*disclaimer: i just wanna reiterate that i condone none of sawyer's behaviour in this chapter and any of the previous (and ensuing) chapters that contain violence. but, like, this one especially.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
life and no escape

OLIVER WOOD CLOSED A FIST around his Hogwarts supply list, buried in the pocket of his grey hoodie as he shouldered his way through the bustling crowd in Diagon Alley. Even though it was only the beginning of August, people were already shopping for school supplies, worried that stock might run low and they'd have to wait eons before new shipment arrived, and by then, they'd have to play catch-up in school after missing out so much content. Earlier, he'd smiled and greeted a few familiar faces, but stopped to engage in conversation with none. None who were worth his time yet, anyhow. He gripped his list tighter, patted his pocket to check for his wallet, and squeezed past the relentless tide.

          Pain spiked through his body as stray elbows caught on his ribs and unforgiving shoulders collided with his, but it dulled in comparison to the injuries he'd sustained in the name of Quidditch. At least he wasn't being suffocated by the unceasing press of bodies and some blood-curdling smells that clung to them. Oliver was tall enough to be able to look over the heads of a good portion of the sea of people, and years of Quidditch practice and running had built him up with a more broad-shouldered, sinewy physique than most. Getting past this crowd wouldn't be a problem. He wondered how Sawyer—in all her five-foot-flat glory—was faring in a crowd like this. Amusement ghosted a smug grin across his lips. Until he remembered that it wouldn't be fun for other people around her either, having to be crowded in with a girl who was all rough edges and indifferent to those who cut themselves open on them.

          Turning a corner into a less-populated cobble-stoned alley of shops, Oliver chanced upon the lapse in chaos to pull the list out of his pocket. It'd come in the mail a couple weeks after his OWLs results had been delivered to his door, and the immense relief doubled when he realised that he would be starting his first NEWTs year at Hogwarts instead of fated to be a homeless failure forever. Smoothing out the creases on the page, he scanned the items required for sixth year. Books for his NEWTs classes were printed in neat, cursive on the piece of parchment paper, but his eyes caught more fervently on the words he'd penciled in himself and circled twice emphatically in red marker underneath all the mandatory supplies.

          New Quidditch equipment.

          A warm glow sparks in his chest. Not many things have the ability to incite a feeling this visceral, but Quidditch makes up about ninety-five percent of those things. After obtaining his school books for the year, he'll be dragging Wyatt to Quality Quidditch Supplies.

          Shoving the list back into his pocket, Oliver glowered bemusedly at the swarming crowd, before diving back in and elbowing his way through.

         He spotted the twins almost immediately.

          Under the sign reading Flourish and Blotts, they stood side-by-side, and yet worlds apart, divided by a malevolent bitterness Oliver wasn't sure anything could fix. Hacking down a forest of thorns was one thing, but Sawyer's resentment for Wyatt ran bone-deep. Why that was, Oliver didn't understand, and he didn't want to pry. He already knew that if he pushed her too far, he'd end up in the infirmary again—only, this time, he wouldn't be waking up. The best way to acquire answers was if Sawyer was willing to give them. And she wasn't the generous type. Over the course of the previous year, he'd learnt enough to know she worked on a give-and-take system.

             Leant against the glass display window, Sawyer flicked her flip-top lighter on and off, watching the flame burst to life, and then extinguish, then flare into existence again, only to be snuffed out—a tiny phoenix abruptly turned to ash upon its first breath. Unlike her ever-stunted height, her hair had grown longer over the summer, combed back into a ponytail behind her head. There was something different about her face, something off about the energy wicking off her shoulders. Something he couldn't quite put a finger on. A little girl tripped on the curb at her feet, cherubic face scrunching up in pain. Preoccupied with the flame in her hands, Sawyer didn't glance at the girl, didn't move, didn't stop ignoring the world moving around her as though she wasn't a part of it. Her expression hadn't even shifted. Not even when Wyatt bent down on a knee to help her to her unsteady feet, concern creasing his features as he gripped her arms and frowned at the bloody scrapes on her knees.

            Moments later, the girl's mother materialised from the crowd and whisked the girl away, muttering gratitude profusely at Wyatt, who waved her off with a bashful smile. Too quickly, she disappeared into the crowd again, just another unremarkable face to forget, but her the girl's blood remained a dark stain imprinted on the curb.

           "I'm here," Oliver said, finally within earshot. He raked a hand through his mussed hair. He's speaking to Wyatt, but his eyes keep darting to Sawyer, who's still estranged in her own world. "Ready?"

           "Hey, yes. Mum gave us a bunch of money, so I'm kind of praying it can cover all the books and give us a little leftover to spend on food," Wyatt said, mustering a weak smile.

             Shrugging, Oliver stuffed his hands into the pocket of his hoodie, thumbing his booklist. "I've got cash. If you guys don't have enough by the time we're out of here, I can spot you. I don't need that many books anyway. I'm only taking Transfiguration, Astronomy and DADA, so my list isn't that long, anyway."

            Wyatt's mouth quirked into a small smirk. "You're literally taking all of Sawyer's classes."

             Oliver risked a glance at Sawyer and almost did a double-take. Somewhere between the time his attention had been taken off her, the lighter had vanished and she'd turned her gaze on him. That wasn't what caught him off-guard. It was the rough, amused grin she wore that staked lightning through his chest, equal parts menace and mirth, like she could rip the flesh off, devour the world and spit the seeds out. In all the years he'd known her, she'd never worn that smile a day in her life. Worse, still, were her eyes. Not quite diabolic, not quite antagonistic, but dead.

            Horror cleaved a hole through his stomach, pounded through his temples with his heartbeat. What happened to you?

            "Oh," Oliver said, clearing his throat, barely finding his bearings, but unable to find his words.

          "Lucky me," Sawyer mused, cutting Oliver a languid look that liquidated his insides. Without warning, her words ran from her lips like war. "Don't worry, you stay out of my way, I'll stay out of yours. There, I've drawn my lines in the sand. Wyatt, are you happy? I'm playing nice with your friend."

           Heaving an exhausted sigh through his nose, Wyatt's smile pulled tight. Even though she'd openly acknowledged her brother, it was in a voice made of teeth, a cautionary flash of a blade—a mockery of a previous conversation Oliver wasn't around for, and wasn't sure he wanted to know about. Somehow, it was worse than her blatantly ignoring Wyatt's existence all those years before. Exasperation scrawled across his features, Wyatt turned to Oliver, eyes widening—can you believe what I have to put up with now?

             Despite the strange feeling throwing his guts through the wringer, Oliver steeled his gaze, stone-faced and clashing with Sawyer's venomous grin, refusing to acknowledge the mortars exploding in the untraversable distance between them like an old curse. Whatever happened over the summer, whatever made her grow so cold, Oliver couldn't stop puzzling over. If she was unfathomable before—made of tangled barbed wire with no beginning or ends—she was impossible to reach now. Now, she'd retreated into some sort of shell he didn't recognise. Now, there was no trace of the girl in the shade of the Quidditch pitch and in the garish kitchen lighting who hadn't quite softened, but had pointed out his broken parts and involuntarily—yet willingly—given him tiny pieces of herself in return.

            Now, as she has always said, there was nothing. As though the world was one colossal joke to her and none of it mattered. If that was the case, then he didn't know how her teammates would get her to cooperate during Quidditch practice.

            "I'm not here for a fight," Oliver said, hardened eyes searching her face.

           Sawyer's expression didn't shift. "No, I suppose not. You never are," she said, all vacant cheer and hidden sharps digging into his flesh. She cocked her head and flicked her fingers at the two boys. "Run along now."

            "You're not coming with us?" Oliver asked, arching a brow in confusion.

            Before Sawyer could respond, a sunny voice siphoned through the background static of the crowd.

           "Sawyer Lee! Get your midget ass over here!"

            Oliver swivelled round, only to be greeted by Jeremy waving vivaciously at Sawyer, a golden halo in his beaming mouth, copper eyes gleaming. Beside him, Marcus Flint had his face buried in his hands, muttering something unintelligible under his breath. Glowering, Rio Alvarez stood off to the side, all expensive leather jacket and untouchable cool, silently daring the world to push him to see how far he'd go. There was something possessive in the way his fingers curled over the hem of Marcus' shirt. Oliver's eyes slid away.

           Jeremy's eyes met Oliver's and his face lit up. With a shit-eating grin, Jeremy sauntered over, clasping Oliver's hand and drawing him into a warm hug. "Oliver Wood! How's it going, my guy? Ready for the upcoming season?"

            Pulling back, Oliver couldn't help the small grin flitting over his lips. "It's all good. I'm really looking forward to playing against your team again."

            Jeremy laughed. "Yeah, you do owe us a rematch. Hopefully the new kids can take you on." Over Oliver's shoulder, he spotted Wyatt, and gave him an equally fervent smile. "Hey, man. How's your back?"

           Ever since his spine-injuring fall in fourth year, Wyatt had been pulled off the team at the demand of the twins' hysterical mother, who feared he might do permanent damage to his already injured spine. Though upset at first, Wyatt took it all in stride, and found no bitterness in watching his old dream die from the sidelines. Sometimes Oliver imagined what it'd be like to be in that sort of position. It'd cripple him, for sure. He'd rather be dead than never play Quidditch ever again.

            Wyatt shrugged, offering Jeremy a friendly grin. "Same old, same old."

           "Can we get a move on before the rest of the world snatches up the textbooks?" Marcus interjected snidely.

            "You guys go ahead," Oliver said, glancing briefly at Sawyer, who'd taken to ignoring them again. "Wyatt and I are still waiting for some other friends."

            Flummoxed, Wyatt shot Oliver a scrutinising look.

           "Sure," Jeremy said, clapping Oliver on the shoulder. "See you in school!"

            Without prompt, the four of them disappeared into the shop, leaving Wyatt and Oliver by themselves, and a million questions burning on Oliver's tongue.

            Pursing his lips, Oliver tugged at Wyatt's elbow. "What the fuck happened to Sawyer?" he asked, a harsh whisper, at the same time a voice in the back of his head jabbed at him, you shouldn't care. Why should you? You don't like her. You've never liked her. There has always been, and will always be nothing. "Why's she acting all... different?"

           A flicker of pain crossed Wyatt's features. "Oh, that." Wyatt swallows, lips tugging into a frown. "Look, it's kind of complicated—"

           "I have time."

             Shoulders slumping in defeat, Wyatt let out a world-weary sigh. Boy-Atlas again. "So you know how my sister can be a little explosive?"

            "Understatement of the year," Oliver scoffs, sarcasm dripping from his teeth.

            "Yeah, anyway, earlier in the summer she sort of exploded on my mum, and both of them went batshit. Sawyer's always been an attitude problem, but this was a tipping point. She was starting to lash out more, saying the nastiest stuff and throwing things when she get so angry she went into this—" Wyatt grapples for the right word, fingers flexing, a grimace twisting his expression, a shadow haunting his eyes— "this dissociative state. It's like the violence completely took over and she became this whole other monster and we couldn't pull her out of it. Two weeks into the summer, Sawyer got grounded, but she snuck out that night to hang around with her muggle friends—like, the bad company type she's always stuck to—and they went around vandalising a bunch of buildings, and destroyed someone's car. Some guy—the owner—comes running out and they're all scattering, but he catches Sawyer first, and she just turns around and fucking goes at him. Someone heard all the ruckus and called the police. They had to call an ambulance for the poor sod too.

            "When Sawyer got arrested, Mum managed to Charm her way out of charges, but she'd had enough of Sawyer's violent outbursts. So she sent her to therapy. I was in the car the whole time, so I didn't know about all of this until I heard Mum telling Dad all about it. The guy almost filed for a charge on attempted murder. That's how bad she roughed him up." A shadow of a grimace creased Wyatt's features. Oliver could see how much it was hurting him, to be so tethered to someone made of thorns and stone, someone so hellbent on self-destruction, only to get caught in the backdraft. "I'm not too clear on the details, but Sawyer's on prescribed medication now for a manic-something disorder. Like, she's always doped up, that's why she's not... she doesn't even sound like herself anymore, don't you think? Good thing is, she hasn't gotten into trouble since. When she misses doses, she's a real nightmare still, but Mum struck this deal with her—if she kept herself medicated, she could do whatever she wanted, since she's not a real threat to anyone anymore. From then on, Dad will handle everything Sawyer-related."

            Sucking in a deep breath, Wyatt pinned Oliver with an indistinguishable look. "Somehow, it's even worse. She's never angry, but she's never really quite there, y'know? It's so weird. She's still fighting us every step of the way, and she's always sort of said she didn't care about anything or anyone, but the way she used to react to things... you'd think otherwise. Now, though, I really think she truly doesn't care at all."

           Oliver's jaw flexed. Even worse than the explosive anger was the stone-faced apathy. "So your mum's just given up on her?"

            Wyatt shrugged. "Possibly. It's what she said to Sawyer's face, y'know, 'From now on, you do what you like. I wash my hands off you.' It's so fucked up, but I guess Mum's just tired of fighting with her all the time. I doubt she actually meant it."

            A lick of defensive indignation burnt through his veins. "It's still not something you should ever tell your kid." Food won't go down when you know your parents don't want you. Oliver knows this just as well. The hurt throbs in the bones of his left hand. No matter how much Sawyer lets the arrows glance off her skin as if she were marble, she isn't invincible. The cracks will always show. Perhaps not now, perhaps not tomorrow. But someday, when the fissures from the inside spread to the outside. Everything will fall apart.

             "No," Wyatt said, shaking his head. "It isn't. But Mum and Sawyer never got along. I think Sawyer's happier like that."

            Oliver let out a humourless laugh. "Your sister's placated, not happy."

           "It's the closest she'll ever get," Wyatt insisted. "It's enough for now."

           Somehow, Oliver doubted that. Sawyer was not happy. Not even close. She was a chasm once filled with a cloying hatred forged by the volcanic core of her being into knives that pinwheeled inside her, slashing its way out until it found home in an external target—thus, the self-destruction—but all that darkness was iced over and she is an abyss extending inwards indefinitely. Happy and Sawyer were never synonymous—Wyatt should've known better than to make such a comparison. But Oliver shook off Wyatt's statement and strode into Flourish and Blotts, irritation ablaze in his veins.

           "Will you ever tell her?" Wyatt murmured as Oliver plucked a new Transfiguration textbook off the shelf, low enough so only Oliver caught the question, as well as the bones of under the skin of those words. It took a moment to process. Oliver's hand stalled.

            A couple months before his first OWLs paper, Professor Snape had given him a detention for brawling in the middle of Potions class. It came as a surprise to everyone—even his friends—that Oliver would lose his temper like that. One moment some lowlife, know-nothing moron sitting behind him was badmouthing Sawyer for costing Slytherin their Beater, calling her all these awful names, making all these false accusations undermining her true talent, and the next thing he knew, red slashed across his vision and Oliver had flung the guy out of his seat and slammed his fist into his throat. The truth of the matter was this: he'd reacted without even considering the consequences, he'd acted on impulse and out of spite for the sake of defending a girl who'd automatically voided whatever progress they were making the moment their business was finished.

            Punishment came down on him like a flaming whip. Since Oliver was a Gryffindor, and Snape had his personal prejudices, the hostile chemical mix meant detention was more than just detention. Wasting precious hours after classes that could've been allocated to Quidditch practice—even though the season was over by then—wasn't ideal, but handling the backlash, the aftermath of his uncharacteristic display of violence in the heat of the moment, was worth it to keep Gregor Martin's big mouth shut. And if he had to do it all again, he would.

            "No," Oliver said, pressing his lips in a taut line. After the fight, he'd remembered the moments after the fury had subsided, a retreating wave leaving behind only horror at what he'd done. Oliver might've been a natural instigator at heart, but he was never a fighter. Out of all the contentions he'd faced, none of them ended in violence. Most of the fight had been lost to a vacuum in his memory, since it'd been so quick—just a stray fist in periphery and adrenaline numbing the lash of pain in his jaw—but the feeling washing over him minutes after Wyatt and Ashton had forcibly ripped him away from Gregor... Some part of him could only wonder if Sawyer felt like that after she'd pulverised whoever was fool enough to provoke her. "Sawyer won't thank me for it. I did it of my own accord."

* * *

( THE SECOND WEEK OF SUMMER BREAK:
TWO MONTHS AGO... )

LYING ON HER BEDROOM FLOOR in a pair of cotton shorts and a loose shirt with the fan blowing at her face, Sawyer tips her gaze towards the window, flung wide open to a strip of blue sky. Humidity cloisters in her room, honey-thick and smothering, collecting in the caves of her underarms, beading on her temples and slicking the underside of her thighs with sweat. Since the likelihood of moving anytime soon had been lowered to zero in the thirty-five degree heat, she'd put a Black Sabbath vinyl on the record player and let the static growl of the band leaking through the speakers permeate the silence. Around her, parchment paper inked with her friends' unique handwritings fluttered against the ground, little robins beating their wings against the hardwood tiles. She'd made a plan to clean it all up soon—just not now.

            Two weeks into their summer holiday and Sawyer's already had enough of this house. Had enough of Wyatt offering to do the dishes and her mother shooting her glances that screamed: you see? Why can't you be like him? Had enough of opening her eyes to the same mantra in rote motion. Had enough of her mother's discontent roaring at her from the mouth of the vacuum outside her room. Daylight suffocates. Too many voices, too many people, too many nerves exposed. Daylight is the seething cavity of captivity and perfect, perfect brothers and nagging mothers with tongues like lashing whips. Indoors, she is an attitude problem—ignoring Wyatt, at war with her mother, lashing out with such an insidious ferocity that the ugliness served between them both paint the walls in a chemical atmosphere. Nightfall is a fresh breath of air. In the dark, in the quiet, she allows herself to slip away, out the window and down the fire escape and out onto the street where freedom is shadows clawing at her from the mouths of macabre alleyways and errant-blooded friends who have no magic in their bones and throw themselves head-first into reckless abandon.

            As if on cue, her bedroom door bangs open and her mother storms in with the vacuum, one hand propped on her hip, and her mouth curled in dissatisfaction at the state of Sawyer's room—an oil spill of cassette tapes, clothes and papers strewn across the floor, the unmade bed shoved up against the window, unruly desk cluttered with school items she hadn't yet put away, and the overflowing trashcan in the corner.

             "How am I going to vacuum if all your stuff is on the floor?" Her mother asks, lips pursing, glowering disapprovingly at the state of Sawyer's room. "I've been telling you to clean your room since the start of last week. How many times do I have to keep repeating myself?"

              Annoyance seeps through her pores. Drowning out the music, the vacuum growls at her, still live and raging, a loyal beast in her mother's hands. The obnoxious sound prickles her nerves, digs little needles into her skin, chips at her eardrums, chaos tumbling through the door and tipping her world into total entropy.

              "I know," Sawyer says, agitation in the bite of her tone. She was already planning on cleaning her room later, but it was too humid to unstick her limbs from the ground. And now that her mother was pushing her to do it again, the indignation blazing through her veins made her want to resist completing the task more.

           At Sawyer's lack of movement, her mother's brows furrowed in irritation. She tapped her foot against the floor impatiently. "I don't see your room being any cleaner."

           This stupid vacuum, Sawyer thought, glowering at the noisy contraption with a baleful vehemence. Her fingers twitched with the urge to break it into a million pieces. "Then don't look in here if you don't like what you see," Sawyer snapped, rising to her feet, ready to cross the room in three strides and shut the door. Shut the stupid vacuum out with its stupid noise spilling chaos into her room and clogging up her ears.

           A warning glint flared in her mother's eyes. "I won't be talked to like that in my house."

           Boiling frustration ripped through her gut and Sawyer felt her temper rise as the words were erupting out of her mouth like hot acid before she could reel them in. "Then get off my fucking back, Jesus Christ, woman!"

           It happened so quickly. A flash, a hand, a reckoning. The savage sting of her mother's palm blazed a trail of fire across her cheek, igniting the wick of her ticking anger making a home between her ribs.

           "How dare you," her mother hissed, dark eyes smarting, a jilted god ready to vaporise Sawyer on the spot with just one scornful look. "How dare you speak to me that way? Wyatt cleans his room when I tell him to. Why can't you be like that? Why do you keep looking at me like I'm the bane of your existence. I'm your mother. I deserve better than that."

             Red slashed across her vision as Sawyer brushed past her mother, out of her room and into the corridor. Blood pulsed under her skin, the familiar thunderstorm of fury wrapping around her shoulders. Her fingers dug into the heels of her palm, hard enough to break flesh. Good, Sawyer thought. Rip my skin off, let me bleed out on the carpet. She didn't have a destination in mind, only the rage pounding in her ears driving her to get as far away from the vacuum as possible before she could submit to her impulses and wrench it out of her mother's hands and dash it against the wall. All the patience she had for this conversation had dried up, leaving behind only the crust of her temperament. Still harping away, her mother followed, dogging at her heels.

             "Don't walk away from me," her mother seethed, shutting off the vacuum and casting it aside in a bid to keep up with Sawyer's hurricane-strides. Each word launched from her mother's tongue struck the painted targets on Sawyer's nerves, staking into her flesh like thorns. "You come back here and tell me why you won't listen to a word I say. I'm doing this for your own good, Sawyer, don't you dare turn your back on me. You think I like nagging at you? I don't, really. But when you move out to live on your own in the future, who's going to be there to clean up your messes? You're just proving that you can't be independent. You can't even clean your room when you're supposed to, how is this supposed to show me that you're going to be a responsible adult in the future? Hey, listen to me—"

             Hands seized Sawyer's elbow. A static whine pierced her eardrums, shutting off her brain. Black cut through her vision and she reacted, whipping around and shoving her mother back so hard she knocked the painting mounted on the wall off its nails. It clattered to the ground and the glass casing shattered, spraying across the floor, little shards nicking her ankles and glistering like devil teeth.

           The world goes still. Too stunned to retaliate, her mother gaped at her, frozen against the wall, pinned in place by the daughter she didn't seem to recognise anymore.

           "Wyatt would eat shit if you told him to," Sawyer said viciously, eyes flashing, wrath eating a hole through the inferno in her blood, a poison so thick it choked her airway, blocked out every single care in the world at what she'd just done. "I don't give a fuck what he does. He could jump out of this window for all I care. If he does, I wouldn't be surprised. You make this house impossible to live in."

            Hurt sliced across her mother's expression, but it vanished as quickly as it'd come, buried under the avalanche of anger flushing her features, a livid heat that wicks off her shoulders.

            "No more," her mother said, as she straightened, salvaging the shreds of her pride. But her shoulders shook with an invisible weight pressing from inside as well as out, and her voice wavered, a guttering flame, thick with a thousand emotions. Pain, disappointment, anger, melancholy. A war with no end. "I'm not tolerating anymore of this. You're grounded for the rest of the summer. You disappoint me, Sawyer. I had hopes that you'd changed, but you're just as wretchedly ungrateful. You never talk to me if it isn't to fight, you never talk to Wyatt, and you barely even speak to your father when he's around. Your manners are abysmal and you waste your father's money flunking your classes where you should be trying. It breaks my heart, really, seeing what you've become."

            Too late, Sawyer realised it wasn't malicious resentment glistening in her mother's eyes but unshed tears. Electric intensity crackled between the two, the unbridled animosity suffocating. Her mother's eyes were disconcertingly vulnerable, pricking and brimming with hot tears, pent-up anger radiating off her skin in palpable waves. In an instant, the anger lapsed, the storm dissipating into surface annoyance. Discomfort cut into the soles of her feet, and Sawyer bunched the hem of her shorts in her closed fists. Not quite knowing what to do, stuck between her own indignation and the sensible, Wyatt thing to do, Sawyer stayed rooted in place, unable to take the first step forward, unable to beg for forgiveness because the truth of the matter was that she didn't want to. She'd wanted to hurt her mother. The admission didn't assuage any of the guilt crushing up her ribs.

           So she did the only thing she knew how to do. She shut herself down, retreated into the stone shell she'd carved for herself, cold and remorseless and severed from emotion. Away, away, away.

          Down the hall, a bedroom door swung open, and Wyatt peeked out of his room, confusion and concern creasing his features. His brows furrowed when he caught sight of the broken glass on the floor. When his eyes landed on his mother, who was swiping at her tear-stained face with her hands, and Sawyer, standing in front of her, indifference scrawled over the shell of her features, he put the pieces together. Frowning, he fixed Sawyer with a searching look. "What did you do? Why'd you make her upset again?"

              Wyatt strode over to their mother, who collapsed like a paper doll into his arms. Rubbing a soothing hand down her back as she sniffed and sobbed against his chest, Wyatt pressed Sawyer with an incendiary glare. His towering frame dwarfed their mother's, and in the moment, she looked so fragile Sawyer couldn't help but feel the guilt digging into her insides, pouring venom into her bloodstream. But the aggravation is still there, residue magma clinging to her, filling her with enough fire to burn down a building. Truth: the anger is an affliction and it is a blade whetted by her own hand. She is the architect of all the bridges she will destroy. As long as they are within close proximity, people will always get caught in the backdraft.

             Sawyer flicked Wyatt a cool look. "Not my problem," she said. In truth, the remorse rotted her organs; she didn't know how to apologise. The words knotted in her mouth until it was better to say nothing at all. For a stretching moment, she wished she could leave it all behind. Turn her back on her perfect, perfect brother and her mother's tear-choked sobs. Past the painting lying at her mother's feet and all the fragments of glass and the remains of her relationship with her mother, torn asunder, glistering on the floor. Walk away and forget.

            And for a cruel moment, she realised that she could.

           So that's exactly what she did: disappear into her room, and slammed the door shut.

* * *

( FIFTH WEEK OF SUMMER BREAK:
ONE MONTH AGO... )

IT'S JUST CHEMICALS. Mood, medicine, impulses. Just chemicals, Sawyer murmurs to herself.

            Eight in the morning and she's alone in the kitchen, slanting the medicine cabinet an incendiary glare. The top shelf glowers back, taunting. When she slams the cabinet door shut she can hear the pills inside their cylinders rattling from the force, laughing at her, mocking her.

            "You need any help getting your meds, kiddo?" Her father asks, suddenly materialising at the door, probably moseyed his way in for his morning coffee.

           Reluctantly, Sawyer nods. Her father chuckles. "Remind me to buy you a stepping stool so you can get to your meds instead of looking like a sad puppy waiting for a slice of pizza to fall off the table."

           Two weeks into the summer she'd snapped at her mother, shoved her into the wall and broken a painting and subsequently any form of salvageable relationship with the woman. Earlier in the day, her mother—still licking her wounds in private, still putting her bones back in place and smoothing out the fractures—hadn't bothered calling her out for lunch. Or dinner. Wyatt had stopped by Sawyer's door a couple times, but received no answer. He'd left her alone afterwards.

           That night, Sawyer laid in bed until the rest of her family had fallen asleep, until the desperately hushed conversation between her mother and her father—no doubt about her, no doubt discussing: what do I do with this cursed anathema on our hands?—reached a lull. And when it all went quiet, when the house was all gentle groaning of the old floorboards and brick and gushing water pipes, she swapped her shorts for a pair of jeans, tugged on a black hoodie and sneakers, and quietly slipped from the house, slipped from existence, felt the cheap thrill of freedom pull her out of her window like a body from a car crash. Then she dropped into the pitch-black streets and legged it until she rounded the corner and stepped into the glow of a twenty-four hour convenience store where her lawless muggle friends were waiting, smoking cheap cigarettes and showing off new tattoos.

            Trouble found her ducking into alleyways that night, girl-shaped lightning with chaos caught between her teeth, bared to the summer heat pressing into the darkness. Midnight had fallen and children stolen from cradles awaken as changelings with devilment in their bones and impulse whispering in their ears. Sixteen years old found Sawyer and her muggle friends with bandanas fastened over the lower halves of their faces, black-clad and darting from shadow to shadow, cans of spray paint rattling in the duffel bags strapped to their shoulders.

            There were four of them. All sixteen to seventeen years of age, all troublemakers of some degree with little or no regard for societal regulations or authority. There was Tate, brooding and reserved and a less expensive copy of Rio; boastful and comically short Noah, who had an affinity for demolitions and homemade explosives; svelte and vindictive Lillian, a cardiac attack in the cradle of the summer, who wore her tattoos like medals; and arrogant and charismatic Levi, with hair so strikingly blond it was almost white, eyes like wildfires and a smile like Lucifer's as he fell from heaven.

             Whenever she felt like doing something reckless (which was often), Sawyer searched for them, and missed their anarchic carte blanche when the summer ended. It wasn't love that'd drawn them together like moths to a flame, but a mutual trust that settled between fractured isolationists who attained the common goal: raise hell.

             Tonight, they'd tucked themselves into the shadows and followed the wind tunnelling through the sleeping city, passing by flickering signs of convenience stores and tattoo parlours, hearts pounding with the throbbing bass from some derelict nightclub pulsing into the ground, beating against the soles of their shoes.

            They found an empty brick wall behind the old factory.

            "Black or blue?" Levi asked, his voice muffled by the bandana obscuring the lower half of his face as he held out two cans of spray paint. From the last summer, Levi had grown at least four inches, and he towered over her now, almost as tall as Jeremy.

           Sawyer snatched the black.

            Time melted into the nothingness between their fingers. They moved quickly, scaling up and down the ramshackle fire escape attached to the side of the wall, a chaotic orchestra conducted by adrenaline shocking down their veins, a symphony of the sounds of paint hissing out of the canisters as they worked by meagre streetlight, the rapid-fire banter sniped across the silence, hearts pounding in their temples, their warm breaths cooling against their lips. The miasma of paint plugged their nostrils, only just barely made breathable by the cloths secured over their mouths and noses. Occasionally they'd look over their shoulders, checking for prying eyes that they didn't want there, checking for cops, checking for loose ends. Stroke by stroke, the morbid piece they'd been planning for ages came together.

             Tate was the last to step back to admire their masterpiece, a blue dragon reared back on its hind legs, massive wings flexing outward, talons sharpened to a point, purple flames jetting out of its gaping mouth, licking the ground. Wet paint shined, saturated in moonlight, dribbling down in this streams, drying quickly in place.

           "It looks fucking ugly," Noah declared, casting his empty paint canister into the duffel bag.

           "You're fucking ugly." Pulling off her bandana, Lillian kicked Noah in the back of the knees and smirked as he buckled and lost his balance.

             Black paint stained the tips of Sawyer's fingers, as though she'd dipped her hand partially into the abyss and came away covered in the void. She wiped her hands over her jeans absently, already losing interest in their graffiti tag. Unlike with Jeremy, Rio and Marcus, Sawyer remained quiet around these friends. Around them, she wasn't compelled to speak at all. It wasn't their words she needed, but their company, their devilment, their susceptibility impulse. In return, they let her be their pocket of silence, the void with a penchant for violence.

            And so, Sawyer found herself following them around the city, spray-painting phallic symbols on expensive-looking cars around the neighbourhood. Lillian's idea, unsurprisingly. She'd always had a vitriolic streak hidden behind that pretty face of hers.

               "No fucking way," Lillian called, voice tinged with malefic delight. Standing by a white car parked on the curb, she flipped her dark hair over her shoulder and waved them over. Wicked excitement glinted in her eyes, blue as ice. "This one belongs to the wanker who almost ran me over yesterday. I remember the car plate number. This is the one."

           Tate raised a brow. "Sure?"

          Instead of a response, Lillian reared back and slammed her foot into the door. The car shuddered. She cackled, and the sound cut through the night like a thousand knives. A small crater of a dent remained in the spot where she'd kicked it. Noah sucked in a breath. Levi grinned. Sawyer watched Lillian circle the car, the cogs turning in her head, fitting pieces of destruction where she saw fit over the pristine surface.

          Finally, Lillian glanced up at the rest of her crew, a dirty smirk slashed across her wine-coloured lips. "Let's trash it."

           Noah slapped his hand against hers in a high-five. Tate pulled out a can of red spray paint and handed another to Sawyer.

             "Such a shame," Levi said, tapping the hood of the car with his knuckle. "It is a really nice car."

            In less than five minutes the white exterior was covered in angry red slashes of paint and the words: WANKER written over the hood in neon green. The cold rush of adrenaline iced their veins. They were out in the open, anybody peering down from the windows of their apartments would be able to catch a glimpse of the five of them blanketing the car in ruination. Ignoring the others, who'd taken to discussing what else to defile the car with, Sawyer tossed the can aside and studied her reflection in the window. In the hazy orange light pouring from the heat of the street lamp, her complexion was a halo of gold in the glass. A surge of electric energy burnt her veins.

           "Did they hurt you?" Sawyer asked.

          The others fell silent, rendered speechless for a second.

           "Uh," Lillian said, scrambling for her words. "He bumped me, but I ended up rolling my ankle. Why?"

           In some warped way, Sawyer thought it was good enough reason. Later, she would wonder what possessed her as such. But the present was all that mattered. The present was in her hands. The present compelled her to put her fist through the glass window. And so she did.

            In a shower of glass, the passenger window cracked before her fist could even touch it, but she went for the punch anyway. Adrenaline numbed her body, but the pain splitting the skin on her knuckles as she sliced her hand open on the broken glass brought a surge of bliss through her veins. Blood sprang to the surface of the cuts, streaking down her forearms where her skin tore open on the jagged shards. When she pulled her arm out, her fist was a mangled mess of flesh and blood, singing with pain. But there was no weight on her shoulders and the smothering thundercloud forever shrouding her head seemed to dissipate for a moment. For a moment, she saw the stars, saw the black of night.

           Noah let out a surprised shout. Levi's eyes widened. Tate blinked, nonplussed. Lillian grinned.

           Electricity rushing through her veins, a floating ocean building up momentum inside, Sawyer went for the backseat window. Glass shattered and her friends cheered and the stars twinkled. And then a light in the apartment building behind them flickered on, colouring a square of a window yellow. Somewhere in the background of her mind, she was vaguely cognisant of a door opening, footsteps pounding the concrete, someone—a man—yelling, but when her fist shot through the next window, spilling tiny shards of crystalline glass onto the pavement like a hundred thousand transparent teeth shining under the glow of the streetlights, Sawyer lost herself in the warmth of the blood slicking her arms, the relief that washed over the cuts that stung like wasps. There was blood everywhere but she kept going. Kept beating the anger out of her body with every strike of her fist against the car windows. It hurt and she was pretty sure she'd broken some fingers, but she embraced the pain and threaded it into her bones.

            "Hey!" The man yelled again, slamming the door shut and charging at them. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

           They froze. Caught red-handed. Sawyer withdrew her fist and the stars slipped back behind the smog that ate the light away.

           "Oh, shit," Levi said, but the ungodly grin on his face was made of malevolence and levity.

          In retrospect, Sawyer would never be able to remember that night. There is a hole in her memory where the violence eroded her rationality and the memory had been reduced to a wisp of essence, a hot flash, a stop-motion picture book flipped too quickly.

          All she remembers is feeling.

           The man grabs for Tate first, but Tate is already moving, scooping up his duffel bag and spray paint canisters and legging it up the street. A beat later, the others are hot on his heels, fire in their bones, eating them from the inside out. Fire blazing in the hearth of their core, hearts pounding with their footfalls beating the concrete, screaming, you are alive, you are alive. A calloused hand clamps over Sawyer's wrist. A vicious twist of revulsion racks through her body and her skin prickles where the head of his palm sears into her wrist. Pivoting on her heel, she slams her elbow into her captor's solar plexus hard enough to crush the air out of their lungs. It's the man. He's middle-aged, a whole head taller than she is, and of a bulky build, but where fury contorts his features, the adrenaline in her veins naturally seeks brutal combat. She doesn't need to glance over her shoulder to know that none of the others are sticking around. She must've been the slowest one, the easiest target. But she's had enough of people grabbing her. And he still hasn't let go. Rage ripped through her blood. Teeth gnashing, the world drops away and the howl of police sirens in the distance doesn't stop her from surging forward.

            All she remembers is shutter-clicks.

            Frame one: the world stills but everything inside snaps into motion. Frame two: red-faced with a tempest in her veins as she punches, punches, punches until the noise in her head dims, a warrior with no war. Frame three: he is not a fighter and she can tell this in the way his punch sails into her arm. Inconsequential. Frame four: her knee jams into the space between his legs. Tower falling down. Her vision goes black and all there is is disconnect, a whining in her ears, fire in her blood, and she is a perpetual motion machine, lost to reason. Pouring all the day's irascibility into the burning of her fists pummelling, bruising—HIT IT UNTIL IT BREAKS.

             All she remembers is shattered colours.

             Red and blue, neon and flashes. Someone dialled for the police and the lights spilled against the sidewalk, the piercing siren echoed for miles and miles and then there was a police car pulling up at the curb. Cold metal slaps over her wrists and she was forced into the backseat.

             Moments later, she'd been whisked away to captivity in a holding cell, white fluorescent lights bearing down on her, her ruined hands had been bandaged up so they looked like the clubbed flippers of a baby harp seal. They'd caught the others too, all except Tate, who'd managed to slip through their fingers like oil. Silence weighed them down in thick chains. Someone coughed. A phone somewhere to the front started ringing. Sawyer had closed her eyes then, leant her head back against the wall, and let the universe tip on its axis.

             Until her mother showed up. Snatches of words like: vandalism, property destruction, attempted murder filtered through the bars of the holding cell. There was a muttered Charm, a groan of metal, a jangling of keys. Then there was short-lived freedom and then the dreadful silence before an execution descending deliberately in the space of her mother's car. Wyatt in the backseat, meeting her eyes once in the rearview mirror, then sliding away. He didn't look at her again the whole night. Her mother's expression was perfectly schooled calm, dangerously blank. But underneath the calm was a layer of permafrost. Underneath that layer of permafrost was the terrifying wrath of ancient gods. Without even checking to see if Sawyer had her belt buckled, her mother drove off.

           When they get home, her mother breaks the silence.

             "I have a friend," she began, scrubbing a hand over her face. Under the dim light emanating from the lamp in the living room, the lines of exhaustion on her mother's face and the gaunt hollows coloured in by shadows slanting across her weathered skin became all too apparent to Sawyer. Resting her elbow on the shoe cabinet, Sawyer cut her brain off before it could wander into the brackish waters of guilt: how long has she looked this old at forty-five? "I have a friend," her mother said again, gripping the car keys in a death-grip, knuckles blanching. "She's a psychiatrist. I'm making an appointment tomorrow."

           Flummoxed, Sawyer blinked. Her mother must've detected the confusion because the next words out of her mouth punched a hole through Sawyer's guts.

          "It's for you," her mother clarified, swallowing. "You'll see her in the afternoon, and we'll sort everything else out from then. Dad will drive you because I have coaching at that time, but I'll pick you up after."

           "You're sending me to therapy," Sawyer deadpanned, "so I can be someone else's problem."

           "No," her mother said, and the living room felt a lot like purgatory, like the moments before the guillotine came down on Sawyer's neck, "I'm sending you to therapy so we can solve your problem. Dumbledore told me to send you in for psychiatric evaluation a long time ago because your outbursts were highly unusual for a young girl, but I didn't listen because I thought it was all just a phase. I thought you might grow out of it. When you didn't, I still held onto that hope. But tonight is just the last straw. You've bent my fingers back and I can see it now. I'm sorry I didn't do this earlier."

            What else could she do but go?

            Dahlia Josten was a nice woman. To everyone's surprise including her own, Sawyer had taken a liking to the woman. Under the umbrage of patient-doctor confidentiality, Sawyer found herself opening up, taking pieces of herself and handing it to Dahlia to turn over and inspect like an insect under a microscope. So, what's wrong with me, doc? Sawyer had asked after the first session, a cheerless grin on her face, too many teeth in her voice, eyes flashing with challenge. And Dahlia simply folded her hands over her knees and said: you realise you don't like telling me these things without anything in exchange, so you try to throw me off with your sarcasm. Just the same, you use your anger as a slip-cover, a defensive mechanism. You are not under attack here, Sawyer. I'm just here to talk about you.

            Eventually, one session turned into another. And another. And another. Then came the prescriptions. Mood stabilisers, antipsychotics, pink pills, yellow pills, white pills.

          "Here," her father says, knocking her back to the present, taking an orange cylinder off the top shelf in the medicine cabinet, a small smile on his lips. He turns it, label-side-up, and lets her take it. "First dosage of the day."

          Zyprexa was the first antipsychotic she'd been put on. Dahlia introduced her to mood stabilisers soon after. The chemical cocktail of Zyprexa and Topamex and the piss-coloured nutraceutical agent she'd been recommended to take didn't rearrange the wiring in her brain, but it smoothed the jagged edges out, a nebulous fog under her skull, and made the world swim in colours. Somehow the medication formed a barrier between herself and the rest of the world, the last line of defense she had to offer. But inside she was floating in a high, like water trapped in a crystal. All life and no escape.

           Wordlessly, Sawyer unscrews the cap, tips the cylinder and spill eight pills, all gleaming film and neat, white plastic-looking capsules, onto her palm. Her father frowns, pinches all—bar two—and dumps them back into the container. Without so much as an apprehensive grimace, she swallows them dry. Mockingly, she sticks her tongue out in a sarcastic attempt to show her father: see? I can be good now. No more problems.

           (Deep down, she knows the dosage she imagines herself taking is consistently more than what is reasonable, but it's a known fact that Sawyer Lee is not pragmatic in the least and it's been days, months, years and she is still not dead. In spite of the medication disintegrating through her veins, in spite of the mood stabilisers clouding her pathways, she will still be the same festering hurricane of adversity. Sober or not, her skin is still incurably ridden with the blemishes and the burn scars canvassed to her body.)

           And as the cloud of indifference slips over her brain—solidifying like cooling magma on the surface—and melts it to within an inch of her emotional capacity, the world is no longer shades of black and white but the grey in-betweens. It's just chemicals.

          It's enough to efficiently kill the contemplative thoughts and mute the provoking voices, but not nearly enough to potentially kill her.

          And perhaps that's what she's been fooling myself into. That she had the power manifested in her hands to end it all, to slip blissfully beneath the soil and bury the guilt and the pain and the insatiable need to keep consuming and hurting alongside her rotting flesh and bones. But the unembellished truth is, she doesn't.

          Not really.

AUTHOR'S NOTE.
soooooo sawyer's gonna be Ultra insufferable this entire section,,, but bear in mind (though i'm not in any way justifying her actions),,,,,, people with these mental/violence issues aren't always righteously violent,,,,, sometimes,,,,,,, they hurt themselves as well as other people,,,, and it's not all rainbows and roses,,,,,