to do something. As yet, Isabelle had not figured out what precisely her mother expected.

The natural history museum had always struck