Burn (Pure #3)(7)

Purdy reexamines his planner. He taps dates and counts aloud to seven. “That’s it. Seven more memorial services. Not bad.”

“And then we can roll out the new story—the break between you and Iralene and the news of your new love, Lyda,” Hoppes says. “We’ll broach the baby situation about two months after that.”

Are they just going to keep putting it off? “The new story about Lyda will go out soon, right? Days, not weeks?”

“Of course,” Hoppes says.

Foresteed says, “Just go out there and say your lines, Partridge. Let them show their respects.”

“Okay, but no Iralene,” Partridge says. “She needs a break anyway. Just send her home, okay?” He worries about Iralene. She’s under a lot of pressure, feeling terribly scrutinized, and she knows that her role is going to change. Partridge has assured her that she’ll always have a place in his life—as a friend—and a respected role in society, but he just doesn’t know what that’s going to look like.

“We can’t make any promises about Iralene,” Hoppes says. “You know that there are a lot of moving pieces here.” He means Mimi, his father’s widow and Iralene’s mother, who can be unpredictable.

“We can’t be held hostage by Mimi.” Partridge stands up. “I’m in charge,” he says, though he feels nervous saying it. “No Iralene this time. Okay? I don’t want her sitting next to me on live-streaming feed.” Lyda will be watching, won’t she? He imagines her as he last saw her. She was wearing a long white cotton nightgown. She was tired—she’s not sleeping well—but also restless.

“I feel like a caged tiger,” she told him. “I don’t know how long I can take it. When are you coming back?”

He kissed her and told her, “As soon as I can. My life isn’t really my own right now, but it will be soon. It’s coming. I promise.”

“This meeting is over,” Partridge says. Sometimes it’s the little things that feel so good—like calling the end to a meeting. It shouldn’t matter, but he likes that he can flex this muscle and no one can contradict him.

Foresteed strides to the door, gets there first, and unlocks it. “Allow me,” he says. He opens the door for Partridge. There’s the line of mourners, immaculately dressed. Their heads turn, and they stare at Partridge. He hears a few stifled sobs. They gaze at him expectantly.

Foresteed claps Partridge on the shoulder, his grip too sharp. He leans in close and whispers, “You’re wrong, you know. Your father wasn’t just the biggest mass murderer in history. He was the most successful. There’s a difference.”

Partridge puts his hand on the door, ready to walk out of the room. “I won’t live his lies for him. I’m not his puppet, and I’m sure as hell not yours.”

Foresteed smiles at him. His teeth nearly glow they’re so white. “As if you don’t have lies of your own already, Partridge,” he says so softly only Partridge can hear. “If you’re going to come clean, why don’t you start with yourself?”





EL CAPITAN





ARMOR




El Capitan doesn’t have a knife. “Don’t need one,” he explains to Helmud. “We’re all dosed up.” He first noticed the change of skin color on Helmud’s arms—always dangling around his neck. At first he thought it was jaundice, but then, as soon as the caretaker told him it was a chemical that repelled those vines—their thorns as sharp as canines—he asked to have his dosage upped. “Two hearts here, two sets of lungs, two brains—more or less,” he said. “We need double the meds. Got to keep that in mind.”

And now his skin looks like he’s been at the beach for an entire summer. Not red and blistered, but golden brown. It’s almost got a metallic shine to it. He remembers getting tan on his arms, face, and the back of his neck as a kid—a farmer’s tan, or so it was called. But his tan was always mixed with dirt too. He and Helmud were the kinds of kids who spent a lot of time on dirt bikes, climbing trees, rooting through mud. Maybe he was more like this than Helmud. In fact, as a kid, Helmud had seemed somewhat refined. El Capitan had been the bully, the brute—he’d had no choice. He was the man of the house so young.

His hands wrapped in towels stolen from a cabinet in his room, he uses the vines to climb to the hatch, which, as the airship has rolled to its side, is now on top. But where’s the hatch? It’s not sticking up, which is how he left it when he went out looking for Bradwell. The vines must have shut it when they wound their way around the airship.

The vines seem to sense the chemicals that are emanating from his and Helmud’s skin. They don’t recoil but they certainly aren’t aggressive and do seem to shift away. El Capitan hears the skritch of their thorns against the airship’s exterior. It kills him that they’re scratching it up.

The vines spook him—not just because they almost killed him once, but because they’re not natural. “There’s something not right about this place,” he says to Helmud. He means the herd of creatures grazing on the hillside—are they giant boars? And the children—all of them are under the age of nine, or so it seems, which means they were born after the Detonations. Plus, too many of them look alike. It doesn’t make sense to him, but he knows it’s messed up. “Not right at all. But who am I to talk, right?”