Wrath will cremate Cecilio Velez to the bone.

Their veins are a grid of tripwires and his heart a handmade nail bomb. One touch, bang! Beewolf —their personal demon manifested from childhood nightmares, a wasp striped red rather than yellow— has coerced them to be profligate with a flamethrower. There's nothing he won't burn just because they can, and that includes himself.

Cece treats their life like a game already lost: gamble it at once, never stop to consider the consequences.

Until those consequences pile up too high to ignore.

With twenty pages of misdemeanours stapled to their name, no foster home in Greater Manchester will have him and they're forced to live with their martyr of an elder brother. And when he's about to be expelled from his fifth school, even Nicolás has had enough. The threat is made clear: get expelled and get sent to Oak Shaw Group Home for Troubled Teens.

With no intention to move to fucking West Country, Cece scampers to clean up their act. That is to say, to do the bare minimum to not get expelled.

But when you've spent a decade replacing your vital organs with explosives, it's hard to remove them without annihilation.

I WANT TO TAKE MYSELF APART INTO SOMETHING ELSE, AND IF I CANNOT DO THAT, I WANT TO DESTROY EVERY PART OF IT THAT COULD BE USED AGAINST ME

andrew jospeh white, the spirit bares its teeth

I THOUGHT MAYBE YOU COULD LOVE ME LIKE YOU USED TO. EVEN THOUGH I'M... DIFFERENT

jinx, arcane: series 1 episode 9

SOUNDTRACK
[spotify link in bio]

01. TEENAGERS my chemical romance — 02. FUCK THE CISTEM the muslims — 03. WRECKING BALL mother mother — 04. WHAT DO THEY KNOW? mindless self indulgence — 05. JESUS DON'T LIKE THAT I'M GAY BUT SATAN'S COOL WITH IT lil boodang — 06. LOVE IS DEAD AND WE KILLED HER doll skin — 07. I'M GONNA TELL MY THERAPIST ON YOU pinkshift — 08. MAGGOT dazey and the scouts — 09. ETERNOS leonora post punk — 10. SHAME REACTIONS pom pom squad — 11. WE'RE SO HAPPY the danse society — 12. WHAT YOU GET paramore — 13. LEAVE THE CITY twenty one pilots

CONTENT WARNINGS: This story includes violent and gory intrusive thoughts and hallucinations. Additional warnings for abuse (alluded backstory only), adolescent cannabis and alcohol abuse (explicit), self-harm and suicidal ideation (implicit + few explicit but skip-able scenes), as well as racism and queerphobia (institutional; interpersonal racism and queerphobia in alluded backstory only). Stylistically: blood, gore, insects, and overall gross imagery.

Owning to the aforementioned, this story is rated mature.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hiya! I've decided to edit this book to flesh it out better. If you've already read it, the story is the same but there are a lot of new scenes and some tweaks as well so rereading may be worth it if you enjoyed it enough the first time :p For new readers, thank you so much for giving this book a go! I do hope you enjoy <3

Some notes before we jump into the story:

• This book includes identities and experiences outside of my own. If anything feels inauthentic or offensive, I would be very thankful for feedback so I can make needed adjustments :) 

• Cece uses they/he pronouns so please use those if you talk about them.

• This is set in 2016-2017.

• The characters all speak in the Mancunian dialect. I am including a glossary at the end of every chapter to explain dialect words along with just some British English explanations for those of you who speak a different English. If there's a word or phrase you don't understand that isn't defined in the notes, leave a comment and I'll explain it!

Here's some random YouTube video about it if you'd like to hear what it sounds like (you can skip to 6:13 for a longer passage reading):

https://youtu.be/6ffIOaj-Gdg

• This book is on StoryGraph if you want to track your reading or leave a review.

• I've written a complete spin-off about Cece's brother, Nicolás, so if this story leaves you desiring more of these siblings, be sure to give it a glance!

Written September 2021-February 2022
Edited November 2024-January 2025 (?)

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All rights reserved. Any unauthorised use of this material is prohibited under copyright law. Any use of this work to train generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies is expressly prohibited.