Chaos Walking: The Complete Trilogy (87 page)

And it’s failing.

I take a step towards him.

There’s a
ker-thunk
at the door and Mr. Collins lets himself in. “There’s someone here for you,” he says to me, then he notices my Noise. “What’s going on?”

“I ain’t expecting no one,” I say, still staring at Mayor Ledger.

“It’s a girl,” Mr. Collins says. “She says Davy sent her.”

“Dammit,” I say. “I
told
him.”

“Whatever,” he says. “Says she won’t talk to no one but you.” He chuckles. “Pretty little piece, too.”

I turn at the tone of his voice. “Leave her alone, whoever she is. That ain’t right.”

“Best not take too long up here then.” He’s laughing as he shuts the door.

I stare back at Mayor Ledger, my Noise still high. “I ain’t thru with you.”

“It was in your
Noise,
” he says, but I’m already out the door and locking it behind me.
Ker-thunk.

I stomp my way down the stairs, thinking of ways to get the girl away without Mr. Collins bothering her, without her having to go thru any of that for any reason, and my Noise is boiling with suspishuns and wonderings about Mayor Ledger and things beginning to come clear when I get to the bottom of the steps.

Mr. Collins is waiting, leaning against the wall of the lobby with his legs crossed, all relaxed and smiling. He points with his thumb.

I look over.

And there she is.

{V
IOLA
}

“Leave us,” Todd says to the man who let me in, not looking away from me when he says it.

“
Told
you she was a piece,” the man says, smirking as he disappears into a side office.

Todd stands there staring. “It’s you,” he says.

But he isn’t moving towards me.

“Todd,” I say and I take a step forward.

And he takes a step back.

I stop.

“Who’s this?” he says, looking at Lee, who’s doing his best to act like a real soldier behind me.

“That’s Lee,” I say. “A friend. He’s come with me to–”

“What are you doing here?”

“I’ve come to get you,” I say. “I’ve come to rescue you.”

I see him swallow. I see his throat working. “Viola,” he finally says. My name is all over his Noise, too.
Viola Viola Viola.

He puts his hands up to the sides of his head, grabbing his hair, which is longer and shaggier than when I saw it last.

He looks taller, too.

“Viola,” he says again.

“It’s me,” I say and I take another step forward. He doesn’t step back so I keep coming, crossing the lobby, not running, just getting closer and closer to him.

But when I get to him, he steps back again.

“Todd?” I ask.

“What are you
doing
here?”

“I’ve come for you.” I feel my stomach sink a little. “I said I would.”

“You said you wouldn’t leave without me,” he says and in his Noise I can hear loud irritation at how he sounds. He clears his throat. “You
left
me here.”

“They took me,” I say. “I had no choice.”

His Noise is getting louder now and though I can feel happiness in it–

Oh, Jesus, Todd, there’s
rage,
too.

“What have I done?” I say. “We need to go. The Answer are going–”

“So yer part of the Answer now?” he snaps, bitterness suddenly rising. “Part of those
murderers
.”

“Are you a soldier now then?” I say back, surprised, heat growing in my voice, too, pointing to the
A
on his sleeve. “Don’t talk to me about
murder
.”

“The Answer killed the Spackle,” he says, his voice low and angry.

And the bodies of the Spackle in his Noise.

Piled high, one upon the other, tossed there like garbage.

The
A
of the Answer written on the wall.

And Todd in the middle of it.

“They might as well have killed me along with them,” he says.

He closes his eyes.

I am the Circle and the Circle is me
, I hear.

“Viola?” Lee says from behind me. I turn. He’s crossed half the lobby.

“Wait outside,” I say.

“Viola–”

“Outside.”

He looks so concerned, so ready to fight for me, my heart skips a little. He broadcast as loud as he could that I was his prisoner on the way here, so loud other soldiers thought he was covering up for a rape he was going to commit and whistled him good luck as we passed. Then we hid by the cathedral, seeing Davy Prentiss riding away from here, thinking things I wouldn’t want to see again, thinking about how a
celebration
was due to him and Todd.

And so we pretended to be the celebration.

And it worked.

Kind of upsetting how easily it worked, frankly.

Lee shifts from foot to foot. “You call me if you need me.”

“I will,” I say, and he waits a second, then steps out the front door, keeping it open to watch us.

Todd’s eyes are still closed and he repeats
I am the Circle and the Circle is me
which I have to say sounds an awful lot like something from the Mayor.

“We didn’t kill the Spackle,” I say.

“We?”
he says, opening his eyes.

“I don’t know who did it, but it wasn’t us.”

“You sent a bomb to kill them the day
you
blew up the tower.” He’s almost spitting the words. “Then you came back on the day of the prison break and finished the job.”

“Bomb?” I say. “What bomb–?”

But then I remember–

The first explosion that made the soldiers run away from the communications tower.

No.

She wouldn’t.

No, not even her.
What kind of people do you think we are?
she said–

But she never did answer the asking.

No,
no,
it’s not true and besides–

“Who told you that?” I say. “Davy Prentiss?”

He blinks. “What?”

“What do you mean
what
?” My voice is harder now. “Your new best friend. The man who
shot
me, Todd, and who you ride to work with laughing every morning.”

He clenches his hands into fists.

“You been
spying
on me?” he says. “Three months I don’t see you, three months I don’t hear
nothing
from you and you been
spying
? Is that what yer doing in yer spare time when yer not blowing people up?”

“Yeah!” I yell, my voice getting louder to match his. “Three months of defending you to people who’d be only too happy to call you enemy, Todd. Three months of wondering why the hell you’re working so hard for the Mayor and how he knew to go right for the ocean the day after we spoke.” He winces, but I keep going, thrusting out my arm and pulling up the sleeve. “Three months wondering why you put
these
on women!”

His face changes in an instant. He actually calls out as if he felt the pain himself. He puts a hand over his mouth to stifle it but his Noise is suddenly washed with blackness. He moves the fingertips of his other hand within reach of the band, hovering over my skin, over the band that’ll never be removed unless I lose my arm. The skin is still red, and band 1391 still throbs, despite the healing of three mistresses.

“Oh, no,” he says. “Oh, no.”

The side door opens and the man who let me in leans out. “Everything all right out here, Lieutenant?”

“Lieutenant?” I say.

“We’re fine,” Todd chokes a little. “We’re fine.”

The man waits for a second, then goes back inside.

“Lieutenant?”
I say again, lowering my voice.

Todd’s leant down, his hands on his knees, staring at the floor. “It wasn’t me, was it?” he says, his voice quiet, too. “I didn’t–” He gestures again at the band without looking up. “I didn’t do it without knowing it was you, did I?”

“No,” I say, reading things in his Noise, reading his numbness at them, reading all the horror that sits way down below that he’s working so hard to ignore. “The Answer did it.”

He looks up fast, filled with asking marks.

“It was the only way I could come and find you safely,” I say. “The only way I could get past all the soldiers marching around town was if they thought I’d already been banded.”

His face changes again as this sinks in. “Oh, Viola.”

I breathe out heavily. “Todd,” I say. “Please come with me.”

His eyes are wet but I can see him now, I can see him finally, I can see him in his face and in his Noise and in his arms as they drop to his sides in defeat.

“It’s too late,” he says and his voice is so sad my own eyes start to wet. “I’ve been dead, Viola. I’ve been dead.”

“You haven’t,” I say, moving a bit closer to him. “These are impossible times.”

He’s looking down now, his eyes not focused on anything.

Feeling nothing
, his Noise says.
Taking nothing in
.

I am the Circle and the Circle is me
.

“Todd?” I say and I’m close enough to reach his hand. “Todd, look at me.”

He looks up and the loss in his Noise is so great it feels like I’m standing on the edge of an abyss, that I’m about to fall down
into
him, into blackness so empty and lonely there’d never be a way out.

“Todd,” I say again, a catch in my voice. “On the ledge, under the waterfall, do you remember what you said to me? Do you remember what you said to save me?”

He’s shaking his head slowly. “I’ve done terrible things, Viola.
Terrible
things–”

“
We all fall,
you said.” I’m gripping him hard now. “We all fall but that’s not what matters. What matters is picking yourself up again.”

But he shakes me off.

“No,” he says, turning away. “No, it was easier when you weren’t here. It was easier when you couldn’t see–”

“Todd, I’ve come to save you–”

“
No.
I didn’t have to think about nothing–”

“It’s not too late.”

“It
is
too late,” he says, shaking his head. “It is!”

And he’s moving away.

Away from me.

I’m losing him–

And I get an idea.

A dangerous, dangerous idea.

“The attack’s coming tomorrow at sundown,” I say.

He blinks again in surprise. “What?”

“That’s when it happens.” I swallow and step forward, trying to keep my voice steady. “I’m only supposed to know the fake plan, but I found out the real one. The Answer are coming over the hill with the notch in it just to the south of here, just to the south of this
cathedral,
Todd. They’re coming right here and I’m sure they’re coming right for the Mayor.”

He looks nervously at the side door but I’m keeping my voice down. “There are only two hundred of them, Todd, but they’re fully armed with guns and bombs and a plan and a hell of a leader who isn’t going to stop until she topples him.”

“Viola–”

“They’re
coming,
” I say, moving closer again. “And now you know when and from where and if that information gets to the Mayor–”

“You shouldn’t have told me,” he says, not meeting my eye. “I hide things but he figures them out.
You shouldn’t have told me!
”

I keep moving forward. “Then you have to come with me, don’t you? You
have
to or he wins for ever and ever and he’ll be the one to rule this planet and he’ll be the one who greets the new settlers–”

“With his hand outstretched,” Todd says, his voice suddenly soft.

“What?”

But he just extends his hand out into the empty air, staring at it. “Greeting it with his son.”

“Well, we don’t want that either.” I look nervously round to the front door. Lee is sticking his head in, trying not to look too out of place, but there are soldiers marching by out front. “We don’t have much time.”

Todd’s hand is still outstretched.

“I’ve done bad things, too,” I say. “I wish everything was different but it isn’t. There’s only now and here and you
have
to come with me if we have any chance of making this come out any good at all.”

He doesn’t say anything but his hand is still out and he’s looking at it and so I move forward another step and I take it in my own.

“We can save the world,” I say, trying to smile. “You and me.”

He looks into my eyes, searching, trying to read me, trying to see if I’m actually here, if it’s actually true, if the things I say are real, he searches and he searches–

But he doesn’t find me.

Oh, Todd–

“Going somewhere?” says a voice from across the room.

A voice from a man holding a gun.

It’s a different man from the one who let us in, a man I’ve never seen before.

Except once, in Todd’s Noise.

“How did you get out?” Todd says, surprise rippling through him.

“You wouldn’t leave without
this,
would you?” he says. In his non-gun hand, he’s got the journal of Todd’s mother.

“You
give
that to me!” Todd says.