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CHAPTER EIGHT

There are woods behind the school that, if you keep on the main path and walk along several winding miles, will eventually empty out near the neighborhood where I live.
 

And also where creepy Jim lives.
 

I needed to see if he was home and have a talk with him, but first there was something I needed to do if I was going to fully understand the amulet’s power and the weight of responsibility that came from wearing it.

The day was bright and warm, so warm that I took off my light jacket and exposed my pale arms to the sun.
 
The heat felt good.
 
I ran a hand over my face and for the first time in years, what I felt was smooth, with just a touch of stubble.
 
There were no swollen bumps, no pustules ready to pop.
 
Instead, my face wasn’t the cratered valley of boulders it had been that morning.
 
Now it was normal.
 

I ran a hand through my hair and was surprised by how smooth it was.
 
I shook my head and it seemed to fall back naturally in place, which my hair never did because ever since I could remember, it had been a thick, wiry mess with an unruly mind of its own.
 

I wondered what my parents would think when they saw me, but then I checked myself because I already knew.
 
They wouldn’t realize there was a difference.
  
They’d be oblivious to it.

As I walked into the woods and started down the dirt path, I looked down at my thin arms and wondered what the rest of me would look like if I had a body like Alex.
 
Or even Hastings.
 
The temptation to transform myself was great—and I knew I could do it.
 
But not yet, or at least not all at once.

How much was too much?
 
How much was just enough?
 
I was tall and skinny.
 
I tried working out in my bedroom for years, but muscle proved to be no magnet for my body.
 
In fact, it seemed to reject it.
 
With disappointment, I ran my hands down the length of my concave chest and flat abdomen.
 
Nothing was defined.
 
I was all skin and bone.
 
I hated my body, but I knew enough now that transforming it would need to happen gradually.
 

And it would happen today.

I looked above me on the path.
 
The trees were beautiful, swaying just slightly in the breeze.
 
The sky beyond them was clear blue.
 
The sun was strong and it dappled down to the forest floor.
 
I didn’t want to do what was coming next, but I had no choice.
 

What was the least-destructive route?
 
If I was going to do this, how best to minimize the damage in the life I was about to take?

Ahead of me was a squirrel.
 
It had seen me and already hopped from the forest floor to a pine tree, which it now clung to as it looked at me.
 
It was cute and kind of funny.
 
No way
, I thought.
 
But what I saw beneath that squirrel could work.
 
It was a clutch of wild flowers.
 
They were pure white and tall, with a few bees hovering above them.
 
Soon, fall would turn to winter and these flowers would die back.
 
Time was ticking against them.

That time just ticked a little faster.

I went and looked down at them.
You work it with your heart and with your head.
 
I studied them and knew what I had to do to make this work, and so I imagined Mike Hastings’ face on all of them.
 

I imagined the flowers calling me a “freak” and a “faggot,” just as Hastings had today.
 
I thought of all the shitty things he’d ever done to me and my anger rose.
 
I thought back to last year, when he came up behind me in the library and shoved me so hard that I passed out when my head hit the floor.
 

I thought of the day that I fell in line behind him at lunch and had to sit opposite him.
 
Over and over again, he told me what a worthless piece of shit I was while he threw peas at my forehead while the others laughed.
 
He told me I didn’t deserve to be sitting across from him.
 
He said I should be dead because he was tired of all the dirty air I created.

And so with all this in mind, I looked at those flowers and said what I always said when he came after me.
 
“Die!”

At first, nothing happened—the flowers were unwavering.
 
They stood tall and were beautiful.
 
But then, starting at the base of their stems, a darkness took hold as the stems started to turn black.

I took a step backward and watched the blackness consume them.
 
It reached upward toward the leaves, which folded in on themselves, and then it fanned out to the flowers, whose petals fell off while their necks drooped.
 
And then the stems themselves collapsed because there was nothing left to hold them up.
 
It was over in a matter of seconds.
 
What was once a stand of wild white flowers brightening this corner of the world was now actively liquefying into a gray puddle of rot at my feet.
 

I killed them and I had the answer I feared.
 
The amulet was powerful enough to cause death.

I took another step back, where there was a large rock, and I sat on it.
 
I was scared.
 
I had no right to do that, but I had to see the amulet’s limits for myself.
 
And death was the absolute limit. If I got angry enough, I very well could kill someone.

I was thinking that I couldn’t wear this thing any longer when there was a sound to my left.
 
Well down the path, I heard footsteps crunching on the fallen pine needles.
 
They were coming quickly, aggressively.
 
I turned in their direction and saw the last thing I wanted to see—the pissed-off face of Mike Hastings coming straight at me.

CHAPTER NINE

The rock I was sitting on was tucked back in a small alcove.
 
Trees and plants offered something of a shield.
 
He hadn’t seen me yet.
 
He was about thirty feet away.
 
His eyes were lowered and focused on the path.
 
He looked bigger to me here.
 
He’d also taken off his jacket and now it was apparent just how hard he had worked on his body over the summer.
 
He was no Alex, but he was close.
 

He looked fearless and imposing.
 
He bulldozed up the path.
 

What was he doing here?
 
Had he followed me?
 
Was he looking for me?
 
I couldn’t be sure.
 
I wanted to recede, but I’d only make a noise.
 
Roberts said she was going to talk to him.
 
Did she send him home?
 
Did she expel him?
 
What had happened between them?

He was ten feet away when he saw me, and when he did, the surprise on his face was unmistakable.
 
So was the delight that replaced it.
 
He stopped in the middle of the path and just stood there, looking at me.
 
He cocked his head to the right and smiled.
 
Then he did the last thing I wanted him to do—he looked down the path and around us.
 
He was checking to see if we were alone and we were.

“What’s up, faggot?”

My heart was pounding.
 
I glanced over at the dead flowers and knew the threat that stood between us.
 
You work it with your heart and with your head.
 
If that was true, how could I best handle this situation.
 
I didn’t want to harm anyone.
 
That’s not who I was.
 
Earlier, when I told creepy Jim that I’d like to see Jake Tyler fall and break his nose, I thought nothing of it.
 
How was I supposed to know that Jim could make that happen?

“I asked you a question,” Hastings said.
 
“What’s up, faggot?
 
Roberts send you home, too?”

I didn’t answer.
 
I tried to keep myself calm, but it was impossible.
 
He kept looking around us.
 
I knew he was going to try something.
 
It was payback time and he was going to make it happen and it was going to hurt.

“Roberts told me that you think I’ve got a problem with you.
 
Now, why would she think that?”
 
He took a step toward me.
 
“Better yet, why did you tell her that?”

“You need to get away from me,” I said.

“I need to do what?”

“You need to get away from me.
 
Trust me.
 
You need to step off.”

“Or what?
 
You’ll run to Roberts?
 
You’ll tell her that we were...what?
 
Having a little conversation?”

I could feel the amulet heating up against my chest.

“That I was nice enough to stop by and address you by your God-given name:
 
Faggot?
 
Is that what you’ll tell her?”

Again, he looked around him.
 
He knew we were alone.
 
I knew it.
 
He could do whatever he wanted to do to me and it would be his word against mine.
 
I’d lose because I wouldn’t have any proof.
 
Unfortunately, I didn’t have Jennifer’s iPhone, though even if I did, he’d probably smash it.

Think.
 

I needed to do something that would scare him.
 
I needed to prove to him that he couldn’t touch me.
 
I needed to create a diversion or do something else.
 
It needed to freak him out.
 
It needed to be enough of a show that he wouldn’t come near me again.

“You know,” he said.
 
“I’ve got a problem with what you said to Roberts.
 
You got me into trouble for nothing.
 
I think you should pay for that.
 
I think you and I need to have a little understanding of how it works around here because apparently you forgot.”
 

He took another step toward me.
 
And another.
 
His mouth was pressed into a tight line of hate.
 
I could see him balling up his right fist.
 
Again, he looked around us.
 
Just a few birds flying above, the wind in the trees.
 
Satisfied, he saw his moment and took it.
 

In a flash, he came toward me, pulled his right arm back and swung it down hard toward my face.
 
As it came, I quickly held up my pinky finger and pushed all of my hatred of him into it.
 
My finger either was going to break, or it was going to break him.

You work it with your heart and with your head.

It broke him.
 
His fist collided with it and you’d think by the agonized look on his face that he had punched his hand straight through a concrete wall.
 
He yelped and staggered back, toward the center of the path.
 
My pinky was still raised.
 
It was untouched.
 
He stared openly at it and then looked down at his hand, which was smashed.
 
“What the fuck!” he yelled.

I got off the rock.
 

“I told you to stay away from me,” I said.
 
“You don’t know who you’re dealing with anymore.
 
I will protect myself against you and all of your friends.
 
I’ve had enough.
 
And here’s a warning—I will win every time.”

“The hell you will.”

He was doubled over, massaging his hand.
 
His head was crooked to the side and he was staring up at me.
 
Now it was my turn to look around—nobody.
 
And so, with my heart still rocking in my chest and my hatred of him still fueling every cell in my body, I decided to give him a show he’d never forget.
 

I held out my arms at my sides and rose in the air above him.
 

Frozen, he watched me ascend twenty feet in the air.
 
I turned my eyes into bright spheres of red light and glared down at him like a beast from a nightmare.
 
I made the wind pick up and whip around me.
 
Leaves and pine needles lifted off the ground and funneled around me like a tornado, turning me into some kind of hornet’s nest while he just stood there, paralyzed by what he saw.

And then I saw it.
 
For the first time since we’d known each other, back in first grade when he decided that I’d be his punching bag for life, I saw it.
 
He was afraid of me.
 
He
 
was terrified of me.
 
He backed away from me.

“What the hell are you?”

I looked up at one of the large tree limbs just behind him, waved my arm in its direction and cracked my wrist down.
 
The limb snapped off and fell hard, crashing just feet away from him.
 

He let out a little squeak and then I lowered my hand down toward him.
 
It was easy—too easy.
 
I lifted him off the ground and let him linger in the air.
 
I waved a finger across his mouth to silence him.
 
His tried to speak, but there was no sound.
 
I drew him near me so we were face-to-face.
 
My ruby-red eyes burned into his.
 
Beneath him, his legs were scissoring.
 
His arms were flailing.
 
And so I paralyzed him and he went still.
 

I leached myself into his mind.

“This is how it’s going to work,” I said to him.
 
“You’re going to back off me.
 
You’re going to ignore me.
 
You’re going to remember everything that just happened, but you’re going to tell no one about it.
 
I’m forbidding you.
 
Each time you try to tell someone, the words won’t come.
 
They’ll never come, not even if you try to write them down.
 
You’ll never be able to explain what’s happening between us now.”
 

The leaves and needles were spinning around us, swiping across our faces, knocking against our bodies before joining the storm of wind that was kicking up our hair.
 
I looked down at his hand and then snapped my eyes back to his.
 
“Looks like you broke it,” I said.
 
“I could fix it for you, but I won’t.
 
You were going to hit me with that hand.
 
You were going to punch me in the face for no reason.
 
So, it should be broken.
 
But here’s how it happened.
 
You fell over a tree root on your way home.
 
You went down hard and broke your hand.
 
If I were you, I’d get home and have someone take you to the hospital.
 
You’re going to need a cast.”

I lowered us both to the ground.
 
I waved my finger across his mouth and I released his muscles so he was free to move.
 
The wind stopped, the debris fell around us like over-sized confetti and my eyes returned to normal.
 
“Do you understand me now, Mike?”

He nodded.

“You’re going to stay away from me, aren’t you?”

He nodded.

“Good,” I said.
 
“Because if you ever do come for me again, I can promise you this.
 
Next time won’t be so easy.
  
You treat me and others with respect from now on, or I really will hurt you.”

“What are you?”

I shrugged.
 
There was only one reply.
 
“I’m not you.
 
And for your sake, that’s good news.
 
Because if I was as ugly as you are on the inside, this would have gone differently.
 
You wouldn’t be walking out of here.
 
If I had your soul, I would have ripped you apart for every rotten, humiliating thing you’ve ever done to me.
 
I would have torn off your limbs, severed your head.
 
I would have made you a dirt grave and thrown you in it.”
 

This time it was me cocking my head at him.
 
“So, aren’t you happy that I’m better than that?
 
That I’m better than you?”

I stepped aside.
 
“Go and see a doctor.”

He started to walk past me and as he did, I left him with an undercurrent of a threat.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Mike.
 
Either at school or here again in the woods.
 
Doesn’t make a difference to me.
 
The choice is yours.
 
I can take you down here or I can take you down there.
 
Now, why don’t you get the hell home?”