Chapter 103 Bleeding
Malia's POV
I don’t know how long I linger in the woods.
Long enough to slow my breathing. Long enough for the glow in my hands to disappear completely. Long enough for the adrenaline to drain away, leaving nothing but fatigue and the dull ache of bruises Victoria had given me on my ribs.
I have to go back eventually, though.
I can't be hidden away in the trees forever, no matter how enticing that sounds. I got classes. Duties. A life I’m supposed to be living even though it’s all falling apart around me.
The walk back to campus is like a death march.
With each step closer to the main buildings, my chest gets tighter. My hands keep shaking. I push them far down into the pockets of Cian’s jacket, attempting to conceal the tremor, trying to appear normal.
I take the back way, around the buildings, avoiding the quad where everyone hangs out between classes. But I can’t hide from everything. I have to go into a building at some point and go down a hallway and be in places where there are other students.
The staring begins immediately.
A group of students at the vending machines. They fall silent when they spot me, their eyes following me as I move further down the hallway. One whispers to another behind her hand.
I catch bits and pieces from packages of gossip: "—heard she went crazy—"
"...threw Victoria into a wall—"
"—blood everywhere."
I walk on, faster now, head down, eyes on the floor.
More students. More stares. More whispers that follow me around like a shadow. A guy whom I’ve never spoken to actually moves back for me when I go by, cramming himself into the lockers as if I’m the one who might attack. His friend pulls out his phone — to capture a photo or a video, I am not sure which and would rather not know.
"Freak," someone mutters. But not loud enough to be heard. Just enough so I can hear them.
My face burns. I walk faster.
The hall extends endlessly. Each door frames a new cluster of students who swivel around. At every crossing, there’s a fresh set of bystanders to whatever tale is being told about me.
I need somewhere I can get to be alone. A place where I can catch my breath with no audience, not even this one.
A single-occupancy bathroom appears on my left—thank God. I duck inside and lock the door with trembling hands, sliding door clicks shut and I lean back against it immediately.
Quiet. At last.
There’s a fluorescent light humming overhead and it’s too bright, too sterile. I don’t look at the mirror right away; I go to the sink and splash cold water onto my face.
That’s when I feel it. Warm. Wet, wrong.
I lick my upper lip. My fingers come away red. I’m bleeding from my nose again.
"No," I whisper. "No, not again. Please no—"
Now the blood is trickling, quicker than before. One drop. Two. Three. Hitting the white porcelain sink, the red blood spreads into rose-shaped stains on the surface.
I take some paper towels from the holder and press them to my nose, I tilt my head backward like you're supposed to do but I know that that's not really how it's done, you're supposed to lean forward, but I can't think straight enough to care.
The paper towel immediately soaks through. Bright red seeping through the recycled paper in seconds.
I grab more. Press harder.
My heart races. The power from earlier—that terrible surge that threw Victoria across the room—it's back. Not as strong but present. Humming beneath my skin like a live wire.
What’s wrong with me? Why won't it stop?
I luck out a look in the mirror.
My reflection is a nightmare. Pale skin. Dark circles under eyes that open and close with each blink; brown and gold. Blood is smeared across my upper lip and chin, staining the paper towels that I’m pressing desperately against my nose.
I look sick. Broken. Wrong.
Still bleeding. go through half the paper towel dispenser, they're all going through much faster.
Then—
It stops.
Just like that. Mid-drip. One second blood is pouring from my nose, the next it's completely stopped. Not even slowing gradually. Not even slowing gradually. Not even slowing gradually. Just…done.
I slowly drop the paper towels, preparing for the rushing torrent to begin again.
Nothing.
I touch my nose gently, expecting pain, expecting sensitivity, expecting something. My fingers come away clean.
I move toward the mirror with intent as I study my face in the stark light. No blood. There is no evidence I was bleeding except for what is already on my face and clothes.
Even the inside of my nose when I look closely, tilting my head—hasn't been hurt. No broken vessels, no irritation, no source for the bleeding.
Like it never went down.
But it did. Bloodstains on my hands, the sink, a wad of bloody paper towels in the trash
I look at my reflection, and for a moment I know nothing.
Spontaneous nosebleeds that cease with equal spontaneousness. Power surges I can’t control. Wolf eyes that shouldn’t exist in my hybrid bloodline. Faceless-person visions. And the nightmares which bleed into waking life.
None of it has rhyme or reason. All of them are building.
My legs suddenly go weak. The adrenaline that had been holding me upright, holding me to keep walking and walking, suddenly leaves me, all at once.
The bathroom wall I’m leaning against is cold tile, and I slide down it until I’m crouched on the floor with my knees under my chin. The way I always wind up. That’s the only one that still feels remotely safe.
And then, at last I let myself cry.
Not the silent welts of tears from the woods. Real crying. And ugly, gasping sobs that make my whole body shake and my already tender ribs to scream in protest.
I cry for the girl I was on the island — sure, happy, surrounded by people who loved her without conditions.
I’m crying for the untenable position I'm in now caught between a body that is betraying me and a world that has already told me I don't belong.
I’m crying for Victoria, that I hurt, who I left, who is undoubtedly telling everyone I know how unstable I am, how dangerous.
I’m also crying for Aiden, Cian and Rowan, who desperately want to hold me together, while I am quite literally breaking apart at the cellular level.
I'm crying because I'm scared. So much so that I'm literally exhausted and simultaneously terrified that this–whatever this is–is not going to stop.
That it's just going to keep getting worse until I hurt somebody I love. Till I live up to every awful thing Vesper has ever said about hybrids like me.
The sobbing gets heavier. My chest heaves.
The snot is mixed with dried blood on my face. I don’t give a shit. Can't give a shit. I can only sit here and disintegrate in a bathroom on campus while students whisper about me in hallways I won’t go down.
My phone buzzes.
Coach Herriman: Final Warning - report to my office or be suspended.
I watched the phone slip from my fingers. It skitters across the tile floor, the screen still flashing with alerts that I just can’t bring myself to respond to.
What could I say?
Hi, I’m having a breakdown, my body is making me bleed from my nose for no reason, I’m doing impossible things, I might be turning into something that could kill you, but don’t worry, I’m fine, OKAY?
They’d think I was crazy. Maybe I am crazy.
Perhaps all the power, the visions, the transformations, are nothing more than elaborate self-deception. A psychotic break from too much stress and not enough sleep. Perhaps I am really still in that forest, or in my bed enduring the longest nightmare of my life, and none of this is actually real.
But the cold tile beneath me is real. The taste of blood in my mouth is real. The bruises on my ribs where Victoria belted me—those are real.
So that means everything else is, too.
A knock on the bathroom door causes me to flinch violently.
“Occupied,” I cry out, my voice raw from weeping.
"Malia?"
July's voice. Concerned. Almost breaking.
“It’s me. Open the door.”
"I'm fine," I say. “Just — give me a minute.”
“You’ve been in there for twenty minutes. I’ve been looking everywhere.” A pause. “I know what happened in Combat class. Let me in. Please."
I look at the door, bolted, and feel countermarching thoughts: the urgent desire for someone to see me and the fear of me being seen is immobilizing.
“Malia.” July’s voice is softer now. Breaking
“You're scaring me. Just-let me know you’re ok. That’s all. You don’t need to open the door. Just talk to me.”
My throat tightens around words I can’t make.
“Please,” she says again.
I force myself to speak. "I'm okay."
"You're not." Not an accusation Just “are” facts. “But that’s okay too. You don’t have to be okay. You just — you can’t just disappear like this. People are worried. I’m worried.”
“I can’t–” My voice breaches. “I can’t come out right now.”
“Okay.” Instant agreement. “Okay, that’s fine. May I come in?”
I glance at myself — bloody, tear-streaked, perched on a bathroom floor like my life isn’t completely crashing down. Something inside of me screams to say no, to slam the door on her, to not let anybody see me like this. broken.
But I’m so tired of being the only one with this.
So tired of carrying it by myself.
“Yeah,” I whisper. “Yeah, okay.”
I hear her sigh of relief through the door. “Unlocking it?”
Hands trembling, I reach up and turn the lock. The click is absurdly loud.
The door opens slowly. July slips inside, closes and relocks it behind her in one fluid movement. Then she looks at me.
Her face crumples. “Oh, babe.”
She doesn’t ask questions. Doesn’t require explanations . Just slides down the wall and sits next to me, sliding one arm around my shoulders and pressing me against her side. I collapse into her, burying my face in her shoulder, and begin crying again - quieter this time, drained, the kind of tears that come when you have nothing left to hold them back with.
July doesn't say anything. She just hugs me, one hand running through my hair, the other making slow circles on my back. So present that my chest is tight with both gratitude and mourning.
“I don't know what’s happening to me,” I eventually manage to whisper against her shoulder.
"I know," she says softly. "But we'll work it out. Together."
"What if we can’t?"
"Then we’ll have to make peace with that." Her arm tightens. "But you’re not doing this alone now. Whatever this is. Okay?"
I nod again against her shoulder but the lump in my throat makes it impossible to talk.
We stay like that—two girls on a bathroom floor, one crumbling and one determined not to let her crumble alone while the rest of the world has moved on outside the door, locked.
And for a heartbeat, in spite of everything, I let myself believe her.
That maybe I don’t have to go up against this on my own.
That maybe, somehow, it will be okay. Even if, I know, deep down, it won’t be.
Because the power is still there, wait for it.
The changes are still happening. And sooner or later, I'm going to have to face what I'm becoming.
Whether I'm ready or not.