Gods of Anthem (27 page)

When I get
back, I check on Joelle. It’s so tempting to pull her out and hug her, to make sure she’s as alive as when I left. That head game had felt so real, and the charred remains of my dear Jo-Jo keep flashing through my brain. I’m mourning her already, like a piece is missing, when it really isn’t. The heart is a different set of mind.

It makes me want to try to kill Cory all over again.

Then, I think of Murphy, and my spine sags.

Blood on my hands; I’m sticky with it. Killed a brother like Cain, my dad would have said. And same as him, from anger, it controls me ever since they fed it, changed it into an actual thing inside.

My dad’s voice is crystal clear.

“You
get heated too easy, Tommy. Don’t know how, but
it’s gonna bite you back some day. Slow to
anger, boy. The Good Book—”

“I don’t care about
the Good Book, Dad! I don’t need a Bible
lesson every day of the week! Jeffrey took a shot
at me on the field yesterday—it was cheap! I
made him pay for it. So what?”

“You’re bigger
than him. Smarter, too. If beating up on Jeffrey no
matter how he deserved it don’t make you a
bully, I don’t know what will. Son, I know
someday this rage you got
…
it’s gonna come alive.
Its gonna eat you from the inside out.”

My face heats as the words cut through the madness like a knife, just like my old man’s always did.

Funny thing is, though, it was the monster that always made me feel cornered. Because of him, I knew I’d eventually hurt someone without meaning to. I’ve lived with that fear ever since the first experiment. And here, I’ve killed an innocent someone while completely normal and myself, and not the beast. It’s like he’s laughing in my head, hating me, yet loving the taste of epic failure. He likes when I’m off balance, and there are times an echo of thoughts not unlike my own but slightly twisted enter my head even when I’m not transitioned.

He’s getting smarter.

I’m tempted to wake Joelle and ask her to watch TV with me. I’d cover the windows for her, maybe pull out my old black-and-white movies that’ll take me back to better times; good old days when guys and gals went on car rides.

Instead, I decide to try to sleep. She’d just freak if I woke her midday. It screws up her cycle. Afterwards, it takes weeks of day-terrors, with her trapped in there and myself out in the field, unable to help her.

In the end, I simply crash on my bunk, fully dressed.

“
You
must have gotten home early, Tommy. The sun’s down.”

I wake to find a small, sweet face peering underneath my arm. She looks paler than usual.

“Go eat, Jo. Wake me up after.”

I grin into my pillow at the muffled growl she returns, and her quiet movement around the barracks is like a balm to my torn soul, because it means she’s okay.

When I wake again, it’s to music.

“Oh, good. You’re awake.” Joelle stands up and yells at the screen, “Sound up!”

It blares, and I cringe before moving over to the small kitchen, which is really just a coffee pot on milk crates.

As “Bohemian Rhapsody” echoes through the barracks, I wonder what on earth made her pick Queen.

Jo-Jo’s jumping on the couch. She’s at her cutest like this. Rarely does she get to leave, so she’ll sometimes turn into an energizer bunny, which is both annoying and sweet. She’s got braids in her hair, and they swing from her crown like black licorice. Pink bubble gum pops between her razor teeth, and her glasses sit on the very edge of her nose, almost falling off when she leaps and mouths words, pretending to know the song.

She hates the taste of blood, so gum or mints are never far from our kitchen. But if she
doesn’t
eat, she gets very “movie vampire.” Ferocious doesn’t even begin to explain it. That’s why she can’t room with anyone else. It scares the other soldiers. Plus, we can’t chance anyone messing with her while she sleeps, or forgets and lets daylight in.

“Pause!” she yells, and the music cuts out. “Whassup, Tom-Tom?”

“Nothing.”

Her pert head tilt begs to differ. “You’re acting stranger than usual. Got that parental face on. Something happened in the field.”

I open my mouth, but her eyes grow wide. The vampiness gives her some type of third sight, which sometimes makes her far too perceptive, and she’s seeing something on me.

“Bad,” she says softly, falling down onto the couch to sit. “Real bad.”

“Nah,” I reply, and swallow the urge to grab her and make sure she’s actually here, not all burned away.

My eyes sting, while hers do that thing where the black dots narrow until she looks twice her age.

“I don’t really want to talk about it,” I say.

“Come sit.” She smiles softly, patting the cushion. “We’ll put on one of those stupid shows you like so much, the one where they used to build bikes.”

I smile, then do as she says.

She leans against me, and we find a build-a-thon.

“Did you have a bike?” she asks.

“Yep. Built a couple, even.”

“So, then, how come your tattoos aren’t bikes?”

“You want some popcorn?” I don’t want to talk about anything but the basics tonight. I’m drained.

“Sure,” she says, dipping her hand in and out of the bucket.

Munching on cheddar-dusted kernels, I sigh. Tastes like sawdust. I miss the days when my family would make their own kettle corn. I can imagine it now—the smell, and my mom …

Then, I picture Murphy with his blown up head.

Joelle peers up at me, mouth twisting. “I might not have a heartbeat,” she says, “but I can still have a heart-to-heart, you know.”

I cringe at the thought. Just with so much death today.

“I thought you had a heartbeat,” I say, feeling sort of creeped out, though trying not to let it show.

“No,” she says, looking worried I’ll actually
be
creeped out.

“Whoa, it
is
like you’re dead, then. Can you not be killed?” I ask hopefully.

“What!” she shouts, and I realize too late I’ve said a terrible thing.

All after the fact, I see how it sounds.

“You’re not dead just because of that,” she screeches. “Feel me, Tommy. I’m not even cold! And I walk just like you. I’m not even pale, like the ones on TV.”

She is, though, pale as a lily in the night, and cold to the touch. But I’m rarely stupid twice.

Her black eyes blaze, daring me to argue.

“I know,” I finally reply. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”

I was just hoping she’d say she was indestructible. But how to explain it to her, without revealing what happened?

Joelle’s still miffed. “If that’s all it takes, then you’re dead in the time between your heartbeats, too, you know.”

She’s caught me off guard with that one, and I laugh.

She giggles in return at my surprise, then we both crack up at the oddness of the argument.

But I’m serious again when I ask, “What if I told you that you being dead turns out to be my worst nightmare?”

Joelle softens with a shrug, though I can tell the question makes things better. She looks back to the show and over the clank of metal, faintly replies, “I’d say ditto.”

Kiniva’s not the
same self-assured ring leader I’d first met. Instead, this man is anxious, pacing, and without his two dogs or a cigar. “So, have you come to see what’s left of this place?” he asks me.

“What?”

I’d talked myself through his guards tonight to ask about using the ring for Jeremy. But now that I’m here, my bravery’s gone missing.

“The people,” Kiniva says. “They’ve become too afraid. The fights got raided last time, and everyone’s run back into their tidy little holes. What do you want? I don’t have time for girls, or even spirits.”

“Jeremy Writer needs to speak to the black market. Rumor has it your army’s here now.”

Kiniva shakes his head. “Those purged ones are psychos. Blowing things up and stealing trains is nice, but they’ve been poisoned. And don’t you think the Authority knew some would get away? They’re waiting for the big bang …” He smiles at my surprise. “You thought I didn’t know? And once it goes down, they’ll call their little spiders back to them to turn on everyone who thought they had a chance. Even you.”

My jaw clenches against the laced truth to his words. “Let him speak, Kiniva. The people can decide for themselves.”

But he wipes his mouth. “Brave of you to come to me with questions like this, wants. You would have been a great general, you know? If I
was
to admit my army was here and they’d come to listen, to decide … you know they’d never listen to a woman, but you’ve proven to be quite a strategist in the hidden war.”

“Hidden war?” I’m sure I know what he means, but keeping him talking seems my best bet.

“People want change, but they don’t see how to make it happen. They tire of being dogs; they’ve obeyed for so long…. We leave soon. I’d rather be in the wilds than this fake civilization built on the backs of good people.”