The sky’s dark cloak was fading to gray. Still, it was night enough that the fog absorbed the fire, leaving downtown smudged with luminance.
I pulled to a stop by a group of middle school–aged kids with their bikes on the sidewalk. They were slack-jawed and barely noticed us joining them. Across the street, the knoll was chaos. Four fire trucks idled, lights revolving on the storefronts. Black uniforms and badges gathered below the gazebo, staring up at the goat that was still swinging. Marking time until something else. The night before, I’d worn a mask. I’d been a different person. Standing before the fire, dawn riding up the horizon, I could see the act against the goat clearly for what it was. A vicious mistake. It was not merely dead but strung up like a prop.
The train car had made it to the knoll. A mile hadn’t been enough room for it to slow, though, let alone stop. It appeared to have skidded off the tracks, flipped onto its side, and crashed into the trunk of a eucalyptus tree. It was reduced to a smoldering skeleton, only the metal frame and wheels surviving.
The fire had spread to the tree trunk, the dry, peeling bark combustible fuel. The branches and clumps of leaves were still burning. The smell harsh and medicinal. Some branches laid dismembered, burned off by the flames, smoldering on the ground, runs of fire striking out from the eucalyptus to the bales of hay. Pure luck that it hadn’t spread to the gazebo or the wagon and ruined our spray-painted messages. I nauseated myself. No, it was pure luck the train car hadn’t plummeted into a storefront or killed someone. We’d set it loose thoughtlessly. Damned the collateral damage.
“It’s a train,” one of the middle schoolers said dumbstruck to his buddy. “A train.”
The kids took selfies with the fiery destruction in the background until the fire hoses started spewing water. Wind shifted and a cloud of mist came our way. Viv and I climbed back into my car.
We weren’t the only civilians out there. A crowd had amassed under the awning of Holy Bagels, smaller clumps dotting the perimeter of the square. Almost everyone had their cell phones out.
I’ll never forget Graham’s expression when he and Harry arrived at the knoll. He pulled up, swung out from behind the wheel, and just stood in the road. A commander stepping back to admire the carnage of the battlefield. It was absolute ego—ego like he’d had ego muffins and ego smoothie and ego spiked coffee for breakfast before styling his hair with ego and yanking ego on his feet rather than shoes. It was a light-year past bullshit.
? ? ?
Kids trickled in late to first period long after the bell rang.
In third period Jess whispered into my ear, “The goat’s still up. Active crime scene.” My hands went slick with guilt.
In fourth period an announcement came. The principal assured the student body there was nothing to fear. Urged anyone with information on the criminal identifying as IV to come forward. Said it was a miracle no one was injured. “Or really good planning,” Trent muttered under his breath. I shot him a withering scowl.
At lunch Graham was zipped to his chin in a fleece, alternating between glaring at the hovering clouds and the additional school security officers who were patrolling the courtyard.
“My parents are going, is your dad?” Harry asked. He nudged my foot with his. I looked from the rubber toe of his sneaker to his eyes. “Is your dad going tonight?”
Mayor Carver had called an emergency town meeting. A discussion of the city’s heightened security measures. Check points. Increased patrols. In sixth period, word spread that the Seven Hills police department was canvassing. They’d search the knoll. Whether they knew the train car came from the Ghost Tunnel wasn’t clear; there were multiple tracks that converged from the hills onto the run that lead into town. If they did scour the tunnel, they’d find weeks-old remnants of a massive party. And that, for some reason unknown to everyone but the ten of us, the police chief had left town. Denton had resigned. An interim officer needed to be named.
He’d left Seven Hills. I was hollow at the triumph, save for one thought: too late.
Denton should have left town eight years ago, seven, six, so he wouldn’t have been the one called when I found Goldilocks. Nah, hon, nothing like you, just a runaway asking for it. Without Denton there may have been an investigation. Without Denton the Order might not have had its wicked shape. It just would have been pranks, fun, and little rebellions, with nothing to do with blood, revenge, and dead girls. And there’d be no blood on my hands—not the dove’s or the goat’s. No. How had Denton suffered? How had he paid? The Order shouldn’t have sent him away—not yet. I spent the rest of sixth period in the restroom, sick with remorse over all the revenge on him I’d forfeited.
In the midst of all this there was chatter about the goat. Who. Why. How. The theory I heard floated most was sacrifice. IV took its life in the name of an unseen and blood-hungry vigilante force. With the gossip, the theories of who IV was changed from vigilante hero to crazed disciple of a cult. IV was tormenting the town to pay fealty to a pagan god who craved anarchy. And then hours passed and kids felt this was bordering on way too superstitious and that IV was obviously just a teenager who was as sick of being bossed around at school and home by grown-ups as they were. IV was saying fuck you to everything adult. IV was pissed that a fellow teenager had been killed in town and wasn’t it super messed up that no one had done anything about finding her killer?
The four of us postponed our final rebellion for the following Wednesday. The plan was to meet with the initiates at Viv’s on Saturday. We needed to talk about staying under police radar. We needed to stay calm. Invisible. I needed to remind them, gently, of the Polaroid I had tying them to the train car and fire.
We’d come so far—sacrificed, rebelled, and planned. I wouldn’t allow anything to derail us before our finale. And already I’d stopped considering it a finale, an end. My breath stuttered at the thought of no more rebellions. No more revenge. How could I return to being weird, helpless, inconsequential Izzie? I wouldn’t. I refused. I had invented the Order. I had aimed it at Seven Hills. I had vowed revenge for Goldilocks. And though I wasn’t certain what shape we’d take next, rebellion had dug its claws into my heart and wouldn’t let go.
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