“Relax,” Draco says, still smiling. “We’re not going to hurt you. We just want a polite, sincere apology.” His accent and vocabulary have a whiff of college—upper middle class—but his shoulders are thrust forward in the aggressive stance of a thug. I wonder if he’s armed.
Stanley’s pulse jumps visibly in his throat. “We don’t want any trouble.”
“Great,” Draco says. “Neither do we. So how about it? To show us you mean it, maybe you should get down on your knees first.”
The twins snort laughter, lips pressed together to hide their smiles. They’re trying to look menacing. They’re big enough that they don’t have to try very hard.
“What if we say no?” Stanley says.
Draco raises his eyebrows. “Well, then, we might have to express our disappointment.”
My arm tightens on Stanley’s. He moves in front of me, shielding me with his body.
Draco glances at me. “Who’s the redhead? Does she talk?”
“Leave her alone,” Stanley says, his voice forceful.
“Oh, suddenly he grows a dick,” one of the twins says.
“This your girlfriend?” Draco is staring straight at me. I stare back. “Not bad.”
“Stay away from her,” Stanley says.
“Or what?”
My hand is still in my pocket, gripping my keys. My upper lip twitches and pulls back from my teeth. My head burns, and my brain seems to be swelling. I can feel it pulsing, pushing against the backs of my eyes.
“I mean it,” Stanley says. “If you come any closer, I’ll—”
“What? You’re gonna fight me?” He gives Stanley a hard shove.
Stanley stumbles, then lunges forward. Draco pushes him again, and he reels backward, nearly falling. I catch him, stumbling under his weight. I can feel him shaking with fury as he gasps for breath.
The twins bark laughter. They sound like seals. Something is happening inside my head, like clouds churning, darkness seeping through my brain.
“What do you say?” Draco’s gaze doesn’t leave me. “Want to ditch this gimp loser and come with us?”
I open my mouth. But instead of words, a catlike hiss slides out of my throat.
The twins’ laughter dies down to silence. Draco’s smile fades.
When I was a small child, I would sometimes revert to animal behavior during stressful situations. I learned to control the tendency as I got older . . . but now the impulse wells up from some deep place inside me, and I give myself over to it. I clench my fists and stomp one foot on the ground, growling low in my throat, the way rabbits will do when they’re warning off another animal.
The twins’ mouths hang open.
I stomp harder, growling and hiss at them as loud as I can, spraying spittle into the air. “Enemy!” I shout. The blood roars in my skull like a waterfall. I snap my teeth together. “Enemy, enemy, enemy!”
Draco takes a step back. “Jesus,” he mutters.
My heart beats faster. It’s as if, suddenly, my strange, shameful tendencies have been transformed into a power.
I hiss and stomp some more. Draco’s smirk slides back into place, but he’s putting on a show now; I can sense his fear, almost smell it. He’s not going to come another step closer. “Well, they say crazy girls are the best in bed,” he says loudly.
On cue, the twins start laughing again. Stanley’s back goes rigid. Without a sound, he charges at Draco and swings his cane, hard. It smacks against the side of Draco’s head.
Draco staggers. “Fuck!” he yelps. Before he can regain his balance, Stanley swings the cane again, smacking him on the other side of the head. Draco’s hand flies to his temple.
The twins are doubled over, howling, as if the whole thing is a show. “Nice job, TJ,” one calls, “getting your ass kicked by a cripple.”
“Shut up!”
I’ve fallen silent, caught off guard.
Stanley’s breathing hard, brandishing the cane like a sword, teeth clenched. He and Draco—TJ—move in little jerks; TJ lurches at him, and Stanley jabs him in the stomach with the cane. “I’m going to shove that thing up your ass!” TJ growls. He glares at the twins. “Help me, you dumb fucks!”
“Nah,” one says, leaning against the other, “this is funny.”
TJ is panting, eyes bugging out with rage. He lunges at Stanley again, and Stanley swings his cane. It whistles through the air, but this time TJ ducks, avoiding it. He catches the cane and yanks, and Stanley staggers. With a sweep of one arm, TJ knocks the cane from his grasp. Stanley swings a fist, and TJ’s head snaps to one side. For a second, they’re both a blur of movement, then TJ kicks him in the stomach, hard.
Stanley goes down, lands on his arm, and cries out. His forehead bounces off the pavement. In the next instant, TJ kicks Stanley’s ribs and stomps on his arm. I hear a crack, and Stanley cries out.
I go cold inside.
The twins aren’t laughing anymore. “Hey, c’mon, TJ. You don’t have to—”
“Fuck you!” TJ brays. “You want to stand there and watch? Watch this.” He raises his boot again, about to bring it down on Stanley’s face, and Stanley curls up, covering his head with both arms.
I lunge. White noise fills my head. Beneath the roar of static, someone is screaming.
When the red curtain lifts, TJ is on the pavement, on his back, gasping and choking. I’m on top of him, my hands locked around his throat, thumbs pressing into his trachea. Crimson stains his pale neck, and I taste blood on my tongue, bright and coppery. His ear is bleeding.
Hands grab me from above, and I snap at them. The twins seize my arms and drag me away.
TJ lurches to his feet and runs away, making sobbing, panting sounds, one hand pressed to his ear. The twins throw me to the ground, then stand there a minute, as if they’re not sure what to do next. One of them looks at me, with my blood-smeared mouth and bloodstained fingertips, and mutters, “Christ. Let’s just get out of here.”
They turn and run after TJ. Their pounding footsteps fade as their forms melt into the shadows.
I climb to my feet, breathing hard. My hoodie is torn. Blood stains my shirt and my chin and my lips, but I don’t know how much of it is mine and how much is TJ’s. I wipe one sleeve across my face.
The road is dark and quiet, painted in moonlight and shadows. Stanley is curled on the pavement, cradling his arm.
Slowly I approach and crouch beside him. He looks up at me. His breathing is labored, his face ashen. “My arm is broken.” His voice sounds oddly calm. Blood soaks through the sleeve of his coat. There’s a rip in the fabric, and something is sticking out through the blood-drenched shirt beneath. Something white and sharp.
Dizziness rolls over me. I close my eyes for a moment, regaining control. “I’m going to call an ambulance.”
He shakes his head. “Just drive me to the hospital.” His voice is very soft, his eyes drowsy and heavy lidded. Everything about this seems wrong. There’s a bone sticking out through his skin. He should be screaming, but instead he looks like he’s about to drift off to sleep.
“Stanley . . .”
“Ambulances are expensive.” He smiles—an eerie, distant smile. “It’s not as bad as it looks.”
He’s not losing consciousness. He’s not bleeding to death; he hasn’t lost that much. It’s just endorphins, flooding his system, numbing him to the pain and putting him into a drug-like trance. But it’s still terrifying. It feels like he’s floating away to a place where I can’t reach him.
“I’ll get the car,” I say.
I sit in the waiting room, shoulders hunched, arms crossed tightly over my chest. Hours have gone by. As soon as we arrived, the nurses rushed Stanley to the surgical unit to reset the bone. As far as I know, he’s still there.
Someone touches my shoulder, and I jerk upright. A young, bespectacled Asian man, probably a nurse, hovers over me. “It’ll be a while,” he says. “Even after he gets out of surgery, they won’t release him for another day or two.”
“I want to see him.”
The nurse hesitates. “What’s your relationship to him?”
What do I say? How can I sum it up in a few words? My mind is a mass of fog; I try to think, but it’s like trying to hold water in my fingers. “I’m his friend.” As the word leaves my mouth, I feel that I’ve failed Stanley.
“You can come back tomorrow during visiting hours,” the man says. “He won’t be up to receiving visitors until then, anyway.”
I shake my head. “I’ll stay.”
“There’s nothing you can do right now, and he’s in good hands. Go home. Get some sleep.”
I glance down at the red smear on my shirt. If anyone noticed, they probably assumed it was from Stanley’s injury, but the taste of TJ’s blood still lingers faintly in my mouth, despite the countless times I rinsed it out in the sink of the hospital bathroom.
A feeling like that hasn’t come over me since . . .
Will Stanley even want to see me, after what he witnessed?
I leave the hospital, but I don’t go home. I curl up in the backseat of Stanley’s car and fall into a numb, empty sleep. I wake a few hours later, shivering, and turn the heat on.
The hospital windows glow, tiny yellow squares in the darkness. I imagine Stanley helpless and unconscious on a surgical table. White-masked faces. Gloves, fingers stained with his blood.
I stay in the car, drifting in and out of darkness, until morning.