Chapter Four. Julian
FOUR
JULIAN
Julian woke up feeling like he’d lost a fight with a truck and then asked for a rematch. His limbs were heavy, his back ached, and there was an odd throbbing under his sternum that clawed outward when he breathed too deep.
In the bathroom mirror, he lifted his shirt. The dark spot was still there, pulsing beneath the scar, meaner at the edges. For a moment, panic pressed up his throat. He could shove it down, pretend it wasn’t getting worse. But that was the old move.
“Okay,” he told the mirror, jaw set. “We’re gonna figure this out. One step at a time.”
He thumbed out a quick text to Yads:
need to talk later. chest worse.
Then he hauled on his dad’s leather jacket, bracing himself for the day.
Luca was already in the kitchen, slumped over the table with a mug of coffee gone pale with creamer. His hair stuck up at odd angles, and his tired eyes said more than words ever could. Julian slid into the seat across from him, knocking his knee into Luca’s leg.
From the living room came Omar’s voice, sharp and hyped, Rocky’s laughter chasing after it.
For a second, Julian let his head tip back, soaking in the familiar noise.
Normally, this was the safest place he knew—here with his people.
But now the promise he’d made to Lita and Yads sat like a rock in his stomach.
They couldn’t know. He couldn’t tell them about the brujx or the mark on his chest, which was messed up considering he told his friends everything. If something was wrong, they were the ones who got him out of it.
Footsteps stomped closer until Omar loomed over him, grinning wide. “Me and Rocky were just talking—how ’bout we skip today?”
Julian perked up, the offer hitting like muscle memory. His old reflex said, Ditch. Cut loose, bolt down the street, let the day spin out like it used to. But the new reality said, Stay. Get answers. Corner Yads and Maritza and figure out what the hell’s happening.
Julian swallowed the guilt that rose like bile—guilt for lying, guilt for pulling away—and shoved it down.
He smirked at Omar instead. “Yeah, because I really need Most Likely to Get Kicked Out on my record!” he tried to joke. “I’m trying to graduate, not get expelled—again.”
Rocky appeared behind Omar. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said with a withering look. “We all know you’d get voted Biggest Loudmouth.”
Julian couldn’t help the laugh that escaped him, though it turned into more of a groan as he pressed a hand to the annoying ache in his chest.
“Thanks for the vote of confidence, Rocky,” he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “But I’m still not skipping. I’ve got stuff to do.”
“Stuff to do?” Omar repeated, eyebrow raised and suspicion flickering in his eyes. “Since when are you so excited to go to school?”
Julian tried to shrug it off. “I just—y’know. Gotta be on best behavior and whatever. Besides, I’m meeting up with Maritza and Yads.”
Rocky crossed her arms, her smile fading. “You’ve been spending a lot of time with them lately. What gives?”
Julian felt the familiar, unwelcome pressure under his ribs. He tried to force a smile. “Well, one of them is my boyfriend,” he pointed out.
Omar’s expression soured.
“And they’re cool people to chill with!” Julian glanced at Luca, hoping for some kind of support, but Luca just looked back at him, eyes tired, as if he could see right through the flimsy excuse Julian was trying to conjure up.
Omar exchanged a look with Rocky, his lips pressing into a thin line. “Whatever, man,” he said, walking back into the living room. He sounded hurt, maybe, or just suspicious.
Julian swallowed the guilt rising in his throat. The dark spot throbbed beneath his skin.
“Fine,” Rocky said, a touch of reluctance in her voice. “Guess we’re going to school after all.”
“Yeah,” Luca agreed, glancing at Julian again before looking away. “Let’s just go.”
The four of them made their way out of the apartment, the usual chatter quieter than normal.
As they walked down the street, Julian could feel the tension in the group, a silent wedge that seemed to grow the closer they got to school.
He tried to shake it off, to focus on anything else, but the throbbing in his chest wouldn’t let him.
Julian caught up with Yadriel and Maritza by the front steps of the school, trying to ignore how the weight in his chest dragged at every stride.
Yadriel leaned closer, voice pitched low. “Got your text. Let’s talk about it later, okay?”
Julian nodded. Good. A plan. Finally.
Maritza gave him a quick once-over, her freshly done curls bouncing as she squinted. “Don’t you dare pass out on me in bio, Diaz. I’m not doing CPR.”
Julian snorted. “Relax. I’m unkillable, remember?” At least he was before the mark appeared.
Between periods, Julian ducked through crowded hallways toward Yadriel’s locker, stealing quick kisses whenever he could slip past the tide of students.
Just little brushes of mouths—fast, secret, perfect—before someone’s backpack nearly took him out or a teacher shouted for everyone to keep moving.
Every kiss was a breath of warmth before the world snapped back into reality.
Julian waved at the kid with the beat-up duffel bag who camped out by the gym, already unzipping it to reveal his black-market snack stash.
“Got Takis and chamoy pickles!” the kid stage-whispered.
Julian snorted. “Bro, it’s nine in the morning.”
A trio of girls had claimed the bathroom doorway as an impromptu piercing studio—one holding ice to a friend’s earlobe while another hovered with a sewing needle and terrifying confidence. Julian pretended he saw nothing.
Classes dragged on like molasses, each minute ticking by slower than the last. The lectures felt endless, the teachers’ voices blurring into one long drone in Julian’s head. At lunch, he met up with Maritza and Yadriel behind the science building, their usual quiet spot.
Maritza ranted about a group project gone wrong, Yadriel tried to calm her down, and Julian just soaked it all in—their jokes, the way they made him feel normal again.
He even managed to spend a few minutes with Omar, Rocky, and Luca in the courtyard before the bell rang, the four of them crowded around one too-small bench, laughing at Rocky’s terrible impressions of her math teacher.
It wasn’t perfect, but it was something.
When the bell rang, Julian slumped into his graffiti-tagged desk, feeling as though he were fighting an uphill battle against boredom and restlessness.
The classroom clock ticked with that slow kind of agony that only a high schooler forced to sit through a lecture on cellular mitosis could understand.
Julian’s rebellion that day was quieter—confined to the restless shuffle of his sneakers, the gnawing urge to bolt from the room, and the frustrated sighs slipping from his lips.
He tapped his pen against the desk. Out the window, East LA sprawled beneath a sky so blue it almost hurt to look at, but inside, the beige walls of the classroom seemed to close in on him, pressing down, suffocating.
His brain darted from one thought to the next, a hyperactive squirrel, as Mrs. Garza’s voice droned on in the background, her words blending into a dull hum.
“Mr. Diaz.” Mrs. Garza’s voice sliced through his wandering thoughts. “Is there something more interesting outside?”
“Sorry, Mrs. G,” Julian muttered, though his gaze drifted back to the window almost immediately. He couldn’t help it.
“Julian Diaz!” Mrs. Garza snapped again, jolting him back into the present.
“Earth to Julian!” someone snickered from behind, followed by a paper ball bouncing off his back.
Julian spun around, his grin sharp.
“Got something you wanna say, Rodriguez?” he challenged, a hint of mischief in his eyes.
Rodriguez, one of Julian’s former soccer teammates, glared back. He had held a grudge against Julian ever since he said Rodriguez’s face looked AI generated during a match.
“Enough!” Mrs. Garza snapped, her patience frayed.
Julian turned back around, a smirk still playing on his lips, pleased to have gotten under Rodriguez’s skin. He could be a nuisance, sure, but it was only because sitting still felt like trying to hold on to smoke—impossible and maddening.
Julian raised his hand. “Mrs. Garza, can I go to the bathroom?”
Mrs. Garza sighed heavily. There were only twenty minutes left in the school day. “Make it quick, Mr. Diaz,” she said, waving a hand toward the door. “You get five minutes.”
Julian bolted out of the classroom, a feeling of freedom washing over him as he strolled down the hallway. On his phone was a new message from Flaca—a picture of a sandwich she’d flirted her way into getting for lunch. Julian snickered, shaking his head.
He was tempted to text Yadriel for some stolen time together, and his thumb hovered over his boyfriend’s name, but Yads was probably being a responsible student.
Later, he told himself, tucking the phone back into his pocket.
Julian pushed through the bathroom door, only to be greeted by muffled sounds of someone booty beatboxing. With a suppressed snort, he turned right back around, deciding he’d rather go to a different bathroom than share this one with whatever was going on in stall number three.
As he walked, Julian rubbed absently at the scar on his chest. A strange sensation prickled under his skin. The kind that made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. The icy coldness was back, seeping through his bones.
For a moment, the beige walls of the school seemed to dissolve, melting into swirling shadows—a vision stretched out before Julian, dark and endless.
Jagged stalactites formed from the shadows overhead as a cavern grew from the darkness.
The sharp smell of damp earth hit Julian’s nose.
The echo of water droplets plinked into a pool that spread below.
The rippling water glowed with venom green and sickly blue light, casting everything in a ghostly shimmer.
Then—movement.