Main Content
Archive of Our OwnArchive of Our OwnLog In
FandomsBrowseSearchAboutWork Search
tip: austen words:10000-50000 sort:title
Actions
Entire Work ← Previous Chapter Next Chapter → Chapter Index Comments Share Download
Work Header
Rating:
Mature
Archive Warnings:
Graphic Depictions Of ViolenceMajor Character Death
Category:
Multi
Fandom:
Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Characters:
Taylor Hebert | Skitter | WeaverLisa Wilbourn | TattletaleAlec | RegentBrian Laborn | GrueRachel Lindt | Bitch | HellhoundEmma Barnes (Parahumans)Sophia Hess | Shadow StalkerAmy Dallon | Panacea | Red QueenVictoria Dallon | Glory Girl | AntaresUndersiders (Parahumans)Brockton Bay WardsThomas Calvert | CoilMadison Clements
Additional Tags:
Mystic Eyes of Death PerceptionConceptual DeathHorrorPsychological HorrorBody HorrorCosmic HorrorExistential DreadSad girl hoursAlt-Power Taylor HebertPower CorruptionIdentity CrisisCharacter StudyBeing Taylor Hebert | Skitter | Weaver Is SufferingTaylor Hebert | Skitter | Weaver Needs a HugMagicInsanityMurder
Language:
English
Stats:
Published:2025-06-21Updated:2025-11-06Words:56,264Chapters:9/?Comments:252Kudos:757Bookmarks:292Hits:29,578
She Who Sees Death
TheSmilingFox
Chapter 2: Inverse Impulse
Chapter Text
1/The Girl Who Didn't Die
Inverse Impulse
There are a couple ways a person handles a crisis.
First one's the classic: hit the floor, sob, scream like the world owes you something. Pathetic. Human, sure, but about as useful as a solar panel at midnight.
Second: anger. The yelling kind. Fists to the sky, howling for justice and hoping the heavens give a damn. Stupid, but it's got muscle. Still would end with tears.
Me? I'd figured out the third option. The best one.
You don't flinch. You don't scream.
You don't feel.
Not fake stoic, not that 'I'm a grown-up' self-help garbage. No. I mean real stillness. Dead air between the ears. Heartbeat like a metronome. Just another problem. Just another line to cut.
Turns out, once you ditch the emotional noise, everything becomes annoying. And annoyances? Those were easy. You squashed them, solved them, made them go away.
Still. Cutting my locker open?
That was gonna be an annoyance down the line.
But right now, I had a more immediate issue: I smelled like dead raccoon and cheap horror marinated in sewer water. The gas station clerk didn't ask questions when I bought half a shelf of wet wipes. Credit to him. He looked at me, winced, and rang it up. Not like my dad would.
Unfortunately, the lights were on when I got home. A voice spilled out from inside, loud, panicked.
He was on the phone. Probably the school.
Perfect.
The downside of having a dad who worked union was that his schedule was uncomfortably flexible. Sometimes he was around. Sometimes he wasn't. Sometimes he vanished for two days and came back like nothing happened, smile on his face and ready to be everyone's best friend.
It meant I never really knew if I had the house to myself… or if I'd have to pretend I wasn't just slightly annoyed by the sound of his voice in my airspace.
I didn't hate him. He wasn't a bad person. Just… loud. Awkwardly familiar. Present.
I had a low tolerance for presence.
With Emma, I could choose to go to school or not. With my dad, there was no choice. We lived in the same cage. And the more I saw of him, the more the lines got in the way. They were always there, etched into his frame.
It made it harder to see him the way I used to.
Then again… how did I use to see him?
I didn't go to the front door. I circled to the side of the house and crept up to the window. Pressed my ear to the glass. Listened.
"...You mean to tell me nobody saw my daughter walk out? No teacher, no monitor - not even a student?! Jesus Christ!"
Silence.
Bam. Something hit the floor, hard.
Classic Dad.
"If I'm paying taxes to send her to school, the bare minimum I expect is that someone notices when she disappears! She's fifteen! Fif-teen! I don't think that's too much to ask!"
Pacing now. Fast, heavy. The kind that filled a house with footsteps and frustration.
Another crash. A groan. Maybe a kicked chair.
Then, lower. A rasped growl into the receiver.
"…Be straight with me. A teenager doesn't just walk out the front door. What happened to my daughter? What are you not telling me?"
I pressed my ear closer to the glass. The lines shimmered faintly across the windowpane, slithering under my skin, dark veins mapping my cheek. Inside the house, something shifted, a groan, maybe two. The soft, repetitive thud of anxious pacing. His foot, probably.
A gust of wind hit my face. The smell clinging to me thinned slightly, less putrid with the cold rushing in. But the wet, sticky filth drying on my pants pulled at my skin like glue and rot.
I didn't mind.
"Now you're just running in circles," Dad said, voice too calm, the kind of calm that comes right before a scream. "You don't want to tell me. I - No. No, don't pretend you give a rat's ass about her. This is just damage control, isn't it? How long was she gone?"
A beat of silence. Then the floor creaked. Another slow, heavy step.
"An hour," he repeated. "So that means two. Maybe more."
A breath. A pause. The warning in it rang louder than a shout.
"I swear, if I find her with so much as a hair out of place, a lawsuit'll be the least of your problems. I will… no, let me finish. Let me fucking finish."
Another pause.
"A 'little problem'? A girl doesn't vanish out of a school for a 'little problem.' It's either some twisted joke or something horrific. And my Taylor—"
A crack in his voice. A whisper of something not said.
"My Taylor would never do something like this. Not without a damn good reason."
A laugh crawled up my throat.
I swallowed it.
I appreciated Dad's vote of confidence. Really, I did. And I genuinely didn't want to ruin his generous image of me.
Not for my sake. For his. He needed someone to believe in.
If only he knew people didn't always need a reason to do terrible things. I was just catching up to the common denominator.
His footsteps grew louder, heavier. A storm was brewing, and I wasn't in the mood to get drenched in it.
I peeled myself from the window and walked to the front door. Slipped inside.
He didn't notice. Still growling into the phone. Still pacing from one end of the living room to the other, dragging the phone cord like it was a leash on his own panic. We didn't have cellphones—he hated the idea of them—so he looked a little ridiculous stretching the landline to its limit, back and forth, back and forth.
His brown hair stuck up in places. His neatly pressed checkered shirt had gone rumpled, probably from the way he'd claw at his side when he was anxious. He did that when I was little, too, grasped at the fabric as if he was trying to hold himself together.
"Calm down? Calm down? Oh, for a man whose daughter just went puff, I'd say I'm goddamn zen," he snapped, with a brittle little laugh that had too much edge to be real. "I'm going to call the police. Then I'll search for her myself. And if I don't find her, I swear I'm coming down to Winslow to grab you by the scruff of the neck so we can go door to door, together—"
"Dad."
He stopped mid-step. Spun around.
The breath caught in his throat as if he'd seen a ghost. He gripped the receiver so tight the veins on his hand bulged, the lines tracing across his skin in strange, symmetrical shapes. His eyes widened behind the lenses of his glasses.
I just stood there. Hands in pockets. Watching.
He opened his mouth. Nothing came out. Then, half-dazed, he raised the phone to his ear again.
"Never mind. She's here," he muttered. "This isn't over."
He hung up. Exhaled like he'd been holding his breath for years. Shoulders dropped. His head dipped forward… and then he moved.
Came toward me, pulled by gravity. Or perhaps just love and something worse.
He opened his arms.
No pause. No question. Just that raw, automatic instinct: protect the child.
I raised a hand.
He froze, confused.
"I smell like shit," I said flatly. "So maybe don't—"
He stepped forward anyway and wrapped me in his arms.
"I don't care, Taylor. Just let me... just let me do this. I was so worried."
I tensed, instinctively trying to angle my head away, to bury my nose in his shoulder and find a patch of hair, anything to block out the minty punch of his deodorant. Not that I hated it. Just… I'd had enough of overwhelming scents for one day.
And it wasn't really about getting him dirty.
It was the lines. Always.
From a distance, they were tolerable, part of the background, static on an old TV. But up close, seeing them etched across his skin, wrapped around his ribs like thread pulled too tight, like he'd come apart if I tugged just once...
It made something twist inside me.
You'd think after three years I'd be used to it. After all, I preferred seeing them on him than on strangers. At least home had familiar lines.
But even now, seeing my dad, the only person I still had, stitched up like some fragile plush toy with seams ready to split...
I couldn't look at him. Not directly.
So I tilted my head back. Focused on the ceiling. Followed the red threads crawling across the plaster instead.
He kept me in the hug for a solid minute.
Then he started.
"Taylor, what—"
"I'm fine," I cut in.
He went still. His arms tightened reflexively before slowly, reluctantly, he eased back just enough to get a look at me.
I didn't meet his eyes. Focused on a spot on the wall past his shoulder. Beige. Cracked paint. A flake hanging loose.
"What happened?" he asked, voice low but firm, his hands squeezing my shoulders.
"I'm fine," I said again, flatter this time.
His fingers pressed tighter. Not enough to hurt, just enough to hold on. I still didn't look at him.
"Yes, Taylor. I can see you're safe and sound," he said, calm but stretched thin. "But I'm not. The school called. Told me there was an incident. Something serious. They wouldn't say what. And then you just… disappeared. Do you know what that does to a person? To a parent? Do you have any idea how terrifying it was?"
I licked my lips. Let my gaze drift sideways.
Nice plant in the vase nearby. Healthy, green. Still covered in lines.
"…Which part?" I murmured. "The part where I left? Or the part where no one stopped me?"
His grip loosened, almost instinctively. But his shoulders went taut. I saw it, even felt it: his heart speeding up behind his ribs, breath shortening, pressure building under the surface like a boiler on the verge.
He held it. Ground it down.
"I was scared," he said. Just that. "Now I'm scared and confused. I want to understand what happened."
A pause. His brow furrowed.
"Where are your glasses?"
I blinked. Reached into my hoodie pocket. Pulled them out and slid them on.
"They were dirty," I explained.
A lie, of course. With them on, the lines were sharper, closer, louder. I could ignore them, mostly, but they'd begun to annoy me more than usual lately.
"I'll tell you," I said finally, voice steady. "But only if we talk about it like adults."
He drew in a long breath. I could see it in his face, the words he wanted to say: You're not an adult.
And he'd be right.
But he just nodded.
"…I'm listening."
I nodded. Licked my lips. Took a second to weigh my words, something blunt enough to clue him in, but dull enough not to make things worse than they already were.
"Someone shoved me into my locker," I said. "They locked it. Left something inside to rot. That's what happened. I got out. I'm here. I need a shower."
Silence.
He didn't yell. Didn't swear. Didn't say a damn thing.
That was marginally worse.
I couldn't read him anymore. But his jaw clenched hard enough to make the veins rise along his neck. He breathed in through his nose.
"…Something rotten," he echoed. "You're filthy. What was it, Taylor?"
"Organic matter. I didn't check. There was… a lot of it," I said. My hands stayed in my pockets. My shoulders didn't twitch.
His grip on my arms tightened.
"Why would anyone…" He trailed off. Searched for something sane to hold onto. Failed. "What the hell is this? What could possibly lead to this? You didn't - no, there's no way you had anything to do with this. You're not - this isn't some prank, Taylor. This is… this is something else."
I nodded again. Blinking didn't help the pressure building behind my eyes, so I just exhaled.
Smiled.
"The word you're looking for is bullying," I said. His fingers jerked, but I kept going before he could settle on it. "But that makes it sound like I sat there and let it happen. Like it worked. It didn't. So they escalated. And that didn't work either. So really, I'd call it a waste of time."
"This isn't just a waste of time, Taylor, Jesus," he cut in. "This is criminal. This is - fuck. How long has this been happening?"
"Since high school started."
That stopped him. I heard him deflate. His arms dropped to his sides.
"…And were you ever going to tell me?"
I shrugged. Tilted my head. Met his eyes squarely.
"No."
Dad didn't say anything to that. He just shut his eyes, crossed his arms, and threw his head back with a long breath through his nose. I just watched him. Waited.
He was a skinny guy, all in all. Still had the look of someone who'd been the poster nerd growing up, too lanky for sports, too intense for jokes. But the tousled hair, the uneven brown beard that never quite settled into his jawline, the rough, cracked texture of his hands… all of it suggested a man who spent his days trying very hard not to look like a thug. Not a fighter. But he had the temperament. The anger. The kind of man who kept a wolf chained in his ribs and smiled as if it wasn't there.
But he pushed it down. Swallowed it like a bitter pill that never got easier. The rage filtered through little tells, like his jaw tightening, his heel tapping, his eyes fluttering open just a second too fast.
He was the one who taught me how to hide my cards. If you get angry, you lose. That's what he used to say.
It was ironic coming from him, so easy to rattle, so quick to boil, but once I'd peeled away the hypocrisy, I realized it was probably the best advice a parent could give.
The world doesn't care why you snap. Only that you do.
He was sloppy in applying it. Still led around by the nose of his conscience. Still ruled by that raw, pounding instinct to make things right.
Me? I'd perfected it. Even now, I wasn't sure if he realized I was doing the exact same thing he was. Hiding the crackle. Smoothing the wires.
I hoped he didn't notice.
I had enough issues as is.
Dad took a second to settle down. Arms crossed. Eyes still shut.
"You can't just not tell me when something like this happens, Taylor."
"Sure I can."
"You shouldn't," he snapped, quick to rebut. "When I say this is criminal, I'm not exaggerating. I could - I should sue. This is insane. Locking someone in a locker? Organic matter? What is this, a horror movie?"
"Not really," I said, shrugging. "Just people with too much free time and not enough therapy. My biggest concern right now is whether I can salvage these jeans, or just burn them."
"Taylor, I swear..." He stopped. Bit it back. Breathed through his nose. "Who was it?"
I tilted my head. Stared at a crack on the wall.
"I didn't see who shoved me in," I lied.
He made a vague, frustrated gesture with his hand.
"Okay. But come on, you must have an idea. If this has been going on for a while, then you've clocked someone. Anyone. We need names. If we're going after the school, I need leverage. I need to know who to call, who to confront."
Something twisted in my gut. Cold and oily.
Righteous fury always had a bad aftertaste. I felt a smirk trying to break through. Flattened it with effort.
"I didn't see who pushed me," I said. "But I know who thought of it."
He exhaled like I'd given him a winning lottery ticket. Opened his arms.
"Great. Write them down. We'll—"
"No."
His arms dropped. Confusion set in behind his glasses.
"Taylor?"
"I'm not naming names."
"…They destroyed your locker. They put you inside it and you're just going to let it go?"
"No," I said, voice even. "I'm not giving them the satisfaction of watching me beg for help just so they can get away again, this time with plausible deniability and a fresh coat of school PR."
His jaw clenched. Arms crossed again. Tight. Holding himself together, in a way.
"I'm not going to stand here and watch them play sick games with you. I understand this is a lot, but don't let pride—"
"Pride?" I cut in, sharper than I meant.
He stopped.
I licked my lips. Tongue over my teeth. Fingers flexing in my pockets.
"Don't insult me like that," I said. "Don't call this 'pride.' I did tell the teachers. I have tried going through the channels. Nobody did a thing. You think this'll be any different now that they've finally gone too far? More than that, do you think I care? About them? About the locker? About this whole circus they made just to feel a teensy bit more important in their worthless lives?"
He looked like he wanted to argue. I didn't give him the chance.
"I thought we were going to talk about this like adults. And as far as I know, adults don't throw tantrums over injustice. They take the hit. They move on. So let's do that. Be adults. You and me."
Silence settled. Just his breathing and my thoughts. I wasn't sure which was louder. Or more annoying.
"…This is wrong," he said, finally.
"Yes, dad. It's wrong."
Another pause. Another sigh.
"I'm not going to accept this."
"Yes, dad. I know."
He started tapping - his foot on the floor, his finger on his arm. Some little rhythm to wrestle control over the fire in his head.
"Won't you let me help you?" he asked, quieter this time. "We could think of something. Try something. I can't just let this happen. Not to you."
I sighed through my nose. Shook my head.
"I don't need help," I said. "I need a shower. And jeans that don't smell like death."
He started to inhale, probably gearing up to push again. I raised a hand before he could.
"You want to help? Okay. I want to skip school for a week. I'll catch up. If you want to raise hell with the school, fine. Just leave me out of it. Say I'm traumatized and can't speak if you have to. Doesn't matter. I've got a feeling they'll call you anyway to ask who's paying for the locker I broke."
He stared. Took a few seconds to chew on it.
"…How did you get out?" he asked.
"I just did," I said. "Doesn't matter how. I'm here now."
The hot water splashed down my head, over my skin, between my toes. For a second, it felt like I was standing beneath a downpour of liquid fire, burning away winter, boiling the cold right out of my bones. It hurt in the way a good massage hurts, like pressure on a knot that finally gives.
And like that, I unraveled.
Just a little.
The tension. The irritation. The exhaustion. All buried for a moment… drowned under the water.
I liked hot showers. They helped me focus. Gave me something besides the lines to fixate on. White noise to fight the white noise. And if I could've stayed there all day, every day, I probably would've.
But today… even the water couldn't drown everything out.
My fingers curled into fists. Then relaxed. Curled again. I tried to grasp a paperclip or a pencil that wasn't there. I felt it anyway. Imagined the texture, the weight, the press of it between my fingers.
"Hmph."
I drove the invisible tool forward.
My fingertip pressed into the white tile. Right into a jagged, dark line. It gave just a little. Enough.
It felt good.
Yesterday, I wouldn't have touched a line in the bathroom or in the living room. Definitely not in the kitchen. Cutting them had been off-limits; part of a rulebook I wrote just to keep myself stable.
But that version of me was gone. And her rules were gone with her.
I pulled my hand back. Raked wet hair from my face. Let the water hit again.
Dad didn't press much after I explained I didn't need saving from one lousy locker prank. Not really. He'd reacted with that inevitable instinct parents have - to turn their kids' problems into their own. To make tragedies out of second-rate comedies. Or worse, to try and fix something beyond fixing.
Luckily, he was too tired. Too sad. And, thankfully, understanding as ever.
I'd met that understanding with honesty. Over the years, I'd learned a simple truth: no matter what I did, he'd never be truly happy with how I turned out. So I stopped trying to explain myself. I didn't feel guilty. Didn't need to.
He was my dad. I loved him. We took care of each other in our own way.
That was enough.
It was simple. Efficient. Uncomplicated.
Sad, maybe. But things didn't have to be happy to work.
Unfortunately, things weren't going quite as smoothly as I'd hoped.
Sure, I was ninety-nine percent certain Emma was still fuming because I hadn't cried for mercy, and Sophia was probably nursing a cracked rib. None of that mattered right now. The environment itself was the problem. School. Home. Students. Family.
Everything was noise.
I didn't mind fixing things. But I couldn't fix every goddamn thing.
Water got in my mouth. I spat.
It got in my eyes. I didn't blink. And for half a second, I thought I saw lines shimmering in the spray.
I rubbed my face. Exhaled.
Brilliant. Not even hot water worked anymore.
I needed to adapt. Find new coping mechanisms. New ways to handle average, everyday, soul-scraping stupidity. And more than anything… I needed a better way to vent.
I crossed my arms and let the water burn the cold off me, rinse the grime away.
Rocked on my heels. Almost slipped. Caught myself on the wall.
The thoughts started to line up.
Right. Step one of problem-solving: identify the problem.
People usually wrote it down. I hated writing. Too many lines in the way.
So… say it aloud.
"I… am angry," I tried.
Nothing. No release. No weight lifted.
I licked my lips. Tried again.
"I'm sad."
Still nothing. The water ran down my face like tears.
Didn't feel like mine.
I tapped my arm. Sighed.
"I'm… hmmm."
Rocked again.
Snapped my fingers. "Oh. I'm disappointed."
Something flickered in my chest. Close, but not quite.
Not disappointed. Not exactly.
I looked at the wall. At the way the lines fractured across the tile.
And then it hit me.
"…I'm bored," I said.
And that one landed. That one rang true.
"I'm so bored I could just kill someone right now."
A moment came and went.
A laugh clawed its way up my throat.
I let it out.
It didn't sound real. Dry and hollow, static through a broken speaker. Still, it was a laugh. That counted for something. I didn't like mine. Never had. I could count on one hand how many times I'd laughed in the past three years, and most of those didn't even feel like me.
But things were changing.
Maybe it was time I started accepting more things about myself. Even the ugly ones.
I shut off the water. Stepped out. Grabbed a towel and scrubbed myself dry. Clean now. In one piece. Unbroken.
Sophia would have to do better next time. She'd have to kill me if she really wanted to make it stick.
I stood in front of the mirror.
Raked a hand through my hair. Black, too long, too tangled, always trying to fall in front of my face. I liked it that way. It distracted from everything else.
And, if I was being honest? I was pretty. Not in the vain, edited model kind of way, but in that genetic lottery, thanks-mom kind of way. I had her bone structure. Her cheekbones. Her mouth. Classic beauty, if you liked girls who looked like they'd bite instead of kiss.
Unfortunately, I also had Dad's temper, carved into my expression; eyes that narrowed instead of sparkled, lips that curled into a sneer faster than a smile.
A pretty face built for scowling.
But the eyes? The eyes were all mine.
Blue. Not the soft, dreamy kind. No. Something sharper. Something wrong. Electric, almost radioactive. Under the right light, they shimmered like broken glass.
Dad said they used to be brown. Like hers.
Then the accident happened. Then the lines started.
Wasn't difficult to put two and two together.
Something shifted inside me that day. Something essential broke loose and never clicked back into place. Or maybe that's just me trying too hard to poeticize tragedy. Give meaning to the mess.
I stood there a moment longer, watching myself. Then I turned the bathroom light off.
My reflection stayed. Just a vague silhouette now… except for the eyes.
They glowed. A cold, brilliant blue in the dark.
…Yeah. Probably not a coincidence.
I flicked the lights back on.
Toweled off my hair in the half-assed way I'd grown used to, no dryer, no styling. The curls would riot the second they hit cold air. I liked it that way. It was honest.
It also helped with the scar.
Just a faint line above the carotid, easy to miss unless the light hit it just right. One of many, but the only one that ever showed when I wasn't half-naked. I liked that my hair covered it. That I didn't have to explain it. That nobody asked.
The others stayed hidden. Tucked beneath sleeves and fabric and silence.
Little ghost stamps of a long night.
I didn't mind them. But I didn't like seeing them, either.
I marched to my room. Put on my glasses once I was inside.
The lines snapped into focus, black, jagged, twisting. More precise with the lenses, crisper. Almost artistic. But here, at least, they didn't bother me as much. Maybe because they were mine. Or maybe because I didn't need to pretend I didn't notice how broken the world looked through the glass.
My room, too, was what I liked to call a 'strategic mess'.
Clothes, clean and dirty, were scattered across the floor in familiar constellations. A half-eaten chocolate bar had been banished to the corner like a forgotten sin. Notebooks were sprawled in semi-graves across the furniture, their pages filled with bored class notes or sharp, meticulous sketches of bones, tendons, eyes.
I hated mess. Filth. Disarray.
But a clean room was worse. Clean rooms made the lines pop. A perfectly made bed or a tidy desk became a map of fractures and weaknesses.
Too visible. Too loud.
It gave me headaches.
The universe had a sense of humor like that. I stopped laughing a long time ago.
I opened my closet and pulled out clothes that allowed movement. I slipped into black track pants and a marine-blue hoodie, the kind I could fade into the background with. Then I pulled on an old pair of sneakers. Dusty, sure. A bit stiff. But they fit comfortably enough.
I stood still.
Focused on the clean scent of deodorant and cheap floral perfume. On the subtle give of the floorboards under my feet. On the restless twitch in my hand, aching to wrap around something thin. Sharp. Cold.
"Knives," I muttered. "I need knives."
And off I went.
Kitchen drawers. Dad's old toolbox. Any place that might hide a forgotten edge. It only took half an hour. A bit of quiet raiding, nothing too invasive. I came back with a stash of blades. Kitchen knives, steak knives, broken utility blades. All gleaming. All waiting.
I laid them on my bed. For a moment, I imagined myself a surgeon preparing for something more than surgery.
Then I retrieved my other 'stash'.
Erasers. Cheap, generic blocks I used to pretend were for stress. Now they had a different purpose.
Targets. Test dummies. Sacrifices.
The paperclip had worked. The pencil, better. If my nails were longer, maybe they'd do in a pinch. But I bit on them like a rat trapped in a maze and old habits were faster than new intentions.
Time to graduate. Toys were for coping. I needed tools for cutting.
I picked up a serrated table knife. The kind we used on meat when we could afford meat. It was old, clean, the plastic handle pale and chipped. The tip had snapped off years ago, but the edge still caught light like it wanted to matter.
I placed a fresh eraser in front of me. Found a diagonal line running across the surface. Drove the knife in.
It sliced clean. Too clean. The line split like butter. The serration left no marks. No resistance. Just a quiet snap and a flawless, gleaming seam.
Perfect. Wrong.
"Not good."
It was lightweight, thin. Easy to hide. But the grip was wrong, and the draw awkward. The edge would snag on my clothes.
Too easy to lose. Too easy to stab the wrong thing or cut a line by accident.
I laid it down.
Picked up a heavier kitchen knife - broad, clean, dangerous.
My reflection blinked at me in the blade.
It was bigger. Sturdier. Solid handle. Mirror-polished steel. Looked like it could take a finger off in one go.
I tested it.
Another eraser. Another line. Another cut. Smooth, surgical. Nothing of the kitchen knife remained in the result.
I flexed my wrist, rotated it, felt the weight of the blade.
Too heavy. Too honest. Too... loud.
I set it down beside the first.
"Terrible," I said.
It was a perfect knife… if I were casting for a slasher flick.
But I wasn't here to scare people.
I was here to get precise. To solve. To cut.
My hand hovered over the lineup of blades like I was picking out jewelry.
After a few seconds of quiet judgment, I went for the butter knife. Probably grabbed it in a rush, half an afterthought, half a joke. It was small, barely longer than my palm, with a thin, rounded blade that couldn't cut butter if the butter put up a fight.
Still, I pressed it into another eraser. The result was the same as before. A clean, silent, immaculate cut. Perfectly split, really, as if the material had been waiting for permission to break.
I turned the knife over in my hand. Slipped it into my pocket. Felt the weight, or lack of it. Took it out again. Turned it once more, then laid it down gently with the others.
"Who would've known," I muttered. "Size does matter."
It had all the perks; it was light, subtle, and easy to carry. But let's be honest, if anyone saw me lopping off pieces of rock or metal with a butter knife, it'd raise more than a few eyebrows. It wasn't just impractical. It was suspicious. Walking around with one of these was less 'normal girl' and more 'high-functioning lunatic'. It practically screamed I have powers, and questionable taste in cutlery.
And beyond that? Too easy to lose. Too easy to break. Not worth it.
I moved on.
Picked up a box cutter. Pushed the blade out with my thumb. Heard the familiar snick as the metal clicked into place. Heavier than the butter knife. More honest about what it was meant to do.
I liked it. Compact. Efficient. Foldable. No frills. Perfect for someone who wanted to cut and keep cutting without making a statement. It had that satisfying weight that made my wrist feel balanced.
But…
A teenage girl walking around with a box cutter? That wasn't subtle. That was suspicious on arrival. No teacher would let that slide. No cop would walk past it. Even if I could justify it, I'd still have to carry that attention around with me, and I had enough eyes on me already.
I clicked the blade back in. Set it down beside the butter knife.
And then I stared at the rest.
Table knives. Steak knives. A fruit peeler. Even Dad's rusty old pocketknife with the bent corkscrew and dull blade. I tested them one by one, each with its own brand of disappointment. Either too long, too clunky, too flashy, or too breakable. Tools meant for kitchens, not for what I had in mind.
They were the best you could find in a house like ours.
But not good enough.
I needed something better. Something that made sense. Something compact but reliable. Heavy enough to mean business, light enough to move fast. Something I could carry without looking like I was about to rob a convenience store or dissect a frog.
Something that fit me.
I crossed my arms. Licked my lips. And then it hit me, clean across the face, an invisible slap.
What did girls my age even carry?
"…Shit," I muttered. "Girls don't go around with knives."
That was going to be a problem.
Back when Emma and I were still friends, I'd learned that girls interested in appearances always had some kind of survival kit on them: lip balm, compact mirror, tweezers, nail clippers. Just in case. It was all surface maintenance.
I sure as hell wasn't interested in surface maintenance. But I still needed something. Something functional. Something that wouldn't raise eyebrows.
What was uniquely Taylor, anyway?
"Taylor…" I said under my breath. "What is a Taylor?"
No neat answer came. But a few adjectives filtered through.
Efficient. Adaptable. Unwilling to put up with bullshit. Very willing to put down bullshit.
I tapped my fingers against my bicep. Stared into the lines until my eyes felt raw, as if they might blink the answer into existence.
Then the metaphorical lightbulb went off.
I jumped to my feet and jogged out of my room, heading for the basement. Dad's old toolbox was still there, heavy with rust and regrets. I cracked it open and rummaged until I saw it - old, half-dusty, half-shining. A dark red handle. A little white cross on a red shield.
A Swiss knife.
I picked it up. Felt it in my hand. The shape was perfect. The weight, balanced. Easy to carry. Easy to justify. Full of useful things - tiny tools for tiny problems. But best of all…
…Sharp, if needed.
I found the thumb stud, pressed it, and a blade popped out. Still sharp, despite the years. Not long. Not flashy.
Just right.
Back in my room, I tested it on an eraser. Clean cut. No resistance. Every slice sent a little jolt up my arm like the edge was slicing through more than rubber.
Then, just because I could, I split the table knife in half. Then the kitchen knife. Both snapped apart like props. I left the butter knife alone - something about it made me feel bad. Like kicking a kitten. The box cutter I stashed away for emergencies.
I pushed the blade back into its compartment and held the Swiss knife in my hand.
Finally. My blade.
Now… all I needed were more things to cut.
And lucky me, Brockton Bay had no shortage of things that needed slicing
Actions
↑ Top ← Previous Chapter Next Chapter → Comments (32)
Kudos
TranslateAmerican, Cringelord84, Meeceisme, infrezia, und3d, Leafwind104, Aistveter, Ya_Yeet8, Closiara, TRNINJA, A_Businesswoman, Clyan0704, Ouroboroszero, ValeriaSinclaire, Karqrow, Nocturnal_Maid, whitechero413, EldritchEnthusiasm, Mad_Volcano, MadeDinoSwave, recko293, CharIsALie, Booksaremylifeblood, TrashchanAkechi, Silented, SunSlash, geronimogirl, MrDyzio, Aldana_brillantina, crakaz, calford, Unstorpable, NyssaTheWitch, GrimSeeker17, Spearit07, BobTheSkrull, Kurama_Jr09, Toberumono, Noxon, Yunalys, CloudySky01, Lexi_Lush, Taryth, ParanoiacAce, JimmyJingo, Tsukimugiwara, DaddySir, datwr, Tosterku, CssCss123, and 465 more users as well as 242 guests left kudos on this work!
Comments
Sorry, this work doesn't allow non-Archive users to comment. You can however still leave Kudos!
Footer
About the Archive
Site Map
Diversity Statement
Terms of Service
Content Policy
Privacy Policy
DMCA & TIDA Policies
Site Status
Contact Us
Policy Questions & Abuse Reports
Technical Support & Feedback
Development
otwarchive v0.9.484.3
Known Issues
GPL-2.0-or-later by the OTW