Page 30 of Torn

Merry beats the ground with her foot, taking an alternate route, one that she’d figured out a few months ago. It’s not the customary way to wheedle out of here, but it’s a shortcut that she’d devised on her own.

At each leafy corner, her heart plays staccato notes. She glances left and right, glimpsing the narrow channels pruned in trembling greenery.

Where are they?

Merry and Anger pop out of the labyrinth. The lovely advantage of having a board blessed by the stars is the malleable sum of its parts. It’s a marriage between what numerous human boards achieve in speed and stunts, despite the variety of smooth or rough foundations. The problem is, she’s never tried outracing death, much less with another person joining her. Anger’s company forces Merry to adjust her stance and compensate as best she can.

Before they reach a stone stairway leading down—crap!—she has about a millisecond to make a choice. Actually, it’s no choice at all since the sparkler path lacks a fork. For such a basic trick, she’s got a tall archer strapped to her ass, which will throw off her position, hinder the ability to keep her weight centered, and…oh, forget it.

“Anger,” she prompts.

In understanding, he leaps off the board, hurtling into the air and flying down the stairs. Parallel to him, she rolls up and kickflips into a frontslide boardslide down the steps’ rail—okay, the initial variation is unnecessary. She might be showing off a bit.

When she turns out and lands, Anger moves in tandem with her, springing onto the board in a seamless transition. This time, his back and quiver align with hers. It’s cumbersome, but their feet root into balanced positions, in case he needs to exercise his weapons.

Merry propels them into the Globe Garden, winding around paper-lantern planets.

Rounding Mercury, the female deity steps into view and waits. Her gossamer gown dances behind her in layers, the cut delicately vicious.

Quirking an impressed smile, the woman raises her longbow.

Merry swerves, evading an arrow that spears Mars. She schools herself to concentrate, to keep going. This is no time to delay by admiring the reigning splendor, not when she and Anger are prey.

The male ruler emerges into the vicinity, his gait burdening the earth while he pulls his bowstring taut. She senses Anger’s hesitation before he nocks, aims, and shoots. He looses an arrow, and then another, and another.

As they vault from the garden, Merry careens into the Serendipity Tunnel.

Gracious, here they go again. She shouts a warning to Anger.

With lightning speed, he stays his weapons and leaps around in a single aerial motion, ensnaring her waist. Building momentum, they catapult up the crystalline wall, rolling along its curve. They land, glide to the opposite wall, and blast up its facade. She does this over and over, zigzagging down the tunnel, dodging arrows ejecting from the Court members.

Outside the tunnel, Merry drives across one of the sparkler paths, launches into the air, grabs a lamppost and orbits it. Midrotation, her board thwacks the male archer, and he goes down at the woman’s feet.

The wheels hit the ground, peeling into the cable cars’ entrance, where a stocky lever distends from a wall. Soaring past it, Merry wrenches on the handle, waking up the cars. Along a wire, they move like a conveyer belt, floating above the carnival.

“Shit, shit, shiiiiiit!” Merry clenches her eyes shut, which isn’t wise, and lifts into the atmosphere. Just as they land in one of the compartments, it wobbles.

Anger vacates the board. He twirls an arrow like a baton, nocks it, and takes aim.

In rapid succession, he does this again.

Howls cause Merry to turn and gape over her shoulder as the woman buckles beside her peer. The force of Anger’s attack has struck wrists and snapped bones, throwing both ancients off their feet and blasting them to the ground. Infused with enough intensity and tact, those shots penetrate valuable parts of the anatomy and incapacitate the deities from wielding their bows.

The rulers swear, offended and surprised. Tottering upright, they glower and then disappear.

Honestly, Merry could have conjured the cars to move, not needing the lever. But she’d been too frazzled.

Likewise, the Court could have used their magic to stall the conveyer belt. But the rulers must have deemed their injuries more important.

Merry wheezes, air sawing through her lungs. Anger collapses on one of the seats, his body inflating and deflating as though attached to a pump. He yanks on the roots of his hair, tugging on the layers.

They’re quiet for half the trip, processing what just happened. Bulbs swell from the Ferris wheel below. Sparkler trails crackle throughout the park.

“What have I done?” he hisses.

“You saved the day,” Merry says gently, lowering herself across from him. “Or, well, you saved the night. I can testify, since I was there.”

“That was mostly you. I’m no savior.”

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