Finn gathered Zilch’s fragile, charred skin and bones into his arms, whispering apologies for the further pain. They all moved forward slowly, bit by bit. They carried each other and became one, pushing their broken bodies just a little further, just a little more, then they could all go home.
Together they walked through the fire.
Liam stood straight and tall in front of the open floor-length window, and watched what was left of his world burn. Even the thermals of hot wind that floated up from the permanent blaze below felt like a cool caress to his feverish brow, damp as it was with beads of sweat, and tears.
It was over. Parole was crumbling into a burning grave, and soon he would fall too. He could feel the bones of the Turret House shake, the floor tremble beneath his feet as the building’s foundation started to go. Any moment now. From the moment he’d awoken in his office with the dried remnants of Rose’s vines still clinging to his sleeves, he’d known it was over. And he hadn’t left his room.
Without a shake or whimper or even so much as a blink, he faced the inferno, and opened the window. Now he stood precariously on the windowsill, balancing himself in the frame as the heavy velvet curtains billowed around him in the high wind, sparks flying past him into the room.
A faint and distance voice called his name, at the edge of his awareness. It was so far away, everything was so far away. The floor’s shaking intensified, and a rushing sound began to fill his ears, like a great beast’s death rattle.
Liam took a step.
❈
They were almost home. They’d reached the surface and staggered down the shaking streets, with screams and sirens and the sound of collapsing buildings all around. They’d saved each other, even as they’d left parts of themselves behind in the fire. They’d laced up their boots and put one tortured foot in front of the other, and scraped what was left of each other up off the floor, dragged themselves kicking and screaming back to life.
All of them searched the terrified crowds for green scales. Nobody spoke.
They kept moving together in one mass of limbs and burned skin and pain, kept each other from falling. Just a few more steps and they’d be home. The Turret House was right behind this last smoking pile of rubble in what used to be a city street; desperate people ran in every direction and paid them no attention. Just a little further and they could all fall down, everything was going to be okay, somehow they were all going—
Something crunched under Danae’s foot. She stopped, looked down with a frown. She reached down and picked it up, a cracked shell of plastic and metal. A cell phone. One she’d made, special, untraceable by SkEye. She turned it over in her one battered hand, saw the faded address sticker on the back, the floral design…
“No…” Danae held the little thing to her chest and fought her way forward. She had to see beyond the next pile of scrap and ripped chunks of road, she had to see the Turret House standing there with her family safe inside, just a few more steps and she could see—
It wasn’t there.
“No, no, no, nononono—” The sound escaped from her own chapped, bloody lips, then a scream exploded out of her, ripped from her raw throat and she fell to her knees.
The entire group tumbled to the ground with her. They sprawled in a shattered pile, all crying in different ways. Finn silently slumped against Zilch, both too hurt and beaten to say a word. Evelyn let out a low moan, a faint continuous broken sound.
The Turret House was gone. Instead the ground just dropped away, the sidewalk ended, and opened into a wide open space of nothing.
Crawling with one arm, struggling and falling and still fighting to move forward, Danae screamed against the blackened, broken concrete. Face pressed against the ash and the filth, her howls floated up with the oily smoke.
“Rose—Jack, Rose—” Danae’s words turned incoherent with agony. “No, no, no, it’s not—I got us all home, I brought them all back safe, why aren’t you here?”
Her face touched something cool and soft. Her tears weren’t falling on dry, burnt concrete anymore, her head rested on a pillow of… something. She didn’t smell fire and smoke and blood anymore. Slowly, Danae found the strength to lift her head and open her eyes.
“Come—look!” she croaked, but barely any sound came out, her throat was so raw and painful. After a deep breath, she tried again. “Look!” She heard the soft, labored shuffling of her friends struggling over to her, followed by soft gasps of wonder.
Danae’s head lay in the center of a garden—a patch of green in the shape of a heart. Flowers swam in a rainbow blur in front of her stinging eyes, filled her nostrils with sweetness, soothed her burned, bloodied skin. An oasis of life and love amid the scorched concrete and steel.
“Rose…” Danae whispered, fingers twining around the tiny vines and blooms and fresh green life. “Jack. You’re alive. I’ll find you.”
Silence stretched out, broken only by the whispered, repeated Thank God, Thank God under Evelyn’s breath. Danae just lay there and breathed. She could do nothing else.
Zilch hissed and made themself speak. “S’go. Collapse again.”
Danae turned to look down at them, laying on the ground. Their head rested in Finn’ arms while bits of ruined skin peeled off and flaked everywhere. “Where? If you got a plan, this’d be a good time.”
“Library.” Zilch’s voice was more labored and agonized than any they’d ever heard; it sounded like their jaw was locked together. “They fix me. They can…help. If… alive.”
“Let’s add your fixer to the list of people to—wait. Hans,” Evelyn said suddenly, couldn’t believe she’d forgotten until now. “His body was in the house! Have any of you seen him, since—” she looked back at Zilch.
“No.” Zilch grated. They shut his eyes, extinguishing the only bright spots in their burnt face. “If he’s gone… my heart. I’m dead.”
“God…” Danae pressed the heel of her hand against her forehead to stop the spinning. She grabbed at the fragile bits of Rose’s cell phone. Clutched it so tight her knuckles turned white and hand started to shake.
“We’ll be okay,” Evelyn said quickly, reading the signs. Pushed herself up on one battered elbow, found a way to lie that didn’t send stabbing pain up her leg and spine.
Danae closed her eyes. “How can it possibly be okay.” It wasn’t a question.
“We’re alive. We’re still together… and we’ll find them. And we’ll make it okay.” Evelyn swallowed hard, clamping her teeth down over the taste of copper and salty tears. Looked around at her friends, and felt her broken face slowly grow into a smile. Finn and Zilch and Danae, all lying completely spent on the ground, all touching, all hurting and broken and all fitting together and keeping each other going.
Danae took a deep breath and forced herself to sit up, aching ribs heaving as she tried to find whatever strength was left deep down inside her. It was getting harder to find, but it was there. Slowly, one breath at a time, she made herself stand up, then bent down to help the others up.
“Let’s go.”
❈
It had finally happened. Every single person in Parole lived their lives constantly waiting to feel the earth give way beneath them, and they were all ready. Rose certainly was. She held Jack in one arm, other hand clamped over Liam’ wrist as they flew down the stairs.
“Let me go, I said!” Liam snapped. “Leave me! I want to die—”
“Well, we all might along with you unless we get out right now!” Rose shouted back. But where was everyone? The stairwell was as empty as always, but the emptiness was almost as unnerving as the tremors and screams of bending beams and cracking foundation.
She held Jack to her chest with one hand while he silently wrapped his little arms around her neck—if she could just make it out of this with him alive, she’d rejoice. And he didn’t cry, he didn’t make a single sound while the windows shattered apart in a rain of glass shards, and the carpet started to curl at the edges and erupt into flame b
ehind them. His silence was frightening in itself.
“Finn?” She called, feeling the urge to cough with her next deep breath with a pang of alarm. “Wren? Lisette?”
Her metal feet clanked as they ran, frantic, desperate, around the corners. As they descended floor after floor, the temperature increased and they struggled for breath. The smoke was thicker down here, and the hot air hurt Rose’s lungs. The small exposed plants around her neck and wrists were withering, singed. On every landing she tried a door—but as always, they were locked. Panic rising in her chest, Rose led them further downstairs, reassuring them all that it couldn’t be far, the next door would be open—
“Aaahh!” Rose gasped and stopped dead, flinging her free arm out across Liam like a protective seat-belt in a car crash. Below them the stairwell was collapsing. As Rose watched, horrified, the floor tiles started to warp and crack, snapping in half like glass, smoke poured up through the cracks. And there, on the stairs below them, was Cassandra. She looked up at them, actually smiling and entirely serene, as if she weren’t surrounded by fire.
“Mrs. Turret!” Rose gasped. “Come with us, we have to get out of here!”
“I’m not done here yet,” Cassandra said firmly, staring directly into Rose’s gaze. She pointed back the way they had come. “Go back up. You can still get out.”
“I’m not leaving you! Liam, take Jack.” Rose said through clenched teeth, handing her son to Liam and giving them both a shove back up the stairs to relative safety. “I’ll be right there.” They both stared at her, faces blank, and Rose jabbed her finger up. “Go!”
As Rose turned around, she could feel the stairs just barely start to give beneath her feet. She had seconds at most. “Mrs. Turret! This building is about to come down!” She reached out a hand, but the old woman didn’t move. She stood serene and unmoving in the fire, and for the first time, Rose realized that the veil Cassandra wore was gone. The warm dark brown eyes that looked up at her were clear and full of hope.
“I have my own way out!” She said, voice as unwavering as her eyes and twice as steadfast; she was grinning amidst the flames and Rose somehow imagined a storybook sea captain walking her deck without fear, confident in the knowledge she could weather any storm. “It’s time for you to find yours!”
“Please, just take my hand!”
“A storm’s coming outside. So all of us inside had better get ready.” Her eyes hardened. “This house might come down, but the Turrets won’t.”
“Yes, it is coming down! So we have to—”
“There are ghosts out there, my dear!” Cassandra called, and Rose thought she could hear her laughing above the flames. “But it’s the living you have to fear. That brother-in-law of mine is going to be trouble! But oh—evil men in high places have a long way to fall!”
In the instant before Rose could speak, someone cried out from above her. “Miss Rose!” came a young girl’s voice. “This way!”
Lisette leaned out a door a flight up, an angel in pink, waving frantically. She grabbed Liam’s hand and pulled him forwards; her other hand, as always, was clamped around Wren’s. “Come on!”
“But Mrs. Turret is still—” Rose turned to look behind her, but she was alone. The stairwell was empty.
“She’ll be fine, trust me.”
“Fine? The building is—”
“She’s like us. She’s got it all figured out.” Lisette said, her young face set and determined. Warily shaking her head, Rose took her hand and followed her through the blissfully open door, where Liam was waiting with Jack. “Now come on, let’s go!”
They charged across the lobby. Rose whispered to all of them that they just had to keep moving, they’d make it, just as much to reassure herself as them. She didn’t feel half as confident as Lisette looked. Wren seemed unfazed as usual, even as the house collapsed around them. They held tight to Lisette’s hand, and helped her pull Rose forward.
A voice cut through the chaos, from the speakers in the ceiling above. “If you can fight, get to the Emerald Bar. If you can’t, get to the library—if it’s even still standing!”
“I turned on the radio!” Lisette shouted, then Rose recognized the voice. Radio Angel. They needed her now more than ever.
“My friends are there, they’ll help you. Somehow we’re gonna make it through this together—”
Rose gasped, tripping to a stop. Her pocket had caught on an exposed pipe where a wall had been a minute ago. Something flew out of her torn pocket and smashed against the ground—her cell phone. But she couldn’t stop, the floor was going to give way any second.
They rushed out the double doors and down the cracking stairs. Spurts of flames shot up through the cracks, belches of fire like small volcano eruptions, and the little bunch dodged around them as best they could, scrambling for the relatively safe concrete of the surrounding streets. And at last, the ground was a little more solid, the smoke and fire thinned. It was here they couldn’t help turning back to watch.
They stared as the Turret House crumbled, the towers fell, turrets collapsing in on themselves. The middle sagged, and with a terrible crack like a million bones shattering at once, the house broke in half. It sank down as the ground beneath it gave way. The Turret House, with all its senseless wings and locked gates and history and corruption, disappeared into the fire like a sinking ship. Finally, it was quiet. An oppressive, stifling silence, except for the sirens and muffled crashes and screams from surrounding streets.
“The Emerald Bar,” Rose said at last. “We’ll be safe there, but we have to go now, before another collapse. Let’s go—” she started off down the shattered street.
“It’ll be okay, I promise,” the girl’s voice followed them from some other unseen speaker, maybe a car radio, faint but ever-present. “Just get to the Emerald—fzzz…” They all stopped dead. A far-off boom shook the hollow ground under their feet, and the radio stopped. The voice was gone, replaced by static.
“No,” Rose whispered. For a moment they looked at each other, listening to the horrifying silence. Nobody could remember the last time they hadn’t been able to hear her. Kids like Lisette and Wren and Jack had grown up hearing the Radio Angel talking and singing to them, reading them stories, reading names of the dead and missing, and giving them words of hope when nobody else could. She’d always been there, and now she wasn’t.
Liam broke. He turned away from them, staggered blindly, then fell to the ground. Heaving with struggling breaths and dry sobs, Liam crumpled to his hands and knees, head hanging down so low it nearly touched the burnt earth.
“Leave me!” he gasped. “I want—I want to go down with my—”
Rose gritted her teeth. “Stop it. We don’t have time for this.”
“It’s over, it’s over-”
“You’re coming with us. Now get up-”
“I want to die! I might as well be—”
“Stop it, Liam!” Rose couldn’t believe she was yelling, but she was out of patience, strained to the breaking point, and something had to give. “This isn’t about your guilt, it’s about surviving! It’s about getting these kids somewhere safe, getting through this alive and seeing the ones we love again, and we have a better chance of doing that if you’re alive—”
“But I did this! I can never—”
“So you’re just gonna give up?” Lisette interrupted, and both adults fell silent, turning to look at her. “We dragged you out all kicking and screaming, you can’t just die on us now.”
“Quiet, girl!” Liam snapped. “You don’t know what you’re talking about—”
“Yes, I do!” Lisette shouted, and Liam’s mouth snapped shut, eyes wide in surprise. “The only time it’s hopeless is when you’re dead! Long as you’re alive, you can get better—you can make it better!”
She fell silent, panting. Getting those words out had taken a lot out of her. Beside her, Wren folded their arms and stared daggers into Liam’s eyes: listen, or else.
“And you’
re not alone, you butt. Listen to us for once.” Lisette held out a small hand, pink nail polish smeared with ash. “We’ll help you. We’re all in this together.”
A long silence stretched between them while Rose and Jack watched, wide-eyed, looking from Liam’s haunted, dark-circled eyes to Lisette’s outstretched hand. Then Liam put his hand in hers, and Lisette pulled him to his feet.
“Fine. I’ll come with you.”
“I’ve got one condition,” Rose said, folding her arms. “When we find Evelyn—and we will find her—you are going to get down on your knees, but this time to beg her forgiveness for the way you treated her over the last ten years. You will never misgender her again and you will treat her with the love and respect she deserves from everybody, but especially family.”
“All right. Yes. Yes, I promise.”
”Good.” Rose said with a quick nod, turning away. “Now, we can’t stay here, the ground might give any second. But…” She bit her lip. “Danae. Evelyn, what’ll they think if we’re gone?”
“They’re dead.” Liam said flatly. “Nobody’s coming out of that fire.”
Rose’s face flushed. She clenched her teeth, shot him a glare, and reconsidered her decision to let him stay. “Yes they will,” she took a deep breath, and spoke far more calmly than she would have thought possible. Her movements were jerky and irregular as she turned away; the metal gears and joints of her legs were starting to clog with ash and expand from the heat. “And so will we.”
Not looking to see if he was coming after, Rose picked her way through the wreckage of the street, giving a wide berth to snapped wires and cables that spat sparks. Lisette and Wren walked beside her holding hands, while Liam followed a few steps behind, shoulders hunched and head down.
Chameleon Moon Page 36
