Page 35 of Oh, Flutz!

“Shut up,” I snarl.

Lian claps twice. “Hey!” she shouts. “Again!”

I grab Katya’s hand more roughly than necessary, and she grips back tight enough to leave marks with her nails.

I let go for the jump. And once again, I land before she does.

I charge towards her once she’s landed, doing a hockey stop that sends snow flying over her pristine white boots. “Whatis your problem?”

“I think you’re the one with the problem here,” she taunts.

“Are you really that insecure that you need to show off every five seconds?”

“It’s not showing off if many skaters can do it.”

“Many my ass. Barely anyone can do quads.”

Katya clicks her tongue, pouting. “Didn’t anyone tell you not to put others down just because you can’t do what they can?”

Blood rushes to my face. “That’s not what I meant. Only, like, twenty skaters in the world have them, and less than half of those can do multiple.”

She grins. “I know. You’re speaking to one of them.”

“Again!” Lian yells from the boards, before I can act upon the screaming instinct to grab her and shake her, to force her to let me understand why she's being like this. Instead, I offer my hand, teeth clenched hard enough to hurt. She takes it.

“With the step sequence,” Lian calls, and we oblige, moving into crossovers.

As we turn in sync, the question finally jumps out. “I literally just met you,” I say into her ear, guiding us along the ice. “I don’t think you’ve known me long enough to be so pissed at me.”

“Some people just have repellent personalities.”

“Are we still talking about me?”

“Yes,” she says, looking straight ahead. “I still can’t believe you can’t even do a quadruple toe. It’s the easiest one.”

I laugh shortly. “Is it? If I recall correctly, if you could do it every time, you wouldn’t be here right now.”

Katya screeches to a halt, and I almost trip over her as she rips away from me, skating backwards at the speed of light before she launches into a quad toe that flies probably a foot and a half in the air, followed by another one just as big.

“How was that,mudak?"she shouts from where she landed, an easy twenty feet away from where she started, and I shake my head, scoffing.

“You are unbelievable. Lian, can you please tell her she’s acting like a six-year-old?”

Lian doesn’t answer me, she just leans over, hitting her head repeatedly against the boards.

“You don’t know anything about me or why I’m here,” the girl across from me seethes.

“Oh, please. Everyone knows why you’re here,” I retort. “It was on TV, for Christ’s sake. You fucked up! Sure, it was only one time, but it was enough for your team to decide it was high time to kick your rude ass to the curb. And now, unfortunately for all of us, you’re here. Because AFSC feltsorryfor you, and figured they might as well take an opportunity to use you before you got totally destroyed by your own coaches.”

As soon as I stop yelling, the silence is almost deafening.

Damn it.Too far, Young. Look at you, running your mouth like an asshole, just like—fuck. I'm no better than she is. What if I had actually ended up being booted off Team USA, and someone had said that to me? Probably would've started crying.

But Katya Andreyeva remains as cold as always.

“You,” she says, her voice just barely carrying but the dangerous edge in it perfectly clear. “Should really, really back off.”

My throat goes dry, and I swallow. “Look, I…”

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