It’s then that I come to understand. Somehow, the DAV has—I don’t have the words for it. Much in the same way that Tanner has made me a Kinder again, so that Finn can toy with me in battle, they’ve done something to my people. That’s why he insisted back in the hospital, and then again in the hallway, that trying to rescue them would be futile. I don’t know how they’ve done it, but it has to be possible. If their scientists can create superhumans with a small vial of blue liquid, what’s to say they can’t modify someone’s brain with something similar?
Angel answers my question before I have a chance to ask.
“Wait until one of the nurses gives you the green goo.”
Green goo makes me think of Mint Monster, and I feel a pang of sorrow that the bodies of James, Squirrel, Marla, and the rest of my Republicon family lay on the forest floor, days and days from here, unburied and never to be put to rest, food for hungry animals that don’t care where the free meal has come from.
“Green goo?”
“We line up for our shots each morning, and I swear to you,” she says with so much excitement in her eyes I think she might yank me in for another hug, “it’ll be the best you’ve ever felt in your life. My skin positively glows afterward! The nurses have some name for it, oh, I don’t know, the reset regimen, I think. We’ve all started calling the stuff what it really is.”
I lift an eyebrow, dumbfounded.
Angel grabs a random man walking past us and says, “Tell her what we call the green goo.”
“Happy Juice,” he replies, smile beaming to prove his point.
All around us, everyone within earshot, shouts in unison, “Hooray for Happy Juice!”
I’m dreaming. I have to be dreaming again. This isn’t real, is it? I’m really back in my hospital bed. I’m asleep, and when I wake up, the nice nurse with the blue liquid will be there and something different will happen. There’s no way that this is real. It can’t be. Green goo? Reset regimen? I… No, this isn’t…
A familiar voice, one that I haven’t heard since the pointless Battle of Warrenville, interrupts the happy-go-lucky chanting around me, saying, “Pathetic, isn’t it?”
I turn and face the boy I was falling in love with. Blue eyes, shock of blond hair that’s grown longer since I’ve seen him. He’s clean, too. Freshly washed, the mop on the top of his head is combed and light, rather than matted and flat with the grunge of life in the forest.
“They’re nothing but cattle. Sheep, maybe. Lining up each morning like some cranky old farmer is ringing a dinner bell, calling his flock in from the field.”
“You,” is all I can manage. I retreat a step.
Finn says, “They don’t even know how expendable they are. They don’t even care, either.” He grabs Angel by the throat with one hand and begins squeezing. She doesn’t resist.
I shout for him to stop. He ignores me.
I can’t cover my ears fast enough. A squishing, crunching, gurgling sound comes from Angel’s throat, followed by a silent, wide-open mouth. He picks her up, drives her down across his thigh and snaps her back in two. He drops her to the floor and says, “Hooray for Happy Juice!”
Anyone that hears him looks up from Angel’s wriggling body, smiles, and says, “Hooray for Happy Juice!”
Finn grins. “See?”
I feel lightheaded. Faint. I need to sit down. “You’re…evil.”
“I wouldn’t say evil,” he says, stepping closer to me. He puts the toe of his boot under Angel and flicks his leg, easily tossing the body to the side. He orders a group of people to do something with it, and they all agree with thrilled excitement.
“Evil,” I repeat because it’s the only word I can think of. I find a seam between the cots and retreat. I have nowhere to go, but all I want to do is put some distance between me and this monster.
“How about…evolved?”
I shake my head.
“Tanner gave you your shot, right? I’m sure he did; otherwise, you wouldn’t be here. Let me propose something to you… You say evil, I say evolved. You say evil, I say gods. Now that you’re here, now that you’re a Kinder again, let’s be gods together.” He grabs a man with a long beard trying to shuffle past us. In one quick motion, he snaps the man’s neck and pushes him into a table where a number of PRV citizen-slaves are sitting. “Ants. Gods. Hooray for Happy Juice!”
“Hooray for Happy Juice!” come the excited chants. They have no idea what’s going on.
“If this is what you wanted, why’d you give me the anti-serum to begin with?”
“I couldn’t have you ruining everything until we delivered the sheep, Caroline. Think about it.”
“You told Tanner you wanted one last battle so he’d give me the serum.”
“Right.”
“I don’t understand.”
“He never would’ve given it to you if I said I wanted to rule the world with you.”
“But how can you be a god if they control you? Tanner told me about the—about the thing in your head. That’s why you were so convincing. You didn’t know you were really fighting for them, and then they—they flipped a switch or something and now you’re… You’re this.”
“What’re you talking about?” He shakes his head and offers a confused laugh with his eyes narrowed.
“Tanner said you’re a weapon. Their weapon. You don’t know what you’re doing. Not all the time. You might think you can be a god, now, but the moment you try, President Crake or maybe even Tanner, somebody will push a button, and your brain will be a tomato, just like the rest of them.”
He laughs. It’s not a confused laugh, but a real, hearty chuckle. “I see what you’re doing. Stalling won’t get you anywhere, Mathers. Look around. Where are you gonna go? And for what? You? Me? They can’t touch us. They can’t do anything to us. We’re gods. Gods, gods, gods.”
“Then why didn’t you give me the Kinder serum yourself? If you’re in control, if you really can do whatever you want, then why ask Tanner to do it?”
“Because I can—” Finn pauses mid-sentence, eyes dancing as he stares vacantly. “Because I would’ve—I don’t…” He runs his fingers through his hair and gnaws on his bottom lip.
“You couldn’t, could you? You wanted to, and they wouldn’t let you.”
“That’s not true. I’m the most powerful weapon on Earth. They said so. I can do… I can do whatever…”
“See? Finn? They can do whatever they want. Not you. You’re not in control of yourself. Maybe if you—”
He swings wildly, knocking ten bodies away, sending them hurtling in a mass of flailing arms and legs.
“Liar,” he screams.
“You’ll never have me. I don’t want you. They won’t let you. You’re nothing but a weapon. You don’t have freedom. You don’t control your own life. You’re a pathetic animal in a cage, and I should’ve let Brandon slit your throat that day in the forest. You’re nothing to me, and you’re obviously nothing to them.”
“Liar,” he screams again, lunging for me. “I am a god!”
And I know there will be no way out of this.
I have to fight.
The final battle has begun.
23
I have no advantage.
I have no idea what I can really do.
I have no time to react because Finn is bigger, faster, and much, much stronger than me.
When his fist hits my stomach, it feels like someone dropped a boulder off a mountain, but the pain is minimal. It’s something like a heavy pressure in my gut, and though it doesn’t exactly hurt, that doesn’t stop the wind from escaping me. I gasp and heave, trying to inhale, and this fleeting delay costs me dearly as he follows the first punch with a fist to my jaw. I hear and feel the bone crack but as I stumble backward, blood flying from my lips, the same warming, mending sensation races through my body and thrums on the right side of my face.
Am I healed? Can I heal immediately? Is that one of my—
I take an uppercut to
the ribs and again, bones shatter. Finn grabs me underneath the arms and slings me hard and far. While I’m sailing, carried by momentum, I look down at the PRV citizen-slaves, the brain-numb cattle, watching me from twenty feet below. The warmth flows from my jaw to my side in mid-air, then to my back as I crash against the far wall. Bricks and wood crumble as I leave a body-sized dent behind.
I fall. I land in a crouch.
I have time to lift my head and see Finn driving his shoulder into my chest, growling and pushing with his legs. The thud is sickening, tremendous, and I gag on the blood that rushes into my mouth. Finn doesn’t give me time to recover. He grips my wrist tightly and hurls me into the crowd. The impact against scattering bodies sprays blood from lips like the misty rain outside, but when I land, I feel excitement and joy around me. So many hands and arms grabbing me, lifting me up, saying, “You poor dear,” and, “Here, let us help you up,” and, “Some of that green goo will fix you right up.”
No sooner than they have me on my feet and let go, Finn is there, the heel of his boot snapping my head to the side. Bodies scatter yet again as I crash backward.
I can’t see out of my right eye. It’s shrouded in blackness and the left eye is a blurry mess—the warmth travels rapidly. The darkness fades. The blur recedes.
I spot Finn mere feet from me, but I have time to propel myself out of his way. I’m so fast that he lands in empty space where I once was.
It’s my first confirmed sign of a Kinder ability other than being able to take a tremendous amount of punishment.
Good. It’s a start. Now what else?
I remember Finn telling me ages ago, on our retreat to the capital, when I first learned of the Kinders’ history, that each person’s body responded differently. Each person’s powers presented themselves based on their natural abilities and then some. I wonder if Tanner was lying when he said my abilities after the serum would be weaker than what I had from drinking Ellery’s blood as a baby. Did I inherit her powers? Is my body reacting differently from the serum?
I don’t know. I wish I knew how it all worked. But right now I don’t—
Finn’s hands close around my head and I can feel the pressure increasing as he squeezes. Just before I think my skull is going to pop, I manage to get my arms underneath his, forcing them hard up and out. I knock myself free and then lock my arms, driving forward, using them both like a charging bull. The impact catches him unprepared. Tripping and flailing, he manages to regain his balance before he goes down.
He growls and swings at the people reaching to help him. An innocent woman catches a fist to the temple, and she’s knocked fifty feet to the side, falling dead among the crowd that’s too happy about the commotion to understand they’re in terrible danger.
I have to lure him out of here. Their brains are addled mush, but maybe I can at least keep them alive.
As much as I hate it, they’re better off living and ignorantly happy than dead and gone.
Finn lunges for me and misses. I’m already gone, racing for the far door in the northeastern corner, screaming for people to get out of my way and shoving the ones who don’t move fast enough.
I make it. I don’t know how, but I make it.
I scramble outside, immediately greeted by a drenching wall of rain in my face, followed by jagged, blinding lightning and the roaring thunder of a fresh storm overhead. How appropriate that this is the way I’ll likely meet my end, underneath a vengeful God breaking the backs of angels, just like Finn and the poor woman inside.
And it seems like such an odd time to come to a realization, in the middle of a fight to the death, because it had become such a part of our lives, it was so ever-present that I never stopped to think about it; it would be like overlooking the fact that birds fly and fish swim.
What is it? What’s this grand revelation?
I really, really hate the rain.
I run into the open field outside of the school.
Plump raindrops hammer at my back, drenching my jacket and jeans, soaking my hair through as the wind catches it, whipping clumped strands around and into my face. I try to brush it away but it’s no use. I spin in circles looking for Finn, wondering why he didn’t follow me.
Then, almost as loud as the snarling thunder, I hear boom, boom, ba-boom, boom, boom, ba-boom.
It can be nothing but drums, pounding to the beat of the war rhythm.
I try to find the source of the sound.
Boom, boom, ba-boom.
Finn’s voice follows the last beat, saying, “Remember this, Caroline?”
Boom, boom, ba-boom.
I spot them. There, attached on the wall at the building’s corner, two cones that look like the megaphone that Hale used to address his insurgents. These sound older, with a metallic tone, and then they squawk when Finn says, “That’s what fear sounds like, right? But what I want to know is…what does it feel like? I wouldn’t know. I’ve never felt it. If I drink your blood—if I rip open your throat and drink your blood, will I inherit your Kinder powers and your human emotions? Will I also know fear?”
Boom, boom, ba-boom.
I scream, “Come and try it,” as loud as my lungs possibly can. My voice is shrill, full of wrath and terror. I don’t know what I’m going to do.
A streak of lightning touches the ground not far from the school, and overhead God breaks the back of an angel so loudly that I can feel my insides rumbling.
I felt little pain while Finn beat me senseless inside the school, but that doesn’t mean with his superior strength, speed, and agility, that he can’t grab me and rip my body in half with his bare hands.
Same as it was before, I may be superhuman, but I’m not immortal.
If I’m unsure of everything else in the world, that’s the only certainty.
A weapon? Will a weapon work?
There’s nothing within reach, and besides, what could I use? A tree branch? Could I use the metal swings like a club? I’m in the middle of a field, storm raging around me, and I have nothing but my hands, my heart, and my spirit to guide me.
I hear a tremendous crash and see Finn bursting up and out of the school’s roof.
My knees weaken with fear. I’d forgotten he could practically fly.
Finn soars upward and outward, landing softly on his feet, wind blowing his hair, pouring rain immediately soaking his white shirt, plastering it against his skin.
I take one step in retreat. Then I change my mind. If this is it, if this is really the end and I have no other options, I’m not going to give up. Even if I die, I’ll do it by trying to be the hero my people thought I was.
It’s not that I have to fight.
It’s that I have to fight.
Finn stomps across the field, head tilted down, setting me aflame with eyes of darkened ferocity. “Save me the trouble. Just lie down and die, Caroline. The war’s over.”
“Not this one.”
I launch myself at Finn, charging forward, thrusting myself across the field until the world becomes a blur.
He does the same.
Time slows, but not like before—enough for me to see that we’re on a collision course. Neither of us will stop. Neither of us will lose this test of willpower.
We slam into each other as the thunder roars. Finn’s strength, his momentum, overpowers mine, and he slams me backward. I skip across the wet grass like a stone across the top of a lake, coming to a stop against a short row of bushes.
Before I can recover, Finn lands at my feet, fist driving downward as my arms go up to block him. We throw punches and kicks, struggling for the upper hand. My bones shatter, and the healing warmth dances around my body. I gag on the blood draining down my throat.
I head butt Finn on the bridge of his nose. He careens away and trips over a stump, landing on his back. With my speed, I can easily get to him, pouncing on him with my knees to his chest, full weight spearing down, down, down. For a moment I think I might have the upper hand until he huffs, grins, and launc
hes me to his left with a simple swipe of his arm.
I hold my own, for a while, at least. We trade blows. I’m strong enough to send him reeling, to get him away from me for a couple of seconds at a time to allow the warming sensation to heal my body, but the longer it goes on, the less it seems to work.
Maybe I have a limited ability to heal. Maybe my body is taking too much punishment, and it’s breaking down; it can’t sustain the pace of recovery.
Finn drives an elbow into the side of my head, sending me to the ground. Sparkles dance in my vision, and the ringing in my ear is louder than the storm.
The curing warmth is nothing more than a whisper of what it once was.
I don’t know how much longer I can last.
Finn grabs an arm and a leg and hurls my body, sending me sliding across the sodden grass where I come to a crashing stop against a large, metal pole. The DAV flag flaps in the screaming wind at the top, attached by a flimsy cord. My head throbs. I can’t lift my arms. My tongue feels the absence of a few teeth, and the taste of my own blood sits thick and metallic on the back of my tongue.
I try to sit up. I don’t have the energy left to do it. I collapse, and the last of the warmth drifts down to my heart and lungs. It tenderly throbs there, straining to keep me alive.
But then I wonder, is that part of my abilities as a Kinder, or is that really my spirit keeping my heart beating?
I cough. A dollop of blood lands in my palm.
Finn rears his head back, roars at the sky, and beats his chest.
He runs, jumps, and drifts through the air, then slams onto the ground beside me. I can feel the earth shake underneath my outstretched legs.
Hunched over me, Finn’s teeth glisten with saliva and reflect the flash of lightning. “You almost had me convinced. Almost. Do I look like someone who can be controlled? Do you think anyone would dare try to control me?” He stands up straight and lifts his arms to the sky. “We could’ve ruled the world together, the two of us, king and queen over all creation. Adam and Eve. No, bigger than that. I’m not just a god, Mathers. I am God.”
“You’re insane!”
The Light of Hope Page 16