J. P. Lawrence, AVIAN LEARNING FAVORS COLORFUL, NOT BRIGHT, SIGNALS

#01 . . . KILL SOMEBODY / APOSEMATISM

TW: repeated use of racial slur towards asians (ch*nk)

SPENCER SATO WANTED TO KILL SOMEBODY.

It wasn't like she was incapable; Spencer was a weapon through and through. Even in the womb she was deadly, a switchblade flipped open that twisted and turned, butchering her mother's body in the only way her father could not. It made Spencer wonder if she had been born this way—if the thousands of biological factors that contributed to her development in utero had made her into the violent mess of a teenage girl she was today.

She was curious; if you were to carve an ounce of flesh from her body, take it and put it under a microscope, what would you find? Would her every cell, every atom, scream killer?

Would her DNA even be human?

Or would it belong to some creature, some monster, you couldn't recognise?

Spencer figured it was best not to dwell on what could have been (or what couldn't have.) If there had ever been any chance—any at all—that Spencer would not have turned out this way by nature, her father ensured that nurture, or at least his warped definition of it, would set things straight. Restore balance to the world—rather, the microcosm of the world he had sectioned off for his family, where he was the top of the food chain, the indisputable apex predator.

Spencer was five when she began her training; her sister, a prodigy in every sense of the word, had begun even earlier. Despite her late start, Spencer knew the language of violence. Spoke it well—better, even, than she spoke her own mother tongue. Violence had been force-fed to her, shoved down her throat; language, however, all she had left of her mother, was something she had to scavenge like a stray dog licking scraps of food from the floor.

Spencer was always hungry. Scraps could only satisfy so much, and memories of her mother's kindness could only be stretched so thin, could only cover so many of the dozens of wounds Spencer sustained through childhood. Violence was much more dependable, and much more abundant: Spencer could find it anywhere, in her heart, in her hands, in her home. It was also easy. It had no alphabet to memorise, no set pronunciation. No restrictions. No rules. Sentences, yes, but the kind that ended not in a period but instead in death. Spencer knew them well. They were written into her bones, carved into her heart.

Printed in black ink on the pieces of paper that stole away her sister every few weeks. Scout was always coming in and out of the apartment they shared in Midtown, leaving with old wounds still healing and returning with new ones, a tally of victories scored against her skin. When Scout turned eighteen, she brokered an agreement with their father; she would move out of home to attend Julliard. And, if she were to continue her work as one of the Web's many spiders—venomous both in intent and execution—she could take Spencer with her.

It was a testament to the Huntsman's favouritism that he agreed to this arrangement, even more so that he entertained it in the first place. From the textbooks her father kept in his study, Spencer learned how spiders constructed their webs: pulling a thread of silk from its glands, it allows the wind to carry that thread until it adheres itself to a surface across a gap. Sensing the vibrations, the spider can feel when the silk sticks—it reels it in, before carefully moving across it, laying a second line of silk all the while to strengthen it. From the centre of these two threads the spider hangs, lowering itself to connect the threads to a third anchor point. After constructing frame threads to stabilise the web, the spider spins a radius of silk that connects the corners of the web to its centre. Then, working from the outside in, the spider begins to weave, threading concentric circles through the radial lines—forming a spiral of sticky silk that ends in the centre of the web.

After, the spider retreats to a corner of its web, and waits for its prey. Through vibrations transmitted through the silk, the arachnid will know the moment a meal enters its midst.

Though their father might be at the other end of the web, a void away, an abyss, he was still waiting. Still poised to attack. And as comforting that void was, that space, Spencer knew better than to take it for granted; the only thing standing between her and her father was silk, and no matter what he liked to think, his youngest daughter was no spider. Such silk would not carry her weight. It was not meant to.

The apartment Spencer and Scout (and Scout's boyfriend, Gray) called their own was just another thread that led back to the Huntsman, one of the many properties signed under Dexter DeWitt's name. Still, it was serviceable, made cosy by Scout's uncanny sense for interior design and the feeling of safety that, though intangible, echoed within those four walls, making the space into something stronger than silk, stronger than a web: a home.

Here, Spencer didn't have to be scared of anything more than the cockroaches that crawled up through the bathroom drain at night. Here, Scout could practice her cello in peace, without having to worry about splintered bows or broken hands. Here, violence had a place at the table because the Sato sisters had made it one, not because it had forced its way in and demanded a seat.

Here, violence existed only in the discussion of Scout's assignments, this assassination or that, or the dead space between the Kevlar-lined boundaries of Spencer's Mantis suit, vitriol filling out limbs, organs, fingertips—filling out the shape of a teenage girl or perhaps, the shape of anger.

With Spencer the teenage girl in question, the answer could go both ways.

It had been three years since Spencer took on the Mantis moniker. Three years of guts and gore, with the time, fluid like blood, interrupted only by grievous injury (or academic deadlines. Justice did not stop for anything, except for Spencer's end-of-term-exams.) But bruises and broken bones aside, there was still something about being Mantis, something so indescribable but so satisfying at the same time.

Spencer had two possible answers for what this something could be:

          a) The feeling of bones breaking in her hands,

Or—

          b) The sound of them.

A better hero—"hero" being a word Spencer was reluctant to call herself, but online blogs and news sites didn't hesitate in using—would have said in response something gross and, well, heroic, like the feeling of paying it forward, of doing good, being better. But Spencer had not taken up the mantle for self-improvement; if anything, she had assumed it for self-destruction. Cathartic violence, brutal combat, little-to-no accountability, with the added bonus of actually saving some people now and then? In Spencer's opinion, the pros outweighed the cons.

And sure, she liked to skirt around the self-destructive part; as everyone knew, admitting there was a problem was the first step to solving a problem, and Spencer sought solutions only in punches thrown and punches received. Not in actual personal growth. Scout was always on her ass, telling her to stop for a second, to take a moment to think and figure out the real reasons she did what she did instead of just giving into animalistic impulse.

Well, Scout—take this. Today, I'm not trying to destroy myself.

Today, I'm going to destroy someone else.

𓆦

SPENCER SATO WANTED TO KILL SOMEBODY.

Now, as we've established, the question isn't whether she's capable. The question is: who's it gonna be?

Tucking a strand of bleached-blonde hair behind her ears, she stepped into the cafeteria, dark eyes scanning the plastic chairs and linoleum-coated tables for a familiar face. Spencer had been back at Midtown High for exactly three hours and fifty-eight minutes, and she was already over it. As far as she was concerned, school was just a means to pass the time between patrol, eight hours of unprecedented boredom to preface her after-dark activities. Scout had warned Spencer to moderate herself, but this was about as moderate as Spencer would get. These four blocks and a lunch period that kept her confined behind Midtown's concrete walls like a dog chained to a post.

Still, school was useful for something other than the mindless passage of time. At Midtown, there was always someone to piss off, or someone for you to piss off. Like a sixth sense, Spencer could always see a fight coming—usually between the guys, you could pinpoint the exact moment the wrong thing was said, the wrong button was pushed, the wrong nerve was struck. Midtown High wasn't the worst of the New York City public schools, not by far, but stripped to their barest bones every single one of its students could be just another animal, just another member of the pack.

Everyone had their role in the ecosystem. Everyone filled their own ecological niche.

This was how Spencer saw people. Like wolves in sheep's clothing, people wore slipcovers of humanity, made of flesh and skin and clothes, fashioning themselves something that emulated civility, something that could be stretched over skeletons and the savagery hidden within. Part of Spencer wanted to see this savagery revealed, raw and true, in the people around her. She wanted to see what was hiding underneath, what lurked beneath the surface.

Until she got that chance, they were just people.

People who were assholes. Spencer strode from the cafeteria entrance over to a table in the back, shouldering past one of Flash Thompson's dickhead friends, cutting him off before he could reach the table's lone inhabitant: Peter Parker.

"Stay in your lane, asshole." Spencer spat, not even bothering to spare the guy a glance as she sat down opposite Peter. "Hey, dumbass."

"I don't need you to protect me, you know. I can stand up for myself." If Midtown High was a herd, Peter Parker was its weakest member. Spencer wouldn't go as far to call him sickly, but there was nothing physically imposing about him, nothing about his rectangular-frame glasses to his thin, scrawny frame. He was cute, Spencer could give him that—what, with the brown eyes and the little dimples creasing his cheeks—but part of her wondered if that was just Gwen speaking, her inflated opinion of Peter and his looks transferred to Spencer via osmosis.

"Whatever you say, sunshine," Spencer drawled, reaching over to yank the book Peter was reading out of his hands. She glanced briefly at the title printed on the spine. "Advanced Biochemistry, huh? You're such a nerd."

Peter gave her a Look—he had an array of "looks", but this one in particular was Spencer's favourite: equal parts resignation and frustration—before snatching back the book. "And you're such a good friend."

"I'm an honest one, for sure." Leaning back in her chair, she looked Peter up and down. She would never victim-blame—she was the last person to ever victim-blame—but she couldn't say in complete honesty that Peter didn't make it easy for Flash Thompson and his idiot friends. If Peter walked a little taller, talked a little louder—if he didn't openly read his nerd textbooks in the school cafeteria—then maybe he'd have more of a fighting chance.

But the way he chose to exist, hiding behind those glasses and scientific articles, practically marked him as prey. Some part of Spencer had to applaud him for that—for being unapologetic (unapologetically pathetic.) She herself went about it the complete opposite way; instead of trying to be invisible, she tried viciously to be seen.

In the animal kingdom, they called it aposematism: the advertising by an animal to potential predators that it was not worth attacking, whether they evolved to be toxic or odorous, whether they took on vibrant colours to warn attackers of the danger that came with their consumption. Red, green, yellow, blue. A rainbow of self-preservation.

It was paradoxical, in a way. The brightest colours, the most vibrant ones, meant to deter instead of attract. You could take it as a taunt, almost.

Come a little closer. I dare you.

Spencer seemed aposematic at a glance. She dyed her hair bright colours, like the bands of warning on a coral snake; she spoke harshly and cruelly, suggesting she was venomous, bitter, otherwise undesirable. If she were an animal, through these tricks she could rule the animal kingdom—at the very least, she could survive it.

But there was the brutal truth: she was not an animal and neither were the people around her. They were human. They were men. And when has bright colours ever stopped a man? When has it ever turned them away?

If he wants a yes, he'll take one. To an animal, bright colours might be a warning sign; to a man with one thing on his mind, it's an invitation.

If she had been brought up a different way, if she hadn't been born a blade, maybe Spencer would have lived a life like Peter's. Maybe she would be hiding, choosing to retreat instead of holding the line. Maybe she would have had no use for hair dye, for insults. Maybe she would have blended in, stuck to the middle of the pack where she was safely out of predation's reach.

But no. She liked those colours, their taunting caution. She liked the sound of her voice, the way it could cleave silences and egos alike clean in two. So what if people took her for a target? Aposematism was a form of camouflage. You assume it would hide weakness, but that would be your mistake. For someone like Spencer, it hid strength.

Come a little closer. I dare you.

It'll be the last thing you do.

"I'm trying to get that internship at Oscorp. The cross-species genetics one. Gotta study up." Peter said, his attention returning to his book, "You know, the people who say they like to be brutally honest usually only care about the brutal part."

"I never said I liked being brutally honest." Never said anything against being brutal, though.

"I don't think you need to." He spoke with the air of a distracted father, one who spent more time dismissing his children than he did actually bonding with them. The way Peter talked, Spencer was surprised he didn't just pat her on the wrist and tell her to go play with her toys. "It's implicit."

"Fancy word, Pete."

"You know it." His eyes flickered up to meet hers, and then to something—someone—coming up behind her. Instantly, the Look was gone from his face, replaced by a smile only one person at Midtown was capable of producing. Spencer heaved a sigh, already knowing what was coming; as if she were stuck in a time loop, as if this had happened a hundred times before. A thousand.

It had. But she never got sick of it.

"Boo!" Gwen Stacy shook Spencer's shoulders from behind, her smile clear in her voice. The lame attempt to scare her best friend transitioned into a hug, as easy and effortless as an arm looped around the front of her body. Spencer leaned back into the half-embrace, reaching a hand up to patronisingly pat Gwen on the head.

"Wow, you totally got me."

"Yeah, you were practically screaming." Letting go, Gwen sidestepped around the table to reach Peter. Spencer watched her in slow motion, her hair a pale-gold ribbon as she walked past, her side profile in clear focus. The word people usually used to describe Spencer (other than volatile) was hot. Gwen, however, could not be described in any way other than beautiful. It was not an opinion, it was a fact, one you knew to be true the moment she smiled at you, the moment she so much as looked your way—there was just something magnetic about her, something about the blue of her eyes or the pink of her lips that drew you into her world and never let you leave.

Every inch of her was polished, put-together, and she seemed so unaware of it; even though she'd been complaining that she needed to get her hair cut for weeks now, to Spencer it was already perfect. Long, shiny, like liquid daylight twisting mid-air wherever she walked, it framed Gwen's face perfectly, bringing out the gleam in her eyes and the perpetual smile that curled at the corner of her mouth. Even with her piercings—silver, above her eyebrow, in her septum, and up and down both ears—she still maintained the wholesome All-American Girl look that Spencer, with her choppy wolfcut and knifelike eyeliner, would never be able to pull off.

Spencer could've stayed in this moment forever, just watching Gwen, just admiring. But everything returned to normal speed when Gwen sat down beside Peter, draping both her arms around him. (Not just the one, like she had with Spencer.) Gwen pressed a kiss to Peter's cheek, then decided that wasn't enough. One of her hands crept around his neck, curling beneath his chin to guide his lips to hers.

Anyway, Spencer Sato wanted to kill somebody.

And then maybe throw up. She could stomach murder, mutilation, maiming, but the one thing she couldn't handle was public displays of affection. Especially between Peter and Gwen. You'd think she'd have gotten used to it by now, considering they'd been dating for nearly a year, but every time they kissed, touched—sometimes, even just talked—Spencer's major organs turned themselves inside out. She had had her own relationships of course, but she kept those clandestine, like cards to a chest or knives to a throat. She didn't parade around, tongues-out, shoving her happiness in everyone else's faces like it was some kind of gift they could all share.

Spencer didn't want to share Gwen. She didn't want to share Gwen at all.

"Can you guys get a room? I haven't eaten anything today and I really don't wanna start dry-retching before third block." More kissing. What a great way to start her senior year: third wheeling. "Hello?"

"Sorry." Gwen pulled away, placing one last peck on Peter's lips before she turned her attention to Spencer. "Just haven't seen Peter for a little while."

"You guys live next to each other."

"Well, Peter's been working tons at the comic book shop and my dad hasn't wanted me to leave the apartment since he decided to pursue Mantis." Leaning back, Gwen settled into Peter's side. His arm hung loosely around her shoulders, his science textbook long forgotten. Spencer had noticed over the years, one of the only things able to get Peter Parker's head out of a book was Gwendolyn Maxine Stacy.

"What's changed?" Peter asked, adjusting his glasses. "Mantis has been a thing for, like, forever. No way your dad only just realised she exists."

Gwen snorted gently. "Obviously he knows Mantis exists. But ever since she took down that drug ring last month he's been keeping a close eye on her. Tracking her activity and movements. You know how he is."

"Drug rings are bad, you know." Spencer offered, intertwining her hands and placing them on the table. "They're illegal."

That earned another snort from Gwen, one that pricked a needle in Spencer's chest. "Well, yeah. But she's still beating people up until they're practically comatose."

"I think it's badass," Peter shrugged. Spencer found the notion that Peter was a fan of her alter ego entertaining. Their friendship outside of the mask was strong enough, forged first in sixth grade at the back of Miss Hart's science classroom and tempered throughout the trials and errors of high school, but in recent months Spencer had felt an intangible tension growing between them. It was like the thread tying their friendship together was strung to break; like the silk of a web, every word Spencer said, every move Peter made, sent a vibration echoing through, weakening the anchor points on either side.

Something was going to give. Something had to.

"Being 'badass' doesn't make you a hero," Gwen countered. Now, Gwen not being a fan of Mantis? Gwen, who was perfect in every quantifiable category, from her grades to her looks to her family? Gwen, who everyone adored and whose word in their extended friendship group was practically law? Gwen, who might as well have been the center of the universe by the way Spencer orbited her, ordered her entire world around her?

Gwen, who thought Mantis was just some psycho in a Kevlar suit beating bad guys senseless.

Well, at least Spencer had a heads-up about Captain George Stacy and his apparent anti-Mantis agenda. She wanted to change the subject, so she did. "You guys hear from MJ over the summer? Was I the only one who got total radio silence?"

The silence that followed was telling. Spencer stared at her two best friends, genuinely disbelieving. "What?"

Peter cleared his throat. "Well..."

"What?"

"Maybe," Gwen began delicately, "there was a reason MJ didn't contact you over the summer."

"Just maybe," Peter muttered under his breath. Gwen elbowed him gently in the side.

Okay, so maybe there was a reason Spencer Sato and Mary Jane Watson hadn't talked over the summer. Maybe there were a few. Maybe the main one was that Spencer had allegedly taken MJ's heart and "broken it in two" (Watson's words, not hers. Spencer would never be that dramatic.) Insert something here about Spencer clearly being into someone else (who that someone else was meant to be, Spencer had no idea) and being "emotionally unavailable" and she could savage together a narrative that kind of made sense when compared to what she remembered of the relationship. There was a lot less animosity on Spencer's side, that was for sure—she'd liked MJ a lot, much more than the myriad of people she'd dated during her high school career.

Maybe that had been the issue? She needed both hands to count how many people she'd been with before MJ, and those were just the relationships. If she added the string of friends-with-benefits as well as the randoms she hooked up with at parties, she'd need another pair of hands.

If MJ wanted to ascribe to internalised misogyny as well as the Midtown High rumour that suggested Spencer Sato was easy and would get with anyone who had a working mouth and genitalia, that was her problem.

(Deep down, Spencer knew she had been the problem. Mary Jane had been one of those tragically good-natured people that ignored the aposematism; who saw the bright colours and walked towards them instead of away, entranced. Enthralled. Despite Spencer's warning signs—despite her venom, her bitterness—Mary Jane still wanted her. Still wanted to work things out. And Spencer, under the guise of wanting to keep Mary Jane's band together, had called the relationship off entirely, choosing for the first time in her life to run away instead of standing her ground.)

(So that was the reason they didn't talk anymore, the reason they hadn't spoken a single word to each other over the summer. Because the only thing that could fill the void within Spencer permanently was violence, and as vicious as Mary Jane Watson could be, as righteous and as confident, she would never substitute for the hurt Spencer wanted to feel. The hurt she wanted to inflict. Passion was a type of force, but not the right kind—not the kind that could shatter a collarbone, snap a bone in two.)

(If Mary Jane had been less of a good person, maybe it would have worked. But like called to like and Mary Jane was not a monster.)

(As much as Spencer wanted to pretend she was. As much as Spencer wanted to pretend she herself wasn't.)

(It was fruitless, anyway. Murder Face still broke up.)

"I heard she wants to get the band back together," Gwen said, pinning Spencer with an unreadable look. "I dunno if she's gonna ask you back, though."

"Is she planning to rename it?" Spencer had gotten used to the name Murder Face, though that didn't mean she liked it. However, it was a pretty accurate description of how MJ's expression looked after they broke up.

"I like the name," Gwen said with a smile.

"Don't humour me." Maybe it wasn't such a bad name after all. "Does MJ even know any other bass players?"

"With all the respect you don't deserve," Peter said, a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth, "I think she'd rather pick up the bass herself than let you rejoin Murder Face." Another elbow from Gwen. "Hey, I'm just being honest! She came into the comic shop to bother me about playing a gig there. I asked on Spence's behalf, and MJ answered."

"If she's desperate enough to wanna play a gig at that shop then I'm sure I'll be back in the band in no time," Spencer shrugged. "Though to be fair, bass isn't exactly the hardest instrument to play."

Violence was the ultimate satiator, but other than boy/girl toys, the only thing that could keep Spencer satisfied was music. Listening to it was one thing—she'd racked up nearly a hundred thousand minutes of Spotify last year, overtaking her friends' stats by a mile—but playing it? Making it? That was a whole other ballpark—a whole other universe, one Spencer could get lost in, one she'd be willing to. Picking at the strings of her bass was as cathartic as picking at someone's nerves, if not more so.

Sure, she liked the outcry that came after pissing someone off, the defensive comments and sloppy insults, but they were short-term gratification in the great scheme of things, junk food you wolfed down but knew offered no real nutritional value. Music, though—especially the music she made with Murder Face—was what kept Spencer alive. Violence echoed her name in her bones, reverberating from organ to organ, rib to rib, but so did music. If it wasn't the beat of her heart pulsing Spencer alive—the thud thud thud that came in tandem with the rush of adrenaline that crime-fighting sent coursing through her body—it was the beat of a song, steady and dependable.

The beat kept in clean order by none other than Murder Face drummer Gwen Stacy. You could trust her with anything, especially a tempo.

Spencer had been raised on music as much as she had on cruelty. Her mother, Shiori Sato, had been a famous opera singer before she threw her life away with both hands to marry her father; Scout was in her third year of Julliard, already making a name for herself in the world that wasn't signed in blood. Spencer had passed over the civilised discipline of the Sato women before her—her mother's operatic range and her sister's elegant concertos—choosing instead distorted guitars and rapid chord changes. Paramore and Mayday Parade over Andrea Bocelli and Yo-Yo Ma. But music is music and this is the kind of beat that doesn't hurt people, that doesn't spill blood or break bones.

"Maybe Pete can be our bassist, then," Gwen suggested with a smile. "What do you think, babe?"

Babe. Spencer looked away as Peter rolled his eyes. "It could be fun. But I think I would actually kill someone's ear drums."

"Right up Murder Face's alley," Spencer said, a little too sharply. Envy was a blade, knifing clean through her heart. She wasn't the best bassist in the world, but she couldn't just be replaced. She shouldn't be. Especially in Gwen's eyes.

Especially by Peter.

Spencer felt his eyes glued to hers. She turned away, refusing to meet his gaze. "I think MJ's going for an all-girl thing anyway, you know?" Peter attempted, but the damage was done. "Yay for women?"

Spencer stood up. Third block was starting soon. "You're the champion of us girls everywhere, Peter Parker."

"Spence, c'mon," Gwen said, rising almost the instant Spencer did. But her hand was still on Peter's shoulder. Her lipgloss was still on his mouth.

"What? I'm fine." Spencer shrugged it off, as if you could just shrug something like that off—jealousy, envy. To let it linger, though, was to acknowledge it. And how she felt, about Peter and Gwen and Peter and Gwen together, wasn't something she wanted to acknowledge at all.

"If you want me to talk to MJ—"

"I don't want you to talk to MJ. Seriously. We can just jam out by ourselves." Spencer began to walk, sliding past Flash's table and back towards the cafeteria entrance. "We don't need a band to play music."

Gwen followed, ditching Peter. Her Doc Martens slapped against the linoleum floor. "We can't play with just a bass player and a drummer."

"Why not? That's what we used to do." Back when there was no Murder Face and there were no break-ups. Back when we were younger and all we cared about was the music, not the girls, not the boys. Back when it was you and me and Peter, not you and Peter and me, the afterthought.

"I mean, we can always try—" There Gwen was, the pacifist, beginning a careful negotiation, trying to avoid the landmine of the unspoken words between them and the feelings Spencer held like a hostage to her own heart. There, she was, the hero, the saviour, trying to fix things, trying to salvage—

"Hey, Parker." Though the words were directed at neither of them, both Spencer and Gwen's heads whipped back to the speaker. It was one of Flash Thompson's lackeys, a nameless, faceless member of his posse who cruised through life on his Eurocentric looks and homework stolen from his smarter friends. Of course, it wasn't hard to be smarter than someone with a singular brain cell.

Peter was caught between the walking-talking-amoeba and one of the tables. Spencer's gaze dropped to his Advanced Biochemistry textbook, clutched with both hands to his chest. The fucking textbook. "Let me pass."

"No."

"I—" Peter looked to Gwen for help first, then Spencer. It took Gwen a second to shift into action—she took a single step forward, arms crossed over her chest. When she spoke, it was directed at Flash, who remained at his table, wilfully ignorant as ever.

"Flash, tell him to knock it off."

Flash shrugged, indolent. He was like that, naturally; his face, pretty enough to catch Spencer's attention in junior year, but hard enough to be intimidating when he needed it to be, remained relaxed despite the urgency in Gwen's voice. Her words slicked off him like oil on water—to get his attention, you'd need to strike a match and set him alight.

"Flash," Gwen repeated, but the boy merely shrugged again and turned back to his friends. The one who'd cornered Peter started to grin.

"It's cute how your girlfriends stick up for you," he said, finally stepping aside to let Peter through. His eyes, dark and full of amusement, found Gwen's face and then Spencer's. "Don't know how you landed two of 'em when all you do is study, chink."

Spencer had been perfectly content with letting Gwen handle the issue. She'd stick up for Peter if he asked her to, but this year—as much as she fantasised about violence, about splitting open skulls and carving up flesh—she was trying to avoid another suspension. (She'd fought an upperclassman last year for reasons she couldn't even remember. All she'd taken from the experience was that she should save beating-the-ever-living-shit-out-of-people for actual career criminals, and not random Midtown students with attitude problems.)

It wasn't that she cared about the consequences—the ones she'd receive at school, at least. The problem was that Dexter DeWitt was still listed as her legal guardian in her school records, so he would be the person they'd call if something were to happen to Spencer at school, or if Spencer were to happen to someone else. And the last thing Spencer wanted was to bring her father back to New York prematurely. She couldn't do that to Scout. Not when she had everything she wanted: her music, her boyfriend, her home.

But she couldn't excuse this. Nor could her anger.

Pushing past Gwen and Peter to stand square in front of Flash's friend, Spencer set her jaw. The animalistic impulse to attack twitched at her fingertips, but she held it back for the moment. Held herself back. "Apologise."

"For what?" The boy cocked his head to the side. "Oh, chink? You want me to apologise for that?"

Back it up, Kyle, one of Flash's other friends said. Maybe it was Flash himself. Spencer didn't hear him, whoever it was that was trying to save his friend now that he'd put himself in Spencer's crosshairs. She was too busy staring at Kyle's face, at his features. He really was mediocre, relying on the collective attractiveness of the people he surrounded himself with—the "popular" guys—to hide his own inadequacy. It was his own kind of aposematism. Everything about him signalled weak, practically screamed it. His mouth, his jaw, his nose.

He had an unfortunate nose.

That was okay. Spencer could fix that. Smiling innocently, she cracked her knuckles. "I would like you to apologise. We don't like that word. It's a slur."

"Oh, I didn't know."

Spencer didn't think he was smart enough to feign ignorance. "Apologise."

Kyle half-shrugged, as if to say, if I must. "Fine. I'm sorry you can't take a joke." A pause, and then, with a cruel, contorting smile, "Chink."

Aposematism was the advertising by an animal to potential predators that it was not worth attacking; it was the warning signs they gave to those who would seek to harm them. Consume them.

Spencer would maintain she gave Kyle warnings. There were the verbal ones of course, the demanding of a genuine apology and the sharpening knife's-edge that cut through her voice. There were the physical ones, the way Spencer took a half-step back to assume an offensive stance, the way she curled her hands into fists.

But really, the ultimate warning sign should have been Spencer herself.

Spencer Sato wanted to kill somebody. In the Midtown High cafeteria—in front of all the students that comprised Lunch B, right before the bell for third block rang—she almost does.

𓆦

OUTSIDE THE PRINCIPAL'S OFFICE, Spencer waited a moment for Mrs Davis' secretary to disappear behind her desk before she pulled out her phone and earphones. Bloodied knuckles closed around her phone as the music began to play; leaning back in her chair, she closed her eyes. She was disappointed—she had expected Kyle to put up more of a fight. To bare his teeth and bite down hard.

But he hadn't. He was an animal, sure, but not the kind Spencer expected, or wanted. What she had wanted was a real opponent, someone that could take a few blows, deal a few back. Some kind of monster whose cruelty she could use to justify her own.

But no. Kyle had cowered like a dog, and taken a beating like one, too.

Though her heart was slowly returning to its normal rate, her hands were still itching for a fight, itching for more. Her first punch had been a good one, strong and dealt straight to his nose, eliciting a crack that silenced everyone in a fifty-foot-radius. The next had been to his gut. The next, his crotch. After that, it became indiscriminate, blurry, unsure—which part of her body beat into his, which parts of him she broke and which ones she left unscathed. At some point, it became wet. From his tears or blood, she didn't know. All Spencer knew was that she'd broken Kyle Romano's nose in two places, practically obliterated his jaw, and shattered his collarbone.

All she had to show for it was the skin and blood that had caught on the rings she'd neglected to take off before she started throwing punches.

And, of course, the new incident report added to her permanent record.

She tried not to think about the consequences of her actions and instead, turned her focus to the song that blared at near-maximum volume in her ears. Titled, Face it, Tiger! it was a demo for a song MJ had been working on for what felt like years now, and probably had been. Any other day and the song would have calmed Spencer down—despite the messiness of the production, the screech of feedback that only came with the cheapest (shittiest) amp Murder Face could afford.

But all Spencer could think about was the song's beat, the mental image of Gwen cutting clean through her focus, flashing bright like her hair—Gwen, and her hands, her hands curled around her drumsticks, her hands keeping both Spencer and the song steady.

Her hands. Around Peter. Peter's, around Gwen. Them, together, kissing, touching—

"Hello?" Somehow, a voice slipped through the pop punk disorder of the demo, shaking Spencer out of her thoughts and tugging her back to reality. She pulled out an earphone, her gaze slicing up like a razorblade through the air to meet whoever it was who had the genius idea to interrupt the girl sitting outside the principal's office with blood all over her hands. Blood that was still drying.

"What?" Spencer snapped reflexively, though she regretted her tone the moment she saw the boy who stood in front of her. She corrected her posture, sitting straight in her seat, and cleared her throat. "Sorry. Do I know you?"

He was good looking, expensive looking, all dark skin and designer brands. The watch on his wrist looked like it cost more than all of Murder Face's instruments and equipment combined. "No, I'm new—I came in late. I'm just waiting to meet with the principal. I wanted to make sure I was in the right place."

"You are. I'm meeting with the principal too." A pause, and Spencer lifted a hand to show him the blood, as if it were some medal of honour. "For a different reason, obviously."

She expected that to scare him off, but it didn't. He sat down beside her, dark brows pinching together. Spencer turned off her music and removed her other earphone. "I'm Spencer. Nice to meet you, I guess."

The boy looked down to her hands, folded in her lap. His eyes lingered on the blood coating them, still warm against her skin. Still a seething red, like a reckoning. Like a warning.

Come a little closer. I dare you.

He stared a moment longer before offering his own hand to shake. His watch gleamed almost as bright as the blood on Spencer's hands.

Almost.

"It's nice to meet you, too. I'm Harry."

🕷  here's the first proper chapter of american animals (: i don't really have much to say about it. but i hope you enjoyed reading! thank you so much for getting this story to 5k, i feel horrible because i literally just let it sit here and rot on my account while i work on other stuff. i will try to be more consistent with this story into the new year.

🕷  shoutout to the amazing gardenskies who made this beautiful banner for the story!! thank you so much! i love you!!

graphic by soulofstaars . . . 🕷️