I awoke with a throbbing headache where my head had impacted against the grimy floor. As, I helped myself to my feet, the rest of the girls had already begun filing into the room. I must've been unconscious for the last twenty or so minutes for classes to have begun.

I felt dizzy and a touch light-headed as I pushed past the incoming crowd. Some of them had seen me lying on the floor and were hurling insults some tired insult. Normally I could've focused well enough to be bothered by their words, currently I was too out of it to be properly annoyed. I felt the sort of hunger that had nothing to do with what I normally consider food. The last morsels of my power had been used up to heal my face from Sophia's attack. For the time being, until either the wraith regenerated or I consumed some blood, I would be just as human as I had been a few months ago. It wasn't surprising, how little had changed since then.

I wanted to take a moment to clean some of the dirt from out of my hair but I needed to get inside the gym first. I knew from podding the area that I didn't have a bruise on my face. That would leave me with no viable excuse for why I'd be late to class if I chose to change somewhere else. It was one of the few things that irked me about my power. I couldn't control it to the extent of deciding which injuries to prioritize or just outright ignore.

I wasn't a masochist but the complete erasure of the physical evidence did little to help me solve the real problem. Even if the teachers didn't believe me a well documented paper trail would've been helpful if the police got involved. Though in my new situation the police would've been anything but ideal.

Ever since being locked inside the chest I was hesitant to be in the girls locker room longer than necessary, especially when it was occupied by my peers. It would've been too easy for them to pull another 'prank' that I couldn't prove had actually happened.

I made my way towards the gymnasium and found that it was fortunately still empty. Regardless, I was still wary of any possible visitors so as usual I chose to undress beneath the bleachers. They were similar to the rest of the room in that they were old enough to creak from years of rust and disrepair. No one really believed that they would fall anytime soon but I did get dressed at the edge of the structure just to be safe.

The lights were varying levels of brightness with some areas fully lit contrasting the dim or even blacked out areas. The entire area was spacious enough to accommodate two basketball courts but only one of them was actually usable.

That court had been reserved for the use of the basketballs teams practice and games. It was simple in that the court wasn't littered with cracks and splinters. The various jocks and athletes didn't have to worry about avoiding any floorboards that would give under their weight.

Like the rest of the school if it weren't strictly sports related, the funding for it was all but nonexistent.

The rest of the room that had been reserved for regular classes were usable in the thinnest sense of the word. With 'usable' being quite the stretch to describe a court with cracked and splintered floorboards. The only reason we even had class indoors all year was because of Coach Johnson's preference for the air conditioning.

Underneath the bleachers I had to push around the various bits of paper and trash to have a spot to change. With my backpack being as thin as it was I had more than enough space to stuff my clothes. I was grateful for the unusual ease, but it also reminded me of my more mundane problems, I was going to have to ask for new textbooks for every class. Even while disregarding the poor condition of the majority of the textbooks, I'd still need them if I was going to make it through the rest of the year. That made the confrontations most of my teachers an inevitability. Yet compared to my current situation with Sophia dealing with a few upset teachers seemed mundane in contrast.

Thinking about it all just made my head throb a bit harder. My goal had been to keep my cape and civilian lives separate but I didn't know if that was even possible anymore. Even without Sophia, I felt like they had merged into a problem I couldn't even begin to solve. At home dad was going to keep asking his questions until he got the answers he wanted it was possible for me to simply lie but I didn't trust myself to not mess up somewhere along the way. At school Emma was sure to remain a problem, but I also had to be extra cautious around Sophia. She had taken the one thing that had kept me going for all those months of torment that was my everyday life. One instance of rebellion was all it would take for her to contact the heroes. I was trapped, and I didn't want to think about how things would be different now that she'd start blackmailing me.

I replayed every word of Sophia's threat in my head, straining myself to remember her every word up until her revenge for the warehouse. By the time I had finished the throbbing of my headache had intensified, almost as if to ground me in the reality of my situation. For a moment I felt like curling up under the bleachers and just giving up. The most that I had accomplished with my powers had gotten me into a worse position than from since before I got them.

Fuck that.

There had to be a way out from under Sophia's thumb in addition to my dad and the heroes.
I couldn't accept, after everything that had happened that nothing had changed. Sophia had made it clear that she was going to be terrible, but that was nothing new. I wouldn't like it, but I could manage.

Those were the thoughts that ran through my head as I hid my bag underneath a pile of papers and discarded food wrappers. I made my way out from under the bleachers, just in time for the gym doors to open. The class filled the room like a single mob, I reminded myself of the months I'd managed to endure my classes at Winslow.

I waited off to the side near one of the various black areas of the room. I took the time to scan the groups for a place where I could blend in well enough to be noticed for attendance, but not enough to attract negative attention.

Coach Johnson made his way through the students, I could tell he was coming even before I could see the man by how the students moved to be outside his path. The squat man took quick steps towards his destination. He was top heavy but not in the sense that he was fat. His upper body and biceps were muscular if not a bit barrel shaped. The same couldn't be said for his legs, however. His nylon pants failed to disguise how thin his legs were, the motion of his walking only served to highlight what he had meant to hide.

He held a clipboard in his hands with a whistle around his neck. I took his presence at the front of the mob as a que for me to find where I wouldn't be noticed by the wrong people. That had been a mistake; I'd barely even moved before I was spotted.

"Herbert, get from over there and fall in!"

I could feel the eyes as they fell on me, following my trek from the shadows to a spot among them. The rest of the students did not wait for the coach to address them. In the next several seconds, the class had been organised into two columns for boys and girls. Due to the large class size, the groups were comparable to each other. Yet, despite that being the case I still stood out like a sore thumb. Even while I stood towards the back of the group, I could hear people muttering while some of them turned back to peek at me. One such person like that had been a redhead.

My stomach dropped with despair.

I knew that I would have to deal with Emma eventually but it still felt like it was too soon. I wasn't ready to deal with whatever she threw back into my face, not today. I'd begun running every possible thing she could do to me as if doing so would somehow protect me. Even considering a few dozen scenarios it wasn't enough to prepare for what she might do. Emma had our entire childhood to draw on, on top of whatever else she might've known.

A small part of me began to reconsider my approach to Emma, why endure her antics any longer when I knew better? Sophia couldn't always be by her side.

Coach Johnson had just begun roll call it would be a little while before he would reach my name.
However, I had to cut off that line of thought quickly some of the people near me were giving me weird looks. I didn't know what type of face I had been making but I took the time to stop it.

Thoughts of revenge against Emma, in particular, were the hardest to resist. I could easily find myself falling into that mental loop several times a day if I wasn't careful. It was easy to imagine the sensation of my human fist plunging towards her face.

The attack wouldn't rocket her off the ground. If I were Wendigo she might've died if I punched her at full force, but as Taylor it would've been enough to loosen a few teeth. If it had all played out that way then things would finally change… for the worse.
Sophia had made the conditions of her blackmail clear, self-defense justified or not had been removed from the table. Even without Sophia's interference attacking Emma had never felt like a good idea for long. I hated the person that wore my best friends face, the person who id once considered being with for the rest of my life.

As much as I truly hated who she became, I still couldn't bring myself to hurt her. It would've been easy to keep going, to reach for my powers and make a mistake that I could never take back. Then I'd really be a monster, more so than any of the trio.

Perhaps my only available option would be to leave Winslow altogether. The real purpose of Sophia's threat could have been to force me away from Winslow under threat of facing the heroes.

"Herbert!" the coach bellowed, snapping me back into reality.

"Present!" I responded a little too loudly.

The coach yelled through the rest of the roll call per usual. It still baffled me how after so much of the year had already passed that the coach still couldn't say my name correctly, even more so due to him reading it off a list daily. It couldn't be anything but intentional. It was early in the day and I was already growing tired of it.

The coach got everyone's attention with the blow of his neon green whistle,"Okay everyone you know the drill, lap time!"

Coach Johnson had repeated those same words for most of the year, the only time he'd deviated from having us run laps had been for the occasional test. He never bothered to tell the class or help us prepare in advance. Most of the class had to walk or run at least four laps by the end of the period, if they finished before then the rest of the class was left up to them. I, on the other hand, didn't have that option.

Emma approached the coach with a winning smile; she was pretty and she knew it. Like every other day she talked her way out of exercise with one excuse or the other. She followed by a group of friends made their way to the benches where they would sit and chat for an hour. Inevitably more people would flock towards her, if I so much as neared her or her sycophants then trouble was bound to happen.

Not that my options were much better on the court either. Unlike an actual track, the basketball courts didn't offer a wide space for running. For the most part people ran in narrow lines outside the perimeter. The coach kept a close watch to make sure no one stepped too far into the actual court. It was a rule he sporadically enforced particularly only with certain students in mind.

Sophia wasn't included with that group. She was special in the sense of being the school track star. She'd spend the entire hour repeatedly lapping the rest of the class all with ease. I had to keep track of where she was constantly if I hoped to avoid her. I caught a glimpse of her stretching for her run not that far from me. I was alone in the crowd, to distant from anyone to be just another face in the crowd.

Nonetheless, Sophia carried on as if she couldn't see me. On a regular day that would've been a welcomed change, but things were different now. Her present inaction only served as a reminder of the locker room, she'd done all the damage she needed to.

I did a few stretches of my own, the headache that had somewhat subsided over time had begun to get irritated by the new activity. I turned back to Sophia only to discover that I had lost track of her. I didn't bother to search for her, frantically turning my head to scan the room would have brought on some unwanted attention. I took the absence of both my tormentors with cautious relief; I felt that something was coming. Regrettably, I'd grown familiar with the sensation, like waiting for a taut rubber band to finally snap, releasing all its built up pressure.

I filed into the line, taking my usual spot at the back, the coach gave his signal for us to start.
I wouldn't go so far as to compare what I was experiencing to a snapped rubber band. All I needed was to vent a little.

At the coach's signal, I picked up a moderate pace, not my fastest but enough that I was squarely in the middle pack before the first turn.

I knew that my powers were at least to some degree tied to my emotions. The memory of splattering the walls of the girls bathroom with my blood was still uncomfortably fresh. All things considered that incident had been an outlier from the norm, yet it was still something I felt I should be watchful of in the future.

In all honesty I was just trying to put a positive spin on my current situation. There wasn't any danger of me letting the wraith out like before. I picked up the pace bringing myself closer to the front of the pack. I took a moment to glance at my surroundings, where I was in the group had more boys than girls, I got a few odd looks from my but nothing more, they were going too fast to speak. That was fine by me, I'd skip my morning run and had missed the time I normally had to myself.

Another positive I could derive from my temporary lack of powers was a confirmation of the weeks of hard work I had put into my routine. I'd never been sure about whether or not the enhancement side of my powers were at play even while I wasn't transformed. It was a small victory for a day that had already been so full of crap.

I was nearing the front of the crowd; my head ached with the thud of every step but I didn't let it stop me. In a sprint I was breaking away from the main crowd, and nearing my physical limit. It was shortly before finishing the first lap that I grew self-conscious.
I would need to slow down eventually if not for the sake of my stamina then to avoid drawing any unwanted attention.

Normally I preferred to stick to the back of the herd, but today was an outlier, a growing trend apparently. If anyone was paying attention then they might have assumed that something had happened.

For a second time I looked around my surroundings, now with the creeping feeling of eyes on my back. I spotted Emma surrounded by her friends oblivious to the world around her. The only other person of note how caught my attention was Coach Johnson, as I completed the lap we made direct eye contact. I didn't know what the significance of that had been but it had been enough to snap me out of my runners high.

It wasn't long after that I had felt a hard slap press into the back of my head. It along with me slowing down had revived the subdued headache back to full strength. Sophia sped past me in a huff, the teacher didn't even budge, even with a clear example of Sophia's bullying playing out right before him where I knew he could see it, nothing.

I wasn't even all that shocked beyond the slap itself, by now I knew the cycle well enough to at least adapt a palatable role in it. There wasn't any point to arguing with the teacher, not with this one or any of them for that matter. The easiest thing for me to do was to fall back into the herd of students. Far enough back for me to nurse my headache at a comfortable speed while also hiding amongst the other bodies.

For the remainder of the mandatory laps, I managed to do just that. Using a spot in the middle of the slow herd my headache subsided back into a dull throb while Sophia had been unable, or more likely, disinterested in harming me for the time being.

Eventually, the courts were mostly desolate with the majority of students deciding to pick up conversations at or around the bleachers. The only people left were those who ran just for the sake of exercise, or who were embroiled in idle chit-chat; and finally the few that still needed to finish the mandatory laps. That last group had included one Greg Veder, sweat had spread throughout his entire gym uniform, enough so that it dripped constantly down his chin. His mouth was gaping open as he sucked in air. His motions looked more like a shuffle than a run as if he would topple over with the slightest misstep.

I felt a twinge of pity for him in that moment. It was clear that he was struggling, but he refused to give up and just walk the rest of the way.

The inevitable had happened when Greg tripped on one of the splintered planks, he was clumsy and didn't fall on his hands but flat on the face. His accident had played out in full view of a group of Empire skinheads, they converged around him immediately.

The headache was still irritating me, but I was still strong enough to at least do something to help. What exactly that would be I had no idea, even with my powers I couldn't use them so blatantly out in public unless I wanted out myself. That only left the options available to regular Taylor, none of which seemed particularly useful in the face of six or so probable gangsters. Regardless, I kept running towards them settling on deciding what my actions would be once I got there.

To say that I was surprised when the neo-Nazis's actually helped Greg to his feet would've been an understatement. One of them had produced a bottle of water for Greg while another had begun asking him questions to check for a concussion.

I tried to play off my charge towards Greg into an impromptu sprint past him and his group of concerned helpers. I wasn't sure how successful I had been doing that. But I did still manage to agitate the migraine once again.

As oddly as it had felt, I left Greg alone to be with his racist saviors. It felt so stupid, and so much like the rest of Winslow, that the professed Nazis would be the only ones offering help when it was necessary.

I slowed the sprint down to a mild run.

I was glad that Greg was getting the help he needed, but the hypocrisy of the situation was like a slap to the face. For nearly two years they all watched or even participated in the bullying that I had to endure every day.

I was angry enough that I hadn't been paying attention to what was right in front of me. If I had been, I would've been able to avoid the outstretched foot that had been aimed to trip me.
I was still in the neglected half of the gymnasium, while I had enough wherewithal to use my hands to break my fall I still got a few splinters jammed inside my palms. I bit my tongue to avoid crying out in pain, managing to hiss instead. I could hear people talking; it was enough for me to tell that I was surrounded.

"Aw are you ok, tell me where it hurts?" asked Emma with mock innocence as she stood over me.