Feather Bound by Sarah Raughley

the age of ten or over the age of eighteen’,” I read and glared, bitterly, when Ade couldn’t hide her relieved little sigh. “Manifestation…” I frowned. So there was a name for what happened to me last night. “Freak show” worked just as well.
    â€œâ€˜But after that,’” Ade continued reading, “‘whether or not your feathers emerge is up to you!’”
    â€œWhat?” I whispered. “‘Intense physical distress and often emotional distress.’ Those are the triggers?”
    â€œHey, that’s great! So basically if you just stay calm forever and never get hurt you’ll never have to see those things again!” With a big smile, Ade shook me by the shoulder.
    Right. Easy enough to do.
    Pages and pages of anonymous, personal anecdotes ranging from benign tales to inappropriate tell-alls corroborated the theory. A mother at the funeral of her husband and only child. And this charming little story, as told by princesssugarbitch2000, whose boyfriend apparently blew his feathers before he could “blow his load”. Classy.
    I think I get the idea . We went back to surfing, hoping we’d chance upon another useful forum with maybe less of the load-blowing.
    How to Catch a Swan.
    My hands froze over the keyboard.
    â€œDon’t,” warned Ade. She started to take the laptop away, but I pulled it back. I don’t know why I clicked the link. Or why I didn’t take the first line, “first you need to get them scared,” as my cue to get the hell out of there. Pictures of cattle prods and Tasers. I felt every muscle in my face as it contorted in horror. Naked men and women twisted in piles, feathers strewn about as if torn from a pillow.
    â€œThen you rip them out.”
    â€œThat’s enough, Dee.” Ade reached for the laptop but I blocked her hand.
    â€œNo wait.” There was a link. Of course there was. My gag reflexes were already on alert. But I needed to know. Ade must have known it too, because she didn’t stop me.
    It routed to an uploaded video of a couple of kids standing around in what looked like some pre-teen’s bedroom.
    The two kids certainly looked around that age. And there was a third; clearly someone had to be holding the camera since it wobbled every few seconds. Sunlight gave the girl’s dark hair an almost violet hue before she skipped up to the window and shut the drapes. Her friend flicked the light on before taking his shirt off.
    Ade gagged. “Jesus, is this kiddie porn?” I would have laughed at the face she was making except I was making the same one.
    I braced myself with my finger on the mouse pad, the cursor poised over the X at the top right of the screen. Please let this be relevant .
    The girl’s friend grinned at the screen and said something in a language I didn’t recognize. German, maybe? It sounded German-ish. He turned to show his back, his friend pointing to it unhelpfully with a ridiculous, mugging grin on her face. Next they showed the knife: a tiny, pocket switchblade that popped out of its holster with one clean slice. The boy sat. The girl smiled.
    And shoved it into the boy’s right thigh.
    My hand had clamped the yell before I even realized I’d done it. Blood oozed out of the wound, dribbling down his leg and staining the pink sheets red as he writhed around on the bed. When the girl stuck her finger into the wound, my trigger-finger twitched, but I couldn’t close the window. I skipped ahead in the video instead, stopping when I suddenly noticed the sheet of white draping him. I let the video play.
    The girl was already wrapping a bandage around the boy’s lacerated leg. The good that would do; the white turned red in a matter of seconds. But it was the feathers the girl was after – she eyed them almost hungrily as the boy dragged himself onto his feet.
    The camera zoomed in on his back, panning slowly down its