CECE, DISRESPECTFULLY | ✓

60: 00:00

            Phalanges. And carpal bones, if I were to judge based on Ó Ceallaigh's skeleton model from biology. Not mine. Mine are still in my hand with the worm weaving between them. So whose fucking bones are these then?

'D'you need help?' Sakda asks, a serrated edge of what can only be worry in his voice.

But my coughing has already passed. Gripping the sides of the basin, I hunch over it, dragging air in and out of my lungs. A bead of blood hangs from my front teeth until the thread snaps and it drops onto the marble plane of a lunate.

I shift my focus to the mirror but it's cracked. The mosaic distorts the reflection and, in it, Sakda's head is severed from his shoulders. His silhouette has shifted from the line of cubicles to stand halfway between them and me. His Air Forces squeal against the floor as he shifts his weight.

I open my mouth to tell him that I need to be alone. But before I can compel a sound, my vocal cords are blocked by a new lump.

No. No no no no...

It's bigger than the others. It can only be one thing. But I still beg for Pachamama or Beewolf to prove me wrong as I reach my fingers into my throat.

'Are you trying to make yourself sick?' Sakda's voice comes closer now. 'Cause, you know, that's, like, bulimia, so you probably shouldn't.'

I find the knob of the bone. It's covered in mucus and blood; my grip keeps slipping. But finally, finally, I get a hold of it.

I have to straighten my throat to pull it out. Long and thin. A radial bone. It comes out with a sob.

Why is this happening?

You know why.

No. I've not done owt.

How would you know?

It's not like you would remember. You have gaps in your memory, entire days and weeks, lost into black paint. You could be a murderer.

What if you are? What if you like it? What if you sneak out at night to go hunt and forget in the morning? What if that's why you're always tired?

You have no family. You have no friends. You started petty crime before you turned thirteen. That's the profile of every serial murderer in history. What if you snap? What if you've already snapped? What if you lose control? What if you kill Diwa? Or would you kill Nicolás first?

He's afraid of you, always has been. You can see it when he looks at you, can't you? You were born evil and he knows that so unless you want everyone to find out, you'll have to kill him—

'Shut up,' I plead. I would never kill him. I would never kill anyone.

But you're always fighting. Maybe one day you'll lose control. Maybe you already have.

Somebody would know! All people do is watch me. I'm under constant surveillance—my case worker, Cobham, Pathirana, Diwa, Saadia, Sakda, Nicolás–

Maybe you've killed Nicolás already. What proof do you have that he isn't a hallucination?

No.

Why now?

Time's up. There are so many of them, Beewolves. Voices. Echoes in the lavatory. You had your chance to do better but all you do is destroy things. Where do you think the bones are coming from?

All the bones that I stole from other people over the years. Where did I think I had put them? Buried them in the garden? Whose garden?

Of course not. I had to put them somewhere where they would come with me regardless of where the system sent me.

'Look, mate,' Sakda's voice soothes from beside me, 'it's just school. You'll just go to a different one. It's not that big of a deal.'

Do you know how easy it would be for him to kill you right now?

He already would have. Sakda has gone hungry often enough to know not to waste time playing with his food.

(But what if I want him to?) The next bone, an ulna, has already started to shove up my throat.

'D'you need me to get someone?'

'Kill me.'

Sakda laughs. The sound wheezes through his chest like he's coughing up spores. 'Why would I kill you?

'Please. I'd rather be dead than locked in again and you tried before.'

'What?' The word is a rock smashed into my temple. 'When the fuck've I tried to kill you?'

I pry my attention from the bones in the basin to look at him. Sakda's eyes slit enough to slice a gash into the fog in my brain. I can think a little clearer.

'In the pool,' I say. 'You know I can't swim.'

'What pool?'

I try to scoff but the air coils around the ulna in my throat and unravels into a whimper.

'When Lailah took us to the pool. To teach us. You shoved me in there when I knew I can't swim. And you kept holding me under.'

Sakda spits out a jeer, blood still crawling between his teeth from our fight. 'I were tryna help you out. Yeah, I shoved you—I didn't mean for you to fall in.'

'That's not how I remember it.'

'Clearly, you remember wrong.'

I'm freezing. I'm shaking. Bones rattle. Teeth chatter. My skeleton is on the brink of falling apart without the bolstering of stolen columns.

Maybe they'll reconstruct it like dinosaurs in museums, a freak show of wickedness. Too many hands and too many ribs, the spine so long that it curves in waves like a cosine function.

There's no red left, no fire, no pain. Only blue, ice, numbness.

'Why did you get to stay?'

The question is frail on my tongue, like a cheap breath mint that breaks into papery lint and fails to bring even a hint of freshness.

When Sakda asks, 'What?' I can't tell whether he's being sardonic or if he genuinely hasn't heard.

'What about me were so bad? I tried. I tried with her, to be good. Why did you get to stay? Why did I have to leave?'

Because I'm evil.

People don't abandon me. People don't hurt me. The world isn't cruel. It's me. I'm the common denominator. I'm the infestation. I turn everything monstrous.

Three things you will never have:

Home, Sanity, Safety.

Three things you will never touch:

Rest, Love, Peace.

Three things you will never deserve:

Mother, Father, Brother.

All you are is weak, afraid, and evil.

'It weren't like that. She just didn't reckon we could live together—she probably flipped a coin.' Sakda's gaze laces with mine. Soft. Fuzzy, even, like a moth. 'As much as I'd love to have been chosen instead of you, it wasn't personal.'