Page 33 of Torn

Hopping onto her skateboard, Merry coasts ahead, leading him toward the carnival exit. Anger refuses to reconcile the disappointment he feels when she goes mute, depriving him of her chatter, no more words reeling off the mill of her tongue. Oddly, he misses the blinding sheen of her gaze, which angles away from him now. He strains for a view of those attractive fingers and the quirky gap between her teeth.

He should be pleased that she has finally clammed up, yet the void of her fills his mind, just as much as the overflow had. Now he wants to know more, like why she’d chosen a plum skateboard with mauve wheels. Had she matched them to her headphones on purpose?

What’s her favorite song? How does she feel, being an exile?

Why specifically did the Fates reject her? What makes her a dud?

The most haunting question: What parts of being a love goddess has she retained?

Some of the proof has rolled off her shoulders. Those dewy expressions, wistful sighs, and ardent declarations. But what about the rawness of love? The darkness, in addition to the brightness?

Presently, he’s getting a little of it. She wants him, and because he has experience with unreturned feelings, he isn’t proud to cause her pain—even if it’s necessary. Telling Merry that he wants someone else was supposed to break her heart. It should have ended this charade swiftly, gotten Anger what he’d been aiming for.

Yet Merry isn’t predictable, nor as feeble as he’d assumed. Instead of pacing himself, he’d moved too soon, which has come at an additional cost. The hurt that had smeared across her face. The way she’d fought to keep those features from buckling. The way her pink irises had lost their opalescence, thus dulling the atmosphere.

His rejection had squashed everything vibrant about tonight. Even the carnival is less resplendent while the stars burrow from sight, dawn splashing across the horizon.

He doesn’t want the sunrise. He wants her glowing in the dark.

He wants her light back.

Anger grunts to himself. These traitorous thoughts make no sense. They’re preposterous, utterly out of scale with his agenda.

And they’d just been attacked by two members of the Court!

He’d been so sidetracked by the telescopes and Merry’s lens pointed at him, that he hadn’t identified the rulers until they’d charged. He scarcely believes that he’d shot back, that he’d managed to. But the moment they’d honed in on Merry while speeding from Stargazer Hill, he’d had an arrow nocked without realizing it, a spike of fury thrashing up his fingers.

If the Court has grievances, they could have sent an eloquent warning from afar. No less vicious, but certainly less hands-on. Rather, they’d made a concerted effort to journey here, which they never do outside of a crisis.

They must know about the legend and Anger’s plan to win back his place in the Peaks. But how had they found out?

He cracks his knuckles. Better to keep his hands occupied, lest he take his frustration and shame out on the city’s infrastructure. Lest he open his mouth and seek Merry out, goad her into talking.

They exit the Carnival of Stars, his boots clobbering the pavement, her wheels grinding. Anger turns, glancing over his shoulder to take a final look at the amusement park. The bulbs and sparklers have gone dormant, and the music has long since stopped projecting from Merry’s player.

It takes him a while to twist away.

They travel from the city’s center into her territory. The farther they go, the more animatedly Merry skates, swishing the board in a little dance. If she’s perking up, they must be getting close to her home.

Reaching her neighborhood, she escorts him toward a random apartment building with cornerstones, climbing vines, and overflowing plant boxes jutting from the mullioned windows. It’s a few blocks from her residence, if he recalls correctly.

Merry cranes her head at the structure’s edifice. “Which would you choose? A sensational entrance? Or a secretive entrance?”

There’s that light.

She’s reverted back to the Merry he’s spent the past eight hours with. Her headphones clamp around her throat. Her dress splays like a crinoline under the denim vest. Her scuffed high-top sneakers are juvenile for a goddess.

It’s a complete departure from Love, who used to walk barefoot and drive him mad by sporting the skimpiest white dress in history. Love had been foolishly defiant and mischievous, yet immortally conventional in her attire, draped in a garment alluding to the myth of Eros. She’d blended into the frosty mountain town where she’d been matchmaking, so well-camouflaged in the wintery forest.

An impossible thing to catch. To grab and hold on to.

Merry is a spectrum, flinging color into the world. She glitters, standing out from the murkiness of nights.

In answer to her question, all he currently needs is the brightest entrance, the one guided by her.

How maudlin of him. How incredibly demeaning to a deity.

Nevertheless, he should say all of that and more. He should be doing damage control. If he needs to break her heart, he’s got to refill it with hope, the possibility that he might slowly shift his affections.

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