The Fandom

by Anna Day

  I hear his words, ridged with panic. “They’re here.”

  I see the shadows first, three beasts reaching up the alley wall, a collection of frenzied spikes beneath the yellow glare of the headlights. I dash to Nate, thrusting his body behind mine. Only now do I see the eyes of the foot soldiers, shadowy beneath their helmets. Guns aimed at our heads. There were no soldiers at the safe house in canon. How did they know where to find us? It can’t be a coincidence.

  They drag Ash from the Humvee, twisting his arms behind his back, wrenching the pistol from his grasp. It skids across the ground, landing in a nearby gutter. I can hear the throb of a helicopter landing at the far end of the alley, stirring up the dust and the hairs on my neck.

  Ash bashes into me, whirling from the force of a guard’s hands. I quickly do the math. Three soldiers—heavily armored, covered in weaponry, tall, broad, and trained. Three Imps—all unarmed. Fear prevents me from crying, but I can still feel the tears forming in my lower lids.

  “On the floor or we shoot,” a soldier shouts.

  We kneel, our movements disjointed, the lights of the Humvee burning our eyes.

  A man runs from the chopper, initially no more than an outline, but he gains color and form as he nears. He looks different from the soldiers. Something about the way he moves is more upright, more formal, and beneath his body armor he wears a pinstripe suit. He approaches me and a familiar leer twists his handsome face. Blond curls corkscrew from beneath his helmet. Howard Stoneback. It definitely isn’t a coincidence; Howard’s been gunning for me since the raid at the Meat House, and it looks like someone’s told him where to find me.

  He stands over me. “There she is, the little brat who drugged us.”

  “What shall we do with them, Mr. Stoneback?” a soldier asks.

  Howard takes his time, looking us up and down, prolonging the torture. Then, he leans in and strokes my cheek with a cold, dry finger. I feel like I’m standing back in that display room, zip clutched between my trembling fingers.

  He straightens up. “I want to see this pretty thing spinning on a rope on prime time. I’ve just spoken with the president, and he’s reserved a special place for her at tomorrow’s Gallows Dance.”

  This could work to my advantage. I’d hoped to see Nate, Ash, and Katie safely to No-man’s-land before my capture, but I’m learning fast that things don’t always go as planned.

  He pulls a pistol from a holster. I can see every line, every hair, on his hands, cast in the glare of the headlights, but his features become no more than a hodgepodge of shadows. His gun glints as his fingers lace around the trigger. “But I only need the whore.” He looks at me. “Next time you piss someone off, make sure they aren’t related to the president.”

  The cold water nips at the base of my gullet, threatening to climb higher. I push it down and find my voice. “Arrest me. But please, let the others go.”

  He laughs. “An Imp issuing orders—interesting.” He leans in close again. I can feel his breath against my cheek, hot and peppered with spit. “Do these Imps matter to you?”

  I nod.

  “How sweet.” He smirks and lifts the nose of his gun. “An important lesson in life: Imps don’t matter.”

  I watch his finger compress the trigger. The noise rips through my head and bounces off the alley walls as though God himself is screaming. For a moment, I think I’ve been shot. I brace myself for the pain, glance downward, awaiting the stain of crimson spreading across my stomach.

  But I feel no pain, see no crimson.

  I see only Nate—rasping, spluttering, clamping his hands to his abdomen.

  A red patch spreads across his overalls.

  I reach for him, but my fingers swipe only air as he topples to the side. The soldiers shove me into the ground and I watch as Nate’s blood colors the concrete, moving toward me like black, syrupy water.

  My hearing goes woozy. I can just pick out Ash’s cries, traveling through a film of shock. “You bastards. I’ll kill you, you bastards.” I see his face, mid-scream, splattered with Nate’s blood. The soldiers knock him to the pavement with steel batons. I watch the steel shafts curving through the air, almost gold in the yellow lights of the Humvee. My gaze shifts to Nate’s body, slumped and bleeding. And something solidifies inside me. A singular Russian doll forged from anger and righteousness, a doll that belongs solely to the Imps. Its lacquered shell grows hard and strong, encasing me with a sense of purpose.

  I see my opportunity. My muscles swell with rage, tight and curled and ready to explode. I leap toward Howard Stoneback, barreling into his shoulder and catching him off guard. He falls to the ground, firing several futile shots into the sky. I hurl my fists at his chest, his face, anywhere I can reach, the rage pulsing through me, pushing out screams and sobs. But Gems are strong, and Howard quickly flips me away. I skid across the pavement, my fists still whirring before me like they don’t know how to stop.

  I can still hear Ash’s voice, gurgling and weak. “Violet, no.”

  Howard points his gun at me, disbelief unsettling his faultless brow. I know I will die now. My eyes flicker shut, and I wait for the bullets to pierce my belly, arms, neck.

  Four shots in quick succession. Four thuds.

  I open my eyes to see Howard and the soldiers littering the ground like scraps of paper. Those blond corkscrews dipped in red, and that perverse leer finally gone. Strong hands grasp my arms, hauling me to my feet and clutching me to a muscular chest. Matthew.

  “Are you injured?” he asks.

  I don’t reply. I can barely breathe, let alone speak.

  Matthew hoists Nate over one shoulder and carries him to the Humvee.

  Saskia dashes over to me. “Violet, I’m so sorry, Nate got away from us back at the Meat House.”

  Again, I don’t reply.

  “We need to get out of here.” She helps Ash up. “We only came back for the Humvee seeing as the Gems trashed our rides. Lucky for you we did.”

  Matthew lays Nate in my arms. The weight of his body wakes me from my stupor. I support his fair head in the nook of my elbow, cradling him as though he’s newly born, and climb into the back of the car. I notice the slight movement of his chest, the blood fizzing from the corner of his lips as he tries to breathe.

  Saskia and Matthew climb in the front of the Humvee.

  Saskia turns to Matthew. “There’s obviously a mole in our midst. We torch the church before the Gems find it.” She pops her face around the back of the headrest. For a second, I think a splash of Nate’s blood has reached her forehead, then I remember it’s just her birthmark. “Thorn’s gone. Dead or captured, so it’s up to us now,” she says.

  The thought that this news would sadden Nate crosses my mind, but I feel very little when I think of Thorn being dead. At least he can’t harm Katie now. I feel the movement of the Humvee as Ash manages to hoist his body beside mine. He helps me apply pressure to Nate’s side. The blood feels warm, oozing between my fingers.

  “I need something to stem the flow.” My voice comes out a string of breathy words.

  “It’s a stomach wound,” Saskia says. She doesn’t tell me Nate is dying, but I hear it, heavy in every word.

  I look into Nate’s face, so pale it almost disappears beneath the starlight. His golden eyelashes quiver, his breath catches in his throat. And that’s when I first notice them, faint and distant, the rhythmic pips from my dream.

  We burst from the garage, tires screeching. Matthew cuts the lights, so I’m not sure how he can tell which way to drive, but he powers down the alley regardless. Pip … pip … pip. I trace Nate’s features with a finger. The pain ages him by at least twenty years, carving great trenches into his skin. I wonder if his face offers a porthole into the future he will never have. Nate as a man—perhaps with children of his own, my nieces and nephews. Tears fall down my cheeks and splash against his forehead.

  This is all my fault. Alice must have told the Gems about the safe house. How could I have been so
stupid? My inability to doubt her led the soldiers straight to us—straight to my little brother. The guilt feels like a black hole, sucking everything from me. Hope, joy, love; dragged into a pit of nothingness.

  Pip … pip … pip.

  “Violet,” Nate whispers. Blood dribbles from the corner of his mouth, scarlet against the white of his cheek. “Tell Mum and Dad I love them.”

  “Tell them yourself.”

  His eyelids flicker as he loses focus, and I notice the pips begin to slow, like a clock losing time.

  “Are you afraid?” he asks.

  “Of what?”

  “Of hanging.”

  I let out a loud sob, tears pouring into his face. “No,” I lie. “Of course not. It’s just a story. We can’t really die in a story—Baba told me. When you wake up, you’ll be home with Mum and Dad.”

  “And real food, and football, and a nice soft pillow.”

  “Yeah.” A moan grows in my stomach, threatening to rip me apart.

  Pip .…. pip .…. pip.

  I begin to feel strangely removed. I step outside my body and watch his features slowly settle. I grow increasingly aware of the space above me. An infinite sky—black and heavy and loaded with stars. And below, I see myself. Face warped, back curved, fingers plaited through strands of golden hair. I can almost see my love, a shimmering force field encircling our bodies, binding us together in a giant bubble. I could reach out and touch it if I wanted, but I’m afraid it may disappear.

  Pip .…. pip .…… I wait for the final pip. I know what they are, what they mean, of course I do. Tinny and hollow and terrifying—echoing around a hospital room. I wipe my eyes and watch as our bodies move as one, swaying as the Humvee corners the endless side streets. Nate’s face now looks completely relaxed .…. pip .….… And finally, his chest is still.

  The monotonous tone of the flatline hits my ears.

  And I know that he has gone.

  SINCE ARRIVING IN this world, I’ve experienced more physical pain than I thought possible. I’ve been kicked, shoved, pulled, strung up, not to mention the indescribable ache of Baba’s palms resting on my temples. But it feels so insignificant when compared to the pain of losing Nate.

  Whereas physical pain brought my body into focus—filled me up, made me swell, turned me into something bigger—loss does the exact opposite. It scrunches me into a ball, folds me in half, scoops me out until I’m not sure I exist—the world around me becomes a carbon copy. Or maybe I’m the copy. I can’t tell anymore.

  I don’t know how long I sit in the back of the Humvee, lurching from side to side. Eyes parched, brain numb, just clutching at Nate’s lifeless body. The flatline still rings in my head, and I pray and pray and pray that this is just a dream, just a horrible, twisted dream. That when I wake up, Nate will be smiling and laughing and telling me some random crap in his Sheldon Cooper voice.

  I barely notice when we draw to a halt outside the church.

  Matthew holds my eye. “Dead?”

  Such a small word, yet so hard, so final.

  I nod.

  “I’m sorry.” He pauses. “The sky’s empty.”

  I know he means of Gem helicopters, but I can’t help thinking of the stars.

  “There’s no time to lick our wounds,” Saskia says. “We need to torch the church and then escape over the river.”

  No-man’s-land. They’ve had the same idea as us—hardly surprising.

  Matthew jumps from the Humvee. “Wait here.”

  “But I need to get Katie,” I say.

  He looks at Nate and his eyes well with tears. “Quickly, though.” He lifts Nate from my lap. “We can leave him in the church. He’ll get a true hero’s funeral.”

  I nod, too numb to argue. I need to focus on the living, on Katie and Ash. I’m not sure I even care about completing the canon anymore. Home isn’t home without Nate. I slide from the Humvee, my legs only just carrying my weight, soaked in blood and weakened from fatigue.

  I follow Matthew to the church, Ash’s arm wrapped firmly around my waist. I can’t help but watch Nate’s feet undulating to the rhythm of Matthew’s stride. Up, down, up, down. I remember him much younger, soaring back and forth on a swing, kicking up the spray at the seaside, dancing in my bedroom to Abba. That black hole returns, sucking me empty.

  The church looks as if a swarm of locusts has passed through it. Everything, bar a series of boxes, has gone. Nearly all of the rebels were arrested at the Coliseum, and the night-lights have long since been extinguished; only a few remaining candles offer pouches of light. I see Thorn, leaning against the altar, his head battered and covered in blood, his hands holding a small black box.

  Saskia sees him and stops. “Thorn, you’re alive.”

  He looks up, his eye patch gone, the full force of his beauty uncovered. His gaze falls on me, red capillaries spider-webbing across the whites of his eyes. “You did this, Little Flower.”

  His words barely touch me.

  Matthew lays Nate down on the pew at the front of the church. The one where he slept only hours ago. I bend over his lifeless body, brushing the hair from his face, kissing his cheek. It still feels a little warm. I pull the green blanket over his legs, telling myself he’ll wake up soon.

  “How did the Gems know about the raid?” Thorn says.

  “Leave it, Thorn,” Saskia says softly. She hands me a piece of moist cloth, and I begin to wipe the dirt and blood from Nate’s face. He looks so young again, his face no longer capable of holding any pain. A sob lodges in my throat. Ash rests a tender hand on my shoulder, and without thinking, I plant a kiss on his knuckles.

  “The raid, Little Flower. How did they know about the raid?” Thorn persists.

  But it’s like he’s talking behind glass. I don’t care if he thinks I’m a traitor. What could he possibly do to hurt me more than this? Tenderly, I arrange Nate’s arms so they cross his heart. I lean in close. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I’m so sorry, Jonathan.” I hear myself begin to cry, and I bury my head in his narrow chest, willing him to comfort me.

  I sense Thorn standing behind me. “You betrayed us, and now your brother is dead. It is a fitting punishment, I think.”

  I turn my head and glare at him. “You never did deserve to be his hero. You can go to hell.”

  “First, you’ve got to kill me.”

  All the fury, all the injustice, bursts inside me. I look at his perfect Gem face and I suddenly get this overwhelming desire to hurt him, to kill him. I run at him, kicking and spitting. “I hate you,” I scream, “I hate you.” I scream it to all the Gems, to the universe that holds us captive and stole my little brother.

  Thorn lifts me from the ground and carries me from the church. I thrash and twist, but it’s no use. Ash tries to help, but Thorn bats him away like a fly. Saskia and Matthew follow, concern gripping their features.

  “No,” I cry. “Let me say good-bye. Please. I just want to say good-bye.”

  Thorn laughs. “Well, now you can say good-bye to your little friend, Katherine.”

  “No, not Katie, too. You wouldn’t kill Katie.”

  He carries me toward the Humvee. “You can watch her burn. Along with all the rebel intel, years of work. It’s all got to burn.”

  And I realize Thorn’s hate—for me, for the Gems—now overpowers his love for Ruth. What started as something beautiful has grown and morphed into something ugly. A black, jagged mess of revenge and hate. We were so naive, so foolish, to think that his feelings for Ruth would offer some sort of protection to Katie. I get this ringing in my ears as I realize I’m about to lose Katie, too.

  Thorn throws me to the floor and stamps a foot into my stomach, pinning me to the ground. Ash jumps on his back, but Thorn seems to just shrug him off. I wriggle and flip like a fish on a bank, but he possesses Gem strength and the boot won’t budge. He jabs the button on that little black box. Two small explosions punch through the drone and shards of glass rain down on the pavement. The church windows beg
in to glow orange, the eyes of a Halloween pumpkin.

  “No!” I scream. “Not Katie.” Nate’s dead. Alice has abandoned me. Even worse, betrayed me. The thought of being the only one left from the four of us fills me with such an intense loneliness, I think I may implode. “I can’t lose Katie, too.” The tarmac slaps against the backs of my thighs, my shoulder blades, as I continue to struggle against his boot.

  “Do something,” Ash shouts to Matthew.

  “This ain’t right, Thorn,” Matthew says.

  Saskia runs toward us. “You ain’t seriously gonna let her friend fry?”

  Thorn pushes his boot down so hard I hear something crack in my chest. “They set us up,” he says.

  Of course. He thinks Katie betrayed him, too. That’s why he wants her dead.

  “It was Alice.” My voice starts to fade, robbed of breath and hope. “It was Alice who betrayed you … us. I swear it wasn’t Katie.”

  “Nice try. But Alice didn’t know about the raid.”

  “She did. Ask Baba, please, just ask Baba,” I manage to say.

  Thorn laughs. His boot bears down and I hear another crack, feel another round of pain. “What, the precog?” he says. “She can see the future, do you really think she’d stick around for our fireworks display?”

  I feel the air flooding my lungs, the release of pressure from my ribs as Thorn lifts his foot, but the relief is short-lived. He pulls me onto my knees, squeezing my cheeks, forcing me to stare at the church. Flames push through the windows, reds and golds lapping skyward, writhing and shifting into ever-changing patterns of shadow and light.

  He whispers into my ear. “Can you smell it yet, Little Flower? Stick a match to us and we’re all just the same. Gems, Imps, brothers, friends. We all stink like roasted pig and we all turn to dust.”