Only Blood

I leaned back and pressed the ice pack to my eye. Cold relief radiated out, reducing the throb to a welcome numbness. I eased out a breath.

Something tapped my leg. I squinted at the school nurse.

Mr Garcia held out another pack, one eyebrow raised. “For your hand.”

I winced and glanced at my knuckles, bleeding and starting to swell. “Thanks.”

“Let me guess, I should see the other guy?”

I almost smiled but felt the telltale sting as it pulled at the split in my lip, and grimaced instead. I shouldn’t have hit him.

Mr Garcia’s face darkened. “Ryan?”

I nodded. Not that it mattered. Every school was the same. They always saw the same thing. Something off. Too much of one thing or too little of another. Uneasy. Uninterested. Unwelcome. Whatever it was, it triggered the same predictable response. If you couldn’t change it, beat it down.

Ryan was just this season’s asshole.

Mr Garcia bent down to examine my hand. His identity badge swung forward on his blue lanyard, getting in the way. He batted it behind his shoulder with a practised swing.

“It’ll be sore for a few days. At least it’s Friday. Any plans for the weekend?”

“We’re going away.”

“Ah yes, the camping trip, right?”

“Yup, every year.” Just me, Dad, and the woods. We lived on the edge of town, but come autumn, even that felt like a cage. So, once a year, when the air sharpened, invoking the trees to abandon their leaves, we got away. No plans, no pressure, no pretence. I could almost smell the forest loam, the moss soft under my fingers. Some of the tightness unwound in my chest.

“Sounds awesome.”

I straightened my hand and winced at the sharp lance of pain in my wrist. Dad would be pissed. Just ignore them, and they’ll leave you alone. I ran my tongue over one of my teeth, looser than it had been an hour ago. Ignoring them didn't seem to be working.

I leaned over and spat blood into the sink. Mr Garcia winced, but it was only blood.

You’d think after fourteen years, I’d be better at this. I was smaller than other boys my age, but I was faster. I was quiet and good at navigating the corridors, arriving early or late to lessons to avoid the most obvious candidates. By day two of any new school, I had all the likely hiding places mapped out.

But they always found me.

And it always ended the same way.

I took the ice pack off my face and watched through the window as leaves rained from the oak. The light was already fading in the autumn sky. Mr Garcia had let me sit out the rest of last period. The bell had gone twenty minutes ago, but he hadn’t said anything yet, and I knew he was giving me time to let the stragglers go from school. Even the staff left quickly on a Friday.

Nothing like walking out with a shiner to draw more attention.

Mr Garcia was alright. I’d gone through enough schools to recognise the difference. Too many scrapes always soured any institutional empathy. Staff were stretched thin as it was without having to constantly see to teenagers who couldn’t keep their fists to themselves. Previous school nurses eventually assumed that I was somehow causing the fights. They never said anything, but there were too many incidents for me to be entirely innocent. I’d see the blame start to creep into their eyes, and their questions, and their reduced attention. Any patience or understanding was quickly washed away with the blood. Excuses never made a difference. They never wanted to hear who had started it. Let alone why. Slap a bandage on and get back to class.

But Mr Garcia was quiet, unhurried. He never pushed. Never judged.

I sighed. I needed to get home and pack, but I wasn’t exactly in a rush to face Dad and explain myself. I handed back the ice packs. “Thanks.”

Mr Garcia nodded. “Take care of yourself, Fen.”

I hopped off the table, slung my backpack over my shoulder, and headed for the school gate.

Outside, the crisp autumn rolled over me. Heavy orange dusk was already starting to stain the sky. I stopped and inhaled cold September air, right down into my lungs. Leaves, and mulch, and the metallic promise of rain. Summoning the change of seasons in a ritual storm. It settled something inside me, something old, easing the jagged edges. I would go home, get in the car, and shed the rules and constraints for a while.

I smelled him before I heard him. The overpowering scent of Axe body spray washed over me in a sickly wave. I ducked, sidestepping instinctively, so his fist only caught my shoulder.

I spun and saw Ryan.

A cold pit yawned in my stomach. He’d waited for me.

I glanced to the side, but he now stood between me and the gate. Where were the rest of them? Ryan wouldn’t be performing without his audience.

He took a step towards me, and I saw the bruise on his jaw where my fist had connected. His eyes were terrible, his face contorted in fury, and I suddenly knew. This wasn’t a social status show. This was for him.

My dad’s voice, urgent in my head. Don’t fight back. Just run.

I yanked my bag off my shoulder and threw it at him. He caught it, ripped it open, and turned it upside down. A slow smile spread across his face as the contents splattered across the ground.

Heat roared up my throat and into my head. I was going to be sick. I sprinted back into the school.

Laughter followed me.

Laughter. And footsteps.

Not again.

Run.

The lights were off in the school, but Mr Garcia was still here. It had only been a few moments. I raced down the corridor. No lights in his office. Shit.

I sprinted past the door and took the next left, my shoes squeaking on the linoleum.

The corridor stretched, impossibly long. Too long.

Thunder in my blood, a half-beat faster than the footsteps behind me. Ice clawed down my back, seizing my lungs.

Never fight back.

I push my legs harder, driving my feet into the floor. Took the corner. Then another. My eyes pulled shapes from the shadows. There. Second door on the right. I cracked it open and squeezed in, easing the door closed behind me. I backed away and hit another door.

Cubicles. I’d found the toilets.

I wrenched one open and ducked inside, pressing my forehead against the cool wood. My breath bloomed condensation across the shiny surface.

Fear skittered down my spine. My hands shook.

I strained my ears, trying to hear past the thunder in my chest, the roar in my head. So loud I was sure he could hear it.

The footsteps passed the door. Slowed.

Don’t come in.

The door to the toilets opened.

I stopped breathing, Silence invaded the shadows. The hair at the back of my neck stood on end. Pressure before a storm.

Someone stepped into the room.

The walls pressed on me, closing in. The ice in my veins deepened. So cold it almost burned. The thunder roared in my head. It was all I could hear. All I could feel.

No.

Not again.

The door swung open.

Something snapped inside me, stretched too thin over too much for too long. Iron flooded my tongue. My vision blurred. Changed.

I tasted absolute terror.

But it wasn’t mine.

I exploded from the cubicle. Teeth. And fur. And fury. The prey made a noise. A siren song of strangled screams. I easily overpowered it. My claws ripped into flesh, skin splitting between my teeth. I tore into the soft parts. The neck. The legs. The belly. Hot blood sang against my tongue as it flowed down my throat. Soothing the ache, filling the hole, easing the hunger. Dulling it. Quieting the call, calming the rage.

The scream turned to a gurgled whimper, and finally, there was only blood.

I used my back teeth to gnaw through the ribs. The meat was spicy here. Dark against the red. I gorged until my stomach distended, and I lay sated on the cool floor.

Thoughts crept in. Irritating sparks in the warm relief of the abated hunger.

A flicker of awareness. Something pulled at me. Dragging me up, up.

There was blood on the walls. On my hands. In my mouth. I looked down. The creature that thought to hunt me was suddenly no more than meat and bones; flesh and sinew mangled and shredded beneath me.

It always ended the same way. When Equinox called to this part of me.

The part that doesn’t run.

I sighed and pushed away, slipping in the blood. My gaze snagged on something blue gleaming amongst the dark gore.

A lanyard.

Oh, God.