One Week Later
A week had passed, and August remained August–distant, unreadable, and untouchable. She allowed no one close, save for the occasional tolerance of Cianly, and even then, only in fragments. Ms. Leen, too, she endured rather than embraced. At night, she slept alone at the far end of the dormitory, though "sleep" was a generous word; her nights were mostly spent awake, a book always in her hands. Reading was not pastime but ritual, the sharpening of a mind already too keen for her age.
Her peers kept their distance. On the playground, she was a ghost. Only during sports did she reveal a flicker of vitality, her body moving with precision and strength that startled the other children.
• At school, however, her brilliance became a curse. Advanced two grades ahead, she was marked as different, and difference bred cruelty. The bullying was relentless.
Yet August never reported it. To the teachers, her silence looked like fear. To the children, cowardice. In truth, it was neither. August preferred to set the score herself.
•••Troy
The classroom hummed with chatter, but August sat apart, her eyes fixed on the book before her. Troy, the bully, had made her his target. Her silence amused him, her refusal to fight back emboldened him. He swaggered to her desk, smirk curling at his lips.
"Hey, freak," he sneered, knocking her book to the floor. "Why don't you say something for once?"
August lifted her gaze, steady and cold, but said nothing. The room rippled with laughter and discomfort. Troy leaned closer, whispering mockery. "Cat got your tongue?" Then he shoved her, sending her stumbling. The laughter swelled. August's face did not change. She rose, collected herself, and sat back down. But inside, her mind was already moving. Troy wanted a game. She would play.
All through the day, August calculated. She weighed timing, place, and consequence. By recess, her plan was set. Troy, alone at his locker, felt the sudden sharpness of pain in his side. He turned, startled, and saw her–August, small, silent, her eyes stripped of innocence.
"Leave me alone," she whispered.
He laughed, but the sound died as her hand struck his stomach. He doubled over, gasping, and when he looked again, she was gone, swallowed by the tide of returning students.
The pain deepened. His shirt bloomed red. Panic seized him as dizziness blurred his vision. He realized too late–he had been stabbed.
"Psycho," he muttered, before collapsing.
•••
The words of her father echoed in August's mind: This is a dog-eat-dog world. Always return the same energy you're given. She remembered the night he had driven a knife into the robber who broke into their home, the way he had never hidden his true self from her. Violence had been her inheritance, and she had accepted it without fear, even with a thrill.
• When Troy was found, clutching his side and fading into unconsciousness, suspicion never touched August. She was the quiet girl, the one who never spoke. Teachers assumed clumsiness, a fall, an accident. Troy, too humiliated to admit defeat at her hands, said nothing.
The class was informed of the incident. Some students expressed remorse, others shrugged. None looked at August. She sat calm, her face a mask. Inside, satisfaction pulsed. She had defended herself, and no one would ever know.
She had done her research. Troy's reputation for tripping and fainting was well established. His downfall would be dismissed as another clumsy accident. August had ensured it.