"You sure you're ready for this, Tally-wa?" "One party-load of uglies up ahead." Shay's words cut through the music, caught by a chip in her jaw and carried through the skintenna network, whisper-close. The rush of cold air helped her refocus on her surroundings rather than the missing feeling inside herself - the one that came from the fact that Zane wasn't here with the rest of them. She concentrated on the glittering world, on twisting her body to slip the board among the trees. Tally angled her board sideways to avoid an ice-laden branch, breaking contact. She'd only been special a couple of months, but when she looked at Shay she expected to see her best friend's new and marvelous cruel beauty, not tonight's ugly disguise. For Tally's brain, it was way too soon to be playing dress-up. They had turned themselves into uglies because they were crashing a bash in Cleopatra Park.
The five Cutters were undercover tonight, black irises hidden under dull-eyed contacts, cruel-pretty jaws softened by smart-plastic masks.
Tally tried to return it, but something shifted in her stomach as she looked at Shay's face. Shay swooped in beside Tally, their fingers brushing for a moment, and flashed a smile. That was the thing about being a Cutter: Everything was icy now, as if the world were opening her skin. Icicles whipped past in glittering streaks, and moonlight silvered the world, like an old, colorless movie come flickering to life. She squinted against the cold, eyes watering, but the tears made her vision even sharper. Over its frantic beat Tally heard every twitch of her new monofilament-sheathed muscles. Fausto was pumping dance music straight through her skintenna, but that was silent to the world outside. The cold air seemed to make sounds crisper: The loose tail of her dorm jacket cracked like a wind-whipped flag, her grippy shoes squeaked against the hoverboard surface with every turn. She breathed in the forest, tendrils of pine coating her throat and tongue, thick as syrup. Tally felt everything with an icy clarity: the brittle, freezing wind across her bare hands, the shifting gravities that pressed her feet against the hoverboard. In their wake glowed a crystal rain, tiny icicles shaken from the pine needles to fall behind, aflame with moonlight. The riders ducked and weaved among ice-heavy branches, laughing, knees bent and arms outstretched.
The six hoverboards slipped among the trees with the lightning grace of playing cards thrown flat and spinning. By plucking her petals you do not gather the beauty of the flower.
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