The Passage - By Justin Cronin Page 0,325

it. But Babcock was already here. That was when the dream began. Some say it’s a memory from a time before he became a viral, when he was still a man. But once you’ve killed the woman in the dream, you belong to him. You belong to the ring.”

“The hotel, with the blocked streets,” Hollis ventured. “It’s a trap, isn’t it?”

Olson nodded. “For many years we sent out patrols, to bring in as many more as we could. A few just wandered through. Others were left there by the virals for us to find. Like you, Sara.”

Sara shook her head. “I still don’t remember what happened.”

“No one ever does. The trauma is simply too great.” Olson looked imploringly at Peter again. “You must understand. We’ve lived this way always. It was our only way to survive. For most, the ring seems a small price to pay.”

“Well, it’s a lousy deal, if you ask me,” Alicia cut in. Her face was hardened with anger. “I’ve heard enough. These people are collaborators. They’re like pets.”

Something darkened in Olson’s expression—though his tone, when he continued, was still almost eerily calm. “Call us what you like. You can’t say anything I haven’t said to myself a thousand times. Mira was not my only child. I had a son, too. He would be about your age if he had lived. When he was chosen, his mother objected. In the end, Jude sent her into the ring with him.”

His own son, Peter thought. Olson had sent his own son to die.

“Why Jude?”

Olson shrugged. “It’s who he is. There has always been Jude.” He shook his head again. “I would explain it better if I could. But none of that matters now. What’s past is past, or so I tell myself. There’s a group of us who’ve been preparing for this day for years. To get away, to live our lives as people. But unless we kill Babcock, he’ll call the Many. With these weapons we have a chance.”

“So who’s in the ring?”

“We don’t know. Jude wouldn’t say.”

“What about Maus and Amy?”

“I told you, we don’t know where they are.”

Peter turned to Alicia. “It’s them.”

“We don’t know that,” Olson objected. “And Mausami is pregnant. Jude wouldn’t choose her.”

Peter was unconvinced. Even more: everything Olson had said made him believe that Maus and Amy were the ones in the ring.

“Is there another way inside?”

That was when Olson explained the layout, the ducts above the catwalks, kneeling on the floor of the garage to draw in the dust. “It will be pitch-black for the first part,” he warned, as his men were passing out rifles and pistols from the cache taken from the Humvee. “Just follow the sound of the crowd.”

“How many more men do you have inside?” Hollis asked. He was filling his pockets with magazines. Kneeling by an open crate, Caleb and Sara were both loading rifles.

“The seven of us, plus another four in the balconies.”

“That’s all?” Peter said. The odds, not good to begin with, were suddenly much worse than he’d thought. “How many does Jude have?”

Olson frowned. “I thought you understood. He has all of them.”

When Peter said nothing, Olson continued: “Babcock is stronger than any viral you’ve ever seen, and the crowd won’t be on our side. Killing him won’t be easy.”

“Has anyone ever tried?”

“Once.” He hestitated. “A small group, like us. It was many years ago.”

Peter was about to ask what had happened. But he heard, in Olson’s silence, the answer to this question.

“You should have told us.”

A look of abject resignation came into Olson’s face. Peter realized that what he was seeing there was a burden far heavier than sorrow or grief. It was guilt.

“Peter. What would you have said?”

He didn’t answer; he didn’t know. Probably he wouldn’t have believed him. He wasn’t sure what he believed now. But Amy was inside the ring, of that he was certain; he felt it in his bones. He popped the clip from his pistol to blow it clean, then reinserted it into the handle and pulled the slide. He looked toward Alicia, who nodded. Everyone was ready.

“We’re here to get our friends,” he said to Olson. “The rest is up to you.”

But Olson shook his head. “Make no mistake. Once you’re in the ring, our fights are the same. Babcock has to die. Unless we kill him, he’ll call the Many. The train will make no difference.”

New moon: Babcock felt the hunger uncoiling inside him. And he stretched out his mind from This Place,