The car weaves through Eitan City, rerouting around the soldiers who patrol the barricades and road closures with rifles propped against their shoulders. With every turn, I yell at it to speed up. Which is hard, given that every other block is overflowing with larger and larger gatherings of protestors, their faces covered by bandanas or green and white scarves.
I tell the escort to direct it down certain streets, ones the car’s system would have sidestepped because we used to plant bombs there, because avoiding them will add another thirty minutes to the trip. With every block that passes, my heart smacks harder against my chest.
As we swing around a blockade, the car makes to turn left and brakes hard.
“What are you doing?” I yell.
“Sir,” the escort says, pointing out the window at the procession.
“So run them over. They’ll move. Trust me.”
But they won’t. The line runs twenty people deep. Given the mood, they’ll flip the car and set it on fire as likely as pause.
I duck down and pull a newspaper over my face. They march past us, singing songs that make my skin burn with nostalgia and anxiety because I remember that electric charge of leading four hundred people down a street. Some carry quickly painted signs, some with poles that hold effigies in nooses. In quick glances, I see only one that resembles me, which is sort of comforting. I crane my head around the front headrest to look for a break in the crowd and a man stops beside the window. Recognition and venom spread across his face. Doing my best to act naturally, I pull the paper back up to my face but he’s already grabbing his friend.
“Tell it to move,” I say to the escort. The man and his friend pound on the window, two others joining in. This procession will collapse on us in five seconds if we don’t get out of here now.
“Mister Walleus, there’s–”
A dull thump and the sound of breaking ice. The window spiderwebs around a depression in the glass. The protestor moves his hand, pointing the gun at a different spot, and pulls the trigger again.
“Drive!” I yell at the car.
The protestor gets off a third shot then starts screaming as the car takes off. There are thumps as bodies glance off the hood and front window. I look back and see the shooter holding his dangling leg in his hand. I press my finger against the window, the interior side barely cracked. Dumbass didn’t even know you need special bullets and a gun with some ass behind it if you want to get through that glass.
We hum past more protestors, darting around other cars to beat a light or speeding up to encourage people to get the hell out of the way.
After twenty minutes, we pull up to the gatehouse. I roll down the window.
“I came back for my umbrella,” I say to Tuhc. He returns that same grin then continues with whatever he’s shuffling on the desk. We pull through and pass some homeless-looking deliveryman walking along the sidewalk.
When the car pulls up to the house, I jump out the door and hurry up the steps, yelling before the door is even fully open.
“Boys,” I bellow, “pack your bags. You’ve got two minutes to grab whatever you want to keep then we’re leaving. And I don’t want to hear any arguments, Donael. Move it.”
My voice echoes. Silence except for the murmur of voices from the television in the other room.
“Boys?”
When I turn the corner, I see Cobb with his back against the wall, near the edge of the panic room door. Donael stands partially in front of Cobb, protecting him. I step fully into the room and see Old Woman Morrigan sitting on my nice, clean couch, with Doctor Mebeth beside her. Three cosantas surround them, each of them pointing a gun at me.