The Grownups divided their tribe and fought each other. I will keep our tribe unified, and we will fight as one.
I make so much noise when I run. Gaston does, too, and also Aramovsky, the three of us huffing and puffing, our feet slapping on the floor. I wouldn’t have noticed except for the silence of the circle-stars. I can barely hear Bishop even though he is twice my size and is right next to me.
Before long, I see the dark spot on the floor where Yong’s life leaked out into the dust.
But something is different.
The hallway on the left, the dark one where O’Malley and Aramovsky took Yong’s body…it is brighter. And we were careful to move around the bloody slush—now it is trampled as if a dozen people ran through it.
I hear voices coming from the intersection. No one should be here. Everyone should be in our coffin room, protected by Coyotl and Farrar.
“Bishop, someone is up there.”
He nods. He heard it long before I did.
“Get ready to fight,” he says.
Are Matilda’s monsters already here?
El-Saffani slows, waiting for us to catch up.
Voices filter from out of the once-dark hall, but they aren’t the hissing obscenities of the Grownups. These voices sound normal, like ours, but strange. Higher pitched. Excited. Loud.
We move closer to the intersection, just a few steps away now. My clumsiness and the noisy feet of Gaston and Aramovsky must alert them: a person turns the corner and stares at us, wide-eyed.
A young girl with dark brown skin.
She’s wearing a clean white shirt, a red tie, a red and black plaid skirt.
The clothes fit her perfectly.
I slow to a stop. So do Bishop, El-Saffani and the others.
The girl’s mouth hangs open. A skinny boy turns the corner and joins her. Then another. And another little girl. Uniformed children quickly fill the intersection, gawking at the gray-skinned adults carrying bones as weapons.
Gaston moves to my side.
“Em,” he says, “who are they?”
I have no idea.
But I think on Brewer’s words, and I remember what he said.
Don’t forget to take your little friends.
Little friends. This is what he meant.
Another body turns the corner, one we see clearly because he is head and shoulders taller than the others.
It’s O’Malley.
A smile breaks across his face, wider than I have ever seen. He is alive. He is beautiful.
He awkwardly slips past the children, careful not to bump them. They grab at him for comfort, slide in behind him to hide, their eyes never straying from the frightening images of Bishop and El-Saffani.
O’Malley walks to me.
Bishop steps aside.
O’Malley opens his arms and pulls me in.
“Em, we didn’t know if you’d make it back.”
He squeezes me tight, lifts me off my feet. For a perfect moment everything goes away. He smells of sweat. His body is warm and firm. I will protect this body, protect him—I will not let Matilda take O’Malley.
I glance at Bishop, wondering how he might react to the hug, but he is making a point of looking the other way.
I hear more people approaching.
O’Malley sets me down as Spingate, Beckett and Smith come rushing around the corner. They slide past the kids. Spingate runs to Gaston and almost knocks him over with her flying embrace.
She squeezes him far harder than O’Malley squeezed me.
“I didn’t know,” she says. Her voice cracks, her words sound wet. “You were gone, and…I didn’t know…if you…”
Gaston hugs her back, pets her thick red hair.
“We’re fine,” he says. “Everyone made it.”
Beckett stands there, smiling and awkward, unsure if he should hug someone, shake hands or just stay quiet. The lanky Smith greets Aramovsky first. She laces her fingers together, presses her palms against her sternum, and she bows her head. The gesture is disturbingly formal, almost…subservient.
If there was another vote, she would choose Aramovsky. Those others that seem to hang on his every word, they would as well. With Spingate, Gaston, O’Malley and Bishop behind me, though, it doesn’t really matter. Whatever Aramovsky’s plans might be, they will have to wait until I have us all down on Omeyocan.
Spingate lets go of Gaston and launches herself at me, crushes me in a tight hug.
“Em! I’m so happy to see you. Did you find anything?”
I hug her back, almost as hard. She smells nice. She smells like home.
“We did.” I gently push her away. “What are you all doing here? You were supposed to stay in the coffin room.”
Spingate throws up her hands, gestures to the children. There must be twenty of them in the hall now, maybe more.
“They just started showing up,” she says. “Those closed archway doors by our coffin room? They opened, all up and down the hall. Kids walked out. We gathered up as many as we could and put them in our room, but we could see more in both directions. We came this way. O’Malley sent Coyotl, Farrar, Opkick and Borjigin the other way.”