Rage (10 page)

"I want to go home," she said to no one in particular. She wanted her bed, her pillow, her room. She wanted life to make sense again, even if it was just for the nothingness of sleep.

Ares let out a nicker. She turned to see the warhorse kneeling so that she could pull herself up.

"Thank you," she murmured once she was on its back, already half asleep.

***

The horse said nothing. Even if it could, it wouldn't tell its mistress that what she had done twice now, in the space of a few minutes, its former Riders had never done throughout their entire tenure: thanked the steed for its service.

Some truths were best treasured alone.

***

Missy was only half surprised to see Death waiting in her front yard. She was, however, completely surprised to find him spotlighted by the full moon as he sang and played an acoustic guitar.

Seated on Ares' back, Missy settled into the saddle and closed her eyes, listening. A longtime Nirvana fan, she could easily imagine the drums and accordion accompanying Death, but the music he was making didn't need such trappings for it to sound complete. The guitar playing was good, yes, but his voice ... ah, his voice captivated her: overflowing with melancholy, suffused with bitter knowledge, his voice told her that he understood her, that he could have
been
her. As he sang the chorus, Missy heard longing coloring the words, the risk of hope underlining the intent. Death sang, and Missy heard herself in the song.

"Don't expect me to die," sang Death, "for thee."

Perhaps the song was supposed to be ironic. Or not. Missy was too exhausted to make sense of possible hidden messages wrapped in lyrics, to search for conspiracies within melodies. So instead she merely listened, and felt, and when the final note faded, she was all the sadder for its absence.

"You're not him," she said, "are you?"

Death, seated cross-legged on the front stoop, said nothing, but his eyes were filled with mischief as he regarded her.

"You look like him," Missy said. "You sing like him. But are you him?"

He smiled serenely. "What do you think?"

Missy was too tired to think, so she didn't give him an answer as she slid off of Ares. The horse bowed its head, and with a teeth-rattling whinny, it leapt into the sky and cometed away. Missy blinked stupidly at the space where the steed had been. "Guess I don't have to rub it down or stable it."

"Guess you don't."

She looked at Death as he opened a knapsack and stuffed the guitar into it. When he latched the bag, it was impossible to tell there was a full-size guitar inside. Physics and the supernatural, Missy decided, didn't play nicely together.

Death stood and stretched, giving a small "Ahhh" as something popped in his back. He slouched his way toward his waiting steed. The pale horse nickered, and Death scratched behind its ears before he attached his knapsack to the large saddle.

For all that he was Death, he seemed so very human, from the hunch of his shoulders to the light stubble along his jaw. Missy bit her lip, debating whether to ask, and finally she just blurted it out: "Is Death a voice in your head?"

He glanced over his shoulder at her. His blond hair caught the moonlight even as the wind kissed it, transformed it into a fuzzy halo. "You mean, do I talk to myself?"

"No. Are you
you,
" she said, gesturing to him, "and the thing that makes you Death is a voice in your head, talking to you, telling you to do things?" God, she sounded insane.

He held her gaze for a small slice of forever before he spoke. "Why do you ask?"

She didn't want to tell him, but looking into those eyes, she had no choice but to reveal the truth, for all that it could damn her. "Because the Sword is in my head, and it's making me say things I don't mean. It made me do things tonight." Suddenly cold, she rubbed her arms. "Bad things."

"Oh?"

She swallowed thickly and turned away, unwilling to admit what she had done. She wondered if the boy who'd been thrown down the stairs was all right.

"Broken collarbone," Death said. "He won't be good for the baseball team this year."

Missy cringed.

"Could have been worse," he said cheerfully. "Could have been his neck."

That didn't make her feel any better. "It's the Sword," she said, her words coming too fast. "The Sword is in my head, and it sounds so good and right, but the things it says are wrong."

"Wrong?"

"Hurting people is wrong! Getting them to fight and hurt each other is wrong!" Why did she even have to explain that? Wasn't that obvious?

"Aggression is a natural part of human life," said Death. "All the way back to Cain bashing Abel's brains in, all because of whose sacrifice was better. War is in your nature."

"That doesn't make it right." Tears stung her eyes, and she scrubbed angrily at her face. "This thing I am, that you made me when you gave me the Sword—it's evil!"

She wasn't looking at Death, but she could hear the smile in his voice as he asked, "Why do you say that?"

"I'm a Horseman of the Apocalypse," she snarled. "That's not something you put into the rainbows-and-sunshine column of life!"

"See, you're letting the whole 'Apocalypse' thing taint your opinion." He chuckled softly, and Missy felt his breath on her neck. "It's just a word."

She clenched her teeth to keep from shouting, but she couldn't clamp down on her anger. "It's the end of everything."

"It's a
word,
Melissa Miller," Death whispered in her ear. "Nothing more. Nothing less. Words have power. But so do actions."

"I'm War," she said, her voice breaking. "War is nothing but tragedy."

A cold hand touched her chin, nudged her until she was facing him once more. His face was calm, but his eyes were alight with blue fire. "War can be a tragedy, certainly," he said quietly. "But you could be something more."

She looked at him through her tears, wanting to believe him, positive he was wrong.

"One thing about being as old as I am," he said. "I'm rarely wrong."

She didn't know how to respond. She didn't know why he hadn't removed his hand from her chin. And she didn't know what she was supposed to do next.

"It's late," said Death. "You've been through a lot today, and that was all before you accepted the package I offered you. Go to bed. Sleep and dream. Tomorrow may bring a fresh perspective."

She squeezed her eyes shut, but images of the night's events splattered her mind in red and black. She'd been humiliated; she'd showered people with her fury. She whispered, "And if it doesn't?"

"We can talk about that, should that come to pass." Missy felt his hand stroke her cheek lightly, and then it dropped away. He said, "I bid thee a good night."

By the time Missy opened her eyes, Death was long gone. Her front door stood open, and the porch light was on. It occurred to her that Death, among other things, was a gentleman.

She didn't deserve a gentleman in her life.

Missy went inside and shut the door. She turned off the porch light and leaned heavily against the front door, suddenly and crushingly tired. She could sleep for a month and it wouldn't be enough.

She could sleep forever and it wouldn't be enough.

She barely made it up the stairs. In a fog, she stumbled to the bathroom and did her business and washed her hands and splashed water on her face, smearing her makeup without removing it. She didn't recognize the girl staring back at her from the mirror.

War can be a tragedy, certainly. But you could be something more.

She let out a bitter laugh. Something more than a teenage tragedy? She couldn't handle anything—not school, not Adam, not her life. Not her blade. Not the Sword. She'd hurt people tonight and hadn't even known it. She was a screwup. She didn't deserve to be War, didn't deserve to be anything other than a potential statistic.

Exhausted and heartsick, Missy went to bed. Tears glued her mascaraed lashes to her face, and her leftover red lipstick stained her pillow with bloody kisses.

She dreamed of a dead rock star whose music shredded her heart and scattered the pieces to the wind.

Missy woke up to an insistent pounding in either her ears or her head. She skimmed the surface of consciousness and was about to plummet back down to the depths of sleep when her father's voice called out: "Melissa! Get up! Your soccer game's in one hour!" This was punctuated by three machine-gun knocks on the bedroom door, each one loud enough to make Missy's teeth vibrate. From elsewhere in the house, her mother chided him for banging on the door.

"I'm up," Missy replied, which really was closer to a very muffled "Mmmmp." But her father got the message. Missy heard her dad's footfalls fade as he went downstairs, God willing, to put up some coffee. Like him, Missy appreciated caffeine, but on a morning like this, it was going to be as necessary as breathing; she was so exhausted, she was lucky she knew her own name.

Thou art War.

God, she had such weird dreams. That she'd even gone to Kevin's party was crazy all by itself—Missy didn't do parties—but then actually hooking up with Adam? And then getting humiliated by him? That was the stuff of nightmares.

And that was before she'd met Death. Who, if she was remembering this right, was a combination of scary and sexy, with a liberal dose of alternative rock god sprinkled in for good measure. She smiled, thinking of his voice—so raw and aching with emotion. Death the musician. She loved Nirvana, but Death as Kurt Cobain? That was pushing it.

And then the dream had gotten
really
w eird.

Whatever. She could psychoanalyze herself later. Right now she had to get her butt out of bed and get ready for the game.
The
game, capital
T;
she was finally going to start as goalkeeper. Her smile pulled into a fierce grin.
Finally.

She scraped away the remnants of last night's mascara and pried her eyes open. It took them a few moments to focus, and she blinked a few times to clear away the fuzz. Why hadn't she washed off her makeup last night? And ... had she gone to bed wearing her bra?

Forget the bra—she'd crashed out wearing last night's outfit.

She frowned down at her stockings, gently ran her hands over the slashed material covering her thighs. This was the outfit from her dream, the one she'd worn to the party.

Snapshots of memories, flashing one after the other in full color, one, two, three: One, Adam kissing her smoothly and Missy's body remembering how good it was when he touched her. Two, Adam telling her he wanted her, wanted to really see her, all of her.

Three, Missy posing on the bed, her scars on display, and Adam betraying her so completely.

Oh, God.

She squeezed her eyes shut and curled up into a ball. It all happened—she knew it, deep in her bones. Adam had made a fool of her in front of everyone, and she'd fled into the night to escape her life.

She was dead.

The balloon in her chest expanded suddenly, flattening her heart and making it impossible to breathe. Blood roared in her ears; her scars pounded to a chant of
Freak, freak, freak.

She was damaged goods; she was broken.

Freak.

She needed the blade. She needed to open her flesh and free her veins and stain her skin. She had to cut and cut and cut, get the badness out, slice away the tatters of her life until the balloon popped and she could breathe again. The razor would smooth the jagged pieces and kiss it all away. There was no redemption other than through blood.

A pounding at the door: "Melissa! Let's go!"

The balloon shrank and she took a labored breath; the horror receded and she could see beyond the blade. Her life was in ruins, but she still had her soccer game. For now, it was enough; for now, she would live for the joy of battle in cleats and shin guards, for the savage fury of stealing the other team's victory. She could do that.

Thou art War.

She could do that, she told herself again, and she forced herself to sit up. She felt like a piece of gum stuck on the bottom of a shoe—filthy, sticky, and flat. A headache pulsed behind her eyes. Her wrists and thighs and belly throbbed as if her razor had done its work, but there was no quiet bliss to be found this morning. She stared hard at the carpet by the closet, looking for traces of bloodstains. But the carpet was clean, as if her slow crawl to the closet had never happened.

Shaking, she stripped off her clothing, her bra, her stockings. No panties. Right; her underwear and her boots had been confiscated, hadn't they? Just more pieces of her life carved away. She stood in front of the full-length mirror on the back of her door and stared at herself, at the road map of scars and cuts and razor-prints, and through her crusted makeup she began to cry, softly, letting out the horror the only way she could.

In the bathroom, she relieved herself, then scrubbed her face and hands with painfully hot water, leaving her flesh battered and raw. She scoured her teeth until they gleamed—bones nestled in a bed of bleeding gums.

Missy dressed silently, cotton underwear and a sports bra and knee-length soccer socks and baggy shorts. Her red uniform top—with the long sleeves of a goalkeeper—hid her sins from casual eyes. She threw her shin guards and gloves and cleats into her duffle bag, weapons at the ready. She pulled back her hair into a topknot, the ends trailing behind her like the plume on a helmet.

She stared at herself in the mirror again, took in the warrior in red that stared back at her.

"I am War," she said quietly.

She thought she heard Death reply, "Rock on." But of course, there was no one else in her room; even the ghost of Graygirl was silent.

Missy jogged downstairs and dashed into the kitchen. No time for breakfast proper, but a few sips of coffee, light and sweet, was next on her agenda. Besides, there was milk in the half-and-half, so she was getting caffeine
and
protein.

Her father tapped his watch as she grabbed a mug. "Five minutes," he said.

"You coming to the game?"