by Logan Keys
I sneer at the letters RIP newly carved into the bottom of Reginald’s. Liza killed the bastard. Good. I wish I could see her and thank her. Even if she has Jeremy’s heart, that’s not her fault.
Goodman shakes his head and crosses his arms at the memorial as well.
The city comes into view, and we go between the only opening in the wall that’s miles out in the ocean, bisecting the two statues.
“You ready for this?” he asks me and it comes rushing back. All of it.
I’ve been away for so long, but this---this is home.
I nod.
We fly onto the platform, and before the train stops, Goodman crowbars a door open. The alarms go off as we leap out, falling the one-story drop, preparing for the jolting landing. I hit hard and roll, and Goodman does, too.
He wipes his mouth clean of dirt, grinning at me, blood on his lip.
My elbows have a nice amount of road rash. I grin back.
We run from there to the hill that rises above most of Anthem. From here you can see section, the lower classes, the roads across to the upper northern parts, and if you squint hard, you can see the where the Cromwell’s mansion sets.
There are only the two hills. This one near the exit out into the ocean, and the one the Cromwell’s live on.
Goodman gives me a leg up over the small fence they’ve put up to ward off people from getting this close to the wall on the ocean side. I get on top of it and reach over to pull Goodman up.
“Lay off the home cooking, man,” I grunt.
He laughs as we land on the other side. “Wait until you see what Layla’s made for dinner.”
I realize I’m starved. I need to eat something.
He laughs harder when my stomach growls. “She’s nervous,” Goodman says leading the way down the others side and around toward section.
“Nervous?” I ask.
“Yeah.” He rubs the back of his neck.
We pause and take in the city below. It’s sobering. Anthem’s citizens are unaware that the two most hunted have arrived. That someone hears their cry.
The city is still as gray as ash, and it’s offset by the orange sun setting making the skies afire more than usual. I take a deep breath looking down at the people I want to save.
Do I loathe them yet?
Nah. They don’t know any better. I lift my chin and let the wind dust me off.
It’s time to return to my first love.
From here, we watch the kids and parents in their gray smocks. Life goes on, a colorless life, still. Not much has changed. They look more slumped, more tired, but the same otherwise. Have they always been so weary? It seems worse now for some reason.
I remember the first time I crawled up here to hide after taking a beating from the guards. I’d cried my eyes out over this city. I’d loved it that much already.
“I still love it,” I say and Goodman smiles.
“I know you do.”
“Come on, man.” I pat his shoulder. “Let’s go eat.”
He grins then spins around too and runs down the hill on the other side. We race one another and then climb the first building’s fire escape. From above we jump from roof to roof.
We cover the distance to section, the lower, poorer part of Anthem in record time.
“Getting tired in your old age!” I call back to Goodman.
It’s not fair. He’s only been purged the one time. As a kid, he was scrawny too. I remember him even then, half the muscle. But he won’t be able to keep up with me on a good day.
Not like this.
I’m a beast.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Crystal
Layla acts like I’m royalty. I try to eat with my mouth closed, elbows off the table, because her kid stares at me like I’m a superhero come to visit. I keep from checking to see if I’ve got a cape on.
I reach out to touch the little girl’s cheek, and she pales like she’s going to pass out from excitement, touching the spot where I rubbed my finger.
I glance at Goodman who shrugs in between voracious bites of chicken leg.
This is a huge expense in section. Actual chicken.
I want to give them money, but I don’t want to be rude.
I realize my manners are terrible now, I never know what to say, how to act, I’ve been chasing the Authority so long, I’ve forgotten how to be a real person anymore.
Goodman’s wife is as gorgeous as I’d imagined. She doesn’t have callouses on her hands. She doesn’t have scars on her face. But she doesn’t stare at me like I thought she might, in horror, or fascination. She’d instead teared up the moment she saw me, brought me into a lengthy hug and profusely thanked me.
I had been embarrassed by it.
Layla says now, “Go ahead, Elsa.” And the little girl brings me a present.
I take the delicate package. My ripped leather gloves are making the tissue paper dirty. I take them off and then wipe my sweaty palms on my pants. I realize I’m covered in grime.
My voice is gruff. “Sorry, I’m dirtying your clean house.”
Layla’s holding her throat, her eyes wide in anticipation. Goodman puts an arm around her, and rubs her shoulders.
What I want to say is stuck in my throat. I open the present instead. It’s a little heart. I look up, confused.
“It’s, um, a ruby,” Layla says.
“A ruby,” I echo. And then I lift the large gem in wonder. The light shines through. “I can’t accept this,” I whisper.
“Oh,” Layla says, “But you must! It’s yours. We can’t um---anyway, we’d be in trouble trying to trade or spend it. And it’s a family heirloom passed down for generations. We’d really love for you to have it.”
Hearing that, I put it back inside the box carefully. “No. No way.”
Layla rushes forward and stops my hands. “Please,” she says, earnest.
“But, why?”
She smiles, and tears pop out of her eyelids. “Crystal, you went in after my Jared---Goodman, I mean. You saved his life. When you did that brave thing, I was… I was pregnant with Elsa. They---I know they would have made him one of those monsters if you hadn’t done what you did. I know what you’ve done for all of the Skulls. You must accept this gift. It’s only a small token compared to the countless people you’ve saved. Don’t you understand?” Tears flow unchecked down her face. “Without you, Elsa and I would have been so lost.”
I sit, dumbfounded. I search her gaze then Goodman’s.
He laughs, looks away, and wipes his eyes.
Layla nods at me. “They make the guards come back in search of others who disobey---their own families. The Authority would have taken Elsa from me and imprisoned me! The children go to the island.” She protectively covers her stomach as if Elsa was still in there needing her mother to stop the monsters from taking her.
I feel my face heat. I’m not used to this.
“Please,” Layla says. “Keep it.”
“Okay,” I say.
Elsa runs up to me with a piece of paper. “An older boy at school, he drew a picture of you. He didn’t believe me when I said I knew you. Don’t worry, his father is a Skull, so he already knows not to say anything.”
She shows me an ink blotted but realistic drawing of the Skulls. All of their faces are covered except mine. Or what is a version of me.
I take the drawing and frown. I---a girl stands before them, legs spread wide, hand on hip, dark eyebrow raised in a sardonic arch, and chin stuck out in defiance. Her hair is loose though, and my hand strays to my braid. Through the black strands on the page a strange wind seems to be blowing, pushing it behind her…. like a cape.
“This is me?” I ask in a small voice.
“Yes. I told him she doesn’t look like you but he don’t know what you look like… I think she’s pretty, but you’re prettier.”
She is pretty. I want to keep it so bad. This image of me looking heroic. She has… I dunno spirit or something. Her eyes are fierce. I wish
I looked like her with all my heart.
“It’s for you,” she says when I try to give it back.
“No, sweetie, here.”
She crosses her arms and shakes her head. “He said he wanted you to have it. If I was telling the truth that is.”
I clutch the paper like a lifeline. “I, uh…don’t know what to say.”
Goodman laughs. “That’s a first.”
Dinner’s done so I rise and make an excuse to leave. Like I have some place to be.
Goodman frowns.
“I need a minute, is all,” I whisper when Layla’s not there, and he nods and lets me out the back door.
I stride away from the Goodman’s, take a deep breath and fold up the paper, placing it into my pocket. The familiar sight and sounds of section… This is home to me, a street I know as well as my own face.
If you live here, you get the least amount of rations. Section has slimmed down though; half the places seem empty.
I put on a jacket with a high collar, and I tuck my head way down, hoping no one recognizes me.
When I hit the corner, I see what I least hope to. Stepping backward, I slide as inconspicuously as possible, back against the wall.
The guards are here.
A voice catches on the breeze to me, frantic, upset. The same high pitched and fearful sound that always coincides with a Guard visit.
“We don’t have anything. What do you want with us?” the father is demanding.
I grit my teeth and creep up to the corner, peeking around the side.
They start dragging them out of the house, securing the family, hands behind their backs.
“Please. She’s just a child!”
They take the bewildered young thing and snap her into zip ties as well.
I pull away and close my eyes. Heart thundering in my ears, I talk myself down. Like a gut punch, someone screams. “Don’t do it,” I say to myself, even as my eyes open and I move to see around the corner once again.
A young voice cries out in pain.
“No,” I say to the stupid person already turning the corner.
Me.
The person rushing toward the black helmets, like I have no control of her. I approach so swiftly no one has any time to react.
My reflection in the shiny mirrors of the Guard’s helmet visors is surprising.
I’m her. The girl from the drawn image folded in my pocket.
I see it now.
I’m as fierce as she is, because I have to be.
Now that I’m here, moving between them and the victims they chose for today, I’ve never been more certain about anything in my life. They will take this family to be purged over my dead body.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Crystal
I grab the nearest guard. He’s light as a feather to my adrenaline pumped, purged body. I’m as strong as three of them since most guards only do one purging to become a mindless drone. I took it three times, more than anyone else, and still, I am me.
But, I’m not as much me as I used to be. I’m a vessel for the purging.
I live a million lifetimes in the split second before I grab the first enemy by his collar, and I haul him over my head and throw him into the rest of the monsters.
Versions of myself fan out before me like broken glass. Choices I make---have made. They all do certain things. They all love Jeremy. They all love Anthem. But they don’t all choose this life and give up even a dinner table like Layla has. They don’t all become a cartoon on a piece of paper.
Many of them are hiding inside a house in section, with their family. Several have stayed back with my family back on the north side. Most of them are the Crystal who can shatter like this glass. She’s my downfall. She’s my distraction.
I can’t be her.
I won’t.
Because this version of me, this scar faced hero, she’s going to save someone or die trying. And I know I’m going to lose hard, and soon, maybe today.
The next guard takes the brunt of my explosive anatomy. I crack him practically down the middle.
The third, I break his neck in a swift twist, and without breathing even between, I’m bashing another against a wall.
Three down so fast, it couldn’t have been more than a second each if not less.
The family is staring at me but I don’t pause. I march over, cut their binds, and I hand them their bags and I tell them, “Run!”
They obey me, and as I knew, more guards have already arrived. At the end of this alleyway, they wait, five wide across and ten deep.
I spin toward the street and almost run into Goodman. He’s gaping at me, at the guards. His face is uncovered. He pales with the realization of what is occurring.
I put a hand on his arm. “Go,” I say and he glares at me, incredulous. “Go,” I repeat. “They can’t take you, I mean, if they do… Layla… but they can take me.”
He glances at my hand on his arm and shrugs me off. “No, Crystal. No.”
“Yes.” I take off my jacket. “Get this to Jeremy.” The ruby and the paper are inside. “He has to know I didn’t leave him and we need him. Okay? Can I trust you to understand that? If they take you, they’ll go after your family. And he’ll never know what happened to me.”
I try to make it sound enough like a mission that he’ll listen to me. Goodman hesitates.
“For Elsa,” I say, knowing it’s a cheap shot, but it works like a charm.
He nods. Takes the jacket. Then he gives me a look that weakens my own resolve, but I say, “I’ll be fine.”
He opens his mouth and I slice my hand through the air. “Eyes up.”
Goodman shakes his head but says, “Keep alert.”
Together we say, “And stand your ground.”
Goodman gives me a salute, and his crooked smile is sad. But with my chin jerk toward the exit, he dutifully listens, and takes off.
More resolute, I turn to face the guards.
“All right, fellas.” I crack my knuckle. “I’m gonna take as many of you with me as I can.”
The first wave attacks, and I flatten them all. Each one. In a blur. I just mow them down.
The next is clearer, as I break ribs through their padded outfits, legs, necks. The crunch of bone grounds me, makes me thirst for retribution.
I get a little intense fighting hand to hand. It’s been so long. The rush makes me laugh out loud as the third wave falls prey to my roundhouse kicks, boots to face, helmets knocked clear of a few heads, bouncing amidst the alleyway.
And the purge in all its glory comes spilling out from inside. Their identity revealed, pale and pockmarked from lack of sun. They’re as ugly as zombies.
My foot lands on a throat and I grind it into the ground until he stops moving. I face the fourth… or is this the fifth? Wave of them.
But more have arrived.
I fight valiantly if I might say so myself. But there are just too many.
The rest finally subdue me.
They dog-pile on me, so many I lose count, just to bring me down.
As I go to my knees, I mutter to myself, “It’s okay. It’s okay.”
This is what I’m made for. And while it scares the hell out of me, facing my fourth and no doubt last purge, they all got away. Goodman, that family, all of them.
As they cart me off, binds firmly in place, triple, quadruple the number of ties needed for a normal human, and around my legs too, I look up at the sky and smile.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Liza
“I need you to wake up. Don’t go back to sleep. Or whatever it’s called. Come on. Get up, Liza. You can do it.” Phillip’s voice is soft but urgent.
“Where am I?”
“We’ve traveled some ways, is it really you this time?” He seems as afraid that I’m not real as I am that he’s not either.
I nod, but my head feels fuzzy. “Phillip?” I ask when it grows quiet again.
I can’t see him, but this is the first I’ve heard his
voice in so-so long. “Phillip?”
“I’m here. Try to fight through the fog. Can you see me?”
I shake my head. I open my eyes but see my same cell on Bodega Island. The same fake reality Cory’s had me in since leaving LA.
“Slap me,” I say.
“What?”
I’m fading away from Phillip. Going back to my prison. “Slap me. Hard! Do it now!”
My head moves to the side, and I hear the slap, but barely feel it. “Again!” I demand.
“Liza,” Phillip says with doubt.
“Do it. Please! I can’t stay here another second!”
This time I feel it. I gasp and touch my cheek. And feel myself touching my cheek.
I blink and it’s like the fog has lifted. For the first time in what seems like an eternity, I see. Phillip is crouched down. I’m sitting on the ground near a road. “Where are we?” I gasp.
“Ummm, I’d rather not say. It might freak you out. It’s been a while.”
I rub my cheek, the spot burning now with pain. But I love that sensation. I can feel, at least.
“Where is he?” I demand.
“He’s asleep, back in camp. Sometimes, if he sleeps deeply enough, you wander. And if you wander, I follow you and try to get you to wake.”
I rise to my feet. Phillip steadies me.
“I’ve just been following him along like a zombie all this time?” I ask, marveling at how insane that sounds.
“Yeah, pretty much.” Phillip’s gray eyes are sad. Sad for me.
“Could we run? Now, I mean? You said he’s asleep.”
Phillip shakes his head, dark hair coming loose from its tie. I stare at it, it’s at least an inch longer than last time I saw him. My stomach hurts at the thought of so much time passing.
Phillip says, “I tried to lead you away before. It won’t work. I’m not sure what he’s done, but you panic, and you sort of fade away.”
I gape at him. “He’s probably instilled some sort of hypnosis.”
“Maybe. Yeah. That makes sense. You act like there’s something going to get you or maybe already has.”
“We could kill him.”