Chapter 9:

I still remember the sting of that night. Not the physical pain, not really. Pain I could deal with. It was the way everything felt like it snapped in half inside me, the pressure building for years finally spilling out, drowning me from the inside. That night, it wasn't just blood running down my face. It was something else. Something darker. Something permanent.

The gash above my eyebrow had already started to clot when I leaned over the bathroom sink. A jagged line of red smeared across the porcelain. I didn't flinch when I dabbed at it with a damp paper towel. My hands were steady. My eyes weren't. They stared at themselves in the mirror like they were looking at a stranger, someone I didn't fully understand but also couldn't ignore.

The silence pressed in from all sides, the cheap light above me buzzed, flickering every few seconds, like even the damn electricity was too tired to work properly, the mirror reflected more than my blood and grime. It reflected everything I hated. My home, my life, and my face.

That was when the first whisper hit.

Kill.

It wasn't a voice, not really. It was just the thought. A shard of something sharp was buried in the folds of my mind. I blinked, trying to shake it, and gripped the sink tighter.

Kill.

Again. Louder. Like a drumbeat hammering inside my skull.

I stumbled back, crashing into the wall. My head throbbed so violently I thought it might split open. I collapsed onto the bathroom floor, letting out a strangled grunt that turned into a scream halfway through. My fingernails dug into my scalp as I writhed there, a mess of breath and blood and everything I'd ever bottled up.

Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill.

Over and over again. Like a curse.

My foot knocked over the trash can. A bottle of mouthwash clattered beside me. The floor felt like ice. My spine ached. My mind felt like it was being peeled apart with rusted tweezers.

Eventually, the pain started to dull. The pounding in my head slowed to a dull throb. I lay there on my side, panting like a dying animal, then forced myself up onto my knees. I staggered back to my feet, using the wall as a crutch.

I didn't look in the mirror again.

Instead, I walked out, shaking, into the hallway. Each step felt heavier than the last. When I got to my room, I slammed the door behind me and locked it, needing that separation. That wall. That barrier between me and the world.

The first thing I did was grab my old headphones and toss them on. I scrolled through the music until I found it.

"Beast" by NEFFEX.

That song hit differently, like it allowed a part of me to exist. But it was the only thing that made sense. The lyrics weren't just words. They were permitted. Permission to be angry. To feel power in that rage. To breathe while burning.

I leaned against the door, knees pulled to my chest, the music vibrating through my bones. The words screamed through the chorus while I mouthed them silently.

"Got some pain in their life, you can see it in their eyes. They're changing at night, underneath the dark skies. Forced to become something darker inside, you can feel the switch, feel the shift in the tide."

Yeah, it might be the opening, but part of it felt like it was made for me.

I started talking before I even realized it.

"They're disgusting," I said. My voice sounded broken. Croaky. Like something out of an old cassette tape.

"Humans," I spat. "They're worthless. Useless. Every single one of them. All they do is destroy what's around them, act like kings of a kingdom made of garbage. They take. They lie. They beat down anything they don't understand."

I noticed I was speaking, but I didn't stop. I felt like I needed to finally say it, to validate every last feeling I ever had.

"They hit first and pretend it's your fault when you finally hit back. Then they punish you for not bleeding quietly."

My chest heaved. I stood slowly, fists clenched at my sides. The rage hadn't gone. It had just settled beneath my skin, like static electricity begging for a spark.

I turned to the dresser. That stupid, wobbly thing with peeling wood and rusted handles. I stared at it for a long time.

Then I punched it.

The impact rocked up my arm, sending a shock into my elbow. My knuckles throbbed instantly, but I didn't stop. I punched it again. And again. Wood cracked under my fist, leaving behind jagged dents shaped like bones.

My breathing slowed, only a bit.

I stood there for a while, staring at the marks, at the tiny flecks of blood from my split knuckles. Then I finally turned, lay on my bed, and stared at the ceiling.

The rest of the day dragged.

I skipped dinner. Not that anyone noticed. Mom was asleep on the couch again, one hand half-buried in a bag of chips, TV still playing some rerun of a crime show. Jace was probably out somewhere, gambling or getting drunk. I didn't care. I just wanted the quiet.

But it wasn't quiet in my head.

I tried reading a book for a while, but the words kept blurring together. I scribbled in the margins instead, meaningless lines, shapes, little swirls that didn't go anywhere. I liked the sound the pen made on paper. It gave my hands something to do.

Eventually, I fell asleep. Not because I was tired, but because there was nothing else to do. Because I didn't want to deal with the voice inside my head.

That night, I dreamt of fire. Cities burning. Faces I didn't recognize were screaming while I stood in the center of it all, untouched. Alone. Alive.

It wasn't a nightmare; in a way, it was peace.

In the morning, I tried to call my grandparents, but I couldn't remember their number. The digits were there in my brain, buried somewhere under years of neglect and silence, but when I reached for them, they slipped away like water through my fingers. So I gave up and went to school. It was better than sitting at home pretending someone might call me first.

I didn't get in trouble for the fight. The teacher who had pulled me into his office before had stepped in and explained everything. Said I'd been defending myself, said I'd never caused problems before.

Maybe he said more, I didn't care to find out. What mattered was that I didn't have to deal with some administrator breathing down my neck.

But that teacher, the one who stood up for me… I kept thinking about him. He'd tried talking to me again in the hallway. Just a simple hello, asking if I was doing all right. But I walked past him like always, letting the silence answer for me. Despite that, he didn't get mad. Just gave me a nod like he understood something I didn't.

I wondered if he wanted something. Some teachers liked collecting broken kids like trophies. Others saw it as a project, like they could fix something time had already shattered. I couldn't tell which category he fit into, so I left it up to future me to figure out.

Still, I felt that conversation from the bathroom creeping back into my head. The one where I screamed at nothing and told myself truths I wasn't ready to face. I remembered the way my knuckles ached after punching the dresser, the way the blood felt warm sliding over my fingers.

I remembered the voice in my head whispering, kill, over and over again like a chant. And in class, those memories crawled back up. My hands trembled for a second. Just long enough for me to shove them under my desk and act like I was cold.

The rest of the day passed in slow motion. I didn't say a word, didn't need to. Everyone already knew who I was, or thought they did. They avoided me like I was some rabid animal let loose in their precious little ecosystem.

Eyes followed me when I walked into the room. Conversations died when I passed too close. Even the ones who used to talk about me behind my back stopped bothering me.

Maybe they were scared, maybe they finally figured out that I wasn't someone they could push around anymore, or maybe they just needed a new target, and I wasn't entertaining enough to be worth the trouble. Either way, I was fine with it.

I sat through every class, did every assignment, stared through every clock tick until it dragged its last second across the board. I hated it. Every second of pretending. Every minute of silence I couldn't control. I didn't want their attention, but I hated the way they looked away more.

The end of the day couldn't come fast enough. And when it did, I didn't rush out the door. I waited and let everyone else leave first. Less noise, fewer people, fewer chances to get reminded of how different I was. 

I sat at the back of the classroom, staring out the window at the emptying schoolyard, wondering how long I'd have to keep doing this. Just surviving, just existing, just waiting for something to change.

But nothing ever did. Not on its own.