Page 63 of Fractured Fates

“You used your magic to knock me to the ground. So I guess we’re both getting expelled.”

“No, little pig, they’re not expelling me.”

We glare at each other under the orange lamplight and I notice her cheeks are flushed and her shoulders rising and falling.

“I didn’t go to school,” she finally snaps. “Until last week I was unregistered.”

“What the fuck?” I mutter, stumbling away.

I knew she was different. Unusual. Not anyone I should be looking at, not someone who should have piqued my curiosity. But unregistered? This is not good.

This is … ending.

“You kept that quiet.” I scowl at her.

“I didn’t. I’m perfectly happy with who I am. I don’t give a shit about any of you and what you think of me or my pig. Because you know what I’m learning? You people are fucked up and miserable. And tucked away in my ‘swamp’,” she makes little inverted quote marks, “I was perfectly happy.”

“Then why the fuck did you come? Why the fuck did you come here?”

To fuck up my life. To ruin everything.

“It wasn’t my choice,” she says, and she’s clearly had enough of this conversation because this time she strides away and straight through the door of the bar.

Unregistered!

She was unregistered.

I drag my hand down my face. My hand still stings from that shock.

It doesn’t matter. I’m probably imagining the whole fucked-up situation anyway.

My father always says I’m teetering on the edge of self-destruction, so maybe I’m inventing a way to implode my life.

There’s a way to confirm it for once and for all: have our bloods tested. But how could I do that without someone finding out? This news would leak faster than a boat hitting an iceberg.

No, best to keep this quiet. Hidden.

Best not to tell a living soul. Least of all little pig girl.

21

Rhi

I wakeup on Sunday morning with what I assume is my very first hangover. The room is spinning, my stomach sloshing and my head pounding.

I groan, too scared to roll over and hide my eyes from the sunshine pouring in through the gap in the curtains in case I vomit.

The pounding in my head only intensifies until I realize it isn’t in my head at all. Someone is pounding the door.

“Urgh, who is that?” Winnie groans from below.

“Blackwaters!”

I close my eyes and wince.

Stone.

“Get your ass out here now!”