Burn (Pure #3)(123)

Pressia follows him, shouting, “Partridge, what are you doing? Partridge!”

He is bent over, trying to catch his breath, but as she reaches him, he straightens and walks into a conference room, stopping at the table in the center of the room.

She moves to the table. There’s a map of the area around the Dome, but it’s a living map. Black marks are moving uphill in every direction, getting closer and closer to the Dome. Is one of those marks Bradwell? Are El Capitan and Helmud among them? Who has the bacterium?

“The survivors are on the move,” Partridge says.

“They’re closing in,” Beckley says.

“Jesus,” Partridge says.

“Is this…?” Pressia isn’t sure how to finish the sentence. Is this the revolution?

“It’s what you think it is.” He puts his hand on a dark shining pad next to a door. The door opens. “My father’s chamber. Come in. I’ve got something else for you to see.”

Pressia steps into the darkened room. The lights turn on. The floor is covered with photographs of Partridge and his family—holidays, school pictures, vacations—and handwritten letters. Pressia sees one that’s clearly signed “Your Father.” Is this how Willux chose to decorate his office?

Pressia sees a picture of her mother. She kneels quickly and picks it up. Her mother is sitting by a fireplace with a newborn in her arms—Partridge or his brother Sedge? She only knows that it isn’t her as a baby.

Iralene walks in and starts picking up the papers and photographs as if she’s embarrassed by the mess. Partridge walks to a large desk in the middle of the room.

“There’s a communication system here,” Partridge says. “It connects us to the other places in the world that survived.” He touches the desk, and a screen lights up on its surface, like the mahogany table in the conference room, but this one is of a map of the world. “If the Dome goes down, so does your shot at finding your father.” He points to Japan. “His heart was beating,” Partridge says. “He’s alive somewhere…”

“Weed told me you’d throw everything at me to get me to call it off.”

“Why won’t you?”

“Why do you think I can?”

“Let me tell you what my father figured out. The wretches are the superior race. They’ve been tested and tested and tested by all the horrors they’ve been through and are now toughened. And the Pures? They’re weak—coddled and protected. They have no real immune systems anymore. You know what will happen if the Dome no longer exists and the Pures have to live out there, breathing ash and fighting Dusts and Beasts and Groupies?”

“Yes,” Pressia says. “I know exactly what will happen. Have you forgotten? That’s my childhood.”

“And do you want that to play out again?”

Pressia shakes her head. “I wanted Pures to help the survivors. I wanted to even the playing field with the cure. I wanted to erase all the scars and fusings and have everyone be whole again. But I don’t want that anymore. Bradwell was right. We should never erase the past even when we wear it on our skin.”

“I know where the button is, Partridge.” Iralene points to a small metal square embedded in the wall. “This is it, isn’t it? Save us, Partridge.”

There’s a knock on the open door. A man’s voice says, “Bradwell is standing by. Are we ready?”

“We’re ready,” Partridge says.

A screen lights up one wall. And there is Bradwell’s face. His eyes are squinting. The wind is whipping his shirt, his hair. He turns and looks to one side—showing the double scars running down one side of his face, his dark wings.

Iralene gasps. She’s not used to ash, scars, and fusings.

The cameras that are lodged in Hastings’ eyes take in El Capitan and Helmud, who look pale and weak. El Capitan has two black eyes and a crooked jaw.

“What happened to them?” Pressia says.

“Are those two fused together?” Iralene says the word fused as if it’s new to her. She’s horrified, and Pressia remembers what Bradwell said about what he thought the Pures would think of him—that disgust, that horror.

“I’ll explain it later,” Partridge says.

Pressia wonders if there will be a later…

“Tell Bradwell to call it off,” Partridge says to Pressia. Would Partridge hit the button? Would he kill all of the survivors once and for all?

Pressia slips her hand in her pocket and grips the top of the spear that Lyda whittled from the crib slats.

“Bradwell!” Pressia says. “Can you hear me?”

“Yes!” he shouts into the wind. “Are you okay?”

“Are you?” she says.

He nods. He glances at El Capitan and Helmud. “We’re okay. I wish I could see you!”

“Tell him, Pressia,” Partridge says.

“Is that Partridge’s voice?” Bradwell asks.

“It’s me,” Partridge says.

“What do you have to tell me?” Bradwell asks.

Pressia knows that she’s supposed to tell Bradwell to call off the attack, but instead she says, “Partridge can kill all of you. He can push a button of his father’s design and send a gas out across the wind that will put you all to sleep forever.”