vicious [d.m]

fifteen: flames & snow

"Go away, Cal."

"No. Mama will kill us both if I do."

"I want to be alone!"

"Why are you so upset? Who cares?"

Khione sniffs, dragging her bicycle along the gravel path as she walks beside it, kicking up small stones. "You wouldn't understand."

"Why? 'Cause I'm a boy?" Cal scowls, trying to keep up with her, trailing beside his own bicycle.

"'Cause you're stupid."

"I'm telling Mama!"

"I'm telling her you annoyed me all the way back from school!"

"She's gonna get madder at you than—"

"Shut up!'

Cal huffs, blowing a strand of his auburn hair out of his face. The setting sun makes his eyes look a darker green than they are, mixed with threads of golden. Khione knows hers look similiar. "You're annoying. So what if he got a girlfriend? He's only a boy."

"See?" Khione spits, picking up speed. "I told you you wouldn't get it."

To his credit, Cal jogs to keep up. "Why'd you even think he'd like you? She's prettier than you."

Khione fumes in silence, focusing on getting home, her small feet stomping over the gravel.

"Wait up!" her twin calls after her. "I'm just telling the truth! Plus, you're always making that stupid face. Mama always says that face scares people away. We're only six! No one's gonna wanna be your friend or your boyfriend if you—"

Khione slams to a halt, shoving her bike away from her. It clatters to the gravel and she spins on her heel, marching back to Cal who hasn't stopped talking.

"—look like that all the time. Maybe if you smiled—"

"I said shut up!" She reaches him, digests the look on his face — open and unassuming — and with all her strength, shoves him as hard as she can. It's not much — she's only six — but so is he and he goes stumbling backward more than she intended.

Time seems to slow as he staggers back, green eyes wide with shock, trying to find his balance. He doesn't — and Khione screams as he does, his foot slipping off the soil, arms windmilling. He disappears from view, his yell following him down into the ditch at the edge of the road.

Her breath stutters in her chest and vanishes completely. Her gut twists as she lunges forward, her heart pounding.

"Cal!" She collapses to her knees at the edge of the ditch, sweat trickling down the back of her neck.

He lies at the bottom of the ditch ten feet down on his back, his leg twisted at an odd angle. He's crying and sobbing, gasping for breath, one hand pressed to his chest where he must have broken something. Khione cries above him, calling his name, feeling sick to her stomach.

"Stay there!" she calls down around a sob. She can see something white sticking out from his leg. "I'll get Mama!"

She rides her bicycle faster than she ever has, even on those rough gravel roads, all the way up to the little cul-de-sac in front of their cottage. Her bicycle clangs against the fountain as she hurls herself off it, nearly tripping over her own two feet to get to the door.

"Mama!" She bursts in through the door, her mouth already moving a mile a minute. "Mama, Cal fell into the ditch!"

Kavya looks up from where she's reading on the armchair by the fireplace. It takes her half a second before she's on her feet, swirling a shawl over her shoulders, her face pulled tight with worry.