It had been a little over a week since the incident with Damion and I hadn’t seen him or the fairy doctor again.  I had seen Riven and Devon at work, and Riven tried to ask me about Damion until I growled at him and told him to mind his own business.  I kind of regretted that immediately – Riven was a gentle creature, I had learned, and I knew he’d had a harsh background with supernaturals, so my behavior apparently triggered something with him because he genuinely looked scared of me for a moment before turning away and not speaking to me for the rest of the day.

I noticed his hands shaking, though, and wished I dared apologize before remembering it was better this way, anyway.  This way, he’d be safe from me, too.

Devon then chewed me out for that, berating me for raising my voice at Riven, but shut up when I finally told him to fuck off and put a lot of demon anger behind it.  Devon was a supernatural, but not as powerful in magic as I was, and he could feel it.

Now that I’d effectively isolated myself from the only nice people at my job, I figured it was only a matter of time before I ended up fired.  I might as well enjoy the job while I had it until then, so I just mostly kept to myself, scowling at anyone who dared approach, and tried not to piss off the customers too much when I was stuck on registers.

School was same old, same old.  Now that I’d stopped going over my lessons with Damion, my grades slipped back to the just-barely-passing level, but I didn’t care.  My goal was just to survive this and graduate so when I inevitably had to leave my aunt’s house, I could find a job somewhere – maybe even a physical one like Devon suggested, construction, perhaps? – and live by myself, not getting anyone in danger, not getting involved, and definitely not joining a pandemonium.

I missed Damion, though.  I missed getting to see his smile and see the way his eyes lit up as I explained something to him.  It was ridiculous how quickly he’d wormed his way into my heart and how much I missed him now, but…I’d be okay, right?  Eventually it would fade.  It had to.

I was musing on this a couple weeks later, wondering why it felt like it hurt more rather than less, when I felt a shadow fall on me where I was sitting at one of the tables during lunch break.  I’d deliberately sat at a table far off to the side, keeping to myself, so it was no accident that someone approached me.

I sighed and looked up.  Of course.  It was the stupid fucking transfer student, who also just happened to be a centaur.  A centaur, who loved violence more than almost anything and would definitely not pass up on the chance to fight with a demon.

I heard some whispers and saw some of the other students watching us, a few with their phones out.  What did they think this was, the current school bad boy being challenged by the new one?  Some sort of entertainment for them?  I wasn’t even sure why there were all the rumors about me fighting in the first place, none of them had actually seen me fight, they just assumed I did based on how I looked.  And I guess the bruises and cuts, so…yeah nevermind, I suppose they were reasonable in their assumptions after all.

Sighing, I looked at the centaur.  “You need something?”

Unlike humans, a centaur’s beating might actually kill me.  Part of me wanted to avoid this if possible, but part of me thought…maybe he’d finally do it.  Maybe this would finally be the way I’d get what I deserved.

The centaur snorted.  “You don’t look like much.”  And then without further conversation, he slugged me across my cheek.

It knocked me off the seat.  Fuck, I’d forgotten how hard supernaturals could hit.  This was likely going to hurt.

I didn’t try to get up, didn’t try to fight him while he started kicking and punching me.  Just sort of wrapped my arms around my head and waited, waited for this to be over one way or the other.  If I survived, fine.  If I died, great.

He grabbed one of my arms and twisted it around, yelling at me to stand up and fight, but I didn’t respond.  Just closed my eyes, waiting for the next blow.  I could feel the pain echoing all through my body now, each kick or punch he landed digging deep, bruising organs, ripping muscles, cracking bones.

Still I made no effort to move, just…waited.  This would be better for everyone if he just killed me.  I wouldn’t be a risk to anyone anymore.  Damion would be safe, Riven would be safe, Devon – everyone I knew would be better off if he just killed me.

I hoped he’d actually do it.

Another blow, another scream at me to just “get up and fight!”  The centaur seemed to be getting angrier with my lack of response.

I heard some students call out, warning him he’d kill me and just stop, but he didn’t.

He didn’t stop until the nurse and several of the teachers – two of which were supernaturals – came rushing out and tried to intercept him.  He was angry, breathing heavily from the exertion of beating me, and he seemed to feel like he was the victim because I hadn’t given him the pleasure of fighting back.

The teachers were talking to him and the nurse came over to me, saying something I couldn’t quite make out.  Words in general were kind of fuzzy, a little distant right now.  I tried to focus, but mostly I was just a little disappointed I was still alive.

But then something flashed behind him and I saw the enraged centaur, a metal pipe over his head, ready to strike.

Some of the students screamed.

I shoved the nurse out of the way with the all the strength I could muster.

And the metal pipe came straight down on the back of my head.

~~~~

“This is an absolute disaster,” my aunt railed the moment I groaned and opened my eyes.  She was actually angry, but I was too focused on the raging headache and figuring out where I was to even care much that she wasn’t her typical emotionless self.

“Those students were recording, live streaming even, and now – now as a result you’re officially dead, we can’t just erase all that!  We can’t convince them you survived half of your head being crushed!  It’s an absolute disaster, not to mention the disgrace on top of that!”

She shoved her phone in my direction, where it was playing a video – a video of me just lying there, not doing anything while being beaten up.  “You didn’t even try to fight, what kind of example do you think that sets?  Now the pandemonium knows you’re here, it wasn’t like we could hide something like this, but they think you’re absolutely pathetic, which I suppose is the only upside of this entire disastrous affair.”

I really wanted to make her stop talking.  Her shrill fury was making my head hurt, although maybe that was just because I’d taken a metal pipe to my head.  Maybe I was blaming her unfairly.

“Now Catherine,” Dr. Adair’s calm voice interrupted, “maybe it would be best if I check out young Judah here now that he’s awoken?  If you want to wait, I can call you back when I’m done.”

She drew herself up, gave me one last withering scowl, and then sank into her placid self again.  “That won’t be necessary.  I’ll have to make arrangements to deal with this situation and there’s no need for me to wait here at the clinic.  Please, do what you need to.  I’ll get out of your way.”  She walked out without a backwards glance.

“Why am I here?”  I managed to ask.  I was kind of surprised everything still worked okay enough to ask questions, but come to think of it, I could have been here for weeks for all I knew – actually, apart from the headache, I didn’t feel that bad, so I’d probably been being healed for quite some time.

“We couldn’t exactly take you to the hospital since you’re officially dead,” Dr. Adair responded with a quirky smile as he sat down and ordered me to follow his fingers, all that fun stuff.  “We have a supernatural wing to the hospital, but there are enough humans around we couldn’t be sure your status as alive wouldn’t be found out, and, well,” he hesitated.  “We did try to handle the situation, but unfortunately the two students who were live streaming kind of made complete containment impossible.  I think they expected some epic showdown, but ultimately, the problem is the videos went viral.  We’re trying to figure out the best way to handle this since even if you move to another city, it’s possible humans might recognize you from that video.”

I groaned a bit.  Lovely.  Maybe I should have just used that stunning magic when he attacked me and walked off.  This was a mess, my aunt was right.

Dr. Adair set his tools down and looked me straight in the eyes.  “Judah, I saw the video.  All of it.  You never made an effort to defend yourself or try to get away, yet I know you’re perfectly capable of doing so.  I’m aware you may not have been willing to fight back against human bullies, but this was a supernatural.  He could have easily killed you.”  His eyes were searching my face.  “And you didn’t care.”

I shrugged as best as I could.  “Not really, no.”

Silence, while he considered that.  “What happened at your last pandemonium?”  The one question I really didn’t want to answer.

I rolled my eyes and looked away.  He might be my doctor, but he wasn’t my therapist.  Even she had given up on me after my last couple of sessions.

I couldn’t be fixed, because I was the problem.

“You want to die,” Dr. Adair said quietly.

“Sometimes.”  Sometimes, like…most of the time.  “Doesn’t matter what I want, though.  It’s really freaking hard to kill a demon, apparently.”

“Judah.”  He rested his hand on my arm, waiting until I looked back at him with dead eyes.  “What happened at your last pandemonium?”

I let out the tiniest of humorless laughs.  “I killed my aunt, okay?  Is that what you want to know?”

His eyes were questioning, but still compassionate.  “How did that happen?”

I shrugged.  “How does it normally happen?  I was stupid, I was arrogant, I was reckless, and – she died.  End of story.”

“Well,” his voice was still calm, “what about the beginning of the story, then?”

I sighed and rested my head back on the pillow.  I’d been through this with my therapist, I didn’t see the point in rehashing it, but he didn’t seem to be inclined to give up and, I mean, there was something calming about him, more so than my stupid therapist even.

So I began.

“My dad was a leader in our pandemonium for several decades.  Really liked and respected.  We lived in Tarin, across the country from here – but the whole town is split by three supernatural factions, always at war, always trying to fight for territory and resources.  It’s not a huge town, but it’s mostly supernaturals, and the few humans that are there know.  So, you know, a safe haven, I guess.  Only not so much since we’re always at war.

“A while back my dad got assassinated by one of the other factions, a herd of satyrs.  I really admired him and wanted to be like him, so I decided to train.  I had his power, I just needed to learn how to use it.  My mom died not long after I was born, so I was living with my dad’s sister, my Aunt Iora, and my cousin Jasper.  They were like my mom and brother to me.  She’d trained with dad, was one of our leaders, and she helped me train.  She was super proud of me when I got accepted as a leader of the pandemonium a few days before my 16^th birthday.

“Things were going really bad with the satyrs then, and we were constantly having skirmishes with them.  I got assigned a group to patrol part of town, push back the satyrs if needed, and my aunt volunteered to come along just in case – just in case I needed help, I guess.  It was my first official patrol I was leading.”

I looked down at my hands, frowning.  “We came across a group of satyrs and they – they told us to leave, and no one would get hurt.  But I didn’t listen.  We were mostly equal in numbers, but I thought it tilted in our favor.  I thought we’d be okay.  So I proceeded with the attack and – and my aunt died.  Afterwards the pandemonium went and praised me for my leadership,” I let out the coldest, most derisive laugh of my life, “but she was dead.  My – almost my mother.  And my cousin, he was the only one who really saw in the entire pandemonium that if – if I’d listened when they said to walk away, if I hadn’t been so arrogant as to assume I could take them, then she’d still be alive.  So…I left.  I came here.  I didn’t want to get people hurt anymore.”

For a moment, silence.  I didn’t look up at him, still riling in the anger in my head.  If only.  If only I could go back to that moment and change the one thing I did.  If only I’d walked away.