by Easton, BB
“Pssh. Not from that speech, I didn’t.” She grins. “Come on. Let’s go get ya man.”
Before I can ask her how in the hell she thinks we’re going to get out of here, Q climbs the bodies around her like a jungle gym.
“Ow!”
“Fuck!”
“What the hell?”
“Come on, you little pussy!” she yells down at me, crawling on top of the angry mob like it’s her own personal magic carpet.
I do the same, but much more apologetically, and follow her every move as she crawls on her hands and feet over the undulating sea of bodies. But with the way the crowd is pushing back and forth, we take two steps forward and find ourselves three feet farther away.
“Ugh! Don’t these muhfuckas know who you is?”
Q squats on the shoulders of a bearded, plaid-covered redneck and places her fingers in her mouth. The whistle that follows is deafening and brings everyone immediately around us to a halt.
“Y’all need to get dis bitch to the front ’fore I start shootin’ muhfuckas just to make a path!”
Everyone’s stare shifts from Q to me, and suddenly, a sidewalk of hands, palms up, appears before me.
Q’s mouth twists into a self-satisfied sneer as she gestures for me to go ahead.
I give her a grateful nod and begin placing my wobbly knees and shaking hands on their open palms.
“Nah, bitch. Not like dat. Like dis.” Q gives me a shove, and I scream and grasp at nothing as I topple over sideways.
But I don’t hit the ground. The crowd catches me and carries me like a conveyor belt toward the front of Plaza Park. I blink and try to catch my breath as I wave at Q, who gives me a smug smile before slapping the crap out of the guy she’s crouching on for trying to pull her off.
From up here, I can see that droves of angry people are flooding in from the streets—probably thanks to our live broadcast—but the new rioters are only making it harder for the ones trying to flee to get out. Because the longer sides of the park are walled off by risers—which the riot cops are now standing on, firing at anybody who tries to climb up to their level—the only way in and out of the park are the two shorter sides. Folks are either fighting to get out, fighting to get in, or fighting just for the hell of it, but when I see the news van pull away from the curb, I know who’s not fighting.
Michelle and Lamar.
I catch a glimpse of Lamar’s messy dreadlocks in the passenger side window as the van takes off down the street. I want to feel relieved that they got out, but instead I feel the sudden pull of gravity as a bullet whizzes past me and into the crowd holding me up. I start to fall as everyone around me screams scatters, but I manage to hold onto somebody’s shirt to keep my upper body from hitting the ground. When I finally get my feet under me, I notice that the man I was clinging to is standing perfectly still, staring at the ground through a bullet hole in the middle of his hand.
Then, I hear a scream.
It might be mine. I don’t even know anymore.
I keep my head down and keep pushing forward. Too low, and I’ll get trampled. Too high, and I might get shot. I trip and stumble over other people who have fallen, their bodies reminding me why I have to succeed today.
No more deaths in vain. No more blood spilled on this ground.
Especially not Wes’s.
Someone nearby raises her fist in the air and shouts, “Here’s your sponsor!” The words I spray-painted around Quint’s body.
Emotion squeezes my chest as the people around her do the same.
Chants of, “Here’s your sponsor!” spread like a ripple through the crowd, fists pumping and feet stomping.
It gives me an opportunity to get a little lower and weave my way under their raised fists.
Then, a fresh round of panic breaks out. I didn’t hear any shots fired, so I’m not sure what the threat is until I see a shiny metal canister spewing smoke careen through the air over my head.
“Tear gaaaasssss!” someone cries, and the pushing starts again.
I’m crushed by bodies moving in all directions as thick smoke pours in, filling what little open space there is left. Just before it gets to me, I pull the neck hole of my hoodie up to my forehead. Then, I yank the hood down past my chin. I can’t see anything through the layers of thick black fabric, but I can feel, and I can climb.
Keeping my breaths as shallow as possible, I try to pretend like I’m Q. I climb the jerking, screaming bodies around me until I’m grabbing hair instead of clothing. Then, I move forward. My eyes and nose and throat begin to burn as I blindly crawl over the coughing, crying heads of strangers.
I called them here, I think as stinging tears soak into the black cotton covering my face. I did this to them.
Someone in the crowd behind me fires aimlessly into the air, screaming about his eyes, just as something sharp pokes me in the cheek. I reach out and feel leaves. A branch.
A tree!
I yank the hood off my face and peek out of the neck of my sweatshirt just as the person below me succeeds in bucking me off. I tumble to the ground and land on my feet, but the mob pushes me forward, slamming me into the trunk of a recently planted oak tree.
The first of Governor Steele’s victims is decaying under this dirt, but I don’t have time to think about that.
I have to figure out how the hell to save the next one.
I want to fight my way down the line of saplings until I make it to Wes’s hole, but before I can take the first step, another wave of chaos breaks out. I cling to the tree as wailing police sirens get louder and louder and louder, followed by screaming and pushing and shoving worse than anything I’ve experienced up to this point. Reaching as high as I can, I grab the spindly branches and pull myself into the tree, praying that it will hold my body weight so that I can escape the crowd threatening to rip me to shreds below.
As soon as I climb above them, I see what all the panic is about. A massive tank, as wide as the entire street with a cannon the size of a telephone pole on the front, is charging straight toward the crowd, followed by two police cars and a SWAT SUV. People are climbing all over one another, trying to get out of the way as the tank lurches up over the curb and into the park. I can’t see if anyone gets run over, but a chunk of them seems to disappear in front of the tank as it turns and forces itself in between the hole that was dug for Wes’s grave and the rest of the mob.
Blue lights spill over everything as the police cars and SWAT utility vehicle pull in behind the tank and form a tight, square barricade around the hole. I notice that the riot cops have moved from their stations on the risers and are now marching up to the cop cars with their shields raised. One by one, they climb on top of the vehicles, facing outward in a ring of human turrets.
No!
My heart thunders in my chest, my hands shake, and my guts twist into violent knots as the driver’s side door to one of the police cars opens. Officer Elliott steps out, and with a solemn look on his face, he opens the back door to the cruiser. Governor Steele hoists himself out on the third try, and the car lifts a full six inches higher off the ground before Flip climbs out behind him.
Flip turns on his camera, which I assume is live now that Michelle is nowhere to be seen, and instructs the governor to stand in the center of their barricade with the SWAT vehicle behind him. I expect Officer Elliott to do another introduction, but Governor Steele doesn’t give him the chance.
He simply opens his mushy, shapeless mouth and bellows loud enough for me to hear over the madness, “Bailiff, bring out the accused!”
No! No, no, no, no! Somebody, do something! Elliott, please!
But Officer Elliott simply nods his head once, turns, and walks over to the other cruiser. Opening the back door, he reaches in and pulls Wes—my Wes—out by the elbow.
His hands are bound behind his back, and he’s wearing a burlap jumpsuit.
Not orange. Burlap.
The sight of him dressed like that rips a scream from my body. Somewhe
re in the crowd, another woman howls in the same heartbroken pitch, and I know his mama sees him, too.
“Elliott, do something!” I shout. “Somebody! Help him!”
But everyone is screaming. The riot cops are shooting people who try to climb onto the vehicles or who shoot at them first. Tear gas canisters are being tossed out like candy. The crowd is surging against the vehicles, making them rock back and forth. No one can possibly hear me.
But still, I scream.
I look to the driver’s seat of the patrol car Wes got out of and find Officer Hoyt gripping the steering wheel and staring straight ahead, his eyes at half-mast.
“Hoyt!”
Governor Steele says something I can’t hear and motions to the tank. A man steps out of it and walks across the clearing, but it’s not until he stands directly in front of Wes and turns to face him that I can tell who it is.
The executioner.
He’s wearing an all-black police uniform, and he has on a loose black mask that covers his entire head with two small eyeholes cut out. His hand is on a pistol holstered on his tool belt, and his focus is lasered in on Wes.
My Wes.
“Flip! Flip, do something!”
The cameraman takes his spot off to the side, next to Governor Steele. Everything is moving so fast. The crowd continues to slam against the vehicles in waves, making all but the tank rock back and forth, but with the riot cops standing on top, firing at anyone who climbs too high or shoots at them, nobody is able to do anything to stop them.
My hand dives into the front pocket of my hoodie, and I’m shocked to find my gun still tucked inside.
The moment my finger wraps around the trigger, I’m back outside Huckabee Foods, staring at a beautiful boy in a blue Hawaiian shirt, who is smiling at me with perfect white teeth. His light eyes sparkle under a canopy of black lashes, and I’m lost in them until his face contorts in pain. Blood explodes from his shoulder, and I don’t hesitate. I don’t think. I grab the machine gun off the dead guard beside me, turn, and pull the trigger, spraying two men and a sliding glass door with enough bullets to take out an entire army of meth-head gangbangers.
I’ve done this before, I tell myself.
I can do it again.
But I don’t have a machine gun this time. And I can’t be impulsive.
As the executioner raises his weapon, I realize that I can only get one shot off before the riot cops see me and take me out.
This is it.
I pull the gun out of my pocket.
Time slows down.
And I’m forced to make the hardest decision of my life in an instant.
Assassinate the governor and end the Green Mile once and for all but risk Wes still being executed in the process?
Or kill the executioner and give Wes a chance to escape in the confusion?
His legs aren’t shackled. He could slip between the vehicles and disappear into the crowd.
But how many more “accused” would die in his place? How much longer would the governor’s reign of terror last?
Do I sacrifice one life to save the others?
Or sacrifice the others to save the one?
My one.
My Wes.
My decision is made.
Ten Minutes Earlier
Wes
When Hoyt told me that “Ms. McCartney” came to get Elliott to introduce the governor, I knew she had some shit up her sleeve. When he wordlessly put me in the back of a police cruiser instead of walking me through the tunnel, I knew it must be bad. But when he pulled up behind another cruiser, a SWAT vehicle, and Mac’s fucking tank just to escort me into Plaza Park, that’s when I knew.
That dream was no fucking fluke.
That dream was planted by a certain little black-haired rag doll with a death wish.
As soon as the park comes into view, my mouth falls open in a silent curse. I’ve never seen so many people shoved into one square block before. The entire crowd is fighting and flailing and pounding their fists in the air as tear gas canisters sail overhead, and gunshots loud enough to hear inside Hoyt’s bulletproof cruiser ring out.
What the fuck have you done, baby?
I shake my head as adrenaline floods into my extremities, and panic seizes my lungs. My eyes scan the mob, frantically searching for a familiar heart-shaped face, but everything is just a blur of fists and weapons and smoke and mouths twisted in pain and anger.
I told you I’d get out of this. What the fuck have you done?
Hoyt glances at me in the rearview mirror. All the shaggy, unwashed hair in the world couldn’t hide the pity and remorse written all over his doughy face. I don’t have to pretend to be fucking terrified when I look back at him. I am.
Just not for me.
The tank barrels into the crowd, and the screams of the people in its path bounce off the windshield.
“Goddamn.” I cringe and cling to the seat with cuffed hands as people flood into the risers to get out of the way.
Hoyt and the other two vehicles pull into the park behind the tank, and the four of them form a perfect little square.
I don’t have to be able to see the ground to know what they’re protecting.
My fucking grave.
Hoyt throws the car in park and sits with his thick hands wrapped around the steering wheel. He doesn’t move. He doesn’t speak. And gauging from the amount of swallowing and throat-clearing he’s doing, he’s not real happy about what’s about to happen.
Or at least, what he thinks is about to happen.
Poor bastard. I want to let him in on my plan just to put him out of his misery, but I can’t fucking trust him to play along. He’s a worse actor than Elliott. Look at him. He can’t even pretend to be professional.
My attention is pulled away from Hoyt when I notice riot cops in gas masks, carrying full-body bulletproof shields, marching over to the car. The first three climb directly on top of our cruiser, standing on the hood, the trunk, and the roof.
The fuck?
One by one, cops fill in from the sides of the park until all four vehicles have at least three riot cops standing on top of each.
Governor Fuckface is now standing between the tank and the gaping hole in the ground as Flip lifts a TV camera onto his shoulder and points at him.
As his pasty, bloated face opens and closes, my hands begin to shake.
No! I yell at myself, balling them into fists. Stop it! You don’t fucking end here. You survive, and so does Rain. That’s what you do. That’s how this shit works.
But as the crowd surrounds the vehicles and begins rocking them back and forth, including the one I’m presently freaking out in, I realize that I’m not so fucking sure anymore.
Yeah, I have a plan. But I didn’t exactly factor in an angry mob or tanks or riot cops or my girl getting trampled to death while I sit here and do nothing either.
I swallow back a surge of bile as Elliott marches over to my door and yanks it open.
Here we go. God, you better fucking have my back.
I step out into a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree assault on my senses. The crowd noise is deafening, the air is thick and humid and tainted with tear gas, and the mid-morning sun is blinding as it bounces off the cruisers and shines directly into my face.
But even through all of the sensations I’m being blasted with, one ear-splitting scream rises over the rest.
She’s out there.
She’s fucking out there.
Goddamn it.
I don’t need this. I need to focus, but now, all I can think about is kicking Elliott right in the fucking face and diving into that crowd, so I can find my girl and drag her ass to safety.
Elliott steers me by the elbow to stand in front of a five-foot-by-five-foot hole in the ground—oh, look at that; they widened it just for me—and gives me a little pat on the shoulder before letting me go.
I have to physically shake my head to clear my thoughts of Rain.
Focus, fucker!
<
br /> I blink and stare straight ahead, finding the cameraman and the devil himself standing across from me with their backs to the SUV.
Governor Fuckface sneers, and I spit at his feet.
“Mistuh Parkuh,” he begins, condescension oozing through every missing consonant, “you were arrested on May 5 for allegedly procuring and administering life-saving drugs to a young man with a fatally infected wound. On May 6, you were found guilty of this crime, and as such, you have been sentenced to death.”
Someone gets out of the tank behind me. A cop wearing a black executioner’s mask trudges past, coming to stand directly across from me. Fuckface is still talking, but I’m searching the man in black for some assurance that this is gonna go down the way I planned.
“I would offuh you a few last words, but as you can see, the little interview you gave yesterday has the constituency all riled up. So, I’m afraid those are gonna be the last words you eva get to speak in my state, boy. Executionuh”—he steps aside and gestures toward the man in black—“fire at will.”
Come on. Come on …
My entire body sways with every forceful pump of blood through my veins as the cop unsnaps his holster and draws his weapon. It’s a small handgun, probably a .22—something large enough to kill me without blowing the back of my head off in the process.
How considerate.
I swallow and hold my breath as the executioner lifts the gun and steadies it with the palm of his left hand under the clip. And that’s when I notice that every knuckle on both of his hands are as scabbed and mangled as mine.
Mac.
I exhale and close my eyes.
And for a fraction of a second, I’m at peace.
With the blinding sun and flashing blue lights and screaming mob and sinister scowl of pure fucking evil finally blocked out, it’s just me and the life I’ve placed in the bloody hands of a complete stranger.
Until I hear her.
Over the roar of the crowd, over the cruisers being rocked back and forth, over the shouted warnings from the riot cops, I hear her.
“Somebody, do something!”
She’s close. Too fucking close.
My eyelids slam open, and my head swivels automatically in the direction of her voice. Rain is the first thing I see, tangled in the branches of a baby oak tree, just like the dream I had last night. Only she’s not being devoured. Quite the opposite. She has her gun raised, and she’s aiming it directly at Mac.