The four of us maneuver our way to the edge of the crowd—Winnie and Kimberly stride ahead confidently, while Harp, my mother, and I trail behind. As we get nearer, Winnie raises a hand, and I see Diego a dozen yards away, waving back. We push forward and I see he’s not alone. With him are all the surviving members of Amanda’s militia, plus Edie and the Orphans beside them. Edie’s arm-in-arm with Joanna, who looks different than the last time I saw her: steadier, more determined, the color returned to her cheeks. The rest of the Raptured Believers are intermingled throughout the group. They hold weapons and seem frightened but ready. I scan my friends’ faces, registering their astonishment at the sight of my own. And then I cry out in surprise—because standing behind Diego, in plain sight and yet so unexpected my gaze passed right over him, is Dylan.
He steps forward, smiling awkwardly, to accept my arms thrown round his neck.
“Dylan. Thank you. You saved my life. Harp said you told her where I was, but I didn’t realize you were still here—I thought you were leaving!”
“Yeah, well,” Dylan drawls. “Like I said—you have a way with guilt, Apple. Anyway, I figured the Church has enough going on that they won’t go after Molly right away. I talked to her this morning—the school has a bomb shelter they’ll hide out in for the next few hours. She’ll be fine without me, I’m sure.”
I keep my hand on his arm, to comfort him. “She will be, Dylan. We’re here to fix things for her. Everything will be different tomorrow.”
“Yeah. I know.” He tries to seem cool but his eyes flick nervously around us; he raises a trembling hand to push the hair out of his eyes. I can’t say anything else, because Diego steps forward and stares at me, then pulls me into an enveloping hug.
“I’m happy you’re okay,” he murmurs, and I realize he’s nearly on the verge of tears. “I wish we’d gotten to you sooner. If we’d had any idea where you were—”
“It’s fine,” I tell him. “Really, I’m fine.”
He squeezes me so hard it hurts. But over his shoulder, I see Winnie beaming at the sight of us, one hand pressed to her chest in her joy, and though I roll my eyes at her, I can’t help but feel a brief flash of perfect peace. Diego is part of my family now. All of these people are part of my family. The only thing missing is Peter.
“What’s the plan?”
Diego turns to Edie, who reaches out to touch my cheek. “We were waiting for you before we made one. Oh, Viv, look at you!” I worry she’s about to cry, but instead Edie’s face splits into an incredulous grin. “You look like Joan of fucking Arc!”
Beside me, Harp’s mouth and eyes turn into giddy, disbelieving saucers—we’ve never heard Edie swear before. I laugh at them both. “Where’s Amanda? What does she want us to do?”
Diego inclines his head towards the crowd. “She’s in there somewhere and she’s given up on us all. We’re in charge of ourselves now.”
It’s a thought that should bring comfort, but doesn’t—I have no idea what we’re supposed to do next. At a loss, I turn to Harp, who stands on tiptoe, seemingly trying to assess the size of the crowd. When she turns to us, she has a determined look on her face, and everyone—soldiers, Orphans, Believers—closes in to form a huddle. I feel a wild spark of pride that this girl—who always, always has a plan—is my best friend in the entire dying world.
“We’re no good out here,” she says. “We have to get inside; we have to confront Masterson with Joanna, and catch it on a livestream. What time is it?”
Nearby, Julian dutifully checks his watch. “Quarter past ten.”
“Quarter past ten?” I echo in disbelief. I look up—the sky is the electric color of a tangerine.
“Oh,” Winnie says, grimacing. “We forgot to mention that—the sun has been setting later and later over the last few weeks. The scientists think it’s probably dying.”
Horrified, I open my mouth to press for more information, but Harp interrupts.
“Let’s worry about that later, okay? The Church will have to introduce the Messiah soon—before midnight. It seems stupid, though, to push it this long with this mob outside. It’s already well into tomorrow on the other side of the world. What are they waiting for?”
I’m starting to feel stronger now, surrounded by these people and this crowd; my thoughts flow more easily. “Masterson will push it to the last possible moment,” I say. “If it’s still September twenty-fourth in the United States, the story still works. He wants to wait until the Believers here have lost all hope. But you’re right—we have to get into the Chateau and find him and the Messiah before he gets the chance. Let’s move.”
Diego and Winnie lead the push into the crowd. From the outside, the mob seemed like a solid mass, moving in a kind of frenzied harmony, but inside, they’re unwieldy. Believers cling to each other, singing “Jesus (Thank You for Making Me an American)” in a high spooky warble. Various sects of Non-Believers are scattered throughout. Some seem to be here just to feed off the chaos, drunks and junkies and the apparently insane. These are the hardest to get past; they jostle at us with sharp elbows, scream in our faces; when we try to push past them, they push us back. I stick close to Harp. The crowd is sweaty and noisy and I feel claustrophobic; my ears buzz and I have to close my eyes. A hand grasps at the back of my hoodie and I cry out in alarm, but when I turn I see it’s just my mother, looking pale, trying not to lose me in the chaos.
I hear a scuffle to my left—a fight breaking out between two kids in tattered jeans, and one huge Believer. “You’re so gullible, old man!” one of the Non-Believers taunts. “We wouldn’t be in this shit if it weren’t for people like you!” The man laughs a hollow laugh and says, “People like me? It’s because of you Frick has forsaken us.” I turn back to Edie and Joanna, everyone trailing behind me, and call out, “Hurry!” I don’t want to get stuck in this. Our numbers are already starting to dwindle: Colby is nowhere in sight, and Dylan is some yards away with his arms in the air, a cluster of teenage girls clinging to him. I see a flash of silver—a knife in the hands of one of the Non-Believers. The Believer he threatens is quicker; he slams the kid to the ground. The other Non-Believer lunges forward and the man pushes back, then the crowd around them starts screaming, and someone with a baseball bat swings it back, and I watch in horror as it collides with Gallifrey’s face. There’s an awful snapping sound. He slips to the ground; beside me Harp shouts his name. The crowd presses in on the fight. In one swift movement, Elliott reaches down and plucks Gallifrey off the ground; he throws the Orphan’s body over one shoulder. “Keep moving!” he calls. I want to push towards them; I want to make sure Gallifrey’s okay, but there are too many people between us now and I have no choice. I move forward.
With a couple hundred yards between us and the Chateau Marmont, a human chain of singing Believers blocks our progress. Diego tries to move past, but the women and men are arm in arm, screaming, weeping. He’s unable to break them apart. I look beyond them, to seek a better route, but suddenly a low, harsh voice in my ear squawks, “God damn you!”
I try to ignore it, clinging tighter to Harp. Diego takes a tentative step around the singing Believers. But then I hear the voice, louder this time—“God damn you!”—so loud it makes my ears ring, and now a hand is on my arm, turning me roughly around, forcing me to face him.
He’s a Believer only a few years older than me, I think, sweating madly. He shoves me hard, and I tumble back into Harp. I move to block him with my sledgehammer, but Diego and Winnie have already stepped in front of me, and even the sight of their guns does little to subdue him. He stands his ground, glaring at us from over Diego’s shoulder.
“It’s their fault!” he shouts. “If they hadn’t gone and spread that stupid story, we wouldn’t be in this mess. We’d have been saved! But Frick’s left us to die here, and it’s all because of them!”
I’m uncomfortably aware of the people closest to us turning at the commotion. The singing Believers hush mid-chorus, and there’s no mistaking the wave of murmurs spreading farther and farther. They know who we are. We’re smack in the middle of a desperate mob, and this is the moment we’ve finally been spotted. It’s like every nightmare I’ve had for the last two months coming true at the most inopportune of moments.
“Keep going,” I cry to Winnie, who’s trying her best to shield me. “Just keep moving!”
But then an odd thing starts to happen. The chain of Believers breaks, opening to us like a gate, and as neighbor whispers to neighbor, the crowd parts—reluctantly at first, but then more and more rapidly, until there’s a nearly open path between us and the Chateau. Diego and Winnie flank Harp and me so no one can touch us. As we pass I hear scattered furious outbursts (“You had to go and open your big whore’s mouth!” screams a Believer woman who throws herself in our path; Harp just waves as Diego pushes her away), but most gaze with a sort of wonder. Right at the front of the crowd, I see a group of kids our age applauding wildly. “Fuck yeah!” a girl screams out. “You guys are my heroes!”
Grinning, Harp turns to me. “Can we do this every day?”
At the front of the crowd, we’re faced with a resolute line of Peacemakers in riot gear, bulletproof shields and automatic rifles in ther hands. I pause to catch my breath. Their expressions stay neutral as they watch us approach, which only makes them scarier: inhuman, mechanical. Diego sighs.
“I was really hoping not to shoot anybody today,” he mutters. Then, over his shoulder, “Cliff House? You with me?”
They push to the front, guns in hand, forming a protective half-circle around us; Kimberly blocks me with her body. “Get down,” she instructs; “Start pushing your way to the side.” Harp crouches obediently but I panic—nobody in Amanda’s militia wears bulletproof gear. If they open fire on the Peacemakers, they’ll be taken out in an instant. There has to be another way. And then just like that, I see it.
“Wilkins!” I call.
He’s barely recognizable behind his reflective sunglasses, but he jumps at the sound of his name. His perplexed colleagues turn to look at him. I push past Kimberly and Diego.
“Wilkins!” I wave. “Hey, Wilkins, it’s me!”
“Viv, what is this?” asks Diego’s voice in my ear, but I just keep waving.
After a pause, the Peacemaker reluctantly moves towards me. I step forward to meet him, ignoring my mother’s gasp and Winnie’s attempt to grab my arm. Wilkins lowers his gun. He stares at me, his expression unreadable, then he takes off his sunglasses.
“Vivian, what are you doing?” He sounds worried.
“Just sayin’ hi. I missed you the last few days. Did you take some personal time, or … ?”
He takes another step, this one slightly more aggressive. I hear a shift behind me, as Amanda’s militia assesses this threat. But I hold up my hand to calm them. I trust him.
“I came here late the other night,” he explains in a low voice. “We all did. They told us we were guaranteed a place on the Second Boat. I sat out there, by the pool, waiting to be Raptured. Nothing happens. Then yesterday morning, they wake us up; they say there’s a riot outside and we better take care of it. No explanation for why we’re still there. That’s a little rich, I think, considering I haven’t even gotten a paycheck in the last two months.”
“They’re lying to you, Wilkins. They’ve been lying the whole time.”
He still looks dubious. “Maybe. I’m not gonna pretend there aren’t things that don’t add up. Like—they said you were a witch, right? But wouldn’t a witch break herself out of a jail cell?” He shakes his head, pondering this. “But how do you explain the sky, okay? How do you explain the fires and the winds and all that stuff? Someone’s angry up there, Vivian. You have to admit that someone’s angry.”
“Maybe someone is,” I say, feeling desperate. “But I don’t think that someone is on the Church of America’s side at all. Do you?”
Wilkins sucks on his front teeth. I can tell I’m getting to him, but he seems determined not to answer.
“Listen.” I hear footsteps and see that Harp has come to stand by my side. “We need to get in. We’re not going to hurt anyone, but we need to look for Masterson, Mulvey, and Blackmore. If they’re still here, we can make them explain.”
Wilkins stares at me for too long of a moment and I’m sure he’s about to refuse. But then he nods to his right, drawing my attention to Peacemakers behind him, watching us. “Okay. But what am I supposed to tell these guys?”
I shrug. “Whatever you think they need to hear.”
Wilkins considers this, then beckons us to follow. He leads us to a Peacemaker at the center of the line, who straightens as we approach, and spits.
“Listen, Bob,” Wilkins explains. “I know this is unusual, but these two girls—you recognize them, right?—they want to turn themselves in. They’ve admitted to being enemies to salvation, and they want to make things right by the Church.”
“I thought this one was already turned in.” Bob frowns at me.
“I was,” I tell him. “But then I broke out. I want to turn myself in for that, too.”
He stares at us for far too long, and I prepare myself for something terrible. But then Bob shrugs. I start to get the feeling that Wilkins is not the only one losing patience with the Three Angels of the Church of America.
“Whatever. I’d say to take them to Masterson, but there’s no telling where he is. Maybe bring them to the cottage where they’re holding the Taggart kid?” I grab Harp’s arm to steady myself. “Oliver’s on guard over there; he’ll know what to do.”
I see Bob stiffen then. He lifts his rifle to aim at something behind us, and when I turn, panicked, I see Winnie and my mom approaching with hands raised.
“They want to turn themselves in, too!” I cry, moving quickly to block them.
Winnie hears this. She nods deeply, immediately understanding. “We broke her out of Church jail and it was wrong. Please—we just want to make amends in our final hours.”
I can tell Bob is not entirely convinced, but he just shakes his head at us. “Get them out of here,” he snaps at Wilkins. Wilkins begins to lead us through the open gate, but we hear a shout of, “Hey!” We turn. Bob gestures to the sledgehammer still in my hands, the rifles across the shoulders of my mother and sister. “Strip them of their weapons first, idiot! Do you want to get us all killed?”
Wilkins silently complies, though I see his face flush red at the insult. When he has our weapons in hand, he ushers us down the long drive. I move carefully, afraid that Bob will change his mind. There’s an angry roar from the crowd as the gate closes behind us. Wilkins nods to the Peacemaker standing at attention in the entryway to the bungalow garden—“Won’t be long now till these kids bust through,” he notes, sounding nervous, and the guard grunts in response—and then he leads us past the garden wall.
When the other Peacemaker can no longer see us, Wilkins stops. He gives a rifle back to my mother and a rifle back to Winnie. Then with a slight, confused frown, he places the sledgehammer back into my outstretched hands. He leads us through the garden, turned brittle and brown during L.A.’s eternal summer, past a pool that must once have looked inviting but is now half-empty and spotted with dead birds. Ahead of us, a row of picturesque cottages are all commotion. Doors are thrown open and panicked people dart in and out. I glance in as we pass and see scenes of chaos: an arguing couple throwing towels into a sloppily-packed suitcase; two women sitting on the floor by the bed, one weeping and the other trying to comfort her (“Of course they won’t kill us—we’re very low level!”); a man slumped against the doorframe in the midst of a wrenching phone call (“Just tell her Daddy loves her and he’ll be home as soon as he can—no, I have no idea when that will be, Judith, it’s the goddamn apocalypse!”). There are couples rolling together in the lawn, clinched in one last romantic embrace as the final moments approach; drunks stepping over them, sobbing, clutching bottles of champagne in their fists. With a shudder, I notice a body floating facedown in the other pool.
Finally, at the end of the row of bungalows, we see a Peacemaker stationed at a front door that remains closed. There are black iron bars over this building’s windows. He glances warily at us as we approach, noticing our weapons and then our famous faces. His grip tightens on his gun. There has to be a way to distract him, I think, a way of tricking him to both let us in and leave the premises. Maybe Wilkins can figure something out. But just as I’ve reached for him to grab his attention, Winnie puts a hand on my arm, gives me a look as if to say I’ve got this, then bounds confidently up to the Peacemaker guarding the door, surprising him so much she’s able to knock him out cold with one punch.
Wilkins gasps. “Oh, sweet Jesus!” he cries, as Oliver the Peacemaker goes tumbling. He looks at us with a new fear in his eyes and then goes running in the direction we came.
“We have to stop him.” Winnie doesn’t sound happy about it. She lifts her rifle to her shoulder but I put my hand on it, push it down.
“Leave it,” I say.
“Viv—”
“He’s won’t tell anyone,” I promise her. I don’t know that it’s true, but I want to believe it. I still wear his watch around my wrist. Winnie seems dubious, but she lowers her weapon.
I turn and assess the door. The knob is locked. There’s probably an easier way, but my body is numb with anticipation and I can hear the roar of the riot outside even here. We don’t have long until everything falls apart. I throw myself against the door, pounding on it. “Peter! Peter! Are you in here?”
There’s nothing at first, just the buzz of disquiet behind us, the distant dull clamor of the mob. But then I hear his voice behind the door like a sleepy murmur:
“Viv?”
“Get back,” I shout. I take a step away from the door and raise the sledgehammer high over my head, and as Winnie, Harp, and my mother realize what I’m about to do, they stumble backwards onto the lawn. I bring the hammer down hard in the general vicinity of the doorknob, but miss, removing a significant chunk of the frame. I try again, and dent the door itself.
“You know this guy probably has keys on him, right?” Harp points out, kicking lightly at Oliver’s unconscious body.
I ignore her, slamming the sledgehammer down once more, and this time I hit my target; the knob shudders in place like a loose tooth. I try again and again. My arms still ache from my own escape attempt, and it’s not like I’ve ever been physically strong, but there’s something about this act, born of love and the clock ticking down, that feels within my grasp. At last, the knob gives with a metallic pop, and I step forward. I see Peter’s fingers graze the hole the knob has left behind. He opens the door, peering out cautiously at the four of us. When his gaze drifts to me, sweating and panting and shaking and bruised, his eyes widen in appreciation.
“Damn,” he says, nearly breathless.
It’s the best compliment I’ve gotten in a while. Peter comes to me, kisses me softly. He takes my chin into his fingers and gently tilts my face up so he can see it better under the still-bright sky. He turns it from side to side.
“It looks worse than it feels,” I tell him. In truth, I can’t feel any pain at all right now; I’m drunk with pleasure. “Are you all right?”
Peter nods. Other than the dark shadows under his eyes, he looks more or less like he always does: handsome and kind, a little bit like he just woke up. “They left my face alone—Mulvey’s orders. She sees a future in me—a redemption narrative, she says. I’m sure Masterson would have killed me after the stunt I pulled on TV … did you hear about that?” I just grin at him, and Peter grins back. “Yeah, well. I can’t imagine that thrilled him. But Mulvey and Blackmore hid me here—I think they still feel guilty about my dad—and I haven’t seen Masterson since.”
I stand on tiptoe to kiss him again. When he pulls away, he glances at Winnie and Mom, who gaze back politely. And suddenly, even though we’re standing in the middle of Hollywood with a fake apocalypse hurtling towards us at full speed, my life feels unbelievably mundane.
“Oh.” Under my bruises my cheeks go pink, and nearby Harp glances up at the sky in a nonchalant way, whistling. “Peter, this is my sister, Winnie Conroy, and my mom. Mom, Winnie, this is Peter Ivey. My boyfriend.”
Peter shakes their hands shyly—“Nice to meet you, Mrs. Apple”—while Harp giggles to herself. Winnie nudges at her with an elbow, but her mouth is twitching. My mother seems nervous; her eyes are oddly bright.
“Well!” she says in a too-loud voice. “Isn’t this weird? I always thought when I met Viv’s first boyfriend, we’d be sitting down before her prom and looking at her baby pictures!”
I cover my face, hoping this will render me invisible. “Oh God, Mom, please. No.”
“I’d really like to see those someday, Mrs. Apple.” Peter grins.
“Hopefully Pittsburgh is on fire right now,” I say, “and our house burns with it.”
“You think I didn’t upload those to the cloud?” Mom laughs, and she sounds so like herself I can’t help but join in. “Come on, Viv. Have a little appreciation for the savvy of your dear old mom.”
“Actually,” Harp gestures towards her backpack with her thumb, “I happen to have a laptop right here on my person. I could fire it up pretty easily! We could create that perfect family moment as we speak.”
I lunge at her and Harp cackles, trying to unzip the bag with one hand and fight me off with the other; Peter and Mom laugh together, watching us, and it’s a perfect moment: my best friend, my boyfriend, my mother, and me. But then Winnie clears her throat, and I snap out of it. I feel at once a grasping panic—there is too much left to do, and the hold I have on these people I love is tenuous at best.
“I’m sorry,” Winnie says when we fall silent. “But we can’t slow down. As far as we know, the Angels still plan to broadcast the rising of their messiah. We’ll need to confront them before they get the chance. Except—oh, shit!”
I understand at the same moment Harp does. “Joanna!” she groans.
The Raptured Believers, the lynchpin of our whole plan, are still behind the gate with the rest of the riot. Without Joanna to confront the Angels on camera, Harp’s livestream will be nothing more than a dull series of denials from the Three Angels—assuming we can find them—most likely followed by our own gruesome deaths.
“We need one of the Raptured Believers for any this to work,” I say. “Look, I’ll head back out and get Joanna.” I start to move in the direction of the gate, but Winnie grabs my arm.
“The guards won’t let you,” she insists. “And for all we know, Wilkins has already told them we assaulted a Peacemaker. They could be on their way here as we speak. Damn it, I can’t believe I didn’t just take Joanna with me!”
“What if,” Peter thinks out loud, “we found Frick? If we could get him on camera before they broadcast the Messiah—that would work, right? If he said anything like what he told us in Point Reyes that night—”
“If we could get Frick to say the Rapture was faked,” I realize, “that would be enough.”
“Frick?” my mother echoes, sounding mildly panicked. “Beaton Frick?”
“But where do you think he’d be?” I ask Peter.
“No idea. They’d probably give him a nice room, as a show of respect—” He trails off, absentmindedly examining the nearby cottages.
“He’s probably inside the Chateau,” Winnie points out. “They’d want to keep him close—as far from the crowds as possible.”
Peter nods. “Look, let’s try the sixth floor and work our way down. It’s not ideal, but it’s the best we can do right now. We have no time to waste.”
We race back through the garden and past the guard at the stone wall; Winnie slams her rifle into his temple to ensure he doesn’t follow. As a cluster, we move in through the entrance and make our way to the main staircase, racing up, pushing against a tide of escaping Church employees. One or two glance at me and I see the frightened glimmer of recognition, but nobody tries to stop us. The employees know better than the Believers outside the various sins of the Church of America, and they’re getting out while they can. As we climb up to the top of the Chateau, the sounds of the remaining Believers’ panic floats up with us—howling and unintelligible shouting, and on the fourth floor, a single, alarming gunshot. The sixth floor is quieter than the others, its doors all closed. The employees here are higher up. Either they know about the Messiah, or they’re more inclined to trust Masterson to get them out of this mess. I check Wilkins’s watch: ten to eleven.
“What do we do?” my mother whispers. “Bang on the doors, screaming Frick’s name?”
Harp and Peter and I exchange a look.
“Mrs. Apple,” Harp replies, “that is exactly what we’re about to do.”
I take one side and Peter the other; Harp rushes ahead. Winnie has her gun at the ready should Masterson or the others appear. I bang on each door with my sledgehammer. “FRICK!” I shout. “BEATON FRICK!” Peter’s voice goes scratchy echoing mine. Doors open and the rooms’ occupants peer out in alarm—I see them exchange dark glances, and I know they know where he is. But no one points us in his direction.
Then, from around the corner, Harp’s voice: “Hey!”
Peter glances at me and together we run; we see her at the very last room at the end of the hall. She’s got her foot stuck between the door and its frame, her hands pressed against it; Harp pushes madly, but someone inside is determined to shut her out. Peter reaches her and throws his shoulder against the door. We hear a cry as the person behind it falls back—the door swings open easily. Winnie and my mother have caught up to us, and together we enter the room.
Inside is Beaton Frick. The sight of him makes my mom gasp and drop to her knees. He’s far better groomed than the last times I saw him, clean-shaven, hair cut. There’s something of the old Frick in him—confident and businesslike—but then he gives me a small wave of recognition, his eyes simultaneously delighted and alarmed, and I know his mind is still a mess. On any other occasion, his presence would be the most notable thing about a room. But tonight our attention is drawn to the other person in it.
He’s sprawled on the ground, kicking wildly in an effort to get to his feet, but he’s too tangled in his long, linen robes. He’s young—Winnie’s age maybe—with shoulder-length auburn hair and a beard of the same color. He resembles Jesus to a degree that’s at once incredible and deeply hilarious. And he glares at us all, propping himself up on one elbow, chattering darkly into the phone he holds to his ear.
“Thanks for your concern, Jeremy, but I’m fine. No, it’s not them; it’s a bunch of insane-looking teenagers. Yes, I remember what the contract said. Thank you so much for that. Well, what am I supposed to do? They just burst in here! Ask them what? Okay. Hang on.”
The Messiah fixes his scowl on me. “Are you here to kill me?”
We’re all too startled to answer. Then the Messiah snaps at us with his fingers, like he thinks we’re maybe deaf. I shake my head at him.
“They say no, Jeremy.” He pushes himself to his feet and continues speaking as if we haven’t interrupted. “Anyway, my point is, you told me this was primetime. You told me I’d be in capable hands. But the fact is, five hours ago they stuck me in a room with a”—his voice lowers briefly to a theatrical whisper—“lunatic, and told me I couldn’t be seen. I haven’t heard from them since!” A brief pause, then the Messiah starts shouting. “Yeah, I know about the riot! Talk about your unsafe working conditions! I want you to call Masterson now and remind him I belong to the guild!”
Behind him, Frick sits patiently on the bed, giving us a mild, polite smile, like the Messiah is a badly behaved grandson he cannot bring himself to rebuke.
“Is that really the tone you want to take with me, Jeremy? Maybe you’ve forgotten—you work for me. That new vacation home in Boca Raton—that’s thanks to me!”
Winnie pushes past me then, marching up to the Messiah. She snatches the phone from his hand and shouts, “He’ll call you back!” into it. She hangs up and turns to the actor, who is cowering a little now. “What’s your name?”
Though his eyes are still frightened, the Messiah seems to remember himself. He pulls himself up to his full height, folding his hands peacefully across his chest. “Why,” he says, in a very different voice, softer and vaguely British, “you know my name, child.”
“Guy’s good,” Harp deadpans after a pause. “You’ve got to give him that.”
Winnie looks disgusted, and though she’s a full head shorter than the Messiah, he shrinks when she begins to speak again, her voice quiet and deadly. “I hope they’re paying you a lot of money for this. I hope you were able to buy a big house you’ll never live in, and a shiny car you’ll never drive. I hope knowing those things are out there is satisfying to you, because the Church owns you now. Do you understand? Do you know what happens when they don’t require the people they own anymore? Do you know what happened to the Raptured Believers?”
The Messiah cringes, like he’d rather she didn’t bring it up. Winnie turns to Frick.
“And you. Do you understand who this is? Do you get who the Angels will claim he is?”
“I think so.” Frick speaks in a quiet voice. “I think I do.”
“And that’s okay with you?”
Frick shakes his head and Winnie looks satisfied. But then he abruptly thunders, “Because there’s no rescue from the eternal torment America faces! God has damned us all to a world borne into fire, and he’ll laugh without mercy as we burn! This man is an imposter and we shall feed him to the hounds when they bound up from the mouth of hell!”
Behind me, my mother murmurs a shocked, “Oh my.”
Winnie catches my eye and grins. “Yeah, okay” she says. “I think this will work.”
My sister leaves first, scoping out the hallway. Harp and I follow with Frick. My mother is behind us, and Peter brings up the rear, half-dragging the struggling Messiah. “Listen, if something happens to the costume, it isn’t coming out of my wages,” we hear him mutter. Harp leans forward to catch my eye and the two of us stifle laughter.
This is how it happens. With my face turned forward and my mouth a wide grin. A Peacemaker appears at the end of the hall, his gun already aimed at us. It takes a moment for me to understand—because how can it happen when I’m laughing, when we’ve won? But then I hear the blast shatter the easy silence of the sixth floor, then another, then a third—this last from Winnie, who hits her target. People are screaming—my mother and the Messiah, but also the Church employees around us, who come pouring out of their rooms now against all logic. They see the body at one end of the hall and Winnie at the other, rifle still poised, and they run, shouting, as if chased. One man lunges at Winnie, tries to pin her down; she throws him off, but not easily. She glances at me over her shoulder.
“Run, Viv!” Winnie shouts. “Get them downstairs!”
Frick has gone rigid with shock, and I tug hard on his arm to pull him forward, past Winnie, who has stumbled to the ground. The hall is full of people. The man who lunged for Winnie grabs at Harp’s ankles from the floor; my best friend trips. I see the Messiah dart past me; Peter runs after him. Finally Frick moves and we push through the crowd; I glance back quickly to make sure Harp’s on her feet, and she is. But that’s when I realize my mother hasn’t stopped screaming. Not since the second shot rang out. I stop in my tracks. I look back at her, through the mess of people streaming away from the scene. She’s on her knees in the middle of the hallway, screaming, and I’m trying to see: where was she hit? Where is the blood? But then I see Winnie.
She lies on her back on the floor in front of my mother, a massive dark stain spreading across her chest. She blinks, dazed, at the ceiling. Mom crawls forward and lifts her head to cradle it, and I let go of Frick’s arm—Stay here, I shout, or mean to shout—and slip my hoodie off my shoulders and go running, stumbling to my knees. I press the sweatshirt down hard on her chest. Winnie lowers her eyes to me, smiling weakly.
“Tell Mara she’s got to pull it together,” Winnie says.
And I watch her eyelids quiver a few long seconds, then close.