Frank stood, indecisive. Drew T. Barry, hoping to live a little longer, handed over Don’s M4.
“Thank you,” Angel said, and hooked it over her own shoulder. She stepped back, dropped the chisel, and raised her hands to either side of her face, showing Frank and the others that they were empty. Then she backed slowly down the short hall to where Clint was standing with his arm still around Willy, supporting him. She kept her hands up the whole way.
Drew T. Barry, surprised to be alive (but grateful), picked up his Weatherby. He felt lightheaded. He supposed anyone would feel lightheaded after having a lunatic female inmate hold a chisel to his throat. She had told him to put the gun down . . . then let him pick it up again. Why? So she could be on the killing ground with her friends? It seemed the only answer. A crazy one, but she was crazy. They all were.
Drew T. Barry decided it was up to Frank Geary to make the next move. He had inaugurated this colossal shit-show, let him figure out how to clean it up. That was best, because to the outside world, what they had done in the last half hour would look a lot like a vigilante action. And there were parts of it—the walking corpses in the gym, for instance, or the naked green woman he spied standing at the cell bars a few steps behind Norcross—that the outside world would simply not believe, Aurora or no Aurora. Drew T. Barry felt lucky to be alive, and would be happy to fade into the background. With luck, the world might never know he’d even been here.
“What the fuck?” said Carson Struthers, who had seen the green woman down the hall. “That ain’t right nor normal. What do you want to do with her, Geary?”
“Take her and take her alive,” Frank said. He had never felt so tired in his life, but he would see this through. “If she really is the key to Aurora, let the docs figure her out. We’ll drive her to Atlanta and hand her over.”
Willy started to raise his rifle, but slowly, as if it weighed a thousand pounds. It wasn’t hot in A Wing, but his round face was wet with sweat. It had darkened his beard. Clint grabbed the rifle away from him. At the end of the corridor, Carson Struthers, Treater, Ordway, and Barrows raised their own guns.
“That’s it!” Evie cried. “Here we go! Shootout at the OK Corral! Bonnie and Clyde! Die Hard in a Women’s Prison!”
But before the short A Wing corridor could become a free-fire zone, Clint dropped Willy’s rifle and yanked the M4 from Angel’s shoulder. He held it over his head for Frank’s group to see. Slowly, and with some reluctance, the men who had raised their guns now lowered them.
“No, no,” Evie said. “People won’t pay to see such a poor excuse for a climax. We need a rewrite.”
Clint paid no attention; he was focused on Frank. “I can’t let you take her, Mr. Geary.”
In an eerily good John Wayne imitation, Evie drawled, “If ya hurt the little lady, you’re gonna have to answer to me, ya varmint.”
Frank also ignored her. “I appreciate your dedication, Norcross, although I’ll be damned if I understand it.”
“Maybe you don’t want to,” Clint said.
“Oh, I think I’ve got the picture,” Frank said. “You’re the one who’s not seeing clearly.”
“Too much shrinky-dink shit in his head,” Struthers said, and this brought a few grunts of tense laughter.
Frank spoke patiently, as if lecturing a slow pupil. “So far as we know, she’s the only woman on earth who can sleep and wake up again. Be reasonable. I only want to take her to doctors who can study her, and maybe figure out how to reverse what’s happened. These men want their wives and daughters back.”
There was a rumble of agreement at this from the invaders.
“So stand aside, tenderfoot,” Evie said, still doing the Duke. “Ah reckon—”
“Oh, shut up,” Michaela said. Evie’s eyes flew wide, as if she had been unexpectedly slapped. Michaela stepped forward, fixing Frank with a stare that burned. “Do I look sleepy to you, Mr. Geary?”
“I don’t care what you are,” said Frank. “We’re not here for you.” This raised another chorus of agreement.
“You ought to care. I’m wide awake. So is Angel. She woke us up. Breathed into us and woke us up.”
“Which is what we want for all the women,” Frank said, and this brought a louder chorus of agreement. The impatience that Michaela read on the faces of the men gathered before her was close to hate. “If you’re really awake, you should get that. It’s not rocket science.”
“You don’t get it, Mr. Geary. She was able to do that because Angel and I weren’t in cocoons. Your wives and daughters are. That’s not rocket science, either.”
Silence. She finally had their attention, and Clint allowed himself to hope. Carson Struthers spoke one flat word. “Bullshit.”
Michaela shook her head. “You stupid, willful man. All of you, stupid and willful. Evie Black isn’t a woman, she’s a supernatural being. Don’t you understand that yet? After all that’s happened? Do you think doctors can take DNA from a supernatural being? Put her in an MRI tube and figure out how she ticks? All the men who have died here, it was for nothing!”
Pete Ordway raised a Garand rifle. “I could put a bullet in you, ma’am, and stop your mouth. Tempted to do it.”
“Put it down, Pete.” Frank could feel this thing dancing on the edge of control. Here were men with guns faced with a seemingly insoluble problem. To them, the easiest way to deal with it would be to shoot it to pieces. He knew this because he felt it himself.
“Norcross? Have your people stand aside. I want a good look at her.”
Clint stepped back, one arm around Willy Burke to hold him up and one hand laced through Jared’s fingers. Michaela flanked Jared on the other side. Angel stood defiantly in front of the soft cell for a moment, shielding Evie with her body, but when Michaela took her hand and pulled gently, Angel gave in and stood beside her.
“Better not hurt her,” Angel said. Her voice was trembling; tears stood in her eyes. “Just better not, you bastards. She’s a fuckin goddess.”
Frank took three steps forward, not knowing or caring if his remaining men followed. He looked at Evie so long and hard that Clint turned to look himself.
The greenery that had twined in her hair was gone. Her naked body was beautiful, but in no way extraordinary. Her pubic hair was a dark triangle above the joining of her thighs.
“What the fuck,” Carson Struthers said. “Wasn’t she—just—green?”
“It’s—nice to finally make your acquaintance in person, ma’am,” Frank said.