The Raging Ones

by Krista Ritchie

  Mykal draws down his fur-lined hood and shakes snow from his blond hair, skin chalky white and cheeks rosy from the chill. Tough face, impervious to severe conditions, he rattles with fortitude. He’s already been through eighteen years of life. Just a few months ahead of me.

  Without searching the ballroom, he raises his head and instantly locks eyes with mine. His hard-hearted to my grim. It takes him just seconds to reach my high-top table.

  “I heard he’s dead.” Mykal grins so wide his smile might as well fall off his face.

  “We’re waiting cause of death,” I reply. Mykal splays his arm over my shoulders and hugs me tight to his side—to the point where I whisper lowly, “We’re brothers.”

  Mykal drops his arm but makes a point of huffing loudly. Like my lie is as senseless as they come. We look nothing alike, but adoption is so frequent in the city that no one would question. It’s not exactly why he’s aggravated by this lie though.

  “All right, brother,” he says in distaste before eyeing the rich scenery.

  Margie and Tal regard Mykal with as much decency as you would a wild boar. He smells a little of wood smoke and roasted meat, and the way he just crossed the room had more purpose than grace.

  When I told him there was a proper way to walk, he looked me up and down and said, “Besides one foot in front of the other? Please, do show me, Court Icecastle, how does one walk?”

  Strangers always see Mykal Kickfall as a brute, but he’s as honest as they come and far more charming than first glance. Those same strangers seem to always embrace me first, but if they knew us at all, I’m the one they would truly fear.

  I take no pride in that.

  Mykal steals my champagne flute and scans the television screen. “We’ll be flush in no time.” In one gulp, he drains the glass of liquid.

  His positivity only encourages more doubt. I’m not so sure we’ll win.

  “Who’s your friend?” Margie asks me.

  “Brothers.” Mykal speaks first, his tone exceedingly dry but I doubt she notices. He pats my back once, almost twice, but his gaze drifts off. “Are those apples?” His blue eyes are astonished orbs. I think it may be the first time he’s seen an apple.

  “Ye—” I barely let out the word and he’s already left my side. Not even a single hesitation.

  I shake my head once and run my fingers through my dark brown hair. I mutter a thank you to the server who refills my champagne and then take a larger sip.

  “Come on!” a girl yells at the television, two tables away from mine. Tattoos of colorful frogs peek from the short sleeves of her vibrant pink dress. Fast-Tracker.

  If an Influential wears ink, they’d never choose a frog. Only Fast-Trackers sport cold-blooded animals on their skin.

  “Give us a fykking cause of death already!” she yells again.

  The ballroom explodes in a wave of disgruntled chatter.

  “I don’t know why they let Fast-Trackers in here,” Margie spews.

  “She’s not hurting anyone,” I defend. Bite your tongue, Court. It’s too late and sweat beads up along my neck as Margie narrows her gaze like I’ve ripped off a mask.

  I keep my eyes plastered to the screen, as though nothing went horribly awry, but beneath my stoic face and rigid stance, my heart thuds much faster. Worse even.

  “I don’t think we ever heard your name,” Tal says.

  Gods be damned.

  Just as I rack my brain, the familiar bells chime again. Signaling new information. Heavier silence blankets the ballroom. Mykal slips back beside me, four small apple tarts in hand. He pops them in his mouth, one by one, before even swallowing.

  The burst of sweet juice hits my tongue, and as soon as I think Here’s a benefit to sensing Mykal his cheeks dimple at the sugary dessert and he cringes like it’s all too much.

  He gags but chokes it down.

  Sensing his revulsion in my throat, I stifle a frustrated groan. I remember loving apples, but it’s now sullied. Of course he’d rather eat a charred rabbit than a fruit tart. And he’d retort back, I sense your disgust when I eat the brains, and guess what—I don’t eat them anymore. Just for you.

  We ride down a two-way street of give-and-take. Push-and-pull. It’s never really easy.

  “We have confirmation from the coroner.” The news anchor steals my attention, a piece of paper between her fingers. “Pat Pincastle has died by a brain aneurysm.”

  I inhale strongly and recall what I know to be true: A brain aneurysm has to rupture and cause a hemorrhage for a man to die.

  People bemoan and cheer and holler all across the ballroom. My ears ring. Three women in floor-length silky gowns laugh in delight and collect from their bookie.

  “What does this mean?!” Mykal shouts over the cacophony.

  “We’ve won,” I say, almost disbelieving. I face him and place a hand on his shoulder. Relief bursts in my chest. He can surely feel this. “We’ve won, Mykal!”

  He laughs for the both of us, grips my other arm and rests a hand on my cheek. “Maybe the gods do exist after all!” It’s not the first time I’ve heard Mykal speak positively of the gods.

  But I’m not Mykal. “Let’s not bring the gods into this.”

  He grunts but wears a constant, hopeful smile. “All right, brother.”

  Tal suddenly squeezes into our huddle and breaks my hands apart from Mykal. Beady-eyed and overly suspicious, Tal asks, “You made a bet for a hemorrhage, did you not?”

  “I did.” I flag down the bookie. I understand how a hemorrhage could win out easily, but Tal’s pause gives me a larger one.

  “So you’re studying medicine at university,” Tal says, not asks, like he earned himself a prize in solving mysteries.

  I don’t have to reply. The bookie already sidles up to the velvet tabletop, hands cupped in formality.

  “I want to collect,” I say.

  The bookie never glances at the bills drawer. “Pat Pincastle died by brain aneurysm. You lost.”

  Mykal’s smile slowly fades. Fuming, he crosses his arms and his pinpointed blue eyes dart between the bookie and me.

  I say the fact, “A brain aneurysm has to rupture and cause a hemorrhage for a man to die.” I’ve seen too many in a hospital to count. More than anyone would care to know.

  The bookie shrugs curtly, a clear dismissal of me and my facts and the truth.

  Brows cinched, my voice laces with ire. “You’re just going to shrug?”

  “The reporter said nothing about a hemorrhage.” The bookie raises his hand. “I’m sorry, sir.”

  I run my palm over my mouth, attempting to settle the blistering fury and annoyance I feel. “So…” I take a greater pause. Don’t lash out. Breathe. In the back of my mind, I think: I have nothing else to lose. This is it. I lost all of our bills here. “You’re going off what a reporter reads rather than logic?” Bite to my voice shrinks the bookie backward.

  He eyes security: three men in gold uniforms. Gaze returning to me, he says, “I’m sorry, sir. Hotel rules.”

  Mykal plows forward. “Hotel rules?!” I clutch the muskox hood of his coat. “You want to be talking about hotel rules?!”

  I yank him to my chest. My brawn may not match Mykal’s, but I’m much taller. Effortlessly, I hook an arm around his shoulders. “Enough,” I growl in the pit of his ear. We can’t regain the bills we lost, but I can protect Mykal.

  As I attempt to steer my hostile friend to the revolving door, he grinds his teeth and then spins out of my hold. He stomps back to our high-top table and hollers at the bookie. “You.”

  I stiffen as his deep lilt fights to come out.

  Mykal growls, “You can keep looking at me like a snot-nosed goat, but you won’t be cheating us out of our earnings.”

  I clasp his wrist and drag him away, my grip so tight that I sense my fingertips digging painfully into his skin.

  He roughly shakes out of my hold and sneers beneath his breath. “Don’t treat me like a child, Court. I have enough sense
about me to see what’s wrong and what’s right.”

  Lips sealed shut, I exhale a hot breath through my nose. “If that were true—you wouldn’t be arguing with someone who refuses to move.”

  “Maybe I’m just not a quitter like you.”

  His cold words drip icily down my back and my eyes flash hot. “You can call it whatever you’d like,” I whisper lowly. “But I won’t slice myself at the neck, and I won’t allow you to either.”

  Someone reaches for my hand—it’s not Mykal.

  Margie’s fingertips glide down mine and I turn just as she says, “I don’t think you ever told us your name.” Smitten with either my fiery temper or my assertive demeanor, her cheeks are more flushed. She touches her face, almost shocked at the heat she expels.

  It’s the fire beneath my heart that prods me, that pushes me. I inhale something so bitter, so foul that I just stop and let it all out.

  They want to know my name so badly. There’s absolutely no reason to keep it a secret anymore. I lost the bills and I can’t foresee a better plan than the one today. What does it matter?

  They can hear my name.

  So loudly, without disgrace, I say, “I’m Court.” My shoulders lock, carriage raised. “Court Icecastle.”

  Margie retracts her hand faster than lightning, eyes widened and terrified. She mouths my last name, Icecastle. Fingers tremble to her lips.

  Those that heard my declaration burst into audible whispers and gasps. They each mutter a word. I tune it out for a moment.

  And I trek toward the exit with Mykal step for step behind me. My back straight, powerful legs unwavering. People create a wide path for me, for us, recoiling and inching backward. But they stare.

  They stare like I carry seven blades and an ax. All meant to injure them.

  They stare like I’m a figment of nightmares. A dark shadow they heard spoken but never believed to be real.

  They stare like I do not belong.

  And I don’t. There was a time I did. There was a time I had all the wealth that they possess. But the moment I was sent to prison, I was stripped of so many things. Including my birth name. And then I was forced to take the surname that all prisoners share.

  Icecastle.

  Even when I reach the revolving door, I still hear one muttered word on their lips. It attaches to me, as permanent as the lilac smoke.

  Criminal.

  THREE

  Mykal

  Ankle deep in fresh snow, I circle Court behind the ramshackle brick flats. Our temporary home. Nothin’ but a single dull torch to combat the night.

  I mime a lunge.

  Court doesn’t flinch. Fists raised, he traces my circle but never closes the distance with an assault or barrage of emotion.

  Hot breath expels from his nose. Smoking the air. And he sports a silly black overcoat and scarf. Prepared for fine dining in the heart of Bartholo. Not sparring a gnarled Hinterlander in the outskirts of the city at eleven o’night.

  I chew on a shred of dry root and laugh, motioning to how he waits for me to spring first. “Court Icecastle, never failing at predictability.”

  The grayest, grimmest eyes stay fixed and humorless upon me. Never swerving left or right, never searching for a new direction—that’s Court for you. Committed to his plans. His head is hoisted assuredly, shoulders taut but body agile.

  He simply waits as though I’m prey.

  I crack a crick in my neck and jump once or twice. Cold slicing through my lungs. I welcome it. As I have all my life.

  Minutes pass and even with his chapped lips and flushed golden brown cheeks, I sense his consistent ease like still wind.

  Impatient, I lunge.

  My fist flies madly, but I catch air as Court ducks. Swifter than I. Then my arm jerks backward. He imprisons my limb across my shoulder blades.

  His hard chest presses up along my back. Lips brushing my ear, he whispers deeply, “Mykal Kickfall, twice as predictable as me.”

  My mouth draws in a lopsided smile. “And twice as ruthless.” I plow his abdomen with my elbow. So forceful that I feel the blow like it’s my own.

  My stomach caves, but I push past his sentiments, rattling inside. And I spin frenziedly out of the hold. Wind knocked from Court, he coughs into his fist.

  My own throat vibrates like I hack too. Even if I’m not.

  Rich, dark brown hair falls over his forehead. Just as Court regains focus—I crouch, scoop powdered snow, and toss the handful. The chilled debris explodes at his face in a white plume.

  Jolting him, and me, like a harsh slap.

  I swing my head.

  More accustomed to severe winter, I shake out of the sensation faster than Court. Fighting dirty, I launch another handful of snow. Then I land a solid right hook into his jaw.

  I might as well be battling myself. The thud pounds my face, but we’ve sparred enough to push past our strange link. I sense his emotions, his body, as equally as he senses mine.

  No matter how much I feel him or how many starved wolves I’ve wrestled with only my hardened hands, I still fail at miming Court’s lithe, sharp movements that carve through wind like knives.

  Ones that always outdo mine.

  As though he planned this all along, he uppercuts my jaw with firm knuckles. My teeth clank shrilly together. Then he sideswipes my legs from underneath me.

  Breath escapes me as my back lands with a hard thump.

  I lie on a mound of snow.

  I prop myself to stand, but the frosted sole of his heavy boot meets my throat. Forcing my shoulders back down.

  “Charming shoelaces,” I pant. “Did your nanny help pick them out fer you?”

  “For. Not fer,” he reminds me.

  I’ve spent two years trying to get rid of my thick accent and the least he could do is be happy that I rarely trip up nowadays. “Heya,” I rebut, “you should at least be thankful I didn’t say yer.”

  His face is void of amusement or any kind of merriment.

  He taps the side of his sole to my cheek. So lightly that he might as well be patting me.

  I laugh into a wry smile and look to his damned shiny boots again. “I forgot,” I tease, “you stole your laces, you little crook.”

  “Will you ever shut up?” Court wonders, tapping his boot to my cheek once more.

  I prod Court in hopes of seeing a smile that never appears, not in the two years I’ve known him, and because it passes the time. “Will you ever be uncrossing your brows?” I rebut. “You have this face, Court, like you need to go relieve yourself, you realize?” I shift to throw a punch.

  He smacks his foot hard across my cheek. Blood pools in my mouth and I stifle a groan. His remorse comes and goes like an extra heartbeat. I spit. The snow stains red.

  He extends his hand to help me up and end our sparring. I grab hold and with a strong tug, I bring him down atop me.

  His hands find support on either side of my shoulders. Our faces a breath away.

  With my callused palm, I tap his cheek twice. Expecting some sort of reaction.

  Anything.

  But his muscles flex and his worry mounts all over again. Not even sparring could blow off a bit of steam, or in the very least, take his mind off our failings.

  While I have him so close, I say, “It’ll be working itself out soon enough.”

  “Oh right.” He tilts his head, his voice crisper than mine, every syllable pronounced with precision and refinement. “I forgot that bills just appear out of nowhere when you need them most, escorted by mystical creatures.” He flashes the closest thing to a smile that he can muster: a bitter, sour face. “We aren’t living in a fairy tale, Mykal, and only one of us can afford to keep our head in the clouds.”

  Court has spent the better part of a year stealing bills. Pocketing them here and there in small amounts. Enough to earn us five thousand.

  Any more would have likely drawn suspicion of a thief in the city. We’d hoped to double the bills by gambling them. Now we’re back to
where we were a year ago. With sullen spirits and no money to our names.

  His disposition threatens to break mine. He can ramble on about living in a fairy tale, but I can’t live in Court’s bleak world. No matter how all consuming it becomes.

  I grit my teeth. He can surely feel that and my hot agitation. “Heya, I don’t want your sass. I understand that we’re ten thousand bills short—”

  “And we couldn’t attain that amount in an entire year, now we only have two months. Open enrollment for StarDust is in sixty days.” Sixty days.

  It’s a looming date.

  He goes to stand after mentioning the world’s aerospace department, but I grip his arm. Keeping him above me for a second longer.

  “I’ll be finding a way to get the rest of the enrollment fee. Ye’ve done enough.” I mumble a curse and then clearly say, “You’ve. You’ve done enough.”

  Court lets out a resigned breath. “You wait longer than a few days to find more money and it’ll become my problem again.” His sternness is nothing new.

  “It won’t be that long,” I assure him. I have an inkling of what I’ll be doing for bills, but if I tell Court, he’d slam the idea into the grave. My plan will be less kindly than anything he can conjure.

  But I need to provide more than I am.

  Before he rises, I tenderly press my lips to his cheek—or as tender as a Hinterlander can be. Warmth bathes him, then me. Like an ancient electric current sparking to life for the first time. I don’t go beyond this.

  We both know not to.

  His gray gaze burns a fiery trail from my harsh blue eyes to my cheeks, then to my pink lips. Where he lingers for the shortest moment before pushing off to a stance.

  In jest, I call after him, “I think you must prefer being miserable!”

  He turns his head, just once, to give me a strict look that says most of the same: Will you ever shut up, Mykal?

  With a stringent stride, he leaves me for the entrance to the brick flats. His shoulders are weighted with concerns and anxieties that only grown men should bear.

  Not a boy of seventeen years.

  * * *

  Some days our linked senses feel like being shackled to six iron chairs and a bolted table.

  Court struggles to fit a key into the fourth lock of our flat. Jammed. His frustration piles onto me.