Rage (22 page)

"When you're ready, I'll be here." He grinned. "I'm a patient sort of personification."

Yes, Death was patient. But War wasn't known for her patience.

Missy wrapped her arms around his neck and stood on her toes as she pulled him down to meet her halfway. She pressed her lips against his and kissed him. And kissed him.

Death's lips, warmed by War's passion, weren't cold at all.

***

After the Pale Rider left, Missy patted Ares' neck. "Go home," she told it fondly, "wherever that is for you. We won't be Riding today."

The horse nickered softly.

"I'm fine," she said. "Just tired. Been a long day. Math test, completely mortified by a bunch of idiots, kicked off the soccer team, confronted War, kissed Death." Missy smiled, her lips still tingling from Death's touch. "It's just my third day on the job. Do I get a learning curve?"

The steed seemed to think about it, then it snorted its approval.

"Thanks," she said, rubbing behind its ears. "I'll call you when I'm ready to Ride."

Ares leapt into the sky and disappeared in a wink of fire.

Missy turned to face her school and slowly walked up the stairs. By the time she reached the top, her clothing had shimmered into her black shirt, cutoff shorts, stockings, and sneakers.

With a sigh, Melissa Miller opened the door and stepped back into her life.

In stories, the guy gets the girl, Good defeats Evil, and there's always a happily ever after. In real life, you strive for that happy ending, but it doesn't always work out that way. Sometimes, you have to compromise.

Melissa Miller wasn't allowed back on the varsity soccer team that year. She had to put up with daily taunts from Trudy and Jenna, which she managed better some days than others. One time, after Jenna made a particularly nasty comment about Missy's sexual habits, Missy let War out to play—just enough to make her eyes burn and let Jenna feel exactly how angry she made Missy ... and what Missy could do about it if she so desired—and for the next week, neither Jenna nor Trudy even looked at her. As far as Missy was concerned, that was a blessing.

She was struggling with pre-calc and had been given notice that if her grade didn't improve, she wouldn't be eligible for AP math her senior year.

The two weeks after Kevin's disastrous party, she was still the school laughingstock. And then one of the Matts hit on some girl at the pizzeria ... except the girl turned out to be a guy. One month later, Matt was still gossip fodder.

Missy hung out with Erica a lot more, and she remembered why they had been friends in the first place. The debate over real-life romance versus air-quotes romance continued, but Missy was starting to come around to Erica's way of thinking.

Missy also started talking to the school guidance counselor. The only reason she did it at first was to prove to her soccer coach that she was serious about getting back on the team next year, but Missy was pleasantly surprised to discover that the guidance counselor wasn't a bad sort. One day, Missy took a leap of faith and told the counselor about her tendency to reach for a razor. Over the next few weeks, the counselor talked with Missy almost every day, and soon she convinced Missy to come clean to her parents.

She did. Her mom cried and her dad was shocked, but they listened to her. Even Sue listened, and when Missy was done talking, Sue actually hugged her. Then she called Missy an idiot. Her mom begged her to tell her if she ever had the urge to cut again, even if her mom was in a meeting with her company CEO. Her dad said the same thing, loudly, and he repeated himself every night for the next month. Her parents were still obscenely busy, and Sue still hung with the popular crowd—some things, after all, would never change. But Missy found it a little easier to breathe when she was home.

Every once in a while, she volunteered at the local teen crisis hot line. Her parents thought she did it for her college applications. Her sister thought she did it as a sort of joke. In truth, Missy didn't know why she did it. But the few times she spoke with other kids who hurt themselves, she was able to help, a little. And that made her feel good.

The family rescued two kittens from the animal shelter. One of them, a russet-colored ball of energy, Missy named Mars. Her sister thought she was talking about the planet.

She saw Adam at school. She ignored him.

She played Nirvana a lot.

Some nights, she climbed atop Ares and soared across the skies, and she helped people release their rage and find a temporary peace. Other nights, her emotions got the better of her, and when she traveled on her warhorse she left turmoil in her wake.

She saw Death and shared stolen moments of intimacy.

Sometimes, she saw the other Horsemen as she went out into the world. Famine didn't quite trust her, and it was a toss-up whether Pestilence was in his right mind. But they accepted her as War.

Not perfect, no. Not a storybook ending. But Missy wasn't complaining.

***

Melissa Miller hasn't cut since the day she accepted War within her. The lockbox is still in her closet, buried under her soccer equipment, gone but not forgotten. There may come a time when she once again reaches for the blade within. But every day that goes by that Missy doesn't cut, she considers a victory.

And if there's one thing that motivates War, it's victory.

It took me the better part of ten years before I sat down to write
Hunger,
my first Horseman novel about an anorexic teen who becomes Famine. When I finally wrote it, the words all came pouring out in a matter of weeks. No such luck with
Rage.
I didn't know who the main character would be; I had no idea how the book should end. And the beginning was annoyingly out of reach. I felt utterly lost.

And then my one of my cats died.

Mist was fifteen years old, and sick. We had a choice of putting a chest tube in her or trying steroid treatments to help her breathe. I knew my girl, and a chest tube would have killed her. (When she'd gotten fixed at two years, that started a nervous condition of her picking at her belly. Her fur didn't regrow until she was twelve, when she had mellowed a little.) So we opted for the shot, and for a week, it was better.

And then it wasn't. She was in pain, and unable to move well. She'd stopped eating and barely drank. So we did what we felt was best for her. The boys got a chance to say goodbye to her, and then my husband and I took her to the vet. She sat in my lap, wrapped in a blanket, as the vet gave her a final shot. She let out one final meow—maybe it was a goodbye—and then she died.

It took me a week before I could bear to put away her carrier. As I slid the container onto the shelf, a line came to me:

The day Melissa Miller killed her cat, she saw the Angel of Death. But he was no angel—and he wasn't there for the cat.

And like that, I had my beginning.

As I wrote the prologue, I started researching self- injury. (Unlike with eating disorders, I had no personal experience with cutting.) Along the way, I found a terrific website.
Secret Shame
has a lot of information about self-injury—what it is, and what it's not. Without the candid information posted there, I doubt I could have written
Rage.
I am grateful to Deb Martinson for the site (
www.palace.net/llama/psych/injury.html
).

Missy slowly revealed herself to me. And I do mean slowly. At first, she was rather timid—and you'd probably agree if you'd read the first draft of the prologue. But as I grew more comfortable writing her story, Missy became bolder. Angrier. And more passionate. It took a while, but I finally
got
her.

It wasn't until after Missy's confrontation with her soccer coach, and its result, that I finally got a bead on the other major character in the book: War. I was about to write what wound up being Chapter 18 when I heard a voice whisper to me, one that was completely unlike anything else I'd heard for this book. It said:

The world is a wound and I will cauterize it.

And I was like,
AAAAAAAAAAAAH.
That's the first time I heard the voice of War. The small caps came later.

(By now, you may be thinking that I'm insane—hearing voices and lines of dialogue and text in my head and whatnot. Maybe I am a little crazy. But yeah, that's what happens sometimes when I write.)

With War's voice finally clear, I went back and altered some of the earlier dialogue between War and Missy. And then I wrote the rest of the book. I didn't know how it was going to end until I actually ended it. Sort of cool. And, if you're a control-freak author like me, a little scary. But it was the right ending.

Rage,
like
Hunger,
doesn't end easily. There's a reason the last paragraph is in the present tense. Not an easy ending, no. But, I hope, an honest one. Missy still struggles to keep control.

I'm rooting for her.

***

A portion of proceeds for
Rage
will be donated to To Write Love On Her Arms, a nonprofit organization dedicated to presenting hope and finding help for people struggling with self-injury, depression, addiction, and suicide. TWLOHA also invests directly in treatment and recovery. For more information about the organization, please visit the TWLOHA website:
www.twloha.com
. If you bought this book, thank you for helping make a difference.

J
ACKIE
M
ORSE
K
ESSLER
grew up in Brooklyn, New York, with a cranky cat and shelves overflowing with dolls and books. Now she's in upstate New York with another cranky cat, a loving husband, two sons, and shelves overflowing with dragons and books (except when her sons steal her dragons). She told the story of another Horseman of the Apocalypse, Famine, in
Hunger,
her first book for teens. For more about Jackie, visit her website:
www.jackiemorsekessler.com
.