before screen time. “Fine.”
The Thunder Derm’s inside its case, resting against the wall not too far from where Mattingly lies bound and singing under his breath. As Luke carefully removes it, Charley listens to Mattingly’s crazed voice, wondering with increasing dread if the man’s truly lost what mind he had. She pushes the thought away as Luke approaches, giant Thunder Derm awkwardly in one hand. For an instant, it seems as if the goofy-looking weapon—it’s not a weapon, she reminds herself; it’s a medical device that only works on her—is the size of a regular gun and somehow Luke has shrunk before her eyes. She laughs.
“I’m glad you think this is funny,” he says once they’re nose to nose.
“It’s not. I’m sorry. Just . . .”
“What?”
“Never mind. Let’s do this.”
“What if you imagined it?” he asks.
“Imagined what?”
“The remote dose. Maybe you were just so upset that you wanted to believe it but it was just a headache from the stress or—”
“Luke!”
Startled by the sharpness in her tone, he looks right into her eyes. While she’s got his attention, she reaches down, grabs the Thunder Derm’s barrel, presses it to her right knee.
“Do it,” she whispers.
“Fine,” he whispers back.
He sinks to the floor on one knee, the other leg bent, bracing himself for impact from the device’s significant recoil.
Once again, the tennis ball–cannon sound makes Mattingly yelp, but this time it also sends an arc of pain up her body so white-hot it feels like her scalp’s going to blow off. She can’t remember the last time she’s really screamed, but she’s screaming now. And then comes the miracle that changed her life. It’s like a bucket of ice water poured over fire, as muscle, skin, veins, and damaged nerves heal in a miraculous instant. The pain is doused as quickly as it conquered every nerve in her body, replaced by a hallelujah chorus of tingles throughout her right leg, flights of tiny angels working miracles within.
Now that she can breathe again, she looks down, sees Luke’s been knocked on his ass and is staring up at her goggle-eyed, as if not fully convinced she’s triggered. When she sees the splashes of blood on his face and hands, she wonders if she hasn’t actually triggered, if she’s just in shock. But when she looks down at her leg, she sees the bullet-size wound healing through the hole the Thunder Derm blew in her jeans.
It worked just like they hoped it would, only they forgot one thing: all the vials they left in the SUV, full of her paradrenaline-filled blood. Which means there isn’t one inside the Thunder Derm, so what blood the device did manage to yank from her body before she triggered just spurted all over Luke.
“Sorry,” she mutters.
Luke’s so relieved she’s not bleeding to death he hasn’t even noticed how badly he’s been slimed.
Most importantly, Cyrus Mattingly, psycho of the open road, has stopped singing under his breath. Maybe it was the sound of the Thunder Derm that did it.
“Showtime,” Charley says.
37
When Marjorie went down the ladder into the silencing pit, Jonah and Wally were setting up the cement mixer, but the bellowing of that pathetic sow brought them to the pit’s edge, and that was a good thing because she needed help ascending the ladder’s last rungs.
Now that Jonah’s laid the tube right next to the opening, he asks, “Should we start?”
“Not till Cyrus gets here,” she says.
“When did he call?” Jonah asks.
“He hasn’t yet.”
Jonah’s tempted to say something cutting about his brother, she can tell.
“Don’t you go casting suspicion on him just ’cause your ride didn’t go as planned,” she says.
Instantly ashamed, Jonah says, “Yes, Mother.”
You could argue that what Marjorie just said to Wally’s seedling wasn’t entirely truthful. A seedling can’t choose how she dies, just the length of time it will take. She can live for as long as she can scream; the minute she falls silent, the cement mixer starts disgorging its thick, wet contents into the pit all around her. If she marshals enough strength to start screaming again, they shut the mixer off, buying her a little more time for her to reflect on how she’s abused her voice throughout the years. But in the end, the seedlings realize there’s no point, that they’re just delaying the inevitable. In the end, they all die in breathless silence, which is exactly what they deserve.
“Is there food?” Wally asks.
“Casserole needs another few minutes. Show me what you brought.”
She’s excited to see Wally’s gifts. Wally,