"You think you can talk to me like that and get away with it?"
"What are we, five? Did I hurt your feelings? You stopped me, remember?" Victoria glanced around quickly. Other than the three of them, the parking lot was deserted, dotted with a handful of empty, silent cars. She tried to move toward her car, but the other boy blocked her way. Victoria recognized him as a burly linebacker named Ryan.
"What do you want, Brett?" she repeated.
"I think I deserve an apology," Brett said. He was smiling, but Victoria knew it was only a performance. She could smell the rage evaporating off him.
"Fine, I'm sorry for whatever it is I did," she said. "You've had your fun. Can you guys get out of my way now?"
"I wouldn't say that I'd had all my fun yet," Brett said, leaning in suggestively. "Rumor is you're ... friendly."
"What?" Victoria masked her sudden panic with sarcasm. "Surely you already have enough friends of your own?"
Brett laughed. "Come on, don't be a tease. You know what I mean ... friend."
Victoria felt the air around her being sucked into a vortex as if she were a flame burning up all the available oxygen. She was hot again, her rising fury shattering any shred of control she had left. Her green Mini was only one car away, but Ryan still blocked her way, smirking.
"I don't know what you're talking about. Please move ..." she gasped, unable to catch her breath. Her hands shook.
"Please what, not-so-virginal-Victoria," said Brett, grabbing her by her arms and pushing her against the nearest car. "I think you need to learn your place at St. Xavier's."
"Get off me," she gritted through clenched teeth, as she jabbed her elbow into his ribs with all the force she could muster. Brett staggered back.
The heat was suffocating now—the rage seething to dangerous levels held together only by the thin barrier of her skin. The thing boiling inside her tore at her eyes and hissed past her cracked lips. Victoria twisted toward Ryan and swung her knee up, connecting with the soft tissue of his groin as she pushed past him. She'd only taken five steps before she felt fingers yanking her hair so hard that her head jerked sideways.
"Where do you think you're going, you crazy witch?" Brett snarled, dragging her by her hair to the passenger door of her car.
"Please, let go!"
"Shut up." His hand cracked against her face, splitting her lip. Dazed, she touched a fingertip to her chin and stared at the blood. For an instant its color was mesmerizing, dark and shimmery, like something alien. The taste of it in her mouth was like burnt molasses, sweet and powerful, the silent catalyst of something beyond her control. An eerie calm descended.
Brett shoved her against the door, his breath sour in her face. "You like being here on your church scholarship? My daddy paid for that too, you know. I heard your aunt sent you here because you got kicked out of your last school for being a sl—"
The thing inside her keened, her mouth giving voice to its agony. Victoria didn't even notice as Brett flew backward, his words choked into silence. All she could feel was the frighteningly raw energy burning fiery lines along her veins, stinging her eyelids and tasting like ash on her tongue. Brett stared at her as if she were a monster and scuttled backward like a strange crab, suddenly desperate to get away from her.
"You need to learn your place," the thing hissed with her voice. In the next second, it was as if a sonic explosion hit the parking lot; a silent sonic explosion, the only evidence of which was the blood gushing from Brett's eyes and mouth as he lay on the ground clutching his head in agony. Behind her, Ryan screamed then fell silent. Euphoria spun in giddy circles inside of her.
"Hey!" Through a filmy red haze, Victoria could see someone running toward them, one of the Stepfords. The girl slid to cradle Brett's head in her hands, her eyes darting to Ryan's inert body a few feet away. "What did you do?"
"I didn't ..." Victoria could hardly finish the sentence. The world was spinning off its axis once more. She couldn't breathe, and all she could see was the expression on the girl's face, fearful and so utterly damning. She felt wetness on her face and her legs, and looked to the clear sky, confused.
Was it raining?
It was her last thought before she sank into unconsciousness, something still singing madly, terrifyingly, inside her head.
WHEN VICTORIA AWOKE, she was lying in a spotless hospital room. There were tubes in her arms connected to discordantly beeping machines. Her aunt Holly sat reading in a chair across the room near the window, opposite the empty bed occupying the other half of the room. The white of the walls was blinding.
"W ... water," she croaked. Holly darted to her side.