Exodia (24 page)

“
Of course they can,”
Truslow lies. He nods to the man and he twists back the rod. The
sounds overhead abate, but the creatures still rile at the door.
“But if you want your people to be released you’ll have to earn it.
Stop all the rats. Stop them now. Make them die.”

I relax my jaw; a tiny smile slips
between my lips. “Tomorrow,” I say. “They’ll all be gone tomorrow.
And then you’ll have to let us go north.”

We stare at one another while another
furry body belts the door.

The Executive President looks to the
soldiers and says, “So be it. Kill them.”

I panic for an instant and then realize
he means the rats. The soldiers fling open the door and shoot the
ones frothing in the hall.

We’re escorted out, past the gates,
then allowed to walk away alone. But we’re not alone. Barrett drops
down from the fence and walks between us. He thinks we should go to
a different safe house, but I want to go to Lydia’s. I have
apologies to make.

Along the way Harmon uses the rod to
keep the wild things at a distance, but all three of us retrieve
knives from our belt sacks and from time to time we must kill the
larger ones. People come out of buildings and huddle at our heels,
using us for safe passage back to homes or cars. We make a few
detours to extend our umbrella of protection for various Reds when
they beg us to help them get to Lincoln Street or Lofton or farther
still to Pemberton or Park.

We’re almost back to the B streets when
I think to ask Bear where Lydia’s mother works. She’s undoubtedly
been trapped there since her night shift ended. We make one last
detour and find her shuddering inside the lobby of a
warehouse.

“
We’ve come to take you
home,” Barrett announces. His voice echoes off the concrete
walls.

Mrs. Sroka avoids my eyes and smiles
only at Barrett and Harmon. “Thank you so much. I tried to outrun
them, but I turned back. I’ve been watching for somebody to come in
a cart.”

“
You can thank Dalton. It
was his idea to come for you.” Bear swings his arm toward
me.

“
Was it? I heard he was the
cause of all these rats.” Her voice is full of accusation. I look
back at the door, then the floor. I need to say
something.

“
I am.” I risk a quick look
at her face, expecting to see her revulsion, but she’s measuring me
with a steady gaze.

“
Let’s go,” Bear says. He
swings the door wide and she follows him out. Harmon holds the rod
straight ahead and sets it to broadcast a dissonant hum that repels
most of the rodents. Mrs. Sroka is skittish and I offer her my back
to ride on but she shakes her head. When some bolder rats chase
after us she turns to Bear and he carries her in his arms as if she
were an easy counterweight to his backpack. Harmon and I stomp on
the smaller rats and stab the ones that threaten to jump on
Barrett.

We make it back to the house with
nothing more than a few scratches.

We have a mighty job tonight. We’ll
kill all the rats and pile their bodies up. Tomorrow we’ll march
out all the Reds and return to Truslow for the release of the
rest.

* * *

Lydia, arms filled with more bedding,
stopped halfway down the stairs, out of sight, and listened to the
late night argument.

Dalton was pleading with Kassandra in
whispers that were harsh and loud. “Why can’t you wait? Your father
isn’t well enough to travel.”

“
I … we want to go home.
We’ve stayed here too long.”

“
I have a
mission.”

“
I know and I’m not stopping
you. You … you can do whatever you think you have to do and then
come back to the ranch.”

There was a pause and Lydia imagined
Kassandra avoiding Dalton’s eyes.

“
Just give me another day.
Everyone will leave Exodia. We’ll meet Ronel. He has a wonderful
new place for us all to live.”

“
So you say. I don’t believe
it.”

Lydia let out the breath she’d been
holding and took the last five steps down with a little extra
weight on her heels so she’d be heard. She entered the room with as
much bounce as she could, trying not to appear as if she’d been
eavesdropping.

“
Here are two more blankets
and pillows for you and Harmon. I don’t know how you want to work
this out, but I can sleep with my mom and free up an upstairs
bedroom.”

Dalton’s face reddened and he braced a
hand on the door frame. “That’s okay, her father’s on the bed in
there and Katie’s on the floor. We’ll all take spots on the floor.”
He glanced at Kassandra and she dismissed his statement with a sigh
and left the room without a word to either of them.

“
You sure?”

“
Yeah, sure. I want to wait
up for Harmon and Mira anyway. So, uh, I guess the O’Shea siblings
will camp out here.”

“
They’re still out killing
rats?”

He nodded. “Bear, too. We each took a
quadrant.”

Lydia didn’t know what else to say. She
could’ve set the linens down on a chair, but she stepped closer to
Dalton instead.

“
Here,” she said. She
pressed them into his arms, felt that same strange flicker of …
something … when their hands touched. She turned intending to flee
back up the stairs.

“
Wait.”

She looked up at him.

“
Do you believe in David
Ronel’s plan for us?”

She nodded.

“
Have you ever actually met
him?”

She shook her head.

“
Do you believe in
me?”

Her heart raced with the intimacy of
the question. “Of course. You’re the one I’ve sung about all my
life.”

“
As Bram O’Shea.”

“
Yes, but a real or assumed
name doesn’t really matter. It’s still you.” She paused. “I’d still
be me even if I weren’t named Lydia Sroka.”

They stood still, Lydia not ready to
move away, hoping he had more to say.

* * *

A memory stirs when Lydia says her full
name. Washed out, darkened. I see the building she first took me
to, feel beneath my fingertips the carving that was there. So
strange to think her mother did it.

“
Your brother–” I say and
I’m sure she’s confused from the look on her face. “That carving.
It said Dalton Battista is not–” I move my fingers along the door
frame as if I am retracing the words.

She finishes for me, “Not Lucas
Sroka.”

As soon as she says those
three words I see them as if they were carved alongside the other
words: Not Lucas Sroka.
Outclass
Krona
.

I say it aloud, dropping my arm, and
she smiles and says, “Of course you will outclass Truslow’s
Krona.”

“
But they’ve already matched
the blood in the water and the summoning of the rats. How can I
outdo them?” I’m doubting myself and especially doubting David
Ronel.

“
You’ll think of something,”
she says.

Her eyes are as opaque as the celestial
sky, interfering with my emotions. I want her to stay, but if I
move toward her now I’ll regret it. I watch her head for the stairs
and I listen to the creaks and groans of the old house as she
ascends. There is something incredibly satisfying when someone
believes in you.

* * *

For the third time we stand in front of
Truslow, outside the gates this time. Reds and even some Blues have
dragged the carcasses of the rats and piled them high against the
fences. I can’t be the only one annoyed by the flies buzzing
around. I look back at Barrett. He’s standing as straight as any
soldier. Lydia, too. I smile at her and she smiles back, squinting
in the bright sun.

My family isn’t here. Kassandra was
washing diapers this morning and repacking the backpack. She
claimed this would be the best time to escape with her father and
Katie while I made a commotion at the capitol. I made her promise
not to leave today, but I don’t trust her. I should’ve shown her
how to use the nano-gun that still hides at the bottom of that
pack.

Harmon nudges me. The crowd behind us
erupts in cheers as Truslow appears on the capitol steps wearing a
purple robe, open at the front. He’s surrounded by guards and twice
as many Krona as before. I look again at Bear and Lydia and Mira
and see that they’re cheering, too. Truslow gives a low bow and
sweeps his hands out to either side and his entourage bows even
lower. But the people haven’t been cheering for him as he believes.
Their wild cheers change to boos and they stomp their feet. Little
clouds of dust rise up their legs.

Slowly it gets quiet. I expect Truslow
to speak first, but Jamie comes out to his side, points at me,
whispers, nods toward the building and I look to the fourth floor.
An illusion of blond heads appears behind the unwashed
glass.

My anger surges. I grab the staff from
Harmon, pound it on the ground. “Executive President Truslow! Look
at all the people gathered here today. They’re not working. They’re
not marching in your army or working in your fields or fixing your
roads or managing your factories or pulling metals from the mines
or building the structures that you demand. Give them the rest of
this day and two more to go north, to the barren region, and let
them … let us … have our fair. The Red Festival that you
promised.”

I suck in gasps of air, surprised at
the flow of words and embarrassed by how silly they sound. I hand
the rod back to my brother. The people are yelling, begging,
stomping. I glance at the upper windows again. No one is there. I
look higher and see dark clouds sneaking in from the
west.

The Executive President waves his arms,
quiets the crowd. “Look at the skies,” he yells. “There are storms
coming. You’ll never have anything but a Rain Fest. If you try to
leave Exodia my soldiers will shoot to kill.”

I look to Harmon. I kick at the dust
and mutter, “Rain fest.” He stabs the rod into the dust I’ve
disturbed and immediately the ground explodes with an atomic flurry
of ants. People around us jump and frantically brush the biting
insects off their legs.

Someone yells
fire ants
and I twist my
head around to see who it is because the voice is a child’s … so
much like Sana’s voice. She would’ve changed
rain fest
into
fire ants
just as quickly as Harmon
did, but mere words wouldn’t have hurt these people.

“
My Krona men can do the
same!” Truslow pushes the men forward and they show off electric
beams and round boxes and feathery contraptions, but nothing they
do produces ants from the dust at their feet.

There’s mumbling among the Krona. I
hear them clearly. They tell Truslow that such a feat comes from
Ronel. They cannot duplicate it.

I clear my throat. “Since they’ve
mentioned Ronel, let me use his name, too.” I say this and endure
the burning bites around my ankles as I watch his reaction. It
perturbs him that I overheard. “Let us go so all the Reds may meet
Ronel.” I watch Truslow grimace, smack his calves, hop from foot to
foot. He turns to enter the capitol so I raise my voice louder.
“I’ll send swarms of flies on you and your Krona, on the Blues,
into the capitol, and into all the Blue houses. You can hear them
buzzing, can’t you?” We both look to the rats’ remains, mounded in
smelly heaps.

Truslow shakes his head, grabs Jamie’s
arm and pushes through the doors.

The question was rhetorical, meant to
humiliate. Meant to motivate. But by some awesome strange force the
flies rise from the rodents’ small corpses, swarm and swoop and
multiply. They cover the capitol’s doors and windows and flit
around the guard post.

The people run away. We run, too. It is
happening as I proclaimed. The fire ants fall from our bodies as we
leave the area. The flies stay around the capitol or follow Blue
elbows to Blue homes where they’ll be swatted and smashed as they
try to overwhelm their victims. More flies form clouds around us,
but they vanish as we go deeper into the Red slum.

We walk the last block. From several
houses away I see Lydia’s front door open. Katie and Kassandra
flank their father as they come down the porch steps. Gresham
squirms in the sling. Katie wears the backpack. It couldn’t be more
obvious that they are leaving. Against my wishes. Against her
promise.

I stop near the bushes where I first
hid from Lydia when I followed her here. It seems longer than two
years ago. I look down, my desire to shrink and hide and turn back
time overwhelms me. Do I let them go?

The sky above changes color; the dark
clouds move north away from Exodia.

My feet won’t move me closer. My hand
won’t wave. I stay where I am, locked in a vacuum, and simply watch
as first Mira then Lydia then Harmon and finally Barrett all extend
a hand, a hug, a wish, a farewell.

The sunlight shines coldly on them all,
making their faces seem hazy. I wait for the light to grow warm
again, but that threatening sun only shines more darkly and does
nothing to cut the chill. I deserve to be abandoned.