Rage (19 page)

But even as she cut away the red lines of fury that kept people in a stranglehold, Missy herself remained trapped in a quagmire of gray.

Eventually, Missy tired of wielding the Sword, so the war-horse brought her home. She thanked her steed for the company and gave it a farewell pat. And then she went inside her house.

Her father told her she was grounded. Missy didn't care.

Her mother told her she could talk to her, that she could say anything. Missy didn't care.

Sue avoided her. Missy didn't care.

Alone once more in her room, Missy stripped off her clothes and sat beneath the black-and-white poster of Marilyn Monroe and James Dean that hung on her closet door, and she ran the pads of her thumbs over the scars on her arms, her belly, her legs. Tomorrow was Monday, and she'd have to face the aftermath of Adam's public betrayal.

And she didn't care.

War can be a tragedy,
said a small, still voice.
But you could be something more.

She let out a bitter laugh. How could she be something more when she didn't even know who she was?

The Sword reverberated in her mind, clanging like a death knell.
Y
OU'RE
W
AR.

Melissa Miller wanted to cry, but the tears wouldn't come.

On Monday, Missy woke before dawn. She sat at the edge of her bed for a minute, listening for the purr of a dead cat. But Graygirl was long gone, and if there were such things as ghosts, hers chose not to make an appearance. Missy stared down at her hands on her lap, tried to remember the feeling of a furry body between them—how Graygirl's tongue would sandpaper the webbing of skin between Missy's thumb and index finger. But all she could feel was the memory of the cat's empty body sagging against her arms, and she heard a final pleading cry echo until it was lost in the sounds of her breathing.

You have blood on your hands.

Yes, she surely did.

With a sigh, she stood up and began her school-morning routine. She opened her closet and carefully selected her clothing, all black, and she went to her jewelry box and plucked out her accessories, all silver, and she arranged them all on her bed as if they were weapons.

Today,
she told herself,
is just another Monday.

She went to the bathroom and did her business, then proceeded to take an excruciatingly hot shower. She shampooed and conditioned; she scrubbed her body with soap. She took her time with the pink disposable razor, cutting paths through the stubble on her legs, her bikini area, her armpits. She stood under the spray and didn't wince as the hot water rained on her face. She closed her eyes and traced her fingers over her scars, reading the raised and puckered skin as if it were Braille, telling the story of her pain.

All part of the routine. All part of the motions of her life.

Today is just another Monday.

Clean, she dried off and polished her teeth until they gleamed. She couldn't see her reflection in the steam-fogged mirror. She didn't mind. She spat into the sink and didn't rinse her mouth. Peppermint on her tongue, she turned off the light and went back to her bedroom.

She dressed in the dark.

She hadn't checked her e-mail messages at all. She'd deleted all texts and voice mails and video clips from her phone yesterday without looking at them. She didn't turn her phone on this morning. She made sure not to put it in her pocket or her backpack.

...
just another Monday.

As she armed herself with jewelry, light began to slip under her windowshade. In the soft gray of her room, Missy slowly arranged her makeup on top of her dresser. And then it was time to paint her dead face.

By the time her sister's door opened and Sue was lumbering to the bathroom, Missy had finished with her warpaint and was spiking her hair.

...
another Monday.

Twenty minutes later, Missy grabbed her backpack and her soccer gear and walked out of her room just as Sue left the bathroom. The two sisters stared at each other, their unspoken words screaming in the silence between them. Finally, Sue turned around and went back into the bathroom. The door shut with a soft click.

Missy tried to feel something,
anything
about her sister, but the broken glass jar of her heart was now a ghost town. Empty, she headed downstairs. Once her boots were on her feet, she exited, stage right. She made sure not to slam the front door.

Just another Monday.
If she said it to herself enough times, maybe she'd even believe it.

***

The red steed watched its mistress leave the house. It wanted to go to her, but a pale hand commanded it to remain still.

"Some things," said Death, "we have to do alone."

***

For a while, it looked like she was going to make it.

Missy avoided the other students as best she could. Morning classes themselves weren't a problem, other than the whispers behind the teachers' backs and the occasional glances her way. She was used to that—she'd had months and months of people judging her for the way she looked—so she just focused on her schoolwork and pretended everything was normal.

Navigating the hallways was a little trickier, but her dead face shielded her as she marched around people clustering by their lockers. She heard the laughter, of course; turning a blind eye didn't miraculously make her deaf. But Missy had lots of practice at ignoring her so-called peers as they attempted to display sarcastic wit. They mocked her, but she was the queen of winter, and she chose not to acknowledge their petty remarks. They were beneath her.

S
HOW THEM YOUR STRENGTH,
War whispered.
B
E BRUTAL.

Missy ignored that too. She was a veteran of the battle of high school; War's advice was superfluous. She kept her Sword sheathed.

After third period, she went to her locker to exchange her morning books for her afternoon workload. When she shut the door, Adam was grinning down at her. Behind him, his entourage capered and jeered their warning shots.

"For you, baby," Adam said, flinging her stolen panties at her. The underwear bounced off her chest and fell to the floor.

The entourage of Matts and jocks all cracked up.

That's when Missy smashed the smug movie-star grin off Adam's face. She felt his eyes pop as she dug her fingers into his sockets. She smelled his pain, his fear, the acrid stench of urine in his pants. She heard the boys' laughter stutter and die. She hit him again, and again, her knuckles now raw and bloody. She hit him until his grin was a memory and his teeth rattled on the ground. When someone wrestled her off of him, she kicked him twice in the groin. "For you!" she screamed as they pulled her away. "For
you,
baby! All for you!"

And over it all, she heard War's murmur of approval.

Missy blinked, and Adam was still grinning at her, daring her to do something.

D
O IT,
War urged.
B
REAK HIS SPIRIT
. B
REAK HIS SKULL
. L
EAVE YOUR MARK ON HIM SO HE'LL NEVER FORGET YOU.
H
URT HIM!

On the floor, her underwear from Friday night lay crumpled at her feet.

She wanted to draw the Sword and let it kiss his skin. She wanted to part his flesh with her steel and let his blood spatter the linoleum of the hallway. She wanted that more than she had ever wanted, needed, to take a razor to her body.

A toddler chased a soccer ball, his delighted squeals echoing in Missy's ears.

She forced herself to smile. "Keep it," she told Adam. "I know how you like to wear it."

With that parting shot, she retreated, leaving Adam and his groupies to insult her, loudly and creatively. Her heart jackhammered in her chest, and she thought she was going to throw up. Instead of heading toward the cafeteria, she beelined it to the library. Seeing Adam had made her lose her appetite. Besides, she told herself, she needed the time to finish studying for her pre-calc test.

When the bell rang, she joined the stream of students heading to their fifth-period classes. A number of them, fresh from the lunchroom, bombarded her with clucking sounds.
Queen of winter,
Missy reminded herself, grinding her teeth. She'd survived Adam. She could get through the rest of the day.

Just outside of her math class, Trudy, Jenna, and two other soccer girls surrounded her. Jenna draped her arm over Missy's shoulders, and Trudy grinned in her face. "Missed you at lunch," Trudy said.

"Guess that's where you get your name, huh, Missy?" Jenna laughed.

"Clever," Missy said, standing rigid. "You think of that all by yourself ?"

"We have a present for you," Trudy said.

"Picked it out special," Jenna added.

This was just her day of presents, wasn't it?
Get it over with. Just take it and move past it.
She could do it.

One of the other girls shoved a paper bag at Missy. "For your habit," she said, giggling.

Missy stared hard at the girl as she took the bag. She thought about how easy it would be to rip those gaudy earrings off her ears, wondered if the lobes would bleed.

T
HEY WOULD,
War said.
A
ND SHE'D HAVE SCARS FOR THE REST OF HER LIFE.
L
IKE YOU.

Inside the bag was a package of disposable razors.

"Oh my God," said a passing boy, who pulled away from his buddies to get into Missy's space. "It's you, it's really you!" He grinned hugely, and Missy smelled garlic on his breath. "I've seen
all
of your movies."

The soccer girls cackled.

Her throat closed up. This was so much worse than Adam. Him, she knew. But this boy? He was nameless. He was just a guy, and he'd seen her naked. He was just a no one, but he knew her scars intimately.

K
ILL THEM,
War whispered.

Missy squeezed her eyes shut.

"Aw, look. She's going to cry."

"Tell me it was a body double," said one of the other, equally nameless boys. "No way that was her. Girl on the video was hot."

"Look at her," a third guy said, "all covered up like that. Girl I saw had no problem showing skin."

Someone grabbed her arm and tried to shove up her sleeve. Missy's eyes snapped open as she wrenched her arm away. "Get your hands off me!"

"So touchy," said one of the boys.

"So feely," said another, laughing. "I hear you put out if the money's right. How much is it to get laid by a bona-fide movie star?"

"Cut-rate prices, I bet," said the first boy.

The soccer girls shrieked laughter. "Missy," Trudy said, "you're such a slut!"

"Cutterslut," said Jenna smugly, right before the bell rang.

K
ILL THEM ALL,
War crooned.

Missy shut her eyes again and told herself to breathe, just breathe.

She was still standing outside of class, holding a bag filled with disposable razors, when her teacher told her to come in for the test. She took her seat and took her test, but all she wrote in the answer booklet was "You don't know me," again and again and again.

She floated in a gray funk during sixth-period chemistry. Around her, other students murmured and snickered, but they were background noise. Not even the Sword's whisperings could cut through her malaise. Erica tried to get her to talk, to roll her eyes and make caustic remarks, but Missy couldn't hear her. The instructor droned, and the students murmured, and Missy floated.

By the end of class, Missy snapped out of it. Yes, Adam had ruined her and everyone had laughed. Yes, she was the butt of the joke, a complete laughingstock. But she would get through this. She had soccer. She had the Sword. She was more than just a high school loser. She smiled at Erica and told her she was okay. Erica didn't believe her, but the bell was ringing and it was time to move on to seventh period. For Missy, it was time for gym.

In the locker room, she exchanged her skirt and boots for cutoffs and sneakers. As she pulled off her jewelry, she thought that all things considered, today hadn't gone too badly. She had to keep her head down, that was all. She made sure her backpack, soccer gear, and clothing were secure in her locker, and then she went into the gym, thinking that she could make it through her classes as long as she focused. And she could make it through the hallways as long as she ignored the idiots. Don't rise to the bait. That was key.

She could make it through the rest of junior year, and Adam be damned.

The mixed-grade upperclassmen PE class was her favorite, partially because the girls' varsity soccer coach was the instructor and partially because they were up to the volleyball unit and Missy loved being on the court. Her serves were all right, but she really got height in her jumps, and her spikes were sheer poetry: fluid rage, pinpoint violence. Bella, who was the student PE leader for the day, nodded at her before she started leading the class through a warm-up routine. Missy followed along, stretching in time to Bella's counts, already thinking about bumps and sets.

"Missy."

She looked up to see the coach standing by the office door, motioning her inside. Missy scrambled to her feet and jogged over. Once inside, the coach told her to shut the door. Missy did so.

The coach leaned against her desk, the casual pose belied by her serious face. "You did well on Saturday," she said.

Missy blushed beneath her dead face; the coach wasn't known for her praise. "Thanks."

"You made a few mistakes, but everyone does the first time. With more time on the field, you'd be a fearsome goalkeeper."

Fearsome.
Oh, she did so like the sound of that. A hesitant smile crept over her face, teasing her lips, flickering in her eyes. "Really?"

"Really. Which makes this conversation all the more difficult. Are you a cutter?"

Missy's smile froze. "Excuse me?"

"Are you a cutter, Missy?" The coach didn't move, but something about her posture changed—her shoulders were more rigid, her jaw tighter. "Do you take a razor and make yourself bleed?"