o6 | catalyse

#HEAD4THEHEAD

My blood runs cold. Icy rivulets travel down my spine, in cold glass fingers like chains, uprooting from my bubble and shoving me into reality; into the depths of my mind, aching with consciousness.

There was always a chance, but even when Rebel and I tore each other apart with talons and bleeding fangs, I never thought it would end up this way. No matter how we stood, in the rubble of our friendship, I thought my fears, at least, would be a secret she would keep to her grave.

Then again, Rebel Montenero has never settled for the unknown, or the in between. A virulent girl who is ravenous for decisiveness, for cutting all ties for the little things that didn't please her anymore.

I'm one of those things, and even though I still had faith she might keep this quiet, I know now she should never have been trusted.

A terrible friend to you. Ebony was right all along, and now, with that sick feeling scraping at my bone marrow and injecting itself into my bloodstream, I wish I had seen it before.

In the scope of nothing, I wrack my brains, but it does not make the hairs sharpened into knives on my body soften any more, nor slow my palpitating heart to the rhythm of my quivering, unsteady breaths. In through my nose, out through my mouth, emphasising the disorientation of my head as I finger the scratched words, probing them as if they ebb with the lifeforce of the person who left them there.

Still trying to forge that connection with a girl I used to think I shared a soul with, even if she's long gone now. Spiralling into the stars and leaving me stranded on the ground.

Around me, laughter and murmurs thunder in my ears, amplified only by the throbbing silence everywhere else. A beat, and another presence appears beside me―a frenzy of chocolate curls framing her intense gaze and disapprovingly pursed lips, painted red with a liquid lipstick that once belonged to me; leant and never returned in the years of our friendship.

I'm never getting it back now. Good riddance, I think bitterly, staring at her.

Rebel Montenero barks out a laugh, gathering wild strands into a messy ponytail at the top of her head, two slides in her mouth. Patting down her hair, she slides in each, smoothing down flyaway strands with a flair of hazard only she could manage so stylistically.

Impossibly calm. Collected, and pointy-toed boots—against school rules and pooling with the blood of her defiance—pressing into the crushed crimson velvet of her throne. Unbothered, though it feels like my own life has shattered before my eyes.

When I turn to the girl I once thought was my best friend, the sinister smile balanced on her lips is unmissable. In the eyes of the girl I shared my life with, I see nothing but cold, empty satisfaction; irises diamond-cut and carved by the callousness so deeply embedded into her soul. I've always known about her flair for devilish treachery and manipulative apathy to fuel her blood, but to have it turned around on me—to feel the sharp edge of metal and the hilt of the knife in my back—has my thoughts at Rebel's mercy and my lips struggling to form words.

"Some of my best work," she says in admiration, tracing the scratched words with a carbuncle-red fingernail. Once razor-sharp, but looking as though it's been sawed down overnight. The smile digging into her cheeks is vapid and poisonous, turning around on me.

My voice shakes as I speak, but the venom curdling in my throat is unmissable. Betrayal is like a knife arching down the back of my neck and cutting down my spine—the realisation that everything I tried so hard to hide is now out in the open, is tainted with blood.

"I can't believe you," I say, but the truth is, I can. Because you lose your Witchhood before doing this again, okay? really was a threat, and Rebel knows everything. She knows I spoke to the boy that rejected her after the party that cost me my reputation, and now she's making me pay the price. "You know it's not even true. You know that I—I have never wanted any of it."

"Do I?" She cocks her head in rehearsed innocence, but beneath that, she is laughing in my face. "All I know is that Ivory Blue only seems to attract two types: the losers, and the nonces."

My mouth falls open, but no words escape my lips. It's been a long time since I've last heard my full name from Rebel's lips, and all it seems to do is rub salt in an already burning wound.

This isn't like her. This isn't like the Rebel I know. Or has she been changing right in front of my eyes when I can't see? When did she become a mirror of the girl who used to pull my hair and follow me home?

When did she become a monster?

"I have to go." I push past her, only to be reminded of everything happening around me. Those who watch, those who understand the poison on each of our lips; the dagger in her hand that transferred to my back. Those who witness the blood pouring from my wound, and laugh in the face of my torture, who know all too well what those words mean, but don't care enough to hear the desperate denials shooting from my lips.

Mr Rose's raking gazes and unwanted touches have been translated into something far beyond my control; a situation spiralling from the fear I divulged to Rebel, while the end of our friendship wasn't even on the horizon.

A mistake that cost me my dignity, because now, I can't even look my peers in the eyes.

My hair is still in braids, a habit that still digs its claws into my arms. Part of me just wanted the normalcy, when I did my hair this morning, but it sickens me now. My fingers pull at the hair-bands, begin to unpick each plait, because it's easier to hide your gaze with hair spilling around your face, instead of pulled back in two plaits that only showcase your shame.

Laughter follows me with each step I take, the sound of my footsteps alerting everyone to my presence, affiliating me with a man who wants too much to do with her. I begin to regret the decision of wearing combat boots today, because the true betrayal has drained me of all my energy to fight.

The hallways leading to the library filter the nausea flowing through me in waves. The radiating arrogance of those who feed off my misery thins in the heavy, crawling air, and once I reach the room's doors, I throw myself against them, taking a moment to regain my stolen breath.

It's okay to be like this, I remind myself, sucking in a lungful of oxygen. I still need to find myself.

So when my feet find the worn burgundy carpet of the old, seldom-used room, it's a relief to feel a sense of ease once again pervade my veins.

The silence swells in my ears as I run my fingers along each shelf's smooth wood and caress well-kept spines with a flourish of her hands. Familiar touches soothe me, even in the solace of somewhere I never spend my time, and I absorb the sense of security kissing the air.

I'm the only one in here, I have to be. The quietude is a held breath, waiting to be released like a gust blowing all my problems away. Taking me up in the air and erasing the weights of the past month, as everyone's thoughts and assumptions are going to be chained to me for another year.

There's only so far I can run, so I have to fly instead, through every aisle and past every shelf—until the very moment where the turning of a page strikes my core, dragging me back down with the weight of gravity.

Knuckles turning white, I peer around the corner, half-hidden by shelves, stacked with books so withered by the time that they're indistinguishable from one another.

Without the background of stealing down my staircase in the dead of night to catch a glimpse of him asleep on my sofa—the night dimming into a daybreak that'd tethered between morning's light tones and lazuli skies—he doesn't look like the Archer Finley that's on my side.

He looks like IP Archer Finley, serious black eyes beneath waves of charcoal hair, indifferent and blunt with every word. IP Archer Finley doesn't care about anyone but himself.

But then he glances up, the words are you going to just stand there, or are you going to sit? escaping his throat, and the distance between us suddenly doesn't feel so prominent.

He's the same Archer Finley who has more faith in me than I do myself, and that thought is comforting, somewhat.

He's sprawled across a beanbag, knees bent to his face and a tattered paperback of Animal Farm propped up between them. One hand is curled around a Tippex pen, its white nib scratching against the black denim of his non-school-regulation jeans—the only good human being is a dead one.

It fits perfectly in the void, seamless alongside a plethora of drawings; extending from his thigh down to his ankles, each sharp and angular, haphazard with the rapid movements of his hands. In a quick, fluid motion, he begins to fill in the shadows in quick, white strokes, not glancing up when he adds in an impatient tone;

"Well?"

My breath hitches at the realisation I've been caught. We seem to have forged a bond over the few times we've spoken, but his invitation still makes me wary, like red to a bull on a minefield. I already know he's not someone to hold back on his opinions if he has the inclination, and he certainly has no qualms about making people feel like rubbish. "I don't bite. I'm no Mr Rose."

The name sends shivers down my spine as I fall into the beanbag opposite him, adjusting my school jumper. "I don't want to talk about him."

"Sorry." Serious black eyes bore into mine. "I know you're not actually sucking him off."

I shift to cross my legs, plucking at the nylon of my tights and wincing as the first tracks of a ladder appear above my knee. "How did you know that?"

"Because you wouldn't." Archer shrugs a shoulder, capping his correction fluid. "If everyone else took the time to look, then they would see it too."

"Rebel didn't. Or if she did, she didn't care." I purse my lips, glancing down at my middle finger. Where the ring used to be. "I never—I told her that the way Mr Rose treats me is the worst thing to ever happen to me, and she's turned that into me sucking him off as if the thought doesn't make me physically sick."

"Rebel Montenero doesn't see anything but herself," he scoffs, snapping his book shut and shoving it into his bag. "You're better off without her."

I sigh. "That doesn't make it any easier. I've known her for most of my life, Fin—Archer. It's hard to just...cut her away like that. I'm trying to do it in little steps. Like wearing my hair down, and talking to my brother, and talking to you...it's hard to do it all at once."

"That just sounds like an excuse to play safe at life. Aren't you sick of that?" Instead of impatient, he's questioning, kicking his shoes into the beanbag beside me. He tosses me the pen, urging me to write something on his leg.

I carefully inscribe no onto the black denim.

"That's what I thought, but playing safe means you'll always be under her thumb. Don't you want to know a world where Rebel and everyone else isn't watching your every move?" He asks.

Mr Rose and rumours I want nothing to with. Poisonous lies, spiralling far beyond my control. Malicious laughter and friends with their knives in my back, making me question years of friendship that meant nothing to them.

A boy adjusting a dark grey beanie on top of his hair, tossing and catching a Tippex pen in his hands.

"Yeah. You know what? I do."

Archer Finley checks the date and time, an unrestrained grin crossing his lips. "Bring your bag and some party clothes, and meet me at the train station at midnight. I'm about to show you something that's going to blow your mind."

☆☆☆