“Listen up, everyone,” Amanda calls. She wheels forward, taking a commanding place at the center of the room. “The arrival of these Believers changes everything. There’ll be no coordinated assault on the Chateau Marmont tomorrow.” There’s a palpable release in the room, several relieved sighs, which Amanda ignores. “For the time being, anyway. What we’re going to do is get these people”—she nods at Joanna and the others—“in the public eye as widely as possible. Harp: how long will it take you to write up Joanna’s story?”
“I shouldn’t write it up—we’ll film her telling it.” Harp reaches for Julian’s nearby arm and checks the watch on his wrist. “It’s quarter after one now—I can get it up by dawn if you get me a camera.”
“We’ll get you what you need,” Amanda says. “But a post won’t be enough. Diego—wait until Harp’s video goes live, but then we need to round up as many people as we can manage. Bring them to the Chateau Marmont at nine a.m.—I’ll make sure a camera crew is waiting. We want a demonstration; we want Joanna to tell a crowd what she just told us.”
Everyone seems to take a swift, collective intake of breath before they plunge into action. Edie nods to Harp and me, then glides with Naveen into the room where Robbie’s body lies, Eleanor following with the prayer book and the rest of the New Orphans; Winnie and Frankie approach Joanna and the others, offering food and water, assessing whether or not they need medical care. Harp throws open her laptop and begins to type. In the commotion, I make my way to her, and say quietly,
“I’m going to the Chateau.”
“What?” Harp’s head snaps up. She looks horrified. “Viv, you can’t! Not tonight, not after what happened with Robbie.”
“I need to tell Peter about this. I promised him I’d contact him once I knew for sure whether or not the attack was happening.”
“He’ll find out it isn’t in the morning!” Harp exclaims.
I glance sharply at Winnie, afraid her attention will be caught, but she’s still focused on the Raptured Believers. “I don’t want him to be surprised by it. I know it’s dangerous, but I promise—I’m just going to tell him what’s going on and then I’ll come right back. This is important to me, Harp.”
She takes a deep breath. “Fine. I’ll cover for you as long as I can.”
“Thanks. How are you?”
“Pretty fucking freaked out. You?”
“Yeah.” I pause, not knowing quite how to ask her this question. “Harp. Do you realize this might mean your parents are alive?”
After a moment, Harp nods. “Yeah. It occurred to me the first time Edie e-mailed me. I need to talk to Amanda about organizing a rescue effort for the rest of the factories. There’s a possibility they didn’t make it, of course—they might have gotten sick; they might have tried to escape and been killed. But if they are alive, they’re going to be so pissed when they realize I helped crack this case.” She shakes her head and starts to laugh, but her eyes are bright with tears. “I can hear them now. ‘Harp, why do you always have to meddle?’ they’ll say.”
Back in Hollywood, I retrace the exact tracks of my sprint to Robbie earlier. I keep my eyes down, and when I see it, I pause. The stain of Robbie’s blood on the sidewalk, copper in the glow of the street lamp above. I can’t stay here long. The woman who killed Robbie may still be watching, for all I know; Peacemakers might patrol the area. But I let myself take one deep breath, trying to gauge whether the air feels different here, whether something of Robbie lingers in the atmosphere. I want to feel his presence. I want him to give me strength to continue. But I feel nothing but fear, and the oppressive weight of having lost him. I walk on.
Down in the shadows behind the Chateau’s garden wall, I remember the security camera. The kitchen entrance is out—I’ll have to climb the fire escape, rickety as it is. I drag a recycling bin from the alcove out to the pavement and climb on top of it, pushing myself up on the thin fence behind the Chateau. I wobble slightly and pause to regain my balance. A few feet—that’s the distance between me and the bottom rung of the fire escape. Not unmanageable for a being of unfathomable grace, but for a girl who only managed one chin-lift in gym during the presidential fitness test two springs ago, maybe a bit of a stretch. I say a quick prayer to the Universe (Please don’t let me fall and break my neck; that would be—above everything else—incredibly embarrassing at this juncture), and leap.
My left arm catches, but my right fingertips are still stiff from the sprain. My grasp slips, and—heart racing, not knowing what else to do—I throw my leg up at an awkward angle, hooking my knee over the bottom rung. The ladder wobbles with my weight, making a trembling metallic sound. I hesitate—but no one seems to have heard. I pull myself up, rung by rung, until I’ve reached the steady platform at the base of the first floor windows.
On the sixth floor, I crouch by Peter’s window and tap lightly on the glass. When nothing happens, I tap harder. Finally, I see a flash of movement behind the window. I hold my breath and brace my knees, ready to bolt if it’s anyone but him. But when the window slides open, Peter’s face looks out: pale in the moonlight, eyes wide and almost silver, an expression of astonishment on his face. He backs up so I can climb in.
“Christ, Viv,” he whispers, “haven’t you heard of texting?”
I shut the window behind me, and Peter lights a lamp on the bedside table. His sheets are tangled; the air in the room is heavy with sleep. He wears a pair of blue-striped pajama pants and no shirt—I avert my eyes from the protruding curve of his hipbones. Peter watches me, waiting, but I can’t speak. I am so happy and so miserable. I feel like I might start screaming.
“Viv?” He takes a step towards me. “Are you all right? You’re trembling.”
I look down and watch my body shiver. Peter moves swiftly to me, slipping one arm around my waist, the other hand holding tight to my elbow; he eases me onto the bed and sits me down. My mind is a whir of noise and light and fear. I don’t know where to begin.
“What happened?” Peter urges when I don’t answer. “Is Harp okay?”
I nod. “Peter. They found the missing Raptured.”
For one uncomprehending moment, he just stares. But then he pulls away, quickly and forcefully, a look of surprise on his face like I’ve poked him with something sharp.
“What? Who’s they?”
I tell him everything, keeping my voice low. He reacts with uncharacteristic animation—leaping from the bed to pace in his bare feet, running his hands through his hair, making it stand on end. He opens his mouth to prompt me each time I pause; once or twice, he inhales sharply in anger. But he says nothing until I’ve finished, and then he waits only a moment before rushing to me, taking my face into his hands, and kissing me.
“What was that for?”
“Are you kidding?” He seems giddy. “We won. We won, Viv! There’s no coming back from this for them. This is the end of the Church of America!”
I shudder. I don’t want to hear him say it. Like making a wish on a birthday candle—if he says it out loud, it won’t come true. I don’t understand why I can’t feel as ecstatic as he does. He notices my discomfort and his grin fades. He sits beside me again, takes my hand into his.
“What is it, Viv? What’s wrong?”
I shake my head. I don’t want to say it. He just squeezes my hand, waiting.
“I don’t know. I feel so empty. Like I should be happy that we know where these people went, that we’ll be able to find some of them—most of them—alive. But … ” My eyes spill over. “I just keep thinking—why did my dad get picked for Point Reyes? Why couldn’t they have sent him somewhere else? Why do all these people get to be alive, but my dad doesn’t? I mean, what’s wrong with me? What kind of a monster feels that?”
“That’s a normal thing to feel, Viv,” Peter says gently. “I felt that way all the time after my mother died. I still do. I’ll see a mom out with her kids and I’ll think—why you? What makes you so great? It’s not pretty, but it’s human.”
I nod, unconvinced. “That’s not the only thing that’s bothering me. A friend of mine was killed tonight. Part of Winnie’s group. We were on our way here, actually—only a few blocks away. He was shot. There was no saving him. I just—I’ve never watched it happen before. He was so scared. Even though we were right there with him—four of us, with our hands on him, talking to him, loving him—even with us there, he was alone. And my dad was alone, too. There are other people there with him—but not us, not his family.” I can hardly speak now, I’m crying so hard. “He had to do it alone.”
I know if Peter pulls me to him, I’ll stop talking; I’ll simply cry. But he doesn’t, and after a minute I’m so grateful. There’s something about just sitting here, Peter’s steady hold on my hand. It makes me feel like I’m getting stronger. After a few minutes, my eyes stop streaming; my voice no longer shakes. Only then, when I’m silent, does Peter move closer. He runs a hand through my hair.
“These things are awful, Viv. I’m sorry they happened.”
“But that’s just the thing, isn’t it? It isn’t happening. It’s being done. It wasn’t a mistake. The Church knew what they were doing. The woman who killed Robbie knew what would happen when she pulled the trigger, and she did it anyway. And she wasn’t even a Believer!” I close my eyes. “What proof do we have that taking down the Church will change anything? What if it isn’t the Church making people act like this? What if this is just the way people are?”
“I don’t know,” Peter admits. “There isn’t proof. You just have to believe we’re capable of better. Because the Church doesn’t. They count on us being scared and weak; they count on us turning on each other. And some do,” he adds, seeing the protest in my face. “But there are millions and millions of people in this country, Viv. The people who scare you—Frick and my dad; the Angels; the Believers who killed Harp’s brother; the woman who killed your friend—they’re only the loudest. They’ve got access to screens and microphones, and they’re counting on the rest of us keeping our heads low, because we’re too afraid to fight back. But just because we’re not as loud doesn’t mean that we’re alone.”
We sit together a while and I try to let Peter’s words sink in. If it’s a lie, it’s a sweet one. If it’s what he really believes, it makes me love him more. I don’t think I believe it quite yet, but I want to, and that alone seems to fill this pit of despair in my stomach. I lean forward to kiss him.
“You give good speeches, Ivey,” I tell him when I pull away. “It must be hereditary.”
Peter tries to look astonished but he can’t help grinning—he pushes me onto the bed, pinning my hands above me, kissing me hard. I close my eyes, feel Peter trace a line of kisses down my throat to the hollow of my collarbone. The pleasure is like a tangible thing inside me, a tight line drawn from my head to my toes, a guitar string plucked and thrumming. He lets go to unzip my hoodie and I touch the warm bare skin of his shoulders. I’m consumed with a weird urge to take a bite out of him.
He says: “Listen, don’t take this as an insult—”
“Always a promising start to a sentence.”
“—I thought you were pretty before, and everything? But this dressed-in-black, traipsing-around-enemy-territory-in-a-bonnet, climbing-up-fire-escapes Vivian is really doing it for me.”
I push him off me; he laughs and rolls onto his back. Hesitating a second at my still-new boldness, I climb on top of him.
“You realize, of course, that us bringing down the Church means I won’t be climbing up many fire escapes after tonight, right?” I say. “Once I lose fugitive status, I’ll probably revert back to wearing bright colors and using doors.”
Peter’s eyes grow wide. “Maybe we should postpone this demonstration a while. I’m not ready to say goodbye to Ninja Viv.”
We lose nearly an hour this way, kissing, pausing only to try and make each other laugh. It’s the most alone I’ve ever been with him, and I feel a slippery, tumbling feeling, the unasked question: are we doing this? Right now? But I decide to relax. It’s enough to be here with him; it’s enough to know that after tomorrow we’ll have who knows how many secluded hours to spend together. Finally he pauses and opens a drawer on the bedside table. He pulls the sledgehammer pendant out from within and folds my hand around it. “Keep it,” he says. “You’ll need it even when Ninja Viv retires.” I slip it into my pocket.
“I should go,” I say.
“I’ll see you tomorrow though.” Peter leans back and blinks sleepily, smiling at me. “In public, even. The sun will be up!”
The crook of his shoulder looks so inviting that even though I know I have to leave, I crawl into it, laying my head on his chest. I hear the steady, comforting thump of his heart. “Do you realize that after tomorrow, we could go on dates? Theoretically, we could eat a meal together. We could sit down in public with each other and actually eat a meal.”
“Oh man.” Peter yawns. “I’d enjoy that so much. We should go to movies. You like movies, right?”
“Who doesn’t like movies, Peter?” I hear him laugh. I feel my eyelids grow heavy; I try to force myself up. Five more minutes.
“You’d be surprised, Viv. Anyway, that’s what we’ll do. After tomorrow.”
And his chest starts to rise and fall, slow and steady. I feel temporarily drained of my sadness and fear—there’s a pleasant, numb sleepiness in my limbs. I’m just going to close my eyes for one second, I tell myself, and warm and comfortable, with Peter’s arm around me, I drift into sleep.
When I snap awake, I know instantly it’s much later. I still hold the last image of the nightmare I’d been having in my head: Robbie’s bloodied face, his mouth open and screaming. The ceiling is bright with sun and I realize with an awful plummeting sensation that the thing that woke me was a sharp noise—the smacking of skin on skin, a burst of angry muttering. I push myself up in bed and there they are at the foot of it, smiling curiously down at me: Ted Blackmore and Michelle Mulvey. Their expressions are a perfect blend of malevolence and genuine pleasure, like I’m a delicious meal they’re eager to dig into. I stare back at them, reaching beside me to where Peter lies, to wake him. But he’s not there: the bed is empty. I feel a flare of horror at the sight of the empty sheets, but then Mulvey shifts, revealing the scene behind her. Peter’s on his knees by the window; two Peacemakers hold his arms at a painful angle behind his back. His mouth drips blood. I nearly scream, but Peter shakes his head. We’re long past the point of screaming.
“Vivian Apple!” Mulvey delights in drawing out each syllable. Her blonde hair is pulled into a bun so tight I can see the outline of her skull. “You look positively angelic when you sleep! Doesn’t she look like an angel, Ted?”
“Frick bless her,” Blackmore agrees, starting to laugh. “She really does. Like an absolute angel.”