The Prophet wanders behind them, looking up at the stars. Who knew there were so many? Whole galaxies of milky-white dots, millions of them, scattered across the velvety black. The Prophet’s lips move as he walks, but no sound comes forth. Is he praying? They walk in silence for an hour with Katniss in the lead, moving through a narrow arroyo. Coming over a rise, Simon sees the floodlights of the detention center. There are no Hollywood spotlights crisscrossing the landscape, no guard towers, just a rectangle of chain link, bare-bones, industrial. The desert itself serves as a deterrent to escape, of course. The heat. Not to mention, who on earth would be crazy enough to break into prison?
Katniss gets them within a hundred feet of the back fence, just outside the range of ambient light. They settle down in a stony ditch to wait. None of them speak. Katniss has warned them that at night in the desert sound travels clear and far. Around them the temperature has dropped below sixty. Simon and the Prophet sit shoulder to shoulder. Simon can feel the taller boy’s body heat through their clothes. Earlier, when they stopped for gas, Simon got a glimpse of the front page of USA Today.
SUICIDE CRISIS ENTERS SECOND MONTH. 160,000 DEAD.
When Duane went to the counter to pay, Simon picked up the paper. Louise was over in the gum and candy aisle, picking her poisons. There was a color photograph of a funeral on page one. SECRETARY OF STATE BURIES HIS DAUGHTER. Simon looked at the photo. He’d met the secretary of state once, at a dinner party in the Hamptons. Amy. That was the daughter’s name. She was there too—at the dinner party last year—a pretty blonde in a blue dress fixated on her cell phone. What was she, a year older than Simon?
When he thinks of her now, he sees her face lit blue by the cold light of her phone, as if she were already dead.
For some reason, his mind shifts to a book he used to keep on a shelf in his room. An alphabet book in black-and-white, each page depicting the death of a child.
A is for Adam who drowned in the lake.
B is for Betsy who startled a snake.
He thought of it then, standing at the Gas ’N Go, as he read about a field trip of tenth graders in Tokyo who all jumped off a bridge together. Outside, in the Texas heat, the pumps poured regular, premium, and supreme. The slushy machine churned red and blue ice to be consumed from plastic cups made in China.
Now, sitting in the desert chill next to a holy child from Nebraska and the winner of a fictional Hunger Game, Simon thinks about Amy, the senator’s daughter, the cell phone addict. Number 160,001. He’d brought her a piece of cake when the singing was done. Red velvet.
“No, thank you,” she said. “I’m watching my weight.”
“What are we doing?” Simon whispers.
Katniss hits him on the leg. Shut up.
In the distance, Simon sees two figures crouch and run from a stand of low trees.
Flagg.
The figures reach the side fence and, staying low, move their way to the front—weapons up.
Katniss comes up on one knee, flicks the safety off on her Smith & Wesson M&P Sport II AR-15.
The sound of gunshots ricochets off the rocky hills. One crack, then two more.
Simon feels light-headed, his blood pressure up around one twenty. On the other side of the fence, they see two armed county deputies run from the back of a Quonset hut. Simon and Katniss duck low, but the deputies don’t even look their way. They run around the side of the corrugated metal building, out of sight.
S is for Simon who panicked to death.
Then Katniss is up and running toward the back fence. Simon feels a sudden wind on his face and realizes that he too is running. Behind him the Prophet moves without effort.
Katniss reaches the razor wire, slides to a stop on her knees.
“Bolt cutters,” she says.
Simon runs to her, hands over the heavy tool ($39.95 for a limited time only). Katniss starts clipping.
More gunshots come from the front gate. Three similar shots, then a series of answering shots of a different caliber.
Up front the firefight escalates.
“So much for surprise,” says Katniss.
Simon’s breathing is loud in his ears. Behind him, the Prophet is definitely praying.
Katniss finishes cutting, kicks the wire loose. And then she is through the fence, weapon up.
“Stay close,” she hisses.
And they do.
Overhead scoop lights illuminate circles of earth between the buildings. The doors are all heavy steel. As they round a corner, they see a four-wheel-drive vehicle, headlights on. Two deputies crouch by the tailgate, their backs to Simon, facing the main entrance. Katniss slows, aims.
S is for Simon struck down by regret.
“Don’t,” says Simon, shoving her arm, instinctually foiling what can only be called murder.
Her rifle goes off, blowing apart the light over their head. Glass and metal rain down.
“Shit,” says Katniss, wrestling the gun down, as the deputies turn, their own guns coming up. Then the Prophet is in front of Simon, his arms up.
“Tranquilo,” he says. “Tranquilo.”
The deputies open fire. They are maybe fifteen feet away. Simon crouches instinctually, Katniss diving to the ground. But the Prophet formerly known as Paul stands without flinching, his hands raised in the universal sign for peace.
Bullets whiz past them, kicking up dirt, ricocheting off the metal structures, and then Katniss is up, squeezing off six responding rounds in contained bursts, and the deputies go down.
The USA Today article said that all twenty-five Tokyo schoolchildren climbed onto the rail of the bridge together. There was a cell phone photo of them up there, holding hands, as what must have been their teacher ran to intervene, arms outstretched, his mouth open. Then together they stepped off into the void, plummeting without sound to the raging Sumida River below.
Children no more.
Simon pictures their teacher standing at the rail, shouting, weeping, looking for survivors.
The deputies are down. Gun smoke fills the air. Simon straightens. The Prophet lowers his arms. There isn’t a scratch on him. Somehow, at impossibly short range, he has been spared.
“The Lord is my shepherd,” he says.
Katniss crouch-runs over, checks the bodies. They are folded together awkwardly, collapsed in the dirt. Behind them, the SUV is full of holes.
S is for Simon somehow still alive.
“Get their keys,” Simon hears himself say.