A Game of Checkers

After the revelation of my tainted blood, Clare could barely even look at me in the eye. I knew that she had always harbored a deep hate for the Volvere, and after seeing me physically turn into one, it must be hard for her to ever look at me the same way again. I tried to confront her in the beginning, desperate for her forgiveness over something that wasn't even my fault. I was born this way. I was still the same person I had always been.

Even later when I told myself that I was sick of constantly seeking for her approval, I never really let go of the hope that things could be fine for us again.

He didn't avoid me like Clare did. In fact, he was the only who always reminded me that I was not a Volvere. "You don't just become a monster overnight."

"Over weeks, actually. Painful weeks."

"Yes, but I'd know if you've become evil. I'll feel it."

Everything he said was so matter-of-fact, that I believed him.

My need to prove myself grew further in the third year. Even though official field training began in the fifth year, sometimes trainers who still functioned actively as Knights would recruit some of the students to work with them. That was how most medals were earned. I thought if I could go on missions and gather as many medals as I could then maybe Clare would see that I was paladin through and through.

I had been taking drugs prescribed by the Houses. The medication was usually given to sedate an out-of-control Knight in a wild frenzy. On me, it was supposed to suppress the beast. So they agreed that it was safe to let me go on the mission, together with Clare and him.

The first one went on smooth. Like Clare said, the three of us had come face-to-face with real Volvere before instead of just learning about them from textbooks. Now backed up with two years of training behind us, we could definitely take on a couple of Volvere together as a team.

Confident with the success, we took on more missions. We were high on glory, feeling like we were just as cool as the seniors. Sometimes the lessons in the academy didn't seem that useful anymore. We faced the real thing; why did we still need to read from textbooks and throw knives at dummies?

But nothing had changed between Clare and me. If anything, she grew to resent me even more, especially after her breakup with him. It happened somewhere at the end of our third year, and neither of them told me anything about it. One day they just stopped talking to each other, and when I asked him, he only said, "It's over."

I found out the week after that Clare had put in a request to switch roommates. They didn't grant her because all the other rooms were full.

"Why?" I asked her, even though I had a guess for the answer

I thought she wasn't going to answer me at first. But then she spoke, with her back still turned to me. "Do yourself a favor and stop lying to yourself."

I might be a desperate liar when it came to hard truths, but I wasn't blind. She'd only wanted him. She tried to put up with me, and when she found out what I was, even though she couldn't stand the sight of me, she stayed because of him. Now that they had broken up, there was no longer any point in keeping up the pretense.

It still didn't hurt any less when I heard the words pour out from her mouth, though. "No matter how hard you try, you can't change into something you're not. You are what you are. He may be happy to indulge your delusion, but I won't do that, Corrie."

By the time fourth year began, they had finally opened a new room for her. Since the charade was over, she didn't lose any chance showing her disgust over my true nature anymore. She started telling people about it, receiving many doubtful receptions. Lysandra caught her and reprimanded her on behalf of the Houses—it wasn't her secret to tell. It wasn't even my secret to tell.

Because of that, she made another type of rumor altogether. She made up stories about how he had cheated on her with me, and that was the reason they broke up. Worse, people bought this rumor. They talked about how disgusting it was, because on papers he was my adoptive brother. People had always bewildered me—tell them there's a monster among them and they won't believe you, but tell them there's cheater among them and they will call her slut.

If Clare had stopped there, maybe she would still be alive.

At the end of my fourth year, I began to experience muscle spasms. I dismissed it at first as overexertion, but they got worse with every passing day. My heartbeat was erratic, my energy level so high, I couldn't sleep even for a blink at night. Everyone I saw made me angry. In the combat final exam, I broke a guy's arm—my trainer's.

They counted it off, dismissing it as one of the control issues all Knights faced at one time or another.

Summer came. I signed up on another mission, and the three of us went together. They thought we did better as team, so we didn't complain despite the awkwardness that lay among us. I was still experiencing the crazy energy surge but I was getting used to it.

The target was a shapeshifter. Headlines on the human news titled him as a brutal cannibal. It wouldn't have made headlines if it were like any shapeshifter who took the appearance of its prey the moment it consumed them. This one chose to stay in one shape for longer period, shifting occasionally but it never took him too long to shift back to his 'permanent' shape.

We found his recent location and dispersed to search for him. Clare and I covered the east, while the rest of our team covered the remaining direction. I was scanning an abandoned shelter when Clare called for backup. I went to her, finding her in an empty room at the building across. There was no signs of the shapeshifter.

Confused and irritated—more than irritated, thanks to my new energy burst—that she had wasted our time for nothing, I told her that if there was no sign of Volvere here, we should regroup with the others.

"But there is," she said. "You."

"What?" I couldn't believe she was choosing now of all time to bring this up again. "We don't have time for this—"

"Do you know, that in a game of checkers, you should always capture when the opportunity arises? Even if all you want is to move forward, you have to eliminate the enemy first."

"Clare—"

"We are here for the shapeshifter, yeah," she said. "But you're here, right in front of me." In a quick flash, she drew her crossbow and pointed it at me. "You think I hate you because of Nathan, but this is not personal. You are a monster. I am a hunter. You need to be put down."

I barely dodged her first arrow. The moment it hit me in the shoulder, it was as if the pain became a fuel to my existing rage. I charged at her, slamming her against the ground. The bow clattered a few feet away. She let out a strangled laugh. "Look at that," she said. "True colors, finally."

She hit me with her fist. Taken by surprise, I fell and found myself pinned under her knife—no, it was my own knife. The diamond edged blade. Reading the confusion in my face, she said, "Oh, this old thing? You don't really think I threw out the spare key, do you?"

I bucked under her, but she jabbed her elbow into my stomach, knocking my breath out. She pressed the blade against my face. "A beast should look like a beast in any form, don't you think? You don't want people mistaking you for that needy little girl you always pretend to be."

She slashed the knife across my face. I grabbed her wrist and twisted it until I heard something crack, and she howled. From there, the details were fuzzy. I remembered crushing her windpipe under my hand, which was no longer a hand. She was saying my name over and over. Corrie, Corrie, Corrie.

Only after I saw the life flee from her eyes did I look down and saw my other claws pushed deep into her gut. When I withdrew it, they were covered in her blood. My whole arm was covered in her blood.

Something made me look up. He was standing in the doorway, looking at the scene in horror.

And when he turned his gaze to me, I saw the same hate and disgust Clare always had when she looked at me. "What have you done?"

"I killed her."

It was the same thing I confessed to the court later. Each time they asked me to repeat the events, I could barely restrain myself from screaming. What did it matter, how it happened or why? The ending was final. I killed her.

I would have been sentenced for execution, according to the laws of the Houses. And then Lysandra presented evidence that Clare had been tampering with my medication, which was the reason behind my erratic mood and my loss of control. She said that this meant I hadn't been acting on my own choices. Her argument won, and they declared me not guilty.

In order to keep my Volvere blood a secret, they told everyone else that Clare had disappeared. People guessed that I was responsible, but they didn't really know what I really did.

The truth was that the drugs had nothing to do with it. The absence of it only unleashed my true self. I remembered my rage, my claws sinking deep in her flesh, and that was the real truth. Everything I felt at that moment was real.

I killed Clare.