“Mom?”
My body trembles in pain and shock and I realize when I say it that I’m sobbing. My mother leans forward and puts a soft hand on my forehead. It’s a gesture I recognize from any number of childhood sick days—for some reason she’s checking me for fever. Her eyes well up.
“He was going to kill you!” she exclaims, like she can’t believe it. She glances down at Derrick’s body, motionless on the floor, and I see for the first time Winnie and Kimberly with her, both of them unbelievably intimidating with their rifles strapped across their backs and belts of ammo. Winnie checks Derrick’s pulse, and my mother raises a hand to her mouth. “Oh my God, Winnie, is he … ? Tell me I didn’t … ?”
“He’s alive, Mara.” Winnie looks up and catches my eye; her worried face breaks into a grin. “If anything, I’d say you went a little too easy on him.”
Mom sighs. She turns back and wraps her arms around me, holding me too tight against her. My body aches and I can’t stop crying. It’s a release like I’ve never known, more powerful even than the moment I discovered her alive in Winnie’s apartment. Because this time, she came to me. She looked for me, she found me, and she saved me.
“What are you doing here?” I manage to croak.
Mom doesn’t answer—she freezes at the sound of someone running through the hall outside. I watch a small dark figure flash in front of the doorway, then the footsteps pause and start again as she jogs backward into my line of sight. Harp clucks her tongue when she sees me, like she’s disappointed. She’s got a backpack slung over her shoulders.
“Vivian Harriet Motherfucking Apple,” she says, taking in the scene around her with a skeptical eye. “You never call, you never write—you’re always bleeding from the face in the basements of observatories with weird men lying unconscious on your floor. Seriously, dude—you’ve changed.”
I tear myself away from my mother and throw my arms around Harp’s neck. “I thought I was going to die here,” I murmur into her shoulder. “I thought I was going to die.”
Harp hugs me back tightly. “Trust me, we’d have gotten here a lot sooner if we’d had any idea where you were. Especially if we’d known you were locked in a room, looking like you’d just crawled your way out of a fucking grave or something. Jesus, Viv.” She holds me at arm’s length to get a better look. “They really did a number on you.”
“I’m fine. Really!” I insist, looking at all of their dubious expressions. The open door, Harp, my warrior big sister, even the wonderful, confusing presence of my mother—they’ve made my face stop throbbing, the ache of hunger fade. “How did you know where to find me?”
Harp gives me an exaggerated eye roll—a telltale sign of a great story to come—but Winnie steps forward, lays a hand on my shoulder. “We’ll tell you on the way.”
“Oh shit—that’s right.” Harp gently slaps her forehead and looks at me. “We have to hustle if we want to save your boyfriend from certain doom.”
“Why?” My knees buckle under me and Harp and my mother have to take me by the elbows to hold me up straight. “Where’s Peter? What have they done to him?”
“We’ll explain,” says Winnie. She leads us into the hallway and heads for the exit at a jog with Kimberly, Harp, and me right behind. Mom hesitates, maybe to check on Derrick, who I can hear moaning quietly now, but after a moment, she catches up.
Everything hurts. My legs are achy with disuse and my lungs sear with pain. The dark observatory seems to have been abandoned all at once, in a panic—doors thrown open; papers scattered across the floor; guns and batons and pocket-sized Books of Frick left behind, dropped wherever their owners stood. If I didn’t know better, I’d believe the Second Rapture had happened the way Frick said it would: one moment, the Believers were here; the next, they were gone. But outside, we spill onto the steps leading down to the lawn and into the light of the setting sun, and I see the tread of car tires across the grass, scorched from the speed at which they flew—the Church left Griffith Observatory in a hurry, but they left of their own accord.
Winnie leads us to one of Amanda’s cars. I’ve only just gotten in—Harp and my mother flanking me in the back seat—when Winnie turns the ignition and peels down the long curving road. My mother has to scramble to shut her door, which still hangs open as we move.
“Okay, so,” Harp begins eagerly, “we had no idea where you were. We figured the Church had taken you—to be honest, we kind of hoped. The worst-case was you’d been attacked in the street, that you were—” She trails off. I know what she’s thinking: Robbie. “I was scared. Winnie wasn’t exactly keeping it cool, herself.”
“Understatement of the motherfucking century,” Kimberly interjects.
My mother roots around in the bag strapped across her shoulders and starts to pull out random food items: a spotted banana, a granola bar, a plastic bag full of nuts. My stomach growls and I give her a grateful look, gorging on them as the others continue the story.
“I should have known you were going to see Peter that night.” Winnie drives way above the speed limit but her voice is as steady as her hands on the wheel. “I should have made you take me with you.”
“And I’d always assumed if you were going to die, I’d be there. That we’d do it together, in a cinematic blaze of glory.” Harp’s voice is light, but I know how serious she is. “So we were quite the barrel of laughs for a while there. Right after you disappeared, Peter shows up on TV and gives this rousing speech saying they’ve caught you. I figured he’d sold you out. I almost told Amanda to go ahead and blow up the Chateau then and there—but of course, for all we knew, you were inside. They talked about you on the news every day. They kept calling you a witch. They said you were being kept in a secret location, that they were interrogating you to find out Satan’s plans for America on the day of the apocalypse. They said at one point you opened your mouth and a python crawled out of it, spitting venom at your interrogators—” Harp breaks here, unable to keep from laughing; when she sees the grim look on my face she laughs even harder, doubling over, literally slapping one knee. “Oh God, I’m sorry, it was just so good. I can’t even—Oh God. Anyway. We were so desperate I went on the blog and told them the whole thing was a lie, that I’d made it up—”
“Masterson showed me.”
“He did?” Harp can’t keep a little note of pride out of her voice
“He called it an obvious bluff.”
She scoffs at this. “Well, of course it was. But we had to give it a shot. We hoped they’d show mercy—maybe release you, or at the very least go easy on you. Anyway, clearly it didn’t work. And Amanda was not exactly thrilled we’d done it without her go-ahead—”
Kimberly laughs. “I take it back. That’s the understatement of the century.”
Winnie takes over. “Amanda had wanted to go ahead with the demonstration, to make Joanna public. But we’d asked her to wait—we worried if we went public with the missing Raptured while the Church still had you in custody, they’d kill you in retaliation. That wasn’t exactly a deterrent for Amanda, of course. But Diego took my side, and so did the rest of the militia—and obviously, Umaymah wasn’t about to let you die. She left with Joanna and the rest of the Believers and she only told Harp where they were going.”
Harp grins. “They were still in L.A., but Amanda didn’t know where. Plus I gave Edie the video of Joanna’s story on a flash drive, and destroyed the copy on my laptop. Amanda couldn’t get her hands on it, and she couldn’t move forward without the Raptured Believers.”
“They’d stepped up Peacemaker presence at the Chateau by a lot,” Winnie continues, “so we couldn’t search it without mounting a full-scale attack. We decided to wait for the Second Boat before we looked for you—we figured they’d clear out of the Chateau and the city, and we could launch a proper rescue mission. We counted on you being alive, and them leaving you behind. And then, two days ago, pretty much all hell broke loose.”
“Dylan showed up,” Harp interjects. “The night before the Rapture. He was jumpy as fuck, but he told us they were keeping you in the observatory.”
“Harp and I are ready to jump in the car and go at that point,” Winnie continues, “but then a special Church broadcast comes on—they’re playing it on all the networks.”
“Blackmore speaks, leads a Hail Frick, encourages everyone to stay calm no matter what happens. But then Peter gets up—and, oh, Viv.” Moved, Harp presses a hand to her chest at the memory. “He was incredible. He starts with his notes—he’s all hell and damnation this and secular morals that—then he looks up, right into the camera, and says: ‘They’re lying to you. They lied about the first Rapture and they’re lying about this one. They’re going to kill you if they take you, so don’t let them take you.’ Then the feed cuts out. The newscasters come back all confused, telling us that Taggart’s son has been possessed by Satan, Frick have mercy for his soul—”
“Which was exactly the wrong thing to say,” Winnie notes. “Because even if you still Believed, the demonic possession of the face of the Church of America on the eve of the Second Rapture is not exactly going to inspire confidence. Everyone panicked. Harp gets in touch with Umaymah; they post the story about Joanna then and there, while we figured the Church would be preoccupied, and the response was—”
“A thousand comments in the first five minutes!” Harp exclaims. “The site kept going down, so many people looked at it! But they shared the video. They kept on sharing the video.”
“And now everything’s a mess, basically. All the major Church of America dioceses are getting mobbed today. New York, Boston, Chicago, D.C., Minneapolis, Seattle. Because guess what? In the chaos, the Church wasn’t able to pull off a Second Rapture. Not a single reported disappearance. The Believers feel betrayed—they don’t understand why the Church would promise a Second Rapture in the first place, and they’re demanding answers. The Church News Network—what’s left of it, anyway, because it seems like half the anchors headed for the hills after Peter went rogue—is taking the line that Believers didn’t try hard enough; they let their minds be swayed by lies and secular temptations. But that’s only gotten Believers more riled!”
“Plus the Non-Believers have heard Joanna’s story,” Kimberly adds with a grin, “and they’re pissed. Thirteen Church of America megastores set on fire across the Midwest.”
“And the New Orphans across the country are mounting full-scale attacks against the factories where the rest of the Raptured are hidden. The Church has got its back to the fucking wall.” Harp sounds unbelievably satisfied.
I try to feel the pleasure she does, but it’s so much information, too quickly, and my head still pounds. I stare ahead, trying to focus on the blur of the city as we race to its heart. Harp and Winnie have glossed over an important detail, the most important, and I’m struggling not to throw up.
“What did they do to Peter?” My voice is hoarse. “They wouldn’t have kept him alive after that. How do you know we can still save him?”
For the first time since we got into the car: silence. It’s a horrible weight in my stomach, a sinking stone. I press my bloodied hands to my throat.
“We don’t. There was nothing after that initial report, after they said he was possessed,” Harp says. “All we know is that if he’s alive, he’ll be at the Chateau. That’s where the Angels are holed up, and that’s where we’re headed. But I guess we should prepare for the possibility—”
“He could still be alive,” Winnie interrupts. “The Church has had their hands full these last twenty-four hours. There’s a huge riot surrounding the Chateau right now. Believers, Non-Believers—everyone wants answers. The Peacemakers have been holding them back, but they’ve opened fire twice already, and the mob’s only getting bigger. It’s stupid, really—any reasonable person would be hightailing it out of the city right now. There’s a fire closing in on West Hollywood, and these people are going to burn if they don’t get out soon.”
For the first time, I manage to focus on the scene outside the car. The other lane of the highway is jammed, and as we pass I see people abandon their cars, cradling children to their chests, weaving their way through traffic. More than once, a car comes barreling towards us, heading the wrong way down the highway in their desperation to get out; Winnie pulls us deftly out of the way each time. The winds are still hot and powerful, rattling a storm of dust and sand and broken glass across on the windshield. The power’s out on every other block; whole neighborhoods shrouded in menacing darkness. Somewhere out there, massive flames inch towards us. But still, we head for the Chateau. We aren’t reasonable people. Weak as I am, I don’t mind. If Peter is alive, we will find him. If he isn’t, I will kill the people who killed him. Diego is right: I have in me that monster he told me about, that single splinter of madness that makes destruction possible. Right now it’s bigger than shock, bigger than sorrow. It transforms me into something less than human, just a pillar of righteous flame, ready to consume Masterson and the Angels, wanting to spit out their fleshless bones.
“Vivian?” says a soft voice to my left, and I start. I’ve nearly forgotten the fact that my mother is in the car. “Are you thirsty?”
She holds out a plastic water bottle. I gulp it down, and even lukewarm, even with an aftertaste of plastic, it’s the most delicious thing I’ve ever tasted. When I’m done, I watch my mother stare eagerly out the window, like a tourist trying to spot celebrity homes.
“Mom. What are you doing here?”
She glances at me and quickly away, looking sheepish. “After … after you left, I felt terrible. I thought you were dead. I would just sit there, refreshing the feed, searching your name. ‘Vivian Apple captured.’ ‘Vivian Apple dead.’ Or sometimes, ‘Harp Janda captured.’ ‘Harp Janda dead.’ I had no idea Winnie knew where you were, that you were alive. After she left, it was like I was in a daze. I started to get angry at the Church. What right did they have to hunt girls as young as you? To turn you into fugitives? I started to realize: if they got you, it would be all my fault. If they got you, I’d never forgive them.
“Then one day I search your name and up pops Harp’s blog. At first, I think—she’s seriously bad news. I figure she’s disturbed, or something. It’s a terrible story. An awful, ugly lie. I read it and I had to walk away. And then I came back and read it again. I couldn’t stop reading it. It took time—too much time, probably. But then something clicked. Because what did I really think had happened? I tried to imagine Ned, shooting up into heaven like he said we would, and suddenly it seemed crazy. Like—science-fiction. And then it was different: the lie was the terrible story. And the truth was just the truth.
“They were still looking for you but I knew you were okay so long as Harp kept posting. I was depressed, though. Couldn’t sleep. I just read the blog all day. Until I read Harp’s story, I hadn’t thought of Ned as dead. I hadn’t thought about what we’d done to you—the both of us.” She hesitates. “Finally, one day I search ‘Vivian Apple captured’ and it turns out you have been. I knew it was inevitable, so at first I thought there was nothing I could do. I cried, and cried. I couldn’t get out of bed in the morning. I got sick. But then, just a few days ago: it was like I woke up. I knew you needed me. They said Los Angeles, so I got a car and came here—I mean, technically,” she corrects herself, sounding embarrassed, “I stole a car and came here … I drove to L.A. and the only time I stopped was to call Winnie. I didn’t think I’d reach her; she’d told me she was leaving the country. But she picked up. I said, ‘Vivian needs our help.’”
“No,” Winnie corrects her, deadpan, “you said, ‘I’m going to save Vivian and you better be willing to lend a fucking hand.’”
Mom smiles wryly. “Okay, yeah. That sounds right. She gave me the address where I could find her. I got here this afternoon—and discovered, to my surprise, that I gave birth to not one, but two complete badasses. I know what you must think of me”—this comes out in a rush and her eyes spill over with tears—“I know how badly I’ve let you down, and I’m sorry. And maybe it means nothing coming from me, but you have to know—I’m proud of you, Vivian. I’m so proud of you, and if your dad could see you now, he would be too. You are like nothing we ever imagined.”
I feel the car begin to slow, and dare to glance out the window. Ahead of us, strikingly white against the flame-colored sky, the Chateau Marmont sits. Flooding Sunset Boulevard is a writhing mass of people, restless bodies surging forward and falling back, like a furious ocean wave. They surge up the lane leading to the Chateau; they scramble to climb the trees blocking the bungalows from sight. At the periphery of the crowd are the casualties of the Peacemakers’ fire, limp bodies slick with blood, abandoned by the protestors who push insistently forward. Helicopters swarm overheard, casting spotlights on the crowd; reporters pour out of news vans parked nearby, jostling to get closer. Beyond the Chateau, miles away but still close enough to strike cold fear in me, a thick black cloud of smoke rolls in.
“This is as far as we’re going to get.” Winnie parks the car and opens her door and all at once I can smell the blood and fire and sweat; I feel the crackle of electric anger in the air, and my heart starts to pound because it’s so terrible, but so beautiful all at once. We’re going to push through this crowd. We’re going to get inside this building. And then we’re going to put a stop to the apocalypse.
I follow my mother as she steps into the bright hot evening, but then I hear Harp call, “Viv, Wait!” And when I turn she’s crouched in the backseat, picking an object up from the floor of the car. She holds it out to me with a fabulous, terrified grin on her face. My sledgehammer.
“I think you’ll be wanting this,” she says.