“No.” Will fought against the rising bile in the back of his throat. He would not do that again. Never. Ever. Again.
Lette stood, paced around the group, a short, tight circle. She looked from Balur to Will, back to Balur. She stopped behind Balur, put a hand on his massive shoulder. “He’s right,” she said to Will with the slightest of shrugs. Almost an apology. Almost. But not quite.
Will threw up his arms. “How can he be right?” He stood up too, pointed back in the direction they had come. “How can that sort of death toll possibly be right?”
“Actually,” said Quirk, “from a purely academic standpoint, I thought the death toll was remarkably low.”
“That’s because you’re trying to assuage your guilt for killing the most of them!” shouted Will. He was reaching his breaking point. “Because Mattrax didn’t actually kill anyone! It was just us. Us and our continual fuckups. And now I’m responsible for all of these people. Me. Not you.” He pointed at Quirk. “No matter how much you pretend that you are. They’re all looking at me. And you’re all asking me to lead them to their deaths. At our fucking hands. Well, no. I won’t do it. I’m not doing it. You all can fuck right off.”
There was a pause. Birds wheeled and called in the sky. Branches rattled in trees. A few people who had not wandered far turned and looked to see what their prophet was raving about. Will didn’t care. Screw them too.
Quirk examined her hands. Balur scratched the back of his head. Lette reached up, stretching her arms above her head, staring off into the middle distance.
The time, Will decided, had come to walk away. He turned his back on them.
“You know how to do it, don’t you?” Lette said to his back. “You and Firkin talked about that too, didn’t you?”
Will walked faster.