“Like I’m covered in ants,” he said.
The paint itched horribly. They had layered it through his hair, across half his face, and all down his arms, chest, and back, covering him in crimson stripes and swirls. Ahmadi had also torn up his jeans and dragged his shoes through the mud several times to make them look like salvaged things.
“He looks good,” Malik said, hope rising in his voice. He checked behind them, but they were the only ones on the front sidewalk of the Iowa. The soldiers were all still inside packing. “This could work.”
Ory looked down at the red lines slathered across his chest. They were excellent fakes, the right width and pattern. And the lifeless, low-hanging clouds had costumed the most important part of all. In such light—with nothing casting shadows—he looked just like a Red. Just like Max.
A shudder of fear seized him, and Ory squatted down. He cupped his hands together just over the ground, trying to make a pocket of space between his palms and the street small enough that even without the sun, there was a contrast, and he could see.
Yes.
His shadow was still there.
When he stood up, neither Ahmadi or Malik laughed. They understood. Ahmadi grabbed the back of Ory’s neck firmly in comfort—the only place that wasn’t covered in lines of paint. It was the closest thing she could give him to a hug without smudging his disguise.
“Still there,” he said. His chest ached. He wanted to grab her back and hold tight, but he couldn’t. Because of the red paint—and because of Max.
“You make sure the General comes back,” Naz said desperately. “Make sure both of you do.”
AT THE LIBRARY, IT WAS CHAOS. FRANTIC REDS WERE POURING out of the front doors, their arms full of books, waiting desperately for Iowan troops to arrive—and panicking as to why they yet hadn’t. The big man was there as usual, but so was another Red whom Ory had never seen before, a woman who looked to be in her fifties or sixties, with streaks of red braided throughout her wild, silvered hair. She’d wrapped herself in a crimson sheet not unlike a toga. One small limp breast hung carelessly out as she snatched at the other Reds. Then a pristine white shape appeared from behind the Iowa’s deserted barricade line. Imanuel.
There was a momentary lull as the Reds recalibrated. Everything paused. Books froze midair. Then the woman turned to screech at him. Somehow, almost impossibly, the Reds seemed to still remember him as the Iowa’s leader. They swarmed forward, dumping books at his feet, as many as he wanted, practically burying him. Imanuel scooped up copy after copy, trying to quickly choose which to stuff into the precious extra space in his medical bag. He pointed toward the building, miming his question, asking to be taken deeper into the Red King’s library, to choose the book he wanted. He picked up a book, pointed at it, and pointed again toward the building as the Reds screamed.
Ory watched from his perch atop the roof of a destroyed public bathroom.
The Reds were dragging out bigger and bigger books now, misunderstanding that size didn’t determine worth the way it did with food, weapons, armies. Across the distance, Ory could see Imanuel searching the growing pile to see if they’d accidentally thrown to him the one he wanted most of all. Push them as far as you can, Ory thought. Bring as many back as possible. The older woman and the big man were growing more agitated. Then an angry bellow erupted from within the darkened building, causing everyone to duck on instinct.
The Red King was finished guessing.
Everything went still as he emerged, glittering silvery-maroon in the weak hail as he came right into the center of the street. Ory was too far to make out any of his features, but even from that distance, the Red King was terrifying.
Ory didn’t know what he had looked like before he lost his shadow, but what the Red King had become now was a living mountain. He had thought the big Red was huge, but now, compared to his master, he was miniscule. The Red King was the size of two men, over ten feet tall, wearing a scarlet cloak of a hundred layers and haphazard armor made from whole, bent steel doors. A human skull could fit inside each scarred, crimson hand. Red dripped off him from everywhere, leaving trails behind him.
Imanuel raised his arms. Ory couldn’t tell if he was trying to smile or grimacing in terror. The Red King roared again, held out his palms. They were also covered in red, but a wetter red, red that came from inside a body. The pregnant woman was in real danger.
Imanuel took a step forward hesitantly. The Red King grabbed him with one hand and dragged him in like a rag doll.