Then she says, “You can start the car.”
“Wait, wait.” I ask at least ten questions, ensuring that I can sufficiently succeed at this and not kill us both.
She answers patiently enough, but when I begin inquiring all over again, she interjects, “How about we just start? You’ll learn as you drive.”
She’s mad. “This is a vehicle. That I’ve never driven before, and you want me to just … try and see what happens?”
“Exactly,” she states with the arch of a brow. “Begin here.” Key between my fingers, she clutches my wrist and guides my hand toward the ignition.
I stop. “Wait.” I let out a tight breath.
“Court, it’s not that difficult. I promise, you can do this.”
She’s more encouraging with me than I am with her. I realize I’m equally a terrible teacher as I am a student.
My eyes flit once to her, my facial features always taut and grave. She nods to me. I decide to shed a layer of clothing, too confined. After removing my wool coat, left in a black buttoned shirt, I gingerly fit the key into the ignition.
“Turn right,” she instructs.
I turn and the car rumbles to life.
“Now shift, press gently on the gas pedal, and pull further onto the street.”
I slowly—very, very slowly—follow her directions. The car crawls unhurriedly, spiked tires grinding against ice. I grip the steering wheel so firmly that my knuckles ache.
“You can blink,” Franny says.
I force my eyes wide open, concentrated on the street. “I’m fine.”
Almost unnoticeably, Franny writhes in her seat, uncomfortable because I sit painfully straight. “Press your foot harder on the gas.”
“That will make the car go faster.”
“Yes,” she says like I’m slow to catch on.
I lick my lips, tasting blood—her lips. Split down the center, she rarely puts ointment on them. It bothers me, but I try to focus on driving. “We’re not going faster,” I snap. “We’ll spin out.”
“No one drives this slow, Court. We’d move faster by walking.” She slumps forward and fiddles with the heaters.
“Sit still.” I readjust my clutch on the steering wheel and she places her palm on the top of my hand. I almost begin to ease, her confidence pooling inside of me. Like descending into a warm bath. Glove to glove. The link would grow stronger if we were skin to skin, but I wouldn’t push it there.
“What are you afraid of?” she asks.
Everything. “Wrecking.”
“You won’t. I never wrecked a single car. Never even shuttled a person in the wrong direction.”
“You’re not the one I don’t trust behind a wheel.” It’s me.
We fall into silence and I let her emotions fill me more, apprehension waning. I press harder on the pedal, not fast, but enough that we accelerate from a crawl to a jog.
Exhaust plumes behind the car and I slowly pass building after building. I’m driving.
I’m driving.
I could laugh, but the noise refuses to leave my throat. “Illian would be jealous.”
My little brother often played with toy cars on our father’s desk. Vrroom. Vrroom, he’d sputter between his lips, pushing our father’s physics papers and pens to the floor. When our father appeared, he cast an earnest smile, dark eyes effervescent and magnified with joy.
Illian could be as mischievous and as ill-tempered as he’d like. He was a Babe. He knew he’d die as a child, and even so, Illian was sweet. He smiled and laughed more than I did.
“Illian?” Franny frowns. “Was he a friend?”
You said his name aloud. Of course I did. I swallow a lump and stiffly, I give her what I’ve given Mykal. “Little brother. Babe. Dead.”
Franny stays quiet and then says, “Turn left up ahead. We’ll drive around the block.”
Instead of hesitating, I force myself to finish the task in one maneuver, only breathing after I’ve succeeded. The car grinds to a stop and I practically see her mind reeling. To shift her thoughts off my brother, I speak.
“Your lip is cracked.”
Franny runs her tongue over her bottom lip. “It’s not a bother to me.”
I procure a little bottle of ointment from my pocket. “Well it’s a bother to me.” I pass the bottle to her. “Keep it. Use it. It’ll heal faster.”
She peels off her gloves and unscrews the lid, then dips her finger in the cream. “You hate tasting blood that much?”
I dislike the bitter iron taste on my tongue, but it’s much more than that. Franny has a greater reason to take care of herself now. She can live much, much longer than she ever fully dreamed.
I’m quiet before saying, “It’s not the blood I hate.”
She applies a second coat of ointment. I spin the red knobs, letting the heat die down, and I roll my sleeves to my biceps.
I freeze midway, alarm stabbing my chest.
Mykal.
I turn my head—no. It’s Franny. She fixates on the beginning of a tattoo that peeks beneath my sleeve, the stinger to a scorpion. She opens her mouth, but loses her voice, too flummoxed at the sight.
I inhale sharply, not intending to show her these tattoos … not yet, at least.
I’ve talked about her being common, but I wear the most common markings among Fast-Trackers.
Suddenly enraged, her palms thud against my chest.
I don’t shove back. However, I begin unbuttoning my shirt, fingers tensed, jaw hardened. She deserves to see. She has a spider tattoo on her hip, lizard across her shoulder blade—and she asked what she should do about them.
“We’ll have them tattooed into different designs,” I told her. Influentials don’t usually have tattoos, but we’d pass if they were warm-blooded creatures. I left out the fact that I too need mine tattooed over.
Franny boils. “You constantly act like I’m beneath you, but here you are…” She trails off, confusion scrunching her soft face.
I fiddle with the middle button. I’m careful not to touch the steering wheel, angling sideways toward her body. “I’ve never believed you’re beneath me,” I say. “You’re beside me.” Last button. “We’re just different and each tattoo reminded me of a world I’d rather live in. That’s it.”
I remove my shirt, sitting bare-chested. Vulnerable. Inked snake above my heart, my puckered scars are in plain sight, as well as the old ones that slice my ribs.
Franny tentatively scoots forward, elbow on the middle console. My head far above hers, but she inspects my ribs, her fingers hovering over the white scar that cuts the inked spider in half.
She whispers, “I’ve seen boys lose arms, girls pull themselves from the wreckage of a four-car pileup, and I never batted an eye.”
“They’d live,” I say.
She grazes my scars, only with her eyes. “Now I care.” She takes a breath, collarbones jutting out. “Why should I care?”
“Because we can die at any moment.” The grave thought passes toxically between us.
“A scar is not just a scar,” she says beneath her breath.
It overwhelms me, the empathy. I hold on to the steering wheel, trying to detach from my darkened memories, but I need to warn Franny.
“I’m not overly calculated and vigilant because I want to be,” I tell her. “I have to be this way.”
“Why?”
“Some people will do unimaginable things if they knew you dodged your deathday—if they believed, even for a moment, they could too.”
Franny sits up. As straight as me. “Who’d want to dodge their deathday?”
I bet she counted down to hers in celebration. Everyone usually does. “People are satisfied with their deathday because they’ve accepted the fact that it can’t be altered. They’ve never seen hope or been given any. The minute you tell a person there is a way to live longer, their outlook will change. They will fight for a chance to see tomorrow when they thought they had none. No matter the consequences.”
Something sinister lies in each old wound. They were formed from malice, darkness that festers inside of me, clawing at all that I am.
I desperately try to drown the image of four people who learned the truth.
Who escaped Vorkter with me.
Who awoke with me and saw that I still lived beyond my deathday. They brandished their blades and …
My throat bobs, sickness rising.
I engrained their deathdays in my mind, so I know that two are dead. The other two still live—and they could be coming for me. At any time.
“Franny…” I stiffly put on my shirt. She’ll sense any lie, but I can’t tell her that people could hunt me down, hunt us at any moment. “We’re leaving for StarDust,” is what I say first. “It’s important.”
She stares out the windshield, haunted. “If anyone finds out that we dodged our deathdays, we won’t be sent to Vorkter. They’ll just try to kill us.”
Yes. It’s not what I wanted her to conclude, but she’s not comatose with fright. That’s a start.
“It’s important,” I say again, other words feeling marginal compared to these. The world is shaded in unusual colors when you can die at any time, without any knowledge of when. All we can do is find a piece of it that isn’t as cruel to us as what I’ve met.
I should paint the whole picture for her, tell her that the people who caused these scars escaped from Vorkter, but it would be admitting that I too am a criminal. Her loyalties lie with me because we’re a part of each other—whether we like it or not. But it’d make her ill knowing she shares a soul with someone like me. For now, I can spare her that tragedy.
Suddenly, a feeling scrapes at me—I swing my head to the left, then to her. “Is that you?”
She freezes, concentrating.
There it is again. I grimace and clench my teeth, an emotion barreling into my stomach. Roiling. I wrench open the door at the same time as Franny, heaving for air. Something’s wrong.
I grab my coat, then stand, and hang on to the frame of the car. Mykal. “It’s Mykal.” I focus intently, trying to find a name for this feeling. Before alarm and concern gut me.
Halfway through pulling on my coat, I have to tug at my collar, my skin crawling. Mykal, what’s wrong? I nearly scream the words.
Franny scratches at her skin. “What is this?”
My nose flares.
Disgust.
With myself.
It runs rapidly through my veins, the sentiment eating at my flesh. My eyes are cast downward and I concentrate harder on my friend. Where are you, Mykal?
I won’t be able to picture him—but I abruptly feel him. My knees aching. Digging into a wooden floor. Someone …
Someone tugs at the back of my hair. Gently, not rough.
Something presses to my lips. Gods dammit. I whip my head toward Franny and she stares keenly at the snow. I run to her.
“Franny!” I shake her shoulders, tearing her out of a daze. “Don’t focus on him.”
She skims her finger across her lips. “Is he … is he kissing someone? I could’ve sworn…” She touches beneath her eye, tears building.
Mine mimic.
Franny looks to me in horror. “Why am I crying?”
I brush the tear beneath her eye, then I wipe my own. “Because he’s crying.” I can barely distinguish the origin. That these are his tears first, ours second. “I have to find him.”
Delicate lips breathlessly press to mine—What are you doing?
“Court…” Franny knows, fingers still to her mouth.
“He’s doing something foolish.” I force myself off the car. I have to hike toward city-center.
“Why would he?” She steps away from the car, about to follow me, but I stop dead in my tracks.
“For bills,” I nearly spit.
Realization sweeps her face, tears pricking the corners of our eyes.
“Stay,” I tell Franny.
“I have to go with you,” she says like her whole body begs to be at Mykal’s side, to change his disgust into bliss. She feels as called to help him as me, but she can’t come.
“Your hair needs to be washed.” I’ve lost the feeling of her burning scalp, focused only on Mykal.
She has as well, her hand lingering by the foils. “I’m having trouble feeling my own senses and emotions.”
Mykal fears that all the time. “Go to our flat,” I say quickly. “Wash your hair, keep us out of your thoughts. You’ll be at ease again.”
She nods and then whispers a common farewell, “May the gods be in your spirit.”
I have no belief in the gods, but the second verse rings inside of me. Pausing, only long enough to murmur it. “And I in your heart.”
I don’t waste one more second. I walk urgently. And then my walk shifts to a sprint.
And I run.
ELEVEN
Mykal
Each year, Grenpale hosts a Winter Warrior contest among every village. As a show of valor to the God of Victory.
Babes and Fast-Trackers hunt for five days by ascending the indomitable glacial mountains. Where roaring winds battle against every harsh step. Where air dries your lungs to brittle sticks and heart to heavy stone. Where you stalk the wild as often as the wild stalks you.
Our president, a solitary young lady in the mountains, would descend to the villages only one day per year. She awarded the title Winter Warrior to the one returning with the most game. And then she vanished in the mountain’s dense fog.
Whoever won, their village leader would anoint them with hallowed water and crown them with dried river reeds and ivy strands.
For they were mighty enough to reach the gods.
I couldn’t rank the villages from gods-awful to most valiant, even if I thought hard. Huts were scattered and people minded themselves. It was too tough to see what one possessed over the other.
Though my pa always told me, “Yer ma used to say this village has more fierce heart than brawn.”
My ma might’ve been right. I was five the first time I ever saw someone awarded Winter Warrior in my village. Pa would claim they crowned many before, just not in my lifetime.
I remember that Winter Warrior well.
Reed and ivy wreath upon his gnarly brown locks, he spread his stocky arms and legs at a log table in our village’s sanctuary that was used mostly for rituals and worship to the gods. There, he sliced freshly cooked ram with a knife. Ladies and men salivated across from him.
I salivated.
Chalky mouth, knotted stomach. I desired grease and fat more than anything.
The Winter Warrior ate and chewed, a grin at the corner of his lip. Rare, to see a man or lady share with their village. I should’ve expected his greed.
No one starves to death unless it’s their deathday, but the discomfort is real. Many kill enough fresh game to feed themselves for months, and they’d still leave their families and their village to fend for themselves.
My pa stopped offering me food that same year. He shoved a bow and arrow in my chest. “Ye’re hungry, then go. Ye’re big enough now.”
I was ravenous and I thought the damned Winter Warrior would be different and hand me, a boy of five years, a bit of meat.
Because he was mighty enough to reach the gods.
He packaged up the remaining ram and left the grease splatter. No one licked it clean, afraid of being mocked.
After the famished villagers shuffled out, I lingered. Hesitating, aching, starving. Wondering about the measure of my own pride.
I left without a lick.
After that, I was determined—blood, heart, and bones—to never be that boy again. I relied only on myself. The next year, I entered my very first Winter Warrior contest. Standing shoulder-to-shoulder with teens and men and ladies of twenty years.
I was just six
but I believed I could beat them.
They stared down at me and all they saw was a little Babe trying to fill his days.
Wind beat at our raw faces. Splitting my lip. I never quit. By the second day of the hunt, most Babes staggered to the villages empty-handed. Some injured from lynx attacks. Others just frostbitten and cold.
I outlasted them all.
With steady bronze hands, my village leader lowered the wreath on my wheat-blond hair. And the next year, he crowned me again. At eight—the year of my deathday—I would win for the final time.
I was the only Babe in history of Grenpale who ever became Winter Warrior.
They often asked how I did it. How I slayed white bears twice my size. How I heaved them back to the village. How I managed to not slip and twist an ankle on the grueling mountainside. How I hiked and killed and lugged it all alone.
I’d flash a lopsided smile and say, “Ye’re just not better than I.”
The secret warmed me and I only ever handed the truth to my pa. The day before his deathday, a month before I believed I’d meet mine, I told him the real story.
Accent thick, I said, “I wore yer snow fers.” My pa had pelts as stark white as the snow. They engulfed my small frame and camouflaged me into the scenery. I resembled the beast that I was hunting. “Couldn’t see me on the mountainside and they paid me no notice. Barely even realized I was on top until it was too late.” Neck snapped.
Spear plunged into their torso.
Sometimes, I’d even put an arrow through their heart. Just to quicken their end.
His weather-beaten eyes bore confusion. “But how’d ya lug ’em back? They’d be three times yer size, Mykal.”
I quieted, unable to find a suitable answer. One that I could put in real words. I just shook my head and shrugged. “I dunno.”
Years later, while traveling through the Free Lands, maddening thoughts my only good company, I found the source of my youthful grit. Never once did I crave the damned accolades. Never did I aspire to be just like the Winter Warrior who shoveled ram between gluttonous lips.
The Raging Ones Page 11