I stumbled a little on the way home. The hood of my jacket was up and pulled a little tight. Hopefully that was enough the contractors wouldn't recognize me. 

Still, I felt hot and wished I could take my jacket off. Maybe even sleep for just an hour once I got home.

Henry was hanging back from his usual pace, stealing glances at me from the corner of his eye. If he thought I hadn't noticed he was sorely mistaken. The dick-trio had moved far ahead of us until Asswipe paused and turned to gaze back at me.

It was then I was aware of the third person with Henry and I.

I'd been so focused on watching for people spying on us I hadn't even acknowledged the movement right next to me until an arm looped around my neck and pulled me back.

I grabbed the forearm. It felt quite muscular and somehow familiar but I didn't know how.

I shifted, my weight trying to alleviate the pressure on my neck before I stepped back. Behind me the body moved with me, confused. I stepped back again, then threw myself forward, using every muscle in my abdomen, and my back, and all of the power in my legs that I could and flung my attacker onto the ground in front of me with a loud crack of bones hitting pavement. 

I almost fell next to the body in front of me. It had been a while since I had thrown any kind of body, much less with the force intended to kill. But I caught myself and then managed to acknowledge where the person on the ground in front of me was and picked up my foot, lifting it high and shifting my weight to stomp full force on the back of the neck.

“Taylor!” someone exclaimed but it wasn’t ‘Taylor’ in my brain at the moment. Athena was and she had determined the individual in front of me a threat to my immediate survival.

So I was going to snap his neck against the pavement or concave his skull with sheer force.

I started the stomp to do so, throwing my weight forward to hit as hard as I could when someone barreled into my side.

With a leap, I restored my balance and threw a left hook at my new attacker, making almost immediate contact with their jaw.

I saw the form crumple to the ground and prepared to break another neck when the Taylor inside of me finally pulled the beast back.

Henry was on the ground in front of me, hands up to shield his face from my upraised fist, ready to strike him a second time.

I panted, my heart rate frantic as clarity started to come back.

The other form, my attacker, wasn’t anybody from the camp. They weren’t even a real threat. It was just Jake who was trying to curl up in a ball at my feet, obviously having seen me about to stomp his throat out.

Shit, I realized. I would’ve killed not only him but Henry, too, if I hadn’t snapped back in time.

But more importantly, Henry was struggling to keep his head up. I’d clocked him hard enough there was blood coming from his mouth and he wasn’t saying anything.

Shit, I reached down and pulled one of his arms over my shoulder and pulled him to his feet. There was uncertainty from him in trusting me but he was only half-there and couldn’t fight me.

Jake was breathing, and the dick-trio was now approaching him, giving me a very wide berth as I glared from across the street, but Jake was going to need help and I didn’t really want anyone getting hurt.

My body trembled almost violently as the adrenaline weened off. I hurried home with Henry, who was starting to try and say something, but I was actively ignoring him. Once the house was in sight he pulled free from me and stared, wiping blood off his chin as he did so.

“Fuck, Taylor,” he said, “The hell were you thinking?”

I went silent. There had been no emotion when I punched him, and then there was, and then there wasn’t once I started the way home, and now there was again and my exhausted brain couldn’t keep up. “Are you okay?” I finally asked.

“I-I don’t know,” he said and opened the front door to the house, making a beeline for the bathroom.

I followed, sheepishly.

“Does it hurt?” I asked.

There was silence as he ran his hand over his cheek in the mirror and winced.

“That felt like a sledgehammer,” he said. His cheek was definitely getting that sheen to it that indicated swelling.

“I’m so sorry,” I told him. I was back to feeling like crying.

“I know,” he said. “That wasn’t you.” He turned to look at me again. “You were seriously going to kill him,” he said. There was definitely horror in his expression. “I thought you might kill me, too.”

“I mean– I– I–” I couldn’t form the words. My throat was closing up even as I was trying to find that emotionlessness again but now that the pure adrenaline was wearing off, I was starting to shake more violently and finally slumped to my knees, staring at the floor.

I had just tried to murder Henry, I realized. I would have murdered Henry if he had intervened just a split second earlier. And then what would I have done? Let the apathy take over, and move on like this place didn’t matter? Or spend the rest of my like imprisoned both literally and figuratively by my own guilt. It felt like someone had ripped my chest out, and my heart beat felt hollow. It was beating way too hard and way too fast and didn’t feel like enough.

The world started to waver, morphing into that other world that Athena had seen. Henry was staring at me then reached over with both of his hands and clapped them together as hard as he could an inch or two from my face. The resulting jolt forced me to refocus.

“It’s okay,” he said softly. “I’m okay and we’re both safe now. You didn’t hurt Jake either, okay?”

“But I was going to, Henry. I was making back up plans for how to do it if stomping his throat in didn’t work. I mean I could see it so clearly, it was so rational in the moment– I thought I was doing the right thing.”

He hushed me, kneeling on the floor next to me. “You didn’t hurt him. Yes you punched me and– I guess he could be hurt but not severely like– you know. And it isn’t like you just decided to pick on him or something. He jumped on you first. You were doing what you had to to defend yourself. Do you understand?”

“I mean, yes, but I still would’ve killed him. And I wouldn’t have felt anything about it either and–”

“But you feel something now, right?” he asked.

“Yes.” I rather wished I didn’t have this crushing feeling inside of me. It was almost like all of my physical pain I’d been going through had been replaced with this… internal pain. And it hurt in ways I wasn’t prepared for. There were tears coming from my eyes and they burned.

“You would’ve felt bad if you had hurt him, too, okay? I trust you. Hell, Tay, you just hit me hard enough I think multiple teeth are loose now and I’m still here.”

“I… guess.” He did make some sense. 

“What is going on with you?” he asked. “For real, you haven’t slept in days. I hear you moving around in the middle of the night you know, getting into bed, then out of bed, getting things from your bag… I don’t understand, you’ve been acting strange since you got that cut on your hand.”

I hesitated to answer. “I haven’t slept for three days,” I answered.

“But why?” he pressed. “Do you feel unsafe here?”

“It’s not… that the house is unsafe,” I explained. “I’m just unsafe.”

“What?”

“I–I need to leave, I think,” I remembered. “Forever.”

The statement only upset him. “I can’t help you if you don’t explain it to me.”

“I… fought with someone from my old life,” I explained. “They found me while I was hanging out with Mia and she didn’t get hurt or anything but now they know I have to be in this area somewhere. So… they’re going to be looking for me. And they will kill me… but they might kill you guys too. If I distract them by keeping them running away, and if they don’t know that you’re important to me then they might leave you alone and…”

I trailed off. I didn’t need to explain the gravity of the situation any further than that.

“Would you be happy?” Henry asked.

“...no,” I admitted.

“Do you think Mom or Dad would be happy?”

“Well– they’d be alive,” I said.

“But you don’t know if they’ll be alive,” he said. “So, would they be happy?”

“...no.”

“Do you think that I would be happy?” he asked finally.

I went silent again. He had a point but I wondered if he’d have the same opinion with a gun against his temple.

“You don’t have to run,” he said. “We’ll get through this together, I promise. But Mom and Dad would rather drop everything and move to the opposite side of the country than lose you again.”

“How do you know, though?” I asked.

“They’re our parents,” he said. “And we have good parents, even if they do blame themselves for what happened to you.”

I swallowed down some queasiness that came with the adrenaline gradually slipping out of my system. I was still shivering and trying to maintain a straight train of thought.

“You need to get some sleep,” Henry said. “I will keep watch, okay?”

“No, you don’t have–”

“I will make sure you’re safe,” he cut me off. “And I will stay awake to make sure no one comes in the house either, okay?”

I swallowed, but nodded. It wasn’t quite that simple but I definitely was in desperate need of sleep.

He helped me to my feet then took one last look in the mirror at the forming redness.

“I’m gonna get some ice first,” he decided.