loud and angrily undisciplined, but even with that noise and even with the moans of the Bellows, Jopek stopped at the unmistakable sound: the click of a revolver, being cocked. . . .
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Jopek turned, and blinked, “Lower that, little fella.”
“I don’t feel like it,” Michael replied calmly.
Jopek’s gaze dissected him. “Where you get that?”
“We’re leaving,” Michael said.
Outside the door at Michael’s back, the throat of the storm roared snow and fury.
“You’re playin a losin’ hand here, mister. Oh yes, you are.”
“Slide your rifle to me,” Michael said. “Unstrap it from your shoulder slow. If I think you’re going to try anything, I’ll shoot first.” Jopek searched his face. “Stop it, you know I’m telling the truth—”
Suddenly, Jopek’s gaze darted above Michael’s shoulder. “YEAH, THAT’S IT, YOU GOT HIM, HANK, TAKE HIM OUT!” he roared.
Michael flinched, braving for the impact.
But when he checked out of the corner of his eye, the only part of Hank that was moving was his head, nodding: keep going, Michael.
“Rifle,” Michael said. “And the pistol on your ankle.”
“Well, goddamn you,” Jopek said casually, unstrapped the weapons from his shoulder and ankle, and placed them on the floor. He kicked both, rattling, toward Michael.
Everything inside Michael’s chest seemed to fill with light and wind.
Holly’s gaze met his and locked: I am freaking scared. Okay? I’m going along but I am goddamn petrified.
Michael felt a dull ache of longing to let her know she was safe. This is the real me, Holly: the real me is the one who can save you. I swear.
“It’s okay,” Michael told her.
“Naw it ain’t, though,” Jopek said.
Michael looked at Hank—whose jaw was already beginning to swell—and asked him, “We good to go?”
Hank nodded.
Michael sensed Jopek step closer; without looking, as smoothly as if he were lighting a Bic, Michael’s thumb double-cocked the hammer.
Hank and Holly moved toward Michael and Patrick, in front of the doorway.
I am safe, he felt. Little brother and me, safe.
Control.
Joy.
Victory.
Promise.
The keys.
Holding the pistol steady, Michael fished the keys from his pocket and tossed them to Hank. He handed both the ankle pistol and the cop’s pistol to Hank as well, switching Jopek’s assault rifle to his right hand, keeping a bead on Jopek.
“Get the Hummer,” Michael said. “Gas it up with the tanker out there and then pull the Hummer up.”
“To where?” Hank said.
“Honest Abe,” Michael replied, then nodded toward the door to direct Holly to go with Hank.
Jopek watched, and the reality slowly settled on his face: This is actually happening. A seventeen-year-old is actually beating me. For only the second time, Michael thought he understood Jopek. He looked emotionally destroyed. It was the face of a man who is watching his worst enemy sail away on a rescue boat from the island without him.
“Faris?” Hank called from the door. “Aren’t you coming?”
“One sec.”
Michael nudged Patrick with his knee. Patrick grunted, but he took his hands from his ears and pushed the hood back from his face. His hair was wild.
He looked up at Michael, expectant.
This is it, Patrick. This is finally it.
“Captain, we’re going to go out to the Hummer now,” Michael said. “We’re going to leave. We’re going to look for the soldiers, and we’re going to Richmond. We’ll have the machine gun up top. We’ll have food. And you can’t come.”
“You’ll die, my friend,” Jopek said. “That’s a guarantee.”
“Want to know how I know you’re wrong?” Michael smiled. And he said the last line of his speech, the final piece of the puzzle that would make the world understandable for Patrick, that would reassemble and fortify The Game for him, all the way to the Richmond Safe Zone:
“Because you’re the Betrayer, Jopek.”
Except, he didn’t. He’d gotten to you’re when he had to stop, because something terrible and impossible had occurred. Jopek’s moonlit face went dark: a shadow fell across it, a shadow that blocked the moonlight through the Capitol hall’s high windows. And it was at that moment that Michael heard the shriek from high above him, from the sky, like a keening lunatic commandment from some deranged god.
Suddenly the windows behind Jopek’s head cracked.
Run, Michael thought. Just run now. He went for Patrick, picking him up.
Above, one of the hall’s chandeliers was pitching, glittering wildly, the glass eerie music, clawing drags of light on the walls. There was something on the chandelier. Something like a clot of blackness, a moving thing, and hanging upside down.
There was a dead boy above them.
A dead boy, that was all. A living corpse. Something he had