CECE, DISRESPECTFULLY | ✓

01: DEATH TO BEEWOLF

            An adult human skeleton is composed of 206 bones. But one can never have too many. Two hundred will be taken quickly.

Regardless of how many you steal, you'll never have enough.

Regardless of how many I steal, I'll never have enough.

It is always running out—time.

It's a miracle that I've lasted this long. I've nowt to lose, and more to the point, nowt to gain. I know I've no future so I might as well make the present entertaining.

Which is exactly how I ended up here.

They're watching you. They're watching you.

Death to Beewolf. It's on everyone's lips.

Maybe I've finally gone too far. Which is absurd because I've done much worse things, morally speaking, than graffiti a school entrance, but this were too public.

They're watching you.

They'll find out it was you.

They'll find out it were me. Cobham already knows it were me—that's why he forced me to attend this bleeding assembly, because we both know it were me and the only thing he's lacking is proof.

Proof that he'll get when someone traces deathtobeewolf to me. And now that it's been brought to their radar, the gossips in this school won't take long.

I should've known that. I was raised as a dog chained to the fence and left in the cold. I should have known that I'm never safe. Never safe to get this arrogant. The termites are waiting to hollow me out. There are enough that I could have a thousand bones and it wouldn't be a challenge.

Everybody is watching.

And then they'll lock you in.

And they'll never let you out.

They'll never let you out. It'll be cold–

–and dark. And locked. And they will eat you alive. One bite at a time. They'll start with your bones, burrow past your skin to get to the marrow. They'll–

Three.

I'm sitting on the third chair in this row. Cobham just said three—"three months into the school year." Today is Tuesday which means–

You'll be locked in forever.

–in the afternoon, there will be three days left of the school week. The light in the corner of the school hall flickers every nine seconds—three times three. Cobham's jacket has–

Your heart is beating too fast.

You might die.

–three cuff buttons on each sleeve. The word severe ("severe consequences") has three Es. The letter E can be written as a 3. Other than the thumb, each finger has three knuckles and three phalanges. I could break—

'Do you mind?'

The complaint cleaves between Beewolf's threats with such potent snide that there's no chance it's the first time it's said. Beewolf mutes so quickly that I would doubt it were ever there if it weren't for the echo of fear it leaves behind.

Without moving, I catalogue the situation. I'm in the school hall. We're in the middle of an assembly. I'm unwillingly in the front row because Cobham forced me to.