“You think you can kill someone?” Murray tosses his head back and laughs, placing a hand in the middle of his chest. He abruptly stops laughing and taps the aluminum bat against his left foot. “I could kill you,” he sneers at me, then spits. “You are worthless. You take up too much space. You breathe my fucking air. You don’t deserve to breathe my air!” He swings the bat, and I hear the swoosh of it as it barely misses my face.
Stumbling back, I trip over my backpack, and when Murray goes to hit me in the face, I roll away and stab his leg, then yank out so I can still have my weapon.
“Mother fucker!” he screams, adding most of his weight to his other leg. He points the bat at me, red-faced with anger. “You’re a dead man, you hear me? Dead.”
Louis tries to attack me next by taking the bat from Murray, but I move to the side and bring the knife down on his back, slicing directly into his shoulder blade. Louis pitches forward with a pained grunt, and his grip loosens, causing the bat to clink to the ground. The blood spreads across his shirt and drips down until it’s soaking into his jeans.
I’m waiting for guilt, for the voice in my head to tell me to run, but only adrenaline is speaking to me, and it’s telling me not to stop until all of these assholes are bleeding. For good measure, I kick Louis in the stomach, and he cries out in agony.
“How does that fucking feel? Huh? How does it feel?” I scream, then pick up the bat and slam it against the stab wound on his back.
“Stop! Stop, no more. Please,” he sobs.
“Stop?” I ask, barking out a chilling laugh. My eyes fall on Murray, who is currently backing away from me. “You want me to stop? That’s rich coming from the lot of you! You didn’t stop beating me last month when I asked you to. I pissed blood for a week!” I yell, tears blurring my eyes as I slowly make my way toward Murray and Pete. Pete is the quiet one, the one that follows but never says or does anything because deep down, he knows he is just as weak as I am. “I’m going to—”
A hand pulls me back and yanks the bat from my hand along with the knives.
I whip around to punch whoever it is in the face. I’m done. I’m fucking done with the constant bullying, the pain, the crying. I’m sick of it. I lift my arm and clench a fist, preparing to fight again, when a hand grips around my knuckles.
“It’s me, Thomas. It’s Mason. You’re okay. You aren’t alone.”
“They were attacking me. I didn’t know what else to do. I…I…”
“You did the right thing.” He grips my shoulders and tugs me behind his oversized body and hands me back the knives.
Why can’t I be more like him? Why do I have to be stuck in this body?
“Problem, Murray?” Mason asks him, swaying the bat left to right.
Louis groans from my left and somehow manages to get to his feet. He stumbles back over to his friends and sags against Pete. I stare down at the knives in my hands, speckled with blood, and I still don’t feel guilt.
I feel like the job isn’t finished.
“Yeah, your fucking boyfriend here is a psycho!” Murray pulls up his pant leg and shows Mason the wound on his leg. “Look what he did to me.”
I hate it when they call us boyfriends. All because we aren’t blood related, and Mason is always coming to my rescue.
“And what were you going to do to him?” Mason slams the bat against the trashcan next to him, denting it.
“Nothing he didn’t deserve,” Murray hisses.
And that’s when Mason surprises me. His hand disappears behind his back, and lifts his red shirt, grabbing the handle of a gun. I gasp and take a few steps back. This isn’t like Mason. Where the hell did he get that?
“You have two seconds to get the fuck away from my brother before I put a bullet in your head. You’ve been warned a hundred times from me. I’m done giving out chances.” Mason cocks the silver gun, the cylinder spins to lodge the bullet in place, and the three boys that have been picking on me instantly freeze.
“Woah, Mason. Just hold on a second,” Murray says, trying to calm Mason down.
I tug on Mason’s sleeve, but he doesn’t look my way. He’s bound and determined to stare at them on the other end of the barrel. “Mason, what are you doing? Let’s go home.”
“We won’t pick on him anymore, I swear. Let us go,” Murray holds his arms wide and steps back. “We’ll go. No more trouble.”
“I think I need to go to the doctor,” Louis moans.
“Shut up, Louis,” Murray snaps, staring at the gun as the sun shines against the sweat dripping down his temple.
“Mason, let’s go home. Please,” I beg him. I don’t want any more trouble. Mason has come to my rescue one last time. He’s risking himself for me, and I don’t want to be responsible for ruining his life too.
“I’m going to call the cops if you don’t put the gun down,” Louis warns us, fumbling for his pocket.
Mason’s jaw ticks, and his chest rises and falls in a burst of anger. He’s really holding himself back. His body is shaking, and his face is red.
“Mason, put the gun down,” I beg him. “They aren’t worth it.”
“Yes, they are,” he says, taking his eyes off the trio for a moment. He stares at me. Mason seems a lot older than seventeen years old right now. “You don’t deserve the treatment they give you. It’s up to me. I’m your brother. Me. I protect you.”
Okay, so he’s a year and three months older than me. Same difference.
“And I protect you too,” I say, wrapping my hand around the barrel of the gun to get Mason to drop it.
“They aren’t going to stop until you’re dead, Thomas.” Mason jumps when he hears sirens in the background, and with every second that passes, they get closer.
Mason lifts his gun again, pinching his lips with determination as he aims at Pete. Time slows as I turn my head and grab onto his arm to stop him. “Let go, Thomas! Let me do this,” Mason grunts, fighting me.
“No. We can’t—” My ears ring, and the heat from the bullet leaving its home is hot on my palm, burning me. I hiss and yank my hand away.
“Murray!” Pete yells, and that’s when my stomach churns as I peer over my shoulder, seeing Murray with a gunshot wound in the middle of his chest.
“Oh my god,” I mumble.
Mason doesn’t hesitate. He lifts the gun again and aims it at Pete, letting another bullet fly. My mouth falls open, and I’m on the verge of puking. Pete’s neck snaps back when the bullet lodges between his eyes. Mason swings his arm and lands on an injured Louis, but he is on the ground, gasping for air and blood bubbling out of his mouth.
I must have nicked his lung somehow when I stabbed him.
The sirens are anxiously close now.
“Mason, we need to go. We need to get out of here.” Oh my god, what did he do? How can we get out of this?
“We have to tie up all the loose ends, Thomas.” Mason squats next to Louis. A fifteen-year-old kid who sat in the back in Biology class today is going to die.
I didn’t want this. Did I? I only wanted to go home, to get away, I wanted them to let me be, but they couldn’t. They had to keep pushing. I stood up for myself and maybe I got carried away. I was protecting myself.