Bunny or Aiden Tween. I stand there staring at the riot of patterns in the carpets. They’re a handwoven maze; there’s no way out.
I have to save my brother. And that means someone else dies. How will they kill Aiden Tween? Snipers? A bomb? Screams, blood, chaos. To block it out, I try to imagine Bun right now. Is he handcuffed? Blindfolded? Staring at an ax? Does he understand what’s going on? Has he made friends with them all? That would be a Bun thing to do. Maybe they’ve liked him too much to hurt him, or think he’s just too weird. People react to Bun in odd ways.
As I cling to this thought, I’m interrupted by voices. People are crowding into the yurt: dancers, backup singers, musicians, then Aiden Tween and Sumo, surrounded by a moving mountain of bodyguards. Standing by the entrance I have a flash of hope: maybe they won’t be able to kill Aiden Tween, with all this security. It won’t be my fault if they try and fail. Will it?
They can all barely squeeze into the yurt. The security mountains back off. One of them stares at my clipped-on pass, then shoulders over and stands beside me. Everyone gets quiet. Aiden Tween looks tiny in his stage outfit. The gold of his hair exactly matches the sequins on his jacket. He looks pale at the edges of his makeup. He raises his gold-and-white gloved hands and starts to speak, his southern accent coming out stronger than I’ve heard it before. “Tonaght as we know, the show gon’ be a l’il bit…diff ’rent, and I’m countin’ on y’all to make it a good one. If things, uh, get a l’il crazy out there, a few thangs not in the playbook, jes’ stay cool an’ know we’re well looked after, here an’ above. Everythang gon’ be fine. All right, c’mon an’ join hands for prayer.”
I slip out of the yurt. I can’t watch Aiden Tween saying his last prayer. I’ve sentenced him to death. Now I’m a killer too. AmberLea and Toby appear. I can’t look at them. Behind us, everyone bursts from the yurt and streams up the backstage ramps, ready to go on. The intro music begins to pound. “You want to watch the show?” AmberLea asks gently. I shake my head. “Let’s go sit down,” she says. “You go,” she says to Toby.
We go back to the chairs and tables as Tween’s show kicks in. His last one. I put my head in my hands and keep it there, for I don’t know how long. Finally, AmberLea says, “It’s going to be all right, Spence. Bunny will be all right. They’ll let him go.” She’s trying to reassure me, but there’s this note in her voice that tells me something I should have known all along. I look up.
“No, they won’t,” I say. “They’ll kill him too.” Friendly, oddball Bunny, who could look out a window and sneak to a telephone has seen and heard way too much to go free.
“Too? What do—?”
“Listen,” I say, “there’s not much time. Dusan changed the deal on me. They’re going to kill Aiden Tween when he sings the anthem and blame it on the other guys. She said they’d kill Bunny if we tried anything.” I swallow hard. “But she lied. They’ll kill Bunny anyway. We’ve got to stop them.”
AmberLea blanches. “Oh my god. We’ve got to tell someone. We’ve got to—where is she?” She looks around wildly.
“I don’t know. But it won’t be her. Remember she said a shooter watched the streetcar? I bet there’s a sniper out front.”
“Maybe we still have time. Come on!” AmberLea jumps up as Toby approaches. “When does he sing the anthem?”
“Soon,” Toby says, “right after ‘Ooooh, Ooooh Ooooh.’ That’s next.”
“He can’t sing it. Stop him! It’s a setup. The SPCA will shoot him when he does.”
“What?” It’s the first time I’ve seen Toby lose his cool. “I’ve got to tell Sumo, get him offstage.” He starts to run. “Call the cops!” comes over his shoulder. “I’ll tell security.”
AmberLea whips out her phone to call 9-1-1. There’s no signal. “There were cops out at the barriers.” She turns to run too.
“Forget it,” I say. “The cops will never find the shooters now. They could be in the square, a building, anywhere.”
Toby comes charging back as “Ooooh, Ooooh, Ooooh” kicks in. “He blew me off,” he pants angrily. “Told me to shut up and that security is under control, that Aiden gets death threats all the time. He said there’d be a riot if we yanked Aiden offstage. What the hell’s wrong with these people?”
The good guys are the ones on your side. “Okay,” I say. “It’s us against them. We’ve got to find her, make her call it off.”
“How?” says AmberLea.
“I have a way.”
“You two do that,” Toby says. “I’ve got to protect him.” He hurdles the steps into an RV. A second later he’s out, sprinting past with a big purple-and-gold flag in his fist. “If they can’t see him, they can’t shoot him,” he calls.
“Come on,” says AmberLea. “Gotta find her. Split up. I’ll take that side.”