Rage (3 page)

"Even if someone's coming at you, you can't freeze," Bella said, bending over one leg. "Don't be afraid. Be confident. Don't be scared and run away from the ball. I promise you, there are things a lot scarier than soccer balls. Like the boys' locker room. Be confident. Block the shot."

Missy absorbed the advice like blows to the body.

"You don't even have to touch the ball," Bella said. "Intimidate the hell out of your opponent. Scare your opponent into missing the shot. You don't have to block what doesn't come near the goal."

"Isn't it better to make the save?"

"Making a killer save feels great, but if you make them screw up the shot, or if you organize the defense well enough that they can't take a shot at all, you've done your job. Think outside of the goal box."

Missy grinned at the lame joke because she knew Bella expected it, and then she looked once more toward the locker room. The woman in black was gone—if she'd ever been there at all.

***

Missy took her time in the locker room, first stripping off the gloves and cleats and soccer socks and shin guards, then going into the bathroom to change her clothes. Unlike the others, she wasn't in a rush to get home—she'd taken care of her homework during her study period, and despite what Erica thought, she wasn't going to Kevin's stupid party, where stupid Adam and his stupid friends would definitely be.

Looking hot under all the black.

She squeezed her nails into her palms, squeezed until her hands wept. The last thing she wanted to be thinking about was Adam, but there she was, alone in the girls' locker room, remembering what it was like for his hands to travel over her body, the feeling of his mouth on hers ... remembering his husky declarations of love even as he fumbled with her zipper.

Missy closed her eyes and took a shuddering breath, then shoved the memory down down down into the glass jar. Only after she'd sealed the lid again did she open her eyes. If she tried, she could pretend the tears were just sweat.

Maybe she should take out her lockbox tonight.

No,
she thought, and
No
again. Aloud she whispered, "I don't need the blade."

A kiss of wind, like frost on the nape of her neck.

"I don't," she said again, insistent. Unclenching her fingers, she watched the half-moon imprints fill with blood.
Tiny mouths,
she thought, staring at the maroon slices.
Tiny mouths waiting to be fed
...

Her stomach growled, like a warning, and she realized she was hungry. Starving.

Missy grabbed her water bottle and drained it. Shaking out the last drops into her mouth, she berated herself for not having at least a granola bar with her. When she got home, she was going to raid the fridge, and never mind that dinner would be in an hour.

A hint of shadow caught her eye, darker than dark, over by the back wall. It almost looked like the outline of a person, a silhouette in a spill of black ink. Missy frowned as she stared at the shadow, thinking how odd the lighting was and that of course she was alone, she'd said her goodbyes to everyone else...

And then her phone vibrated, announcing a text message. Missy tore her gaze from the dark spot and pulled her cell phone from her pocket. She glanced at the screen.

Adam.

She sat down hard on the bench.
Why?
she thought, despairing. She knew she should delete it without reading it, knew it would be the textbook definition of
mistake
if she read his message.

Her lips tingled as she remembered the feeling of his mouth on hers, and she suddenly hungered for him, missed him so completely that it was a physical ache. She checked the message.

CU @ KEVS 2NITE?

The world whited out in a blinding moment of utter panic. Her heart slammed in her chest, galloping, rocketing now, threatening to go nuclear. Sweat popped on her brow, and her stomach knotted viciously.

...
no no no no no
...

Her blade. She needed her blade. She needed to bleed out the badness, needed the blood to breathe again.

Her hands shook, and the phone slipped between her numb fingers. It hit the bare floor, clattering. The sound snapped Missy out of her anxiety attack. She scooped up her phone and checked to make sure it still worked. Damn it, if Adam made her break her phone, she'd kill him.

She almost heard Bella's voice reprimanding her:
Don't blame the defense if you miss a block and the other team gets the goal.

Missy gritted her teeth. She'd been the one who'd dropped the phone. Not Adam. Luckily, the phone still worked, so she didn't have to worry about where to place the blame. Blood pounded in her ears as she reread Adam's text. Before she could rethink it, her thumbs moved, flowing over the keyboard with practiced ease. She replied:

WHY?

She sat, holding her breath as she waited for his response.
Stupid,
she told herself,
stupid stupid stupid
...

The phone vibrated, and she checked the new message.

B/C I MISS U

Oh God.

It was a joke. A prank. The Matts put him up to it. He just wanted to screw with her—or maybe just screw her, use her and dump her like Kleenex. Her head felt too light, and it was impossible for her to take a deep breath.

Another text from him:

C U 2NITE?

Hating herself, she replied:

MAYBE

And then she turned off her cell phone.

For a long moment, Missy just sat in the dim locker room, feeling her heartbeat thump through her body, hearing the sounds of her own ragged breathing. Then she grabbed her things, stuffed everything into her duffle bag, and shoved her feet into her boots. She had to race home and shower and figure out what the hell to wear to Kevin's.

***

The woman dressed in black from head to foot stepped away from the shadows and watched the girl zoom out of the locker room. Once the door slammed shut, the woman smiled, a thing of teeth and appetite.

"From the way he talks about her," Famine said aloud, "you'd think she was taller."

Missy got home just before 6:30, smack dab in the middle of dinner prep. So at 6:34, after she'd kicked her boots off in the mudroom and washed her hands, Missy was chopping vegetables on the kitchen island while Sue was garlicking up the loaf of Italian bread. Their mom bustled between the kitchen and the dining room, grabbing plates and utensils and dropping helpful comments about how Susan should be sure to layer both sides and Melissa should hold the knife just so. As if Missy needed any help with that.

After their mom hightailed it back into the dining room, Sue muttered, "God, reek much?"

Dead face firmly in place, Missy said nothing as she chopped.

"I forgot," Sue trilled. "Emos don't shower. They just bathe in their own tears."

Missy asked, "Hear that?" She paused, listening, then said, "That's the sound of me not giving a damn what you think."

Sue rolled her eyes. "You are
such
a loser. Bet you want to grow up to be a vampire."

Missy thought of how much she'd love to bash Sue's teeth in, and never mind that she'd scrape her knuckles on the hidden braces. Sue didn't know the first thing about Missy. No one did. "I'm sorry," Missy said, "I don't speak poser."

"No, but you're fluent in asshat."

The girls glared at each other so heatedly, it was a minor miracle the air between them didn't catch fire.

"Susan," their mom called, "help me with this, would you?"

Sue's hateful look melted into the classic Mom-loves-me-best smirk before she sashayed to the dining room.

Missy stuck her tongue out at Sue's back and thought very dark thoughts about her little sister. Only a freshman but already a grade-A bitch: that was Susan Miller. Sure, there'd been a time when Missy and Sue had been the best of friends. But that had been a lifetime ago. Once Sue hit high school, she'd morphed into Teen Barbie, complete with the plastic veneer: cheer squad, debate team, student council, a string of boyfriends in her wake. The day Sue had realized that her crowd made it their business to insult people who looked and acted like Missy had been the day the siblings' friendship ended. At first, Missy had watched Sue's descent into popularity and wondered how anyone could be so perpetually
on
and not lose themselves. Then the daily taunts had started in earnest and Missy had stopped caring about her sister at all.

She really didn't give a damn what her sister thought of her. Lips pressed together tightly, Missy diced a cucumber. Sue could just drop dead.

It would have looked like suicide,
a cold voice whispered.

Missy almost jumped out of her skin. She whirled around, knife in hand—but no one was there. Sue was kissing up to their mom in the other room, and their dad hadn't come home yet.

Missy was alone.

Clearly, she was losing her mind. If she really were emo, like Sue and everyone thought, she'd write a poem about it.

Letting out a shaky laugh, Missy started chopping the cucumber again. She was just stressed out over going to the party; that was all. She glanced at the time on the oven clock and bit her lip. At this rate, she'd never be ready by 8:30.

The thought froze her, and then she berated herself for caring about the time. She'd show up at Kevin's when she was good and ready, and not a moment sooner. If she didn't see Adam there, it was no big deal.

And if he did get there before her, well, he could just wait.

Smiling grimly, she chopped with more vigor.

Her father walked through the door at 6:50, and dinner was served at 7:00. Dinnertime in the Miller household was family time, as Mr. and Mrs. Miller had always insisted, so as they passed around the plate of garlic bread and scooped out the spaghetti, they went around the table, talking about their day. Dad was all about the upcoming office launch, as usual, talking about network systems and T1 lines and whatnot and how the CEO kept changing his expectations so Dad had to keep changing the specs. Mom chatted about how the marketing chief and the Internet marketing director wanted Mom and her team to meet with them next week to discuss a microsite for the company's business journal. Missy listened with feigned interest, asking pointed questions at the right moments to prove that she was really listening and, more than that, really cared.

As Sue prattled about her latest boyfriend and her latest cheer routine, Missy slurped on spaghetti, chewing every bite thirty times before swallowing. Silently counting the bites let her mostly tune out her sister's nails-on-a-blackboard voice.

When Missy's turn arrived, she shrugged and said, "Got an A on my chem test. Had soccer practice. Going to start in tomorrow's game. Going to a party tonight."

The table erupted in chatter—Dad was thrilled about Missy finally getting her chance to shine as goalkeeper; Mom was ecstatic over the A in chemistry and all "See how the studying pays off ?" Sue silently fumed, but whether that was over the attention Missy was getting or over the tidbit that Missy was going to Kevin's party was impossible to say. Both girls had an understanding: hating each other was fine, but not in front of the parents. Sue probably just didn't want to blow her image as a perfect daughter. Missy didn't want their parents involved—knowing them, they'd try to mediate by locking Missy and Sue into the bathroom until they worked out their differences.

But after a few minutes of their parents gushing over Missy, an ugly smile bloomed on Sue's face, poisonously sweet. "Hey, Mom, Dad? Could we get a new cat?"

Missy's heart stopped.

"I really miss Graygirl," Sue said, half petulance, half pleading.

Missy felt the blood drain from her face as she heard Graygirl's final cry, and once again she was holding the cat's dead body, felt it when the spark that had made Graygirl
Graygirl
fade to nothing and all that was left was a shell covered in old fur.

"The house does feel empty without a cat," her mom said. And her dad was nodding his head, saying that maybe they could get a couple of kittens, one for each of the girls.

You have blood on your hands.

Oh, God.

Missy had to leave, right now. "Excuse me," she said thickly as she scraped back her chair. "I have to go shower."

"Melissa, you barely ate," her mother chided.

"Lost my appetite." Missy tossed her fork and napkin onto her mostly full plate, grabbed the dish and her water glass, and tromped into the kitchen. She dumped the food into the garbage and left the dinnerware in the sink. Somehow, she managed not to vomit.

The spray would have hit you here.

She bolted up the stairs and dashed into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. Over the machine-gun fire of her heartbeat, she heard her mom call out something about slamming doors.

Missy was losing her mind. No other explanation for it. Hearing voices, remembering something that never happened—definitely insane. Probably certifiable.

She turned on the shower and began stripping off her clothes: First the long-sleeved black hoodie and then the ripped black denim shorts, yanking them off so quickly that she scored another run in her red and black striped tights. Next the black sports bra—a must during soccer days—and finally her panties, bright red. Let people think she didn't wear anything that didn't have black on it. She knew better.

Waiting for the water to heat, she ran her hands over her biceps, the pads of her fingers dancing along the raised scars. Her hands flowed over the thin lines on her shoulders, then down, over her wounded belly, her gouged inner thighs, then back up, as all the while she kept her gaze on the water.

The house does feel empty without a cat.

Swallowing her sob, Missy stepped into the shower and stood gasping under the scorching spray. She soaped and rinsed and lathered and rinsed and conditioned, all with the mindlessness of everyday routine. Then she coated her legs with shaving gel and took her oh-so-girly pink disposable razor and began to shave, running the cheap blade from ankle to knee, from knee to groin, slowly, almost lovingly. First legs, then bikini area, and last her armpits, all without a knick or scrape. When she finished, she held out her hands in penance, letting the steaming water absolve her of her sins.