Two years later.

For as often as he got blood on himself, Michael Jay was still very annoyed at how hard it was to get off his boots.

He was scrubbing at the soles with a damp paper towel, sitting atop a toilet in the school bathroom and his backpack hung on the hook on the side of the stall. Blood droplets stained the gray tiles beneath him, splatter marks thrown off by the motion. Not enough to pool into a puddle, but still forming a scattershot constellation by the base of the toilet, dimly reflected in shiny porcelain.

This, he acknowledged to himself, wasn’t the worst timing. He certainly couldn’t be tracking blood through school, and especially couldn’t show up to lunch looking like this, but it was agreed that his spot for lunch was to be left alone. He could spare a few minutes to clean himself up, even if it meant that he wasn’t going to get to use the bathroom now.

He appreciated that they left his lunch seat alone. He didn’t like sitting next to people while he ate. He especially didn’t like these people. There were very few in this school that he would say that he tolerated, but they definitely were not his friends, any of them. Some of them respected him too much for that, and the rest cared too much about things he ultimately didn’t for him to care about them.

He paused in wiping the blood off for a second, coming back to himself. He must have been tired to let his thoughts wander so far. He should really be focusing on the blood on his shoe.

It was a good thing that it was only on the sole of his boot, Michael knew. If it had gotten onto the tongue or in the laces then it would have stained and been far too obvious and he certainly wasn’t going to scrub it out in the middle of the school day. Not everybody would have noticed, but enough people would have, and he would not have that attention when the blood was not his.

If he was going to be noticed for the blood all over him, he would deserve that, but only if it was actually his own fault and not some other fool catching him in the splash. Other people’s sloppy work could be their own undoing.

Michael looked up, still scrubbing, and the other student leaning on the wall by the bathroom door, paper towels pressed to his arm to stifle the bleeding. He knew the sweater sleeve was torn beneath it, and that the fabric would be stained enough to require a lot of washing, but he didn’t really care. It wasn’t his problem, nor going to be his problem, and he was okay with that. It kept him alive.

“Has it clotted?” He asked.

The other student lifted the paper towels a bit to glance at the wound and shook his head, pulling another one from the dispenser to layer in. Michael nodded and got back to work. He was almost done, the slow drying process of the blood having made it a little easier to scrape off as opposed to having to chase down droplets rolling away from the pressure of the paper. The towels were damp, and the blood came off all the easier for it.

“You’ll need to just go with it if it doesn’t clot soon. If you have a jacket or coat, you can pack the paper towels underneath it.”

The student nodded. “Okay, but…what do I do about him?”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

He pointed with his free hand at the body on the floor, facedown and drooling on the tile with blood speckling the gray hoodie it wore and crusted clumps around the nose. Michael grimaced, keeping his reaction in check to make sure he was still breathing.

“Sort it out yourselves.” Michael gave his boot one more round of scrubbing and stood back up, eyes focused on the blood on the floor by the man’s face as he took his backpack off the hook. “Be careful that he doesn’t choke.”

“But isn’t that your thing?”

Michael tossed the paper towels he was using into the trash and looked at the student. “What are you talking about?”

“Working out payback, you know.” The student shrugged and gestured at the other man on the ground. “Don’t you figure that out between people?”

The expression of boredom on Michael’s face had not shifted since he had sat down, and it didn’t shift then. “You got into a fight in the bathroom. You can sort this out yourself. You’re not going to bury his body behind the school.” He slung the backpack over one shoulder and stepped past the student, back into the hallway and already moving in the direction of the cafeteria.

The lights were bright and neither warm nor cold, a yellowed tinge that didn’t convey much when muted behind the plastic sheets over the fluorescent bulbs. Black diamond patterns studded the white linoleum floor, distant chatter the backdrop for every one of Michael’s steps.

People respected him too much, but they cared too much about what they respected for. Sometimes they seemed to assume that he was eager to pounce on every rumor that floated around, itching to track down perceived transgressions for a bounty that those same people knew he cared nothing for. It didn’t matter to him. It bored him all the same as everything else in Ravenville.

The cafeteria doors had a window above them in the cinderblock wall, a simple mural of a raven sitting atop a bush painted on the glass, the colors faded with age and time and the writing on the banner painted below the bush all but worn out. Michael pushed through them and ignored the teacher on monitor duty nearby, dodging through tables with evenly spaced out students chattering over lunch. A few heads glanced up at him, wondering if something had happened, but he ignored them to go for the table on the far right side of the room, where a pair of students sat on one end and left the other empty. It was a good place for eating in solitude.

And there was somebody standing by his spot.

It was a girl with brown hair, in a brown knit vest over a plain white shirt and jeans. She was dressed more colorfully than him, he knew, with his black t-shirt and dark gray sweatpants. She looked like she got less sun than he did, though, and he kept his look flat as he moved to sit down.

“Can I ask you some questions?” She said.

He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye and slid his backpack off, unzipping it to reach inside for his lunch bag.

“My name’s Sarah Victor,” she continued at the lack of response. “I’d like to ask you a few questions, and talk to you about something.”

“I’m not going to do something for the newspaper, I’m not interested.” He dropped the bag onto the table. “I’d like to eat my lunch, please.”

“We can talk while you eat, it’s okay. Would you rather be called Michael or Mike?”

She sat down opposite him, a metal water bottle in one hand and a lunchbox in the other.

“Michael,” he replied. “Now please let me go.”

“I’ll be quick.” She waved the hand with the lunchbox.

“I just have a few questions about violence.”