Gods of Anthem (33 page)

Somehow, my voice doesn’t crack. “But you … and I’m …”

Her hand finds my cheek. “Tommy, I’m aware of
who
you are.” She sighs in frustration. “It’s all gone to hell, ya know?” And her whispers are mesmerizing. “It’s just shit out there. But this … us … you can’t lie. It’s there; it’s real.”

When I don’t answer, she laughs. “I’m not making any damned sense. It doesn’t have to be love, is what I mean.”

My heart pounds, and my palms sweat.
Love?

“Let me start over.” Pulling away, she rises to pace. “I’ve got nothing ‘cept you and Jo. I’d given up. I just … There are so many Corys and not enough of us, ya know? No one left to really care. Just survive-survive-survive, and that’s what I did. You get me?”

I nod.

Vero’s in front of me again, bending down to eye level. “And then it’s like, I meet you, and you’re carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders. I can’t help you if you won’t let me, Tommy. I can’t.”

She turns to pace again, the doubt on her face filling me with guilt. I don’t know what to say, but I do need her to stop pacing, and my hand snags her arm as though it has a will of its own.

Vero stops, eyes wide.

I don’t mean to kiss her, but it’s like my body decided to long ago, without me, and that it’s already known what I didn’t: Vero and I, we’re more than just friends. She’s strong and brave, and when she kisses me back, it’s like I’ve conquered a mountain, or won something, though I don’t even know what.

She weighs practically nothing when I sit her across my lap, and her hands are all over my neck and face and chest, and my shirt’s being ripped apart, and for once it’s not the monster doing it this time—she is. And she’s so … solid, though her parts are round and soft.

My heart speeds up so fast that I bang my head on the bottom of the bunk when I jump up, dumping Vero from my lap like a cinder. She slams down hard on the floor.

“Oh my God, Vero.” I help her back up with one solid yank on her hand that makes her yelp. “I’m so sorry.” But already I’m pulling away, feet tripping backwards over themselves when she’s up.

Inside me, the change has begun.

He’s here.

Only, I’m not transforming. He reaches forward—not me—moving of his own accord, and my mouth’s smiling—I can feel it.

Then, he’s got her in his arms, and she melts against him.

My voice still works. “No!”

Vero stiffens like she’s been slapped.

It’s a fight to regain control, and I’m losing ground. “Get out of here!”

She doesn’t move, so I shove her away when I find that I can, and she barely keeps from falling, hands flung out to stop her from crashing into the furniture. “Tommy…? What the hell—”

“I said, leave!
”
I advance, trying to scare her before
he
comes back.

She hesitates with a strange look.

“Run!” I roar.

And she does.

To cool off,
I walked in the rain for a good solid hour. Joelle’s silent when I enter, like she can read something’s off with my mood, and she pads around in quiet uncertainty.

I shuffle around, too, just as uncertain.

That episode with Vero … did it really happen? He took control of me without the transformation. How is that even possible?

I’ll need to sober up some before I talk to anyone. Try to figure things out in my own head first. I make a pot of coffee and then lie down on my bunk, arm over my face.

My
eyes open, and Joelle’s standing over my bed. She has on a cape, and she’s painted her face white. “I vant to suck your blood!”

I fight the urge to shrink away. She has no idea how scary that is. I have to remind myself, though, that she’s still a child, so this prank is her goofy way of staying true to her age.

Joelle giggles. “I found a movie about you.”

“You did?” My voice is gravel against metal.

“Yeah.” She shrugs and hops onto the edge of my bed. “Big green guy runs around destroying the city, and he changes back, just like you do. He only turns when he gets angry; you won’t like him when he’s angry!”

“The Incredible Hulk…?” I smile, though it feels muted.

“Yeah,” she says. “That’s it.” Stars sit in her eyes. “Incredible.”

I sigh and rub my face. “Have a seat, Jo. We need to talk.”

“I am sitting, Tommy….” Her voice wobbles like she’s afraid.

Joelle’s black brows furrow, cracking the white paint, and she moves her throat in a swallow while her dark eyes grow damp. I’ve seen Joelle cry a few times; there’s never any blood or vampiness to it, just a little girl who’s sad.

Tears spill onto her cheeks in long smears, and my heart snaps in half.

“You’re leaving,” she says. “I can sense it. Goodbye Jo-Jo. You don’t even have to say it; your face is telling me over and over. I’ve seen it enough to know, Hatter.”

She never calls me Hatter. It’s always either Tom-Tom or Tommy. My turn to swallow. “I’m sorry, Jo. We knew this might happen.”

Actually, we knew it would definitely happen. But so much time has passed, we’d been pretending that we could live out our lives here for a long time.

Suddenly, she brightens. “Why can’t I just—”

“No. You stay, Joelle. The boat ride alone is too dangerous. Once we get there, there’s no time to let you sleep, and no way to keep you fed. I won’t argue. You stay here and keep safe. The UG will always take care of you; that’s their promise to your mother. So you do it, okay…? For me.”

She balls her hands into fists by her sides. Her silly costume makes this all the more surreal. Joelle’s face is tight with pain, and my eyes burn in the sight of her stricken fear. She’s lost everyone and everything already, and I’m just another person abandoning her.

“Every day,” she says, lip quivering. “Each and every day, I sit in the dark and watch movies, or maybe, if I’m lucky, we go out into the city—you, me, and Simon. But I won’t even get to do that anymore if you leave. I’ll just sit here like a prisoner for the rest of my life.”

I close my eyes for a beat. “I know. But Jo … if we win, if we defeat the Authority, then—”

Her own black eyes are like razors when they flick upward to meet mine. “Stop. Don’t make any more promises, Hatter. I’ve lived my life believing in them, only to have every single one of them turn out to be a lie. Don’t lie to me, okay?”

And I don’t.

My father’s words
weigh heavily on my mind. He once told me a time would come when I’d have to stop running and just face it—all of it. Little did I know how prophetic the old man would be.

Strange thing is, though, it’s not just my own problems coming home to roost. It’s all of civilization’s.

Our foolish discontent over what we thought was so terrible has taken on new meaning, now that the undead creep over every bit of earth that’s not fenced in. Only a madman would believe this is the best we could offer.

If God gave us the precious gift of life, only to have us throw it back in His face, would it be so crazy to think He’d now show nothing else but wrath? My dad figured it was amazing that our Creator would still love us after what we’d done, and I’m trying to see this through my haze of anger. But it’s distant to me now, this idea of God and men and saviors. It’s so far away.