“ANY OTHER TAKERS?” CHANCELLOR Maddox asks the other three.
Hope can’t believe that Cat is giving in so easily.
“Fine,” Maddox says. “Then we’ll do one now, and the rest of you after we fire the missiles.” Her tone is utterly casual, as if she’s asking for volunteers in class.
She waves her pistol and motions for Cat to come forward. “Slowly,” she says. In her other hand is the walkie-talkie.
Cat can barely meet his friends’ eyes. “Sorry, guys,” he says, and shuffles away from the corner. His hands are bound tightly behind his back.
After a half dozen steps, Chancellor Maddox holds up her hand.
“Kneel,” she commands.
Hope keeps thinking he’s up to something, that he has some kind of a plan, but then he just gets down on his knees. Now there’s nothing he can do. He’s still a good five feet from her—too far away to lunge for her. He is giving up his life.
“Cat, you don’t have to do this,” Hope pleads. “We can all go together. We’ll die as a group.”
The chancellor looks at him, waiting for his response. “Well?” she asks. “Are you going to listen to your girlfriend?”
“She’s not my girlfriend,” Cat growls. “Let her and Book die together.”
His words send a rush of blood to Hope’s face.
“So there we have it,” Maddox says with icy pleasure. “The crux of the matter.”
She places the walkie-talkie on the table, then checks the chamber of the gun. She levels it at Cat’s forehead. Her index finger hovers against the trigger. The second she pulls, Cat’s life will end for good.
Hope wonders what he’s thinking. Does Cat really not want to witness the missile attack? Or does it have to do with her and Book?
For a long moment that feels like forever, Cat kneels there, and Chancellor Maddox readies the pistol. Hope, Scylla, and Book watch helplessly.
“Any final words?” the chancellor asks.
“No,” he snaps.
“Would you like a blindfold?”
“No way. I want my eyes open.”
“And why is that?”
“So I can see your reaction.”
“My reaction?” Her face twists in confusion. “My reaction to what?”
Cat’s right arm whips around his body. At the end of it is his prosthetic left arm, still tied to his right hand. By releasing the prosthetic from his shoulder, he’s managed to create an improvised whip of real arm and fake arm, and in one blindingly fast move, he cracks it forward. The end of his prosthetic arm snaps against the gun. Two bullets explode before the pistol goes cartwheeling through the air. Chancellor Maddox’s eyes go wide and she stumbles backward and the gun goes clattering to the floor. Smoke curls from its barrel.
The silence that follows is overwhelming. No one moves. The air is thick with the scent of gunpowder.
Hope feels a sharp pain in her leg like a wasp sting. When she looks down, she sees blood spilling from her right thigh. She caught one of the bullets from the chancellor’s gun. She starts to examine the wound when she sees Cat.
He lies on his back, blood gurgling from his chest like a spring. He took the other bullet.
“Stay with me!” Book yells to Cat, already hovering over his friend.
Hope limps forward and unties Book’s hands, and she watches as he works with silent fury, desperation, as if Cat’s life is his life. He rips off his outer shirt and bunches it into a ball, pressing it against the blood. Within seconds, his shirt is a soggy mess.
“You’re going to be okay,” Book says, not giving up. “Stay with me here.”
That’s the moment Hope realizes how wrong she was—way back when—to ever think Book would abandon Cat. Not a chance. It was Book and Cat together from the very beginning. Friends to the bitter end.
The sound of Chancellor Maddox’s voice whips Hope’s head around.
“Now,” the chancellor is saying into the walkie-talkie. “Launch the missiles now!”
In the confusion following the gunshots, everyone forgot about her, but now Hope sees her, frantically stabbing the orange button with her thumb and placing her mouth close to the walkie-talkie.
“Launch the missiles now!” she says again.
At first, the only answer she gets is static. Everyone holds their breath, waiting to hear the confirmation of the launch, the beginning of Omega II, missiles erupting from the Eagle’s Nest and arcing through the sky.
But the static continues, only gradually replaced by another sound—muffled gunfire—not from the walkie-talkie but from outside the windows. An explosion rocks the building.
Chancellor Maddox shoots a daggered look at Hope. “What’s going on?”
Hope honestly doesn’t know, but Book answers without looking up. “The president’s soldiers,” he says. “They’ve arrived.”
The chancellor’s face burns red, twisting into an expression of rage and fury. Her lips part, revealing bared teeth. Her jaw is entirely too tense to allow the formation of words. She sputters a string of unintelligible words, then turns and races out of the room. The door slams behind her.
Book’s eyes don’t leave Cat. “Go,” he says aloud.
At first, Hope doesn’t understand. Then she realizes he’s talking to her—and the need to stop Chancellor Maddox.
For a long moment, Hope is unable to move, torn between Cat’s fatal wounds, Book’s grief, and Chancellor Maddox getting away. She’s paralyzed.
“Go!” Book screams.
She takes a final look at Cat and then rushes out the door.
Even as she staggers after Chancellor Maddox, it occurs to her that Cat knew exactly what he was doing. He knew he would be shot, but he knew it was the only way to prevent the next Omega. For perhaps the last time, Cat has saved the lives of others—even if it meant giving up his own in the process.
Hope vows that if it comes to it, she will gladly do the same. Blood streams down her leg as she limps through the hall.