“What are you doing here?” he stutters, using the desk as a makeshift barrier between us. He clamors to button up his shirt. I assume it’s to preserve the little dignity he has left.
I swing the bat onto my shoulder and push off the wall to stalk toward him as Kohen attempts to corner him. “I was so excited to have our discussion that I decided,why wait?”
McGill’s eyes flick back and forth between me and Kohen as if trying to gauge who’s the bigger threat.Me, he decides. I guess I’m just that intimidating. I tip my head to the side and watch as he fumbles, straightening his shirt. He draws his stiff shoulders, putting on a mask of faux confidence.
God, the smell of his anxiety is enough to get drunk on. Is this what he felt when he ordered men to hold me down? Or when he summons me, knowing the level of pain he will inflict? My grip tightens at the memory of all the bruises that have formed on me because of him and my grandfather.
“Neither of you are allowed here.” The words come out wavered as I hum, swinging the bat around the air as if it were a toy. “I’m calling security to have you both escorted back—” His fingers tremble as he reaches for his phone.
Kohen cuts him off without an ounce of emotion on his face. “That isn’t happening.” McGill halts in his procession. He eyes Kohen as if realizing his mistake in thinking I’m the bigger threat when the pyromaniac is only a couple feet away from him.
“Whatever prank you two are pulling, it ends now.” He looks at me as he says it. I assume it seems like I’m the mastermind of all of this, what with Kohen standing there stoically, arms crossed.Weaponless. I’m sure that makes him all the more frightening.
“Kohen doesn’t dopranks,” I sigh with disappointment as I block McGill between us. “But I assure you, this isveryserious.” My hands tremble in anticipation when I turn to Kohen. “Hey, Pyro. You said knees, right?”
He nods, sneering at McGill. “Face works too.”
The headmaster raises his arms with a cry when I use every fiber of my muscles to smash the bat against his shoulder. My body screams from the movement, but I don’t let it stop me. My rage takes hold of the swing, pouring months of bottled-up torment into my veins.
Kohen narrows his eyes at me as if he can tell I’m just going to do the opposite of whatever he wants. McGill’s howls rip through the room as blood splatters onto my face. Elation fills my marrow and makes my body feel as light as a summer breeze. The pounding in my ears is still there, but I’m convinced that invincibility exists.
McGill crashes into the wall and crumbles onto the floor, clutching his weeping shoulder, refashioning his blue shirt into scarlet. Another sob cracks out of him when he looks at the redcovering his hands. “Stop,” he pleads.
I can barely look at the morbid sight. It’s a scene from a horror movie where the victim’s skin is dotted with holes, and the arm doesn’t look like an arm anymore.You did that, I tell myself.You’re making him suffer.
“What was that?” My eyes flash. “Stop? Stop? Come on, McGill. You didn’t think your words held any meaning, did you? I always knew you wouldn’t be a fighter. You get other people to do the hard work for you while you sit on your lazy fucking ass.” He flinches as I wave the bat in his direction. “You’re a lazy, useless coward.” I glance around and continue goading him. “Where’s your family, by the way?”
McGill shakes his head as the music starts to reach a crescendo. “You don’t want to do this, Blaze. You won’t get away with it.”
I throw my head back and let a maniacal laugh rumble through me. “Oh,nowI’m Blaze? How convenient that this is the first time you got my name right.” I follow the bat's momentum, driving it into his shoulder again. The scream that follows pierces my eardrum and rushes down my spine. Flesh splits beneath the force of the nails, lodging deep enough for acrunchto vibrate up my arms. My dinner lurches up my stomach when the blood makes a suctioning sound as I pull the bat out.
“Please!” he sobs, rolling onto his side against the wall.
“Please,” I mock. “How many times did I beg? I cried, and I screamed, and I prayed.” I kick him after each word. “I pleaded for you to let me out until my throat burned with the words. I told you that you would all die if you left me there. I made you afuckingvow.” My voice comes out guttural, as if on the precipice of losing all sense of reality. “And you left.”
“I’m sorry,” he grits out between cries.
I drop the bat on the floor and feel my muscles rage as I rip the blood-spattered hoodie off. Layer after layer, I strip down until I’m in my bra and the sweats, baring all my battle scars to him. McGill’s eyes fall to the floor by my feet as the heat from the fire warms my pebbled skin. “Look at me.” I snarl as he huddles closer to the wall. “I said,look at me!” I point my gloved hand at the bruises on my ribs and along my shoulder. “You both did this.”
He shakes his head. “I was just doing as your grandfather—”
I yank the bat back off the floor, and his eyes slam into mine, then fall to the evidence of my pain written on my skin. IswearI almost see guilt on his face.
“Do you fucking hear yourself? You don’t believe those lies.”
How fucking dare he deny it when I have the marks to prove it? He could have refused. He could have lied to my grandfather. He could have doneeverythingin his power to keep his students safe.
“Tell me, what is it Jonathan offered you in exchange for torturing me?”
McGill’s skin grows paler with each passing second as his blood soaks into the wooden floor. “N-nothing, he’s my friend, and I was looking out for—”
“Liar! All you do is fuckinglie.” I hit his cheek with the top of the bat and shove the Whitlock Investmentsfolder in his face. “Jonathan doesn’t havefriends. If he did, he wouldn’t call some lowlife piece of shit like you his friend. No property, no money, no family. You’re a fraud with nothing left. So I’m going to ask you.One.Last.Time. What is my grandfather offering you?Confess, McGill.” I raise the bat, ready to strike.
“A loan!” he sputters out through his chattering teeth as Kohenrummages around behind me. “He’s wiping my credit card debt clean and helping me get back on my feet. No bank wants to lend money to me. If I go bankrupt, I’ll lose my job! Jonathan offered to fix everything as long as I petitioned the court to have you sentenced to Seraphic Hills and let him choose your treatment.”
I drop the bat to my side and take in a deep breath. So that was the price of my sanity? It’s not even a clean slate or a fresh start. It doesn’t even help him stay above water, and he still took it, knowing it could cause me, a fucking child who he doesn’t know, irreversible damage. He’s left out the second part of the truth; I was his scapegoat. With no kids, no friends, no wife, who else would be his free punching bag?
“Say you’re pathetic.”
