Missy stopped long enough to take shelter behind a bush and fumble on her clothing, her scars winking like knives in the moonlight. Stockings and bra, top and skirt, all tugged into place. No boots; those, like her panties, had been reduced to tokens, limited-edition mementos of The Night Adam Ruined Missy's Life. Missy was far too numb to feel the pavement slap against her feet.
Clothed and yet still feeling completely naked, Missy ran back to her house. There was a moment of bitter relief that her key was in her skirt pocket; she would have died of humiliation if her parents or, God forbid, her sister had opened the door. That relief quickly faded as Missy placed the key into the lock.
It fit perfectly, just as Adam had played her perfectly.
He'd played her, and everyone had watched. Those who hadn't seen the live performance were assuredly being treated to the recorded version. Possibly in surround sound.
She thought of everyone—everyone—in school seeing her there on that bed, completely bare, her scars and skin on display. She heard their mocking laughter, felt their scorn like pimples erupting on her face.
Oh, God.
The pressure started like a balloon in the middle of her chest, slowly getting bigger. It expanded, flattening her heart, her lungs, now reaching out and around. It cemented her bowels and squeezed her throat as she stood there on the stoop, her hand on the doorknob, tears frozen in her eyes. Her vision blurred. She couldn't get enough air.
The pictures, the video, the gossip—all of it would circulate through school. Everyone either had seen her or would see her, stripped, her sins exposed.
Everyone.
Her hand shaking, she opened the front door and stumbled inside. The scent of garlic and butter had settled in the living room, and Missy breathed in the remnants of dinner as if they could save her.
They couldn't.
Cutterslut.
Adam's eyes, glinting like diamonds. Adam's grin, so horribly smug.
Freak.
Gasping, she worked her way upstairs. She didn't hear the television blaring from her parents' room—which signaled that her mom and dad were having sex—or notice that her sister's bedroom door was wide open, indicating that Sue was out of the house. As far as Missy was concerned, she was alone, for now and for always. She thought she saw a cat from the corner of her eye as she rounded the top of the stairs, but she ignored it because Graygirl was two months dead, and even if it was Graygirl's ghost there in the hallway, the cat couldn't help Missy now.
Only one thing could do that.
Drowning, she staggered into her room and leaned heavily against the door until it shut, then locked it. She turned on the overhead light because her scars, already exposed to everyone, couldn't be shielded by the dark, and she went to her closet door and dragged out her lockbox. She bumped the door semi-closed, and she placed the lockbox carefully on her bed.
The pressure in her chest had become almost unbearable—the glass jar of her heart had been crushed, the heart inside pulverized—and her breath came only in spastic wheezes. She had a clear thought, clanging like a bell, saying that she didn't need the blade.
But she did. Because without it, she would surely die.
She darted a frantic glance around her room, looking for something she couldn't name. On the closet door, James Dean and Marilyn Monroe said nothing, both lost in the land of stars who had died too young.
She was going to die.
She didn't want to die.
Her hand trembling, she opened her lockbox. Two months dropped away like snowflakes as she stared at the contents within. Before Adam's betrayal—the first betrayal, the one that had merely left her gutted and raw—back when she was cutting frequently, Missy would have gone to the bathroom before she opened her lockbox, and would have rubbed her arms and thighs and stomach with alcohol. But that was another girl, in another lifetime. Potential germs and infection didn't mean anything now.
All that mattered was the blood. She had to bleed out the badness, bleed until she could breathe again.
Folded neatly in the lockbox was a towel, once white, now dingy and stained from her ritual of pain. She took it out, running her fingers over the brown spots, trying to remember them when they had been scarlet drops—fresh, rich, brimming with emotion. It was her own security blanket, a dream catcher that trapped living nightmares when she pressed it against her cuts. The towel protected her from getting caught.
Too late for such things now. She set the towel aside, then looked inside the box.
The razor gleamed, winking like an old friend.
It was the same blade she had always used, taken from a broken disposable razor—the same brand used by her mother. There were times when Missy would touch the razor to her flesh and imagine that her mom knew what she was doing, that they were connected through the steel as if it were an umbilical cord. She would imagine that her mother understood what Missy did and why she did it, that her mother quietly condoned it even as she removed the stubble from her legs.
It was a pleasant lie, and as Missy would float in the quietude that came after the pain, she would enjoy the notion of her mom, even her dad, seeing her true face—that of the real Melissa Miller, whose colors ran outside the lines.
But that was a fantasy. Her parents didn't know her, not really. They went through the motions of affection, smiled the smiles of patience and platitudes. They claimed to accept her for who and what she was, and maybe they even believed they did just that. But her parents had their expectations, and Missy either met those expectations or exceeded them. Anything else was outside of their frame of reference.
The blade was cold to her touch. She stroked it once, hesitant and yet hopeful.
Missy's relationship with her razor wasn't just outside of her parents' frame of reference. It was another language, a dead language of a forgotten tribe. To her parents, pain was something to be avoided at best and dealt with at worst. To Missy, pain was a blessing. It was a moment of crystalline purity, one that made everything somehow bearable, if only for a little while. Momentary agony, and then the buzz of her blood welling up on her flesh. Pain was her salvation; seeing her blood on her skin was like seeing God.
She lifted the razor in her right hand, holding it between her thumb and first two fingers. She heard Adam and the others call her names and accuse her of horrific things, laughing at her all the while. She felt her soul crumple, squeezed into pulp. She tried to breathe and failed.
In her mind, Adam's voice whispered: Freak.
Tears stinging her eyes, she sliced down.
***
"Time to go," Death said abruptly. In the blink of an eye, his guitar was nowhere to be found.
Famine smiled tightly, a knife-flash of humor. "From zero to a hundred in a split second."
"It's all in the timing," Death agreed, sounding chipper. "Go thee out unto the world."
The Black Rider would have responded, but Death was already gone.
***
It wasn't enough.
She had sliced her arms to ribbons, but the badness remained, staining her insides like cancer.
She had gouged her belly until it was a mess of meat and blood, but she still couldn't breathe.
She had brought the razor to her inner thighs again and again and again, but with each sting came no release, no comforting numbness that dulled the horror of her life.
It wasn't enough. So she cut again—swiftly, mercilessly.
And maybe it was because her fingers were slick with blood, or maybe it was because she was exhausted and wretched and in excruciating pain, but for whatever the reason, her next stroke—her final stroke—slipped, and she opened up an artery. The spray hit her eyes, her cheek, her chin.
She had a moment of utter shock, in which she let out a quiet "Oh." An inexplicable feeling of déjà vu settled into her bones.
And then the blade slipped from her hand and she sank to the ground and she watched as her life leaked out of her in thick streamers of red.
She wondered numbly what went wrong, and what, if anything, waited for her when it was done. She knew that her parents and sister would think she had committed suicide, and she was horribly sad because she couldn't tell them how wrong they would be. She didn't mean to kill herself. She had only wanted to breathe again.
Bleeding out, Melissa Miller began to die.
You have blood on your hands.
The memories fell upon her, gentle as summer rain: first, Death standing on the doorstep, dressed in delivery browns, telling her to take the package he offered; next, her fingers dragging over the white box, leaving trails of red in their wake; last, Missy grabbing the package and slamming the door in Death's face.
In retrospect, she probably should have been a little more polite.
So afraid. Death's voice again, but she couldn't tell if it was her memory or if Death was with her now. Because he was, wasn't he? She was dying, so he would be there for her, lead her to wherever she was supposed to go...
Take the box, Melissa Miller.
The box. Where was the box?
On her closet door, Marilyn Monroe sighed in ecstasy, and James Dean searched for something just out of reach.
The closet. It was in her closet.
She tried to get up and failed; she tried to crawl and instead crashed prone on the floor.
You taking a nap? That was Bella's voice, teasing her on the safety of the soccer field. You've got to use your body better.
Listening to Bella, Missy dragged herself across her bedroom floor. Behind her, bloody streaks marred the beige carpet like a serial killer's bread crumbs. Missy made it to her closet door and nudged it open with her wet fingers. She lifted her head up to stare at the top shelf, impossibly high. The long white box that Death had given her was up there, waiting for her to take it and claim what lay inside.
"You should hurry," a cold voice said.
She turned her head—God, when did her head become so heavy? It was too big for her neck—and saw Death seated on her bed, grinning lazily, his eyes sparkling beneath his long messy bangs.
"I'm trying," she whispered.
"You're dying," he corrected. "Try harder."
Missy gritted her teeth and imagined Bella counting her down—Six seconds, go!—and propped herself onto her elbows. The world spun. Dizzy, she grabbed on to the door frame and pulled herself up, slowing bringing herself to her knees. She planted one stockinged foot, and using the door frame for balance, she was able to stand. She couldn't feel her feet.
The box was right there, on the edge of the high shelf. She reached up for it and couldn't quite touch it. She thought very, very dark thoughts.
On her bed, Death chuckled. "You're cute when you're going into irreversible shock."
Panting, Missy grabbed a bare hanger. Her fingers were slick with blood, and the hanger nearly slipped free.
Don't drop the ball, she heard Bella scold.
Her arm tingling, her fingers numb, Missy reached up. The hanger brushed against the box, but that wasn't enough to jostle the package loose.
Come on, she thought, come on! Maneuvering the hanger, she hooked it under the white box. And then she slowly pulled.
The box slid forward.
Come on! she thought again, her heartbeat pounding in her ears, behind her eyes. She kept pulling the hanger out, excruciatingly slow. The white box crept forward, and now a third of it peeked over the shelf's edge.
Her vision started to dim. Her arm, already heavy, suddenly weighed a thousand pounds and the bones in her legs turned to gelatin. Using the last of her strength, she yanked the hanger out. The momentum pulled the box out farther, and it balanced there on the edge of the shelf for a long moment—tantalizing, untouchable.
And then it crashed to the ground.
Missy didn't feel her legs give out. One moment she was leaning against the door frame, and the next she was sprawled on the floor, the box next to her bloody hand. Her head no longer felt heavy; it was blissfully light, lighter than air, as if it could just float away. The pain from her cuts had vanished, like magic, and so had the feeling in her limbs. Sweat dotted her brow, gleaming among the spatter of blood by her eyes.
She was so very cold. So very tired.
"Either take the box, Melissa Miller, or take thy rest." Death's words echoed in her bones, frosted her soul. His voice soft, he commanded: "Choose now."
Choose.
Missy rolled her head to stare at the package on the floor next to her. The box was longer than she had remembered, and she briefly wondered how it had fit atop her closet. Doesn't matter how, she decided as she dragged her hand over to the fallen box. It fit because it was supposed to fit.
Just like she was supposed to take the box.
As her fingers brushed against it, the white package turned the red of ripe cherries.
She couldn't see Death, but she heard the smile in his cold, cold voice. "The choice is made. Open the box, Melissa Miller."
With those words, heat flooded her limbs, bringing with it newfound strength. Missy, no longer dying, rolled onto her hip and pushed herself up until she was on her knees. The cheerfully red package lay in front of her like a birthday present. She lifted the lid off the box.
Inside, a sword rested against a backing of ruby-colored cloth. The weapon looked nothing like its more modern cousins; for one thing, it was too short, and for another, it wasn't steel or iron but something redder, like bronze. The straight blade plumped in the middle, with one end coming to a wicked point and the other extending into a hilt. It was the idea of a sword, there in its once white box.
"Oh," Missy breathed, enamored. The sword radiated age and, stronger than that, power, and as she stared at it raptly, she felt something akin to awe wash over her. This blade was no mere sword—it was a Sword, meant to be revered.
"It's beautiful," she whispered.
"It's yours."
"Mine?" Impossible. She couldn't own such a treasure.
"Yours," said Death. "The Sword is your symbol of office."
That got Missy to tear her gaze from the weapon in its box and stare at the figure on her bed. He bore more than a passing resemblance to a certain dead alternative rock star, but Missy understood that his appearance was nothing more than a whim. He sat there in a red and black striped sweater, frayed along the hem of one of the sleeves, the collar of a white shirt jutting out along the neckline. His blue jeans were torn and patched; his Converse sneakers looked comfortably broken in. Everything about him, from his outfit to the messy long blond hair, appeared casual, familiar.
Everything except his eyes. Beneath the startling blue, they were bottomless. She could get lost in those eyes and never know it until she was already far, far gone. His eyes were haunting.
"Thou art War," Death said, his voice cold and, appropriately, grave. "Thou art the Red Rider of the Apocalypse." And then, warmer: "Rock on."
Missy opened her mouth and then closed it with an audible snap.
War.
She knew she shouldn't be calmly sitting on her bedroom floor, being told by Death—by a very attractive Death—that she was now War of the Apocalypse. She knew she should be terrified. She realized she might be certifiably insane. She understood all of this, and none of it mattered.
She beheld the weapon in its box, and she longed to touch it, to feel its weight in her hands. No, it wasn't just a weapon. It was power incarnate; it was passion given form. It was glorious.
And it was hers.
"Yes," Death said. "It is."
It didn't even make her blink that Death had read her mind; this was a day in which the impossible was accepted as commonplace. She stared at the blade in its cherry-red box, and she felt it staring back, assessing her. Accepting her. She was War, and the weapon, her weapon, called to her, its voice a metallic song that reverberated in her mind like the clang of steel against steel. It was hypnotic.
"Pick up the Sword. Feel its weight in your hand," Death said. And then, as an afterthought: "And brace yourself."
Missy closed her fingers around the handle and lifted the Sword free from its box.
Emotions slammed into her, riding her body and screaming along her skin. Anger in its various forms took her first, chewed her up and spat her out: fury, scalding and insistent; jealousy, a gnawing hunger; hatred, cold enough to freeze her blood. Happiness, then, had its turn, soothing her where rage had left scorch marks: joy, blissful and light; kindness, a warm balm; the giddy touch of glee; a tickle of contentment. Love washed over her in a gentle rain, only to burn her as it transformed into lust and, hotter still, ecstasy. On its heels came the soft chill of vulnerability, and the wrenching emptiness of shame.
All of that and more, all in the space of one breath to the next.
Missy's body jittered as the elations and sorrows of every living thing jolted through her like lightning. She tried to scream but couldn't do more than grit her teeth against the tidal wave of sensation.
Control, Death whispered in her mind.
Control? That was a bitter joke. Proof of that was tattooed along her arms and legs and stomach.
You cut yourself in reaction to an abundance of emotion, Death said, unflappable. Act instead of react. Control.
Tears squeezed from her eyes as she pushed against the Sword, against the surge of emotion. It was like trying to hold back an avalanche with her fingers. She couldn't do this.
"Of course you can," Death said aloud. "You have before."
She thought of the glass jar of her heart, how it would bottle her rage and sorrow and aching embarrassment and allow her to swim through her life without being pulled under.
Of course she could do this. She had been doing it for months.
Snarling, she pushed once again, shoving the emotions back into the Sword. They flowed off her like wasps washed away in a sudden storm, stinging her even as they rushed past. By the time she was done, she was sweating freely and shaking like a junkie.
And damn if she didn't feel good.
The Sword, perhaps in reaction to her catharsis, winked ... and transformed into a long silver sword with a flared cross guard. The hilt now sported a leather-wrapped handle, oxblood red, counterbalanced by a circular silver pommel.
Grinning, Missy hefted the blade high. It was neither too heavy nor too light, and it felt as if it had been forged specifically for her hand.
The Sword hummed in her grip, singing of blood and fury, of passion unrestrained. As she brandished it, the weapon showed her visions of the world tearing itself apart in its need to uncover a savior, images of a figure in red—of Missy—holding the Sword aloft like a beacon on a stormy night.
Yes, she thought joyously. Yes. That was the truth of it: everyone, everything, was filled with wants and needs and urges, and most people spent their lives denying themselves, talking themselves into stifling banality. They didn't realize how they were suffocating their potential until it was nothing more than a stillborn dream. With the Sword, Missy could show them the truth, and more. She could spread the gospel of war and lead them to enlightenment. They would meet their savior in a river of blood.
She let out a ferocious laugh, one that left her throat raw.
"Control," murmured Death.
Oh, she was in control. More control now than ever before.
His voice, like a caress: "Are you, now?"
Yes.
Her gaze was transfixed on the Sword, and she drew it close to her face. She saw herself reflected in the blade: her eyes shone wickedly, hinting of murder, and her smile was twisted into something grotesque. She blinked and the reflection vanished, replaced by the glimmer of cold steel.
The dark vision acted like a splash of ice water, quickly sobering her. She dropped the Sword as if burned, and it landed on the blood-streaked carpet with a muffled thump. The Sword's image lingered behind her eyes, and she shuddered violently. She whispered, "What was that?"
"You. Nothing more, nothing less."
She turned to face Death, who was sitting up on her bed, watching her intently. Part of her squirmed from that considering gaze ... but another part of her, the one that had relished holding the Sword, enjoyed his attention. More than enjoyed it, based on her body's reaction. She crossed her arms over her chest. Her voice husky, she said, "That wasn't me."
"You are War. The passions of all living things call to you, and you to them. And your own passions are more ... extreme." He emphasized the last word, turning it into something enticing.
She rubbed her arms, even though she wasn't cold. If anything, she was feeling much, much too warm. "You picked the wrong person. I'm just a—"
Freak, Adam jeered.
"—a girl," she said bitterly.
Death smiled, a slow curving of his lips that made Missy's heart beat faster. "Your past is meaningless," he said, "and your future is waiting to be defined. Don't condemn yourself to mediocrity just yet."
His words rang with the promise of salvation, and for a wonderful moment, Missy felt hope bloom.
But then she thought suddenly of Graygirl, heard the cat's final, pitiful cry before she died in Missy's arms.
Missy's eyes burned with unshed tears. She wanted to curse, to shout, to beg for forgiveness, but the words refused to come. No matter what Death said, her past couldn't be erased. She bore her sins like scars.
"That's one thing I'll never understand," said Death, shaking his head. "Why do you people insist on suffering?"
Missy had no answer.
"Don't feel bad. I don't have an answer, either, and I've been doing this for a long, long time." He held out his hand to her.
Missy took a deep breath, and then she accepted Death's hand. It was firm, and cool, and as he helped her to her feet, a gentle numbness spread through her body, as if her dead face had encased her like a mummy.
"Come on," Death said, smiling softly. "The night is young, and there's much to do."