The Raging Ones Read online

  What he does.

  His dreams, his life.

  It’s all in my hands.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Mykal

  Six rows of metal folding chairs line the launchpad. Finally a celebration of sorts, I first think. Nearly everyone seems to be present for the Saga 5 Mission announcement: StarDust directors, remaining candidates, even a few starcraft technicians.

  Bright-eyed and formally dressed StarDust directors face the audience, and next to Tauris, the hologram orb device is perched on a round table. Blazing spotlights show off the freshly buffed Saga starcraft. Reminding us why we’re all here.

  Well, not all of us.

  “He’s late,” Franny mutters, peeking over her shoulder again. From the concrete launchpad, we can see into every hallway and no one parades through a single one.

  What in three hells are you doing, Court? I crack a crick in my bones, straining my neck as much as Franny. Court would say our glances are pointless because we can feel his whereabouts without looking. I can and he’s nowhere near the launchpad.

  Since his interview two days ago, a pit has sat in his gut like a pile of rocks. Court wouldn’t even spill the details. Just said that it went poorly.

  I focus my mind on his senses for a bit. His fingers fumble with the StarDust pin on his tux. Anxious.

  “He’ll be coming soon, little love.”

  Franny reties the silky bow of her dark blue blouse. “Why do you call me little love?” she suddenly asks so softly that I almost mishear. She’s seated at the end of a row. While we talk of private matters, I keep my voice as hushed as hers.

  Months ago, she could’ve questioned me, but maybe it’s a good distraction from Court. Or maybe she just now found the courage to ask.

  Little love.

  I extend an arm around her shoulders, my lips curving upward. “My pa talked a lot, and he’d often tell me”—my mouth brushes her ear—“‘Beyond the mountains, Mykal, the old say that those who die young find little love. No time for more, yeh see, but if that’s so, then I’ll be surrounding myself with a little love over a great big love any day of the week.’”

  “A little love,” she whispers, smile spreading. “I wish I met your pa.”

  “I wish I met your mother.” I pause, thinking. “But I feel like I sort of know her through you.”

  Franny elbows my side, a bit happy, but her smile fades at the empty chair next to me.

  We return some of our attention to the directors. The ceremony has not yet started. I lean into Franny again. “Promise you’ll be sending me a letter from space.”

  I feel the heat of her scowl. “You’re joining us, even if I have to pack you in my satchel.”

  “There’s no luggage that’ll be big enough to hide me.”

  Her face falls. “You’re supposed to say ‘We’re more than all right.’”

  The likelihood that I’m chosen for this mission is slim. I’ve always known that, but I’d say anything to see her smile. “We’re more than all right.”

  Franny mutters, “Gods,” after feeling my lie.

  I sense Court again. Still in his dorm, he sluggishly ties his polished shoes. After all the work we’ve put into StarDust, you’d think he’d like to be here, but he’s slow. Slower than he’s ever been.

  “He wants to miss this,” I realize.

  Franny cringes. “He’s afraid to face us if the outcome isn’t in our favor.”

  I nod. “He’ll be blaming himself.”

  We know him. We’re linked, so he can’t exactly hide, even when he wishes to.

  Good effort, but we feel you, Court.

  Our focus veers to the directors as Amelda waves in greeting. The crowd begins to clap and whistle. I join them at the right time.

  Tauris places a palm on the orb, and a hologram sparkles to spell out The Saga 5 Mission. The applause intensifies, but then weakens altogether, Tauris raising a hand for silence.

  “On behalf of StarDust,” Tauris says, “the directors would like to congratulate the five candidates who’ll embark on a great mission in a few months’ time. Without further wait, here are the Saga 5.”

  The directors step aside. Beneath The Saga 5 Mission the orb projects a full-bodied image of Court: posture strict, seemingly motionless, but the glittering hologram makes his grim eyes sparkle.

  My grin bursts and I clap heartily with the audience. Franny is smiling from ear to ear. The directors share the applause, but their gazes flit every which way. In search of Court. He’s missing his celebration.

  The second image pops up next to Court’s. Brown hair blowing, lips in a mischievous, bent smile—I recognize the lady.

  Padgett Soarcastle. Two rows ahead of us, Gem hugs her older sister, but Padgett stares fixatedly at the hologram, concerned about her sister’s chances. She has nothing to fear. They’ll be dying together. Same place, same time, most likely. Gem has to make the mission.

  As the cheers quiet, the third image appears. “Who’s that?” I ask Franny. Never noticing this little boy, his big ears drawn forward and eyes a dazzling green.

  “Arri Lowcastle,” Franny says, worry crinkling her brows. “He beat me in a couple pilot simulations. Not all, but some…”

  Gods bless.

  The fourth candidate’s image floats next to Arri’s face. I can’t place this lady either, but her deep red hair spools around fair cheeks, her stretched smile a bit forced.

  “Evie Lowcastle, Arri’s older cousin,” Franny says with fingers pressed to her downturned lips.

  One spot is left.

  “It’s yours,” I tell Franny, and I’m happy for it. She deserves to be on that starcraft with Court. I’ll be finding a way to them eventually. In time. It may take me years, but I can’t just … I can’t—I hunch forward, winded.

  I rest my forearms to my thighs and hang my head. Not able to paint on false hope anymore. Defeat crushes me inside and out.

  Franny curves her arm around my taut back. “It can’t be me. It has to be Gem.”

  “Last candidate,” Tauris calls.

  The applause resounds, somewhat weaker, but Franny’s low gasp forces me to look. The striking, camera-ready features of Kinden Valcastle stare back at me. If I could spar with a damned hologram, I’d tear off his arrogant grin.

  We sit like hardened cement. Even when the hologram blinks away and Tauris says, “Wine and cocktails will be served in the dining room. Please, everyone, join us in celebrating Court, Padgett, Arri, Evie, and Kinden. Our Saga 5.”

  After polite applause, people start filing out of the launchpad. Only a few candidates seem disheartened. If the mission had been to colonize a new planet, more might’ve been glum.

  “How is this possible?” Franny murmurs, watching Padgett and Gem speak rapidly to each other. I catch a couple of phrases like you must go and not without you.

  Zimmer sighs heavily when he stands, stuffing his hands into his baggy slacks. On his way out, he shrugs at Franny and says quietly to her, “Now I understand why they tell us not to make lofty goals.”

  Franny grimaces as he trudges away.

  All the chairs soon empty, but Franny and I stay rooted, dazed. The pitter-patter in the hallways fades to silence, leaving us alone—and suddenly, my head, her head, our heads careen forward, a swift excruciating blow.

  Again, a blunt object slams the back of our skulls, obliterating my sight into tiny shards. Pain blossoms and ripples through my hard bones … but it’s not her. It’s not me.

  It’s Court.

  “Mykal?” Franny’s panic drifts away from my mind.

  Court’s hands are my hands, reaching to the back of his head. His fingers wet with blood. I scream from the core. In agony. In despair.

  His terror pierces me like a thousand daggers, and I try to rise for him. Get up. Get up. I need to find him. To hold him. But I’m weighed by his senses. I collapse off the metal chair. Landing on my trembling hands and knees.

  Franny yells but her voice is nothi
ng but a hurried whisper of “Mykal, look at me, focus on me, hear me, feel me.”

  Tearing myself away feels impossible.

  Someone fists his thick hair and slams his head to the floorboards. I gasp for air, my lungs flaming. Scalding, enraged tears crease the corners of my eyes.

  My senses. I bear down hard on my teeth, growling out frustration and hatred. A quick, malicious hand clutches his ankle and wrenches Court to his back.

  My spine shrieks. I’m on my back. Get up.

  Get up.

  I try to rise again. “Court!” I scream.

  Then I feel my name on his terrified lips, yelled in desperation.

  His back bumps against the hardwood. Dragged forcefully. My head—his head bangs the ground, and I scream violently, “GET UP!”

  Veins bulge in my neck. I scream and scream; his pain shredding me. Get up.

  Franny wraps her arms around my bare chest, after stripping off my shirt. Skin to skin, our link heightens to where her pulse pounds over Court’s, and on the launchpad’s concrete ground, I sit up. Through blurry vision, I try to claw the hands off his ankles. Mimic me. Mimic me.

  Court struggles.

  He can’t sit up.

  His cry rips through my throat.

  “No!” I yell, my eyes wet and burning. “Don’t you quit!” Don’t quit. His fright cuts me in half, and I keep heaving for breath. I’m being dragged faster.

  I kick and kick. “Get away from him!”

  My fingernails dig into floorboards, splinters slitting my skin—his skin.

  Fight.

  Sharp nausea roils, but Franny supports me to my feet. I wrap an arm around her shoulder. “We have to…” reach him. I stagger, my blood boiling. I should’ve protected him. I should’ve been there for him. I promised him for years that I’d never let anyone touch him with malice.

  I failed him.

  When he was battling in the Free Lands, I had more focus, more awareness. Now I can hardly make sense of where I am. We heightened the link. So many emotions course through me. Disorienting. Our senses jumble, but his horror stomps on most everything else. Like a widespread, inextinguishable wildfire.

  Franny’s voice flits far off.

  I grunt, a hard boot striking my ribs. Air escapes my lungs but never fills up again. My shoulders pound against harsh stairs, dragged farther and farther. I’m a sack of weight, but I fight. Don’t quit.

  I sit up to seize the hand on my ankle and a blade slices my thigh.

  Another scream dies between my clenched teeth.

  Franny slaps my face. Twice, maybe thrice. Until I blink and see her wide eyes and freckled cheeks. I see where I am. Court’s dorm room. We must’ve stumbled hurriedly here while I drowned in his senses.

  My body numbs at the pool of crimson blood streaking out the door.

  “Mykal!” Franny clasps my arms, shaking me. “We have to find him. Focus!”

  Focus on what? I don’t understand …

  “Focus harder,” she urges, voice rushed. “What do you feel around him? What kind of floor? Where is he?!”

  I’ll be returning to his senses then. I can’t see or hear him, but I can feel and taste and smell. “You may have to slap me again … to wake me.”

  “I will. Just go, go.”

  I shut my eyes and immediately kneel—and retch, his emotions tangled and marred like diving into a bitter nest of twisted thorns. Puncturing every part of me.

  Blood floods my mouth, gurgling in the back of my throat. I cough. My scratched fingers grip a substance … not wood. Something else. I roll onto my side. Choking for air. What am I grabbing? I kneel to my hands and feet, sore muscles wailing. Then a boot crashes against my lower back, forcing my stomach down.

  The floor is soft.

  Not carpet.

  Not snow.

  Not marble or tile.

  What is this? Dry and coarse. Gluing to my bloodied mouth. I peel the parched strand off and my palm flattens on the ground.

  Then I know.

  THIRTY-NINE

  Court

  Golden straw adheres to my mouth and chin. I’m enclosed in unnatural dried grasslands. Surrounded by fake brush, fake blue skies, fake animals—and the back of my head hammers jarringly. Vehemently. Reminding me that I’m not fake and that reality is ten paces out of reach. Where velvet ropes section off this museum exhibit.

  I spit out a wad of straw, blood, and bile. A heavy sole is grinding into my back. My energy depletes, struggling to scream and claw myself to a stance and thrust his boot away.

  Breathing rapid breaths, I spit again. And again.

  I don’t need to see his sinewy build or his ash-brown hair or his feverish eyes to know whose boot bears on me. Who has dragged me mercilessly to the closed museum. Who has tormented me for much longer than just today.

  Bastell. He crept into my room so lithely that as soon as I noticed the door ajar, he was behind me.

  And struck my head.

  Now Bastell frees my body, removing his boot from my back. And he glides around my battered frame like a cold shadow. Somewhere in the exhibit, he watches me pant helplessly and struggle to my hands and knees with quivering arms.

  Pain clouds my vision. I pinch my eyes—No … Mykal pinches his eyes. I think. Is that him? Or is it me? I reach for his enduring strength, for his love, for all of him—his senses beating and beating next to my dying heart. If we hadn’t kissed, if the link wasn’t this strong, I’m certain he’d be as lost to me as Franny.

  “Mykal,” I choke out.

  He stands. He’s yelling, screaming at me to follow. Get up! I can almost see him. Get up!

  Bastell slashes my ribs, his sharpened blade dripping with my blood, and my jaw locks, face twists, a moan mangled in my throat. I lose all sense of Mykal.

  He’s gone.

  Fear capsizes my stomach and I puke and spit again. Exhausted tears haze my sight, but I turn my head to see honey-brown fur and a reddish mane.

  An enormous lion is mounted on a low fake boulder. Teeth bared and anger lancing his glass eyes, the extinct animal roars a noiseless roar. As though knowing his last breath would be one of unbridled rage.

  Is it possible to empathize with something that’s already dead?

  I’m not a lion. Franny and Mykal would scream out their dying breath, but I only ache to slip away and shut my eyes. And let this end.

  Then I think: If that were true, I wouldn’t have fought for StarDust. I wouldn’t have tried so hard and put my heart into something so impossible.

  I have fight left in me.

  I’m not decayed and gone. I’m here. I’m still breathing.

  He hasn’t killed me yet.

  “Do you not recall the thief’s dance?” His saccharine voice sickens me, and his frenzied gaze latches on to my every action. Pacing around my fragile body, Bastell twirls a dagger, his plum trench coat dusting the yellowed straw. “Be effortlessly unseen.”

  My glazed eyes lose track of his swift feet.

  “Blend in so not a soul spots your mischief.” He speaks of how he snuck into StarDust by following a group of candidates who kept yapping about flying exams and aerospace. He also heard that Kinden and Tauris worked at StarDust, and he thought I’d be here to see them, unaware of my desire to leave the planet.

  Then he waited for a quieter day and slid into the museum’s private elevator, only accessible to StarDust. A porter rode down, oblivious to Bastell standing behind him.

  “So be lithe,” he adds, “and imperceptible.”

  Suddenly, Bastell crouches by my face, the tip of his dagger perilously close to my eye. “Never cower like you are now. Never be so pathetic,” he says, clucking his tongue in distaste. “I taught you how to move. So move.”

  Bastell yanks my ragged body to my feet and right as I stabilize my weight, I swing. He ducks and sinks his dagger in my hip.

  Gods be damned.

  I elbow his jaw, but he wrenches the dagger out—the pain blazing through every vei
n and organ like glass has shattered in my body. Cutting me, slicing me inside.

  Every time I try to combat him, I fall ten times farther than before. Breathing hot breath through my nose, I stumble backward into the lion. And I throw my arm around its soft mane. Bracing myself upright.

  I clutch my wound on my hip and watch him stalk me.

  Bastell is not the same as he was in Vorkter or even the moments after the escape. Age and hunger darken his eyes, and his sallow skin hangs like its repulsed by him.

  While my body bellows at me to just sit—legs threatening to buckle, blood dripping from fresh wounds—I stay standing.

  He may’ve dragged me, kicked me, and slit me, but I’m stronger than when I trekked through the Free Lands at fifteen. And much stronger than when I was ten and trusted a man who’d come to betray me.

  “You spent three years hunting me, is that it?” I sneer, hatred flaming my face. “For what?” I remove my soaked hand from my hip, palm stained red, and I jab at my heart. “For this?!” I cry furiously. “You want this?!” Spit spews off my lips. “YOU CAN’T HAVE IT!”

  Bastell storms forward, blade to my sternum but not breaking skin. He snarls, “That’s not up to you.”

  I wrap my fingers around the blade. Cutting into my palm. “You can carve out my heart and squeeze it between your hands, but you will never truly have it.”

  My heart exists within Mykal and Franny. I hope they will live fearlessly even when I’m gone.

  Bastell loathes how I grip his dagger. He wrenches the weapon back to his chest, slicing my hand deeper, blood gushing, but I’m beyond the pain now. I’m hot with fury.

  “I cannot believe,” I seethe, “that there was a day I revered you or listened to you.” I just wanted my brother. Older, wiser—a Kinden who was honest. I thought Bastell could be him, but my love for Kinden shrouded my judgment. People are self-interested and self-involved.

  Bastell taught me all he knew, but that didn’t mean he loved me. It just meant that he could finally escape Vorkter. Because he needed two sets of unseen hands.

  So he used me.

  “Oh come on, Court.” His lip curls. “Your life was supposed to end at fifteen. I should be the one feeling betrayed. If you were really my friend, you would’ve given me your heart. You would’ve let me poke at you and understand why you dodged your deathday. Who gods-damn cares if you die then or now? You aren’t even meant to be here. But I am.”