Nightkeepers by Jessica Andersen

taken what they’d dished out—because resistance was futile and just earned him more of a beating—now he found himself squaring off opposite Ben as Zits and Jason moved up on either side of their leader.
    Outside the sacred chamber, somebody swapped out the music, and a heavy throb of drumbeats sounded, seeming to echo up through the floor.
    ‘‘Wanna tell us what goes on in here?’’ Zits asked. He slurped from his bowl, beer sloshing down the front of the sacred black robe.
    Rabbit wanted to kill him. Really and truly kill him— a quick slash across the throat would do it, or even better, he could cut the bastard’s heart out of his chest and watch as Zits’s blood pressure crashed, his brain cut out, and he dropped dead. Better still, he could burn him, robes and all, and listen to him scream.
    For a second the image of it was so vivid in his mind, so perfect, Rabbit thought he’d already crisped the son of a bitch. Then the fantasy winked out and he was stuck back in the reality of high school torment, three months after he’d escaped the halls of hell.
    This time, though, he wasn’t the skinny kid who’d moved to town halfway through junior high and got caught doodling a black-robed wizard in his algebra notebook. This time he was . . .
    Nothing. He was nothing. A half-blood who couldn’t even jack in.
    ‘‘He’s not gonna tell us,’’ Ben said. ‘‘Guess we’ll have to make him.’’ He slapped the ceremonial bowl off the altar, sending it across the room. The thin jade shattered when it hit the wall, and the air hummed off-key.
    ‘‘Hey! Knock it off.’’ Heart hammering in his chest, feeling faintly sick, Rabbit crouched down and picked up the largest piece of jade, which had broken off in an elongated triangle with knife-sharp edges.
    Ben stuck his chin out. ‘‘Make me.’’
    The humming got louder, reverberating in Rabbit’s ears. ‘‘Just go,’’ he whispered, gripping the shard of jade and feeling it cut into his palm. ‘‘Please, just go.’’
    Heat surrounded him. Built inside him.
    There must’ve been something in his eyes or voice, or maybe the heat and the humming weren’t just his imagination, because Jason started edging toward the door. He pulled off the red robe and dropped it on the floor. ‘‘Come on, guys. We don’t want to get in trouble with the ’rents. This shit looks expensive.’’
    ‘‘There aren’t any ’rents,’’ Ben scoffed. ‘‘Just his stoner dad. You ever see him wandering around here in his brown bathrobe? What a loser.’’ His eyes flicked to Rabbit’s hand. ‘‘What’re you gonna do, stab me with that?’’ He spread his hands and stuck out the beginnings of a gut. ‘‘Have at it, Bunny. You don’t have the stones.’’
    Red washed Rabbit’s vision, narrowing it to a pinprick focused on Ben’s face. All the jeers and indignities, every kick and punch, came back to him in a flare of humiliation.
    ‘‘Go,’’ he said again, his voice shaking with fear, not of them, but of what was happening inside him. Say it , a voice whispered. Say the word .
    ‘‘His hand’s bleeding,’’ Zits said suddenly. ‘‘And I think he’s gonna puke. Come on; let’s blow before he does.’’ He yanked the door and took off with Jason on his heels, tripping on the too-long robe and crushing the stingray spines into a twisted mess. But Rabbit was only peripherally aware of those small details.
    His whole focus was on Ben. His enemy.
    The humming in his head turned into a scream. The heat flared higher and higher still. Finally, Ben realized he was in trouble. His eyes got big and he started edging away, but it was too late for him to escape, too late to stop the thing that built within Rabbit, taking him over, thrilling him. Terrifying him.
    Pressure grew inside Rabbit’s skull and his fingertips burned, pain erupting as if the skin were peeling away. He tipped back his head and screamed, not sure whether he was trying to make it