Bioshifter

"What the fuck!" Ida screams, slamming the emergency lights button in her car and pulling over to the side of the road. "What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck!"

I can't respond, of course, since I'm too busy pressing both hands against my mouth and trying to pull my claws back up through the gouges I just dug into my shoes. I'm such an idiot! What the heck was I thinking, trying to cast magic in a moving car? With my friends around? With the verbal incantation I can apparently now do!?

The car jerks to a stop once Ida gets out of the way of traffic, twisting around to send a look of utter panic in my direction.

"Did you just summon fucking Cthulhu into my car!?" she shrieks.

Holy crap what does she know.

"Cthulhu!?" I blurt. "Is Cthulhu real? Is that who that was!?"

"Wh—no! God no! I mean, I hope not!? I was fucking kidding, Hannah, I do not like that your reaction is apparently 'that sounds concerningly plausible!'"

She says the last bit in an exaggerated, mocking tone that just gets to me in a way I feel normally wouldn't. I'm raw right now, lightheaded and dizzy and just coming down from a panic attack followed by a self-induced horror show. My body starts to shake. I feel my toes curl, immediately undoing my progress of pulling them out of the soles of my shoes and causing them to grind up against the tears in the metal I just dug into the floor of Ida's car. I remember it all happening, the way the goddess—I don't know what that was, really, but it can't be anything other than divine—just… had her attention here. Her judgment, her presence. I got to name my own spell, but she got to judge the name, decide its worthiness. She spoke the words, after all, and she's no mere tool I can use at my whim. I get the impression she was faintly amused by my naming scheme, but had she not been amused? Had 'Spacial Rend' not been a name she approved of? I've no doubt that I wouldn't like what she'd choose to use my breath for, in that case.

I got the impression the goddess liked me, but not in a way that feels remotely comforting. It was an appreciation akin to one I'd give a photo of someone else's cat. Cute, certainly. Something I enjoy seeing. But the moment that picture goes away, I'll never think about it again, because there are a billion cat photos in the world and most simply aren't all that special. It is the sort of imperceptible, instinctive fondness that only lasts as long as we choose to indulge it. How many cute pictures have I seen of animals that are no longer alive? Of animals that have suffered abuse, neglect, pain, and torment? I'll never know, because I never even think about those pictures outside of a passing entertainment. Of course, unlike the goddess, if I did know an animal was being hurt, I would actually care. But to her I'm just… an abstract amusement.

But I was at least amusing enough to get her to speak two words, and what an experience that was. I mean, the loss of bodily autonomy was horrifying, the way something else reached out and seized my muscles with as much effort as a blink and spoke words that needed no voicebox, no lungs, and no mouth to emerge from my body fully-formed and brimming with power. Which, in retrospect, makes the entire experience more terrifying, because like… why bother forcing me through that at all, in that case?

…Though before I start trying to justify anything to myself, I should probably establish that while activating the spell involved my body being briefly taken over to speak the wacky universal magic language or whatever, the stupidity that followed was 100% home-grown Hannah. I'd felt the spell coalesce around my claws, wreathing the exoskeletal weapons with spatial energy which extended maybe a couple inches past the tip of the curved blades. The moment they came into being, the moment I felt them pulsing in my feet, I had to cut something. The overwhelming need of it boiled over, and I proceeded to choose the stupidest possible target: the bottom of Ida's car.

It turns out car frames aren't particularly thick; only a few inches of it separates the riders from the road. That means the ten thin gouges I dug through the backseat floor are all exposed to the air outside, resulting in a terrible roaring noise when the car moves at high speeds. So yeah, I just dealt expensive damage to an expensive vehicle, loudly broadcasted that something supernatural is going on to Ida, and generally fucked up in the biggest way possible.

And it felt so good. The way the metal just peeled open like tissue paper… god, it gives me chills just thinking about it. I can feel through the spell, kind of, as if it's an extension of my own body. The easy glide through solid material was far from the sort of vibrational, visceral feedback I usually get from digging my claws into things, but differently pleasurable is certainly still pleasurable. I want to do it again. I can cut metal. I can cut anything! Can we just go to a scrapyard and… agh, no! No no no no!

"What happened to my car!?" Ida yelps. "Those look like goddamn claw marks! Oh my fucking god Hannah, if you don't explain what's going on right now—"

"I don't know!" I snap at her, trying not to choke on all the gauze still in my mouth. "I don't know, just… just give me a minute!"

"Are we in any danger, Hannah?" Brendan asks evenly, though I know his calm expression and demeanor mean he's anything but. When things get intense, he gets… flat. It's how he handles stress. Were he happy or comfortable he'd be a lot more expressive, if not in voice then at least in body: tapping his feet, rubbing his hands together, possibly even wiggling his whole body if he was in a particularly good mood. He gets self-conscious about it all when he's stressed, though, causing him to focus on shutting all of that down and being as emotionless as possible.

"I… I don't think so," I manage to choke out, trying to take deep breaths. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I just… this was my fault. There's nothing else going on."

"Was… was there someone else here?" he presses.

Was there…? Oh, he means the goddess. They heard that. They felt that. Maybe not exactly the same way I did, but there's no way they believe that's natural. I mean… I'm sure a lot of people could convince themselves it was just a hallucination, but I doubt Brendan and Ida are the type.

"I… kind of, I think," I tell him. "But I don't know. I don't know if that was a person or… or something else. Look, please, I just… I need a minute."

Brendan nods, while Ida just gives me a look mixed with stress, fury, and general 'are you fucking serious' energy… but she shuts her mouth and lets me take a while to compose myself. I take a few shaky breaths, curling myself into a ball by perching my heels on the edge of my seat, letting my toes dangle in open air where they can't fucking cut anything. My shoes are still on, of course, even if the soles are mostly shredded, but that's enough to prevent Ida from seeing the freakish changes. Once I feel capable of it, I say the first thing on my mind.

"I don't want to talk about this."

It's not fair, but… it's too much. It's too much to face head-on. I can't handle it, and I definitely don't want Ida to know about it. I know it's not fair, but maybe if I just request it politely I can pretend this never happened.

"Too goddamn bad," Ida grunts. "You don't get to speak in tongues and make my car look like I just ran over a velociraptor and then not explain. Fuck that."

I wince, but I guess I should have expected that. Words won't come, though, so with shaky hands I just start removing my shoes instead of saying anything. It feels so good to not have my feet pinched into a shoe that's now two sizes too small for the extra length on my toes, so I allow myself a small shudder of pleasure as I go ahead and take my knee socks off as well, stretching out my claws. They look the same as they did this morning, the bone growing up past the knuckles of my toes and forming sharp, exoskeletal joints. They're not entirely even, with something craggly and primordial about them that gives off an air of danger that both terrifies and enraptures me. I'm so busy admiring my own feet that I almost miss Ida's gaping expression, though I do look up and catch it when she starts making an 'uhhhh' noise.

"...You're shitting me," she whispers. "Hannah, are you turning into a goddamn werewolf or something?"

"I… I mean I think it's more of a were-spider?" I squeak.

"Hannah isn't any kind of therianthrope," Brendan says, almost automatically. "She's turning into something, but it seems to be mono-directional, not a kind of shapeshifting. Though I guess she might qualify for more spiritual kinds of therianthropy, considering she's apparently a spider in her dreams, but that's not really how the word is used much anymore."

Ida turns and blinks at him once.

"What?" she manages.

"Werewolves turn into wolves or wolf-hybrids under certain conditions, then turn back into humans when the conditions are no longer met. Same with other were-creatures. Hannah does not seem to be changing back."

"Yes, thank you for the reminder," I grumble.

"I'm just clarifying," he answers flatly.

"So… so back up," Ida insists, rubbing her face with exasperation. "Basically, magic is real and those claws are real and Hannah is turning into a monster somehow? That's what you're saying? This has gotta be some kind of insane, stupid prank, right?"

Well, nothing for it. The spider's out of the dimensional pocket now. I reach up under my mask, pulling the bloody gauze out of my mouth as I reach into my backpack and retrieve my ziplock bag full of human teeth. Ida stares at it in horror as I plop the gauze in there (I don't want to get her car messy, after all) before putting it all back in my backpack. I stretch my jaw a bit, moving it around with satisfaction. I'm not bleeding anymore. That's nice. Ida just gapes at the whole scene, and since that's apparently still not enough for her I pull up my pant leg and show her the exoskeletal growth starting there, as well. Brendan raises his eyebrows at that, a flicker of interest passing over his features, but he's too overwhelmed to ask to touch it like I expect he wants to.

"Feel free to independently verify," I offer, feeling the comfortable yet horrible numbness of disassociation start to set in. It immediately starts warring with a fresh spike of adrenaline, though, and who knows which one is going to end up winning this particular faceoff.

Ida looks down at my leg, which I extend out to allow her ease of access. Then she looks up at my face, then back down to the leg, then up at my face again before finally reaching over to touch the exposed bit of exoskeletal bone. She pokes it, sending a strange and somewhat uncomfortable sensation through my leg. The touch isn't anywhere as dulled as I would have expected from not having skin there anymore; in fact, it still feels almost exactly the same as it would have normally… if not for the fact that there is no feeling of give, no depression to make from the force. My exoskeleton is utterly unmoving where skin would bend or squish, and that is, somehow, the biggest difference in sensation I get from the experience.

"Is this… is this actually bone?" Ida hisses, poking around at the edges where the skin thins out and reveals my mutation. "You're fucking with me, right?"

I try to answer that, but Ida presses on a particularly itchy part of skin around the area and I end up involuntarily letting out a small, happy noise. Sensing blood in the water, Ida seems to immediately forget that I'm turning into a monster and grins mischievously, rubbing a bit more around the area in an attempt to elicit more noises from me. It does feel nice—as getting someone to massage an itch generally does—so even though I put my hands up over my mouth I end up making another happy grunt or two.

"This is weird," Ida says, though she's grinning like a demon. "This is so fucking weird. Seriously, what the fuck is—"

With much the same sort of satisfaction that I felt when I took my restricting shoes off, a rush of relief suddenly fills me as I watch Ida's idle scratches suddenly peel off a palm-sized chunk of skin, which catches underneath her nails and sticks to them. She screams, flailing her arm and ripping the chunk of dead epidermis off my leg, eliciting a hiss of pain and relief from my lips. The patch of skin soon flies free of Ida's wild movements, landing on Brendan, who is visibly disturbed… though he at least reacts to that by freezing stiff rather than screaming painfully. I, for one, just stretch my ankle a bit, watching the now-revealed joint slide around plate-over-plate like a robot from a sci-fi movie. The revealed exoskeleton now reaches from my ankle up my shin to nearly my knee, like it's trying to move down to meet up with the bones crawling up my toes. Between them, my skin feels normal, but pressing around the revealed areas indicates that more fresh exoskeleton is growing underneath the skin that's still attached. Little by little, it's all going to fall off, and at this point I'm so resigned to it that it barely even registers as something I should be panicking about. Ida knows and my life is ruined. She'll tell everyone. I'll be outed as a freak and this is the end.

Oh, well. Honestly, I couldn't have expected this to last much longer. I feel an urge to giggle bubble up and I just let it happen. Why not? I'm turning into some kind of bone monster, I just invoked divine magic in the middle of town—so y'know, any secret organizations looking for that kind of shit absolutely just found me—and my ankle has some kind of freaky interlocking ball joint that I can't stop staring at and moving around because I'm pretty sure it's a scaled-up iteration of some of my hip joints when I'm a hyperspider, albeit minus one dim… well. It might be minus one dimension. I can't actually see into the w-axis right now, so who knows?

"Hannah?" Brendan asks quietly. He sounds pretty concerned, presumably because I've been staring at part of my body that just had the skin ripped off and giggling to myself.

"Hi Brendan," I answer, grinning under my mask. This doesn't seem to make him feel any better for some reason.

"...Can you take some deep breaths for me?" he asks. Which, okay, that seems reasonable, but it's pretty hard to control my breathing right now between my laughter and gasps for air. I do my best, though, trying to slow down my overtaxed lungs and get some air. I meet with moderate success.

"So this is real, then," Ida gulps. "Really real."

"Yes," Brendan confirms for her. "We're not sure what's happening, but it's definitely real."

"Holy fucking shit," Ida breathes. "Well. That's absolutely fucking terrifying, but alright. I guess I live in a movie now."

"How are you feeling?" Brendan asks me, turning away from Ida without answering her.

"Very lightheaded," I answer, since it's true. "I'm dizzy. And hungry. And thirsty, I think? I have a bit of a headache, at least."

"Right. You… said you lost a lot of blood alongside your teeth, right?"

I feel my hands shaking. So much blood. I'd wished it was someone else's.

"Yeah," I confirm. "I really need more blood."

"Oh my god don't say it like that," Ida insists. "Look, just… Brendan, there should be a roll of duct tape in the door next to you. We're gonna patch the floor with that and… put a mat over it or something, okay? For the noise. You didn't hit the drive shaft or anything, did you Hannah? Brake line, maybe? You must have missed the exhaust or we'd smell it."

I blink, looking down into the gashes I made in the floor.

"I don't see any car bits other than the frame," I tell her. "But you probably want to check for yourself."

She groans and sticks her torso back between the front seats, getting a closer look at the damage.

"...Nope, I don't see anything, we should be good," she sighs, holding the palm of her hand out towards Brendan. "Duct tape, tallboy."

He dutifully hands her the roll, and she quickly patches the floor while I very carefully twist my body to keep my claws the heck away from her. She quickly patches up the hole and swaps the foot mats on the left and right sides in order to cover it further.

"That should help with the noise," Ida grumbles, sounding resigned. "I'm not looking forward to explaining this shit to a mechanic, but whatever. Liquid meal time. A smoothie isn't gonna cut it, we're gonna get you tomato soup or something. Maybe a bread bowl? …No, wait, our Panera doesn't have a drive through."

"Huh?" I manage to vocalize.

"Hannah, your shoes are shredded, we can't take you inside a restaurant," Ida dismisses. "That'd be against health code."

"...Huh?" I repeat.

"You're being awfully calm about this," Brendan comments.

"Look, I had my freakout," Ida snaps, looking into the rear-view mirror and fixing her hair before starting the car again. "We did that, it's done. Now it's time for me to make sure the woman growing goddamn monster teeth in my car doesn't get hungry. There's no fucking way I'm gonna die because I didn't get Hannah enough chicken wings. What's your shoe size, by the way?"

"Um. Six?" I supply.

"Great, we'll get you some size seven and eights on the way back, too," Ida grunts.

"...Please don't buy me anything expensive," I squeak, since that's somehow the most uncomfortable part of this situation.

"Fuck you, I do what I want," Ida answers, and slams the car into drive.

The rest of the car ride is somewhat of a daze to me, partly because it's full of awkward silence but mostly because I have, for like the third or fourth time today, burned out on adrenaline. I feel like that's too many times in a day, y'know? Though I mean, the day's barely halfway done, so I probably shouldn't be tallying up the record yet. Wow my life is bad. Just. Golly!

At some point I'm broken out of my daze by the tantalizing smell of soup, which I quickly devour. Or I guess chug, depending on your perspective. Doing so, of course, necessitates taking off my mask, allowing Ida and Brendan an eyeful of my raw gums and the tiny, tiny tips of sharp white starting to poke out from within them. I make the mistake of poking them with my tongue and end up cutting myself, trickling the taste of blood into my mouth once again, pushing that flashback into the forefront of my mind. Thankfully, I have a second bowl of soup to wash it away with.

"Hannah, wait, that's ho—"

Too late. I gulp it down like an alcoholic during happy hour. I used to love tomato soup, but now I find it kind of… bland. Whatever. It was the only soup that didn't have a bunch of noodles or vegetables or delicious meats in it, and I unfortunately need that since I can't currently chew.

"What the fuck, Hannah, are you okay!?" Ida gapes at me. "Just holding the container for that nearly burned my hand!"

I blink at her with surprise.

"It… felt normal to me?" I hedge. "Like, warm enough to be good, but not so hot that it hurts."

"Is fire a kind of magic?" Brendan asks, staring at me. "And if so, what does it oppose?"

Ah, I see where he's going with this.

"Heat opposes Transmutation," I inform him. "So I guess I'm probably heat-resistant. But at the same time, that'd be really weird, because when I first popped over to the other world I was having serious problems regulating my body temperature."

"Maybe that's why?" Brendan hedges. "You oppose Light, and you're blind. You oppose Heat, and it's difficult for heat to enter your body or leave it. You oppose Chaos, and nothing seems to be more toxic to you than deviating from your schedule."

"...I don't think that last one is magic-related."

"You can't oppose chaos!" Ida protests. "I embody chaos!"

"I oppose it metaphysically, not ideologically," I say defensively. "It's not exactly something I have a choice in."

"And if you could not interject when you don't even know what we're talking about, that would be great," Brendan grumbles.

"Woah, shit, tallboy's spine just straightened itself," Ida quips. "Never thought I'd see him actually man up."

"Stop," I snap at them. "Please, just… don't prod each other. Please?"

"Sorry," Ida says, waving it off. "Habit. I'm gonna go buy you some of those really thick-soled shoes that lesser short people wear to hide their true power. I figure you'll need the extra sole so you don't just delete the damn things. You two stay in the car and don't break anything."

Oh, huh. We're parked in front of a shoe store now. When did that happen?

"Bye," I tell Ida, but she's already out of the car and slamming the door.

Brendan and I are now alone, and immediately I see some of his tension fall away. He starts bouncing a leg, watching her walk away with one of his many varieties of unreadable expressions.

"I don't like her," he announces.

"I know," I sigh. "If it makes you feel any better, it's not personal. I don't think she has anything against you, she's just… like that."

And Brendan is pretty sensitive, so the kind of thing that just rolls off my back really, really gets to him. But I don't say that out loud, since that would sound like I'm blaming him for her being rude, and that's not appropriate or helpful. Ida is abrasive. That's her flaw, not his.

"That doesn't make me feel better at all," he says. "Being rude to everyone is worse than only being rude to me. Besides, I thought you didn't want to tell her any of this stuff."

"I don't," I mumble. "I just did something moronic, is all."

"I guess that sounds like you, yeah," he admits.

"...Hey," I say. "You, uh, seem a lot more rude than usual yourself."

"I guess so," he agrees. "I'm stressed. About you, about all of this. But you and I are friends. Ida and I are not friends. It's different."

I shrug.

"I guess you're right," I agree. "It's probably good we went with her to get food, though. As out of it as I was, if I didn't do the big stupid magic thing in her car, I probably would have done it in a classroom."

"What was that, anyway?" he asks after a short pause. "What said those words?"

"I don't know," I answer, "and I get the feeling I'm probably safer that way."

Another awkward pause stretches between us, the silence only broken by the tap of Brendan's leg.

"...Spatial Rend is a Pokémon attack, isn't it?" he asks slowly.

I feel a blush creep up my neck onto my face.

"It, uh, yeah," I admit. "Signature move of the legendary Pokémon Palkia. 'Spacial Rend,' spelled s-p-a-c-i-a-l instead of s-p-a-t-i-a-l, because spatial is spelled with a c in the UK and I guess they just decided to translate it that way for all English versions of the game?"

"Is it any good?" he asks.

"I-in Pokémon?" I ask.

"Yeah," he confirms.

"I mean, it's pretty good, yeah," I mumble. "Sometimes Draco Meteor is better for specific needs, but Spacial Rend is still a one hundred power high crit STAB move on a Pokémon with base one-fifty special attack. Though they kinda did it dirty in Legends by making the base power actually go down when Origin Forme Palkia uses it? Like yeah, the crit rate goes up and becomes the highest crit rate move in the game, and that's neat, but I like the consistency, you know?"

"I've always found it funny how much you like competitive Pokémon, an incredibly luck-based game, but you hate luck."

"It's not… it's still a skill-based game! Luck swings things, but not enough to prevent top players from consistently winning! Like, yeah, Scald is bullpoop and Focus Miss is just the absolute worst, but like…"

I'm babbling. I know I'm babbling, and I hate that, but it's okay because it's just me and Brendan and I'm pretty sure he just baited me into babbling in the first place. Both of us start to relax as the words flow out of me, a conversation (more of a rant, really) that I'm sure I've had a dozen times but it's okay because it's just me and him and my freaky monster toes wiggling around in my mostly-shredded socks. Things probably aren't going to be okay, but they're okay right now, and frankly that's more than I've had in what feels like way, way too long.

So naturally, my brain has to go and ruin it by blurting a question I don't want to think about the answer to.

"What if I hurt you?" I ask.

The question is full of meaning and fear that I can't fully articulate, the horror of urges I don't understand creeping into more and more of my brain and body. The physicality of it all terrifies me, the violence pulsing underneath my rapidly-degrading skin which makes me feel aberrant and dangerous because of course it does, normal, healthy people do not get urges to do these things. And now I do, and I feel like I'm always teetering a step away from giving in at the worst possible moment.

Brendan regards me in silence, perhaps picking up on the fear I'm leaving unsaid but perhaps not. To some extent, it doesn't matter. He'll know someday, and he'll understand. He always understands, in the end, even if it takes hours or days of late-night texting sessions and impossible heart-to-hearts that I could never even think of breaching with my parents, or anyone else for that matter. And I know that, to him, I'm the same. Brendan doesn't have many friends. He's more or less had to raise himself, stuck with parents that don't understand or even particularly care about him. He does not trust easily, because his childhood was nothing but beratement and apathy. I didn't know it back when I first latched onto him in elementary school, but I was all he had for a long, long time.

"Then I'll forgive you," he answers, and it's not what I wanted to hear. "Just don't do that stupid thing everyone does in the movies where you try to leave for my sake, okay? That's just going to make everything worse, and you know it."

"Okay," I promise him, because what else can I say? "I won't."

Ida returns shortly afterwards, tossing two shoeboxes at me before pulling the car door shut behind her with a grunt.

"These are yours now," she huffs. "Figure out which one fits better."

I'm too stunned to respond, instead simply gaping at the fact that Ida just threw well over a hundred dollars of gifts into my lap. These aren't expensive shoes, but they sure as sugar aren't cheap shoes either! My mind is absolutely shredded by this insanity. I am a very frugal person and this kind of casual waste of money is just… aaagh!

"Ida, you can't—" I start, but the little imp is having none of it.

"I. Do. What. I. Want," she snaps at me. "So take the damn shoes. You need them. I'm a spoiled rich girl, Hannah, I didn't have to earn a cent of what I just spent. So chill out and cover up your monster claws already!"

I shut my mouth and nod numbly, slipping a foot into the first pair of shoes. Immediately, I know these are a million times better than my old shoes, and that thought magnifies a hundredfold when I end up curling my toes and sinking my claws into the inch-thick soles without piercing through the other side. The warm buzz from penetrating the leathery, fleshy texture feels like the relief of getting in a hot tub on a cold day, and I'm far too exhausted and frazzled to resist the pleasure of it. I barely have enough energy to put the other shoe on before I collapse into the backseat, closing my eyes and just… letting myself stop for a little while.

But not sleep. It's much too early to sleep.

"...So, how many other people know about this?" I hear Ida ask, the car starting to pick up speed down the road.

"Nobody," Brendan answers. "It's just us. We'd like you to keep it that way."

"I know I'm a blabbermouth, but I'd just seem like a crazy person if I gossiped about this," Ida grumbles.

"Glad to know you can keep secrets if it's your reputation on the line rather than someone else's," Brendan says.

"I've never claimed to be anything but a hedonist," Ida answers. "So frankly? I don't want to be involved with this shit. Don't come crying to me if you need help hiding a body."

"Please don't joke about that," I groan. "I already killed someone last night."

There's a painfully stressful pause.

"...Fuck," Ida hisses vitrolically. "Fuck, fuck, fuck. I can't believe you told me that. Are you stupid? I'm going to have to testify that you said that or else I could be tried as an accomplice!"

"I don't think she can be tried under an American court, considering that it happened in another universe," Brendan supplies.

"What!? No, wait, actually, fuck that. Don't answer. I'm not getting wrapped up into your crazy movie bullshit, you two can just save the world without me. You understand? I want no part of this. We're going to go back to school, get chewed out for missing fourth period, and then when the day is finally over I'm getting so fucking blown out of my mind on LSD that I will not even know who you two are tomorrow."

"You know," Brendan supplies, "now we'll have to testify that you said that or else—"

"Oh, fuck you!"

"I, for one, approve of this plan," I mumble. "Just pretending it didn't happen works well for me."

"Don't you dare say that, Hannah, or else I'll have to be self-aware about how stupid this plan is," Ida grumbles.

"...I said I liked the idea, though?"

"I know!"

Another awkward silence fills the air. This time, I'm the one to breach it.

"Thank you for the shoes, Ida," I tell her. "I like them."

"...You're welcome," she mutters. "I made sure to get you black ones to hide any bloodstains."

"That's thoughtful of you," I admit. "Thanks again. You've always been really nice to me. I don't know why you're so nice to me. You're not usually nice to people."

She flinches a bit at that, drumming her fingers on the steering wheel as she keeps her eyes planted firmly on the road. The car speeds up a little more, even though she's already well over the legal limit.

"It's because I want to fuck you," she says. "Obviously."

I blink, slowly and numbly. I blink again. My mouth opens, then closes, then opens again.

"Oh," I manage to say.

"I do not know how to articulate to you how much of a dumb fucking lesbian you are, Hannah," Ida continues. "Even Brendan figured it out, and he has a special education action plan longer than the damn English final."

"Maybe I'm just more observant than you think," Brendan supplies, "and you're just worse at flirting."

So much blood is going to my face right now that I'm afraid my gums are going to start bleeding again just from the pressure. I try to formulate a response and only manage to let out a confused squeaking noise.

"Fuck you, you don't know shit!" Ida snaps at Brendan. "You've never seen a vagina without tabbing into 4chan first."

"Ida!" I say, finally finding the power to step in. "Uncalled for!"

She shrinks down a bit from her bristled posture, Brendan turning away from her to look out the window and quietly fume.

"...Sorry," Ida manages. "I speak before I think."

"Something like that shouldn't even be used as an insult," I continue. "No one should ever be expected to—"

"I know, I know! Jesus, Hannah, I get it. I'm glad you seem to be feeling better."

"Huh?" I ask, dumbfounded.

"Your fucking… preachy moralizing. I haven't heard that from you in a long time. It's annoying, but it's better than the silence we've been getting instead."

We pull into school, Ida having to find a parking spot at the back of the lot since we're so late. We'll be in trouble, but we probably won't be in much trouble, since we're pretty much never late. Or at least Brendan and I don't. Ida might ditch all the time, for all I know. She doesn't ever ditch the classes I'm in, but… well. That might be for a different reason, I guess?

"I definitely think you're attractive," I admit to Ida.

"Oh yeah?" she drawls. "Damn, and here I was thinking that you constantly stare at my tits for heterosexual reasons."

I blush again but press on, because Ida is a good friend and she deserves a clear answer.

"Wh… I, uh. Anyway, I don't think a relationship would be a, uh, good idea. For a few reasons, but the current situation is… a big one."

"Yeah," Ida says. "I figured. It's pretty fucking wild. I don't even know what to say, other than like… I hope it works out for you? Like, what else is there? This is so far beyond my ability to help with, so far beyond what makes sense in reality, that it's just… I can't. I wasn't telling you I think you're hot in order to ask you out, I'm telling you to remind you that I'm a shallow cunt and giving you a reason to cut ties. I just wanted in your pants, Hannah, but I don't fuck with crazy. I'll keep your secret, just… keep away from me. I don't want your eldritch goddess doing something to my head again, understand?"

"I really, really do," I assure her. "Trust me, if I had the option to just walk away from this, I would take it in an instant."

I clench my toes at that, delighting in the feel of digging deeper into my shoes. Something about my words just now felt a little hollow, but… whatever. I could definitely live without freaky monster instincts. It'd be greatly preferable, in fact.

"You are nice and great and I hope everything works out for you," Ida says. "Now get the fuck out of my car."

We oblige, trudging back to school in awkward silence. I'm late enough to be considered absent to class already, so I just head for my next class of the day to wait. It's the only class I share with Brendan, actually, so he follows me and waits outside the door alongside me.

"So," I manage, "that could have gone much worse."

"Well we're no longer friends with Ida, so all things considered I think it went quite optimally," Brendan answers.

"Hey!" I protest, elbowing him in the hip. "I know you don't like her, but I like her. At least be supportive of that."

"She reminds me of my mom," Brendan says bluntly. "Except with more swear words."

Oh. Shoot. I don't… have a good answer to that. There probably isn't one.

"I'm sorry," I say.

He doesn't answer, but I didn't expect him to. We wait outside class together, and just the proximity is enough. Today has been… quite the roller coaster, I have to say. Way too much panic, way too much terror. I'm rubbed raw from having to kill for the first time and spitting all my teeth out of my mouth and just… everything going on. But as terrifying and alien as it was, I did love getting to access my magic. It's a spell that destroys, which I'm not thrilled about, but it's just the beginning, right? I'm also an Order mage, so maybe I can get a spell that heals, too. A spell that fixes things. Pretty much by definition, magic opens up countless possibilities that weren't there before. Maybe if I get good at it, I can take control of what's happening to me. Now that I'm fed and not in pain and coming off the high of getting shoes that actually feel good on my feet, I can start to feel a spark of hope that everything will be okay.

"So what do you think Ida meant," Brendan says suddenly, "when she said 'I don't want your eldritch goddess doing something to my head again?'"

…Ah, never mind. The terror's back. At least I'm starting to get used to it.