Midway through the night, the book reading became more difficult after one of the Butchers wanted me to paint my nails to 'complete the look'. Then more of the others piled on, and I acquiesced because I was meaning to do that but got distracted. With the way they could reflexively extend in response to my anger, I thought the black color would better disguise little motions.
That led to a careful balancing act of reading between applications of all the various crap they wanted me to put on. I thought I knew how to put on nail polish, but they had this whole process. You can't just put on nail polish! Of course you can. It just looks ba-I want it done right when we can! Claws don't need paint. It stupi-Fuck off!
Around the bickering I put on the primer and waited, the base coat and waited, the three layers of primer and waited after each layer, then finally a layer of topcoat and followed by more waiting. All in all, it took like an hour which was a pain in the ass. Boo hoo! They felt weird when I retracted them. It's odd that I can already have a 'normal' feeling for them.
I've been trying to ignore all the subtle and sudden changes to my body. The bigger muscles and denser bones are one thing, but the feline-leonine-changes create a disconnect between what my body feels like versus what I think it should feel like. All my senses have changed while my muscles are twitchier than they used to be, wanting to move farther and faster with less thought and effort.
The little claw-like nails were just the most visible difference. I hope this polish lasts a while. About a week. What!? I have to do this every week? Like you are going to last the week. I don't want to think about that. Maybe there is a way to make this easier.
I wondered if I could get bugs to do it. I tried to get some spiders to wiggle the brushes around, but they were too weak. I felt some big beetles within a few blocks and tried to pull them to me, but they couldn't fly in the chilly night air. Maybe I could make tiny brushes for the spiders.
A few of the Butchers quieted to listen to my thoughts, fascinated at the depths I was inclined to go to throw bugs at a problem. It was always surreal when they did that. The silence communicated when my thoughts interested them. That lowered volume brought relief which incentivized me to think in ways that entertained them. Yes, that is part of how this works. More would quiet down if the bug application I thought about was more violent. Well, any violent thought was more likely to receive a positive reception than others.
As this whole bit of self-reflection was boring the Butchers, the background noise of my mind increased. I focused on learning more bug facts. Hmmm, let's see, I think I was up to spiders…
I didn't hear my dad come in, and I wasn't focused on my bugs senses because I was already focusing on bugs in a different way. I guess I could have done both, but the noise-Extra eyes and ears to watch your back is always good. Anyways, I didn't notice him until I smelled breakfast.
The enhanced sense of smell made the odors more textured, but I didn't know what those additional details meant. The other Butchers did. They were thinking about it. As they thought about it, I knew what I was smelling. Whole wheat bread was toasting while butter, cinnamon, and a little bit of sugar was prepared to go onto the slices. Eggs were frying with bacon, and my father was brewing coffee while making a cup of tea for me. It was a bigger breakfast than normal, but he saw how hungry I was last night.
Knowledge of how to use ability wasn't all that they were thinking about. The smells reminded them of memories, of diners on the road, of mornings after sex, of little shelters from the rain where a flickering campfire was all they had to warm the scant food remaining. The Butchers lead varying lives, but all had moments the smell of breakfast reminded them of. Not all the musings were clear, others were merely vague impressions of nostalgia.
For the most part it was a pleasant chorus of memories. One Butcher in particular was reminded of 'another kind of pork'. Yeah, that's like her whole thing. You can deal with being disgusted by those thoughts as you eat pork, you can stop eating pork, or you can come around to her way of thinking and stop being bothered by it. I was the third Butcher that had to deal with her in their head. The other two gave in but were never as enthusiastic as the leonine woman. I am a predator. They were prey. Eating prey is only natural.
The smells of breakfast lowered the murmurings, but the rush of memories and impressions were a weight in their own right. I felt heady stewing in it. After putting the book down, I make my way to the dining table, surprisingly without a stumble. Not how that works.
Dad starts setting down food and places my tea in front me. I take a careful sip and try to focus on my own feelings and enjoyment of tea. It almost works. Far too many of the Butchers prefer coffee, but joy from ones that do relish tea blend with my own and run overtop each other. While I feel less like myself, it's difficult to be mad at enjoying a small pleasure more than I did before.
My father hasn't left, still standing next to me. I look at him and see him waiting patiently for me to notice him. A finger points to my ears as he moves his mouth. Right, the music would drown out his voice. I pull out my earbuds and the sound of my Zune pumping tunes at full volume fills the room. My father struggles to suppress a smirk as he sits down.
"I get it. Believe me, I get it. Listening to loud music is fun, but let me tell you, asking people to repeat themselves when you're older is significantly less fun. Try not to repeat my mistakes."
I wonder if we'll ever have one that gets old enough for that to matter. Live fast, die young. And leave a beautiful corpse. "I… understand." I'm quick to start eating my food to distract the mutterings from my father to some success.
I did not prepare myself for eating the bacon. It was delicious, but I still felt the sudden urge to throw up. I pushed the reflex to my bugs while I wrestled with my nausea. The memories of cannibalism several of the Butchers associate with pork, some with revulsion, others with glee, are hard to come to terms with.
My eyes close as I settle myself. At the end of the day, how the Butchers obtained the meat is far worse than what they did with it. I mechanically chew the bacon and swallow, trying to focus on my own feelings and normal thoughts, but failing.
"Taylor. Taylor!" I open my eyes and see dad looking at me with concern. "I have to ask, but did you sleep last night? I didn't hear you come upstairs last night, and you seem out of it."
Do I have to lie to my father? I don't want to. Keeping the bullying from him was bad enough-Oh we'll fix that-but I didn't want to lie to him. So don't. Do what you want. "No…"
"You know you aren't supposed to stay up too late reading." He sighs. "I'm not going to ground you. At a certain point, you have to face the consequences for your own actions. Do you need a ride to school?"
The idea that my father thinks he can punish me sends many of the Butchers raving. The parental related trauma in them is deep. You can shut the fuck up. I need space to let those parts of my mind cool off. The murderous rage they feel towards my father kindles my own spark of indignation at the idea of being controlled. My mouth doesn't want to work right, fangs grow, and I feel an urge to growl build in my chest. After redoubling my efforts to push my emotional tells into my bugs, I answer him, "I can… take… the bus."
My father's concern deepens as he sees me struggle with the words. "Are you alright? Maybe you should stay home."
"I'm fine." The response is clipped. I have to go to school today. Lying to your father anyways?
He gives me an uncomfortable look, and we continue breakfast in silence. I hurry through my meal, clean my plate in the sink, and then leave without saying a word. My haste sees me at the bus stop too early. I try to calm down with music, but I end up pacing and talking with the voices in my head, pleading with them to let this go.
It wasn't that bad. That's how it always starts. He cares about me. Normal parenting requires some discipline. He had fifteen years to control you. No more. No! My dad loves me. He didn't even punish me. Please, let this go. We let nothing go. We do forget, though. He makes good baco-I don't trust hi-Never submit to anyone. You assholes have only tried to control me. We are the Butcher. You are the Butcher.
Actively challenging their feelings and wants isn't working. Many of them dig their heels in and only double down on their first impulse. Instead, I push the pacing into the bugs and stand stock still at the bus stop while staring into the dawn sun. This is an impulse I can give into without consequence. The longer I look, the more used to the brightest I become.
As the edges of my vision darken, the hidden depths and complexities of the sun become more apparent, the peaks and valleys, the larger spots marring the surface, the subtle shifting of every feature as it is in constant flux. The sun is constant to those that never look at it directly, never put in the effort to get beyond the glare. It is also dangerous to those that try if they do so without the power or wisdom to withstand the rays.
It's mesmerizing and helps calm my portion of the mind. When the bus comes, I blink rapidly and enter while turning up my music. I don't want to hear anything the Butchers will feel the need to respond to. By the time I sit down, my vision has fully healed. Like normal, no one bothers me on the bus, nor do they sit next to me, if they can help it.
You shouldn't be going to school. You aren't safe. All these children are in danger. The one hero in the collective pleads with me as the others shout over him. He's right, but he's also wrong. Most of the Butchers can't stand the idea of being the weak bullied girl. They hunger adamantly to address this. Even if I could withstand what they feel needs to be done, will the next Butcher? Will the one after that? What if someone looking for excuses to murder people is next, and they systematically slaughter everyone who bullied me. I certainly would if you were in my head. The idea that some littl-Exactly, they are just childre-Who cares? They fucked around they-I'm not going to sit around and have memories of bullies in my head while knowing they live. We're the Butcher. Those violent fantasies that everyone has, we act on them.
The bus makes it to school, and I enter the building with purposeful steps. My eyes stare slightly over everyone's heads to avoid reading their lips. It's not a skill I have but-I can do it-at least one of the Butcher's could. If I don't hear or see an insult, then I don't have to respond to it, no more debt is accumulated.
A crowd of students start to form between me and my locker. It's not a surprise. Scouts at the doors looking for you. An all too familiar face appears at the front of the crowd.
She opens her mouth, but the music in my ears is too loud, and I don't hear what she says. She is saying, "Did you think a new outfit is going to change anything? Can't you take a hint? No one wa-"
Not stopping my stride, I grab Emma by the face and push her further into her assembled crowd to obscure us from teachers. Yes, many of the Butchers were the school bully themselves and know all the tricks. They think of them reflexively in this situation, along with what they did and to who. Disgust fills me at sharing my mind with people who make Emma's treatment of me seem downright tame.
Emma's crowd is not the sycophants I once assumed. They are just bored kids, hopping in on a game of torturing me because it amuses them. They do nothing as I twist Emma backwards with my arm and prevent her from falling with only my grip. Careful, you didn't want to scar her. I catch my claws from extending into her cheek. It would be a minor scratch, but any wound I inflict will not heal for one week. Even minor cuts will scar after being open for so long.
The group around us actually seems excited for the turn of events and tightens the circle around us. No relief will be coming for either of us from teachers. I lean down towards Emma. It would be so very easy to permanently end this problem. I can already imagine an explosion of fire at my elbow pushing my arm forward and snapping her neck. If I do it just right, she'll be paralyzed rather than dead. No, that wasn't me imagining it. I can't let myself think it was me. Before my thoughts can run further, I make my demands of Emma very clear.
"Leave me alone."
With a release of my hand, Emma shrieks and smacks her head on the linoleum, which thankfully doesn't count as me wounding her. Otherwise, that bump on her head would feel fresh for an entire week, which might make her suspicious.
I push through the crowd before Emma has a chance to respond. They don't want to let me through, but
I have six different versions of super strength. Only four of them apply in this situation, but that is overkill for teenagers. No, the trick here is being subtle enough that it doesn't look like one teenage girl is able to push back a crowd.
At my touch, the people in front of me trip out of the way, their inertia shifted so that they stumble and feel precariously balanced, which lets me slip through without having to hurt anyone else. No one stops me as I head directly to my homeroom period. That will do, for now.
Mrs. Knott is at her desk taking attendance when I enter. I sit down at the computer and get ready to do the in-class assignment when I feel fourteen different flavors of ennui. This doesn't matter in the slightest. Every facet of the activity before me serves no purpose. It's not like a need to graduate high school. The Butcher is never going to work a regular job. I don't need to pass this class. I don't need the grades. I can't even learn anything relevant.
One look at this problem and one of the Butchers already knows the solution. It's an exercise in typing, just pointless. Wait, why does a Butcher know how to code? I have a PhD in computer science. Why did you join the Teeth and become the Butcher when you had that!? Have you tried working in an office? But-And the fuck thought he was so fucking smart too! Guys, it was one-You don't get to hire the Slaughterhouse Nine and ever live that down! Easily the dumbest Butcher. Fuck you guys!
The fight in my head lessens the sense of ennui, but I can't will myself to do the assignment. I agree with them. Instead of wasting any time on that, I look up the various Butchers and try to put names to faces. There is a creeping worry at the back of my mind of people seeing my search history and putting two and two together, but it's not like a single Butcher managed to maintain a secret identity. Also, why would the Butcher need to look up themself?
Also a fair point, not that all the voices have been responsive when I asked for their names and what they looked like. Sometimes I like blending into the background. It can be relaxing. I wrap up that little bit of research quickly and switch to researching bugs. It's a similar risk but-There are plenty of girls into bugs. Fine. Fine. I'm being paranoid. Not paranoid enough to watch your back with bugs. Something actually useful. That's… Another fair point. I always feel the bugs around me, it only takes a little effort to position them and let their senses flow in.
It's mainly a chaotic mess of sensations, but that is also my default, never knowing peace, constant noise in the mind. Trying to parse the information from the bugs while reading about bugs keeps me focused and helps the time fly by.
I don't rush out with the bell. All people will see is purposeful, unhurried, and confident strides. It's all about changing the narrative around myself. The first Butcher was a different flavor of bully. As the founder of the Teeth, he knew how to work a crowd. All you have to do is break the rules: social, societal, moral, legal, it doesn't matter as long as you break them and get away with it. This draws people to you, those who hate their chains. They want and need to know how you do it. A joke here, a suggestion there, and soon they are following right along with you. You show them the rules don't matter, and you make them hunger for more freedom. They look to you for advice and wisdom. You don't need to be wise, only confident, only above it all.
Giving into this here and doing it his way is still better than killing them all. Less fun though.
My bugs catch a blur making a beeline for me. I can't be certain who it is, but I can assume. She wasn't there this morning, but she had to respond. I was physical with Emma, so my physical bully made an appearance, Sophia Hess.
I didn't expect her to immediately punch me in the back of the head. Reflexively, I shifted the inertia of her fist to my skull for the collision. Bulletproof-bullet resistant-skin and a skull as strong as steel became harder to move, while Sophia's hand became easier to move. It was like she punched her own hand made out of metal.
The hiss of pain in response was to be expected. Her wound would stay fresh for a week, the throbbing never going down. I still couldn't let this insult stand and whirled around to grab her by her shirt and slam her against the lockers.
Most of the Butchers wanted me to disembowel her right here. She didn't make it easy to resist as her hands went right for my throat and squeezed her thumbs on my carotid artery, the motions flicking off my earbuds. Her knee found its way to my kidneys over and over. Every part of her worked to escape my pin.
It was hard to fear Sophia with all the powers at my disposal. I doubt she could really hurt me anymore, but that didn't mean I had positive feelings towards her. Some of this rage was my own, at the senseless torment, the purposeless cruelty, the sheer casual pettiness of it all. Slowly, I was seeing red.
That could be dizziness from the obstructed blood flow. I doubted my kidneys were suffering any damage beneath the dense muscle. Holding her against the locker became easier as the seconds ticked by, my strength increasing the longer I flexed. A lot of my durability came from having a body that could withstand the increase in strength from one power or another.
Soon she was light as a feather in my grasp. My physical tormentor was helpless. In a way, I already won, still most of them wanted blood for daring to attack a Butcher. Desperately, I tried to latch onto any feelings that weren't murderous, to pull them close.
One Butcher saw Sophia as nothing more than a feisty kitten. Oh my god, don't compare a black person to an animal. Nothing wrong with being an animal person! Look! She is baring her teeth like a lion on purpose! So you can call people that, but when I-Shut up you Nazi bastard! Despite the bickering, I suddenly see it, the grimace with too much teeth, the slightly open mouth. I have a sudden mental picture of Sophia practicing this in the mirror. Nemean can see where it is wrong. Like a cub still learning. You were never a cub. I could have had them! With who?
No, she can't be right. That wasn't Sophia. It couldn't be, right? Nemean has to just be seeing things. Teacher! I let Sophia go and back up into the crowd before the faculty could see us. She also backs down, for now, with hate in her eyes. Most of the Butchers still want me to kill her, but Nemean keeps fighting with them. No, I want her in the Teeth! A chill fills me as most of the Butchers agree to that idea.
It's perfect. No, that's not what I wanted. You didn't want to kill or maim her. This is a compromise. I just want her out of my life. Tell me that some part of you doesn't want to bend her to your will and twist her into something truly terrible. You only think you shouldn't want this. I mean yeah, I can feel schadenfreude at the idea of ruining Sophia's life by forcing her to join the Teeth, but I shouldn't-See!-let her be that important to me.
"Is she on bath salts or something?"
"Yo, Hebert has finally lost it."
"You think she is using roids?"
"She's on something, that's for sure."
I slip my earbuds back in and crank up the music before anyone offends the Butchers. Suggestions of drug use and mental instability do not.
School crowds were easier to navigate when you shove people out of the way and didn't care how they felt about it. Despite the brief altercation, I made it to World Issues on time and found my seat covered in juice. It was a trivial problem, but this accrued a debt of insult and pain, debts that I couldn't let slide without making the Butcher apoplectic. What to do?
After wracking my brain for ideas and receiving far too many suggestions, I switched my desk out with another. As I was moving the desks, I brushed against the ones my bullies tended to sit in. The metal morphed in each chair so that the seat was at a slight forward inclined. Not enough to easily tell with the eye, but enough to be immediately noticeable by someone who sits in it for long periods of a time. It would be slightly uncomfortable, not enough to warrant a repair, but enough to bother someone.
Sure, plenty of kids who never bothered me would also sit in those chairs, but their suffering was saving the lives of my bullies.
As I sat down, I saw Sparky walk up to his now juiced chair and wipe it off with a wet wipe, the obvious easy solution.
Once everyone is seated, Mr. Gladly gets up with enthusiasm and starts yammering, not that I hear him through my music. I'm perfectly still and flat faced as I impassively watch the lecture, my bugs taking the involuntary motions for me. The teacher's eyes keep flickering to me. I wonder why he is doing that. Everyone else is taking notes.
Right, I couldn't bring myself to care, nor did I have any school supplies with me. All I needed to do was chill for a bit between altercations with my fellow students. My eyes started to close as I let myself flow into my bug's senses. Watching the web of life in motion was its own kind of soothing. It helped that the experience was novel enough that most of the Butchers focused on it rather than having their own thoughts. We only ever have one full strength power. Each one is savored while it lasts.
This peace lasted for a little while until several Butchers got bored and went back to their mutterings. The peace shattered when I felt a projectile coming for my head.
Without thinking about it, I reached behind my head and grabbed the spitball before it could touch my hair. My bugs saw one of Julia's friends launch the object. The details weren't clear, but everyone always sat in the same seats.
I flexed my fingers on the spitball and held it for several seconds, the projectile then flew from my flick down a wind tunnel into Julia's eye. She yelled loud enough in pain that I heard over the music. I saw the teacher ask her what was wrong, but there was no way she could explain what happened and be believed. All she even saw was me catching their spitball and blindly flicking it back to them.
Still, she ended up running to the nurse's office. The slight scratch to her cornea had to be agonizing with no relief coming for the next week. It reminded the Butchers of casual backhands or gut punches that left Teeth members wracked with pain and too large bruises as the blood could only coagulate once it escaped the wound. Julia would suffer. The debt between us became more even.
That did nothing for her allies and the one who dared to blow the ball at me. I was tempted to stand up and clobber them, but there was no way to do that without getting Mr. Gladly involved. Instead I closed my eyes, leaned back, and focused on my bugs. There was an excellent opportunity for both public service and petty revenge. Several students around Winslow were suffering from head and pubic lice. In a great balancing of the scales, those lice left their host, took their eggs with them, and began a lengthy migration towards the hair of my bullies.
Flies weren't always large enough to help, but dutiful spiders would carry the lice through the long and dark ventilation systems of the school. Many perished in the too cold or too dry tunnels, but a triumphant army managed to get into position. They leapt from the vents and did their best to skydive directly into the enemy's hair, most missed and had to crawl the final distance.
The casualties were brutal, but eventually, the bulkheads were established, and the invasions began in earnest. Soon Julia's friends will know endless itchy tor-
A hand slams in front of me, and I open my eyes. Mr. Gladly is looking at me with an unamused face. I wait for him to say something, but he points to my ears instead. Right! After lowering the volume on my Zune, I take out the earbuds.
"Are we tired today, Taylor?" I grunt in response. He sighs, "Hand it over. I'm confiscating your ipod. I try to be less strict, but you have to at least look like you are paying attention."
Unfortunately, I need my Zune tunes to quiet my mind and block out the things people say about me. Also, if I give into an authority figure like this, one of the Butchers will probably kill him later. This leaves me at an impasse since Gladly seems determined to take my music away from me.
"Taylor, since this is the first time, I'll just hold it until after class. That's fair right? Work with me here."
I held no small part of bitterness towards the man for letting my bullies harass me and doing very little to help. The fourteen adults in my head had a different perspective. All teachers struggled to do anything about bullying. The Butchers saw a young man fresh out of college trying his best to be less of a hardass about decorum and relate to his students. He reminded many of them of their favorite teacher. Despite the more mature perspective, most wanted to kill him for his tone of voice, the direct eye contact, or because he was weak.
That didn't leave me a lot of options. I needed him to forget about the Zune, so I spat in his face.
At first, the man was simply shocked as his mind raced to process what just happened. His face flushed with anger as he wiped off his face and looked towards the ceiling for answers. Finding none, he started walking back to his desk.
"Taylor, go to the principal's office while I… while I figure out what to do about you." He puts his elbows on his desk and holds his hands on his head as he deals with the sudden student on teacher conflict he was in. Oh, that is a familiar look. Congratulations Taylor, you've ruined his whole week. They weren't always kind to their favorite teachers.
I leave the classroom, but not to go to the principal's office. No, that would be doing what he said, and I can't do that. Fuck that tool. Instead, I head for a restroom on the second floor that I used to hangout in during lunch. It was secluded, out of the way, and had a window.
Inside were three girls who, while not my bullies, tended to laugh along with their antics. They were smoking cigarettes and blowing the smoke out the window.
"Hebert? I'm loving the look, very punk lesbian of you. That or you had sex for the first time and decided popping your cherry makes you a bad bitch now. Oh, maybe you stood next to someone holding a joint and decided you were now a criminal by association."
"Jesus, why not prick the girl who's hopped up on bath salts? She's only got that zombie strength. I heard she picked up Sophia and threw her ass across the hall."
"The track bitch? She's kind of built, not gonna lie."
"You fucking dyke."
She sighs, "I wish." She then takes a puff, coughs, and then blows it out the windows. "Listen Hebert, no dorks in this bathroom. If you want to hang, you got to smoke." The girl offers me a cigarette.
God, I could go for a smoke. The memories of chemical relaxation were enough motivation to grab the offering and stick it in my mouth. Without even thinking about it, I cupped my hands in front of the tip and flicked my fingers together, the resulting explosion lit the cigarette in a practiced motion. It was a utilitarian use of a less straightforward super strength power but-Wait shit. Did I just use powers in front of three normal girls?
One was offering me a lighter, but I acted like I was pocketing one from my hands. Best to pretend I didn't do anything abnormal. I lean out the window and take a long drag on the cigarette. The burning sensation merely feels warm without the pain, and I can barely tell it is supposed to be irritating, just enough sensation to know I'm not breathing fresh air. I smoke fast and deep to help the nicotine outpace my regeneration, relying on the memories of how to do this from the previous Butchers as they reminisce about it.
"Woah, Hebert smokes like a pro!"
The irreverent class ditchers make for good background noise as I try to relax. Just yesterday, I might have mistook their ribbing for bullying, but that was how girls like these communicated with their friends. I know that now. Hell, if I kept hanging out with them like this, we might have even become friends. The unhealthy enabling kind but it would have been something. Even now and even though they have been nothing but nice to me. A few of the Butchers still wanted to kill them just because they could.
Feeling their murderous rage made any conversation difficult. I leaned there silently, idly imagining the life of school delinquent Taylor Hebert with her school pals 'that bitch' and 'what's her face'. My musings made me want to laugh and snort from time to time. I let myself do so. It was a small amusement, and I was going to take it.
"Come on, let's… uh… get out of here before Hebert decides to bite our faces off."
"You think bath salts really do that?"
"We all heard the news story."
"OK, but-"
Their voices trail off as I'm left alone in the bathroom. I sigh; it was a nice little fantasy, but I have work to do. Plunging into my bug senses, I find Madison still sitting in Mr. Gladly's class or at least a person sitting where she does. I plant a few flies on her and keep track of where they are.
When class lets out for lunch, I put out the cigarette bud that was burning my fingers and go hunt for Madison. I found her at her locker. Lockers are assigned based on our names and class year, not our friend circles. Most of her friends didn't have lockers next to her. Madison was going to solve two problems for me.
After successfully stalking up behind her, I shoved her in her locker and grabbed her purse.
"Taylor! What are you-" She tried to get out, but I shoved her back in. After extracting money for lunch from her purse, I throw her purse in with her. "Hey! You can't just steal-"
I kick her feet into the locker and then shut the door. Metal in the lock shifts, breaking it.
When I turn to walk away, Madison shouts after me. "Wait! Please, I need to pee! Don't leave me in here!"
Our exchange drew some eyes, but no one helped. No one ever helps. I turn back around and lean my face against the grate of her locker. Both of my hands slam to either side of it, making Madison flinch. "Cry about it." Please.
Madison sees this as a perfectly reasonable suggestion and begins mewling like a drenched lost cat. Well, Nemean, do you want her too? No, she's a pussy.
As her tears flow, I can feel the debt between us start to balance. When I get enough satisfaction, I leave.
"Don't just go!" Her mewling transforms quickly into shrieks begging for help as she pounds on her locker. As I turn the corner to head to lunch, I see a few students trying to help her. Of course they help her. Oh well, that's why the lock is broken. They will have to pry her out.
I entered the cafeteria for the first time in over a year. The layout is similar to what I remember as the smell of edible, but not great, food fills my nostrils. The dedicated pizza line has expanded to two lanes. I head to one of them. It's really hard to truly fuck up bread, cheese, and tomato sauce with the occasional pepperoni or sausage as a decorative garnish.
With Madison's money, I get two extra slices with chocolate milk, a juice, a cookie, and a side of corn. When I sit down at a corner seat, I take my first bite of a pizza square. Blah, this shit really is getting worse with time. I guess it is edible. Cooking our own food is better than this. It's calories, and I'm hungry.
We get halfway through the too long lunch period before students start gathering around me. At first, it's the normal lookie-loos to block the gaze of teachers, but then Emma emerges from the crowd with a handful of boys and a pair of scissors.
"Taylor, Taylor, your new look is giving you entirely too much confidence." She snips with her scissors. "I think you will mellow out with a trim. Hmmm? What do you say to that?"
I was impressed, Emma managed to zero in on how to harm me, though probably not in the way she thinks. Our regeneration also regrows hair. Thankfully, I loved my hair, but the past few Butchers have been stuck with whatever hair length they had before inheriting. If she cuts off even a lock of hair, then everyone will see it grow back. All Emma gets for her accomplishment is my impassive look.
"Hold her down." The eager looking boys move forward to help with the bullying. My mind fills with dozens of ways to take out this group of opponents, but all require severely maiming the boys, which despite deserving that for going after my hair, isn't what I want to do today.
Instead of relying on power inspired plans, I turn in my seat and dive tackle the middle boy. It's time to improvise.
My target falls back and hits his head hard at the sudden reversal. While his friend on my left is recovering, I punch him in the thigh hard enough to leave a deep muscle contusion. The sudden disabling of his leg panics the child and takes him out of the fight as he limps away.
The boy to my back jumps on me while the other two look unsure what to do. I duck and flip the kid over me so that his feet kick one of the farther boys, then I twist around and punch the last boy in the crotch. The torment he will feel over the next week will haunt him for the rest of his life.
It was over in seconds. Of course it was. I'm the fucking Butcher and they are teenage boys trying to get in a girl's pants.
Emma barely has time to blink before I'm standing next to her, grabbing her shirt and taking the scissors out of her hands. "I warned you."
"What are you even going to do you-" She screams when I start cutting her hair. The damn things are too blunt, so I apply a bit of cutting aura to give her a haircut any road bandit would be proud of. "You're going to pay for this, Taylor!" She punches me to little effect.
When Emma has her new look, I toss the scissors and punch her. It's not a hard punch, but when I hit her, I pain blast her. I very much doubt that Emma has been in enough fights to know what getting punched is supposed to feel like. This way, each hit will be accompanied by a full body sensation of pain.
Despite suffering under a power that makes even Legend flinch, Emma's eyes are determined. She claws and scratches at me, going for my eyes, pulling at my ears, and even trying to bite my nose. Viscous little shit.
I keep hitting her. The crowd around us is getting excited at the 'cat fight'. Before Emma can inspire one of the Butchers to try to recruit her, I hit her a little harder, just enough to leave a faint bruise. As her furious efforts amount to nothing and the damage accumulates, the fierceness in her eyes break, and she begins to cry.
Her arms hang limp at the side, and all she tries to do is get away. At an unknown point in our altercation, we went to the ground, me leaning over her and punching over and over again. Her tear and panic filled face recontextualized what I had been doing today.
These weren't great villains orchestrating impossible trials for me. They were just dumb little girls that I was beating up with superpowers. It felt… It felt GREAT!
Some part of me always wanted to do this. I didn't listen to that part. It wasn't the kind of person I wanted to be. Listening to it would have cost me greatly and made the bullies very important figures in my life. I ignored that part of me and replaced it with reason and morals. Well, that small part of me resonated with how the Butchers felt in this situation, all of them enjoyed the violence, even the hero. Every Butcher learns to love it as the worst version of ourselves is brought to the forefront and made the most important.
The bubbling excitement at causing pain was hard to describe. It was like catharsis and schadenfreude mixed with an electric tingling down each limb, all the fullness of rage with an immense joy. It was difficult to compare with my short life. If I took the distilled happiness of every birthday and Christmas and compared it to this moment, I would find the lifetime of memories lacking.
My face felt stiff at how hard I was smiling. A laugh escaped my throat. It was dry at first, but slowly warmed up to a full belly laugh that further evolved into a hysterical cackle.
The crowd went from enjoying the show to getting scared and running for teachers. I didn't care. All those carefully constructed plans of slowly bullying my bullies to get even and save them from the wrath of future Butchers fell away. The Butchers lied. No Butcher was going to care enough to hunt down people from my life when beating up any random person could make them feel like this. They only wanted me to get to this moment. The moment I saw the world in their eyes.
I punched harder and she screamed louder. My world narrowed down to me, my victim, and the sadistic glee hurting her caused me. I wanted to know. What if I hit her harder? What if I ripped her heart out here, right now? I couldn't conceive of it, but it had to be exquisite, the carnage, the pain, the screams of terror as I came after every witness next. Yes, they would know the Butcher. They would-
My dangersense flares, causing me to jump away from Emma. Sophia stood there with a pair of scissors, ready to lunge at me. "Dammit Emma, I told you to stay away from Hebert today. Something is up."
How could she have harmed me enough to activate my power? I would need to investigate this further, but first-
"Taylor Hebert! Come over here this instant!" Principal Blackwell stood in the cafeteria looking livid. Sophia pocketed the scissors and pulled Emma away from me.
As annoying as the woman was, she and Sophia managed to pull me out of the rabbit hole my thoughts fell down. Still, I could not comply with what she wanted. If she dragged me off to her office, alone, and started yelling at me, I would kill her. It would be fun.
Instead, I flip her off, walk across the patio and hop over the railing to hit the ground and run away from school. I paced myself to stay within regular human speed as the exuberance of my sudden freedom filled my heart to bursting. This was living. That woman never held actual power over me. I could have always just left Winslow. The world was a much bigger place than high school. This isn't what I wanted.
It was my playground and the people in it were my toys to break as I pleased. I don't recognize myself. Wait, these are my thoughts not someone else's. I got confused there for a second. The enormity of what I did today fell on me. The gravity of the wants filling me became apparent.
I sped up my run and used my bugs and bloodsight to avoid people on the way home. Random pedestrians weren't safe around me. Why would they be?
My limbs started to shake as the adrenaline left my system. Those shakes became ones of fear, not of others, but of myself.
I blurred through the front door and down into the basement. After shoving myself into a corner, I held all my limbs and tried to push the little motions to my bugs. There weren't enough bugs. You were doing so well. All the bugs in my range attacked and killed each other. The small deaths did nothing to fill the hunger building within me.
For hours, I huddled there trying to find the horror in killing Emma or any of my other bullies. It was gone. It no longer repulsed me. Dammit, I couldn't go back to school. I couldn't really be around people. If I fucked up for even a second, someone was going to die. Too much power and too little control, too much feeling and not enough reason, too much Butcher and not enough Taylor, these were my problems.
I lost track of time, in the corner, trying to pull myself together. The door opened, and I heard footsteps. My father was home. "Taylor!" He was calling for me as he went to my room. Since I wasn't there, he checked the bathroom.
When the basement lights turned on, I saw my father's concerned face. "Taylor, the school called me at work to let me know there was an altercation. I know you were tired, but I expected better-"
"Dad… please… stop… I can't… control myself." Please don't say anything that will send me into a rage. I don't want to kill you.
Danny Hebert descends stairs to the basement. He sucks in a quivering breath before letting all out while looking at the ceiling to blink away moisture in his eyes. "Oh honey, I… I hoped that it ended with me, that I didn't pass it on."
Haha he thinks he knows what this is like. I knew my dad had a temper, but he was always careful to never show it around me or mom. So, while I knew, I didn't know what kind of temper. "This isn't… the same."
He crouches down in front of me, wearing a smile with no teeth, eyes still wet from moments before. "Listen, I know what it is like. You get so mad that it fills you up and makes you feel big. The world becomes so simple and it feels like you can fix your problems by screaming loud enough or hitting them hard enough. I've been there. Believe me."
Oh, I bet he gets a little mad. Nothing like most of our dads. Definitely. Guy probably thinks a few murder fantasies makes him dangerous.
When I don't respond, he takes another deep breath and continues. "The school said you are suspended while they review whether or not to expel you. We can use that time to work on anger management. I have a few things that help me that we can work on. Taking off tomorrow will be difficult, but we can spend all Wednesday learning to manage, alright?"
I nod despite the Butchers yelling insults about my father in my mind.
"Good. First, we need to know why you got so mad, what started working you up. It's important to identify your anger triggers. Let's start with why you beat up Emma. What made you mad at her?"
I always avoided telling my father about the bullying because I didn't want to burden him with anything else, especially something he couldn't fix, but… I needed help. "Emma was… bullying me. Has been… for a long… time." Maintaining the monotone in my voice was difficult. Too many feelings were trying to slip through. I kept catching myself almost saying something another Butcher suggested.
My father's smile briefly transformed into a grimace as his eyes bulged in their sockets and his face flushed red. He quickly looked away for a moment before turning back with a calm face. "It sounds like I need to have a chat with Alan."
That look of fury melted the ire in most of the Butchers. They had seen faces like that in their own fathers, normally right before being hit. Danny had that same temper that ruined their own childhoods, but he fought it off. He held back the monster from his family.
"Are you up for a hug?"
I cried and embraced my dad. It was hard for the other Butchers to not also feel like crying, especially the ones that always wanted one moment of affection from their own fathers, who Danny reminded them off. Maybe it was a little weird for them, but sometimes physically being a teenage girl won out.
"Shhh, shhh, there there, let it all out."
The tears didn't slow. My own torments and problems were piled on by other Butcher's reliving their own childhood sorrows and their pain. I felt it all and only cried harder.
"It's going to be alright. We'll get through this."
I wanted to believe him, but I couldn't see how. I want to think that somehow we'll pull through, that my dad can save me from the monster I am becoming. It was a faint hope.
"I love you. I will always be there for you."
But at this moment, in my dad's arms, I wanted to pretend it was possible.
