Gods of Anthem (30 page)

“There,” she says, having somehow made a perfect tie with her tiny hands.

I do a mock salute, snapping my heels together.

She laughs, then turns contemplative. “You know, you’re gonna make someone very happy someday, Tommy Hatter.”

With my best cocky grin, I wink at her and don my hat. “Nah, it’s just you and me, kiddo. Us against the whole world. I’d be all right with that.”

Joelle nods. “Me, too.”

The funeral’s pathetic.
Worse than pathetic. Thunder drowns out the twenty-one gun salute; the bugle’s wet inside, so it sounds like a drowning sheep bleating for help; and the folded flag flies loose from one of the detail to blow across the lawn while everyone chases it. I can’t hear what Sergeant Nolan says at the podium, and pretty soon, we’re all soaked by rain.

No family. No friends. Murphy’s gone, and it’s all my fault.

They don’t even call it “friendly fire.” Just a “training accident.”

I cringe at the fact that his resting place isn’t even in his own country. He’ll remain here in Sweden. Again, my fault.

A song kicks on. We usually play their favorite, and at first, I can’t hear it. But as they lower the urn, Cory turns the music to blasting.

Then, I recognize the tune. Queen.

Cory grins, and I stay in salute, glaring at him. He’d plucked it from my head that that song bothers me, and probably didn’t know any from Murphy’s choices.

I grind my teeth as he mouths to me the part I most want to avoid: “Momma, I don’t wanna die.”

As soon as we’re dismissed, I spin round and walk off. My heartbeat’s too quick; not a good sign. I make my way past our barracks and straight to the other side. We have a free afternoon, and I’m going to have a beer. Sometimes that calms the beast. Right now, it wants Cory’s head. No, scratch that. It wants to turn Cory inside out.

Usually, he’s not into revenge, but lately he’s capitalized on my own feelings more naturally. Now, it fishes through my emotions, aiming to be set free on Cory.

To let me watch as it peels his skin from his bones….

I shake my head and walk on, unheeding of the rain.

There’s
a small bar with only a few tables, but I’ve managed to beat the crowd. The cute Swedish waitress sashays over. “What’ll it be?”

She sets a napkin down and cocks a hip.

“Whiskey,” I say automatically.

I don’t know where my beer idea went. She leaves and brings some foreign label to my table. I’d pictured Jack Daniels, but this hits the spot with a burning-good-feeling, and the monster quiets. I take another shot, then another as the place fills with soldiers.

I know I need to leave before—

Cory walks in. He searches the room, already knowing where I am. This brain scanning thing of his is at an all-time level of annoying.

He spots me and comes straight over.

I get up.

“Sit,” he says, snapping his fingers for the waitress.

She rolls her eyes, strolling over on slow feet. Obviously she’s met Cory a time or two.

He grins at her reluctance. “Whatever he’s having, and a Heineken for me, sweet cheeks.”

She frowns and sends me a “this guy” glance before turning for the bar.

I remind myself to tip her well.

“What do you want, Cor?”

“We need to talk. We’ve got orders.”

He pulls out some papers, handing me one with my name and rank on the top.

“Nolan’s sending us out. Tomorrow.”

I scan the document in confusion. “Where?”

“America.”

I blink up at him, then search the paper again to see he’s correct. “No way.”

“Yep. It’s time to take it back. We move out at zero six hundred to do a go-see mission for the bigger forces. It’s now or never, bro.”

I chug my drink in a daze, and the fiery liquid burns a hole in my gut. “How long are we staying?” I ask, wiping a hand across my mouth, forgetting just how much I hate the guy sitting next to me.

Cory’s gone pale. He drinks his beer before looking at me with a flash of fear. “For good,” he says. “We don’t come back. We win, or die trying.”

For a moment, I chew on my cheek, considering this, then pull out my money. On my way out, I tuck it into the waitress’s apron, numbly ignoring Cory’s calls at my back. My emotions are a swirl of alcohol and excitement mixed with dread.

I don my hat and stumble out into the rain. The sky’s a dark purple. Sweden: purple, and not America’s orange. My dream had somehow heralded this news.

Strange, but that’s how it feels.

For the last two years, I’ve only been able to imagine the big orange sky.

“Well, I’ll be damned.”

I’m going home.

Jeremy’s in
the
alleyway outside of Kiniva’s ring where we met that first night. For twenty long minutes, he’s paced and mumbled his speech in practice.

“It’s great that Kiniva’s letting me do this,” he’d said, and I’d acted surprised.

Crystal hadn’t given me away, not even then.

She’s watched me carefully tonight, but after throwing me out of a side door after I’d won the match, she’d not mentioned it again.

Tonight’s it. Our last chance to get reinforcements for the Skulls and their big plan. Kiniva’s army is here, too. I’ve seen them with their guns and berets standing along one wall while the Skulls are lined up against the opposite. There are too many of them to count, and the place is full to its limit with people from all walks of life. Even a few plastics from the Upper Side are in there, frozen faces watching the ring as eagerly as their fake skin will allow.

Some scoff at the idea of them being here. To me, it’s the biggest sign of hope for change.

Pretend Man is nowhere to be seen and I haven’t had time to ask Crystal about him again.

Jeremy’s got both of my hands in his, now. The dark alleyway makes things intimate, but my throat’s too dry to even wish him luck. Hard to concentrate with him rubbing the insides of my wrists with his thumbs.

In this cramped, hot space, with barely inches between us, I’m trying to see the voice of the revolution standing across from me. What I’m not doing is imagining. He likes me, sure, but it’s a “passing fancy,” as my mother would say.

I have no thoughts of what it would be like if I were just a girl and Jeremy were just a boy who didn’t have the weight of the world on their shoulders. We could run away, and he wouldn’t have to save everyone.