Page 46 of The Wild Zone

Mom narrowed her eyes. “Ancient Greek will not help you in the modern world. Korean will.” She nodded firmly, as if she’d made up her mind about something. “Olivia will help you with your Korean.” My eye twitched at the mention of my sister. “She can fix—”

“What?” I snapped. “Fix what, Mom? Me? Because I’m broken?”

I threw down my foil and mask and stormed into the house.

“Katie!” Mom called after me, but I ignored her.

Olivia emerged from the kitchen, holding out a glass of fizzing orange liquid. “Hey, K. You want—”

“No!” I knocked the glass out of her hand, relishing the crash and splatter as it smashed against the wall. “Leave me alone.”

She grabbed my arm. “Katie, Mom just wants what’s best for us.”

I yanked free of her grasp, and she stumbled forward from the force.

“She wants what makes her look best.” I gestured to the hallway ahead of us—Mom’s unofficial Hall of Glory, lined with her trophies and Olivia’s awards and my…

“What. The heck?!” I stormed down the hall to a framed cover photo of Olivia from Fencer’s World. “Where’s my soccer participation ribbon?”

Olivia flinched. “I needed…I moved it….” She pointed to a bronze medal farther down the wall. “Hey, your tae kwon do medal’s still here!” She laughed nervously. “Third place! Yay!”

I glared at it. Then at her. “Are you making fun of me? Because I got third place out of three kids?” Before Olivia could respond, I clenched my fists, called her a heartless harpy, and then screamed two lungfuls of rage at her. “AUGHHH!!!”

I snatched Olivia’s cover photo off the wall and stormed to my room, slamming the door so hard the walls shook.

I meant to simply keep Olivia’s photo until I could replace it later with my participation ribbon, but as I prowled my room searching for the award, I came across my box of darts. Mom had given Olivia and me each a set, along with a dartboard so we could work on our accuracy and precision. Olivia’s photo fit perfectly on the board.

Next, I grabbed a dart and hurled it at the board, nailing the bull’s-eye dead center, right on Olivia’s nose. I flung another and another, each one hitting its mark—Liv’s ears, her mouth, the middle of her forehead. Each dart sank into the board deeper than the last. My final dart disappeared into the board with just the tail peeking out like a brooch on Olivia’s throat. Mom would have been proud of my aim. But knowing that only made me angrier.

I picked up the baseball bat Dad had given Mom when I was born—an Easton Titanium Typhoon. The bat had been banned for being dangerous and helping batters hit too well—a perfect gift for a daughter he knew would fail.

I clenched my jaw, gripped both ends of the bat, and unintentionally snapped it in two. The metal broke clean and sharp.

“AUGHHH!” I roared again, tossing the bat halves to the floor. I grabbed for something else—the dagger Dad had given me.

I stabbed Olivia’s face hard with it.

Then I thought how satisfying it would be to use the dagger to slash the walls of the Hall of Glory, slice up Olivia’s ribbons and photos. I could smash Mom’s glass plaques, denting her trophies. I gripped the handle and tried to pull it out of the dartboard, but it didn’t budge. In my rage, I’d used all my strength—my god-given strength—to bury it deep.

Then I looked at Olivia’s mangled photo, and I gasped.

Her face was unrecognizable.

I hugged myself, glancing from the broken bat to the dartboard, which had started to crack in two.

What was I doing? Did I really want to unleash this kind of violence on my family?

I scooped up the bat pieces and the dartboard, darts and dagger still wedged in it, and shoved everything in my closet.

I shuddered and hugged myself again. I didn’t want this Ares-level anger and power that seemed to possess me at my most vulnerable moments. I didn’t want to be his daughter.

“Katie?” Mom’s voice carried down the hall.

With shaking hands, I locked my door, and then I sat on my bed with my face pressed against my knees.

I could not be this person. I couldn’t let anybody know what I was capable of.

My hand throbbed. Why did my fingers hurt? Then I remembered where I was. In the present. Wearing the ring.