It was all my fault. I was still on the floor unable to pick myself up with all the people surrounding me. It was a crowd made up of both genders, mostly girls but definitely more boys than was usual. It was a struggle to keep my composure as more people came to join the group to help conceal and trap me. Several pairs of shoes were at least partially resting on my wrist, elbows, and hair just hard enough to keep me pinned down. I wanted to fight back, thrash around in the hopes of creating an opportunity for escape but it was pointless.

I had been tripped in the damaged portion of the gymnasium. Half of the faces around me were obscured by the darkness brought on by the broken light bulbs. To make things worse, I could feel the pieces of broken wood begin to press into my back moving around would only make things worse.

I knew that I would have to pay for my attack on Emma eventually. Despite Sophia having been their to protect her, Emma wasn't the type of person to forget something like that. Maybe this would be the extent of her revenge; an example of how much worse things could get. I knew I could still put up a fight, but what would be the point? All things considered, this wasn't much different from what I normally had to endure if not a bit more physical.

They were close enough that I couldn't even twist or squirm, a couple of them even stepped on me to prevent escape. To the side of me I could make out Emma's face, still twisted into the mock expression of concern even while she avoided my gaze.

I frantically searched the group, of the ones I could see good enough most of them were copying Emma. With a few clueless exceptions, the group had managed to ignore me as they cornered me into an even tighter space.

At first I tried to speak up, to say something that would at least give some pause to one of my tormentors to make them reconsider what they were doing. But that had quickly proven to be pointless as they kept drowning out my words in conversations that overlapped and muddled into an incoherent drone. The easiest thing I could do would be to just wait until they all got it out of their system at least that way I didn't hurt myself anymore in the process.

Once I had stopped resisting the conversations became recognizable as insults disguised as gossip.

"Ugh look how skinny she is, I bet she's anemic." said one of the girls I couldn't fully see.
She had meant to call me anorexic not that the distinction mattered among the dozens of insults directed at me.

"Dude look at her ugly face no wonder she's such a whore."

"Definitely man, you couldn't even pay me to touch her."

The insult had come from one of the more attractive boys in my grade. Maybe that's why I felt a bit more of a sting at that comment.

The group had continued to press into me, they were close enough to me now that they could nearly crush me. The words weren't anything I haven't heard before, even if they had now been spoken by some new faces. Emma had always favored mind games as her tactic of choice. Her flock, the insults, and even her means of keeping me pinned were all meant to send a clear message.

That I was a worm, a weak vile thing that she could crush at any moment. This whole ordeal was her way of reminding me of that. I could struggle, writhe, scream but all that would do was give Emma more of the entertainment she wanted.

I tried to make myself small in an attempt to shield at least some of my body. It was difficult with the weight of several people pressing down on various limbs. The most I was able to accomplish was an awkward pose that left one of my arms in a strange position as well as put considerable strain on my hair.

I squirmed like that for a few moments until someone spoke up.

"Hey guys stop for a second she doesn't look so good." I could recognize that the voice belonged to Julia.

"Yeah I think you're right Jul," said Emma ", ya know your dad called my house the other day. If your parents- sorry, father is hitting you know I've always got a shoulder to cry on."
The entire time she spoke Emma maintained the face I'd expect to see on a close friend, not the person who took her place. The fake sincerity had been puzzling to me, the last several minutes had been a non-stop barrage of insults Emma's last comment hadn't lined up at all and yet her expression did not falter.

The memory washed over me like a wave.

It was about a year before mom had left our lives for good. Mom had found an Assault T-shirt hidden in my room a few days earlier per the cape ban in our house I was grounded for the week. The shirt was a gift from Emma for my thirteenth birthday. I didn't take it well when Mom had confiscated it.

For most of my life, I had been content to hide my interest in capes around my parents. It wasn't much of a loss when I split half of my time between our houses. But that had been fine when I was a child. The fact of the matter was that I genuinely liked capes, despite my parents feelings towards them. Eventually, they'd have to get used to that fact, so why not start now?

I had decided to search for my shirt early in the morning, not so early that my parents would still be in bed just enough that they wouldn't expect me to be awake as well.

It was easy to be awake so early that morning considering that I hadn't slept the night before. The local PRT were holding some kind of event with the city Protectorate where some of the heroes would be giving out autographs. In addition to the shirt, Emma had gotten a pair of tickets for us to attend the event later that day. I needed my shirt with me for the heroes to autograph it thus I had to search my parents room to find it.

Fortunately, I had timed my search just right; I overheard my parents getting ready in the bathroom giving me plenty of time to find what was mine. I spent the previous week confined to my house going through every room until I narrowed down the shirts location to my parents room.

I overestimated my ability to quickly fish around the room for my shirt. By the time I had found it in my moms dresser, she had caught me in the middle of her room with the shirt in my hands. She didn't say a word; she didn't need to i could tell from her face and posture that this was bad.
At first I tried to reason with her but that had quickly proved pointless and soon devolved into a verbal argument.

At some point Mom tried to grab for the shirt, I managed to avoid her at first by climbing over the bed.
I tried to make my way out of the door, but mom was able to tackle me before I made it through. I couldn't remember all of what she had said as she had begun to scream in a fury. She tore the shirt out of my hands and ripped in two as she pressed her weight down on top of me.

She was still screaming when dad had struggled to pry her off of me. I had remained on the floor still in shock at what had just happened. I'd never seen mom so angry before. Up until that morning she had always been gentle but firm with me, but in that moment I felt none of the warmth I'd come to expect from Annette.

I eventually recovered while Dad still struggled to calm mom down. I made my way to the downstairs phone where I called Emma to pick me up. I didn't get to say much before Emma had assured me that she'd be their shortly despite the early hour.

I could hear my parents arguing when I heard Emma's sister beep her car horn. We were halfway to Emma's house when the initial shock wore off the tears were slow at first, but by the time we had arrived to the Barnes I had been bawling into Emma's embrace for several minutes.

When I had finally returned home both of my parents apologized for what had happened and then carried on like everything was normal.

From then on things became tense between the three of us, the familial bond we had was damaged. The strain grew worse over time until the day my mom gave up all together.
Emma knew that she had struck a nerve. It was evident from the cruel grin that she reveled in that fact.

I could sense the cold anger setting into me, at my fingertips I could sense what was left of the wraith churning in my blood as if it could beg for release. How fucking dare she.

I forgot about anyone else around me. I ignored their words, their reactions they didn't matter. My entire focus narrowed on Emma the second person to hurt me in the same way Annette had. A very real part of me wanted to make my former friend suffer a fraction of the pain she had just put me through. I had to actively force the wraith to stay inside of me. If it got out Emma would be the first person to suffer but definitely not the last.

I clenched my fist as I had begun to push and pull against the ensemble of people pinning me to the ground. I had a modicum of success before I felt a hard stomp on my abdomen. Some of the people had backed away from me when I had begun to violently jerk and push from under them.

But their backing off had given some the opportunity to step closer. One such person had been Sophia who was currently twisting her shoe into my gut. Her face lacked any of the visible emotion I'd come to expect from Sophia, instead she held a cold stare as she looked down on me. I might've had enough strength to force her off of me but then what? We both knew that I would still be under her heel.

I was frustrated and pissed off my emotions were running high that i needed a release of some kind. Goddammit, I could feel one tear fall down my cheek followed by several more. I tried wiping them away to hide them from everyone but they were to close for me to be successful.
"Oh my god, you actually made her cry nice one Soph!" Julia said.

The rest of the mob resumed their place around me in the claustrophobic circle.

"Now be nice Jul you know the little crybaby can't help herself." Emma jeered.

Laughter echoed within the ring of people, several of them were making sad faces or wiping away their own imaginary tears even after I had managed to get them to stop for the most part.

"Does anyone have some tissues for her to use?" Emma asked.

The handsome boy from earlier piped up with a,"sure do," before he dropped several armfuls of trash over me.

The laughter and jokes at my expense continued until the coach blew his whistle to dismiss class. Once Sophia and Emma had left, their cronies weren't far behind them. As I worked my way out from under the garbage I noticed Greg lingering by the door. He must've somehow managed to get away from his new group of "friends" I wasn't sure how much he'd seen but I wasn't in the mood for pity. A mere shake of my head had been all it took for him to leave.

I had retrieved my backpack and had been on my way out the door when I heard Coach Johnson call out my name," Herbert wait a sec."

"Its Hebert!" I said with a bit too much anger.

Instead of any negative response at the outburst, the coach had a smug smile on his face.
"What's so funny?"

"I've been calling you by the wrong name all year, and you've finally got the nerve to correct me."

"You knew you were saying my name wrong and kept doing it anyway?"

"Bingo, kiddo."

"So is this why you wanted to talk about?"

"Sorta kiddo, you've got a problem and I can tell it's serious."

I rubbed one of my wrists where a bruise was beginning to form when I didn't offer a response he took it as an invitation to continue.

"You probably think I don't know what goes on in my own classroom do you?"

I offered a bitter laugh to his question,"Should I?"

I swung the backpack over my shoulder with the hopes of making it clear I was ready to leave.

""I'll be brief," he said while shifting his posture,"you're getting bullied by Sophia, Emma, and a few of the other students and you-"

I cut him off."So why don't you do something to help I know you see them but still you don't do anything."

"Listen kiddo the way I see things you won't be a 'kiddo' much longer in the real world nobody's gonna hold your hand when things get tough. It's best you learn how to deal with your problems in here than out their. It's not like I'd let anything to bad happen to you anyway."

Coach Johnson was probably around two-hundred pounds of pure muscle. Despite the fact that doing so probably would've left me with a broken hand, in that moment I felt the strong urge to punch him.

Several moments of silence had passed before I settled on a response on an appropriate response.

"Fuck you."

I could hear the coach's hearty chuckle behind me as I left the gym. I'd had enough of Winslow for the day.