“What did you just call me?” she shrieked.

And I said, “Maddy, l-” and I would have said more, but that’s when I bit off my tongue.

Literally. Madeline Evans used her telekinesis to pull my tongue through my teeth and slam my jaws shut when my tongue rolled against my palate to form the “l” sound in “look.” I didn’t quite know this at the time – there was shock, and pain, and I remember sensing something falling down the front of my blouse, and smelling blood. I had no idea how much blood it was at the time: everything happened too quickly and there was a lot that came together for me later, when they showed me the video surveillance.

I’m not good at storytelling, and we might as well get some things out of the way now, before we get too far into it. This is the story of how Mad Maddy turned out to be a freak among the freaks, and how she almost destroyed the world. A lot of people died. I wasn’t one of them: I guess you already knew that.

Anyway, it all started with a broken heart and a severed tongue.