"Let me go!" Tina yelled.
Lei-selle had dropped her lunch bag at the doorway and was now dragging Tina through the hall while students hugged the walls to avoid her. Curious, leering eyes stared at the slim girl tumbling in her wake. Tina's beige shirt and burgundy cardigan was carving bruises below her jawline as she tripped over her feet.
"Stop!" She choked out.
Lei-selle sneered, eyes gleaming with malice and joy that made the red gashes across her eyes glow passionately.
Tina's breath collected in her throat, slowly stifling her as a wave of fear threatened to pull her under. Her entire body tense, she was driftwood forever lost to Lei-selle's torrential ocean.
"You freeze when you're scared?" Lei-selle mocked her. "That's not going to be as fun for me." A laugh snuffed out the end of her sentence.
They were behind the school now, shrouded in the shadow of the old, blocky building. Lei-selle flung into the rough wall and Tina's lungs emptied like the vacuum of space had entered her trachea. Pain bloomed against her back and her cardigan rode up her spine as she slid down the jagged wall of exposed grey brick.
Enacting Cicatrix was a cruel form of awakening a Hybrid. It causes the scars of their Controls to fester as they come out of the hypnosis imposed after their Days of Consciousness; a Hybrid camp where they go to learn about the world of Below. It is usually done by one's family but there are no rules to prevent a Hybrid doing it to another. And in this moment, Lei-selle was salivating at the thought of torturing Tina and letting off some steam.
Tina peeked through the knotted mess of curly brown hair shrouding her tear pricked eyes. She could see the jagged smile stretched across Lei-selle's face and the strange red slashes across her irises glowing a horrid neon hue that made her look sickly. Her arms were beaded with blood where Tina had scratched her in a feeble attempt to free herself, but sting of the wounds did not seem to bother her in the slightest.
"Where shall we begin?" Lei-selle flexed her wrists and her blood crawled from the thin red slits and pooled on the back of her hand. The crimson rivulets turned an ugly mud brown as they scabbed over into rough claws at her fingertips.
"What?" Tina was transfixed, frozen in an Arctic confusion and a snowstorm of fear was just blowing in. The world no longer made sense to her.
How are Lei-selle's eyes glowing? Is she hallucinating it? But what about the control Lei-selle had over her blood? And why and HOW did they turn into claws?
All these questions swirled through Tina's fear-gripped mind as she desperately tried to process her dangerous situation.
"How about, we go straight for your scars? I want to hear you scream!" Lei-selle snarled and her clawed hand shot forward.
Lei-selle snatched Tina by the nape of her neck and pushed her face into the gravel at their feet. She scratched and clawed at the skin right below her hairline and an itchy warmth dug into Tina's flesh like botflies squirming into her pores. Tina's breath kicked up dust where she desperately grunted and yelped to be released from under her captor's grip. Thankfully, the horrid scratching at her neck stopped.
"What the hell is this?" Lei-selle scoffed. She tossed Tina aside and she collided with the gravelled ground.
Tina's hand flew to her neck, and she checked for any wounds, but her skin was spotless. "What did you do to me?"
"What haven't you done to yourself?" Lei-selle's scabbed claws flaked from her hands as she peeled them away, her foot tapping in agitation as the scabs fluttered to the stony ground. "Who are you? Why haven't you gone to the DOC?"
"I- I don't know what you're talking about," Tina stammered. She backed away into the concrete wall behind her, small grey stones biting into her skin with every movement. She wanted desperately to go home, back to the comfort of the old carpet and her father's odd, ashen stench.
"Oh, you're one of those, huh?" Lei-selle crossed her arms over her chest. "Your Den doesn't want you 'tainted' by Below? Let me guess, they say things like 'we must end this cycle of violence' and bullshit like that, right?"
"What are you even saying?" Tina whispered as she gathered up her knees and hid her face in them. "Why are you doing this to me?" She sobbed.
Lei-selle scoffed at Tina then plopped down next to her. "Don't go crying now, I didn't hurt you that bad."
That made Tina sob harder. The two girls sat in silence for the next excruciating few minutes while Tina got all her tears out, shivering with choked cries. She could not understand why her emotions were spilling from her so powerfully. Every feeling she ever had was crashing through her mind and chest like she was standing beneath a rushing waterfall. She had never cried in front of anyone before, not even herself.
Lei-selle tapped a rigid hand on her shoulder, "The hell are you crying so hard for? You're a Mixer, just make it go away. Oh shit, right, you don't know how." Lei-selle pulled her hand back, "Sucks to suck I guess."
With a sigh that said 'well, I tried', the frigid girl got up and dusted herself off, but Tina grabbed onto the hem of her skirt before she could leave. She did not want to be alone right now, especially after everything she had witnessed and felt. If anyone had answers for the past few confusing and worst minutes of her life, it would be her.
"What? Want me to hug you to sleep too?" Tina shook her head. "Good, 'cause I'd rather shoot myself."
"Explain it to me," Tina blurted.
"What?" Lei-selle screwed up her nose as though a rotting, dead rat had been presented to her as an honoured gift.
"The things you said, about the doctor," Tina elaborated.
Lei-selle hesitated. "You want me to teach you about Hybrids?" Tina nodded. "Hell no."
"Please, I'm so confused right now, you've got to help me!"
"I don't have to do shit. Ask your parents," Lei-selle spun away from her.
The harsh girl did not make one step before Tina tugged harder on her skirt hem.
"My parents are dead," Tina lied.
Lei-selle folded her arms. "Right, then how the hell are you here?"
"Distant relatives," Tina lied harder.
"Mhm," she cocked a suspicious eyebrow. "You're not good at that y'know."
Tina finally gave up and let go of Lei-selle's skirt. Hanging her head in defeat, she sat uncomfortably playing with the threads of her cardigan, the gravel beneath her etching patterns into her folded legs. Somehow, that made Lei-selle take pity on her.
"Fine," Lei-selle sighed.
Tina snapped her head up to face her. She was met by a very serious expression of consideration, Lei-selle's eyes searched her like lion sizing up prey, her eyes glowing with intention and curiosity, the same way she had looked at the boy in the cafeteria.
"I don't really like your kind of Control, but I'll take you on. I can at least groom you into something workable."
"Does that mean you'll help me?"
"It means repeat after me: 'are your demons safe?'" Lei-selle slowly knelt, her eyes never yielding their harsh stare.
Tina paused to consider the words. "Are your demons safe?"
"After the next line, you respond with 'I swear'. Got it?" Tina nodded. "Good. Now, do you swear to never reach Above?"
At those words, floodgates opened inside Tina, like a dam being released after centuries of holding water, and her words tumbled from her lips like a prayer to a messiah. "I swear it," Tina breathed.
A great weight fell on her shoulders, threatening to push her straight through the pebbles beneath her to a destination hungrily calling her name. She could hear it; she could feel it. It rattled through her like a thousand earthquakes rupturing her pores and blood vessels. The harsh red of Lei-selle's eyes was all that she could focus on, and her own eyes began to sting. Strangely, in the red slashes streaked across Lei-selle's irises, she could see her reflection. She was reduced to a mangled corpse surrounded by dark smoke and dead, wiry trees, and her flesh was melting off her bones. A searing red string wrapped itself around her wrists and neck, wriggling its way into her nape. And beside her knelt the boy from the cafeteria, the same red wire instead wrapped around his chest, binding his arms tightly at his sides.
Tina leapt back, hitting the concrete wall behind her again. Her vision swam and her eyes stung with dryness. They watered haphazardly to combat it. A pungent odour like rotten eggs in a vat of rusted metal made her wrinkle her nose with brutal disgust.
Lei-selle leaned onto her haunches and massaged her temples. "Oh, hell on fire," she spat.
"What did you do to me?" Tina stammered. "What did you do to him?"
Lei-selle gave her a hard sigh, "You are part of my kin now, you do what I say whenever I say to do it. I tell you to stab, you ask which organ, got it?"
Tina shook her head.
"By the Above." Lei-selle slammed her fist into the wall behind Tina and leaned in close, "This is what Hybrids like you and me do, we kill and ask questions later. You should be happy I don't send you back to your Den in a plastic bag."
Tina nodded.
"Good," Lei-selle leaned away from her. "Now, I'm a Clairvoyager, I take little shits like you into my team, my kin, so that we can do Below's bidding. That is, collecting souls, or in other words, homicide, assassinations, massacres, you name it."
Tina stared up at her, eyes as wide as dinner plates. To her surprise, her heart fluttered with excitement at the thought of all Lei-selle was promising. How was she talking so casually about killing people? That is not right. And most importantly, why was she excited to do it?
"No, I can't do it," she blurted out, more to convince herself than to reject Lei-selle.
"Well, it's too late for that realization." Lei-selle chuckled, "Don't worry, you'll get used to it, it's fun."
Tina shook her head.
"Oh please, you just haven't tried it yet. But trust me, you'll thirst for it like the rest of us."
To Tina's surprise, Lei-selle took a seat in front of her and folded her arms.
"If you have questions, spit them out now, I won't tolerate them later."