Page 92 of Torn

They can reveal themselves later, after they’ve expended themselves. He will tell her once the sun rises. Once they’ve slept.

He hopes that she’ll forgive him. But if she doesn’t, that will be her choice. No one else’s.

Unfortunately before dawn, restlessness claims him. Beyond the glass sliding doors, there’s a menacing tilt to the breeze, rustling the alcove ferns. The stars blaze, adding candidness to the horizon. In an hour, they’ll recede into slashes of muted blue.

The sight unsettles him. Many sensations unsettle him, with their barbed edges and noxious odors.

He recalls Malice’s refined confidence by the fountain in Midnight Park. Anger had told Malice that he was giving up, done with the legend, done with this charade. To which the demon god had yielded much too readily.

Days have since passed, granting that sinister misfit plenty of time to switch gears.

Fury assaults Anger. The impulses click his knuckles into place and stiffen his shoulder blades. He’s a numskull for not having acted earlier, because that diabolical exile would never cooperate so blithely.

Merry snores through her dreams. It takes a multitude of glances at her sleeping face for him to calm down. The old Anger would do this without her, while the new Anger wants to protect her.

Both are wrong. Taking her with him might blow his secret to smithereens before he’s had the chance to tell her. But stealing away to solve this conflict would require additional deception. It would mean he still doesn’t give her the credit she deserves.

She’s stouter than she appears. That’s why he looks up to her.

Anger nudges Merry. Her pink irises flutter open, and her groggy slur fills the alcove. “Whaaa…?”

“Merry,” he whispers. “We need to move quickly.”

He tells her what he feels, what he senses, what he suspects. That Malice has something rancid in mind. That Anger doesn’t know what it is.

They pour out of the bed and tear into fresh clothing. Anger grabs his weapons, while Merry retrieves her skateboard. Taking one more look at her, softness loosens the kinks and sets his feet into motion.

They sprint from the rooftop, from the observatory. The premonition escalates, foreboding provoking them to travel fast, racing across the city. On the way, Anger issues a call through the stars, unwilling to take chances.

By the time they reach the library, Anger knows. Malice is expecting them.

Jogging into the vault, they find the space unmanned. At first glance, there’s merely the rocking chair. The saddlebag. The crate of sepia envelopes. That scent of pomegranates mixed with the fire pit’s burning logs.

That’s all. No other exiles or outcasts to back up Malice. None from his turf to join against Anger and Merry.

Anger clenches his longbow, unsure whether to be surprised or unsurprised. A default reaction when it comes to Malice.

What Anger does know, is that shadow in the corner isn’t just a shadow. He shoves Merry behind him and whips in the figure’s direction, his arrow nocked. “Malice.”

“Are you sure?” a voice asks—from a completely different corner.

Anger’s eyes click toward the rocking chair, which had been vacant a second ago. Malice’s silhouette reclines, sloping back and forth. The basement window emits a hint of life, the cosmos bleaching his wavy curls, while darkness cloaks the rest of him.

If the god languishes in the chair, then toward whom is Anger aiming his bow? And why doesn’t Malice have the guts to rise from his seat and step into the light?

The misfit sighs. “Christ. I knew it would be a while before you RSVP’d, but I didn’t expect your reconciliation fuck to take this long.”

“Show yourself,” Anger snaps.

He hears, rather than sees, Malice’s lips twist. “Who, me?” The rage god twirls a finger toward the apparition Anger’s targeting. “Or her?”

Merry’s profile veers toward the shadow. Anger’s eyes flick to the unidentified figure in his bow’s line of sight.

Dark hair. White dress.

Ropes tether her arms to an overhead buttress, her lips mashed with a wad of cloth. She struggles against the restraints, growling and stomping her foot. Her eyes—pierced with terror—strike across the vault, passing through all three deities, blind to them.

Love.

---