After lying wide awake next to Lamar’s skinny, snoring body all night, I decide I’ve had enough. If I don’t stretch my legs soon, I’m gonna scream, and I don’t want to wake Lamar up. I’m sure wherever his mind is right now, it’s a hell of a lot better than what’s waiting for him here.
Reaching up, I feel around with my hand until it hits a dangling handle. Then, I yank as hard as I can. The lid pops open with a quiet click, and sunlight floods the spacious trunk. We went with a Cadillac this time—at Lamar’s request. A metallic purple one sitting on blocks.
I sit up and stretch before climbing out of the trunk, but when I do, a wave of nausea almost brings me back down to the fetal position. The blood on my jeans must have dried and stuck to my skin overnight. Every movement severs the crusty bond a little more—like a bandage being pulled off—and I smell like a corpse.
Once my feet are planted firmly on asphalt again, I suck in a few breaths of fresh air. Then, I turn and unzip the duffel bag as quietly as possible, pulling out a bottle of water Michelle gave me yesterday and a prenatal vitamin.
I just hope I can keep it down.
As I unscrew the cap, Lamar throws an elbow over his face and groans.
“Morning,” I mumble, tossing the giant, chalky pill into my mouth. I swallow with a shudder.
“Why’s everybody so loud?” he whines, making me realize that it is pretty loud out here.
I turn in the direction of soon-to-be Burger Palace Park, and my jaw almost hits the Cadillac’s chromed-out bumper. Dozens—no, hundreds of people have gathered around our handiwork.
Last night, Lamar and I laid Quint’s body in the middle of Plaza Park, his arms and legs spread out like a human X. Then, we went and found the dead Bony I’d seen on the side of the road yesterday. I took his King Burger mask to put over Quint’s face, and Lamar took a can of orange spray paint he’d found in the guy’s hoodie pocket. Once the bloodstained mask was in place, I painted the words HERE’S YOUR SPONSOR in a circle around Quint’s body.
“Lamar.” I shake his shoulder. “Lamar, look!”
He grumbles and sits up, dreadlocks smashed against the side of his head as he turns and squints in the direction of our human protest sign … and the crowd gathering around it.
“Oh shit …” he says, almost to himself. “It worked.”
Turning to me, Lamar’s brown eyes go wide. “The sublimi-whatever thing! It worked! People are coming! Holy shit, Rain! What pictures did y’all use?”
“Just some photos I found on Google. People marching with their fists in the air. People rioting in the streets. Oh, and a picture of Governor Steele’s banner from the capitol building with a bull’s-eye Photoshopped right onto his forehead.” I smirk.
Lamar snorts and shakes his head. “You ’member, before all this shit started, you had blonde hair and wore cowboy boots and dresses. Now, look at you.” He gestures from my head to my waist. “Black hair. Boned out. Savage as fuck. You’re like … Post-Apocalypse Barbie now.”
“I feel more like Morning Sickness Barbie,” I say with a forced smile. But it fades the moment I let my gaze drift over to the growing crowd circling the body of my dead best friend.
I wrap an arm around Lamar’s shoulders and exhale.
“What do we do now that they’re here?” he asks.
“I don’t know,” I say with an honest shrug. “Go start a riot, I guess.”
Lamar nods. “For Quint.”
“And Wes.”
“And your folks.” He gives me a sympathetic look.
“And Franklin Springs.”
“And all the people pushin’ up oak trees down there.”
Sliding my free hand into the front pocket of my hoodie, I splay my trembling fingers across the biggest reason of all.
And for you, little one.
My matted hair suddenly blows into my face as a van flies past us on the road, weaving around all the abandoned cars like an Olympic downhill skier. Then, it slams on its brakes with an ear-splitting screech. A second later, the Channel 11 news van backs up next to us. Michelle rolls her tinted window down, revealing a fresh-faced reporter with a sparkle in her eye, an entire tube of concealer covering her bruises, and a breaking story to chase.
“Do you see that crowd?” she shouts. “It worked! Come on! Let’s get over there!”
I grab the duffel bag as Lamar climbs out of the trunk. Michelle hops out and opens the giant side door on the van for us.
“Where’s Quint?” she asks as we pile inside.
Lamar drops his eyes, and I raise a single finger in the direction of the park.
“Oh, he’s already over there?”
“You could say that,” I mutter.
Ever the good journalist, Michelle’s eyes narrow to slits as they shift back and forth between Lamar and me. It doesn’t take her more than a second to deduce from our tear-streaked faces and blood-soaked clothes what happened.
“Oh my God. No.”
I nod.
“Quint is …”
I nod.
“Are you serious?”
I nod.
Lamar stares out the window, practically catatonic, as I fill her and Flip in on what happened.
Michelle reaches for the bottle of vodka in her cupholder and takes a long swig as I tell her the story, her red lipstick staying perfectly intact.
“And the governor said they’re moving the execution up to this morning?”
After everything I just told her, that’s what she’s focused on?
“Yeah, but I don’t know when.”
“Oh my God.” Michelle takes another swig. “We have to start broadcasting now. Here, put this on.”
She tosses a bundle of soft red material at me. I catch it in my lap as the scent of lavender fabric softener fills the air.
“I grabbed you a wrap dress from my closet since it’s kind of one-size-fits-all. It was the best I could do on such short notice.” She gives me an apologetic look. “At least it’s red—the color of revolution.”
“Revolution?”
“You got ’em here. Now, you gotta tell ’em what to do.”
All of our heads turn toward the crowd flooding into Plaza Park as we drive past. I can hear their shouts from inside the van as the riot cops with Plexiglas shields try to push people off the field.
My palms begin to sweat as I turn my back to everyone in the van and strip my hoodie off over my head, followed by my once-white tank top. I then pull off my hiking boots and peel my blood-encrusted jeans off my legs. The skin underneath is stained maroon, and fresh tears fill my eyes as images from last night flash before them. Quint’s body in my lap. The kindness of the security guards who helped us—I don’t even know their names. Holding Lamar as he cried himself to sleep. I consider taking the bottle of water and rinsing my legs clean, but it doesn’t matter.
I’ll probably be covered in my own blood by the end of the day anyway.
Or Wes’s.
With a heavy sigh, I slip on the wrap dress and tie it around my waist. The fabric is soft and clean and somehow comforting.
“Here.” Michelle hands me a tube of lipstick and a comb from her purse. “You don’t want people to just hear you. You want them to listen to you. A bold lip draws their eyes to your mouth.”
I remember another woman I saw on TV with a bold red mouth.
“My name is Dr. Marguerite Chapelle. I am the director of the World Health Alliance. If you are seeing this broadcast, congratulations. You are now part of a stronger, healthier, more self-sufficient human race.”
I shudder.
We sure as hell listened to her, didn’t we?
“What do I even say to them?” I wonder out loud, using the reflective surface of the lipstick cap as a mirror to help me apply it.
Michelle thinks for a minute, vodka sloshing out of her bottle as Flip pulls up onto the curb next to Plaza Park. “I read a study a few years ago about social media that said that people are addicted to outrage. It said that news stories about major events got way fewer likes and shares and comments than posts from people reacting to those events with outrage. We’re drawn to that kind of fiery passion. It makes us feel alive, powerful … connected. No successful movement was ever started without outrage, so I say, you get up there and get pissed off.”
“I’m not trying to start a movement. I just want these people to help me save Wes.”
“What do you think they want?” she asks, opening the passenger door to the sounds of chaos and anger. To a sea of people with locked elbows and fists in the air.
I sigh as I yank the comb through my tangled hair. “A revolution.”
“You built this bomb, girl. Time to go set it off.” Flip winks at me in the rearview mirror before opening his door and climbing out too.
I turn to Lamar. “How do I look?”
He furrows his eyebrows at me, the right one still scarred from the bulldozer accident. “Like a reporter.”
“You don’t like it?”
“I liked Post-Apocalyptic Barbie better.” Lamar shrugs. “Maybe take the hoodie … just in case.”
I give him a sad smile as I reach for my sweatshirt. Anything to make him happy. “You doin’ okay?” I ask, tying the sleeves around my waist.
He shakes his head and drops his eyes. His chin begins to wobble, but he grits his teeth and squashes it.
“Me too, buddy.” I pat his knee. “Me too.”
“Guys …” Flip calls out, slapping the side of the van to get our attention. “Looks like we might be too late.”
Lamar and I scramble outside and notice that everyone’s heads are craned back and tilted to the right as a helicopter descends onto a small, oval-shaped patch of grass next to the capitol building.
Michelle turns to me with an apologetic look on her face. “Shit! I have to get into position. He’s gonna go inside the capitol for a minute and then make a big entrance by coming down the capitol steps. I usually meet him at the end of the main walkway and introduce him. Then, we walk over to the park together.”
“Introduce him!” I shout, my eyes going wide. “How much time do we have?”
“Before he comes out? Maybe twenty minutes? Thirty, tops.”
“Perfect! I’ll be right back!” I tighten the sleeves around my waist and take off running.
“Rain! Where are you going?”
“Call me Stella!” I yell over my shoulder.
“Did I ever tell you you’re my heeee-rooooo?” Elliott sings to me as we jog down the block, take a right, pass the now-maskless dead Bony, take a left, and sprint past the crowd in Plaza Park.
“Ooh! Look at that! My fans await!” Elliott cups his hand and waves at them like the Queen of England as I pull him to a stop next to the news van.
“Michelle,” I huff, trying to catch my breath. “Officer Elliott here would like to introduce the governor on today’s broadcast.”
Michelle narrows her eyes in confusion. Then, she pops them open again once she connects the dots. “Of course! We’d love for you to do the honors, Officer Elliott. Thank you for coming on such short notice. The governor surprised us by moving the execution up, unannounced.”
“Tell me about it, honey. We’re runnin’ around like chickens with our heads cut off over at the station. Got my boy Wes all suited up and ready to go though. He’s gon’ break some hearts, that one.” Elliott shakes his head, and I can tell that one of the hearts is going to be his.
I know the feeling.
“We don’t have much time, so I’ll cut right to the chase. In a few minutes, the governor is going to walk down those steps, and we need you to—”
“Don’t worry ’bout me, honey. I got this!” Officer Elliott interrupts, flicking his fingers at Flip. “Gimme a mic! Where do I stand? How’s my hair?” He runs a hand over his perfectly bald head and cackles.
Flip grabs his camera bag out of the van and leads Officer Elliott toward the capitol building as he continues to ramble. Then, glancing behind him at Michelle, he jerks his head in the direction of Plaza Park.
Go. Now, he mouths.
Michelle doesn’t hesitate. She leans into the van and grabs a large, padded black bag. Unzipping it, she says, “Lamar … I’m gonna need you to be my cameraman for the day.” Turning around, Michelle presents him with a full-size TV camera.
“Oh my God. Can you even hold that thing up?” I ask.
“Pssh.” He dismisses me as he accepts the equipment with straining, spindly arms.
“I’ll start the broadcast,” she says, positioning the camera on his shoulder. “All you have to do is hold it, like this.”
“So, is Flip just not gonna turn his camera on or somethin’?” Lamar asks, shifting his weight to support the load.
“That’s right. He’ll use it to record; it just won’t be live. Yours will be.”
Turning toward me, Michelle contorts her crimson lips into something I assume is supposed to look reassuring, but her wild eyes are just as manic as the cheering, shouting, fist-pumping crowd swelling behind her. She wants this just as bad as they do. Everyone here has lost someone or something because of Operation April 23, including Michelle. That’s why the dream spoke to them, motivated them to pick up their weapons and fight their way down here. The question is, are they here to start a revolution?
Or do they just want their pound of flesh?
“Let’s go!” Michelle grins.
She leads the way, squeezing in between Bonys and housewives and pimps and homeless teenagers. “Excuse me!” she yells. “Michelle Ling! Channel 11 Action News!”
But nobody can hear her, and we’re starting to get separated.
Somebody grabs my wrist just as she and Lamar disappear through a group of old rednecks carrying hunting rifles. I try to yank my arm away, but the grip is surprisingly strong for a hand so small. I follow the skeletal arm it’s attached to up to the face of a woman who’s probably in her early forties but looks about fifteen years older. Everything about her is thin—her body, her skin, the limp blonde hair hanging around her sad, wrinkled face.
“Ms. McCartney?” she asks, a pair of familiar green eyes lighting up in recognition. “Oh my God, it is you!” She wraps her other hand around my forearm. “You saw my boy yesterday!”
Turning her head, she yells to a rough-looking crew of tattooed men and women behind her, “Y’all! It’s the reporter who interviewed my Wesson!”
Her what?
“Ms. McCartney, I’m Wesson Parker’s mama, Rhonda. I saw him on the TV yesterday, and I …”
Her face crumples in on itself, and tears spill down her cheeks as my mind struggles to process the words she just said.
Wes’s mama.
I never really thought of her as a real person before. More like a ghost. A part of Wes’s past that he didn’t like to talk about. All I know is that she was a drug addict who neglected her children to the point that Wes’s baby sister died of starvation, and she’s been in prison ever since.
But here she is, in the flesh. Wes got her eyes, her perfect nose. She must have been so beautiful once.
“You can’t let them kill my baby!” Her voice goes shrill as she clings to me for strength. “Please, Ms. McCartney! Please! You gotta help him! That’s my boy! My baby boy!”
Tears fill my own eyes as I watch the grandmother of my child beg for the life of her own son. Not only because I share her pain, but also because there’s someone else on this planet who loves him. He deserves all the love in the world.
“I’m trying to,” I say, not loud enough for anyone to hear over the crowd noise.
“I’m going to!” I shout, shifting my gaze from her to her terrifying group of friends.
They look like they all just got out of prison, which … I realize … they did.
“I’m going to rally everybody to help me, but I need to get to the middle of the crowd first.”
Rhonda’s eyes—Wes’s eyes—fill with hope. “Really?” She jerks my arm. “Really? Did y’all hear that?” she shouts over her shoulder. “Let’s get her to the clearing!”
Two big, burly men with facial tattoos and necks wider than my thighs step forward and, without so much as a hello, lift me onto their shoulders.
“Ahh!” I cling to their shaved heads as they push their way through the crowd like human bulldozers, the rest of the released prisoners pushing through behind them.
“Hey!”
“Watch out!”
“Ow!”
“Fuck you!”
Fistfights and shouting matches break out in the wake of my ex-con caravan as the clearing in the center of the crowd gets closer and closer.
The tops of Michelle’s and Lamar’s heads come into view, and I exhale. They made it. Lamar’s camera lens turns to face me, and the red light is already blinking as the bodybuilders barrel their way into the circular opening that has formed around Quint’s body.
Michelle is standing on one side of my blood-soaked friend while Lamar stands on the other, trying to keep a brave face.
Poor baby.
Michelle snaps her fingers at Lamar, instructing him to turn the camera toward her.
“This is Michelle Ling, reporting live from Plaza Park minutes before the Green Mile execution event is scheduled to begin. As you can see”—she does a spinning motion with her finger, instructing Lamar to turn the camera in a circle to get footage of the entire crowd—“quite a crowd has gathered here today to express their outrage over what many are calling ‘senseless, government-sanctioned murders’ and ‘public executions for profit.’”
Michelle gestures toward me, and Lamar takes the cue, unsteadily swinging the giant camera in my direction.
“I have our newest reporter, Ms. McCartney, here with the inside scoop on the allegations against Governor Steele and his controversial Green Mile event. Ms. McCartney, can you please tell us why today’s execution was rescheduled for this morning?”
I hear her question, but I don’t look into the camera, and I don’t climb down from my human throne. I don’t care about the people sitting at home. They can’t help me. The people I need to talk to are right here. Right now.
Sticking the microphone between my teeth, I cling to the stubbled heads of my helpers and slowly push myself to stand on their shoulders. They grab my ankles with their viselike hands, holding me perfectly still as I straighten my spine and look out over the park. Thousands of people have filled the space now, the tops of the saplings barely visible above their heads at the edge of the park. Riot cops line the perimeter, but they’re outnumbered a hundred to one. Anger and adrenaline rise off the crowd in waves as thick as steam. It’s a deadly powder keg of chaos.
And I’m holding a microphone shaped like a match.
While the crowd quiets to a hush, I scan the sea of faces for one to focus on. I think it will help me feel less nervous if I have one specific person to talk to. But I don’t find just one person. I find all the people.
Q and the runaways are front and center, horsing around like little kids. Brad has Not Brad on his shoulders, chicken-fighting Q, whose thighs are wrapped around Tiny Tim’s head. Loudmouth and the other runaways I never got a chance to meet are standing in front of them, cheering and trying to help Q win.
A sea of Bonys takes up the left half of the crowd. I pick out The Prez in his fur coat immediately as well as the kids from Pritchard Park who spray-painted our truck—I’d know that helmet with the nails sticking out of it anywhere.
But the person I decide to focus on, the one who makes me think that everything might actually be all right, belongs to an older man with a face like Santa Claus and a body like a grizzly bear. A man I’ve known my whole life. A man who was more of a father to me than my own sometimes. A man who has a broken leg that I should yell at him for standing on right now.
Mr. Renshaw.
When I lock eyes with him, I don’t see anger there. I see forgiveness. Remorse. Understanding. It is not the face of a man whose wife just died. It’s the face of a man whose wife did something regrettable, and he’s come to make amends for it. Agnes must be okay. And when Jimbo presses his lips together and gives me a single nod, I know we’re going to be okay, too.
If we survive what I’m about to do.
Clutching the microphone with two shaky hands, I inhale the crowd’s desperation and exhale the terrifying truth. “Today’s execution was rescheduled for this morning because Governor Steele has a meeting this afternoon.”
The crowd grumbles at the mention of our shared enemy.
“At that meeting, the CEO of Burger Palace is going to pay him five billion dollars to be the official sponsor of the Green Mile execution event.”
The grumbles turn to growls.
“They’re going to rename this place Burger Palace Park and project King Burger’s picture right onto the field. I know this because I heard the governor say it with my own two ears, and so did my friend here … right before he was shot in the back by Governor Steele’s bodyguard.”
Lamar pans the camera down to his brother’s body on the ground and almost drops it as his eyes squeeze shut in pain.
You gotta get through this, buddy. Stay with me.
“How do y’all feel about Governor Steele making five billion dollars for killing our friends and family members—good people—on live TV?”
Fists and shouts fill the air.
“Greed. That’s why our species was facing extinction. Not because we were wasting our resources on ‘nonproductive citizens,’ but because our resources were being hoarded by them!” I shove my finger in the direction of the capitol building, feeling the hands around my lower legs tighten to keep me from falling.
“One percent of our population owns ninety-nine percent of the wealth on this planet! Think about that. That’s not nature’s way! No other species hoards resources like that. They take what they need, and they leave what they don’t. That’s the true law that was being violated. This isn’t about survival of the fittest; it’s about survival of the richest!”
Mr. Renshaw nods his head in agreement, and a surge of pride fills the empty hole in my chest, turning the dark, decaying tissue into something pink and pulsing again.
“Have you seen the governor’s mansion?” I ask, shouting as loud as I can.
The people yell and raise their fists in response.
“Your taxes paid for that! Have you seen his fancy new helicopter?” I gesture toward the landing pad behind me.
Their shouts and fists rise up again.
“Well, you bought it for him! Have you seen the CEO of Burger Palace’s private island?”
“No!”
“You paid for that, too, when they started charging forty dollars for a King Burger Combo! They’re killing us for profit, y’all. And that’s what’s about to happen right here, right now, to Wesson Parker if we don’t rise up and say enough!”
The crowd shouts the word, “Enough!” in unison, throwing their fists in the air.
The force of their conviction almost knocks me over. It hits me in the chest like a wrecking ball, overwhelming me with support. I felt like I was fighting this battle on my own for so long, clinging to this person I love tooth and nail while the entire world tried to take him from me. But I’m not alone anymore.
And neither are they.
“The folks who have been murdered here by Governor Steele and his executioner are good people. They’re your family, your doctors, your friends, your loved ones. They are people who were willing to die to save someone else.”
To save me.
“They are not the enemy. Doing everything we can to help each other survive isn’t what made us weak; it’s what made us human. The real enemy is the one percent of our population who took ninety-nine percent of our resources! The one percent who almost made us go extinct because of their greed. The one percent who killed a quarter of us off through mind control to make up for the lack they’d created and then told us it was our fault for turning our backs on natural selection!”
I lean over and give the microphone to Wes’s mom, who’s watching me with glistening eyes. Hold this, please, I mouth to her.
I untie the sleeves wrapped around my waist and pull the hoodie on over my head, careful not to let my gun fall out of the front pocket. As soon as those orange bones are visible, the left half of the crowd—the side with jackets matching mine—goes wild. I take the microphone back from Rhonda with a hopeful look.
Standing back up, I shove my fist into the air, and when the entire crowd does the same, it feels like the ocean itself is rising up to meet me. Except for Q, who’s smirking with her arms folded across her chest.
“They say they want the strongest to survive? Well, I say, there’s strength in numbers! Let’s show them—”
“Shoot her!” a booming Southern voice shouts from somewhere behind me.
My head swivels in that direction, and I find Governor Steele marching across the capitol lawn, pointing at me in anger, with Officer Elliott and Flip hot on his trail. Three riot cops rush across the street to drag Governor Steele away but not before he produces a gun from somewhere inside his three-piece suit and aims it directly at me.
The brute squad drops me immediately, catching me in their heavily tattooed arms as two bullets whiz through the air over my head.
The microphone slips through my fingers.
And the powder keg explodes.