“Let her go,” Lyon says over his shoulder. “And we will protect you.”
“You can’t protect me,” my father says. “Not from this mob. You’ll be lucky if you escape yourselves.”
“Please,” I say. I turn to look at him, imploring him with every part of my being. Begging him to free Zan. Zan should not have to suffer for us. Lyon, Jane, and Levi should not have to suffer for us.
My father does not respond to me. As he has never responded to me. The door behind him opens and Findley steps out. He is covered with sweat, his uniform is dirty, and there is a streak of blood on his face. My father glances at him, and I can see the relief plainly written on his face until Findley raises his gun to my father’s head. The crowd responds, roaring their approval, their faces showing their hunger for my father’s blood. They want revenge. They want atonement.
My father realizes that he is betrayed. The look on his face is one of desperation.
“It’s over.” Findley presses the barrel against my father’s temple. “Let her go.”
“You can’t do this,” my father says. “None of this.”
“I already have,” Findley replies. “Look around you. It’s over. There is nothing you can say or do to change it. But you can make things better. For the girl. For your daughter.”
“That’s all I ever wanted to do,” my father says. He releases his hold on Zan, and she dashes to Lyon, who throws his arms around her quickly and only for a moment before releasing her because the crowd is pressing closer, screaming for blood. For the master general enforcer’s blood. Findley reaches for the gun my father holds, but before he can grab it, my father jumps back against the door and levels the gun on Findley.
“Wren.” He has to shout to be heard, and the look in his eyes suddenly terrifies me. “If ever I was capable of love, it would have been with your mother. I just want you to know that.”
“Father?” I say and take a step toward him. Before I can blink he puts the gun to his temple and pulls the trigger. Blood sprays over me. My father falls to the ground. I stand there like I am made of stone and shake because of what I’ve just seen.
My father killed himself. I hear the screams of the crowd behind me. I feel the press of the bodies as my friends step closer, pushed on by the mob. I hear shots being fired, and somewhere in the distance I hear the tank and know it is coming because the stone steps shake beneath my feet.
“Wren!” Pace yells above the voices. He shakes me. “We’ve got to go before they kill us.”
“This way!” Findley says. He shoves my father’s body out of the way with his foot and opens the door. Pace pulls me inside, and the rest of my friends follow.
“Find something to block this door,” Lyon commands as he and Findley lean against it.
I shake my head. All around me is chaos. David and Levi run to do Lyon’s bidding. James takes the gag from Zan’s mouth and unties her hands. Then he puts his hands on her cheeks and kisses her. She throws her arms around his neck and kisses him back. “Let’s see if we can find another way out of here,” James says to Zan, and they take off, hand in hand.
Pace is standing before me. From somewhere he got a handkerchief, and he is using it to wipe the blood from my face. I can see the mob through the window. Some of them beat against the doors. Lyon and Findley push all their weight against them to keep them from getting in. My father’s body is out there.
“We shouldn’t have left him,” I say.
“There’s nothing we can do for him,” Pace says. And then through the window I see my father’s body, moving through the air, carried over the heads of the people as if he were a dead fish floating on the surf. There is nothing they can do to him. He is dead, yet the knowledge that they have him, that they will defile him, sickens me. Pace continues to dab at the blood on my face while David and Levi return with a large table.
The mob beats at the door. They are organized now, working in unison while shouting vile things at us. They don’t know who we are. They don’t realize that we are trying to free them. They are angry and full of hatred and looking for someone to blame and since my father took the coward’s way out their hatred is now centered on us.
“I just wanted to help,” I whisper. “Don’t they know that?”
Pace puts his hands on my face, but I continue to stare out the windows at the people pressing against it. David and Levi struggle to push the table into place while Lyon and Findley try to hold back the mob.
“Wren. Look at me.” Pace puts his hands on my face, forcing me to stop looking out the window and to look into his beautiful blue eyes. “We’re not done yet. We’ve come so far. You’ve got to stay with us.” He kisses me quickly. “You’ve got to stay with me.”
I understand what he’s saying, but I can’t seem to keep up with him. I feel as if my mind and body are completely out of sync, as if time, for me, is going at a different speed. I know that I still hold Levi’s crossbow in my hand and it feels as if it is a part of me, an extension grafted to my bone.
I see James and Zan come back to where we stand. James shakes his head. “We’re surrounded,” he says. “It’s as if everyone in the dome is out there. It’s only a matter of time before they make their way in the other entrance.”
My mind and body come together again in the time that surrounds me, and suddenly everything makes sense. “Everyone is.” I look at Pace, and he smiles as he runs his thumb beneath my eye, catching a tear that I did not know was there. “We’ve got to talk to them.”
“We can’t go out there,” James says. “They’ll kill us.”
“We’ve got to,” I say. “It’s the reason why we’re here.”
“We’re not going to have any choice,” Levi announces. “We can’t hold them off much longer.”
“Everyone have your weapons ready,” Lyon instructs. He hands Findley one of his guns. “This is a lot better than the one you have. It shoots more than one round.”
“Thank you,” Findley says, and shakes his head as Lyon pulls another gun from a shoulder holster so that he once again has one in each hand. Levi hands one of his guns to Zan and fills his empty hand with one of the long knives he carries on his back. David and James are both armed, as is Pace, and I have the crossbow.
“Keep your heads and try to stay together,” Lyon says. “Try to make for the tank.” Before his words fade into the noise outside the door splinters and the glass breaks. Hands reach through, trying to grab us. Behind us are the sounds of voices raised in victory and the pounding of footsteps. They are coming at us from both directions. The table screeches across the floor as the crowd beats on it and finally the door flies open as it clears the table.
“Shoot at them to discourage them,” Lyon yells, and he aims at the first man who comes through the door and drops him. More people press through, stepping on their fallen comrade without thought. More shots are fired but there are so many of them and suddenly we are all outside, surrounded by pushing and pulling and screeching voices. They will tear us apart. All of us.
Somehow I am torn away from Pace. I see him, reaching for me. Calling my name. I raise the crossbow and shoot the man who drags me away from Pace. I hear gunshots and screams and the heavy steps of the tank. Somehow I find myself at the fountain and I try to step onto the dais. I notch another arrow into the crossbow and look above the crowd for Pace. Instead I see my father’s body, hanging by the neck from a lamppost and it sickens me. Yes, he deserved to pay for his crimes, but this, this is so very wrong.