If I have to share a room with the devil, at least it’s in first class.
There is an elegantly draped window, a small blue couch, and a wooden table by a bunk bed. The bunk bed is a minor blessing, so I don’t have to see Skelley’s nasty smirk when trying to fall asleep. I take the top bunk to feel less vulnerable and because it gives the sensation of being in my personal alcove, above this whole situation.
The place smells like lemons.
Skelley acts as though we’ve hardly been through anything—as though he didn’t let loose a tear when he helped kill me, or appear weathered when he thought I was dead. Would it kill him to be real?
The window becomes my new best friend. We make faces at each other. It shows me stunning countryside and winks at me with sunrays. I stick out my tongue.
Skelley closes the drapes every time we enter the room. I open them again.
We spend most of our time in the dining car. It’s still an enclosed space where we sit across from each other with an elephant in the room, but it’s less intimate than the sleeping room.
The entire dining car is open and has sixteen four-person tables back to back—eight on each side of the car. Creamy yellow-patterned cloth covers the chairs. Similar tablecloths drape over the wooden tables, with napkins shaped like flowers and a small fruit basket on each. Overhead are dome lights and clocks hang on the end walls, showing different time zones. Each table has its own window—hello again, friend! —and I spend more time watching the snowscapes zip by than interacting with Skelley.
It’s hard to defeat the devil with kindness when I don’t speak to him. More than anything, I’ve stepped into a neutral zone. He’s on his NAB almost all the time. I ache for my Bible, my Daily Hemisphere . . . something to keep me occupied. To keep me from wondering about Solomon.
Is he alive?
Skelley tosses a news electrosheet toward me without looking up from his NAB. “Better keep up.”
Yay! News! I pull the Daily Hemisphere near and go over the events of the past week.
With the reading comes the reminder of what the Council’s done. They blew up Unity Village. They killed people. They activated a projected Wall to keep people trapped in the USE. The public is furious with the Council—particularly over its lies about my death.
“Skelley, what’s the purpose—?”
“We’re not familiar enough for you to keep calling me Skelley.” He doesn’t look up.
“Well, I don’t respect you enough to call you Mr. Chase anymore.” So much for killing him with kindness. I close my eyes and take a deep breath. “And I feel like we’ve been through quite a lot together.” Say it nicely, not in accusation. “You call me Parvin, I call you Skelley.”
He taps the screen on his NAB as though our conversation isn’t happening. I don’t want to call him Mr. Chase—that’s what I called him when I admired him. When I thought he was my mini-savior. But I’ll do it if it helps me get through his thick skull.
“So, Mr. Chase, what’s—”
“Now you’re being childish.”
Grah! My hand balls into a fist of its own accord, and I stop myself before slamming it on the table. The edges of his lips twitch. The rat! He’s trying to aggravate me. It’s hard enough to swallow my frustration and pretend it doesn’t bother me, so I channel it into sarcasm. Hopefully it comes out playful. “Well, what’s your middle name then? I’ll call you by that.”
He chuckles. “You will never be privy to that information.”
“Did you really just use the word privy? In normal conversation?”
“Yes, it’s called a developed vocabulary. Do you know what the word means?”
“Well, one version means bathroom, but I don’t think that’s what you meant.” He forgets I was a reader before I became a world changer. “I’ll just have to guess your middle name then.” I bet it’s Snake. Or Viper. Cobra, maybe. Vampire?
“Good luck.”
Now, back to my original question, if I can remember it after all his interruptions. “So . . . Eugene”—Skelley snorts—“what’s the purpose of the Wall?”
That finally drags his gaze up from his NAB. “I thought you knew your history.”
I roll my eyes and watch the countryside. “I get that it was built because some people wanted the remains of the government and others wanted to be free. Someone got angry and started the Wall. We didn’t have the resources to rebuild the whole Earth after all the destruction, blah blah blah. It’s supposedly protecting us from the evils of the other side, but you and I both know that’s a lie.”
He sighs, but the stiffness of his dismissive expression dissolves. He folds his hands over his NAB screen. “It was never just for protection. The ruined cities and survivors started finding their own leaders. People with different ideals. Those who wanted a more . . . savage lifestyle gravitated toward the ruined portions of the Earth.”
Hasn’t he seen pictures of Ivanhoe? That’s not what I’d call savage.
“War was brewing. I don’t expect you to know what that looks like—”
I flip the Daily Hemisphere around and shove it toward him. “I imagine it looks a bit like this.” There is a picture of weathered Radicals picketing at the newly projected Wall. Dead Enforcers. Another article with people being led away in cuffs because they refused the new Clocks. Another article about people who died, but their Clocks ticked on.
He waves it off. “Riots are a different world than wars.”
“This is much more than a riot.” He can’t dumb down what’s going on. “Even the albinos have gotten involved.”
“Charity. They disappeared the moment the projected Wall went up.”
Wrong. Black and Ash won’t give up so easily. Skelley thinks their departure means surrender, but I know better. I lived among them and they are strong.
“Why are you so obsessed with erecting projected Walls everywhere? People want to go through!”
“They don’t know what they want.”
I roll my eyes. “Don’t be so superior. It’s not up to you to decide what choices they should make.”
He twirls a fork between his fingers. “So you’re saying we should give people everything they want?” I’m about to nod, but then he says, “Legalize drugs? Get rid of laws? Let murderers run free?”
“O-of course not, but—”
“Your views of freedom are too clear-cut, Parvin. You can’t think holistically, and that is why people die from your decisions.”
Jude. Reid. Dusten.
No, don’t let him get to you.
“If I’m so dangerous, why are you bringing me with you?” I hold back the question of where. Oftentimes understanding the why reveals breadcrumbs that lead to other answers . . . if I’m lucky enough to hear Skelley’s reply.
“You’ll see soon enough.”
I lean my forearms on the table, crunching the flowered napkin. “I won’t run away, Skelley. I’m seeing this through to the end.” Even if he thinks my narrowed view will be the death of the people.
He smirks. “Because you have to.”
“No, because I’m being obedient. God wants me here with you, so here I am.” I used to be embarrassed speaking about God to this high-and-mighty celebrity, but all I feel now is sorrow because he can’t relate to my peace. Something inside him must be yearning for shalom.
“Then your God must want you to learn patience.” Skelley turns back to his NAB, and I quell the flare of irritation inside me.
Fine then.
I can be patient.
•••
By the time the train arrives in Moscow, Skelley’s scars and scratches are gone. He doesn’t bother to chain me to him or lock my wrists. For some reason he trusts I’ll follow. He probably thinks it’s because I’m subdued.
I’m anything but.
We take a taxi to the airport, and the only thing that keeps me from getting carsick is the knowledge that I’ll be airsick soon. We drive straight out onto the tarmac and park beside the steps of a small jet. A private jet. Whoa.
Skelley and I are the only passengers. The interior is larger than my Unity house and smells of leather. I sit in a seat. The leather chills me faster than a snowbed might. “How kind of the Council to provide such stylish transportation. Nice to know all the specie you’re stealing from citizens with the Clock scandal is funding your luxuries.”
“Buckle up.”
Skelley takes a seat on the opposite side of the plane. A lady in heels and a blue pencil-skirt serves him drinks. She offers nothing to me. I don’t want anything anyway. I lick my lips and note the dryness of my throat.
Except maybe some sick sacks.
If I can handle being killed by the Council, I can handle a dry throat.
We don’t stop in France. The plane continues over countries I can’t place and then over the ocean. I vomit only three times! The lady in the pencil skirt learns after the first time to bring me a barf bag . . . and then some bubbly drink that helps settle my stomach.
Now that we’re over the ocean, I’m no longer parched and the vomiting has stopped, I stare at the water far below. I imagine an engine failing and being stranded in an icy sea with Skelley Chase.
He’d probably eat me.
I fall asleep to that twisted thought and, thankfully, have no nightmares associated with it. I wake to the jolt of wheels on cement. We’re here . . . wherever here is. I have no idea what happened with Solomon, Willow, or Elm. Why is this always my situation? I’m called to lead, to speak, to rise, to protect my people . . . but that always takes me away from them. I cross the Wall. I wake in a coffin. And now I’m here with Skelley.
Mother once said that God works in mysterious ways. By mysterious, she must mean weird.
I’m dizzy as we step off the plane with no sense of time. The sun is high, but my grainy eyes and headache tell me it’s midnight. Skelley doesn’t look so great either. He’s dressed in rumpled Russian furs and his usually pristine five-o’clock shadow now resembles an unkempt lawn.
Being tired makes me think like a five-year-old and I barely manage to restrain myself from pointing and chanting, “Ha-ha!”
Ha-ha, the Councilman has scraggly facial hair and lost his hat!
The moment we plop into his sleek green car, I go to sleep. He very well might crash this car on the way to wherever we’re going—probably the same prison center I was at when they killed me—but I’m too tired to care.
A day passes in a mixture of sleep, grogginess, and confusion. I can’t piece everything together, but I had one correct prediction. I am deposited into a white cell with the projected door that will zap me into ash if I try to walk through it. Not a bad death.
I think I’m in the Council building again. But I’m not here to die.
This cell is nicer than the one I had a month ago. There’s a bed with grey blankets and a pillow. On one wall is a toilet seat with a metal sink attached behind it. A shelf is built into the opposite wall, with some folded clothing on it. Sweats and a matching hoodie. Don’t mind if I do.
After I clean off Skelley’s dried blood with the sulfur-smelling sink water, I change, sit on the bed, and wait. Here I am. Obedient, but confused. Tempted to fear, but reminding myself of God’s assurance.
What will they do to me? Or what will they ask me to do? And where is the technician Erfinder told us about?
FEAR NOT.
I’m not afraid. But . . . please give me wisdom to know how to act in the upcoming situations. I’m not afraid to die . . . again . . . but I’d like to know what happened to Solomon. Poor Solomon. He went through so much. He put up with me as I struggled to figure out who I was and how to love.
There’s a knock on the wall outside my room. Is that for me? “Come in.” The Enforcer I spoke to at my gravesite walks in. “Zeke!”
I don’t know Zeke well, but for some reason I’m calmer. He helped Solomon and the others escape—though he hasn’t admitted it. He’s a friend.
Zeke bows. “Miss Blackwater, the Council requests your presence.”
I push myself up off the bed. It’s time to find out why they sent Skelley after me. It’s time to find out what they’re going to do—kill me, free me, or use me. I rub my hand up and down my stump arm.
Zeke holds out an arm and places it on my back to lead me through the door. “I want to tell you everything’ll be okay.” His words come through pursed lips in a low guarded tone. “But . . .”
I link my stump arm through his. “Everything will be okay, Zeke. It will.” Will it?
MY WILL.
Deep breath. Deep calm. Okay.
We’re in the Council building—the one that floats over the ground. The one in which I was first Clock-matched and where I discovered Skelley sat on the Council. We enter the same dark room with the circle of chairs and I’m reminded that I’m a little girl, barely an adult, who’s trying to save the world.
But I have my God.
I’m set in the center of the room this time, which is far more disconcerting because I have to spin to face whoever is talking. All five Council members are in their seats, forming a circle around me. Zeke takes his place against the curve of the wall, disappearing into the shadows. How many more Enforcers are in here, listening to what’s about to take place? It’s cliché to think of the villains of this world doing their dirty work and forgetting about the helpers and minions who hear and see all. In this case, the Enforcers.
It is happening here.
Maybe I am here for the Enforcers—for Zeke—not for the Council or even the public.
Skelley sits in his chair examining his fingernails. He has a new hat—still asparagus green, but crisper than his last one. Brickbat is a glowing black-and-white photo with his dyed grey hair, pressed suit, and white shoes. Try as I might, I see no similarities between him and Tawny. Does he know she married my brother? Does he know he helped kill his own son-in-law?
President Ethan Garraty gapes at me like a fish out of water. Beside him, the only female on the Council looks at me with an interested expression. That’s when I realize that this is their first time seeing me alive after they buried me. It must be odd for them.
“Hi, everyone.” I speak first, even though it might not be wise.
Brickbat is the first to respond. “How are you alive?”
“Frankly, I still can’t figure it out. I was dead for a while, so I didn’t see what happened.” A smile slithers onto my face and I let it blossom. “In short, God decided to let me live.”
“How?” Brickbat’s pale face turns red. “And how do you remember everything?”
“Ask Him that.” I imagine Brickbat trying to talk to God. There would be a lot of shouting.
“Elan, this isn’t why she’s here.” Skelley’s calm, almost bored voice, contrasts with a splash against Brickbat’s barely contained rage. The room stills. Why am I here? Tell me!
Brickbat chews on his lip so violently, I’m surprised there isn’t blood when he finally stops and folds his arms like a pouty child. “Get on with it, then.”
“Miss Parvin Blackwater”—Skelley’s new level of professionalism blares like a warning beacon—“after much discussion amongst the Citizen Welfare Development Council and input from the public, you are, as of today . . .” He takes a deep breath as though the words are burning his tongue.
“ . . . a member of this Council.”