Rage (20 page)

Missy's heart galloped in her chest. Of all the things she had expected today, being confronted by a teacher hadn't made the list. She floundered, her mouth gaping as Outrage and Horror battled for dominance. She stammered, "Wh-Who's sayingt hat?"

"The who doesn't matter." A moment of tension, palpable, almost painful. "I need to know if it's true. Is it true, Missy?"

Horror grabbed Outrage in a headlock and choked it down. Blushing again, this time from shame, Missy looked away. She wanted to lie; she wanted to scream, to drum her fists against the wall, to force Adam and Trudy and Sue and everyone who had led her to this moment here in this tiny office to crash to their knees and kiss the dirt and beg for forgiveness; she wanted to admit the truth, that she had Bic-marks for birthmarks all over her arms and legs and stomach; she wanted absolution.

Missy wanted all of that, and none of that, so she said nothing and desperately wished this wasn't happening. She swallowed the lump in her throat, and it was bitter.

A minute passed. Then another.

"Did something happen?" her coach asked softly. "When you were a kid, maybe? Someone do something to you they shouldn't have?"

Adam had ravaged her trust and left it broken and dying on the curb. But Missy had been cutting before Adam had ever asked her out. She whispered, "No."

Harsher now: "You on drugs?"

"No," Missy rasped. "Never."

A pause. "You doing it because it's cool?"

Fury blew through Missy, making her blood boil. Out of all the ways she would have described cutting, "cool" wasn't even close. "
No.
"

"Do your parents know?"

Missy finally met her coach's eyes. "No."

Another minute passed.

"You should talk to the guidance counselor," said the coach. "Or make an appointment with a psychologist, someone not at school. What you're doing to yourself is bad. You know that, don't you?"

Grinding her teeth, Missy nodded curtly.

The coach nodded grimly. "Good. Maybe next year, we can give soccer another shot."

Blinking, Missy said, "What...?"

"You're off the team, Missy." The coach's eyes glittered like diamond chips—bright, hard, cutting. "At best, you're a bad influence on the other girls. At worst, soccer's high pressure, especially for the goalkeeper. I won't contribute to your bad habit."

Sucker-punched, Missy staggered back. Tears burned her eyes. She tried to speak, but all she managed was a strangled "Please."

"Stop being stupid," said the coach, "and I'll let you try out for the team next year."

Blood roared in Missy's ears, slammed behind her eyes with every wild thump of her heart. A balloon expanded in her chest, squeezing her empty heart and making it impossible for her to breathe.

She had to get out.

Missy whirled and jerked the door open. The coach might have said something else, but Missy was too far gone to hear it. She tore past Bella, past the other girls in the gym. She raced out of the locker room, not stopping to get her things. She fled down the hallway to the school's back exit and bolted out the door.

At the corner, she sank to her knees and wrapped her arms over her head.

T
HEY WILL ALL BETRAY YOU,
War said.

And they would. Whether it was her teachers or her friends or her family, they would all betray her. Maybe it would be couched in helpful terms, and maybe their faces would be brimming with sympathy. But in the end, they would all let her down.

They would all cut her down.

They would all slap labels on her and spoon-feed her appropriate words, wipe her mouth with their expectations. They would wind her up and make her dance, and when they were done they'd put her away. They would keep doing it and doing it, until she was nothing more than a shell, a skin, something to slip on and slip off and tuck in at the corners.

They would ... unless she stopped them.

Yes,
she thought, breathing heavily. She could stop them. All of them. She could take the Sword and cut through all the garbage, all the falsehoods and plastic smiles, all the platitudes and nonsense, cut through it all and leave the truth bleeding and naked. She could force people to see themselves for what they really were, force them to deal with the ugliness of the real world.

She could.

She should.

Melissa Miller screwed her eyes shut and threw her arms wide, her mouth open in a piercing scream. The scream twisted into a cruel laugh, one that echoed with kicked-down doors and midnight raids.

A moment later, War opened her eyes.

And she grinned.

WAR

T
HE WORLD IS A WOUND AND
I
WILL CAUTERIZE IT
.

P
EOPLE ARE VERMIN AND
I
WILL
exterminate them.

T
HE STRONG ARE THE WORTHY; THROUGH BLOOD
, I
WILL LEAD THEM TO SALVATION
.

I
COME.

H
EAR MY BATTLE CRY AND DESPAIR
.

MISSY

I see a woman in red who looks like me but isn't me.

She wields a weapon the way a hero holds a heroine—with reverence, with passion, maybe even with love.

She radiates strength like heat off a skillet; she is the epitome of power.

She is everything I am not.

I want to hate her. I want to run from her. But instead I hide from the world and hate only myself.

Hatred is easy because, as they say, practice makes perfect.

WAR

P
EOPLE WILL CRY FOR MERCY, BUT
I
HAVE NONE.

T
HE RICH WILL SHIELD THEMSELVES WITH MONEY, BUT MY
S
WORD WILL CUT THROUGH PAPER AND GOLD AND FLESH
.

T
HE POOR WILL FIGHT WITH DESPERATION, AND
I
WILL LAUGH, AMUSED.

T
HE WORLD WILL ONCE AGAIN COWER IN THE DARK, WITH ONLY THE GLEAM OF STEEL FOR ITS LIGHT.

R
UN TO ME OR RUN FROM ME; EITHER WAY
, I
WILL CUT YOU DOWN.

T
HIS IS THE PROMISE OF
W
AR
.

MISSY

She is the sun; looking at her too long will surely blind me. So I will hide my face in my hands as she advances. I will cower in the dark as she destroys everything, starting with...

...my school?

WAR

A
DULTS DESERVE NO MORE RESPECT THAN THE WORMS BENEATH THE EARTH; THEIR WISDOM AND EXPERIENCE WILL NOT SAVE THEM
.

C
HILDREN WILL SCREAM AND THEIR INNOCENCE WILL DIE; THEIR YOUTH AND POTENTIAL WILL NOT SAVE THEM.

I
WILL DELIVER THEIR DEATH KNELLS AND LAY THEIR BODIES AT THE FEET OF THE
P
ALE
R
IDER
.

T
HE WORLD WILL END WITH NEITHER A BANG NOR A WHIMPER, BUT WITH BLOOD.

I
N THE END, IT'S ALWAYS BLOOD
.

MISSY

Every step she takes booms like thunder.

I come to my feet as she approaches the building—that dread institution of audacity and hormones, all wrapped in a pretty box and topped with a diploma.

Adam is in there.

Adam and the Matts and Jenna and Trudy and everyone I despise, even my sister. Especially my sister. They're in there and they're going to die.

Bella is in there. Erica too. And so many others. Thousands of people, including my sister. Especially my sister.

I feel pressure growing in me, filling me until I'm going to burst.

WAR

I
RAISE MY
S
WORD HIGH
.

T
HE TIME HAS COME FOR SLAUGHTER
.

MISSY

She reaches the stairs that will take her inside the school, my school, and I shout a word, one small word that freezes her in place.

And then she turns, slowly, her red eyes flashing like heat lightning.

God, I am completely terrified, so scared that I feel like I'm dying. But deeper than the terror is my rage.

She wants to hurt everyone in my school,
everyone,
saint and sinner alike, wants to shred them like confetti and toss their souls upon the wind.

I plant my feet and stare her in the eye as I say it again, the one small word that changes everything:

No.

She stood on the steps to the high school: a sixteen-year-old girl who housed the eternal spirit of aggression. Most people passing by, if they saw her at all, would have thought she was odd, perhaps due to the clothing she wore and the makeup on her face. They would not have seen the red glow to her eyes, or the way hundreds of cuts on her arms and legs and stomach glowed like magic runes. They would not have seen the gleaming Sword in her hand, lifted high as if to split the sky.

Death, of course, wasn't most people.

Whistling, he took a seat at the top of the steps. His horse stood sentry behind him, as immobile as the marble columns on either side of the large front door. Next to the pale steed, the warhorse waited just as quietly, though its body trembled with trapped fury. Death took it in good cheer; the steeds, after all, reflected their Riders—and War was not known for patience.

Humming now, Death watched what was happening on the bottom steps. School would be letting out shortly, but he wasn't concerned.

Either way, the battle would be over all too soon.

***

They stood on the battlefield of Missy's mind: a sixteen-year-old girl and the eternal spirit of aggression. Around them, reds and oranges burned the sky in a sunset of fire, and smoke drifted lazily, stinging Missy's nostrils with the smells of singed hair and charred flesh. A soccer field yawned beneath them, the dead grass affixed with sickly white lines. At either end of the field was a goal, the posts and netting as red as sin.

War and Missy faced each other in the center circle. The knight shone brightly, the silver-plated armor winking with crimson mesh at the joints. A scarlet plume crested her helm, stabbing the air and making the sky bleed. Within the shadows of her faceguard, her eyes gleamed wetly, murderously.

Missy bounced on her heels, the teeth of her cleats digging into the stiff grass. Her goalie uniform was comfortable, familiar, but how would it help her now? Sure, her leather gloves would keep her hands from getting chopped up, and her shin guards would protect her legs. But a goalkeeper was no match for a knight.

Just because you're a goalie,
Bella whispered,
doesn't mean you can't be shrewd.

Shrewd. Yeah, that'll stop a fistful of metal.
Adrenaline surged through Missy, making her blood sing and her feet want to move, to run—far away, and fast.

Don't be afraid,
Bella said.
Be confident.

Confident. Right.
Missy held her ground and pretended she wasn't about to pee out of sheer fright.

"W
HO ARE YOU, GIRL, TO TELL ME NO
?"

War's voice—no longer a whisper in Missy's head—was a thing of nightmares. It was the voice of the monster in the closet, of the bogeyman under the bed. It was the sound of fury and madness incarnate. It was a voice cultivated to inspire terror.

Except it pushed Missy so far past terror that she found herself absurdly calm. Was it possible to be scared to a point at which you weren't stopped by the fear? She stood tall and replied, "I am Melissa Miller. And I won't let you destroy my school."

The Red Rider threw back her head and laughed, her bellowing chortles echoing in the hazy air. "Y
OU LET ME IN
," said War. "Y
OU HEARD THE SONG OF THE
S
WORD AND YOU DANCED TO ITS TUNE
. Y
OU CAN'T TELL ME NO
."

"Just did," Missy said.

"Y
OUR ARGUMENT FALLS ON DEAF EARS.
" Though her face was hidden within the helm, her smile was all too clear in her voice. "I
AM THE RUMBLE OF VOLCANOES WAKING AFTER SLEEP.
I
AM THE PRESS OF THE BUTTON THAT LAUNCHES THE MISSILES.
A
ND YOU
? Y
OU'RE JUST A GIRL
."

Missy remembered the cold touch of gentle fingers on her cheek, and she grinned. "I'm just a girl who wields your Sword."

***

A black horse joined the others. It stood as far from the red steed as possible, and it contented itself by nibbling the weeds at the edges of the steps. The warhorse snorted, but it wouldn't attack the black, not with the pale steed standing between them.

Famine took a seat to the right of Death and watched the girl at the bottom of the stairs. After a moment, the Black Rider sighed. "I should have killed her when I had the chance."

Death chuckled. "And where would have been the fun in that?"

***

Missy crossed her hand to her hip, ready to draw the Sword and deal some serious pain to the hulking knight—but the weapon wouldn't come out. It stayed in its sheath, wherever the hell
that
was.

"I
DIOT
," War sneered. "I
AM
THE
S
WORD.
"

Well, that put a damper on her plan.

Missy stopped herself from whimpering, but she couldn't stop the sweat from popping on her brow. How was she supposed to face down War if she didn't have a weapon?

Intimidate the hell out of your opponent,
Bella urged.

Missy was fairly certain Bella would have taken one look at War and fainted dead away.

"I
T IS TIME FOR ME TO
R
IDE, LITTLE GIRL
," War rumbled. "S
TAY OUT OF MY WAY, OR DIE WITH THE OTHERS
. I
T MAKES NO MATTER TO ME
."

"Yeah," Missy heard herself say, "about that. The thing is, for you to Ride, I have to be on board with it." She pulled herself straighter. "And I'm not."

War's eyes gleamed like rubies. "Y
OU ARE A TOY DOG YAPPING AT THE FEET OF A WOLF
. Y
IELD NOW, AND
I
WILL LEAVE YOU INTACT
. R
UN AWAY, AND LIVE.
"