Chapter 1

VALERIA “Leave me alone,” I keep repeating, closing my eyes as I clutch my sketchpad against my chest. “Just back off, Jeremy. I’m not doing anything to you.” These are lines that are very familiar to me. In fact, I should probably just tattoo them on my forehead. Getting harassed in the art room of Redwood High is a staple for me. From freshman year to junior year, I was constantly bullied and made fun of. The art room has always been my place of solitude because painting calms me down. But today is my first day as a senior. I had pretty high hopes. I was fine all day, and even though I still got weird looks for my appearance, everyone pretty much left me alone. At least until Jeremy, the meanest boy I ever met, found me after our last class. Now he’s pounding at the door of the art room, which I locked. “Come out, come out, you little freak.” I take a deep breath. “I said leave me alone. Is that so hard to understand?” He ignores me. “Hey, hairy, do you use your hairy armpits to paint all those ugly sketches? Because I bet they smell too.” His friends’ laughter rings in the hallway, echoing like a taunt in my head. Instantly, tears spring from my eyes. I open my mouth to retort, to come up with some sort of rebuttal to redirect the embarrassment I just felt, but I come up with none. Jeremy sneers, peeking through the little window of the door. “Aw, look! She’s going to cry, everyone! God, you’re so ugly, Valeria.” They all take turns trying to look at me, and I want to shrink and never reappear. Because what he just said is true. I am terrifyingly ugly, but not in the nerdy, average way that they show in high school movies. There really is something wrong with me. I have thick black hair that’s also very apparent on my body, especially my face and my arms. I look like I’m sparsely covered in fur. My blue eyes are way too big for my face, and they freak people out. I’m taller and bigger built than any other girl here. In short, I look like a cross between a teenage girl and some sort of a beast. My mom tells me that it’s all going to make sense in the future, but it never did. It doesn’t help that every time I get into a situation like this, I get strange rises of strength and energy in my body, like my instinct to fight is trying to claw its way out. And I’m feeling that surge of strength now. I don’t know what it is or where it’s from. Maybe it’s part of puberty for a freak like me. Either way, I can feel a sense of danger from it. I can tell it’s not a good kind of strength. It’s monstrous. Jeremy playfully turns the doorknob. “Let me in so I can take a good look at you, Valeria.” “Back off, Jeremy,” I say, feeling the energy in me spike to great heights. I try to quell it, but it’s crawling up my throat like bile. “Please just leave me alone.” “Not until I take a good look at you.” I open my mouth to tell him to screw himself, but then, he pushes the door open with ease, breaking the rusty lock like it’s nothing. Fear rushes through my body, making me drop my sketchpads on the floor. His friends eagerly peek through the door, waiting for him to reach me. “Hi, Valeria,” he says in a fake sweet tone, picking up one of my sketchpads and flicking through it. “This is nice.” “Please just go,” I rasp. He just stares at me, and to my horror, he starts to rip the pages of my sketchpad. Pieces of paper fly in the air, landing on the floor. Hours of work. Days of practice. Lots of love and emotion put into those pages…. All gone. I look up at him in horror and he tosses the empty cover on my face. His friends holler and laugh. The sound, the sensation, and the terror of it all build in my chest, and with that I feel my strength struggling to escape. Before I know it, I’m already screaming, launching myself at him and pinning him to the ground. I don’t give him time to react. I straddle him, pinning his arms down with my knees as I give him punch after punch in the face. His bones are cracking under my knuckles. Blood is spurting from his nose and lips. He’s saying something, but I no longer hear it. It’s like something else has taken over my body. “HEY!” one of his friends yells at me. “Get off him!” “What are you doing?” “Stop it, Valeria, he’s not moving anymore!” Those words do the trick. I snap out of my trance. I get on my feet and stagger back, and that’s when I see that Jeremy is indeed not moving. He has his swollen eyes closed, his face covered in blood and bruises. My heart stops. Did I kill him? The idea is so terrible that I almost break down on the spot, but I just run past his body and push through the crowd of his friends, heading to the exit of the school as quickly as I can. With shaking hands, I dial my mom’s phone as soon as I reach the gates. I look for my old car and get inside, waiting for her to answer. She answers after a few rings. “Valeria, I thought—” “Mom, help me,” I sob dryly, my body going numb. “I don’t know what’s happening to me. Please, help me. Pick me up, I’m begging you.” Mom stays quiet for a moment. “Just drive home, Valeria.” “I don’t think I can drive!” I clench my hands. “I… badly hurt someone, Mom. I may have killed him. I don’t know what’s happening to me.” Mom stays silent. There’s something strange about the way she’s acting. It’s almost like she expected this. Something about it made me nervous, so I decide to just do as she says and drive away without turning the call off. “Mom?” I swallow hard as I speed away from the school, taking all sorts of turns just to add to the distance. I don’t even know what path this is anymore. “What happened to me?” “I’ll tell you when you get home,” she says in a low voice. “I’m sorry you have to find out this way.” “What do you mean?” I ask. “What do you know? Just tell me!” She’s about to speak again when suddenly someone steps in front of my car, about to be crushed, and I swerve off the road.