I’m early to fourth period. AP Social Studies. I have my book out on my desk, pretending to read, while the rest of the students take their seats. I feel someone standing over me. It’s the It Girl with the freckles. She shifts from foot to foot. It feels like she wants to say something to me.
“Hi,” I say guardedly. There’s something in her eyes. Something almost like caring.
She opens her mouth but suddenly stops herself. She walks past me and takes her seat, a worried frown on her face. Class begins. The lecture is short and the round table discussion is long, more like a debate, really. There are twelve kids in this class, and they throw themselves into the topic with relish. I stay out of it and just listen. I learn that Freckles’ name is Harlow. She’s smart. Witty. And what a mouth on that girl. ‘Wiseass’ doesn’t even begin to cover it. I can’t help but like her.
I see Harlow again at lunch and I smile at her. She almost smiles back, but it gets stuck halfway across her lips. Her eyes un-focus with conflicting thoughts and her almost-smile sinks back down into a fretful frown.
I sit alone. Several boys ask if they can eat lunch with me and I tell them no. I don’t say it nicely, either. At my last school I tried to date once. Sweet kid. He asked me to junior prom and for some idiotic reason I said yes. By the end of the day he’d already been in three fights. I told him to forget it. As long as I say no to everyone no one fights over me. Enough wars have been started over this face. My face. My curse—and my mother’s curse, and her mother’s curse, and so on all the way back to the first woman to ever wear this face. Helen of Troy.
Lunch ends and I glance at my syllabus. Phys Ed. Oh joy. I trudge to the girl’s locker room, wondering if the people who decided on the class order are purposely trying to make the students barf. Who schedules Phys Ed right after lunch? Not that gym class is any kind of work out for me. In fact, it’s insufferable. I’m always so paranoid I’ll move a little too quickly, or lift something that’s a little too heavy for a girl my age, and I’ll be found out.
Rule number one for my kind: don’t EVER let full mortals discover that demigods—we call ourselves Scions—exist.
As I pull the door to the girls’ locker room open I hear a whispered it’s her, and my heart falls. I underestimated Kayla. I didn’t think she’d resort to a physical attack, not yet anyway. I should have suspected this from the way she didn’t even try the ‘hostess of the school’ passive aggressive route. This girl isn’t passive about anything. She’s just aggressive. My uncle Deuce is going to kill me for letting a bunch of mortals get the drop on me.
Kayla and the It Girls don’t know this, but I can see them all moving in on me. They’re so slow it’s pathetic. Before they can grab me I already know what my choice has to be. I have to let them get me or they’ll see how fast I can move and they’ll know that there’s something seriously strange about me. And Kayla is the type to dig. She won’t let it go until she finds out what I am.
And then I’ll have to kill her.
They grab me and pull me back into the showers. I fight the instinct to electrocute them. It isn’t easy. I go sort of limp in their arms, knowing that if I don’t struggle I won’t miscalculate my strength and accidentally break anyone’s arm.
There’s a chair set up, waiting. Kayla’s put some thought into this. They throw me down into the chair and she stands in front of me. Smug. There’s a glint in her eye that tells me she enjoys this a bit too much. I’ve seen the look before. That twisted kid in my sixth grade class had the same look in his eyes when he stuffed a firecracker in a toad’s mouth and watched it explode. He was one of those skinny, wimpy-looking bullies—the kind that get by, not on size, but on sheer cruelty. Kayla’s like him, I realize. She’s not the prettiest or the smartest (that would be Harlow) she’s just willing to do things that the other girl’s aren’t.
She has a pair of scissors in her hand. I’m worried now. I’m not afraid of pain, but what if she cuts me and they all see the wound heal right before their eyes?
“Please stop,” I say, my lower lip trembling. It’s not an act. I don’t want to have to kill. Not again.
“I haven’t even started yet,” Kayla says. “Harlow,” she calls over her shoulder.
Harlow comes forward, her lips pursed together resentfully. I look up at her, pleading. She doesn’t want to do this, and I can tell from the looks on their faces that about half of the It Girls don’t either, but Harlow is the only one with strength to stand up to Kayla. I shake my head at her, hoping the real Harlow shows up and tells Kayla to go to hell. Harlow grabs a lock of my long hair and Kayla hands her the scissors. They’re going to cut my hair.
“Don’t, Harlow,” I plead, tears blurring my eyes. They don’t understand. Without my hair, I’ll have no way to hide my face. I’ll be exposed and it’ll just get worse.
Harlow’s forehead puckers, her face drawing together with hopelessness. I realize that she wanted to tell me in Social Studies that this was going to happen, but she stopped herself. I wonder what Kayla has on her.
“Do it,” Kayla snarls.
A dark look crosses Harlow’s face, a tiny spark of rebellion, and then disappears. She obeys. As Harlow hacks through my hair I glare at Kayla. Angry tears are spilling down my face even though I try to blink them back. It’s so humiliating to cry in front of them, but I can’t help it. I hate Kayla. I hate her because she’s taking my hair and leaving me exposed, yes, but I hate her even more for Harlow. For a second there I thought maybe, eventually, Harlow and I could have been something like friends.
“Not brave enough to do it yourself, Kayla? Have to get some other girl to do it for you in case I talk?” I say to her. Her satisfied expression falls for a moment. She knows that everyone heard that, and that it will stick with them long after today. Resentment will brew in the ranks. Kayla has no choice but to take the scissors away from Harlow and do it herself. Good. Get your hands dirty, I say to her with my eyes. Show them what you are.
“You’re not going to talk,” Kayla says through gritted teeth. She takes the front lock of my hair, the one right over my eyes, and I feel her cut it down practically to the scalp. “Or next time, I’ll cut more than your pretty blonde hair.”
Kayla sprinkles my hair on the grimy tile of the shower. It glistens as she drops it, like she’s making it rain gold thread from her hand.
“Stay away from my boyfriend,” she says.
My chest is so tight with tears I don’t trust myself to speak aloud. As if Flynn, the poster child for over-privileged and overconfident average, is any kind of temptation for me. I nod contritely, like she’s broken me, just to get this over with.
Kayla smirks and motions with her head for everyone to leave. They file out silently, some of them overwhelmed by what they witnessed. I drop my wet eyes. I don’t want to see their expressions. I’m too ashamed I’m crying.
When they’re gone, I stand and go to the mirror. I can hear the girls at their lockers in the next room, getting ready for gym class. I look in the mirror. A big section of hair is missing from the side of my head and, of course, there is the shorn part over my forehead.