Chapter 1

Life’s a bitch.

There’s really no other way to describe it. It’s a complete hit-or-miss clusterfuck that’ll leave you guessing at every twist and turn; a coin toss with each side having its own pros and cons. If someone tells you that they’ve got this all figured out, they’re lying. Nothing is ever truly certain. It’s constantly shifting and moving around, changing up the rules of the game at any and every opportunity possible. Think of it like a magician playing tricks on an unsuspecting audience. Their “magic” is merely an illusion they’ve conjured up for your entertainment. You’re not pulling the strings here—they are. They’re the ones using circumstance and mind games to fool you into thinking that they’ve summoned powers beyond them to achieve the impossible when, in actuality, they’ve just hidden a trap door in the table underneath their hat, or dealt the deck in a way that ensured their card is the one you’ll pick. Reality is the puppeteer, and you the poor marionette.

When you’re human, the mindfuckery of it all is manageable. You can cope with it because there are ways of explaining the seemingly unexplained—science, religion, personal beliefs, et cetera and so forth. The unknown is known because of the will of your mind and the determination buried deep within your soul. There are laws and morals, rights and wrongs. There is always something to blame, something to credit, and something to attribute to. Thinkers and doers have shaped the way humanity interacts with the world around them so that you can go about your day without having an existential crisis every minute or so. Reality isn’t a stranger; it’s a friend. A dear friend you know quite well.

Unless, of course, you’re one of us.

Who are we? Well, you ought to know, since you’re the one reading this book. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? You know the truth, but not because you were in-the-know from day one. Maybe your family has no ties to anything of this. Maybe you were completely oblivious to this other world until it decided to rear its ugly head into your life like a speeding school bus coming out of left field to run your ass over for the sake of comedic shock factor. Or, perhaps, one part of your family knew but didn’t have the heart to tell you. And, because of such reluctance, you had this part of yourself hidden away until you were old enough to understand. Whatever your situation or the details surrounding it is, all of it boils down to you not having somebody kind and knowledgeable enough to guide you through this terrifying yet wonderful new world. You didn’t start out with a person in your corner that can help you understand the unfathomable power coursing through every fiber in your being. But now you do, and there’s a very high chance that you’re kind of…freaking out about it. So much so that you probably don’t know how to reconcile with it. Hence why you now turn to us for a solution.

Let’s be real brutal here—this book can’t give you all the answers to all of your questions about what we are and how it fits into the grand scheme of things. Honestly, some of us are still trying to piece together the bigger picture, even after everything that’s happened. For the time being, though, we can tell you with the utmost certainty that being a Walker and/or a Weaver isn’t as glamorous as it may seem. Every step of the way, you’re constantly stuck in a battle between the life you want to have and a fate you must follow in order to survive. You’ll be stuck with a weight on your shoulders, trying to live up to a legacy that’s been haphazardly thrown into your hands. You’ll try to grasp at the gravity of your situation, only to end up searching for some scapegoat to pile all this blame and guilt onto because you might not like the answer you’ll get. Say goodbye to whatever morals you have now because your sense of right and wrong is about to be thrown out the window, alongside the internal radar that helped you determine who to trust and who to go to. This new reality you’ve stumbled upon? It’s your one-way ticket to a limbo of confusion—AKA, an absolute trainwreck you won’t ever get off of until you find out the capital-t Truth. A truth that, even if you find it, still won’t satisfy the curious cat in you.

Suffice to say, your life is going to get a lot more complicated than it already is. Or…not as much, who knows.

At this point, it’s plausible to say that you’re this close to saying “fuck this shit” and finding a way to lead a normal life. Maybe you want to block out all the weird and borderline paranormal crap that happens to you, and pour all your attention and care into the mundane happenings you’re used to. Maybe you want to force yourself to believe in whatever lies you were told about who you are or where you come from. Maybe you’re on the verge of removing yourself entirely from this sticky situation by moving places and/or cutting ties with whoever is involved in this whole mess. No matter what your methods are, the intent is clear: you can’t handle the truth behind the person you thought you were, and now you want to convince yourself that it’s not really true by any means necessary. This is where we come in. Running from your problems may seem like a pretty good option when it first comes to mind, but it’s actually the most dumbass move you could possibly pull. You (for lack of better phrasing) need to suck it up and face the goddamn music. Living in denial isn’t the right way to go about things. Shunning a major part of who you are is detrimental, not only for your well-being but also your peace of mind. To survive in our world, one has to accept that being “normal” is a subjective myth, that living an “ordinary” life isn’t an option anymore. Unless you want to end up royally screwing yourself over, coming to terms with the person you are and always will be is the only way to go about this. And, once you do, it gets easier. Not at first, but eventually. The sun must set in order to rise again, after all.

If you still don’t believe us—if you still can’t comprehend the fact that the lore and legends you grew up with are real and that you have the power to keep them in check—don’t take our word for it. Let the story do the talking. Keep on reading, and you’ll find exactly what you’re looking for.

Good luck, and try to keep your sanity mostly intact. It’s going to help you out in the long run.

Up until several months ago, Thea Rousseau-Capello was just some random kid attending an uppity private school nestled near the concrete jungle known as San Francisco, California.

Like the vast majority of students (or prisoners, if you wanted to be extra cynical about it) at the Narcisa Goodwin Preparatory Academy of San Pablo Bay, she was considered a “troubled kid” by most people’s standards. And, honestly? Thea couldn’t blame them. The past several or so years of her life were spent moving around the hellish circus known as the United States of America, getting endlessly pulled, kicked, or transferred out of countless schools since the tender age of five years old. Thea was always the newbie; the fresh meat no one really knew but were dying to know everything about, including if she was punching bag material. No matter where she went, no matter who dominated the halls of whatever educational facility she wound up in, the focus of every rumor mill and the apple of every judgemental eye was her more often than not. It was clockwork, the way her peers shoved their noses into her business ‘til they got bored with the info they were practically hounding her for just moments prior. Thea never knew who to talk to or who to hang around because everyone was either a stranger, a gossip, a jerk-ass, or some fucked-up combo of the three. And, even if she did know, it never really worked out in the end because Thea always had to be ready to pack her bags and haul ass over to someplace new. The only thing that could afford the rent in her mind was where she was heading next and how she could avoid trouble as much as possible this time around. The chances of doing anything a normal kid did—like getting invited to slumber parties or hitting up the mall or going buck wild down at the local park—were slim to none. What’s the point in letting anybody into her life when she would inevitably walk out of theirs? Better to just burn those bridges before somebody gets thrown off of them.

Now, don’t get it twisted; Thea’s way of living was no laundry list of shitty tragedies that called for extreme brooding and cringe-inducing angsting. Sure, some of the places she moved to weren’t ideal. And yeah, she really wished her dad didn’t have such long shifts and so few days off. But she had a roof over her head, food in her stomach, and clothes on her back. Thea was one of the lucky ones—those who didn’t have to worry about the means or methods of their survival 24/7 and could (for the most part) live a little. In spite of her family’s pseudo-nomadic lifestyle or her own self-imposed isolation, Thea had no objections to where she was or how she was doing. Really, it wasn’t until last May that this sense of satisfaction started to decay, right when her life took a turn for the absolute worse.

It was the tail-end of the second semester; a week or so before the end of the school year and the start of summer vacation, when everyone at Goodwin began locking into review-mode in anticipation for final exams. Thanks to an unforeseen miracle, the entire sixth grade class was going to review for their finals in social studies by going on a field trip to this ancient history showcase being hosted at the Palace of Fine Arts. It was a full-day excursion, where they’d be checking out some old-as-balls artifacts while relating said artifacts to whatever historical event or figure they learned about in class. Usually, Thea wasn’t the type to get all hyped up about stuff like this, since she and field trips tended to be a pretty crappy combo. Crazy shit always went down whenever she was on a field trip, even when Thea was literally doing nothing whatsoever that could plausibly trigger absolute chaos. From accidentally getting the whole class separated from their chaperones to somehow freeing all the birds from their enclosure at the zoo, Thea was misfortune’s unwilling bitch. With such a glittering track record, you would think she’d be playing it safe for once by noping out and hanging back at Goodwin. But no. Instead of chilling in the comforts of her dorm room, studying for tests like the math final (despite knowing for a fact that she was going to flunk that shit, full stop), she was here—on one of two Goodwin buses cruising down the 101, firmly seated and completely surrounded by her classmates as they made their way towards the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge. Why? Because this particular field trip was spearheaded by none other than Mr. Yılmaz, Goodwin’s world history and earth/physical science teacher.

Mr. Yılmaz was this young guy in a tricked-out wheelchair, with shaggy brown hair that was in a state of perpetual bedheadness and an affinity-bordering-on-addiction for coffee. He looked more like a college student fresh out of high school than an actual teacher, thanks to his babyish face and the more-casual-than-business style of his outfits. That “older than you think” image was definitely not helped by the fact that the dude was known for keeping his cool in any situation he found himself in. Always, without fail, he maintained that bright smile of his while going about his lesson plans or whatever, even in the face of rowdy students and pissed-off co-workers. Out of all the teachers Thea’s had before, Mr. Yılmaz was certainly the most…unconventional of them all. You wouldn’t know it at first if you only had his science classes, which were filled with PowerPoint notes, various labs and experiments, and weekly homework assignments. But, the moment you entered his world history class, you’d know. There were no formal tests or quizzes, no required notes to take down. All Mr. Yılmaz ever did was give lectures disguised as stories and had the class debate on said not-lectures like they were conversation starters for a casual chat between friendly acquaintances, cracking jokes and going off into random tangents all the while. Each historical figure was nothing more than a character with an assigned role, the countries and cities they lived in a backdrop to the epic tale. And, the kicker? Everybody learned something in his class, be it educational or philosophical. It didn’t matter if you were the “gifted” kid or the “slow” one; whether it was something that helped you get by in school or just life in general, you learned it through Mr. Yılmaz. Full stop. Add in the fact that his class felt like a breeze to Thea (which, mind you, was a feat all on its own), and you could bet your sweet ass that she would be down for anything to do with Mr. Yılmaz. Even if it meant going on a field trip he was chaperoning, which was a sure-fire way to get Thea into a world of trouble without much effort.

With her body pressed into her seat and eyes glued to nothing/everything speeding past the window, Thea tried to convince herself that this trip would turn out okay. If the fact that the only teacher she liked at Goodwin was leading the whole thing couldn’t get her to chill the fuck out, then maybe the lack of sit-downs with a dean or visits to the headmaster’s office could do the trick. By some random stroke of luck, for the first time in what was probably forever, Thea had spent the year thus far avoiding the ire of the faculty. Barring the few detentions and scoldings she had here and there, no threat of suspension or expulsion hung over her head like a sword tethered to the ceiling by a thin thread. She should honestly be okay. At the very least, nothing questionable was going to happen on this trip—not to her and certainly not to anybody else. Although, then again, her track record was never the greatest. The second things were starting to look up for her, trouble would inevitably drop in and send her careening towards Crapsackville, USFU. All’s fair in life-fuckery and war, Thea supposed.

During the drive, Wyatt Dickson and his gang of obnoxious douchebags held nothing back. From their seats at the very back of the bus, they tossed paper wads and miscellaneous snack items around like haphazard missiles, shouting half-baked insults at nobody in particular while laughing their asses off like brain-dead hyenas hopped up on the best idiot drugs their daddies’ credit cards can buy.

A common theme amongst most of the kids attending Goodwin was that the only reason they were here in the first place was because of how little their parents cared about whatever it was they thought was wrong with them. And Wyatt Dickson—the one and only son of Harris Dickson Jr., a proud member of Goodwin’s board of trustees—was no exception. Thea might’ve felt bad for him, if that boy wasn’t the biggest dickhead she’s probably ever met. From bullying the smart kids into doing his homework for him so that his grades weren’t completely abysmal, to kissing ass with social butterflies that gave him the impression of being a people-person like his socialite mommy-dearest, Dickson knew how to use people to both his advantage and his amusement. The guy was a user, a genuine leech who got off on making your life miserable in every way possible. The sad part? You couldn’t do jack shit about it because he made sure no one got any bright ideas about kicking him down a notch. All it took was one phone-call home and you’d be history.

Thea tore her gaze away from the window and scanned the bus. Outside of Dickson and his shitheaded gang, everybody else was going about their usual business. Headphones were either in both ears or only one. Eyes occupied themselves with phone screens, windows, or another person’s face. Conversations ranged from upcoming assignments and final exams to summer plans and the usual middle school gossip. If anyone was fazed by Dickson’s antics, it would be the ones getting hit by the projectiles or close enough to him to hear every dirty remark that was spat out of his mouth. Which, unfortunately for Thea, included her and her best friend Chrys Kiyonabe.

Chrys sat close to Thea, side-eyeing Dickson every now and then before returning to the comic book his nose was previously buried in. For someone who pretty much became the first person Thea thought was worth befriending, Chrys didn’t look like much—warm, peachy skin that had a sparse cluster of moles across his face, a scrawny body with gangly limbs, and unruly hair that looked as though he dyed it a dirty blonde but was now letting the original dark brown grow back in. If you walked through the halls of Goodwin during passing period, you wouldn’t be able to immediately pick him out in the sea of juvenile delinquents. Really, the only thing that made him remotely unique was the fact that one of his legs was a prosthetic one. Other than that, Chrys was a mostly quiet kid that often faded into the background. Sounds like an easy target for assholes like Dickson, right? Well…no. Despite his outward appearance, picking on Chrys would be the most dumbass decision you could potentially make. The dude was tougher and more ballsy than he looked. Whenever Dickson was on yet another rampage, you could bet serious money on Chrys being the first one to stand up and give the douche a piece of his mind. That’s what drew Thea to him in the first place—if anybody was going to be her friend, then it might as well be the kid who could stand up to bullies no sweat and give people an actual reason to talk behind their back.

Another mangled wad of soaked bread, peanut butter, and marshmallow fluff slammed into the back of Thea’s head, quickly followed by Dickson flashing a shit-eating grin her way. She gritted her teeth, but kept her gaze locked firmly on the seat in front of her. It was moments like this where Thea wondered why she even bothered to humor that annoying shithead of a moron in the first place…only to be viciously, inevitably reminded that it didn’t matter if she ignored him or not. Wyatt Dickson was an attention whore with the perseverance of a mountain. As long as he had some semblance of a say, or the tiniest sliver of an excuse up his sleeve, he made it his goddamn mission to ensure that no one outright ignored him or prevented his actions from getting under their skin. Whether she liked it or not, Thea had to match his energy so that he could get his thirty seconds of self-satisfaction and she a moment of peace before his next tirade. But, right now? Thea was having a hard time finding any fucks to give or enough motivation for her to wail on Dickson like she usually would. Her being on pins and needles, just waiting for the other shoe to drop and send this whole damn field trip down the shitter, coupled with the lack of sleep she’s been having lately thanks to all her cramming for finals drained her of the energy she needed to retaliate. She couldn’t muster the will to cuss him out, let alone give him a taste of his own medicine by throwing her lunch at him. If anything, she just wished Dickson—

“—would shut the fuck up and go to hell already,” Thea hissed through gritted teeth, mostly to herself. “God, he is so fuckin’ annoying.”

Chrys sighed, lowering the comic in his hands so that he could turn his head towards her.

“What else is new?” He rolled his eyes, then snorted. “At least—”

Whatever Chrys was gunning to say next died on his tongue, killed off by the remains of Dickson’s fluffernutter sandwich as it smacked his head, sticking to the spot right where the crown met the top and jutting out like a squishy, deformed horn.

“Love the new look, Kiyonabe!” Dickson hollered, cackling like the goddamn Wicked Witch of the West. “Half-eaten food suits a crippled chink like you!”

A growl slipped through Thea’s clenched jaw, only to be overwhelmed by the round of grating laughter coming from the punk-ass posse. Her hands dug themselves into her thighs, fingers curled in a way that let her feel her nails through the stiff material of the plaid nightmare she had for a skirt. (Which, side note: Whoever decided that sunshine-yellow, traffic cone-orange, and dirt-brown were a good color combo to use as part of the pattern design for the bottom portion of Goodwin’s uniform needed to have their ass handed over to the fashion police, pronto.) Yet, the rest of her stayed still, glued to her seat as her eyes met Chrys’s.

“Dude,” she deadpanned.

Her best friend merely shrugged in response, pushing the sandwich chunk off of him with a lazy swipe of his hand.

“I know,” he said, “his insults are getting shittier by the minute. Is he, like, physically incapable of not saying a single slur every time he opens that big fucking mouth of his or what?”

She clicked her tongue, tossing a quick stink-eye over towards the dickhead in question. “Probably.”

“Whatever.” Shaking his head, Chrys held up his comic book and flipped a page. “I’m not gonna let his petty ass ruin our last field trip of the year.”

Thea arched a brow as one corner of her mouth pulled her lips back in a half-frown.

“Chrys, this our only field trip of the year.”

He chuckled, fixing his gaze on whatever panel he was on at the moment. “Same diff!”

And, just like that, it was over. Chrys was dead to the world, every bit of his attention devoted to his comic book as he became so immersed in it that it would probably take the bus getting into an accident to tear him away from it. Dickson and his crew had (thankfully) turned their snack-armed assault away from her and Chrys, now targeting whoever else was in their general vicinity. Which left Thea to her own devices, accompanied only by a long, nearly inaudible sigh. Her eyes flitted over to the window once more, watching the Golden Gate Bridge in all its not-golden glory loom overhead as the drone of the bus’s engine grumbled in her ears.

Looking back, this might’ve been the last sliver of true normalcy that had been graciously granted to Thea before all hell broke loose. From here on out, it was only going to get worse.

When they got to the showcase, Mr. Yılmaz led the charge.

He rode up front on his wheelchair, guiding the horde of 90-something sixth graders through the large galleries as swarms of tourists and locals roamed around the exhibits. Voices and footsteps echoed as one as Thea and her class passed by various pieces of ancient artifacts and period-inspired art pieces, either out in full display or locked safely inside glass cases. They ranged from stone statues of half-naked people and intricately-woven tapestries, to immaculate recreations of historical garments and various types of weapons that were so well-preserved that you could pick one up and use it in battle right away. Mr. Yılmaz rambled on about each object they came across, his voice high in enthusiasm and booming with delight. His hands moved at a rapid pace, waving and pointing frantically at the empty air as he spoke. It was as if the man was a heated conductor, guiding an orchestra that only he could see through a particularly high-tempo song. Thea couldn’t help but smile at her teacher’s antics. If she had a nickel for every time Mr. Yılmaz got fired up during a lecture, she’d be ten times richer than Wyatt Dickson and all the other spoiled brats at Goodwin.

After a few more minutes of wandering, they gathered around a large slab of white marble in the Ancient Greece exhibit. To Thea, it looked like it belonged to some old temple, judging by the various scenes carved into the stone. Some showed the gods chilling atop blocky thrones, with Zeus at the center and the rest of the Olympians flanking his sides. Others showed freaky monsters like the Minotaur and the Chimera terrorizing humans, only to have their asses handed to them by heroes such as Theseus and Bellerophon. Basically, a lot of the old Greek myths they covered in class were present. Mr. Yılmaz quickly parked his wheelchair by a particular section of the carvings near the bottom of the slab. With one hand pointing at the various inscriptions on the stone and the other continuing to conduct his invisible ensemble, he started breaking down whatever myth was being depicted there.

Thea leaned in, straining to hear whatever Mr. Yılmaz was saying and maybe re-learn a thing or two. But the not-so subtle whispers of the kids around her drowned out her teacher’s voice, filling her ears with mindless chatter she had no intention of trying to comprehend. Each time she tried to tune them out and put her focus back on Mr. Yılmaz, her mind changed course and veered towards the first non-adult voice that caught its attention.

“…think this is gonna be on the test?”

“—so fucking stupid, dude—”

“…what’s up with all these naked people, anyways?”

“Holy shit, look at that guy’s micropenis—!”

The urge to turn around and demand that everybody shut the hell up was a strong one, with the words already forming on the tip of Thea’s tongue. But, as tempting as it was, she knew trying to get a bunch of bored-ass kids to behave on a boring-ass field trip was a lost cause those before her had failed consistently and a waste of energy she had no interest in spending. She was more likely to fly to the moon than convince her classmates to quiet down for once. Really, the only thing Thea could do was bite her lip and continue on with the losing battle that was forcing herself to block them out. As she did, her gaze drifted to one of three other chaperones on this trip—Mrs. Drake. Who, as per usual, was giving Thea the evil-eye for the upteenth time today.

Halfway through the year, the sixth graders’ last English teacher had gotten into a freak car accident over the winter break. Nothing too major happened to the guy, except for a few broken bones and a month-long stay at the hospital. Realistically, Mr. Jackson should’ve been back in business once he was all healed up. Except, for some reason, he decided that he didn’t want to teach anymore. So, when he checked himself into early retirement, the school replaced him with Mrs. Drake. She was this sweet-sounding but mean-looking lady from out of state, who wore a snakeskin leather jacket every single day, despite it being a major violation of Goodwin’s dress code for faculty members and a god-awful fashion statement that would have PETA foaming at the mouth on every social media account they had. Her features were a perpetual RBF; pouty lips curled into a deep scowl, sharp brows naturally arched and so close-set that they looked furrowed, and narrowed eyes that had this dark, glazed-over look that always made Thea sweat bullets if she had the misfortune of catching Mrs. Drake’s attention. No matter who you were—be it a brat like Wyatt Dickson, or a kid just trying to make it through the year like Chrys—no one was safe from the old hag’s fury. She hated every kid at Goodwin. Every goddamn kid. Thus, when it came to dealing out detentions and dishing out reprimands, Mrs. Drake did not discriminate.

Now, Thea was never really intimidated by any of the scarily strict teachers she had in the past. At the end of the day, they were essentially all bark and no bite. She honestly didn’t give a shit whenever they chewed her ass out over her “misdemeanors” or whatever. It wasn’t like she was ever going to see them again, so why bother getting all worked about it? But Mrs. Drake was different. Way different. From the moment Thea met the lady, she knew that all her past teachers had nothing on her. There was just something about the way Mrs. Drake acted that dug deep. Maybe it was how she zeroed in on Thea’s erratic transfers that got under her skin. Maybe it was the way she talked about how…“out of place” Thea was compared to her classmates, be it by the way she looked or the circumstances that brought her to Goodwin. Or maybe it was the kinds of detentions Mrs. Drake gave Thea that made her stomach churn, since the lady always seemed to save her most harsh punishments for her and her alone. While her classmates got stuck with wiping all the graffiti off of all the literature textbooks and helping the janitors clean up after lunch for a whole week, she was forced into either playing housekeeper of the dormitories or becoming Mrs. Drake’s begrudging student aid for an entire month. Their detentions practically paled in comparison to the crap Mrs. Drake put Thea through. She would much rather fling herself into the sun than be at her English teacher’s mercy, let alone in the same room as her. Had her admiration for Mr. Yılmaz not won out over her fear-filled hatred of Mrs. Drake, her ass would be pouring over her pre-algebra notes instead subjecting herself to her English teacher’s harrowing glare.

Somewhere along the lecture, just when it looked like half the class was about to fall asleep right where they stood, Wyatt Dickson and his friends spotted something worth their waning attention. Amidst the images of regal gods and ass-kicking heroes, there laid a scene that felt a little more…intimate than the rest. It was located near the middle of the slab, depicting a bearded man with a youngish-looking girl. The maiden—cloaked in a long veil, surrounded by a horde of butterflies, and crowned by a wreath of six-petaled flowers—peered down at the man standing before her from her perch atop a three-legged stool. In one hand, she held a torch-tipped scepter that was as long as she was tall. The other offered a small bowl towards the man, who reached out for it with the reverence of a worshipper praying to their god. While Thea saw a mortal consulting some oracle, Dickson and company had…other ideas.

“Fuck, Daddy,” one of them—Kyler Thompson, if she remembered right—gasped out, doing his best imitation of a girl moaning her head off. “This bowl’s too heavy! Can you help me lift it?”

“Of course, baby girl,” another—Aaron…something—muttered back. He tried to deepen his voice, only for it to sound like he was holding back a burp. “Anything for my favorite little fucktoy.”

That last part had Dickson throwing a fist over his mouth, trying and failing to stop himself from cracking up. His merry band of bitch-ass bastards then took that as their cue to follow him into muffled hysterics. At this point, her patience had finally come to a pyrrhic end. Nothing held Thea back as she whipped her head around to snap at the boys behind her.

“Can you not?”

As one would expect if they took stock of the shitty luck she tended to have, it came out louder than Thea intended. Her yell rebounded off the walls and swelled across the room, silencing droves of conversations as all eyes landed on her. A handful of them were just stunned showcase-goers, who spared nothing but a cursory glance at the Goodwin group before moving on. The rest, though, belonged to her snickering classmates and disapproving teachers. They waited with smirking lips, disgruntled frowns, and curious stares for whatever would be Thea’s next move.

Her stomach churned in the quiet that followed, quickening the pace of her heart. Fortunately (or, unfortunately?) for her, Mr. Yılmaz—who had paused mid-sentence the moment her voice rose above his—came to the rescue. He cleared his throat and locked his gaze on hers, a single brow raised in question.

“Is there something you wish to share with the class, Miss Capello?”

Heat filled Thea’s cheeks. She ducked her head down, opting to examine the tiled floor beneath her Converse-clad feet.

“N-No, sir,” she mumbled out.

He hummed, soft and thoughtful, before pointing towards the slab. “Then, can you perhaps tell us what myth is being illustrated here?”

Thea’s head snapped up, eyes wide and nerve-wracked. A bullshit answer had already worked its way out of her brain and into her mouth, just seconds away from spilling out. But—when she followed her history/science teacher’s finger and got a good, solid look at what he was pointing to—that prickling heat in her face faded, replaced almost immediately by a deep sigh and a rush of cooling relief.

“That’s Kronos and his brothers killing their dad, sir,” Thea told him.

Though he nodded in confirmation, there was a faint frown playing on Mr. Yılmaz’s lips, as if what she had just said wasn’t satisfying enough for him.

“Indeed it is,” he said, “but would you care to elaborate?”

“U-Uh…well…” Thea ran a hand through her hair, tugging at her coily locks. “Kronos’s dad was the primordial god Yer…Yeray…?”

“Ouranos,” Mr. Yılmaz supplied.

“Y-Yeah, him…” She chuckled, sheepishly. “Ouranos was the son of Khaos, the primordial goddess of creation. When he and his sister/wife Gaea were born, Khaos gave them control over the entire universe. Which…um…”

A cough, low and curt. In her head, Thea wanted to say, “Which was probably the most shittiest idea ever conceived, considering the fact that he was a major-league asshole that hated his kids for some fucking reason other than to be a complete douche-rocket of a dad”. But that probably wasn’t the answer Mr. Yılmaz was looking for, so instead she said—

“…didn’t really work out in the end.” A pause, which was followed up by a shrug of her shoulders. “Because he royally pissed off Gaea and lost his right to rule.”

Mr. Yılmaz leaned forward, resting his hands against his thighs. “How so?”

Thea bit her lip, racking her brain for the whole story. This was one of the first myths they covered when they started the Ancient Greece unit, and probably one of the few things she learned that she could recall with confidence. Mythology and folklore were her jam, after all.

“He…he hurt kids,” she answered. “Out of all of them, Ouranos hated the elder Cyclopes and the Hundred-Handed Ones the most. All because he thought they were ‘too ugly’ to be called his sons.”

At that, Thea rolled her eyes and scoffed.

“So, thanks to such petty reasoning, he went behind Gaea’s back and locked them away in the darkest depths of Tartarus. Which, effectively, made him the very first guy in Greek mythology to earn the wrath of a woman scorned. In her rage, she went to their remaining kids—the Titans—and asked them to make Ouranos pay for what he did. Though most of them weren’t all that willing to face off with their dad, they eventually caved in when the youngest of ‘em—Kronos—personally swore to take down Ouranos for the sake of avenging both his older brothers and Gaea.”

She ran a hand through her hair again, this time letting her fingers comb through her tight curls.

“Honestly, the Titans should’ve seen his baby-eating ways coming from a mile away. Like…come on. Not only was Ouranos both the frickin’ king of the universe and the literal personification of the thing that is constantly hanging over their heads, but he could also toss ya into monster hell with zero effort. They had every right to be scared of him because, if they failed, who knows what he would’ve done in retaliation. But Kronos? He wasn’t afraid; he was frickin’ eager to carry out his mom’s will. He practically jumped at the chance to wail on his dad, all ‘cuz he hated the heartless schmuck. If that doesn’t scream ‘unstable guy with serious issues’, then I’m a frickin’ nymph!”

Next to her, Chrys snorted, failing to stifle a laugh behind the back of his hand. Thea couldn’t help but giggle along.

“But that’s not even the most messed-up part about all this,” she said after another quick laugh. “No, that honor goes to how Kronos decided to punish his dad for his misdeeds.”

“Which was to…?” her history/science teacher prompted.

“To have Gaea lure Ouranos into a trap,” Thea explained. “A trap where, as the other Titans held him down, Kronos used a scythe to chop their dad’s penis off—”

Most of the boys groaned and hissed at that, their hands covering their crotches as if they could feel their dicks being stabbed at.

“—before slicing him up into a kajillion bloody pieces—”

Some kid behind Thea started gagging in disgust.

“—and tossing the remains away into the sea,” she finished at last. “But, before being diced up like a vegetable, Ouranos told Kronos about a prophecy that basically said he was gonna meet the same gruesome fate as him.”

“Why?” Mr. Yılmaz asked.

“Er…karmic punishment?” Though this was her answer, it came out sounding more like a question, complete with a wavering voice and a nervous smile. “For, like, killing another family member. That’s why Zeus and his siblings were able to overthrow the Titans. Just like how Ouranos was deposed after treating his kids horribly, Kronos met his end when his paranoia drove him over the edge and turned him into Ouranos II.”

A wry chuckle soon escaped Thea’s lips at this.

“Kinda funny how all this happened just because Ouranos couldn’t be a decent husband or father. Which, I guess, is Greek mythology in a nutshell. Stuff happens because somebody just didn’t care enough to act like a decent person.”

Despite their reactions from earlier, the whole class was clocked out. Yawns and deep breaths filled the still air, accompanied by blank stares and glazed-over eyes. Which, in all honesty, didn’t take Thea by surprise. Unless you were a major mythology geek, you wouldn’t find any of this crap she was spewing remotely interesting. Really, she was more impressed with the fact that none of them had pulled out their phones at this point, or ducked behind passing showcase-goers to wander away from the group. Either they didn’t care enough to try, or they still had enough mediocre energy left in them to behave themselves.

The same couldn’t be said for Wyatt Dickson, though.

He glanced over his shoulder and shot a pointed look at his friends. “As if this shit’s gonna be useful in life,” he hissed. “Nobody will fucking care if you know why that one Titan dude stabbed his dad in the cock or whatever. What’s the goddamn point of learning about these dumb-as-fuck stories, anyways?”

Thea clenched her jaw, hands curling up into fists at her sides. Before she could turn around again to tell Dickson off, Mr. Yılmaz looked over at the douche in question and beat her to it.

“An intriguing point, Mr. Dickson,” he said with a mischievous glint in his eyes. “Miss Capello, to paraphrase Mr. Dickson’s crudely-formed inquiry, what is the point in learning about the ancient Greeks and their gods? Why should young people like yourselves care about these, ah…‘dumb stories’?”

Despite the narrowing of his eyes, the look on his face that practically screamed “my father funds your paycheck, you cocky son of a bitch”, Dickson looked as though he was seconds away from bawling his eyes out in embarrassment. His complexion had shifted from the usual lily-white to a brighter tomato-red hue, while a copious amount of tears were building up in the corners of his eyes. If he was trying to look even remotely menacing, Thea wasn’t convinced. And neither were the other sixth graders of Goodwin Academy. At the blonde bastard’s expense, all it took was Chrys doubling over in a wheeze-bordering-on-a-squeak to set the rest of their classmates off, sending every last one of them into stomach-aching amusement.

Just when Thea was about to join in, Mr. Yılmaz cleared his throat, bringing her attention back to him. He was once again raising a brow at her, silently reminding her of the question he had just posed. That got her biting the inside of her bottom lip, trying to think of a good response. But all she got out was—

“I-I, uh…I’m…not sure of how to answer that, sir.”

Despite that, he laughed.

“Well, you answered my original question wonderfully, nonetheless. I’ll give you twelve points of extra credit, Miss Capello.” Mr. Yılmaz paused, giving the watch on his wrist a quick glance, then turned to Mrs. Drake and the other chaperones. “Would you look at that? It’s already time for lunch. Mrs. Drake, care to lead the children outside?”

The old hag gave him a curt nod. With a withering glare directed at her colleagues, she turned around and began marching towards the nearest exit. The class quickly followed suit, the pace varying from person to person. Some of Thea’s classmates walked as if they were in the middle of passing period, huddling close together as they talked to their friends. Some went on their phones and plugged in, trailing behind everybody as they dragged their feet across the tiled floors at a snail’s pace. The rest stayed close to Mrs. Drake and the chaperones, walking so fast that they were hot on their heels.

As they headed out of the exhibit, Dickson rammed a shoulder against Thea’s and shoved his way past her. The sudden push knocked her over—her feet tripping over themselves and sending her flailing forwards—only for Chrys to catch her arm before she could get a faceful of scuffed vinyl.

“Hey, douche-rocket,” Chrys called out. “Watch where you’re going!”

The blonde prick paused in his step, staring heated daggers at Chrys. Right as he took a step forward, Thea pulled her best friend behind her and met him halfway.

“Don’t even think about it,” she warned, emphasizing her point by jabbing a finger into Dickson’s chest. “Just piss off, dickhead.”

He looked at her for a couple of minutes, as if to give his tiny brain a moment to weigh his choices. Then, with a scrunch of his nose, Dickson scoffed out a breath. He flipped Thea off as he walked away, practically stomping towards the exit with his seething cronies in tow.

“What a bitch,” Chrys drawled once they were out of sight.

Thea let out a long sigh, rubbing the side of her forehead in annoyance.

“Just a few more days,” she said, placing a hand on her best friend’s upper arm. “Just a few more days ‘til we can kiss this shithole of a school fare-fucking-we—”

“Miss Capello, may I have a word with you?”

Thea and Chrys froze, whipping their heads around in confused unison. Mr. Yılmaz had pulled up right behind them, staring up at Thea with a slight frown on his face. He sat in his wheelchair with a pencil-straight back, his shoulders squared and arms crossed over his chest. Thea gulped. The look her teacher was sending her way made her stomach churn something fierce. Did he see what happened between her and Dickson just now, or was he about to get on her case for something else entirely? Thea never knew with him. Mr. Yılmaz was a man chock-full of surprises, be it happy or fucking concerning. One moment, he would be calling her up to his desk with a grim look on his face, like he was going to tell her that her days at Goodwin were finally numbered. The next, he’d ramble on about fuck-knows-what before giving Thea some kind of fantasy or sci-fi novel as a pat-on-the-back of sorts for something she did during a Socratic seminar. The only thing certain about him was that he’d be the very last person at Goodwin to give her detention, let alone a lecture about “proper conduct”.

She glanced over at Chrys and told him to wait for her outside. For a brief second, an anxiety-ridden look crossed his face when she said this: eyes gone saucer-wide, jaw clenched tight, shoulders tensed up some. And then, just as quickly as it came, the worry faded. He simply nodded his head and followed the class outside, sparing only a glance over his shoulder before he was out the door with the rest of them. Thea was half-tempted to call him back and ask what was that about, but Mr. Yılmaz was still staring at her with that nerve-wracking look, so the interrogation had to wait. With a deep breath, she turned to her history/science teacher and tossed him a strained smile.

“Yes, sir?” she asked in the most polite voice she could manage, her hands playing with the hem of her skirt.

At first, he said nothing, opting to just look at Thea with those bright eyes of his. Eyes that were as grey as sanded stone, gleaming like polished silver no matter what kind of lighting he was under. After half a school year taught under him, she concluded that—when it came to how emotive certain parts of him were—Mr. Yılmaz’s eyes were the most expressive. Whether they were lit up with glee, or bracing the warmth of concern, every look he gave you pulled you in until their intensity was all you could feel. And in this moment, as Thea looked back at him, she found an emotion she’s never seen smoldering in those eyes before. One that ramped up the tension coursing through her body, fraying her nerves and dragging her stomach six feet under.

Dread.

“You ought to think more about that,” Mr. Yılmaz said, finally breaking the silence between them.

Thea blinked. “About what?”

“About the significance of every myth and every historical event I have taught you in my class,” he answered, nodding his head back at the slab behind them, “and how your understanding of them will affect you and your outlook on the world around us.”

She tilted her head and made a face: furrowed brows and frowning lips, accompanied by a slight huff of breath.

“Sir, how can a bunch of old stories about stuff that’s never happened or hasn’t happened in a long time help me?” Thea shook her head, then waved a hand. “I-I mean, with all due respect, I don’t think anyone is gonna care if an eleven-year-old knows why certain gods did what they did or why some guy’s assassination caused the war to end all wars.”

The silvery gleam in Mr. Yılmaz’s eyes hardened into an iron-like glint. He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, keeping his gaze leveled with hers.

“What I teach you is vitally important, Miss Capello. The facts presented to you are only a fraction of the answers to your questions. You should never be satisfied with just the presentation of the supposed truth, nor should you be complacent with the outward appearance of our world and its inward problems.”

Her teacher then raised a hand and pointed a finger straight at her face.

“In order to survive, you must do more than have faith in what I have taught you. Question what you are told, especially when the reputability and reliability of the source fills you with doubt. Dig for the truth, even if everyone tells you to trust in what you already know. Only then will you understand how significant these old stories are to the narrative of your own.”

Thea simply stared back at him, her mouth pressed into a thin line.

Mr. Yılmaz always spouted shit like this, always saying that “true learning” isn’t about listening to your teachers and doing everything they say down to a T. He drilled it into her head that learning is about discovering the truth on your own terms and having revelations that open your mind up to new possibilities you’ve never thought about before, all while whoever is mentoring you points you in certain directions. He made Thea understand that the only way to be a “true student” is to be like fucking Socrates and question everything, even if you know the answer you’ll get is the kind of thing you don’t want to hear. To be honest, she would be lying to herself if she didn’t admit that this was some pretty solid advice. It’s just the way that Mr. Yılmaz treated her didn’t make a lick of sense. He had such high expectations for someone who didn’t give two shits about school or getting top marks in every subject. It was almost like he thought she was his star protégé, the one he could count on to go beyond what her peers did and answer every question he threw at the class. Which was probably the most absurd thing to expect out of a person like her. Thea was no cookie-cutter teacher’s pet, but she wasn’t a total dumbass either. She was average at best and mediocre at worst; not a genius, but also not brainless. Somewhere in between, allowing her to fly under the radar and graduate to the next grade with relative ease. What made him think she could understand half of the esoteric bullshit he babbled on about, Thea had no clue.

Sighing, she turned her head away from him, muttering out a promise or whatever to keep this in mind for next time. At that, Mr. Yılmaz’s eyes softened. He hummed out something noncommittal before motioning her to follow him out the door.

Outside, the whole class was spread out across the small park in front of the Palace of Fine Arts.

Most of her classmates were huddled together in groups, doing whatever they felt like doing for the break. Some fed the ducks and seagulls near the edges of the lake. Some wandered about with their phones in hand, typing away while chattering to their heart’s content. The rest occupied themselves with eating their lunch, either sitting in the grass or on the stone benches that were scattered around the park. Wyatt Dickson and his friends bragged about their summer plans from their spot on a bench near one of the entrances to the showcase, watching tourists walk past them while pelting pigeons with crumbled bits of Oreos. Mrs. Drake kept watch of everybody as she roamed around the park, smoking half a cigarette as her gaze shifted from student to student. Mr. Yılmaz had parked his wheelchair next to a bench close to the lake, drinking his semi-hourly cup of coffee while deep in conversation with the other chaperones.

Meanwhile, on a bench near the dome rotunda of the Palace that provided the perfect view of both the lake and the car-packed Baker Street, Thea leaned forward in her seat as she gazed out over the rippling waters, elbows resting atop her lap and hands propping up her head. On her right, Chrys sat with one leg tucked underneath him, while the other lazily swung back and forth in front of him.

“What did Mr. Yılmaz want?” her best friend asked as he sipped at his mini-carton of chocolate milk.

Thea let out a deep breath. She slumped her shoulders, letting herself fall back against the bench.

“Nothing, really,” she said with a shrug. “Just reminding me to keep on questioning shit and whatever.”

Chrys paused, blinking slowly. “That’s it?”

Thea rolled her eyes. “Yeah, that’s all we ever talk about. ‘Cept, this time, he told me I should think about how ‘vitally important’ his lessons are and how they’ll help me ‘survive’.”

Scoffing, she glared up at the partially cloudy skies with her lips tightly pursed in a sour pout.

“I still don’t get why he treats me like this, as if I got the grades to match the brains.” A hand was flung upwards, as if to swat away the thoughts swirling around in her head. “The hell do I look like, some Miss Honor-Roll-Starlet?”

“Maybe it’s because grades don’t determine how smart you are,” he said. Then, after chugging down the rest of his drink and putting the carton aside, he gave her a one-shoulder shrug. “Maybe Mr. Yılmaz thinks you got what it takes to keep up with him, so that’s why he does the things he does with you.”

“But why me, though?” Thea pressed on. “Why not you, or literally any other kid at Goodwin that would be in an honors class if they went to a normal school?”

Her best friend placed a hand on her shoulder, offering her a small smile.

“Because he thinks you’re something special, Thea.”

The second those words left his lips, she immediately nudged his hand off her, opting to lower her head and stare down at the concrete below her feet.

Special? Thea was nothing special. Take away the fact that she’s moved to so many different places in such a short amount of time that she can barely remember where she was born, and that her eyes were a mismatched mess that only gave assholes like Dickson ammo for whatever insults they had up their sleeves, and what was left? An eleven-year-old girl with average grades and a workaholic dad, who drifted from school to school like a bar-hopping alcoholic. She never got gold stars or invites to straight-A luncheons with the principal, nor pats on the back for being such a good kid and phone calls home praising her hard work. All she gets is a bum rap, a bad rep, stink-eyes in her peripheral, and scathing whispers behind her back. When she gets in trouble, it’s always kicked up to a fucking eleven because of course a kid like her would start shit. Who cares if she’s the one being harassed and getting smacked around? Girls like her shouldn’t fight back, shouldn’t get so loud and angry. Kids like her are always to blame, always the one stirring the pot and making mountains out of molehills. If she just kept her head down, didn’t talk in such a “vulgar” and “ghetto” way, then maybe she wouldn’t get into so much trouble. Maybe if she smiled more and listened to her elders, then maybe they’ll consider taking her side and give her bullies a stern talking to. Oh, but that’s just wishful thinking. Bullies like Dickson would never take the fall if they got caught. How could they? They were sweet, innocent angels that didn’t know any better. They didn’t have an ignorant, malicious bone in their bodies—their parents raised them to be better than that, after all! But Thea? She was the problem child; always in the wrong, always acting out and causing a scene. It didn’t matter if she was just trying to defend herself, or that she wasn’t the one that threw the first punch or slung the first word. Dickson was just being a kid, while Thea was being too sensitive. No. Matter. What.

If that was “special”, then she would love to see what her life would be like if she was something ordinary.

A deep breath, long and shaky. Thea turned her head, casting a sideways glance over at Chrys. The smile on his face had come undone, replaced by a clenched jaw and lips set in a deep scowl. His eyes then darted about, searching her face for something Thea couldn’t quite name. When his gaze found its way back to hers, he stared for a good beat of pure quiet before he released a deep breath of his own. He opened his mouth, something on the tip of his tongue, but then—

“Hey, Crap-hell-ho!”

Thea’s head shot up, her eyes meeting Wyatt Dickson’s mold-green ones for a split second before two whole bottles’ worth of cola got dumped onto her head. Like a tidal wave, it soaked her scalp ‘til her hair was matted down in a thick curtain of smoothed-out locks, dripping down her face while staining her once crisp-white blouse and gaudy-yellow sweater vest a dull, muddy brown.

“Fuck!”

She hissed, sharp and quick, throwing out her hands to shove Dickson aside as she jumped to her feet. Chrys was instantly at her side, holding her by her upper arms while Thea shot a heated glare in the dickhead’s direction. Though, much to her utter annoyance, it didn’t faze him in the slightest.

“Aw, look at the poor poodle,” the blonde sneered, voice faux-sweet. “Guess it’s wash day again for that stinking rat’s nest of yours.”

Amid Dickson’s hyena-on-crack cackles and his cronies wheezing their asses off, Chrys merely regarded them with a click of his tongue. He shifted his hands around, opting to wrap an arm around Thea while a fist was placed against his hip.

“Wow.” Her best friend arched a brow with a tilt of his head. “Is that really the best you could come up with?”

It was a freeze-frame record scratch, the way the laughter came to an instant stop. The douche squad went rigid, staring at Chrys with half-opened frowns and wide eyes worthy of a deer caught in the headlights. Dickson blinked, once then twice then three times more for good measure. By the time he finally opened his mouth to deliver whatever comeback his vapid brain had managed to hobble together, Chrys carried on, effectively shutting the blonde prick up as his lips curled into a mocking smirk.

“My expectations for him are always low,” he began, flitting his eyes over to her, “but holy fuck. Imagine thinking ‘poodle’ is a legit insult to hurl at somebody.”

The fire burning in Thea’s chest was snuffed out, replaced by a breezy smile and a chuckle-bordering-on-a-snort.

“Or sayin’ their hair’s a rat’s nest when yours be lookin’ like a fugly mop of pure grease,” she quipped back.

Chrys threw a hand up in the air, resting the back of it against his forehead. “Couldn’t be me!”

Dickson spluttered, mouth agape and head shaking vigorously, as if he was the one that got doused in soda.

“I-I…you…I’m—” He quickly cut himself off with a whine, stomping his foot hard against the concrete. “The fuck?!”

“Yes,” Chrys confirmed, his smirk widening into a toothy grin, “you are ‘the fuck’. Though, frankly, I’m more partial to ‘douche-rocket’ or ‘dumbass McGee’.”

“Oh, go fuck yourself, Kiyonabe!” The blonde prick huffed; the same sort of annoyed puff toddlers let out right before devolving into a major temper tantrum. “At least I’m not the one covered in soda pop!”

“And what about it?” Thea retorted. She held back a wince, trying her best to ignore the parts of her top that stuck to her like a second skin. “Ain’t like I’m gonna die or anything.”

Dickson huffed again, this time more throaty and nearly growl-like, but Thea paid him no mind. If he was looking to make her lose her shit and tear him a new one, the asshole needed to try harder than that. Spilled soda was a minor inconvenience at best and a slight annoyance at worst—nothing a little water and a couple of paper towels can fix. If anything, the whole jab at the grease trap he called his hair was a pretty solid reaction he could clap back on if he was aiming to start something. But, alas! Dickson didn’t have enough brain cells in that mirco-head of his to utilize subtle opportunities like that to his advantage. It was either harp on the obvious or recycle the same tired insults he’s used before.

As if Thea had time for that sort of bullshit.

She made a move to leave, pushing past Dickson while slamming her shoulder as hard as she could into his. (Payback, bitch.) The force of the blow knocked him back a couple of steps, but did nothing to stop his hand from lashing out and grabbing Thea by the collar of her blouse.

“Where the fuck do you think you’re going, skank?” he snarled, tugging back his hand with all his might.

Thea choked out a breath, her hands latching onto her collar, which was currently digging into the front of her neck like the rope of a noose. She jerked and thrashed around, putting her entire weight into breaking free from the asshole behind her, but all it did was get a callous laugh out of him.

“Awww! What’s wrong, Crap-hell-ho?” the douchebag asked, his voice a taunting sing-song. He tugged at her collar again, this time causing Thea to croak out in pain. “Don’t like me playing rough with you?”

‘Obviously, you fucking headass!’ was what Thea would’ve said if the pressure on her neck wasn’t making her retch up a storm while her lunch threatened to make a comeback. The only thing that managed to get past her dry-heaving was a half-sob, half-cough that caused Chrys (who was currently trying to push Dickson’s cronies off of him as they pinned him down against the bench) and the dick squad (who were in the middle of getting knocked around by the only other decent person here) to pause in their smack-fest and turn their collective attention towards Thea and Dickson. Chrys’s eyes instantly narrowed, turning into little brown slits as his mouth twisted into a snarl.

“Get the hell off of her, Dickson!” he yelled out, squirming in the grasp of the three fuckasses that held him back by his arms and legs. “Before I fucking make you!”

Dickson merely rolled his eyes in response. He cocked his head to the side, idly regarding Thea’s best friend with his brows furrowed and his lips quirked in a mocking grin.

“Make me?” the blonde echoed back, doing nothing to hide the laughter laced into his tone. “What are you gonna do? Beat me with that peg leg of yours?”

“No,” Chrys said. His voice was smooth with calmness, but his hands were curling up into fists so tight that his knuckles paled. “But thanks for the idea.”

“Then wha—?”

The words barely left the dickhead’s mouth when Chrys swung his fists up and nailed two of his captors right in their guts. Both squawked and squealed at the top of their lungs as they were thrown back, releasing their hold on Chrys before collapsing onto the guy still holding his legs and another standing behind them. Like dominoes, they all came crashing down, providing an ample enough distraction for Thea to twist around and kick Dickson right in his knee. He let out a strangled scream, his grasp on Thea’s collar snapping open as he crumpled to the ground, allowing her to slip away from him with ease. Her chest was heaving, lungs aching with each and every breath of air she gulped down. She had just barely found her footing when the remaining two cronies came charging forward…only to get thrown into each other when Chrys leapt out from the now-unconscious (Wait, what?) crony pile, sending them tumbling down onto their oh-so fearless leader. With his face scrunched in worry, her best friend loosened up her tie to examine her neck, ignoring a yelping Dickson as he got body-slammed into the concrete with about as much grace as the Kool-Aid man busting through a wall.

“Are you okay?” Chrys asked, haphazardly tossing the tie aside.

Thea raised a hand, rubbing the pads of her fingers against the front of her neck. All she could do was nod, not trusting her voice well enough to give a verbal response. Dickson didn’t strangle her, per say. Nor did he do it with his own hands. So, bruising wouldn’t be much of a problem. But her neck was throbbing like a motherfucker, and that queasy urge to empty her entire stomach still lingered. If she talked, Thea was sure it would sound anything but okay. And, the last thing either of them needed right now was another round of handing Dickson’s ass to him. (Even if it would lighten her mood some and make this field trip a 100% better than it was now.) Thea wanted to end the year on a good note, dammit. Not with another detention and potentially a letter home informing her dad that she would not be welcomed back this fall!

A chorus of groans, interlaced with reedy curses and frustrated whines, reached her ears. She turned her head, looking back over at Dickson and company. While his friends either rolled onto their backs or pulled themselves up onto their knees, Dickson scrambled into a half-kneeling, half-crouching position. He was a fish out of water, his mouth continually snapping shut the moment he opened it up as he tried to put whatever was running through his head into words, only to cry out and slam his trembling fists against the concrete. His face was the brightest red she had ever seen; the same sort of hue you’d find on a fire hydrant or a stop sign. It made the rest of his body look like a sheet of printer paper in comparison, while also partially managing to mask the tears streaming down his cheeks. If she hadn’t known the blonde douche for as long as she did, she would’ve quaked a little. But Thea knew Dickson was mostly bark with a weakass bite, so she dignified the prick with nothing but a blank stare and an amused huff under her breath.

“C’mon, Chrys,” she muttered, grabbing her best friend by his hands and pulling him towards the dome rotunda. “Let’s g—”

“Where the hell do you think you’re going?!” Dickson roared at them. Or, well, tried to roar. With his voice all choked up by his tears, it came out sounding more like a watery croak than anything else. “We’re not done here yet!”

“The fuck we are,” Thea snapped back. “Just piss off alre—”

“Shut up, you goddamn bitch.” He was standing now, fists raised like a boxer in the ring. “I-I’m…I’m gonna—!”

“—ask your daddy to deal with those middle-class nobodies that made you cry like a helpless little baby?” Chrys sharply finished for him, laughing all the while. “Yeah, go ahead. I’m sure he’ll love to hear how his one and only son needs a fucking handout because he can’t handle his own damn problems like a real man.”

Like the crack of a whip, Thea rounded on her best friend, eyes moon-wide and jaw hanging slack in surprise. She glanced about, scrutinizing every inch of him in search of something she couldn’t label. Nothing looked particularly out of the ordinary; his body was all tensed up, as if he was waiting for Dickson to make another move, while his eyes were fixed in a glare so venomous that you could’ve died on the spot if it packed any real heat. Chrys fighting with Dickson wasn’t anything new to Thea, especially when said fight started because the blonde bastard decided to get physical with her. But there was something in his voice, in the way he delivered that line that felt…off to her. Like, sure, she won’t deny the fact that they’ve had some pretty nasty fights over the course of the year. This wouldn’t be the first time Chrys reacted violently after Dickson put his grubby fucking hands on somebody, nor a petty little prank and a few scathing remarks escalating into a full-blown brawl. Frankly, Thea should’ve seen this thing coming from a mile away. And she did. She always did. It’d be pretty fucking dumb of her not to. One way or another, regardless of what she did or didn’t do, somebody will inevitably start shit and pick a fight with either her or somebody else that shouldn’t have to get involved. And, once they did, Thea had to roll with the punches—both figurative and literal. Had to either swallow her goddamn pride and back down, or spit out her mettle and make those pot-stirrers back the fuck up. There was no other option, no loopholes to abuse or backdoors to go through. It was fight or flight. Act or react. Acknowledge or ignore.

Except…except it was wrong, this time around.

Usually, there were two ways these fights ended: either a teacher/faculty member came around and broke it up, or they reached a point where Dickson couldn’t let himself get pwned any further and just let her and Chrys walk away without another word. And, so far, Thea thought they were dealing with the second scenario here. They had reached the impasse, and now it was time for the two of them to head off while Dickson crawled in a corner to lick his wounds. But, miraculously, the blonde bastard still had a bit of pride to spare. He still had some fight left in him, even though he was just seconds away from breaking down entirely. And then, here was her best friend, giving off strange vibes she didn’t know how to explain. They both liked to poke at Dickson where it really hurt, at him imitating his dad to varying degrees of success. But Chrys never phrased his retorts like…this before. Never pushed the envelope and made things worse. So, why? Why were they doing this? Why did Thea feel as though the dial in charge of controlling the boys and their urge to beat each other black and blue got knocked a thousand notches up, leaving them with nothing but another smackdown on the horizon and a bad taste taking up residence in her mouth?

Just…why?

With a wail, Dickson leapt forward and practically threw himself at Chrys. A curse tore through Thea as she was pushed back, catching herself at the last second before her ass could kiss the concrete. The second the two boys hit the ground, they became a bowling ball on a warpath, rolling several feet away from the bench and over towards the ropes that blocked off the lake’s edge from the pathway. Chrys’s head slammed into the pole, eyes rolling back upon impact. In his daze, he could do nothing to stop Dickson from straddling his hips and pinning him to the ground.

“Didn’t your mommy ever teach you not to spew bullshit, Kiyonabe?” he asked through gritted teeth.

“Bullshit?” Chrys parroted back once he was a little coherent. “Bitch, please. That’s your MO. Not mine.”

Faster than Thea could anticipate, the douchebag swung a hand and unleashed a slap so hard that she swore it echoed. Her ears were ringing, face throbbing in sympathy as the force of the blow jerked Chrys’s head to the side.

“Fucking cripple.” Grabbing her best friend by the front of his sweater vest, the blonde prick pulled him up ‘til there was maybe half a foot of space between them. “You got no fucking right to talk to me like that.”

Chrys coughed out a laugh. “Says who?”

A faint tinge of scarlet was starting to color her best friend’s cheek, most of the flush concentrating into a faint silhouette of a handprint. The sight of it had Dickson grinning in a way that was too broad and a tad too delighted for her liking.

“People that know their place, Kiyonabe,” he answered, all confident and satisfied. As if he was right. As if he’d won the argument.

Chrys flinched, all violent and frenzied, before his body was stunned deathly still. With his face looking all dumbfounded and staring off into space, it was as though he just got his ass electrocuted out of the blue. Then, when Thea was just about to rush over and pull Dickson off of him, a fist sprung forward—

“ARGH!”

—and slammed its entire weight into the bastard’s jaw.

A yelp crossed with a laugh sprung from Thea as her mouth fell open, watching Dickson recoil back from the blow, releasing his hold on her best friend as he did. The red in his face had now spread up to his ears and down the length of his neck. Had this been a cartoon, steam would’ve shot out his ears, accompanied by the shrill of a train whistle. Instead, though, swears and sobs came pouring out of Dickson like water from a broken faucet. He glared down at Chrys, teeth gnashing. When the blonde tried to strike again, Chrys threw himself upwards, this time connecting his forehead with the douchebag’s nose.

A sickening crack pealed out, following both boys as they keeled onto the ground once more. Dickson landed on his back, limbs all splayed out and face scrunched up like a baby about to take a dump in its diapers. When he cried out, his voice became a police siren, blaring out his (probably overexaggerated) agony to anybody in range. While the blonde bitch busied himself with his crocodile tears, Chrys flopped onto his side and curled himself up into fetal position. His groans were quieter, muffled by his forearms as he cradled his head in his hands. Thea was no nurse, but she’s been in plenty of fights to know the ins and outs of physical injuries, and you didn’t have to be a genius to know that ramming your head into somebody’s face was the worst move you could’ve pulled. One of the idiots in front of her was leaving this field trip with some sort of head trauma. If not a goddamn concussion, then definitely a killer headache and a nasty bruise to boot.

(Yeah, they are so getting their asses expelled after this.)

Back over towards the bench, Dickson’s cronies hollered in unison with their fallen leader; howling with the same sort of irrational outrage she usually heard out of them when pizza wasn’t served on Fridays because one of the lunch ladies forgot to order from the local pizza joint, or during those days where the boys’ P.E. class got together with the girls to play a game and they couldn’t handle the fact that they were on the losing team. They raised their fists and took a bold stomp forward, only to stop dead in their tracks as a series of shrieks ripped through the air. Thea whipped around and found the rest of their classmates closing in. Gathering in a crescent-shape around the scene, they watched Dickson rise to his feet, wincing in unison at the blood gushing out of his nose. The crimson staining his hands and uniform nearly matched the furious blush coloring him from the shoulders up.

“I’M GONNA FUCKING KILL YOU, KIYONABE!” he shouted at the top of his lungs.

Right as he made a lunge for Chrys, Thea rushed forward and slammed her entire weight into him. They both went barreling over the rope fence, tripping over each other’s feet and landing on the other side with an unceremonious thud. While the blonde got a face full of shrubbery, she was (sort of) lucky enough to land on her side, her arms shielding her from hitting the dirt headlong.

“Owww,” she rasped through gritted teeth.

Shaking her head, Thea quickly sat up and risked a glance behind her. The entire class was watching them now, muttering to one another as they locked their phones and gazes on her and Dickson. A few passing tourists lingered too, tossing a brief glance over at the crowd before continuing on. She couldn’t see Mr. Yılmaz or Mrs. Drake or any of the other chaperones anywhere, but Thea had a pretty good feeling that they’d be rolling up any second now. Either by their own volition or somebody being a snitch and dragging their asses over here.

‘So much for having a normal field trip for once,’ she thought bitterly to herself.

“CAPELLO!”

A groan, exasperatedly long and drawn out. Really? He already got kicked in the knee by her and decked twice in the face by Chrys. Did he also want a side of nut-punting for his troubles? Thea would gladly oblige if she wasn’t sick to fucking death over this whole shitshow.

“Fuck off, Dickson,” she practically whined, giving him the sharpest glare she could possibly muster.

Despite the blood, tears, and leafy debris tainting his already-ugly face, and him trying his damnedest to untangle the front of his sweater vest from the branches of the bush he had fallen into, the blonde bastard managed a straight yet furious face.

“When I get these fucking twigs off of me,” he grunted out, “you and your crippled boyfriend are dead meat. You hear me?! DEAD MEAT!”

Thea’s right eye twitched before she screwed both of them shut, hands clenched into fists against the soft earth below her. She let the boom of her snare drum heart fill her ears until the only thing she could hear clearly was her own breathing. It was wishful thinking, believing with such conviction that everything about this field trip was going to turn out alright. Stuff like that didn’t happen to people like Thea. There was always going to be trouble at every corner; always a new way to dump her onto a metric fuckton of bullshittery that would then screw her six ways into the next eternity. That weird feeling she got earlier as Chrys and Dickson started duking it out? It wasn’t some stupid sixth sense, warning of shit being amiss; it was the logical part of her brain reminding her of the truth. Thea Rousseau-Capello was nothing more than a faceless screw-up, destined for a life of eternal misfortune. Disaster had suckerpunched her yet a-fucking-gain. And now, like so many times before, the time has come for her to play damage control. The only question left was this: What was going to hurt more, Dickson’s fists or saying goodbye to Chrys?

When she opened her eyes, Thea was met with Chrys calling out her name as Dickson stood over her, mouth twisted in a grimace that was half a livid sneer and half a manic smile. Though she shuddered, it did nothing to smooth out the snarl on her lips or snuff the fire searing in her chest.

“You wish.”

A chorus of voices, ranging from startled cries to wailing cheers, rang through the air like church bells before service. Someone screamed, strident and piercing; the final match that sent everyone into a frenzy as the scene before Thea began to unfold.

She was on her feet and back on the concrete, shoulders tense and jaw set in vise-like clench. Her gaze was transfixed on the lake, watching the ducks and seagulls as they descended upon a specific patch of the water with the same kind of feral energy little kids had once a piñata broke apart and dumped its candy-guts all over the place. At first, it was hard to make out what they were doing exactly—all you could see was a mini-hurricane of feathered blobs, jabbing their beaks against the rippling surface as if their lives depended on it. But then, with a huge splash that sprayed water in every direction, something resurfaced: Wyatt motherfucking Dickson. And the dude was losing it. Scream after blood-curdling scream ripped through his throat as he yelled out towards the high heavens, aimlessly thrashing his arms and striking the water hard enough to send the flock packing with wave after frantic wave. A smattering of nicks and scratches now marred his face, adding on to the blood that was previously staining it. The moment his head broke surface, a horde of bodies came dashing forward, pushing past Thea to gather around the lake’s edge. The whole class gawked at Dickson with gaping mouths, bugged-out eyes, and shaking bodies. And laughter. God, so much laughter. Everybody—from the shrinking violets to Dickson’s own posse—were having the time of their lives, leaning on each other as they cackled and wheezed their heads off. Even as their teachers finally arrived on the scene, accompanied by a couple of security guards and some curious tourists, the sixth graders of Goodwin Academy gave no fucks. Their attention was locked firmly on the flailing douchebag before them…and the phones in their hands, documenting the whole thing for all of the internet to see.

Thea blinked twice, sloth-slow and dazed as hell, then glanced down at herself. Her hands were held close to her chest, trembling so hard that they were practically vibrating. The weird part? There was something weaving between her fingers like a snake on monkey bars—something as dark as shadows and as thick as overcast clouds, gathering at the center of her palms in the form of a ball of glittering black mist. She stared dumbly at the thing, pressing her lips together in a tight frown.

“Th-Thea…?”

Her hands snapped shut, the mist dissipating from sight in an instant. In her peripheral, Thea found Chrys standing half a step behind her. His eyes were locked on her hands, mouth opened in a silent gasp.

“Shit,” Chrys hissed, softly. “Shit, did…? Did you just…?”

She quickly whipped her head around and gaped at him. Scoffs and splutters spilled from her lips, her sentences a slurring, stuttering mess as Thea searched for the right sort of words that could properly convey whatever it was she had wading through her thoughts. But, the more she looked, the more it dawned on her that she had nothing to say. How could she? One moment, Dickson was kneeling a foot or two away from her, struggling to get his sweater vest out of the very bush she had pushed him into. The next, Thea was on her feet with that…thing in her hands and Dickson taking an afternoon swim in duck piss-infested waters. Somewhere along the way, somewhere in between the fire burning in her chest and Dickson’s ass in the lake, Thea managed to land the final blow and get that weird-ass mist to cover her hands like fog on the Golden Gate Bridge. She did something that got Chrys looking at her like she was a fucking alien straight from Mars, something strange and freaky and not humanly possible.

But what?

“I-I…” She sucked in a sharp breath, wincing at the wavering crack in her voice. “I-I didn’t do shit!”

Chrys furrowed his brows, tossing a quick glance over at Dickson, who was currently being dragged out of the water by one of the security guards. Then, when he rounded on her, his face became the most serious expression she’s ever seen on him: lips pressed in a thin line, jaw clenched, and eyes hard and narrowed. One of his hands was twitching near the front pocket of his plaid pants, as if he wanted to grab something from inside. Chrys was taller than a lot of the kids at their school; so much so that he towered over everybody whenever he walked the halls of Goodwin. Usually, he would try to hide his lanky ass by hunching over and making himself seem small. But, right now, the absolute unit that was his height was in full view: back straight as a board, shoulders squared, and head tilted downwards so that he was looking at Thea right in her eyes. It unnerved her, seeing him like this. Besides the fact that she hated any reminder of just how much of a fucking dwarf she was, the only time Chrys ever stood like this was whenever he was talking to Mr. Yılmaz—when class was over and they thought they were alone. Kind of like those times Mr. Yılmaz called her up to his desk after class to give Thea a pep talk or something, only nothing about Chrys’s talks with Mr. Yılmaz never looked even remotely peppy.

He opened his mouth, ready to speak, but whatever he had planned to say died in his throat as the sound of clicking heels reached Thea’s ears. His jaw snapped shut, lips screwing together into a deep grimace. His posture remained the same, yet she couldn’t help but notice how his knees bent themselves ever so slightly, like he was getting ready to break out into a run or something. Her stomach churned at the sight, while sweat began building up in her palms. That strange, dread-filled feeling from before made its foreboding comeback. Something was wrong again, really wrong. And, that wrongness showed itself in the form of a cold hand clamping down on Thea’s shoulder, freezing her in place.

“Miss Rousseau-Capello,” Mrs. Drake said in that sickly sweet twang of hers. “Might I have a word with you?”

Thea gulped, slowly glancing up at her English teacher. A gilded sneer adorned her otherwise stony face; one that looked like a genuine smile, warm and welcoming, but was actually filled with so much venom and ice that Thea instantly recoiled back when Mrs. Drake met her eyes. It was terrifying, how sweet and poisonous this woman could be with such ease. Her hazel eyes always sparkled with glee, the same way Mr. Yılmaz’s eyes would shine whenever a student gave him a correct and/or amusing answer. But, when she smiled, that innocent façade vanished in an instant. Any inkling of warmth would drain from her eyes, leaving behind a frigid glare that had the kids of Goodwin shivering to the point of convulsions whenever they landed themselves smack-dab in the center of her line of vision. Pair that with a toothy grin that was way too wide to be natural, and Thea wouldn’t hesitate to declare that her teacher was a genuine snake. Not the back-stabbing type that looked harmless but regularly talked shit about you behind your back for the sole purpose of making your life hell. No, Mrs. Drake was a snake in the sense that she was an apex predator—a real, threatening force to be reckoned with. One that can and will fuck you up without warning.

So, you can imagine the amount of sheer fear and raw panic Thea was feeling when Chrys suddenly came forward and tore Mrs. Drake’s hand off of her shoulder.

“No!” Chrys barked at the older lady. He quickly shoved Thea behind him, glaring up at their teacher with a heated expression usually reserved for Wyatt Dickson and his shit-headed goons. “Thea didn’t do anything wrong, Mrs. Drake.”

Their teacher glanced over at him, her smile tightening. “Oh? Is that so, Mr. Kiyonabe?”

If there was one person at Goodwin brave enough to stand up to the tyrannical shrew that was Mrs. Drake, Chrys was that idiot. No matter how many detentions were thrown his way, or how many times Mrs. Drake ruthlessly called him out in front of the whole class, Chrys stuck to his guns and kept his nerve close to his chest. In fact, her bitching only made Chrys kick his confidence and snark up a couple hundred notches. He never flinched, never ducked his head down and muttered out a million apologies like their classmates. No, when Chrys got in trouble with their English teacher, he simply stood up straighter and defended himself without faltering.

Kind of like what he was doing right now.

Chrys crossed his arms over his chest, eyes narrowing ever so subtly. “Yeah, it’s my fault. I’m the one that started this whole mess. Not Thea. So, how about you just leave her alone and punish me instead?”

Thea’s jaw dropped, which went unnoticed as Chrys zeroed in on Mrs. Drake. The two glared at each other for a soundless century, with Chrys’s gaze intensifying and Mrs. Drake’s smile dwindling as the minutes dragged on. It was deafening to the point where any background noise became muted in Thea’s ears. She could barely hear the babbling voices of her classmates, nor the harsh interrogation Mr. Yılmaz and the other chaperones subjected Dickson to. Her attention was locked on her best friend and most hated teacher, heart beating against her ribcage like a frightened bird trying to escape. She held her breath, glancing back and forth between the two.

Then, like glass shattering, someone finally spoke up.

“How…noble of you, Mr. Kiyonabe,” Mrs. Drake cooed as she placed her hands against her hips. “Unfortunately, such foolhardy heroics can’t save you now. Both of you are coming with me, no exceptions.”

“But—” Chrys tried to protest.

Her hand shot forward, roughly shoving a finger against his chest. He winced, jerking back in response.

“I wasn’t asking,” she hissed, slowly.

Chrys looked back at Thea, lips pursed in a small frown. All Thea could offer him was a shrug because, honestly. What else could they do? They were already in enough trouble as is. Arguing with a teacher wouldn’t do them any favors. Thea should know; she’s been in this sort of situation a billion times before. No use in throwing a conniption about it when doing so will only get them into deeper shit. So, with her head hung low, she muttered out an agreement and stepped towards their English teacher. Chrys sighed, but followed suit nonetheless. Like a cat who caught the canary, Mrs. Drake’s cold smile morphed into a sly grin at that. Without another word, she turned around and led them back towards the showcase.

Dark clouds were rolling in, dominating the skies with their slate-grey fluff as the typical SF fog thickened near the horizon. The sun and its warm rays were lost in the rising gloom, yet the dazzling gleam of the afternoon remained. Dark begrudgingly roomed with light, plunging the world around Thea in a half-dim, half-bright filter where time seemed indiscernible. The rumble of thunder seeped past her eardrums, sounding almost like a person grumbling in dismay. A rough breeze swept through the Palace, carrying along a chill that turned the air bitterly cold. It was…strange, how quick the sunny conditions from earlier went away. The last time she lived in California was years ago, and that was only for a month in some neighborhood outside Los Angeles, so she didn’t quite have a handle on how the weather worked here. But after spending an entire school year in the Bay Area, Thea would like to think that the weather was relatively more bearable than most places. Summer was always warm-ish, winter always cold, and spring and fall the somewhat perfect transition from one extreme to the other. Sure, there would always be a surprise thunderstorm or random wind attack here and there. But this was California, and California wasn’t really the state for erratic weather changes. So, what the hell? Thea was half-tempted to blame global warming on all this, but her gut told her otherwise. That persistent sense of wrongness hung in the air, which she could feel twisting around in her chest. This went beyond the subtly uncharacteristic behavior of her best friend and Dickson, beyond a fight going south or her English teacher’s general presence. There was something seriously, genuinely, honest-to-god awry with today. Something…big.

If only she could put her finger on it.

Her stomach churned, but Thea shook her head and shoved that paranoid thought aside. Now wasn’t the time to dwell on existential shit that didn’t matter when she had bigger fish to fry. Like how she and Chrys were now following Mrs. Drake through the doors of the showcase, weaving through crowds of tourists and locals once again as they headed back to the Ancient Greece exhibit.

A sudden shot of ice sped down her spine as they entered. To Thea’s surprise, they were the only ones there. The whole room had been completely deserted, devoid of any people that could bear witness to Mrs. Drake chewing her and Chrys’s asses off for having the balls to defend themselves against Dickson and his bitch brigade. There were no security guards milling about, no history fanatics oohing and aahing over priceless artifacts and irreplaceable art pieces. Only Thea’s heavy breathing, Mrs. Drake’s heels clicking against the vinyl floor, and the thunder rumbling outside. It left an uncomfortable weight in her stomach being alone in a big, empty gallery with only her best friend and least favorite teacher to keep her company. A voice in the back of Thea’s head was raving, urging her to grab Chrys and get the hell out of there, but she had a nagging suspicion that running away would only make her problems worse than they already were. Best not to test her luck knowing that the odds were stacked against her.

Mrs. Drake led them towards the center of the gallery, where a raised, altar-like platform stood. Atop it were a group of 9-feet-tall statues made of gleaming gold and alabaster limestone, surrounding a bronze brazier the size of a backyard swimming pool half-embedded into the floor. These statues were of the Olympians gods in the midst of what Thea could only assume was a fireside family gathering—Zeus and Hera sat atop thrones directly behind the brazier, while everybody else (Poseidon, Demeter, Hestia, Athena, Ares, Aphrodite, Hephaestus, Artemis, Apollo, Hermes, and Dionysus) were on either stools or cushions as they flanked the king and queen of Olympus. Marble pillars wrapped in garlands of silver laurel leaves and ruby pomegranate flowers lined the edges of the platform. Most were in pristine condition, pure white and gleaming in the dim lights of the exhibit. The rest, though, looked like they had fallen apart, only to be repaired by this glittery glue that dried golden. All in all, the whole thing gave off the impression that the artist had managed to haul ass up to Olympus and capture the gods in a moment of domestic bliss. If Thea wasn’t currently following Chrys and Mrs. Drake up the steps, she would’ve hung back and admired the display.

Once they were at the top, Mrs. Drake stopped dead in her tracks and turned around. Her hazel eyes were smoldering, glaring down at Thea with so much heat that little beads of sweat slipped down the sides of her face.

“Thea Rousseau-Capello,” Mrs. Drake began, her tone more bitter than sweet. “Just what do you have to say for yourself?”

Thea blinked, then looked up at her teacher, examining her carefully. She was tall, taller than practically every faculty member at Goodwin even without her pointed-toe boots with four-inch heels, and had white skin so pale that made her look like she was sick all the time. Green, diamond-shaped scales were tattooed all over her neck and shoulders, which were hidden underneath her turtleneck top and snakeskin leather jacket. Slick black hair was pulled back in a messy braid so tangled and pretzeled up that it didn’t even look like a braid—more like a hastily-tied ponytail that ended up turning into a huge, hairy knot. Her eyes had that same glassy-yet-beady stare as one of those creepy porcelain dolls you’d see in either antique stores or Victorian-esque homes, colored the same rotten, brownish-green hue of her jacket. Forget being a snake; all Mrs. Drake needed now were vipers sprouting from her scalp and people turning to stone at her glare, and you could mistake her English teacher for a gorgon ripped straight from whatever piece of media had the best/most brutal depiction of the monster.

“Ma’am,” Thea said, carefully. “I’m sorry, but I was just—”

Her explanation was cut off when Chrys stepped in front of her, wilting on the tip of her tongue as he pushed the two of them back several steps.

“You got the wrong person, drakaina,” Chrys said. His fingers curled up, clenching into fists at his sides. “Thea’s innocent. You fucking hear me? Innocent. She doesn’t even know—!”

“INNOCENT?” Mrs. Drake half-laughed, half-roared. The bittersweet twang Thea was so used to hearing had vanished like a raindrop in the ocean, replaced by a noxious bark that shook her down to her core. “I think not, godling! Thea knows what she has done.”

She paused, only to turn her blazing eyes on Thea and shout out—

“SHE KNOWS WHAT SHE HAS STOLEN FROM THE GODS!”

As soon as those words left her lips, the fluorescent lights of the exhibit flickered and flared so erratically that they gave off sparks. (You know, the kind of sparks you’d get from turning on spark plugs and stun guns. Or when you cut metal with a circular saw. Or from something short-circuiting and on the cusp of blowing up.) In the trembling glow, the faces of the statues looked almost human. Thea looked up at Zeus, whose gilded eyes shined with a kaleidoscopic gleam, lighting up the jovial grin etched into his weathered features. Some crazy part of her waited for the damn statue to come to life, to step off its throne and start agreeing with the bullshit Mrs. Drake was spewing. The other part wondered why in the sweet-and-sour fuck she was even looking at it in the first place.

“Wha…What?” she asked, her eyes flitting back over to her teacher. “What are you talking about?”

“Do not play dumb with me, hemitheos.” Though Mrs. Drake brought her voice back down to something meant for the indoors, the volume of her anger remained unmoved. “You know exactly what I speak of.”

“No, she fucking doesn’t,” Chrys insisted. He forced Thea to take another step backwards, the gap between them and their English teacher slowly growing wider. “Look at her!”

At that, her best friend threw out a hand, waving it towards Thea’s face. Thea puffed out a breath, leaning her head back as she glanced over at him. God, if only they were in a part of the showcase that had reflective surfaces, then maybe she would be able to see whatever journey her face was currently going on. It was one thing to feel the confusion, how it bubbled in her chest and twisted her guts into tangled knots messier than earbuds being stuffed into your pocket. But to see the sheer mind-fuckery plastered across her face like a billboard looming over a busy highway? To straight-up witness those infamous expressions that had Chrys comparing her to a cartoon character and her dad laughing his ass off? Sadly, Thea had no such luxury.

Mrs. Drake flicked her eyes over to Thea, her head snapping in her direction so quick that it should’ve broken her neck. She stared at her for a heartbeat, keeping her eyes opened wide and lips pressed together in a thin line. Then, with a clench of her fists, she pulled back her lips and bared her fangs—

Wait, fangs?

Thea opened her mouth, something between a scream and a curse building up in the back of her throat, only to snap it shut when a low, guttural growl filled the air. It echoed throughout the exhibit, rebounding off the walls like the boom of a bassline as a clap of thunder rattled the whole room down to its foundations. It was like hearing a gun go off in total, utter silence. Or suddenly being able to hear after years of complete deafness. The lights flashed and twinkled until they went out with a bang, sending showers of shimmering sparks in every direction. The exhibit would’ve gone dark, if it wasn’t for the fire in the brazier and the single light that somehow managed to survive the blow-out. It hovered over them, shining down on Thea and Chrys like the dimmest spotlight known to man. It wasn’t much, but at least she could see a couple of feet in front of her and not be a blind-woman in the middle of a pitch-black room. The air stilled, turning colder and colder as the pitter-patter of rain trickling down the roof of the museum filled her ears, along with the growling that only grew in volume.

She quickly glanced over at Chrys, who was standing stiller than the statues around them. His back was to her, so Thea couldn’t exactly see what was going on with his face right now. But, by the way his shoulders tensed and how his hands started to shake, it was clear whatever was going on in front of him was nothing good.

“Motherfucker,” he muttered, slowly.

Thea gulped and moved towards the side, peering over at Mrs. Drake. At first, she could only see her silhouette lit by the fire beside them. Most of her features had been completely blacked out, as if a shadow latched onto her body and blotted her from sight. But then, as Thea looked closer, that’s when she realized something: Mrs. Drake wasn’t being illuminated by the fire in the brazier. In the darkness, if she ignored it and the light she and Chrys were under, Thea could spot a strange, greenish-yellow glow cloaking their English teacher like a sickly pseudo-halo. It lit up the shape of her form, but kept the rest of her out of sight. That is, until Thea kept staring. The longer she forced her eyes to focus in on her, the more Mrs. Drake’s figure started to fuzz. The room was spinning now, blurring the nearly pitch-blackness that surrounded her with the bodies standing right in front of her. It was like going to the eye doctor and looking through that weird device with a billion different lenses, watching your sight fail you as they switched them out. But, right when you thought this whole thing was fucking pointless as shit, the doctor suddenly brings out a lens that actually improves your sight. That’s what’s happening to Thea, after shutting her eyes for a quick moment before opening them right up. Someone had cranked up the resolution of her vision, revealing something she hadn’t seen ‘til now—a wall. Yeah, that’s right. Standing between them and Mrs. Drake was what could only be described as some kind of wall that was as thick and dense as fog, but had the shimmering translucence of a bride’s veil. It…it almost resembled that strange mist from earlier, except this cloudy wall was brighter in color and smudged out her English teacher from view.

Until that green-yellow glow brightened.

It melted away the mist, leaving behind a pair of smoldering orbs that were set aflame by a radiance so green that they looked toxic. They burned with a venomous light, right in the same spot where Mrs. Drake’s eyes should’ve been.

“I’ve had enough of this nonsense,” a voice hissed, coming from the figure standing before her and Chrys. “I shall make you confess to your crimes, one way or another.”

Instead of her teacher, Thea found a monster in her place. One that definitely belonged in some freaky-ass horror movie her dad tried to stop her from watching once (only for her to sneak behind his back and watch it with some semblance of regret). From the waist up she looked like Mrs. Drake, complete with her shiny black tresses and signature RBF. Except, this thing had long quills sprouting from her sickly pale skin; the same you’d find on a porcupine or hedgehog, only these were the color of unbleached bones and had a subtle green tint to them. They covered the full length of her back, the sides of her upper arms and shoulders, and around her neck like a popped collar. Needle-like fangs jutted out from her opened mouth in thin tusks, while her eyes were slitted like a snake’s and neon green in color. At the ends of her fingertips were ivory claws, longer than stiletto nails and twice as sharp. Strange black ooze dripped from the tips of her claws and spines, giving off a rank stench that made Thea want to empty her stomach right then and there. From the waist down, on the other hand, she was all snake—a coiling tail as long as the height of four of the Olympian statues stacked on top of each other, with slimy brownish-green scales whose shape resembled poplar leaves and a ribbed underbelly. The quills from her back continued down her tail, ending at the tip in a basketball-sized knob of spikes. If Thea had been in Mr. Yılmaz’s history class right now, this…serpent-woman-thing belonged in that one conversation they had about freaky monsters from around the world.

Snake-Lady let out a piercing shriek before lashing forward. She sailed across the floor as if it was made of ice, barrelling towards Thea and Chrys at the speed of a bullet train. Thea’s stomach was aching; twisting and churning about ‘til it dropped six feet below her. Chills ran up and down her spine, making her body shudder so violently that she could’ve keeled over if her knees were a smidge weaker. Her heart was a drum made for a marching band with its quickening beat. It pounded against her chest, echoed in her ears, and turned her breathing short and shallow. Thea couldn’t move, couldn’t screw her eyes shut and tear them away from the…the thing in front of her. The thing that occupied the same space where her English teacher once stood and had bloody murder shining in its eyes. The thing—the monster—her best friend was pointing a pair of…of…

Were those goddamn sticks?

So caught up in her shock and the fucking monster heading straight for her, Thea had failed to see Chrys reach into his pocket and pull out a pair of metal sticks. They were about the length of his forearms and half an inch thick, with the ends sharpened to a point. The one in his left hand was in the shape of a Greek column, golden and glistening in the dim lights, with an amethyst iris flower embedded into the head of the mini-pillar. The other in his right, in contrast, was plain iron and ribbed like the stalk of a bamboo plant. When Chrys aimed them straight at the monster barrelling towards them, the ends lit up with a pulsing glow colored in swirls of gold, silver, and bronze.

Like a laser gun shooting out its ammo, he jabbed the sticks forward and sent out twin beams of neon-bright plasma, which slammed straight into the Snake-Lady’s face. A shrill tore through the air as she was thrown back, the force of the blow knocking her into a column with a thunderous crack. For the briefest of breaths, the monster practically mimicked the statues next to them. She kept herself pressed up against the pillar, head lowered and body frozen motionless. No attempts did she make to rush forward, or voice out her pain/anger, or level whatever kind of look she wanted to throw at them. She was just…still. And quiet. Way, way, way too quiet. But then, when Chrys dared to lower the sticks in his hands, she sprang into action. In a blur of glinting claws and glistening scales, Snake-Lady became a bird of prey picking up its next meal, snatching Chrys off his feet while knocking Thea into a high-speed tumble.

Yelling out, she sailed down the steps until her back collided with the floor, stunning her upon impact. As she pushed herself onto her side, Thea raised her head and watched the monster in vacant horror as she slithered over to the statues of Zeus and Hera, wrapping her tail around their necks while she raised herself up into the air. In the light of the fire, the damage her best friend had dealt became clear. It was as if Chrys had grabbed a random meat cleaver from god-knows-where, heated it up a million degrees, and chucked it at the monster with as much force as a wrecking ball to a concrete wall. A deep gash marred her face—starting at the left side of her forehead and ending at the right side of her jaw—jagged like a lightning bolt and burnt a crispy green-purple all around the edges. Tar-black blood oozed from the wound, spilling down her face in clumps that hit the ground with a moist splat. One of her eyes was beyond wrecked, reduced to nothing more than another part of the gash bleeding profusely for all to lose their lunch over. And, to add the sickening frosting to this already nauseating cake, the monster had the balls to open her mouth, widening to the point that her unhinging jaw click-clacked. Those razor-sharp teeth were flashed, while an endless gullet of moldy ebony was out on full display as she unleashed a screech so loud and deafening that all the glass in the gallery shattered in an instant.

Chrys was struggling in her grasp—legs flailing and torso wriggling around. Snake-Lady cocked her head to the side, gnarled lips curled up in a grin that would make the Cheshire Cat spew hairballs on sight.

“How…pathetic,” she drawled. “Did you really think a feeble spell such as that would actually do me harm?”

Despite his less-than-ideal position, Chrys snorted.

“Yeah, ‘cuz a nasty-ass cut like that is totally a natural thing to have on your face,” he deadpanned. “Horror movie directors everywhere would sell their souls to have you on their sets.”

Somehow, that got Snake-Lady to grin even wider. “Bold words coming from someone who is inches from death.”

“Death?” Her best friend threw his head back and laughed. “More like ‘stanky breath’. Ever heard of Altoids? Or, like, mouth fresheners in general?”

As much as Thea wanted to laugh her ass off at that, to jump in and add on to the trash-talking like she usually would, it was hard to appreciate Chrys’s awesome (but horribly, terribly timed) humor when he was literally one hand-twitch away from certain death. How could she manage a chuckle, let alone a smile, when some huge, serpentine monster-thing was holding him like a goddamn ragdoll? A monster who—now that the shock had subsided and Thea was really thinking about—was an English teacher just a few moments ago.

Their English teacher.

Another clap of thunder rumbled through the room, tailed by an ear-splitting hiss from Snake-Lady. Her quills jutted upwards, standing on end like hairs after getting goosebumps. Her grip tightened around Chrys, forcing out a scream so violent and gut-wrenching that Thea could feel her abdomen aching in sympathy. The monster smirked, her eyes sparkling with twisted pleasure as she watched him writhe in her hand. It was so obvious that this monster was Mrs. Drake; they had the same tangled nest of black hair, the same sick obsession with hurting kids for the hell of it, and the same mocking voice that sent Thea into a panic whenever she heard it. Yet, it didn’t click until now. It didn’t properly process in her mind until this bitch clamped down on Chrys like he was some sort of oversized stress ball. Thea didn’t see the same woman that spent most of the year tormenting her and her classmates ‘til she was literally torturing a kid with a simple squeeze of a talon-tipped hand. This monster was Mrs. Drake. Mrs. Drake was a goddamn monster.

A monster that was going to kill her best friend right before her eyes.

Outside, the storm got worse. With each passing second, claps of thunder grew louder and louder. Lightning lit up the skies, flashing so bright that Thea almost thought someone was shining a spotlight through the windows. Distantly, she could hear someone banging against the doors of the exhibit’s main entrance, which was weird since she didn’t remember seeing them close when they got here. There were voices outside, shouting things she couldn’t make out. Not that it mattered much, since Thea’s focus was on the shitstorm in front of her and the pit digging its way into her stomach, filling her with something so cold and icy that it burned. She took a step forward, head held high and glare hotter than the sun.

“Let him go,” she said, her voice calm despite the shiver nipping at her nerves.

Snake-Lady glanced down, regarding Thea with a raised brow and half a smirk. Her eyes were glowing, more grass-green than the toxic hue she was initially sporting, as if what Thea said had sucked some of the venom right out of her system.

“Make me,” Mrs. Drake said slowly, a lazy chuckle laced into her tone.

Chrys’s breathing started to go choppy the longer and harder she held him, his head lolling forward as his body stilled. Tears stung at Thea’s eyes, while that frigid heat in her stomach found its way up to her chest. It settled close to her heart, fluctuating in temperature with each beat. She gritted her teeth, nails digging into her palms to the point that she could feel skin breaking.

Forget middle school teachers turning into horror movie-worthy creatures. Forget that Thea didn’t know how she was going to free Chrys from that snake bitch’s chokehold and get them out of this fucking nightmare. Forget the fact that she had no idea what the honest fuck was going on here. That shit was trivial when lined up with the danger simmering all around her. This monster wasn’t going to kill Chrys, not when Thea had a say here. He was her friend—her best and only friend in the whole wide world—and the one other person in this goddamn city who gave a shit about her and she gave a shit about. No one hurts the people Thea cares about. Not as long as she’s still alive and kicking. If Mrs. Drake wanted to kill him, then she’s going to have one hell of a time doing it.

Above them, the last light finally went out, accompanied by a sharp bang the thunder couldn’t drown out and a shower of flashing sparks that rained down on Thea like golden confetti. A sweltering heat tore through the gallery, circling around Thea and Mrs. Drake like a cyclone. The ground was shaking, rumbling as if an earthquake had just hit. Darkness swelled, consuming every inch of Thea’s vision until static pitch and shifting ebony was all she could see. For the briefest of breaths and shortest of pauses, it was silent. Thunder no longer boomed, her beating heart and Mrs. Drake’s grating laughter practically nonexistent. Then, with a flash, a pulsing light banished the dark from sight, swapping it out with a raging inferno of ruby tendrils that came bursting out of the brazier in waves, followed closely by a deep and deafening—