“You’re the kind we cut from the herd.”

Timmy’s eyebrows went up. “Say what, retard?”

“You’re weak and afraid.”

“You think I’m afraid, Rex?” The boy tried to put on an amused smile, but only half his face obeyed. The left side seemed frozen, taut and wide-eyed, his fear leaking out into his expression. “Of you?”

Rex saw that Timmy’s pulse was quickening, his hands shaking.

Weakness.

“I can smell it on you….” The words faded as Rexfinally lost control. He watched the rest of what happened like a passenger in his own body. He took a step forward until his face was as close as Timmy had dared come a moment before.

The fear in Rex’s stomach had changed into something else, something hot and cruel that surged through his chest and up into his jaw. His teeth parted, lips pulling back so far that he felt them split, baring his teeth and half an inch of gums. His whole body grew as taut as one long trembling muscle, swaying for balance like a snake ready to strike, arms out and fingers locked in rigid claws.

He made a noise then, right in Timmy’s face, a horrific sound that Rex had never heard before, much less produced himself. His mouth still open wide, the back of his throat cinched tightly closed, a breath forcing its way out with a long and shuddering hisssss—a mix of fingernails on a chalkboard, the shriek of a hawk, and the last rattle of a punctured lung. The noise seemed to coil in the air for a moment, wrapping around Timmy’s shuddering frame, squeezing the breath from him.

The hiss lingered in the empty hallway like the echoes of a shout, disappearing into the buzzing of the fluorescent lights.

Timmy didn’t move. The twisted half smile stayed on his face, muscles frozen, as if some careless surgeon had snipped a nerve and he was stuck with the half-formed expression for the rest of his life.

“Weakness,” Rex said softly, the hiss still ringing in his voice.

His body softened then, whatever demon had slipped into him departing as swiftly as it had come. His jaw relaxed, and Rex’s muscles lost their inhuman rigidity—but Timmy still didn’t move. He looked thoroughly frozen, like a rat that had just lost a staring contest with a python.

He didn’t make another sound as Rex walked away.

Halfway to the gym, Rex’s heart was still pounding with the weirdness of what had just happened. He felt elated, confident, and powerful, finally cleansed of the fear that had stalked him through the halls of Bixby High School every day for the last two years.

But he was also afraid. He’d tried to fend off the darkling part of him, but it had taken control nonetheless.

Still, the experience had left him feeling so good—purposeful and somehow more complete. And he hadn’t really lost it, had he? The predator had drawn its claws, but it hadn’t used them. He hadn’t struck for the pulse in Timmy’s throat, the easy kill of the straggler.