Return of the Titans

CHAPTER TWELVE

"Are you insane?"

That wasn't what I meant to say, at all. I was going for something along the lines of, Are you sure? or even, Perhaps another time when I'm more suicidal. You know, as a suggestion. I didn't mean to question the woman's mentality, especially when she had the temperament of a caged lion. But with wings, and much smaller.

All I could see was Pretty Boy's fist cracking open my face and his feet stomping the air out of my lungs, my blood spurting out to stain his black-and-gold high tops. It sent my heart beating so strongly against my ribs where it squashed away the rest of my organs. If it wasn't for an unconscious centaur blocking my way, I would have fallen flat on my back from lack of oxygen.

I was hyperventilating.

And while at that moment, I wanted nothing more than to take those words back, it was already too late. The racetrack drew silent as Miss Kestrel turned to me, a cold fire burning in her eyes that assured me that I was, indeed, going to pay for what I had just said.

"Is that what you think of me, Miss Taton?" she inquired, but not in a pleasant way.

If she had a forked tongue, she would have flicked it in my direction. Instead, her feathers along her wings and back began to bristle as she approached me. Talons sharper than flint scraped along the clay track, where she then hopped onto the body of an unconscious satyr in order to stare me down.

I backed up, hands raised. "N-No, Miss Kestrel. I just -- I mean, I didn't --"

Pretty Boy's laugh burned my ears as he stepped into view. "Go easy on her, Miss Kestrel," he said. "It's not her fault that she's been here for a week and still doesn't know anything."

"Learning impaired?" Miss Kestrel vigorously shook her head, jowls swinging. "Nonsense! Foolishness is a better word. This is laziness at its finest, and we have no use for useless students here."

"I'm not lazy." The very mention of the word made the blood in my ears begin to roar.

I couldn't be able to count how many times someone either told me or my mother that our lack of housing was because she was too lazy to do something about it. As if purchasing a place to stay was as easy as a walk to the supermarket. We had reasons -- health reasons, mental reasons. Things that couldn't quite be explained, so we decided to not say it. It was better than try and point it out to someone who had already made up their mind.

But instead of taking me at my word, as what I had thought she would do, Miss Kestrel laughed at what must have been a joke to her.

"Yes, you're a sack of bones, you are," she said. "No use denying it. All the evidence proves it."

"A few bad grades? How does that equate to uselessness? How does that justify beating up another kid?"

Pretty Boy snorted. "You won't even touch me, Beast."

I turned on him, finger raised to point at his haughty face. "Don't mess with me, Richie. I'll fold you like a lawn chair right where you stand."

"Now, that is a threat," Miss Kestrel remarked and hopped back down from her perch. She waved a wing toward Jay, who had been feasting all the while I had been fighting for my sanity. "You, there, child. Be the score keeper for these two."

"I'm not fighting," I repeated.

"Then you'll watch yourself be ground into the dirt." She nodded toward Pretty Boy. "You may begin."