Hell Followed with Us(60)

Alex picks up the radio and a piece of paper with what looks to be a script. It’s Nick’s handwriting—looks like there’s some kind of radio communication etiquette. “Victor Romeo Delta, Victor Romeo Delta, this is Alpha Lima Charlie, come in, over.” Alex pulls away from the mic. “I still say that sounds stupid. It’s just us, why do we need these call signs? Is it lima as in lima beans?”

“Shh,” Nick says.

A rough voice from the other side of the line: “Alpha Lima Charlie, this is Victor Romeo Delta”—VRD, Vanguard—”we read you.” I’m in awe of this thing Alex has built. It looks like it’s running off a modified car battery, turned into a beast of wires. This is Alex’s domain; we all know better than to mess with it. “You previously contacted us about a meeting. Is this request still in effect? Over.”

Alex hands the mic over to Nick, who straightens up like the Vanguard can see him somehow. “Affirmative. As soon as possible, over.”

“We hear you.” The disembodied voice rattles the lobby. I press closer, leaning against the teller desk, digging my nails into the wood. “Loud and clear. However, due to recent developments, we will not be returning to the Commons until a month passes or you can provide us with proof of twenty kills. Over.”

Twenty. The word hits like a cinderblock, the way a bullet hits the chest, the way Calvin’s words jammed into our skulls. Twenty.

“Did he just say—” Faith whimpers.

“Motherfucker,” Cormac growls. “Motherfucker.” He looks at me, and for a moment I think he’s going to take the steps between us and slam me into the desk until my skull splits open. But his head drops into his hands, and he sits on the floor and says nothing.

Erin stares at the radio as if that will change what she just heard.

Nick grabs the mic. “Repeat, was that twenty? Over.”

“Affirmative. Do you have twenty? Over.”

Nick looks at me too.

Erin says, “Jesus Christ, Nick. No. We can’t. Please, no.”

I whisper, “What?”

Nick swallows hard.

“Nick, what?”

“We’re not,” Nick says. He grabs the mic again. His other hand taps against his leg like he’s trying to puncture it. “We do not have twenty. Over.”

“Then we will not meet. Contact us only when you do, or when a month has passed. Victor Romeo Delta, over and out.”

They’re not going to help us.

That’s what it takes for the bank to shatter. It’s too much. Everything we had burned to the ground. We’ve lost so many people. We don’t have enough food or water to last us a week, let alone a month. Someone starts to cry. Erin makes a noise like a wounded animal; Faith, Aisha, and Sadaf are as silent as corpses; and my stomach turns, and bile floods hot and sour up my throat. I stumble out of the lobby, through the window into the courtyard, and drop to my knees before vomiting into the grass.

This is the worst it’s ever been. It’s so much. So much is coming up, clumps of wet flesh, red and black and slimy, leaving trails over my chin and across my hands as I peel them out of my throat. What Seraph has rejected of my insides and replaced with the virus, what it’s built from my body, what it’s doing on the inside, is all pushing out, and I have to dig my fingers into the dirt to keep from ripping the skin off my arms. It’s taking me apart. We don’t have time. I don’t have time.

We’re fucked, and it’s my fault. I led the Angels to them. There’s no other reason they would come here if not for me.

Nick comes up to the window and hops out into the grass, standing as if blocking me from the inscrutable gaze of the road past the broken fence. As if he couldn’t spend a single moment longer in that damn building, just like I couldn’t; just, Jesus Christ, I’m so tired. I can’t, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I brought the Angels here. I did this.

Nick says nothing, and neither do I. He just crouches and pushes my hair out of my eyes. I groan and cough and throw up again.

It’s almost like divine justice. I steal from the ALC to give to Theo, and God sends Angels to ruin it all. I visit Theo, and everything goes to hell, the way it always has, the way it always will. I should have learned when he hurt me. I should have learned. I was supposed to be good, and I ruined everything because I was lovesick and selfish.

But it was a little perfect, wasn’t it? I made it back just as the Angels arrived—why else would the Grace still have been outside? If I hadn’t left Theo when I had, I don’t think I would have seen the Grace. We would have lost so many more people. What if I had stayed with him the way he asked? How many people would have died? How many more…

Wait.

Theo didn’t want me to leave that night. He was still praying. How could he have joined the pilgrimage if he was exiled from the death squads, how could he have run away from the Angels when he spent so much of his life prepared to die for them, how could—

How—

He knew.

That motherfucker.

He knew. The Flood burns and Seraph screams, painful and red hot and furious. He knew, he knew, HE KNEW.

HE LIED.

HE DID THIS.





Upon the wicked He will rain fiery coals and burning sulfur; a scorching wind will be their lot.

—Psalm 11:6