Page 253 of Pucking Feral: Part Two

Ivan rounds the corner of the maintenance shed at a half-jog, shoulders hunched, his rat face pinched like it gets when he's bored and wants to break something.

We were friends until last year, before he decided he was a big man and his showboating began to get on my nerves. Even had a blood pact, once. Cut our palms and shook on it with the thing he's clutching in his dirty hand, a sharpened piece of scrap metal wrapped in electrical tape at the handle.

Everyone knows he has it. Nobody does anything about it.

No one takes anything from Ivan.

His eyes land on Ilya.

"The fuck are you freaks doing?" Ivan says, stepping closer.

Ilya curls his body over the bird, turning his back to Ivan. The mask's breathing filter rasps faster.

Cosima steps between them. "Leave him alone."

"Wasn't talking to you, fat bitch."

A low warning growl rumbles through Ilya's mask.

Cosima holds up her hand to Ilya before he can put Ivan through the fence. She doesn't need it. "Call me that again and I'll shove that shiv so far down your throat you'll shit metal for the rest of your life."

Ivan ignores her, craning his neck to look at what Ilya's shielding in his one hand.

"You saved a fucking rat with wings? Disgusting." His lip curls. "Then again, so are you, freak."

Ilya flinches.

Cosima's violet eyes narrow to slits. "He is not disgusting."

"Hey," I say, standing. "Fuck off, Ivan."

Ivan shoots me a surprised look over his shoulder. He still thinks we're friends. Funny. "The fuck, Val? It's vermin. It's diseased."

"Like your shiv?" I ask dryly.

Ivan twirls it in his hand, flashing his teeth in a wicked grin. "You wanna find out after I'm done cutting the rat?"

The full height of Ilya unfolds in a single motion.

The breathing filter goes silent for one suspended second as he looms over Ivan, the pigeon still cradled against his chest.

Then the snarl comes.

Ivan freezes.

For one second, the yard is silent except for the wind and the vicious snarl roiling in Ilya's chest.

Ivan barks out a disbelieving laugh, high and strained, the laugh of a boy who's decided fear is worse than pain.

"What the fuck are you, anyway?" he spits, stepping forward instead of back, the shiv rising at his side. "Some kind of white knight?"

The shiv punches into Ilya's side.

Cosima's scream splits the air. "ILYA!"

Ilya's snarl cuts off into silence as his body buckles sideways, still cradling the pigeon against his chest even as blood blossoms across his uniform jacket.

Still protecting it.