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Rage is new and unfamiliar to Riz.
He’s small and weird and has always found that shrinking down is a safer and more effective alternative than lashing out. Placate. Smile. Prove to bullies and bad guys that you're not a threat, you're not stupid.
(He was laughing when Ragh dunked him in the trash can, smiling and laughing along because it’s okay if they’re laughing with you and not at you.)
It’s easy to laugh. It’s easy to shrug things off. Getting mad is hard. Acknowledging that you’ve been treated poorly is hard.
Porter calls for him and every smoldering bit of fury coursing through him— toward Kipperlilly, toward the rest of the Rat Grinders— explodes outward. Suddenly he’s got so much more to be angry about than Kipperlilly. He’s angry about Kalina and the Night Yorb and losing his summer, angry that Bobby Dawn is allowed to teach at Aguefort, angry at Kalvaxus for killing his father and then doubling back years later to abduct his babysitter.
He’s angry that the Elmville Police Department won’t give his mother her well-earned pension. He’s angry at Fig for every bard class she’s ever skipped. He’s angry at Kristen for wasting time giving speeches at steel factories and middle schools.
And Kristen happens to be the one in his line of sight.
Rage pulses through him, giving everything around him a weird, sharp clarity. He’s been bodily dragged from his office. He’s been drunk. He’s been under mind-control spells. This doesn’t feel like any of that. It’s harsh and heavy, thudding through him with every heart beat. Porter isn’t in his head, he’s in his veins, in every drop of blood, rage and righteousness. The fury of the Ball.
For the second time, Riz levels his gun at Kristen.
She knows. It’s clear in her face, she knows what’s happening. He took on so much extra stress this year for her. Pushed past a certain point, stress becomes rage. Hours spent helping her with classwork, months spent organizing her campaign for student president. Everything piling up, straws on a camel’s back. Wearing him down.
Making him vulnerable.
His rage consumes him, replacing all logic and sensitivity with mindless anger. Kristen Applebees used him— it’s as simple as that. All she’s ever done is use him.
He flicks the safety off his gun.
Kristen holds her hands aloft. “Hey, girlie—”
“I’m not your girlie,” Riz says, aim steady over the river of lava between them. “And I’m not your pet goblin, either.”
Hurt and confusion flash across her face. Fucking good. She doesn’t understand what he’s doing? That’s fine. He’s never understood what she’s doing— claiming she wants things and never following through, announcing big goals and letting him do all the grunt work. At least all his other bullies were fairly straightforward— called him small, called him a freak, stuffed him in lockers and trash cans, smacked his briefcase out of his hands.
Kristen tried to pretend she was his friend, and then she used him like a fucking familiar. Had him running errands and keeping her from flunking out of school, used him the way Fig uses Wretchrot, treated him like a tool, like a funny little thing.
He fires.
The bullet hits her shoulder and she cries out in pain, one hand coming up to press against the wound. “The Ball, snap out of it!” she shouts across the chasm separating them. “This isn’t you.”
“Oh, right, I’m not being your obedient little lap dog,” Riz spits back, lips curled in a sneer. “You don’t even recognize me when I’m not crouching down to be your stepstool.”
“What are you talking about?” she yells, staff clutched in one hand. “Riz, where is this even coming from?”
“You don’t know?” He’s so angry he can’t see straight, but he needs to hurt her. He needs to make her feel as pathetic and wrung-dry as he feels. Shooting her isn’t enough. He needs to go for the heart. “What’s the matter, Kristen? You ran out on your little brothers and needed someone else to push around?”
He watches the blow strike home. Savage glee fills him. She watches him for a moment, horror mounting on her face, and then she holds out her staff and casts Dispel Magic.
It doesn’t do anything. He isn’t being controlled. This is pure. This is him. “Some magic,” he says. “I feel like I know how Cassandra felt now. If you were my cleric, I’d choose oblivion, too.”
Her face is stormy. Like the skies above Seacaster Manor when it lifted into the air. Like the forest when the Nightmare King was summoned, Riz and Kristen watching from the side. “You think you’re saying anything I don’t already know?” Kristen yells finally. She takes a step into the lava moat between them, her sandals steaming but her skin remaining pristine. “I know I’m a bad prophet. I know I’m a bad friend. Can we not deal with this later after we’ve already saved the world?”
“Maybe this world doesn’t need saving,” Riz says. “Maybe it needs a little rage.”
And he looks at the bag of votes in Mazey’s hands. Votes he earned on Kristen’s behalf. He thinks about his mother’s words. Why is he working so hard to get Kristen Applebees a title on her college applications? Why is he busting his ass for someone who would never put the same amount of effort into him?
“Riz,” she says, “I love you.” Blood is drenching her left shoulder where his bullet hit. “Even if Porter manages to win this, I’m not letting him get away with you. You’re my best friend. You’re my brother— and not just because I fucked over Bucky and Bricker and Cork, because I’ve fucked over everyone in my life who has ever given a shit about me. Tracker, Jawbone. Cassandra. You know something about me, Riz? I can do the big stuff but I am so fucking bad at the day-to-day. Right? Like, I’ve died for you. I’d do it again. But I can’t get my shit together for long enough to help you get into college. How fucked up is that? What kind of a person does that?”
“Someone good at making excuses,” he calls back, blood pounding too red-hot to think clearly. Why is he still talking? Exchanging pleasantries? He should be screaming. He should be biting. He should feel her flesh between his teeth, soft and pliable, breakable.
Kristen is marching through the lava toward him. “I dropped the ball, The Ball,” she says. “I let you down. I get that.”
“My name,” he yells, feeling like his head is going to split open, “is Riz.” Wasn’t her bullshit ice feast spell supposed to make him immune to fire? He’s burning right now, boiling from his toes to the tips of his ears, his palms, his stomach, everything feels like it’s ignited. There’s none of Principal Grix’s “perfect order” here, none of the cold, numb terror of Baron. This is people-pleasing pushed past the point of no return.
Kristen is still wading through lava to reach him. He keeps his gun trained on her so he can fire again, but a part of him is thrilled that she’s drawing closer. He can claw at her with his nails. He can bite and scratch and kick. He can show her, in the most literal way, what it feels like to be torn in too many directions. He’ll tear her limb from limb the way she tore him from sleep and Soil Club and solving a mystery to work on her stupid campaign.
“Riz,” she says, knee-deep in lava. She has to look up to meet his eyes. “I’m not gonna tell you that you shouldn’t be angry right now. You should’ve gotten angry a long time ago.”
“I want you dead,” he says, thinking back to every time he’s truly cut loose. Shooting Daybreak point-blank. Blowing off Biz Glitterdew’s fingers. Devouring chunks of Kalvaxus’s flesh. Hissing in a courtroom in Hell. Is that where Kristen will go, once he kills her? So she can hang out and slack off with Fig for eternity?
“If you kill me,” she says, staff held aloft, “then Cassandra is gone forever. So just— for her, Riz, please.”
He scoffs. “Not even begging for your own life?”
“What would be the point?” Kristen says flatly. “Besides, if I die here, Kipperlilly becomes president, and Porter’s plan works. So maybe it’s just a question of who you hate more.”
“Kipperlilly and Porter never let me down like you have,” Riz says. “That’s the thing about betrayal— it never comes from your enemies. It comes from your friends.”
“Now you sound like Wanda Childa.”
“No. I never pretended to be someone I’m not,” Riz says. “I never pretended to care about someone I couldn’t give a shit about.”
“I give so many shits about you, Riz!” Kristen yells. “I’m just bad at showing it. Okay? I get that. I get that I’ve been a bad friend to you. And I… I’m sorry.” She’s sweaty and tear-streaked and clutching her staff. He wants to hurt her. He wants to break her staff, wants to break her spine, wants to scratch at her with his claws and gnaw at her with his teeth, wants her blood spilled, wants her flesh in ribbons.
Kristen Applebees, the risen saint. Can she bring herself back a third time? Riz wants to find out.
She trudges closer. He points his gun at her heart.
“Riz, I should have noticed months ago how far I was pushing you,” Kristen says. “I’m sorry! And there’s a part of me that just wants you to kill me because I fucking know I deserve it! But I can’t do that to Cassandra. I can’t keep letting everyone down. At some point it’s gotta have a bottom, right?” She’s desperate. Grasping at straws. “You’re the best campaign manager anyone’s ever had. And if I overlooked you, it’s because I’ve never really considered how fucking shitty my life would be without you.”
“Exactly,” he rasps. “Everything I’ve given you. Everything I’ve done for you.”
“Riz. Fuck all of that,” Kristen says. “You know I would love you even if you weren’t useful right? I mean, hell, I love Fabian! You’re not important to me because of what you can do for me. You’re important to me because… because you just are, okay? You’re Riz! You’re my guy! I love you when you get overexcited and puke in Fabian’s backpack and I love you when we’re trying to get Fig’s mom to stop fucking Garthy O’Brien and we suck so bad at it. I love you. And if we never speak again after today, then I’m gonna have to find some way to deal with that, but I can’t lose you to fucking Porter. Okay? If you hate me so much that you wanna kill me, or that you never want to see me again, that’s something I have to deal with. But I’m still your friend, even if I am a bad friend. And I hate to see you lose control like this.”
Somewhere inside, he feels— quieted. Like a spooked horse being calmed. Like there’s some point of light narrowing down amongst all the anger. Like whatever Fig is trying to do with Ankarna, recovering her from her wrathful role, drawing her back to her true self— dawn and justice and the sun and truth.
The truth— Kristen has been a shitty friend to him.
The truth— She wasn’t doing it on purpose.
(The truth— Kristen has become estranged from her family and her girlfriend and her goddess. All in such a short span of time. If Riz were to go through all that, would he be a shitty friend, too? Was he a shitty friend, pushing her into running for president?)
“Tell me what to do,” Kristen pleads, wading through the last of the lava to get to him. She doesn’t attack. She doesn’t wrench the gun from his hands. She just looks up at him, beseeching. His friend. His president. His cleric. “Tell me what I can do to fix this. I know I fucked up. I know I— obviously, I didn’t treat you in a way that made it clear how important you are to me, Riz. Tell me what I can do.”
Behind her, he can hear the patter of polished shoes on the cracked gymnasium floor.
“Kristen,” he says, “duck.”
And he levels his gun at where he estimates Kipperlilly Copperkettle to be.