The Raging Ones

by Krista Ritchie

  Mykal combs back dangling strands of his hair, his smile expanding wide. “The same goes for you, brother.”

  Brothers?

  Court withdraws from the bed to reach Mykal. “We’re not brothers.”

  “You’ll have to be reminding me what we are, Court. I forget every now and then. One day it’s brother, the next it’s friend, tomorrow it might be—”

  “We have no time for this.” Court gestures to the clock.

  I ache to relax against the mound of feather pillows, but urgency binds my shoulders. I feel similar to how Court looks, ready to storm out and leave this place behind.

  I don’t want to go so soon.

  “If you don’t mind,” I tell them both, “I’d like to stay here for one more moment.”

  Court turns, face deadly serious. “We do mind.”

  Mykal crosses his arms over his bare chest. “Let’s let her pretend a second longer.”

  Pretend? A chill skates down my neck.

  “We don’t have time for that,” Court rebuts.

  I rise slowly to my knees, purplish bruises blemishing my calves and elbows. They’ve quieted, gazes latching directly on to me. I have no reason to war with them. If there’s a window of time to see the gods, or take me where I need to be, then we should hurry.

  I don’t want to be late for what lies after death. I’ve botched too much already.

  I clear my throat once and say plainly to Court, “You can take me, Caeli—or whatever the gods call you … or however this works.” What else can I do but this?

  Mykal tilts his head to Court. “What’s she going on about?”

  Court slips on a pair of black gloves, looking to me but answering Mykal, “She thinks we’ve been sent by the gods.” As he yanks the last glove on, he raises his dark brows at me like We’re not.

  I swiftly scuttle backward, inhaling sharply. I press against the headboard and my muscles shriek to stop moving.

  Mykal outstretches his hand. “It’s all right. You’re all right.” His eyes freeze Court. “Gods bless, you couldn’t let her believe what she wanted, even for a moment like she asked?”

  Court glowers. “I don’t exist to pacify you or her—I’m here to keep you alive.”

  Alive?

  Mykal lets out a frustrated growl.

  A tickle scratches my throat and I cough into my arm. I scoot farther backward, my shoulders digging into the wooden headboard.

  “This isn’t real,” I mutter to myself, tears threatening to well. “I’m hallucinating.”

  That’s it, isn’t it?

  I put my hand to my heart, the organ nearly beating out of my skin.

  Maybe I really am in hell—

  “You’re not dead,” Court declares.

  I solidify and then my face contorts. “No…” I couldn’t have botched this. Nobody dodges their deathday. Nobody. It’s impossible.

  Anxious heat cakes my skin and I lick my dry lips, checking over my shoulders and side to side for different news. For the truth.

  I look to Mykal.

  He rubs his neck, eyes gripped to the rug.

  I look to Court.

  He stands as sternly as before, gaze cemented to mine.

  “Who are you?” I question loudly. “And don’t say that I’m not dead. I have to be.” I can’t process a world where I’m alive.

  How will I see my mother?

  Where will I go?

  When will my next deathday be?

  No one lives with that much uncertainty.

  “You are alive,” Court says bluntly. “Whatever gods you believe in, they won’t come for you.”

  “At least not today.” Mykal softens the blow. “Court, here, isn’t the spiritual type, but I am—maybe not as much as you. I never believed Court to be a boy sent from the gods.” His shadow of a smile vanishes fast. “Though looking at him, I understand the mix-up all right.”

  Court rolls his eyes again, but they land back on me. I grip my knees to my chest, willing myself as far from them as possible, but something inside tries to soothe me and crawl toward them.

  I don’t listen.

  Court continues, “You’re at the Catherina Hotel, only three blocks from the alleyway where we found you.”

  I try to calm at one thought. They helped me.

  When no one helped me, they were there. I still don’t know who they are—and I still don’t understand how I can be … alive.

  I don’t understand much of anything.

  Maybe this is a test from the gods. Maybe my body is outside and my soul is here. Maybe—

  “This is real,” Court professes, his persistence and annoyance palpable.

  It causes me to growl out, “How can you be so sure?” How can anyone be this certain of something so irrational?

  “Because,” Court tells me, “I dodged my deathday too.”

  “As did I,” Mykal says.

  I open my mouth to respond, but the words lodge in my throat, too stunned to speak. No. But they’d have no reason to lie. Who goes around saying I dodged my deathday! to strangers?

  Madmen.

  I cautiously eye Mykal who inspects a lamp. As though he’s never seen one before. He peers beneath the shade and the burgundy fringe caresses his cheek—I swat in front of my face, thinking a fluttering feather tickled my skin.

  With little grace, Mykal’s bulky arm collides with the pole. He lets it clatter to the floor. Like a lamp’s secondary purpose is to fall. He tilts his head and waits. I think he believes it’ll spring to life and right itself.

  Court must see me staring curiously at Mykal because he says, “Leave everything be.”

  Mykal stretches his arms out wide. “I did it no harm.”

  I repeat what they say is fact:

  I’m not dead.

  I’m not dead.

  I’m not dead.

  Confusion grows, shock coiling around my body, squeezing tight. “I can’t … believe.” I shake my head over and over. Part of me does. Belief knocks at my heart, asking to embrace every piece. I feel it growing inside of me.

  “Dress,” Court whispers to Mykal, hurriedly throwing slacks, a white shirt, and a green wool coat at him.

  I shouldn’t trust anything they say, but I was supposed to die. Yet, I’m at the Catherina Hotel. I believe in the gods, but I’ve never seen them. Can’t I believe in this?

  I dodged my deathday.

  I still intake shallow, hurried breaths.

  Mykal coughs into his fist while zipping up his slacks.

  Court takes one step toward the bed. “Relax,” he says in what I presume is his gentlest voice.

  It’s not gentle at all.

  Court checks the clock for the umpteenth time. “We’ve been in this room for too long, so all introductions need to happen faster than they’ve been.”

  “Who are you?” I ask again.

  “Court.” He points to the other boy, who pulls his shirt over his head. “Mykal.” Then to me. “You’re Franny—”

  “Wait.” I stiffen. “How do you know my name?”

  Mykal tucks his shirt in his slacks and looks to Court. Court looks to him. Then to me. A heartbeat later, he procures a small blue card from his pocket.

  My identification.

  “You stole my card.” It hits me like a car slamming against a brick wall. These aren’t good people. All my defenses catapult sky-high. They’re not Caeli. They’re not gods. They’re not hallucinations.

  If I’m not dead. If this is real. Then there’s only one answer.

  They’re thieves.

  SIX

  Court

  She lunges.

  Brown eyes ablaze, Franny battles through her injuries and races across the bed to pummel me. I take a few controlled steps back, my calves and knees throbbing with hers.

  Before I can explain myself, she lands on the rug and wrenches an iron poker from its rack. Crossing the room, she points the pierced metal tip at the hollow of my throat.

  Purple soot
stains my skin and I lift my chin higher.

  Mykal charges forward, but I extend my arm—and he staggers to a stop beside me.

  “He’s of no threat to you!” Mykal shouts.

  “I don’t know who you are,” she says, retightening her grip on the poker, her weak arm beginning to fall. “So if you like breathing and eating from your mouth, you’ll give me my identification and my things.” As she silently boils, my own blood swelters in kind.

  Mykal growls coarsely and spouts off two vulgar curses.

  She never yells back, but their hostility mounts together, trying to lasso me.

  I clench my teeth and concentrate solely on my senses. I can’t return her identification right away—because if she leaves this room and shouts about how she dodged her deathday, President Morcastle of Altia will likely ask for a countrywide retesting.

  We can’t be caught.

  “We’re not here to hurt you,” I say, more curtly than I intend. “We helped you, Franny.”

  Her eyes burn. As do mine, but she’s the source. Franny rubs at them with her biceps, still not retracting the weapon from my throat.

  I’m running out of time—I’m constantly throwing myself against a clock and I’m afraid I’ll break before I gain another minute, another second. We might be linked, but how much time can I afford to be compassionate?

  I’d convinced a bellhop to sneak us in the back door of the Catherina by paying him off with bills I pickpocketed. We’ve had the room for five hours when we were only granted four. We need to leave, but she has to trust us first.

  I eye the metal poker, the point still at the hollow of my throat. Gods be damned.

  “But then you stole my things,” Franny says.

  “What things?” Mykal retorts.

  She was barely even clothed when we found her in the alleyway. Franny had no possessions except her identification card. Our first meeting has engrained itself within me.

  How we sensed someone pissing on her legs. How we sensed hands grabbing her body, ripping at her clothes—how her limbs felt like our limbs and her fright felt like our fright.

  How we’d never run harder through the snow.

  Just to reach her.

  “So I don’t … have many things,” Franny says, “but I’m no chump either, and I know how this works. You’ll strip me of everything I have. If not my belongings then my dignity—and I won’t let that happen.”

  Her malice drips into my veins. Who stole from her and what would they steal to ignite such hate? It’s of no importance. I don’t have time for more discourse. Or to connect with Franny that way.

  Forcefully, Mykal says, “We’d never harm you.”

  The poker droops, but Franny raises it higher. “How can I believe anything you say? You could be banking on the fact that I’m some chump, ready to accept every word you give me.”

  Chump. My jaw twitches each time she uses Fast-Tracker slang. I’m surprised she hasn’t called me a wart yet, or even worse, yelled curses like fyke and mayday.

  If she says botch, we might be in more trouble passing as Influentials than I realized.

  Wasting not a second more, I clasp the iron poker. Her eyes enlarge, but she never releases her grip. I didn’t expect or want her to.

  “I don’t believe you’re a fool, Franny. And I doubt Mykal takes you for one either.” I home in on her blue-and-green dyed hair, ratty and long at her shoulders, and the silver piercings stuck in her lip, brow, and nose. “I think you’re a common Fast-Tracker. Hedonistic, pleasure-seeking—you spend most of your life’s earnings on temporary experiences. Because you were supposed to die.”

  She frowns, her silver piercing pulling downward with her brow.

  I purposefully step closer to the sharpened point and catch her off guard, the tip a breath from my flesh.

  Franny inhales. “Don’t—”

  She doesn’t want to hurt me, the thought flits out of my head. My skin rips, the metal digging until pressure wells with pain.

  Her clutch slackens, dropping the poker just as I let go. Metal clatters to the rug. With her free hand, she reaches to her own throat. She can feel this.

  She can feel me.

  “What … what is this?”

  I touch my throat, a dot of blood staining my fingers. I button my coat to the collar, hiding the small wound. Mykal rubs his neck, as though his flesh broke too. But it didn’t.

  Only mine bleeds.

  “I’ll explain it to you”—I fish the last button through the loop—“if you’d just be civilized.” I collect Mykal’s wool coat off the rug and shove it at his chest.

  He growls a curse about my “foul mood” before slipping his arms through the sleeves.

  We must leave.

  Franny draws back her shoulders. “I am civilized.” She pauses, rethinking. “For a Fast-Tracker, I’m very civil.”

  “As a Fast-Tracker myself,” I retort, “I assure you, you’re not.” I edge closer as her lips part and brows arch.

  I have little time to decide what I think of Franny Bluecastle. Bare bones: average stature, typical FT hair, freckles splashed across her cheeks, expressive brows that wiggle, scrunch, and arch. She should be no one to me.

  I should be no one to her.

  But our eyes glue together, shifting when I curve around her frame, my arm brushing her woolen robe.

  Then her eyes glue on Mykal’s and his to hers. Using his teeth, he pulls his leather glove to his wrist. The corner of his lip rises in a partial smile.

  I sidle to the bed and try to remain alert, my joints rigid. Franny’s abandoned ice begins to melt inside the handkerchief and soak the red sheets. I return to her with ice in my gloved hand.

  My height far surpassing hers, I look down.

  A dark welt purples her cheekbone. If I focus keenly, I taste blood from her stinging gums.

  I’m sorry.

  My nose flares, restraining the apology within me. “I was on the fast track to death,” I tell her. “Just like you. Just like every gods-forsaken Fast-Tracker in this world. We’re all meant to die young.” I explain further, “I dodged my deathday when I was fifteen.”

  As gently as I can, I press the ice to her cheek. She lets me this time and the sudden cold bites all three of us.

  I whisper, “I’m seventeen now.”

  Franny processes and tears surge, reddening her eyes. From the intensity, mine follow suit, filling to the brim.

  Overwhelmed, pressure sits heavy, like someone began mortaring a house on my breastbone. Even linked, I have no idea why she’s begun to cry.

  Franny puts the heel of her hand to one eye, tears still gathering. Her arm falls. “I don’t cry … for no reason like this. I’m just…”

  Overcome. By these new doubled—no tripled emotions: confusion, certainty, worry, and fear all collided and wrapped together as one.

  Then she stares up at me and a tear rolls down her bruised cheek. “What is this?”

  The door flies open.

  I quickly swipe my cheek and then realize no tear escaped, thankfully. I spin around to confront—of course.

  It’s him.

  The shaggy brown-haired bellhop props his body on the door frame. His satisfied grin causes Mykal’s fists to clench. He wears the respectable red bellhop uniform: embroidered with gold and a cylindrical cap strapped beneath his angular jaw.

  The young bellhop isn’t the main problem.

  The main problem struts farther into the room with a pompous, dignified air: a tuxedo-clad man of sixty or seventy years.

  Crisply, the older man says, “My bellhop tells me you’re at the Catherina Hotel illegally. I need identification and for the three of you to exit without complaint.”

  So the bellhop sold me out to one of the owners of the hotel. I expected to meet security, but maybe he ran into his boss instead.

  I still need three things.

  I need to provide Franny with warm clothes.

  I need to keep her identification secret. />
  And I need to exit without any attention drawn to us.

  Mykal always tells me, “You can lie better than the best of them, Court.”

  I’m not as assured, but we’ll see. My confident stride propels me forward. I stop in front of the hotel owner. “Your bellhop lies.”

  The bellhop snorts, as though my attempt was pathetic.

  Besides his entrance, I never acknowledge the bellhop face-to-face again.

  I seize the owner’s gaze. “I paid your bellhop extra to accommodate my injured wife and her brother in this very room. I used the back door because I had no time to reach the front. He guaranteed that the funds would see an owner—and now I see that he’s kept the bills for himself and lied to you.”

  The owner’s white mustache contrasts his rosy-red face, embarrassed.

  I talk and dress the part of a wealthy Influential and I’m given respect and the benefit of the doubt. Whereas the bellhop is given none.

  Bitterness runs in the back of my throat. I’m not better than anyone. I’ve ripped open enough bodies to see that we’re all just made of flesh, blood, and bones.

  “Zimmer,” the owner scolds the bellhop but never allows him to speak. To me, the owner says quickly, “I’ll see that our bellhop repays us for his mistake. I’m sorry for any—”

  “You really believe this wart over me?” Zimmer straightens up, gawking in disbelief. I watch him out of the corner of my eye.

  The flustered owner takes an affronted step backward. “What did you just say?”

  Zimmer removes his red bellhop cap, unkempt brown hair covering his forehead and ears. “He’s lying.”

  Franny and Mykal waver behind me, both silent, motionless, and unsure. Their uncertainty eats at me, but I push forward. Physically one step closer to the owner.

  “He also promised my wife’s fur coat would be dry-cleaned and delivered to our room one hour ago.” I suck in a breath with distaste.

  “We’ll retrieve that for you, Mr.—?”

  “Good because my medical staff left me a note about another amputation. We have to leave in fifteen minutes.” I speak rapidly. “Try not to be late. I wouldn’t want to explain to my staff that the service at the Catherina isn’t up to par with Yamafort’s Darla Hotel.”