“You’ve been causing me a lot of trouble, unborn,” he says. “My mother would take issue with you calling me that,” I tell him.
I’ve got my maps up and focused on the campsite, marking where everyone is. I count maybe thirty cousins. Most of them are now standing in a loose circle around Nanuq and me, but I note a few others moving slowly, a discreet distance away. I don’t think they’re nervous. I assume they’ve got weapons—rifles or even just bows—and are getting into position to take me down.
“I should also mention to anyone planning to take another shot at me,” I say, “that if you do, you’ll have to answer to the Hierro Madera Mountain Lion Clan.”
“Liar. You’re unborn, without any clan affiliation.”
I shrug. “Tell Diego Madera that.”
His eyes narrow. I can see he doesn’t want to believe me, but he makes a subtle motion with his hand. I don’t notice any difference in the position of the hidden cousins, but their movement stops. I assume he just told them to stand down.
“You know that makes no difference to me,” he says. “I’ll happily pay Madera a blood price for the pleasure of killing you.”
“I wouldn’t make assumptions,” I tell him.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’re assuming that you can kill me.”
Nanuq laughs. “Does Madera know that his latest clan member is mentally unhinged?”
I hear chuckles from the cousins gathered around us.
“Aren’t you curious as to why I’m here?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “All I know is that you somehow survived, but have just saved me the trouble of weeding out another unborn.”
He makes a grab for me and I disappear back into the earth, rising up again behind him.
“Don’t be rude,” I say over the gasps of the watching cousins.
He turns faster than I would have thought possible. This time his big hand grabs my shoulder and locks on. Then his free hand is on my throat and he’s lifting me from the ground, his fingers clamped tight and cutting off my air.
Our gazes lock and I see an uneasy look come over him when he realizes that I’m not afraid. I hang there, arms limp at my side, and give him a chance to let go on his own. When he doesn’t, I disappear back into the earth again. I concentrate hard as I shed my body and take his hands with me.
When I rise up again he’s staggering back looking at his stumps in horror. There’s no blood or torn muscles and arteries. His arms just end in smooth skin at his wrists.
He roars something unintelligible and charges me. But I’ve thrown him off now. He’s fast, but he’s not thinking, and it’s easy to step out of the way. I put out a foot as he passes me and he goes tumbling to the dirt. I step closer as he tries to get to his feet. I give him a push with one foot and he goes down again.
“Next time it won’t just be your hands,” I tell him. “Do you understand?”
I don’t think I’ve ever seen such pure hate in someone’s eyes. But he has himself under control again and nods.
“I just came to talk to you,” I say.
I move back as he struggles to his feet. I don’t help him up.
Around us, the cousins have gone completely silent.
“I’d say we should take this somewhere private,” I say, “but I need all your people to hear what I’ve got to say.”
He’s not beaten—not by a long shot. He shakes his head. “Nobody cares what you’ve got to say.”
“If they want to keep on living, they should.”
He lifts his stumps. “Being like this isn’t living.”
“Don’t be such a baby,” I tell him. “You know as well as I do that you’ll have them back the first time you shift into the polar bear. But I’m telling you right now”—I give the crowd a quick once over—“I’m telling all of you. I can make this permanent. You’ll be gone and there’ll be no coming back.”
I let that sink in.
“So talk,” Nanuq says finally.
“This stops,” I say. “All of this. The killing. The coercion. The intimidation. The idea that you’re all something special and that gives you the right to walk around like you’re King Shit on Turd Island. It stops—right now.”
“You have no idea what—”
“I know what you say you’re fighting for,” I break in, “but you’re acting like fascists. I get it. You’re losing your homelands. Things look bleak. But killing innocent kids and starting wars against humanity is not the answer.”
“What kids?” somebody calls from the crowd. “We’re not killing kids.”
“Maybe you don’t know what I’m talking about,” I say, “but Nanuq does. Ask him what he’s got in mind for those he calls unborn. What do you think he meant just now, when he talked about weeding out another unborn?”
“You’re not special,” Nanuq says. “The Thunders didn’t make you.”
“I never said they did. None of the Wildlings asked to have this happen to us. But that doesn’t give you the right to dispose of us.”
I’ve been using the maps in my head to keep track of where everybody is around me, and the two condor brothers have resumed working their way around the crowd so that they’re right behind me. I’m not surprised when they suddenly surge forward and grab me from either side.
I take them down with me into the ground, but when I call up my body again, I’m standing by myself in front of Nanuq.
“Now, that’s permanent,” I say. “Unlike Nanuq’s hands, they’re not coming back.”
“Who’s the fascist now?” Nanuq demands.
“Like their brother, they gave me no choice,” I tell him. “I’m not telling you what to do. But I am telling you what you can’t do. I think you should continue to stand up for what you believe in. You want to know the truth? I believe in the same thing. I want the first world to be healed, too. But I’m also telling you that if anyone else gets hurt—if you start killing innocents again to further your plans—you’ll answer to me.”
I turn away from Nanuq to address the crowd. “I can find you, no matter where you hide. Don’t think I can’t. And if you’re hurting anyone, you’ll be joining the condors. Am I making myself clear?”
Not one of them will meet my gaze.
“What about you?” I ask Nanuq. “Do you have any more arguments? Because we can finish this right here, right now. And if there’s a blood price to be paid to your clan, I’ll be just as happy to pay it. Except I don’t think that’s going to happen. I mean, who’s going to blame me for defending myself?”
Nanuq doesn’t respond, but I can see he’s on the edge of giving in.
But then I sense the sudden appearance of three new figures approaching the camp—a cousin and two humans. I know who they are and realize that this could all go to hell.
Cory stops us when we see the campfire burning ahead. He motions with his hands, indicating we should get off the trail and work our way closer through the bush. I’ve never seen a landscape like this except in movies and TV shows. It’s all tall pines and hardwoods and cedar, so dense that it’s hard to manoeuvre through it carrying the rocket launchers. I’ve got to hand it to J-Dog. Even though he’s smaller than me and doesn’t have a Wildling’s strength, he hasn’t complained once about hauling that big-ass weapon.
We finally get a good vantage point and everything stops inside me.
“Fuck me,” J-Dog says. “The white-haired dude’s got no hands.”
But I’ve only got eyes for one thing. Somebody’s wearing Josh’s shape. He’s done a good job of copying, except he’s got the size all wrong. The other guy has to top seven feet and the dude pretending to be Josh matches him in height.
I clench my jaw. Remembering Josh bleeding out, this just pisses me off even more. I told him I’d have his back, and in the end, I didn’t. Seeing this imposter feels like a further indignity to his body.
“Do you know who that is?” I ask Cory. “The guy disguised as Josh?”
Cory shakes his head. “No. But the other one’s Nanuq.” “What the hell happened to his hands?” J-Dog asks. “How do you lead a crew without hands?”
“I don’t know,” Cory says, a puzzled look on his face. “He had hands yesterday.”
I don’t give a crap about the hands. I came here planning to blow away Nanuq, but now all I want to do is to fire on the asshole pretending to be Josh and wipe him right off the earth.
It’s like white noise in my brain. I don’t know if I’m so pissed off because I failed to protect Josh, or because this dickhead is pretending to be Josh, or because he looks like Josh and I’m pissed that Marina chose him over me. I know that the ambush I set up for the dog cousins played a part in her dumping me, but hell, she’s always known what I am. We could’ve talked about what happened and she’d listen to my side. It might have gone either way. But if she had someone better to go to, as in, Josh? That wouldn’t have been a surprise to anybody, considering how she’s been carrying a torch for him all these years. Well, except maybe Josh. Who’s dead.
I can’t fight a dead guy, so this imposter hanging with Nanuq is the perfect target for my anger.
I shut down my mind.
We’re here to do a job.
I decide to give my brother a present. “You take the white-haired guy without hands,” I tell J-Dog. “I’ll get the other one.”
“I thought you just needed to take down this Nanuq guy.”
“So, I changed my mind.”
J-Dog shrugs. “No skin off my ass.”
“Wait,” Cory says. “Something’s not right here.”
No kidding, I think, as I concentrate on the big guy pretending to be Josh and line him up in my sights.
When I finally finish crying, Donalita’s still there pressed against my back, holding on to me. She never said anything, didn’t make any promises, she was just there. When I turn over and sit up, she lets go and puts a tissue in my hand. I blow my nose. I wipe my face on my sleeve.
I can’t believe she stayed with me while I basically turned into some blubbering baby.
“This is hard,” I finally say.
She nods. “It’s hard for a long time,” she tells me. “After a while … it doesn’t go away, but you—I don’t know. Get stronger or something and you bear it better. But it stays with you.”
Great. So I have that to look forward to.
“I’d like to kill Elzie—the girl that shot him,” I say. “I’ve never felt like that before—not seriously, for real. But she used to be Josh’s girlfriend for God’s sake. What’s with that? I want to kill her and whoever talked her into it.”
She gives me a long serious look.
“Did I ever tell you how I met Theo?” she asks.
I shake my head.
“I was looking for someone to help me kill Vincenzo, and when I heard about Theo, this big tough gang guy who also had a beef against Vincenzo, I thought he’d be the perfect guy to partner up with. So I went looking for him.
“You see, Vincenzo killed my sister Luisa and I wanted payback bad bad bad, and I knew there was nothing I could do by myself. But in the end I picked the wrong white knight. Theo turned out to be no stronger than me. It was your friend Josh— not much bigger than me—who got the job done.”
She pauses. “Josh killed Vincenzo, but because he got caught up in all of this, he ends up dying himself.”
I wait for a moment. “Maybe I’m dumb, dude, but I’m missing the point.”
“The point is, revenge doesn’t work out the way you think it will,” she says. “It’s like there’s a cosmic wheel of balance, and when you get rid of your bad guy, you lose a good guy, too. The only way you can stop the cycle of violence is by stepping away from it yourself.”
“So, we’re supposed to let guys like Vincenzo go around doing whatever they want?”
She shakes her head. “But you have to understand the consequences. And that if you focus everything you are on getting revenge, you lose yourself. Eventually, you can’t even remember how to get back to the person you once were.”
“Okay. I get it. Scrap the revenge fantasies.” I wait a moment, then add, “But dude, it seems like you’ve been pretty ready to indulge a few little revenge fantasies yourself.”
She tilts her head and looks at me. “Just because I’ve been around a long time doesn’t mean I can’t still learn things.”
“Okay, and what about now? What happens to us?”
“I don’t know about you, dude,” she says, smiling as she leans on the word, “but I want to be with you.”
“I don’t get it. I’m not complaining, but why me?”
“It started when Theo asked me to look out for you—back when I thought he and I could be a team. Except then it turned out I just liked you.” She bats her eyelashes at me. “A lot.”
“But I’m not a Wildling, or a cousin, or whatever. I’m nothing special at all.”
She rolls her eyes. “But you’re the perfect you—and that’s what I like. You brought me back from the person I became to the one I once was, and I like her way better. She wants fun, not revenge.”
She takes my hand and gives it a squeeze, then pulls me toward her, her lips searching for mine. It takes us a while to come up for air. I lean my head against the headboard and stare up at the ceiling.
“I’m so confused,” I tell her. “You make me feel happy, but at the same time I feel guilty for even thinking of being happy. Josh is dead and that won’t go away. It fogs up my head like a big black cloud.”
She nods. “I know. I remember how that feels, except I didn’t even have the chance to feel anything else. What you need to do is come away with me. Your parents don’t understand what you’re going through—they can’t because there’s so much you can’t tell them. You need distance and space from them—from everything.”
“Where would we go?”
“I don’t know. There are whole worlds to explore.”
“I can’t up and take off again. My dad would be so royally pissed off at me, and Mom and Molly would be really hurt and worried.”
She nods. “Let’s go tell them, then they won’t worry.”
I take a deep breath and cup her hands in mine. She has a beautiful heart, but she just doesn’t get what it’s like to have parents.
“Right. And when they stop us from leaving?”
She smiles. “We walk out of the world where they can’t follow.”
Could I do that? Because she’s right. Mom and Dad are going to be on my case without really understanding what that added pressure is going to do to me. Hell, Dad’s probably got the brochures for military school laid out on the kitchen table right now. There’s no way I can do that.
I’m about to squeeze the trigger when the guy I have in my sights disappears. Almost before that registers, he appears right in front of me. He grabs the end of the rocket launcher I’m holding as well as J-Dog’s and vanishes once more, taking the weapons with him. Then he’s back again, giving me a look that’s equal parts tired and sad.
“This is why you’re never going to be with the kind of girl you want,” he says. “Every time your first response to a problem is violence, a little piece of the you that you say you want to be dies. They can see it in your eyes.”
It’s weird. Up close, he’s the real Josh’s size. He looks like Josh, smells like Josh—hell, he’s even copied Josh’s Wildling vibe. It’s impressive. He’s got Josh’s voice; he’s even saying the kind of thing that Josh would say.
But I was there. I saw Josh die back at city hall and it wasn’t the same as when the Kings took him out in Casa Raphael. When he lay there bleeding out on the stage, he didn’t get up again.
So I take a swing at him.
He catches my fist and just holds it. I try to pull free, but it’s like trying to move a building.
Crap. Whoever this guy is, he’s as strong as Vincenzo was.
I see J-Dog out of the corner of my eye, pulling a Glock from his waistban
d. But the guy holding my fist sees it, too. He turns to J-Dog, not easing up on his grip.
“Don’t even think of it,” he says.
But J-Dog doesn’t waste time with words. He brings the Glock up fast. The Josh guy is faster and grabs the gun with his free hand, giving it a sharp twist. I hear J-Dog’s trigger finger snap. The Glock goes flying away into the trees. J-Dog nurses his hand, but the crazy jumps into his eyes and I know he’s about to go berserk and charge the guy holding me. I also know J-Dog’s not going to survive a fight with this guy. It won’t even be a fight. It’ll be worse than when Vincenzo dealt with me because J-Dog doesn’t have my strength or recuperative abilities. He’s so outclassed here that when he goes down, he won’t ever be getting up again.
“Jason, don’t!” I yell.
But J-Dog’s way past hearing anything.
The guy holding me turns and finally lets go, pushing me toward J-Dog.
“Stop him,” he says, “or I won’t be responsible for what happens next.”
The difference between J-Dog and me is that I know when to retreat. You just step back and live to fight another day. But J-Dog’s all-in with every damn thing he does, especially when it comes to a fight.
I grab him in a bear hug so that he can’t move, then turn to glare at the guy wearing Josh’s face.
“You’d better finish this now,” I tell him, “because if you don’t, I’ll keep coming after you until one of us is dead.”
The guy just looks at me. “Why?” he finally asks.
“You’re wearing my friend’s face, for starters.”
“That is Josh,” Cory says.
He’s been standing beside us all this time, being a real big help by doing nothing. And now he comes up with this?
“Bullshit,” I say.
“It’s true,” the Josh guy says.
I shake my head. “I saw Josh die. He didn’t switch out to his mountain lion and come back in one piece. I saw the body. It wasn’t like the last time. He was done.”
Then it dawns on me. Are we all dead, and this is some afterlife? I don’t remember dying, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.