Page 5

What do you mean “is she going to?”She already did!shouted the voice of self-preservation in my head.And if you don’t get away from them fast, you’re going to be dead!

As this realization hit me, I started to struggle.But the big, meaty hands holding me only tightened their grip.

“You ain’t goin’ nowhere,mariposa,”Nunez hissed in my ear.“Not until we settle our score with you.And oh look—here comes Gonzales right now to settle it.”

Sure enough, Juan Gonzales was stalking towards me.Presumably it had taken him all this time to climb down the rope but now he was here and he lookedpissed.I suppose it irritated him to have to chase me around the gym in order to beat me up and now he was more than ready to take that irritation out on me.

“There you are, you little fag,” he snarled.At least he had reverted back to his human form, so there should be no more fire-breathing in my general direction.However, Juan washuge—I was well aware that he didn’t need his Drake’s fire to mess me up—badly.“Made me chase you all around the fuckin’ gym,” he snapped at me, when he got close enough to loom over me like a malevolent tree with a rotten heart from a Tolkien tale.

“Yes, I tend to run when a bully is chasing me with the express purpose of beating me up,” I snapped.“I’m funny like that.”

“Oh, you’re funny all right.I’m gonna break that funny faggot mouth of yours,mariposa.”He glared down at me.“Maybe once I punch your teeth out, you won’t be so fuckin’ mouthy.”

I would have given him yet another witty retort—no matter what kind of trouble I’m in, my mouth never knows when to quit—but at that moment he punched me right in the face.So whatever witticisms were about to spout from my lips were lost when his fist connected with my right cheek and eye socket.

My ears were ringing and there was a hot trickle that I was fairly sure was blood down the side of my face.I hadn’t had time to duck—hadn’t even had time totry.

I might die here,I thought, feeling sick to my stomach.They’ll make it look like an accident—like I climbed to the top of the rope and fell head first to the floor.Nobody will know the difference but me.I’m going to?—

And then Juan drew back his arm to hit me again.

“Here’s another, just for you, you little faggot,” he snarled.“Hope you enjoy it!”

I might die, I decided, but I wasn’t going to die while the big bully shouted homophobic slurs in my face.

Magic needle!I thought and imagined a long, sharp, silver needle poking him in the face.Suddenly, it was there—threading through his thick lips, sewing them shut with bright red thread.

Juan howled—a rather muffled howl since his mouth was already halfway sewn shut—and clutched at his lips.He fumbled with the thread, trying to break it but when he tried, it pulled on his pierced lips and made him scream in pain.He tried to catch my magic needle, but he couldn’t do that either—it’s really fast and it was zipping up and down, in and out, sewing his lips shut before he could stop it.

“There,” I said, though my ears were still ringing and I felt distinctly dizzy.“Let’s see you call me ‘faggot’ or‘mariposa’now, you big asshole!”

Unfortunately, though my magic needle did an excellent job shutting Juan’s mouth, it couldn’t do much about his fists.He pulled back and punched me again, knocking my head back so that I saw stars dancing in front of my eyes.

The Drakes who were holding me tightened their grip as Juan pulled back his fist a third time.

He’ll keep it up,screamed that voice in my head.He’ll punch and punch and hit and kick until you’re dead.He doesn’t care anymore—he’s so angry he just wants to kill you!He?—

And then the door to the gym banged open and a deafening roar echoed through the room.

3

SAINT

Idon’t know what made me leave class early and go looking for Avery.I had a worried feeling and…

No.Let me not begin with a lie.

I knew exactly what it was that made me seek out my friend and roommate—it was my Drake.

Ever since I had held Avery’s hand in order to help his Coven mate, Emma, rid herself of a particularly troublesomeskink,my Drake has been obsessed with the short, blond boy I share a room with.

The being that lives inside me isn’t like other Drakes.He doesn’t speak to me in complete sentences like a reasonable being as the Drakes of other males do.His thoughts—when I have tried to decipher them—are a swirling, bloody mass of midnight black and blood red where few words are evident.

Instead of words, he pushes emotions into my head—violence or hatred or the desire to kill are the most common ones, when we are confronted with someone he doesn’t like—which sadly, is often because there are many,manypeople my Drake does not like.

But lately, since moving to the human world and entering Nocturne Academy, many of those hate-filled feelings had calmed down somewhat.Which was a real relief to me—it is sometimes difficult to separate my own true emotions from my Drake’s.Trying to do that is an exhausting task which leaves me feeling frustrated and tense.It is, in a way, like living with a madman shouting constantly in my brain, demanding to be let out so he can murder anyone who angers him.

It wouldn’t be the first time my Drake had committed murder—but I preferred not to think of that.