E (34 page)

Grey's eyes move to me, scanning over me, blue, hollow, and
hungry.  His voice is as rough and sharp as broken shells. 
"Yours, Jonas?" he asks.  "This pretty little
traitor?"

Jonas swallows.  His fingers start to tremble, but he curls
them into fists.  "Yes," he says.  His voice is almost
level.  "Let her live, and I will do anything you ever ask of
me.  I swear it."

Grey's thin lips press into a line as he regards Jonas
sideways.  "You are helpful," he says.  "You gave me
the Outpost.  And now a welcome gift, too."  His eyes narrow on
me.  "Bring her."

Two of the armed men move forward.

Jonas goes completely white, his eyes darting between Grey and me,
and then scanning here and there through the small crowd of Grey's men. 
They fall on a pistol tucked into one of the men's waistbands.  He doesn't
have his a weapon.  They've taken his gun.

I lean into the wall, trying to press myself further into
it.  There is nowhere to go.

Matt's arm slides around me and snatches me in front of him. 
He's not going to just let them have me.  As thankful as I am for that,
the gesture is useless.  They have guns and we don't, and in only a moment
they will pull me from his arms.  This is my thinking, until his hands
slip upward from my waist.  Until his fingers slide through my hair and
lace over my skull.

The men with the guns stiffen, realizing his intent. 
"Stop," and "freeze," they bark at him, jabbing their guns
toward us.  But I am in front of him now.  To shoot him, they'll have
to shoot me.  And that will be OK for both of us.

Jonas has gone as still as a statue, his face a study in
horror.  He looks like I must have looked, when I saw the Sentry moving
toward Oscar.  His lips form the word "no".

"It's too bad," Matt whispers into my neck. 
"It was a good plan."

I close my eyes, let my body relax into him.  I will not
fight this.  Ninety-nine.

Crack
.  The noise is small at first, contained in the near
distance.  It grows into a splintering tumble of debris as a building
caves in on itself.  Grey's men turn and look.  Matt and I
stare.  The only one who is not looking is Jonas.  He's running for
me.  By the time Grey's men realize what he's doing, the Sentry has
already erupted through the near side of the building and is heading straight
for them.

They scatter, fleeing into the smoke, but not all of them make it. 
The Sentry is a rampage of metal fury, snatching people off the ground,
flinging them into the concrete.  Jonas is only a few strides away from me
when it turns toward him.

"No," I scream, launching myself at him.  We
collide in an embrace, but I'm spinning him around, placing myself in front of
him.  "No," I command the Sentry, whose mirrored gaze freezes on
us.  We gape up at it. 

It lurches back into motion, reaching past me for Jonas.

"No."   Matt's voice stops it only inches from
us. 

We stumble, regaining our balance.  Jonas is clinging to me
from behind, but his eyes have gone wide on Matt.  I can feel his heart
racing against my shoulder blades.

Matt points along the wall in the direction that Grey's men have
retreated.  "Go after them."

The Sentry turns and leaps away from us as though we never
existed.

Matt and I exchange glances.  He grins.  "Not bad,
Eden," he says.  "Not bad."

Jonas has me by the shoulders and whirls me to face him, his
fingers digging in to my arms.  His eyes are full of questions, but he
asks none of them, shaking me, instead.

I open my mouth to explain.  To tell him what I had to
do.  To promise him it will be OK.  But he lets go of me and starts
running after the Sentry, toward the sound of renewed gunfire, crashes, and
explosions.

"Jonas," I call after him.  He doesn't stop. 
He doesn't even glance back.

I turn to look at Matt, but he's not there.  No one is.

I rub my hands over my face, taking a deep breath.  I want to
be with Jonas, but the idea of going back into the fray fills me with
unexplainable trepidation.  I start walking, trying to convince myself to
go a little faster.  Weariness or reluctance-- one of the two keeps my
feet from moving at more than a steady walk.  Every step feels like entering
the gates of hell.  The sky before me is blackened with the ash of our
self-immolation. 

I move away from the wall, into the streets, where I find
Miranda.  She's standing in the middle of an intersection looking toward
the worst of the noise.  Immobile. 

I say her name and she glances over her shoulder. 
"Eden," she says.  "Thank god."

I stop beside her and follow her gaze, though smoke blocks out
everything else.  The noises tell the story of battle.  "Why
won't the Sentries listen to me?" I demand. 

Her worried glance gives all the answer I need.

After a moment, she says, uncertainly, "What should we
do?"

"C'mon," I say, my feet moving forward, "I have to
find Jonas."

She trails after me.  "Jonas is probably smart enough to
be hiding."

I shake my head.  "He ran this way."

Her eyes widen in alarm.  "You don't think he's... still
fighting?"

I want to shake my head again, but why else would he have run
toward the battle?  Beside me, Miranda curses.  Suddenly we're both
jogging toward the chaos.

We make it as far as the next street before a Sentry appears,
driving a crowd.  People are screaming and running, falling down,
trampling each other.  The Sentry does not attack anyone outright, but
stays on their heels, moving them onward.  They swarm over us in an
instant, and suddenly we've become part of the group.  We struggle to stay
upright in the mass of terrified bodies, and are knocked, slammed into, and
swept down the street with the rest of them.  Miranda grabs my hand and we
cling to each other.  Together, we are flung onward against our will.

I grasp her fingers tighter, preparing to pull her into a side
alley as we pass.  We make it into the opening, and freeze.  Coming
toward us is another herd of screaming people, and behind them, another
Sentry.  We back into the flow , and are quickly pummeled onward. 
They're rounding us all up.

We flee until we're swept into in an even larger flow on an
adjoining street.  I'm so busy running, trying to stay on my feet, trying
to hang on to Miranda, that I don't even notice where we are until we finally
pool to a stop on the main street in front of the Rustler.  The evening
sun sinks into a gap between the looming smoke and the Outpost wall, bathing us
in carmine tones and raising a jagged forest of shadows between us.

"Is this everyone?"  Miranda cries above the
roar.  Her eyes search through the mass of faces.  We stand back to
back, circling, looking for our friends, but don't find them.  All the
rushing is coming to stillness.  People are standing about, lost and
frightened.  Around us, in a ring, are the Sentries.  The crowd
splits into a small chasm as people push by.  Elaina Sumter stumbles
through, first, and then one of the brown-haired guys, though I still can't
tell them apart.  Behind them are two of Matt's men, with guns pointed
into their backs.  Matt's thugs shove their prisoners roughly toward the
center of the group and force them to sit.  They stand over them with guns
ready.  Within the next few moments, more are brought to join them. 
All faces I recognize from Jonas' rebellion.  The other brown-haired
guy.  The red-headed man with the beard.  All Jonas’
higher-ups.  The people he surrounded himself with.  The people he
counted on to make things happen.  Matt's men form a second circle around
them, keeping everyone else at bay.  At the edge of the ring, friends and
family members push forward, but none of them dare to break the circle, or even
to speak up. 

The chasm the prisoner's were led through parts suddenly wider, to
the sound of a struggle.  Miranda and I work our way closer, though we're
trapped on the other side of the circle.  The crowd is too thick to get
through.  Across from us, people shift, sidestepping, trying to move
away.  In doing so, they reveal Jonas, being held by three of Matt's
men.  He's kicking, contorting, growling, trying to escape.  His face
is twisted into a grimace of rage, teeth bared.  Matt's men are having
trouble keeping hold of him, though between the three of them, he has little
chance of getting free.  One of them lets go, raises his rifle, and slams
the butt end into Jonas' head.  He staggers and falls to the ground. 
They stand over him.

"Stop, stop," Miranda is saying.  She's clinging to
me, trying to hold me back.  I'm screaming Jonas' name.

"He's OK," she says.  "Look."

He pushes himself to sitting, his head hanging.  Blood runs
down the side of his face, dripping onto his lap.  He winces, and moves to
get up, but one of the men nudges him with his boot.  He looks up into the
firing end of the gun.  He stays down.

"He's bleeding," I whisper, my voice sticking in my
throat.  I'm trembling violently.  "He's not OK."

"He is," Miranda says.  She directs me toward the
circle, having already realized what I have not.  "He's not
there
."

I stare into the circle, where Matt's men have sat their prisoners
in a neat line.

"Neither is Apollon," Miranda says quietly.  I
glance at her and she's scanning the crowd. 

I search through the faces yet again.  For Apollon.  For
Neveah.  The heaviness of everything pulls down inside me, gravity tugging
my vital organs toward the earth's center.  My fingers grip Miranda's arm,
fighting the unsteadiness.  "I don't..." I say, and have to
clear my throat, "... I don't see them...."

She swallows, her face grave, and keeps looking.  Everyone is
here.  If they are not here, are they dead?

Any remaining murmurs die down suddenly as Matt walks past Jonas
toward the circle.  His stride is effortless, confident, his pistol
hanging easily in his left hand as he walks.  His men step aside and let
him into the circle.  He raises his pistol to his cheek, and stands for a
moment regarding the line of seven prisoners.  His face-- sometimes so
animate-- has gone to stone, his eyes moving over them with the slow grace of a
predator.

My fingers press deeper into Miranda's arm, then let go.  I
have to push myself off to get moving.  I shove Matt's men aside and
stumble into the circle.  The same calmness that took me in battle
descends again now as he moves only his eyes to look at me.

"We had a deal," I say, and my voice is surprisingly
level.  "No retaliation."

"Against your friends," Matt says quietly. 
"These are not your friends."  He turns to the crowd, and all at
once, he's animate again, but not telling jokes, not courting his
subjects.  He's the angry god, come back for vengeance.  His wrath
pours from the bowls of his eyes.  From his mouth.  "These are
my enemies," he shouts, his voice carrying through the assemblage. 
He turns to them-- to his people-- pacing, gesturing with the long barrel of
his revolver.  "They have conspired against me.  Some of
you
have conspired against me.  Put everyone-- all of us-- at risk. 
Well, you... have... failed.  Grey, and his retreating army have
failed."  He gestures off at the horizon, a simple dismissal of his
almost-conqueror.  Then his gaze sweeps over them, looking them in the
eye, one by one.  "If you set yourself against me, you will always
fail.  Because
this
is what happens to my enemies."  He
turns, and places the barrel of the gun against the head of his nearest
prisoner.  The redheaded man closes his eyes, his face draining to
white. 

"Matt," I manage.  "You don't have to do
this.  Please.  Give me the gun."  I reach out as I move
toward him.

He pulls the trigger.

Red and grey spatters the ground.  The body falls.  I
stand rigid and shaking, staring at the aftermath, as he moves to his next
victim.  He does it quickly, stepping around me to move down the
line.  One by one.  He has fired six shots, and paused to reload,
before I can manage to make myself turn.  My shoulders, my ribs, my
stomach muscles, are all pulled inward on myself, making it hard to move or
breathe.  I feel the need to scream, to cry, but not a single tear nor
squeak of voice comes forward to protest the desolation before me.

Matt slides the single bullet into the chamber.  His hands
are steady.  He flips it closed, and places the barrel end against Elaina
Sumter’s skull.  She looks up at him through teary, blue eyes, her pretty
face scrunched into an ugly mask of agony, her chin wrinkled and
quivering.  A whimper begins to work its way up her throat.  The
bullet silences it.  She falls to the ground.  Her blood, the debris
of her skull, mingles with that of the others.  We stand for a moment in
utter silence.

I look down at the blood that is pooling around my feet. 
Fingers reach toward me to engulf the place where I am standing.  My body
is not just shaking, but vibrating.  All the sensations of dizziness, and
sickness, and terror focus inward, sharpening to a point, until all I am aware
of is my soul draining out through my feet.  I close my eyes and lock my
knees, afraid of falling.  I am skewered on a pillar of ice.  To move
is to awaken the intensity of the coldness and pain.