UnWholly (34 page)

Connor laughs. “Thanks, but I’ll stand.”

“You sure?”

Connor gives him a funny look, continues standing, and waits for an image to come on the screen.

He recognizes the show immediately. It’s a weekly news magazine he has seen many times before. A familiar TV journalist discusses the featured story. The logo screened in behind her says angel of division.

“A little over a year ago,”
she begins,
“clappers took out an unwinding facility in Happy Jack, Arizona. The social and political fallout from that event still resonates today, but one girl—an infamous player in that event—is speaking out. Her message, however, is not what you think. You may have seen her in various public service announcements blitzing the airwaves. In a short time, she’s gone from being one of the Juvenile Authority’s most wanted to becoming the poster child for the cause of unwinding. Yes, you heard me right: FOR unwinding. Her name is Risa Ward, and you’re not going to forget her anytime soon.”

Connor takes a deep, shuddering breath and realizes that Starkey was right—he needs to sit down. His legs practically fall out from under him as he sinks into the chair.

The studio shot cuts to Risa being interviewed in some plush location by the same journalist. There’s something different about her, but Connor can’t yet tell what it is.

“Risa,”
begins the journalist,
“you were a ward of the state slated for unwinding, became a coconspirator with the notorious Akron AWOL, and were even present at Happy Jack Harvest
Camp to witness his death. After all that, how is it that you now speak in favor of unwinding?”

Risa hesitates before answering, then says,
“It’s complicated.”

Starkey crosses his arms. “Yeah, I’ll bet it is.”

“Quiet!” snaps Connor.

“Could you walk us through it?”
the journalist asks, with a disarming grin that Connor wants to punch right off her face with Roland’s fist.

“Let’s just say I have a different perspective now than I had before.”

“You’ve come to see unwinding as a good thing?”

“No, it’s a terrible thing,”
she answers, which gives Connor hope . . . until she says,
“But it’s the least of all evils. Unwinding is there for a reason, and the world would be very different without it.”

“Pardon me for pointing this out, but that’s easy for you to say, now that you’re seventeen and beyond unwinding age.”

“No comment,”
says Risa, and it’s like a dagger slowly twisting in Connor’s gut.

“Let’s talk about the charges against you,”
the journalist says, looking at her notes.
“Theft of government property, namely yourself; conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism; conspiracy to commit murder—and yet all these charges against you have been dropped. Does that have anything to do with your change of heart?”

“I won’t deny that I was offered a deal,”
Risa says,
“but the dropping of those charges is not the reason why I’m here today.”
Then she does something very simple—something that no one else would notice in the slightest, except for those who know her. . . .

Risa crosses her legs.

For Connor, it’s as if the air has been sucked out of the
jet. He half expects oxygen masks to drop from the ceiling.

“If you think that’s bad, listen to this next part,” says Starkey, actually seeming to enjoy it.

“Risa, would you call your change of heart a matter of convenience or a matter of conscience?”

Risa takes time to craft her answer, but that doesn’t make it any less devastating.
“Neither,”
she says.
“After all I’ve been faced with, I find I have no choice. For me, supporting unwinding is a matter of necessity.”

“Turn it off,” Connor says.

“There’s still more—you really should hear the end.”

“I said turn it off!”

Starkey reaches over and turns off the TV, and Connor feels his mind slamming shut like a fire door to keep out all the things too hot to handle—but he knows it’s too late; the fire has already leaped inside. In this moment he wishes he had been unwound a year ago. He wishes Lev hadn’t come in to save him, because then he would never have to feel what he’s feeling now.

“Why did you show me this?”

Starkey shrugs. “I thought you had a right to know. Hayden knows, but he’s been keeping it from you. I think that’s wrong and completely unfair to you. Knowing who’s your friend and who’s your enemy can only make you stronger, right?”

“Yeah, yeah, sure,” Connor says absently.

Starkey grips his shoulder. “It’s okay, you’ll get over it. We’re all here to support you.” Then he leaves, his mission of enlightenment accomplished.

Connor sits for a long time without moving. Although he knows he needs to be strong enough to carry this burden, he feels so shredded inside, he doesn’t know how he can make it through the night, much less take care of hundreds of Unwinds in the days ahead. All those lofty ideas of exposing history to
end unwinding implode into a single desperate thought.

Risa. Risa. Risa.

He is hobbled. How could Starkey not know how devastated he would be? Either he’s stupider than Connor thought . . . or he’s much, much smarter.

Jeeves brings Starkey a copy of the list of local unwind orders. There are only three kids on this list deemed savable, and none of them are storks. But today is the day that things change. There is a storked kid on the list, ignored and forgotten.

Jesus LaVega
287 North Brighton Lane

Well, Connor doesn’t have a monopoly on rescuing Unwinds. It’s high time Starkey took things into his own hands.

“Hey, we’re saving Jesus, instead of him saving us,” someone says when Starkey tells the Stork Club his plan. Another kid raps him on the head. “It’s pronounced
Haysoos
, moron.”

But regardless of how he pronounces his name, Jesus is about to get a wholly visitation.

•   •   •

At eleven o’clock p.m., one day before the Juvies are due to come for Jesus, Starkey and nine Stork Clubbers storm the house at 287 North Brighton Lane. They have weapons, because Starkey picked the arsenal lock. They have cars, because the kid in charge of vehicle maintenance is a loyal member of the Stork Club.

They don’t knock, they don’t ring. They break down the doors, front and back, crashing the place like a SWAT team taking down a crack house.

A woman screams and herds two younger kids to a back room. Starkey doesn’t see anyone the right age to be the target of their rescue. He goes into the living room in time to see a man pull down a curtain rod and turn to him—it’s the closest thing to a weapon the man can find on such short notice. Starkey easily disarms him and pushes him up against the wall with the muzzle of a submachine gun to his chest. “Jesus LaVega. Tell me where he is. Now!”

The father’s eyes dart back and forth in panic, then fix on something behind Starkey. Starkey turns in time to see a baseball bat swinging at him. He ducks, and the bat breezes past an inch from his head. The kid holding the bat is the size of a linebacker.

“No! Stop! You’re Jesus LaVega, right? We’re here to save you!”

But that doesn’t stop him from swinging the bat again. It connects with Starkey’s side. An explosion of pain. Starkey goes down, his weapon flies behind a sofa, and now the kid is over him, hefting the bat once more. Starkey can’t catch his breath. His side hurts so much he can only breathe shallow gulps of air.

“Juvies! Here! Tomorrow!” Starkey gasps. “Your parents! Unwinding you!”

“Nice try!” he says, and pulls back the bat, ready to swing again. “Run, Dad! Get out!” The man tries to scramble away but is cornered by other storks. Doesn’t this kid get it? Doesn’t he realize they already signed the order to have him unwound? Jesus LaVega tenses his muscles to swing just as one of Starkey’s storks comes up behind him with a large football trophy and swings the marble base at his head. The heavy stone connects with the back of Jesus’s head, and he crumples to the ground instantly. The trophy falls to the floor, broken.

“What did you do?” screams Starkey.

“He was gonna kill you!” screams the stork.

Starkey kneels down beside Jesus. Blood pours out of his
head, soaking the carpet. His eyes are half-open. Starkey feels for a pulse but can’t find one, and when he turns the kid’s head, he can see how badly his skull was crushed by the heavy trophy base. One thing is certain: Jesus LaVega is not going to be unwound. Because he’s dead.

Starkey looks to the kid who did it, who panics under Starkey’s gaze. “I didn’t mean it, Starkey! Honest! I swear! He was gonna kill you!”

“It’s not your fault,” Starkey tells him, then turns to the kid’s father, who’s cornered like a spider.

“You did this!” Starkey screams. “You kept him here all his life just so you could unwind him. Do you even care that he’s dead?”

The man is horrified by the news. “D-dead? No!”

“Don’t pretend you care!” Starkey can’t hold it in anymore. He can’t hold back. This man—this monster who would unwind his stork-brought son—has to pay for what he’s done!

Ignoring the pain in his side, Starkey swings his foot, connecting with the man’s torso.
He should feel this pain, not me. He should feel all of it!
Starkey kicks again and again. The man screams, the man moans, but Starkey keeps swinging his foot, unable to stop—it’s as if he’s channeling the fury of every doorstep baby, every unwanted child, all kids everywhere who were treated like something less than human just because they were born to mothers who didn’t want them.

Finally one of the other storks grabs Starkey, pulling him away.

“That’s enough, man,” he says. “He gets the idea.”

The man, bloody and beaten, still has enough strength to crawl out the door. The rest of his family has escaped too, running to neighbors. They’ve probably called the police, and Starkey realizes that he can’t stop now, he’s gone too far—he has to take this all the way. This isn’t what he wanted, but somehow
he can use it. Yes, the kid they came to rescue is dead, but this night can’t end with that. It has to stand for something. It has to be worth something. Not just for Starkey, but for all storks.

“Let this be a warning,” he yells out the front door as the man stumbles away. He spots neighbors on their porches. Strangers are there to hear his words. Good! It’s time for people to listen. “Let this be a warning,” he says again, “to anyone who would unwind a stork! You will all get what’s coming to you!” Then, in a flash of inspiration, he runs through the house and into the garage.

“Starkey!” one of the others yells after him. “What the hell are you doing?”

“You’ll see.”

In the garage he finds a gas can. It’s only half-full, but half is enough. He runs through the house pouring gasoline everywhere, and on the mantel above the fireplace he finds a book of matches.

Moments later he’s racing across the lawn away from the house, toward his friends in the waiting Jeeps, while an ominous glow rises within the house behind him. By the time he climbs into a Jeep, flames are rising in the windows, and the moment the Jeeps screech away into the night, those windows begin to explode, and smoke pours forth from the rising inferno. The entire house has become a blazing beacon to let the world know that Mason Starkey was here, and people are going to pay.

This document I sign of my own free will.

That was the last line of the consent form that Risa Ward signed, just as Roberta had predicted she would. Signing that form has given her a new spine and the use of her legs, but
that’s not all it did. It set into motion a cascading series of events that Risa could not have predicted, and yet was expertly orchestrated by Roberta, her associates, and their money.

. . . I sign of my own free will.

Risa has never gone skiing—such frivolous activities were not offered to state wards—yet lately she’s been dreaming that she’s skiing down a triple black diamond slope, chased by the leading edge of an avalanche. There’s no stopping until she either reaches the bottom, or sails off a cliff to her doom.

. . . my own free will.

Before the news interviews, before the public service announcements, before she knows any of what she’ll be asked to do, Risa’s damaged spine is replaced, and she awakes from a five-day medically induced coma into her brave new life.

“Tell me if you can feel this,” a nurse says, scraping Risa’s toe with a strip of plastic. Risa gasps in spite of herself. Yes, she feels it—and it’s not just a phantom sensation. She can feel the sheets brushing against her legs. She can feel her toes again. She tries to move them, but just moving her toes makes every part of her body ache.

“Don’t try to move, dear,” the nurse tells her. “Let the healing agents do their job. We’re using second-generation healing agents. You’ll be up and walking in two weeks.”

It speeds her heart to hear those words. She wishes the connection between her heart and her mind could be more direct—that the part of her that wants this could be firmly ruled by the part of her that doesn’t—because although her mind wants to despise what they’ve done for her, the part of her that knows no reason is filled with joy at the prospect of
holding her own balance and moving under the power of her own legs.

“You’ll require a lot of physical therapy, of course. Not as much as you might think, though.” The nurse checks the devices that are attached to her legs. They are electrical stimulators, which cause her muscles to contract, awakening them from their atrophied state, building them back to prime body tone. Each day she feels like she’s run miles, although she hasn’t left the bed.

She’s no longer in a cell. It’s not really a hospital, either. She can tell it’s some sort of private home. She can hear the roar of ocean surf outside her window.