Burn (Pure #3)(110)

“Are you doing all this just to get her back?” Will Bradwell be the hero in all of this? Pressia has pushed El Capitan to do the right thing. Isn’t he finally doing it? Isn’t that worth something?

“I’m doing this because it’s the mission. Up until now, it was your mission.”

“You said you taught Shadow History because we had to learn from the past so we wouldn’t repeat it. Isn’t this just another apocalypse, a smaller one—on your own terms this time?”

Bradwell sits on the ground, lowers his head into his hands. His wings fan out on the floor around him. He rubs his eyes. Is he about to cry?

“What?” El Capitan says. “What is it?”

“I lost the bacterium. We got drunk, Cap. We got drunk. We woke up. We got captured. I tried to hide it. It’s gone.” He looks at El Capitan. “What am I, Cap?”

“What do you mean?”

“Am I a human being? An animal? Am I even still my parents’ son? What do you think I am?”

“It doesn’t matter what I think.”

“It does to me.”

“You’re a prophet. That’s what some say. An angel, maybe, with those wings. You believe in the truth. That’s why Pressia loves you.”

“How could she love me like this?”

“Now you know how I feel.”

“How I feel,” Helmud says. Is he in love with her too?

“You really do love her, don’t you?”

El Capitan nods. Bradwell seems to accept this. For some strange reason, he even seems like he’s glad to hear it. “She hasn’t sent word yet, right? We have time. Maybe we can find it.”

“Maybe,” Bradwell says.

“Word from on high,” El Capitan says, remembering how Bradwell put it. “There’s still some time.”

Helmud says, “On high.” El Capitan can feel him arching his back, looking up through the roofless library at the sky. “On high!” he says again.

“We know, Helmud. We know. Shut it, okay?” El Capitan says.

“On high!” Helmud says again, and then he grabs El Capitan’s chin and pushes it upward.

“Get off!” El Capitan says.

Helmud points at the sky.

El Capitan looks up grudgingly. Bradwell does too.

And there is a small dot, jittering in a circle, fluttering down.

“What’s that?” Bradwell says.

The little thing sputters and spirals closer.

They all stare at its fine metal wings as they flit and flit closer to them.

Freedle.

He lands on the bottom of El Capitan’s cot, lifts his wings. Helmud reaches out. Freedle hops up on his hand. Helmud lifts him up. And El Capitan sees the small white edge of a piece of paper that’s been slipped into the cage of his body.

A message.





PARTRIDGE





EVERYWHERE




Partridge is strapped onto the stretcher and covered entirely by a white sheet. They’re out of the hotel now. Iralene and Beckley, dressed in white lab coats and surgical masks, guide the stretcher down side streets, the wheels rattling over the pavement. He can only see the lit-up sheet, sheer and bright over his eyes. He knows people are running nearby. They pass clusters of voices. A fight breaks out—he can hear two angry men shouting.

There’s a scream then more distant shouting—a few gunshots.

He’s supposed to be dead, but he feels very alive—his heart is sore, each beat like a punch inside of his chest. Glassings is dead. They might all die. Could his sister really be conspiring to take down the Dome? Is this sheet that covers his face—the thin, white sheet drawn into his mouth each time he takes a breath—a warning? Death—is that his near future?

He hears Beckley shout, “Watch the curb!”

The stretcher swerves, slams onto concrete.

They’re moving as quickly as they can. They hit divots, jerking his body around. There’s no car waiting for them this time. Luckily, they’re on the same level in the Dome as the high-rise with the suspension chambers.

Partridge can’t stand not being able to see. He pinches the sheet, inches it up on one side, and turns his head. He has a sideways view of it all, the streets jammed with people. Some are running, trailing kids, carrying jugs of bottled water and boxes of soytex pills. They’re packed into stores with lines that snake around the block. Some are busy sealing windows with tarps and duct tape out of fear that the protective Dome will be broken. Because of Foresteed, some have rifles strapped to their backs.

Still, they push along. As a dead man, he’s ignored. The Pures have gotten used to death. They’re bracing for more. Their faces are a mix of fear, panic, and a strange resignation—as if something they’ve been waiting a long time for has finally arrived.

But then he sees someone writing on one of the posters, Partridge and Iralene on a date—a man scrawling in dark red paint across their faces: SCUM MUST DIE.

Partridge is shaken. These people loved him and Iralene. They were why he got married—to keep them happy, to give them a reason to live. And now they’re scum? They must die? He lets the sheet fall. Is he going to be killed by Pures? Is this how it’s going to go?

Once inside the building, Iralene and Beckley quickly unstrap Partridge. They all run through what’s becoming a more familiar series of passages and long eerie halls, passing dimly lit rooms buzzing with the machinery that keeps the suspended people alive.