And the sound I made at the end. That broken, helpless, involuntary sound that tore out of me when my body was no longer my body—and all of them heard it. He heard it. She did, too.
I was still crying when I saw the look on her face. Not the disgust I prayed for, not the hate or the horror I deserved. She never looked at me with those things. There was only delight, the flush running up the column of her throat, her lips parted and animal and shining.
“No,” I whisper, clenching my jaw. “No, no, no, no.” More tears, and I stop breathing.
My whole body jerks like I’ve been struck. I’m on my feet without deciding to move, pacing frantically—three steps to the window and back, three steps and back—because if I stop moving, I will have to sit inside what just happened, and I will die if I have to sit inside it. And I can’t die. I have to protect Mary.
Hands. Fingers. Strokes. Cum.
“No. I said fucking no!” I scream. “No! No! No!” Pain sears through me, and I fall to the ground, crying, sobbing. It hurts. Everything hurts everywhere.
The shame is so big and heavy it feels like it’s crushing my ribs. I can still feel the slick heat of his hand. I can still hear the wet sound of it moving. I can still hear the exact tone of his voice when he praised me for it.
“Good boy. See? Your body knows what it wants even if you don’t.”
“My pretty boy. Don’t blame me. Blame this beautiful face of yours.”
“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” I jerk up and stomp to the desk. My hand finds the karambit without thought. The blade Rowan gave me. The knife his trainers say is an extension of my own hand. The weight of it, the curve of the steel, the coolness of the handle against my palm—it feels like the only real thing in the room.
In the bathroom, I stand in front of the mirror, no longer recognizing the boy looking back at me. Tonight I became a monster like them. A pretty monster.
Pretty.
That word. That fucking word they’ve been putting on me since the beginning. Since Valeria’s fingers under my chin on the front steps. Since the first man who looked at my face and decided it meant permission.
I raise the karambit to my cheek. My hand is steady now, like holding the karambit somehow calms the voices, gives me back control over my thoughts, over what I choose to let in.
The blade hovers just below the sharp rise of my cheekbone, and I don’t need to take a breath before I press the tip in slowly, deliberately, watching the metal sink into flesh that still feels like it belongs to someone else.
The pain is immediate, and I clench my jaw, breathing in deep, and my nostrils flare. But I refuse to scream. I refuse to. Fucking. Scream.
Blood wells up instantly, dark and thick, sliding down the curve of my cheek, my salty tears stinging the open wound as it seeps into where the skin parts.
I don’t stop. Not for the pain. Not for the blood. I keep dragging the blade downward in one long, vicious line, carving deep from the high point of my cheekbone all the way to the corner of my mouth. And I take my time, too. Making sure it cuts as deep as the poison they’ve fucked into my system.
The cut is ugly on purpose, because that’s what I want. I want a scar that no one can ignore. A mark that will be the first thing they see when they look at me, that will make them flinch away from my face.
I don’t want it to heal neatly. I want it wide enough that it’ll always pull and twist when I speak or smile or try to pretend I’m still human.
The blade catches on the edge of my lip, and I push harder, splitting the tender skin open until the lower half of my face feels like it’s coming apart. I feel the flesh part. Hear the wet, sick sound of it giving way under the steel. And while I carve it deeper, the monster inside me uncoils, stretches its limbs, and finally starts to breathe.
The karambit slips from my fingers and clatters into the sink. I’m bleeding everywhere. Red everywhere. Splashing across the white porcelain, dripping down my shirt, soaking my hands, pooling on the floor like I’m leaking out everything they tried to put inside me.
I look up.
The mirror.
The boy looking back at me is fucking ruined.
My face is split open from cheekbone all the way down to my lip—a deep, ugly gash that gapes like a second screaming mouth.Blood sheets down the left side in thick, heavy curtains, soaking into my collar, running hot along my throat, dripping off my chin.
There’s blood in my teeth. My hair is wrecked, sticking up in every direction like I tried to rip it out with my own hands.
And my eyes…
My eyes are the worst part.
Wide. Wild. Empty. The eyes of something that’s been backed into too many corners and finally stopped pretending it’s still a person. The eyes of a boy who entered through those iron gates three years ago holding his little sister’s hand, still believing the world might be kind if he was quiet enough.
