Tainted Embrace

Prologue

—Maksym—

The girl found me in the hallway and grabbed my sleeve before I could walk past. Her fingers were small and cold, her breathing quick like she had been running.

“They’re in your locker,” she whispered.

For a second I didn’t understand what she meant. Then my stomach dropped. I didn’t ask who. I already knew.

I ran.

The door to the room was half open. I could hear them before I even reached it—metal clanging, laughter bouncing off the walls, something hitting the floor.

“Look at this shit.”

I pushed the door open.

My locker hung wide open. Clothes were scattered everywhere—shirts, socks, the gray sweater they’d given me that still smelled faintly of bleach. Everything had been pulled out and thrown across the room like garbage.

Three of them stood there. Older. Bigger.

And in the hand of the tallest one—my chest tightened so hard it almost hurt—the bunny.

Pink fur worn smooth from years of being held. One ear bent where it had been stitched back once. It dangled from his fingers like it meant nothing.

The boys turned when they noticed me.

“Well look who’s here,” one of them said, grinning.

The one holding the bunny lifted it higher and looked at it with exaggerated curiosity. “A pink bunny?” he said, laughing. “What are you, a girl?”

The others burst out laughing.

“You sleep with this thing?”

“Maybe he kisses it goodnight.”

“Are you a faggot?”

Heat crawled up my neck.

“Give it back,” I said. My voice didn’t sound the way I wanted it to.

The boy turned the bunny slowly in his fingers like he was studying a strange insect. Then he reached into his pocket. A lighter clicked open and the small flame flickered to life.

My stomach twisted.

“Hey,” I shouted. “Don’t—”

He lowered the flame beneath the bunny’s foot.

The fur caught almost immediately. A thin black line spread across the pink fabric, and the smell hit a second later—burning plastic and cloth.

“No!”

I stepped forward but one of the boys shoved me back hard.

“Stay there.”

The flame crawled higher.

“Please,” I said, my throat tightening around the word. “Give it back.”

The boy looked at the others, amused. Then he looked back at me.

“You want it?” he asked.

I nodded quickly.

He shrugged. “We burn the bunny,” he said casually, as the fire climbed toward its face. “Or we burn you.”

The room exploded with laughter.

I couldn’t look away. The ear curled inward as the flame ate through it. The pink fur shriveled and blackened, melting into something ugly.

My eyes burned—not from the smoke, but from watching it disappear.

Something inside my chest snapped.

I slammed into the boy holding the bunny and bit down on his arm as hard as I could.

He screamed. “Get him off!”

Hands grabbed my shirt. Someone punched the side of my head, but I held on. The taste of blood filled my mouth. Another fist smashed into my ribs, then a kick to my back. My teeth slipped loose and they dragged me away from him.

They threw me against the lockers. My head cracked into metal and the room spun. Boots slammed into my stomach, my shoulder, my face. I curled up with my arms over my head while the blows kept coming.

Finally they stopped.

One of them spat near my face. “Fucking freak.”

The door slammed when they left.

Silence settled over the room. Smoke drifted lazily through the air.

I stayed on the floor for a long time. Everything hurt. My mouth tasted like iron and my nose was bleeding.

When I at last pushed myself up, my hands were shaking.

The bunny lay on the floor near the locker.

What was left of it.

Half the face melted. One ear gone. The pink fur burned black along the edges.

I walked over and picked it up. Ash smudged my fingers and the fabric crumbled where the fire had eaten through it.

I held it in both hands and stared at it. For a moment I thought I was going to cry again.

But the tears stopped somewhere in my chest. They didn’t come out.

I sat there in the silent room, holding the burned bunny, and promised myself that no one would ever take anything from me again.