Before Dad could respond, Ander reached into the pocket of his jeans. Eureka gasped when he pulled out a small silver gun. “Shut up, Uncle.”
“ ‘Uncle,’ is it?” Albion’s smile showed grayish teeth. “Giving up?” He chuckled. “What’s he got, a toy gun?”
The other Seedbearers laughed.
“Funny, isn’t it?” Ander pulled back the slide to load the gun’s chamber. A strange green light emanated from it, forming an aura around the gun. It was the same light Eureka had seen the night Ander brandished the silver case. All four Seedbearers startled at the sight of it. They grew silent, as if their laughter had been sliced off.
“What is that, Ander?” Eureka asked.
“This gun fires bullets made of artemisia,” Ander explained. “It is an ancient herb, the kiss of death for Seedbearers.”
“Where did you get those bullets?” Starling stumbled a few steps back.
“Doesn’t matter,” Critias said quickly. “He’ll never shoot us.”
“You’re wrong,” Ander said. “You don’t know what I’d do for her.”
“Charming,” Albion said. “Why don’t you tell your girlfriend what would happen if you were to kill one of us?”
“Maybe I’m past worrying about that.” The gun clicked as Ander cocked it. But then, instead of pointing the gun at Albion, Ander turned it on himself. He held its barrel to his chest. He closed his eyes.
“What are you doing?” Eureka shouted.
Ander turned to face her, the gun still at his chest. In that moment he looked more suicidal than she knew she had ever been. “Seedbearer breath is controlled by a single higher wind. It is called the Zephyr, and each of us is bound by it. If one of us is killed, all of us die.” He glanced at the twins and swallowed hard. “But maybe it’s better that way.”
31
TEARDROP
Eureka didn’t think. She charged Ander and knocked the gun from his hand. It spun in the air and slid across the grass, which had been dampened by Rhoda’s pocket of open rain. The other Seedbearers lunged for the gun, but Eureka wanted it more. She snatched it, fumbled its slippery grip in her hands. She nearly dropped it. Somehow she managed to hold on.
Her heart thundered. She had never held a gun before, had never wanted to. Her finger found its way around the trigger. She pointed it at the Seedbearers to keep them back.
“You’re too in love,” Starling taunted. “It’s wonderful. You wouldn’t dare shoot us and lose your boyfriend.”
She looked at Ander. Was it true?
“Yes, I will die if you kill any of them,” he said slowly. “But it’s more important that you live, that nothing about you be compromised.”
“Why?” Her breath came in short gasps.
“Because Atlas will find a way to raise Atlantis,” Ander said. “And when he does, this world will need you—”
“This world needs her dead,” Chora interrupted. “She is a monster of the apocalypse. She has blinded you to your responsibility to humanity.”
Eureka looked around the yard—at her father, who was weeping over Rhoda’s body. She looked at Cat, who sat huddled, shaking, on the porch steps, unable to raise her head. She looked at the twins, bound and bruised and made half orphans before their own eyes. Tears streamed down their faces. Blood dripped from their wrists. Finally, she looked at Ander. A single tear slid down the bridge of his nose.
This group comprised the only people Eureka had left to love in the world. All of them were inconsolable. It was all because of her. How much more damage was she capable of causing?
“Don’t listen to them,” Ander said. “They want to make you hate yourself. They want you to give up.” He paused. “When you shoot, aim for the lungs.”
Eureka weighed the gun in her hands. When Ander said none of them knew for sure what would happen if Atlantis were to rise, it had sent the Seedbearers into a fervor, a total rejection of the idea that what they believed might not be true.
The Seedbearers had to be dogmatic about what they thought Atlantis meant, Eureka realized, because they didn’t really know.