19. WRECK
The chain reaches its limit, and the handcuff skims down my forearm. Metal drags against skin, sending shooting pain into my fingers. The manacle hits the top of my hand with bruising force. The GeeGee guard’s shoulder digs into my stomach, but he can’t pull me any further. The chain binds me to the door of The Dance, which is itself chained shut, and to Sam, who is attached to the rest of the Bees. I get a grip on the steel links and cling, trying to take some of the pressure off my joints.
“Unlock it!” the guard roars. “Or do you want to be crushed when this building comes down?”
More guards surround The Dance and the wrecking ball crane parked in the street.
Just keep your center. If I stay peaceful, I win, regardless of outcome. That’s what I tell myself, but sweat slicks my palms, and moths seem to flutter in my stomach. I try to make myself heavy, like the ancient yogis knew how to do, but without success. My sneakered feet barely brush the cement.
Sam, more grounded or just bigger-boned, holds strong beside me, sitting cross-legged.
I force a full breath into my tight lungs, then exhale all the way. “I don’t have the key.”
“Who does?”
“It’s not here.” It’s hard to focus around the pain in my wrist and the intrusive hands hoisting me off the ground.
A guard jams her hand into Sam’s pocket, searching. Down the lines of Bees, other guards move to do the same.
“It’s not here,” I shout, before that can go any further. “We gave it to someone who gave it to someone—we don’t know who!—who gave it to someone else, and so on. Right now, only two people know who has the key, and we don’t know who those two people are, just that they’ve been ordered not to come back here.”
The Captain chuckles from where she leans on the cab of the crane. “Well, no one can tell us they’re not smart.” She stalks over, motions for the guard to set me down, and crouches in front of me. “What’s your name?”
I lift my gaze to hers, rummaging through rage and terror and worry about Lawson until I find compassion. Just a trickle; that’s the best I can do.
“We are all one,” I say. “Please don’t do this.”
“We are all one. Please don’t do this. We are all one. Please don’t do this.” The chorus goes up around me.
“O’Leary,” says the Captain. “Get me the torch.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
My guard returns with a handheld blowtorch and hands it to the Captain. I squeeze my eyes shut, turning my face away. The chant wavers, then picks up again, in time with The Dance. The torch whooshes on; chain jangles. A few moments later heat starts up next to my left wrist.
“You’re going to want to hold very still.”
I tense, shivering a little as the metal manacle grows too hot against my skin, and my eyes water. We can’t win; we really can’t win.
By the end of it, when the shackle clunks to the cement, I’m gasping in agony. The commander rises, steps to the left and starts on Sam. And I do what I know I’m meant to do—sprint for the Ashram to find Sandra and beg her to tell me to whom she passed the key, and so on. Hopefully, Sandra will hold strong; everything depends on that.
I’m halfway home when the explosion shakes D-town. A ripple of wind stirs dirt and flutters GeeGee pamphlets down the street.
Sam!
The stinging itch of my burned wrist fades as I reverse directions. The street ends in a T-intersection, dumping me into the open square in front of The Dance, and my steps waver.
The Logic clearly had no part in this fiasco.
D-towners and GeeGee lie bleeding side-by-side. Shouts and moans mingle in the air. Directly in my path, Cross Bearer Gina—spy Gina—shoves the limp body of a GeeGee guard off of her and climbs to unsteady feet. Metal dust falls around her, glimmering under the heavy clouds. She’s got road burn on one cheek and blood oozing from a gash on her arm. Her blouse hangs in tatters. She glances around until she spots the Bishop kneeling next to a fallen D-towner, presumably a Cross Bearer, and hurries toward them, yelling, “Live by the sword, die by the sword!”
Nearby, Tara stands stunned, dirt invisible on her dark skin, untouched in the middle of a circle of fallen Logic. The spy from her tribe joins her, looking over the wreckage like over an experiment gone wrong, and Tara seems relieved.
Guards, so bloody efficient, already march a grid, stopping to tend to their wounded and ignoring ours. But the wrecking ball truck has been reduced to scrap metal. Chunks rest here and there.
Victory, the anarchists would have called it, if not for the fact that the wrecking ball fell too. And landed on The Dance, took down a section of the roof and most of the front wall, door included. More D-towners stand in the gouge, looking around like they expect the arrival of alien spacecraft, or something equally unlikely. The roof groans. I don’t know how everyone doesn’t hear, but maybe I am the only one in a position to notice.
“Out! Get everyone out!” But my shout is too late.
The building shudders, then folds, section by section. The bass gives one last, resounding thud.
Then, silence.
My ears crowd with imaginary sounds, things I’ve heard before. Voices mostly, indistinct and unpleasant like when Council falls apart. For a moment, we all stand motionless. Then the stillness shatters as people rush to their fallen friends or home to find something to shove in their ears before the GeeGee pulses hit.
I look for Sam, shaken that it’s taken me this long to start searching, while at the same time aware that D-town will go on without one more person—it went on without Kylie, after all—but without The Dance…
The first person I see is Lawson. Maybe I was looking for him all along. He leans against a nearby building, his sibling wrapped around him like he’d need a pry bar to get free. He faces away from the destruction, one hand braced against the wall. As I watch, he wipes his eyes with the other hand. I feel a disgusting surge of I-told-you-so, and maybe-now-you’ll-admit-I’m-right. My skin goes hot and my heart pounds. He did this. Whenever something bad happens, Lawson is at the heart of it.
I turn my back on him and march out among the victims, searching the bloody, black-smudged faces. It seems everywhere I look, the Love Child from the alley is there. Leaning down to pat this shoulder. Kneeling to whisper in that ear.
I pass right next to an A guy lying on top of an A in-between. They were a couple; I’ve seen them in The Dance. They’ve beaten me more than once, together, like a game.
I stoop and close their eyes. When I straighten, Sandra is waiting with somber brown eyes. She takes my hand and leads me past the discarded chains into a nearby huddle of Bees. Tanner is among them. I ignore him as my tribe moves aside so I can stare down into Sam’s moon-shaped face.
My friend is too still, a rounded pile that seems boneless and has no breath. I drop to my knees and begin CPR. Listen, share breath, pump, pump, pump. Swipe at my eyes and nose—no time for that. If the GeeGee came with a stretcher now, I’d let them take Sam, but they don’t, and it’s not working.
It’s the same all around, butchery and despair. Right beside us, Crow bends over the High Priest.
“On your feet. My will be done!” she screams.
He stays down.
A shoulder knocks me aside. I struggle back up, but Lawson has taken over. He moves with the same sure economy with which he does everything, from landing a punch to kissing. The other Bees are already melting into the crowd, wary of Lawson. Tanner goes last, studying me as he backs away.
I wrap my dirty arms around my knees. I notice I’m holding my breath, like if I ration air there’ll be plenty left for Sam.
Drops of black water plop onto the High Priest’s freckled cheeks like rain from Crow’s eyes, tears mixed with the ash she uses for eyeliner, until Lawson sits back on his heels. Sweat coats his forehead.
“I can’t get it, Aidan. I’m sorry.” Then again, “I’m sorry. Over here!” he calls, waving an arm at the GeeGee milita
ry leader.
The Captain jogs over and looks at Sam. “Didn’t anyone think to check her for injuries?”
I glance down. “That one.”
“What?” the Captain asks, distracted.
“That one, not her.”
“That one bled out on the ground, while you tried to perform CPR.” The Captain points to a dark pool spreading from under Sam, dripping into a storm drain.
A cry takes shape in my throat and gets lodged there as the Captain folds Sam’s arms over the torso and stoops to lift the heavy form. I shoot to my feet and lunge forward, throwing my body over Sam’s. The Captain tries to push me aside.
I hold on. “No, no, no. You can’t take the body! Sam was a D-towner. D-towners are buried in D-town.”
Lawson’s just standing there. Why is he just standing there?
The sound rips from me, roar slash wail, aimed at Lawson. I can’t make it form words, but there’s a question at the end of it.
“You always tell me not to fight,” he answers, like he’s being reasonable and I’m the one who’s lost my mind.
“This isn’t fighting. It’s resisting!” I argue, fending off the Captain with my feet when she tries again to pull me away.
Lawson rolls his shoulders and surges forward to wrestle the Captain back, his arms trapping hers to her sides. She elbows him in the stomach and gets free, but she doesn’t come after me again.
“There’s no facilities for corpse disposal here,” she says.
“We’re doing fine.”
“Sure. Fine and dandy. Except for the spread of blood-borne diseases.”
“What are you going to do about it, round us all up and nuke us like the Gestapo did to the Jews? Just leave us alone! This is our city.” I’m still shouting, still clutching Sam’s still form.
Lawson is between the Captain and me. His red t-shirt bulges slightly in the small of his back where his gun is hidden.
“Well, it’s in ours,” the Captain says.
“Says who? You took this city out of the dead hands of our parents. You killed them!”
The Captain tilts her head. “Aidan Khalil. Your parents killed themselves, I believe. With a nail bomb, isn’t that right?”
“Get out!” I roar, surging up to stand over Sam. “Get out of our city!” I’m hot and shaky as I take two steps forward, yank up Lawson’s shirt to reveal the military holster he must have stolen somewhere, and close my hand around the gun grip.
He spins, locks out my elbow and disarms me before I even get the safety switched off. “Whoa, Aidan.”
The Captain draws her weapon. Lawson has me bent at the waist with my arm twisted back, but he still manages to turn us so that he’s the one in the line of fire.
“This is the last time,” the Captain says, waving her gun at me, to Lawson, and back again for emphasis. Then she stalks off, leaving Sam’s body.
When it’s clear she’s not returning, Lawson eases up the pressure on my arm, allowing me to straighten. He keeps hold of my hand, stroking it with his thumb. “Didn’t want you to go off and shoot someone back there and have to live with your regret.”
“Yeah well, I have a lot of regrets in life.” I take back my arm and rub my elbow. “Starting with loving you. I can’t deal with you right now.” I take a step toward Sam’s body and stop, unable to face that either.
Lawson puts himself in my way. “Did you just say you love me?”
I throw up my hands. “So what if I did? What does it matter?”
His hands slide into his pockets. “It matters.”
“Why? To who?”
“It matters to me.”
I clear my throat and spit on the ground. “Nothing matters to you, except winning your stupid battle.”
Lawson doesn’t even sidestep my spittle. “My stupid battle? The one you were ready to shoot someone over, you mean?”
“Wasn’t over the battle,” I mutter. “It was about Sam’s body. Sorry I spit on your shoes.”
But he keeps talking over me. “You think you know me. You don’t know a single bloody thing...”
“Maybe I don’t.”
“…so just don’t talk about something you don’t understand!” He turns away, shoulders heaving.
“Make me understand. I want to understand.” I walk around him as I speak, until we face each other again. “Because, hey, you’re right, I don’t understand a single thing. Look at this mess.” I wave my arm at Sam, at the ruins of The Dance. “What’s it all for?”
“You tell me.”
“Freedom, right? Tell me it’s for freedom.” I grab his shoulders and shake, but he’s too solid; I can’t really move him. “Tell me it’s our freedom! Tell me it’s worth it. Please.”
“Aidan...”
“Tell me!”
He cups my face in his hands. “It’s for freedom, baby. It’s worth it. Sam died for D-town, for us. So we can continue to live the way we want.”
“Sam died because of you—” I yank away. “—and your stupid bomb.”
Lawson recoils. “You always assume the worst, you know that? But the thing is, it’s not with everyone. It’s just with me. You know what else, it hurts, and it’s not fair. You’re not better than me. Sam wasn’t better than me. I’m doing what I think is best for D-town, for everyone, just like everybody else! I didn’t know the ball was going to fall on The Dance, okay. Maybe I should have thought about it, but I didn’t. Don’t you think I feel like shit about it? Don’t you think I just about want to die? Do you think you’re helping? I thought you were supposed to be compassionate.”
I stand there, squeezing my fists. “You’re right, I’m a dirty bloody excuse for a Bee. But at least—”
“Stop it with that feeling sorry for yourself crap. Oh, poor me, I’m not a good—”
“But at least my greatest failing is that sometimes I judge people. I can’t resist temptation well enough. But I don’t kill people.”
“In one ear and out—doesn’t matter. There’s no room up on that dais with you, anyway.” Lawson pulls one hand out of his pocket and shoves a little malleable ball—some kind of putty?—into my hands. “Put this in your ears” he snaps, before striding away.
“Wait. Hey, Lawson, wait, aren’t you going to help me with…?”
But he doesn’t return. Sam’s empty green eyes stare up at me, so I swallow hard and get down on one knee to close them.
“Don’t worry, honey,” I whisper. “It’s just the end of the world.”