The sun was too bright. It glared off the asphalt, blinding and hot, but not nearly as burning as the tears pricking the corners of her eyes.
"Catch, Marcus! Go long!"
She lunged, her sneakers scuffing uselessly against the gravel. She was too small. Too slow. Her fingers brushed only empty air as the object of her world—a die-cast crimson racer with racing stripes painted by hand—sailed over her head.
Marcus laughed, a jagged, cruel sound. He snatched the car out of the air, holding it high above his head like a trophy. "What's wrong? Can't reach it? I thought this car was supposed to be fast."
"Give it back!" Her voice cracked, betraying the sob she was holding back in her throat. "It's not yours!"
"It is now," Marcus sneered. He pivoted, winding up his arm. "Your turn, Toby!"
She didn't see the throw. She only saw the arc of red against the blue sky, a doomed trajectory. Toby fumbled. His hands were clumsy, or perhaps Marcus threw it too hard. The car didn't land in a palm. It hit the pavement.
Crack.
The sound was small, but to her ears, it was a gunshot.
The crimson racer skittered across the concrete, flipping end over end before coming to a rest near the gutter. One wheel kept rolling, spinning dizzily away from the chassis, the silver axle snapped clean in two.
Silence fell over the circle of boys.
She dropped to her knees. The gravel bit into her skin, but she crawled forward, her trembling hands hovering over the wreckage. The paint was chipped. The wheel was gone. It was ruined. The first heavy tear finally broke free, tracing a hot path down her dusty cheek.
"Oops," Marcus said, not sounding sorry at all. He took a step toward her, his shadow falling over her small form. "Look at the crybaby. Maybe we should take the other wheels, too. Just to make it even."
She squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the shove.
It never came.
Instead, there was a blur of motion and a dull thud.
"Hey!" Marcus yelped.
She opened her eyes. A boy she had never seen before—a whirlwind of scuffed denim and messy dark hair—had plowed into Marcus with the force of a cannonball. They went down in a tangle of limbs.
The new boy wasn't bigger than Marcus, but he was ferocious. He didn't throw punches; he threw himself. He shoved Marcus into the dirt, scrambling up with a scrape on his cheek and fists balled at his sides. He stood between her and the group, breathing hard, his chest heaving.
"Get lost," the boy growled. His voice shook slightly, but his stance was solid as a rock. "Touch her again, and I won't stop at shoving."
Marcus scrambled back, looking from the wild-eyed boy to his confused friends. The fun was over; the prey had grown teeth. "Whatever," Marcus muttered, wiping dirt from his shirt. "It was just a stupid toy anyway."
They scattered, their laughter fading into the distance, leaving only the hum of the cicadas and the heavy silence of the aftermath.
The boy turned around. He wiped a smear of dirt from his nose with the back of his hand and looked down at her. The ferocity vanished, replaced by a quiet, awkward concern.
"You okay?" he asked.
She looked up, the "yes" dying on her lips as she actually saw him. She blinked, her tears momentarily forgotten.
His eyes were wrong.
The right one was a clear, deep blue, like the summer sky above them. But the left was a vivid, startling red. The mismatch was striking, something she had only seen in cartoons or fantasy books. It made him look fierce, almost dangerous.
But then he blinked, and the strangeness softened. The colors were different, but the look in both was the same: worried.
She sniffled, hastily wiping her face. She nodded, though her gaze went immediately back to the broken car in her lap. She picked up the detached wheel, trying to press it back onto the jagged metal of the axle. It fell off immediately.
"It's dead," she whispered.
The boy crouched down. He didn't pity her; he studied the car. He reached out, his fingers stained with grease and dirt, and gently took the chassis from her. He spun the remaining rear wheel.
"The suspension is bent, and the axle is snapped," he diagnosed, his tone surprisingly professional. He looked at her, the sunlight catching the strange fire in his left eye. "But the frame is good. Solid metal."
She looked up, hope fluttering in her chest like a trapped bird. "Can... can you fix it?"
"Not here," he said, standing up and offering her a hand. "But my mom has a workshop just down the street. She has a soldering iron and real tools. I watch her all the time. I bet we can make a new axle. Maybe even make it faster."
He waited, his hand suspended in the air between them.
She looked at his hand—dirty, scraped, and steady. Then she looked back at those mismatched eyes—blue and red. They weren't scary. They were kind.
She reached out and took his hand. He pulled her to her feet.
"I'm Joshua," he said. "Do you... want to be friends?"
She squeezed his hand, holding on tight as if he were the only anchor in a spinning world. A genuine smile, wobbly but real, spread across her face.
"I'm Saria," she said. "Yes. I'd like that."