The Encounder
Luz’s POV
The scrappy hand-me-down coat Luz had over her hoodie did little to keep out the wind chill as she carefully navigated the salted streets on her way to school. It had snowed the night before but, unfortunately, it had stopped early enough for the plows to clear the way before school would need to be canceled. There wasn’t even a delayed opening.
Luz’s teeth chattered as she looked up at the overcast sky. The universe just couldn’t give her a break could they? Her wheel hit a particularly large chunk of salt causing her to swerve a bit until she was able to right herself before the bike got out from under her. Shaking her head, she rubbed her eyes, trying to refocus her attention on the road. Luz hadn’t been able to sleep last night and her vision was a bit blurry as a result.
She’s been on edge since her encounter with Boscha the day prior, but in reality, it was the lack of a follow up encounter that was really getting to her. Luz had expected Boscha to do something yesterday, pound her into a locker, throw her in a dumpster, ruin her clothes, books, or homework; but… nothing. The red head hadn’t even looked her way. Luz had made much more of an effort to avoid her yesterday than normal but that had never stopped Boscha from tracking her down before.
Luz rubbed her eyes again before rounding another corner, she was almost to the school and was early as all hell like always. Maybe she could catch a few solid minutes of shut eye before classes started, she didn’t have her little project to work on anymore so she could also go back to sleeping in-
Luz didn’t get to finish her thought.
There wasn’t any ice or rocks in her path but suddenly her bike felt like it was yanked backwards sending Luz over the handlebars. Thankfully she was wearing a helmet which protected her head, but that didn’t do anything to prevent her from skidding over the slick pavement that had been packed with salt to melt the snow.
Luz groaned as she tried to get her bearings. Her entire left side stung as well as both of her knees and the palms of her hands as she struggled to move her limbs. She felt a heavy weight on her back and it took her a moment to remember that it was her stupid cheap backpack. Breathing heavily, she got herself onto her elbows, everything ached but she didn’t think anything was broken or sprained. She’d had plenty of broken bones over the years and this didn’t feel like that. At least, she was pretty sure.
“Well, it looks like you ended up exactly where you belong,” the voice hit Luz’s ears like a wave of ice. “On the fucking ground.” She froze in place, her hands trembling on the pavement at the sound of footsteps sloshing through the melting snow. Luz turned her head to see Boscha and Skara shutting the doors to Boscha’s car while Emily dropped the piece of fishing wire that had stopped Luz’s front tire. The bright red car had been hidden in a back alley, out of line of sight from most of the street. Luz had passed that alley every day on her way to school and she’d never had cause to be cautious around it before. A sickening grin pulled at Boscha’s face as she took a step towards her.
Suddenly, Luz was back in the locker room, head fuzzy and ears ringing, in too much pain to stop what was about to happen. Boscha’s boot splashed through the snow sludge on the side of the road, sending ripples out through the puddle. It was seven-thirty at night, she was lying on the floor of a filthy locker room with punch on her shirt and blood on the jacket, trapped by Boscha and her crew. It was seven in the morning a mile away from school, there wasn’t anyone to make them back off this time. Just the vacant backstreet with no witnesses.
Luz had always used the fact that everything that happened was always dictated by what her attackers were willing to do while running the risk of getting seen on school grounds. She didn’t argue because it would make a scene, she didn’t fight back because she’d get in trouble too, and she didn’t run because it could only lead off of school grounds where worse could happen. And was about to, Luz thought with a twist in her stomach as the footsteps drew closer.
There was another splash and Luz blinked. She wasn’t in the locker room. No one was holding her. She was half a mile from school grounds. Half a mile from where Vice Principal Clawthorn, one of the only faculty that showed up to school this early, was sitting in her office answering emails or meeting with upset parents.
One mile. They had a car. They were on the soccer team so they were definitely able to run. Luz glanced to her side, the front tire of her bike was bent at an angle due to how it had landed on the ground. She had a heavy, beat-up backpack and her laptop, one she had practically built herself from spare parts she’d gotten for cheap online, was inside so she wasn’t willing to leave it. One mile.
Another splash.
Luz could feel some of the duct tape peel off of her shoe as it scraped against the salted pavement. Not taking the time to look back, she pushed forward off of the ground like a sprinter at a track meet and started running. She could hear Boscha shouting at the others to go after her and Luz took this as her signal to book it. She reached the end of the street where she usually took a turn and skidded around the corner as Boscha’s car roared to life behind her.
Her vision tunneled as Luz dead sprinted over the sidewalk. In front of her the buildings dropped away into a long stretch of road surrounded on either side by dense woodlands. She didn't need to look around, she’d ridden this path every weekday for nearly three quarters of the school year and she could hear Skara’s and Emily’s feet pounding behind her. It was hard to tell if they were gaining or not though. She didn’t risk it and pushed herself to go faster. Luz’s legs were starting to ache, but not as badly as she thought they would.
The squeal of tires rounding a corner alerted Luz to the car that sounded way too close for her liking. It didn’t matter if she could stay ahead of Skara and Emily, there was no way she could outrun a car. It may be what she knew best, but she couldn’t stick to the road anymore. She saw an opening, and without hesitation, lept over a downed log and began barrelling through the trees. A second later she heard two sets of shoes skidding on the pavement to match her sharp turn and the squeal of wheels peeling away to who knows where.
Wet snow seeped through the fabric in her shoes, numbing her feet as she ran. Branches from trees and bushes layered with ice swatted at her face and hands as she barrelled through and drops of chilling water from where the sun was beginning to melt everything were falling onto the top of her head and running down the back of her neck. Had the weather been different, or if Skara and Emily hadn’t been so close behind her, she may have just tried to duck away somewhere and hide but there was no use trying to outsmart them when her footprints were giving her path away. The most she could do was keep trying to outrun them.
She was pretty sure she was going in the right direction, but she really had no idea. The rising sun was darting between the tree branches in front of her. Her feet were completely numb and from her knees down, it felt like she’d been wading through a freezing puddle. Every breath was like her lungs were being stabbed with ice but she could still hear more, equally fast, footsteps crunching in the snow behind her.
Just a little farther, just a little faster, Luz told herself. But a much more present voice in her head knew that she wouldn’t be able to keep this up for long. Everything was aching, her legs were slowing even as she begged them to go faster and her own heartbeat in her ears was starting to drown out Skara and Emily’s steps.
The sun was starting to shine in Luz’s eyes more prominently causing her to wince and she had to force herself to keep her arms pumping at her side instead of blocking the light. Then she realized what that extra sunlight meant, Luz was coming to the end of the woods. Who knew where it would spit her out, but at the very least she knew that every step was taking her a little bit farther from where she was now.
Luz burst through the trees and immediately felt her feet separate from the ground, then the shock of freezing water chilling her to the bone. It took her a moment to get her bearings and realize that she was in a ditch on the side of the road, about three feet lower than the woods and filled with water that must have runoff of the road from the storm yesterday. She glanced around, trying to figure out where she was and noticed one snarky looking kid she recognized who lived close enough to walk to school instead of taking the bus. He pointed at her and laughed for a moment before pulling out his phone to get a picture of her.
Luz was able to recognize the backroad. She was about a block away from school, a block away from safety. Hell she could see a corner of it in the distance. The sound of twigs snapping behind her snapped her out of her daze and she heaved herself out of the ditch onto the side of the road. Thankfully there weren’t any cars around this side of the school, the main road and the turnaround point were all on the other side.
Luz’s clothes were sopping wet and she had barely managed to make it to her feet before Skara and Emily burst from the woods behind her. Skara managed to stop at the edge of the woods but Emily skidded over and landed in the ditch as well, she didn’t lose her footing like Luz had though.
Not wasting another moment, Luz started sprinting again, only to see the red car turning onto the back road, blocking the main path to the school. She slowed, trying to force the cogs in her brain to think of another escape route faster but within a second she was on the ground and Skara was on top of her, pushing her face into the gravel.
“You really thought you could outrun us?” Skara’s words were interrupted by heaving breaths but she clearly wasn’t as affected from the run as Luz was. “I’m a fucking midfielder!”
“Fucking bitch!” Emily’s voice sounded from Luz’s side followed by a very hard kick to her stomach, forcing out the little air she’d been able to get in.
In the back of her mind, Luz was aware of the sound of a car engine getting closer before shutting off, but a punch to her eye was enough to ensure that it remained a distant realization until she felt something grip her hair and pull up. Boscha’s eyes were piercing, wild and hungry from the chase that Luz had just put them on, but she wasn’t gasping for breath like the rest of them.
As Boscha reared her fist back, Luz was back in the locker room, too much was happening at once for her to react. Luz was stuck, frozen, drenched and paralyzed just like that night. She’d tried to run and failed. Any help she could have gotten was on the other side of the school, well out of reach. She was in the worst situation she could be in. There were no more options.
Luz felt Skara’s weight remove itself from her back as she was yanked backwards off of the ground by her backpack. A sharp rip permeated the air as her backpack tore from Emily’s strength, the contents going flying. There was a crunching noise but Luz wasn’t able to focus on that before she was thrown off balance onto her knees only for Boscha’s fist to connect with her cheekbone, sending her back to the ground hard. That’s when she saw it.
Her laptop, the one that she put together, fixed with spare parts, modified from broken equipment that she’d found online and repaired until it was smooth enough to run the games that she wanted to play. It had been the first real test of her repair skills years ago and her only effective escape from reality since then. And it was lying on the asphalt in front of her. Broken glass from the screen spilling out from the closed lid, busted plastic from the corner it had landed on with wires and hardware visible, the battery dislodged and dented, the whole thing sitting in a disgusting puddle of street muck that had been planted in the center of the road.
Luz’s mind went blank. This wasn’t her father’s jacket, it wasn’t something that anyone had trusted her with, or something that couldn’t be fixed or replaced. Hell she’d already done a fair amount of repair work on it just from the years of wear and tear. But, just like that jacket, it was important to her, and Boscha and her cronies had destroyed it. Luz learned from her mistakes. She didn’t go down the same alleys she’d been beaten up in, didn’t bring food to school after it had been taken away from her, didn’t piss off people after they’d already been violent with her.
But, that didn’t matter, did it? They were against her whether she provoked them or not. They beat her whether she fought back, or ran, or just took it. And they destroyed the things that were important to her even though she never did anything to them.
Luz felt something snap, but not in the way she was used to.
Someone gripped the shoulder of Luz’s jacket and yanked upwards. A sound tore through Luz’s throat and everything went blank. She couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, couldn’t feel anything. One moment she had someone grabbing her and the next she was standing upright on her own… and her hand hurt.
She was breathing heavily and everything felt hot in stark contrast to the freezing puddle she’d just taken a dip in. The first thing she was aware of was the sound of blood rushing through her ears, then, there was shouting. Boscha’s screech startled Luz back to the present. Her eyes shot up to see Boscha stumbling back and cupping her nose. She watched as the redhead pulled her hand away only for it to be splattered in bright red blood that kept running. Boscha’s eyes met Luz’s with fire behind them, but there was something else there too.
Boscha lunged forward, her arm pulled back to strike, but she was still off balance. Everything was red, and loud, and hot; but it was all happening as if in slow motion. Luz felt herself sidestepping Boscha’s fist only to bring her own around and catch Boscha on the jaw. Boscha’s head whipped around with a grunt.
Luz felt her breathing getting heavier. Heat was spilling off of her in waves. Boscha stumbled back again but Luz didn’t let her get further. She punched her again, this time with her other hand, sending Boscha’s head in the other direction. For someone who threw a lot of punches she sure didn't seem to know how to block a hit. Two pairs of hands tried to grab onto Luz and she knew that Skara and Emily had broken out of whatever stupors they’d been in but Luz was angry and she wasn’t about to get herself stuck again. She was done being stuck.
As one hand wrapped itself around her wrist, Luz pulled her arm back until her elbow made contact with something. There was a scream as that person let go of her and Luz used her newly freed arm to push the other one away. She didn’t even bother to look at which one was which, her focus, her anger was centered entirely on one individual who was now staring up at her with confusion mixing into the previous rage.
Luz didn’t hesitate, the second she shook the cronies off of her, she lunged. One hand grabbed Boscha’s shirt and the other got her on the temple, then the lip. There was a shout and Boscha’s feet went out from under her. Luz followed her to the ground, sitting on her stomach, and just kept punching. Boscha tried to push her off, to get her arms up in defense, to punch her back, but nothing was working. Luz was taller, her arms were longer, and everything felt hot. When Boscha tried to push her off, Luz got her face, when she put her arms up to block her face, Luz got her ears, when she tried to punch back, Luz grabbed her arm and used the leverage to get her as many times as she could before Boscha managed to get her arm away again.
Skara and Emily tried to stop her, tried to grab her and punch and kick her, but Luz didn’t care. If they got close enough she’d just push them away between wails on Boscha’s face, and if they didn’t, well, she was already numb, she could barely feel it anyway.
Everything blurred together. There was shouting, and pain, and Boscha beneath her. And anger. So much anger.
Everything Boscha had ever done to her. Everything every bully had ever done to her. The pain she’d endured because it hadn’t seemed worth it, the hits she’d taken because fighting back would have been worse, the words that stabbed at the back of her mind that had been burning away her will to stand up for herself for as long as she could remember.
Luz had no idea how long she was in this position, it felt like hours but was probably only a few minutes, maybe not even that. Then someone was trying to grab her again, they were shouting something Luz couldn't hear and she tried to push them off but then she felt a pair of arms wrap around her own, pinning them to her torso, and lifting her off of Boscha. She kicked and shouted, trying to get out of the grip. Not even registering the threat of being restrained, just wanting to go back to punching the girl who was still on the ground.
“Enough!” Luz stilled as the voice of the person grabbing her finally registered in her ears. It was like the fumes that her body had been running on dissipated in a single word, leaving her cold and aching. She swallowed, the taste of blood sliding down her throat as she tried to steady her breathing.
The second she calmed down, Vice Principal Clawthorn let go of Luz, allowing her to drop to the ground. Her knees immediately buckled beneath her, the injuries she’d sustained from the last few minutes from falling off of her bike to Skara and Emily going at her while she was on top of Boscha all caught up with her at once and it was like every ounce of adrenaline left her body all at once. Vice Principal Clawthorn kept a firm grip on her shoulder, but Luz wasn’t going anywhere either way.
A few feet in front of her, Boscha was propped up on her side, one of the P.E. teachers hovering next to her. She was coughing and spitting up blood, her teeth stained red. Her nose was crooked, eye starting to swell shut, and a massive bruise was forming right in the middle of her forehead on top of the other bruises that were becoming apparent.
Luz looked down at her hands. Her knuckles were beginning to swell, but beyond that her left wrist was starting to really hurt where she’d landed after falling off of her bike and there was some pain along her left side that was slowly growing more and more intense. She might have been a bit too quick to jump to nothing feeling broken. Favoring her left hand, Luz slowly reached down to her sweatshirt that had several new holes in it, and lifted it up to see a large patch of scraped up flesh that reached from above where she lifted her shirt to below the waistband of her jeans and appeared to have only been aggravated by Boscha’s friends kicking her in the ribs when they were trying to get her off of her.
Vice Principal Clawthorn was still yelling, or maybe just talking loudly? Luz still couldn’t really make out what she was saying. She lowered her sweatshirt and winced as the fabric made contact with the wound. Tears had been spilling down Boscha’s face, mixing with blood. She looked confused more than anything. Luz felt sick.
She looked back down at her hands. They were scraped and bruised and her left wrist was starting to swell and turn red.
She wasn’t sure if she regretted what she’d done or not, and that worried her more than anything.