I ran a hand through my hair and was surprised by how smooth it was. I shook my head and it seemed to fall back naturally in place, which my hair never did because ever since I could remember, it had been a thick, wiry mess with an unruly mind of its own.
I wondered what my parents would think when they saw me, but then I checked myself because I already knew. They wouldn’t realize there was a difference. They'd be oblivious to it.
As I walked into the woods and started down the dirt path, I looked down at my thin arms and wondered what the rest of me would look like if I had a body like Alex. Or even Hastings. The temptation to transform myself was great-and I knew I could do it. But not yet, or at least not all at once.
How much was too much? How much was just enough? I was tall and skinny. I tried working out in my bedroom for years, but muscle proved to be no magnet for my body. In fact, it rejected it. With disappointment, I ran my hands down the length of my concave chest and flat abdomen. Nothing was defined-it was all skin and bone. I hated my body, but I knew enough now that transforming it would need to happen gradually.
And it would happen today.
I looked above me on the path. The trees were beautiful, swaying just slightly in the breeze. The sky beyond them was clear blue. The sun was strong and it dappled down to the forest floor. I didn't want to do what was coming next, but I had no choice.
What was the least-destructive route? If I was going to do this, how best to minimize the damage in the life I was about to take?
Ahead of me was a squirrel. It had seen me and already hopped from the forest floor to a pine tree, which it now clung to as it looked at me. It was cute and kind of funny. No way, I thought. But what I saw beneath that squirrel could work. It was a clutch of wild flowers. They were pure white and tall, with a few bees hovering above them. Soon, fall would turn to winter and these flowers would die back. Time was ticking against them.
And that time just ticked a little faster.
I went and looked down at them. You work it with your heart and with your head. I studied them and knew what I had to do to make this work, and so I imagined Mike Hastings' face on all of them.
I imagined the flowers calling me a "freak" and a "faggot," just as Hastings had today. I thought of all the shitty things he'd ever done to me and my anger rose. I thought back to last year, when he came up behind me in the library and shoved me so hard that I passed out when my head hit the floor.
I thought of the day that I fell in line behind him at lunch and had to sit opposite him. Over and over again, he told me what a worthless piece of shit I was while he threw peas at my forehead while the others laughed. He told me I didn't deserve to be sitting across from him. He said I should be dead because he was tired of all the dirty air I created.
And so with all this in mind, I looked at those flowers and said what I always said when he came after me. "Die!"
At first, nothing happened-the flowers were unwavering. They stood tall and were beautiful. But then, starting at the base of their stems, a darkness took hold as the stems started to turn black.
I took a step backward and watched the blackness consume them. It reached upward toward the leaves, which folded in on themselves, and then it fanned out to the flowers, whose petals fell off while their necks drooped. And then the stems themselves collapsed because there was nothing left to hold them up. It was over in a matter of seconds. What was once a stand of wild white flowers brightening this corner of the world was now actively liquefying into a gray puddle of rot at my feet.
I killed them and I had the answer I feared. The amulet was powerful enough to cause death.
I took another step back, where there was a large rock, and I sat on it. I was scared. I had no right to do that, but I had to see the amulet's limits for myself. And death was the absolute limit. If I got angry enough, I very well could kill someone.
I was thinking that I couldn't wear this thing any longer when there was a sound to my left. Well down the path, I heard footsteps crunching on the fallen pine needles. They were coming quickly, aggressively. I turned in their direction and saw the last thing I wanted to see-the pissed-off face of Mike Hastings coming straight at me.
CHAPTER NINE
The rock I was sitting on was tucked back in a small alcove. Trees and plants offered something of a shield. He hadn't seen me yet. He was about thirty feet away. His eyes were lowered and focused on the path. He looked bigger to me here. He'd also taken off his jacket and now it was apparent just how hard he worked on his body over the summer. He was no Alex, but he was close.
He looked fearless and imposing. He bulldozed up the path.
What was he doing here? Had he followed me? Was he looking for me? I couldn't be sure. I wanted to recede, but I'd only make a noise. Roberts said she was going to talk to him. Did she send him home? Did she expel him? What had happened between them?
He was ten feet away when he saw me, and when he did, the surprise on his face was unmistakable. So was the delight that replaced it. He stopped in the middle of the path and just stood there, looking at me. He cocked his head to the right and smiled. Then he did the last thing I wanted him to do-he looked down the path and around us. He was checking to see if we were alone and we were.
"What's up, faggot?"
My heart was pounding. I glanced over at the dead flowers and knew the threat that stood between us. You work it with your heart and with your head. If that was true, how could I best handle this situation. I didn't want to harm anyone. That's not who I was. Earlier, when I told creepy Jim that I'd like to see Jake Tyler fall and break his nose, I thought nothing of it. How was I supposed to know that Jim could make that happen?
"I asked you a question," Hastings said. "What's up, faggot? Roberts send you home, too?"
I didn't answer. I tried to keep myself calm, but it was impossible. He kept looking around us. I knew he was going to try something. It was payback time and he was going to make it happen and it was going to hurt.
"Roberts told me that you think I've got a problem with you. Now, why would she think that?" He took a step toward me. "Better yet, why did you tell her that?"
"You need to get away from me," I said.
"I need to do what?"
"You need to get away from me. Trust me. You need to step off."
"Or what? You'll run to Roberts? You'll tell her that we were…what? Having a little conversation?"
I could feel the amulet heating up against my chest.
"That I was nice enough to stop by and address you by your God-given name: Faggot? Is that what you'll tell her?"
Again, he looked around him. He knew we were alone. I knew it. He could do whatever he wanted to do to me and it would be his word against mine. I'd lose because I wouldn't have any proof. Unfortunately, I didn't have Jennifer's iPhone, though even if I did, he’d probably smash it.
Think.
I needed to do something that would scare him. I needed to prove to him that he couldn't touch me. I needed to create a diversion or do something else. It needed to freak him out. It needed to be enough of a show that he wouldn’t come near me again.
"You know," he said. "I’ve got a problem with what you said to Roberts. You got me into trouble for nothing. I think you should pay for that. I think you and I need to have a little understanding of how it works around here because apparently you forgot."
He took another step toward me. And another. His mouth was pressed into a tight line of hate. I could see him balling up his right fist. Again, he looked around us. Just a few birds flying above, the wind in the trees. Satisfied, he saw his moment and took it.