He smiles bigger, revealing those translucent brown teeth. “Oh I see.”
I spit on the floor, partly as a sign of disdain, partly because my mouth is filling with watery blood. “They’re simple scum. Killers and rapists. There’s no purpose to their crimes, they do it like animals, whenever they’re hungry or horny or bored.”
“And you’re better than them because when you burned down a city, you did it for God?”
“Exactly.”
He laughs. It sounds like dry bones cracking. “You did it because you’re a pissed-off kid. You did it because your mommy died and you needed someone to blame, and you couldn’t blame God because you know he’s not real.”
I grit my teeth as he talks. I don’t understand what I feel toward him. It should be hate, but it isn’t quite that.
“You and them, you’re all liars. You make up bullshit to excuse your actions. You did it because God told you to, they did it because ‘life is hard,’ because they ‘didn’t have a choice.’ Always hiding behind some noble excuse for ignoble deeds.” He chuckles. “You’re a bunch of pussies. The biggest, toughest bastard in this place is a fucking pussy, and you can tell him I said it.”
“What do you want, Grandpa?” I snarl at him. “What can I do for you, Pappy?”
He shakes his head. “First of all, you can drop that fuzzy cardigan shit; it’s not going to be like that with us. You can call me Mr. Atvist.”
I nurture many dark beliefs about my place in the world, but it’s a thrill to hear one so nakedly confirmed. “Okay, Mr. Atvist,” I say, trying to halt the quaver in my voice. “Why do you keep coming here? My whole life, you’ve been barely a rumor. Now you’re my only friend?”
He looks around the menagerie of muscled thugs and wild-eyed madmen, pausing on the empty cell across from me.
“Your partner, Paul Bark. You know he’s already started burning again? Barely waited a week after he got out. He’s got about three hundred people claiming membership in this—what are they calling it? ‘Church of the Fire’? Looks like it’s really taking off. All the corps are nervous. Even Fed’s paying attention.”
I stare at the floor.
“You founded a successful cult at age sixteen. You have something in you that moves people. As a businessman, that interests me.”
“Get out,” I mutter.
He chuckles again and stands up. The guard takes his chair and opens the cellblock door for him. “You’re right about one thing,” Mr. Atvist says. “You are better than them. But not because of your moral pretensions.”
“Why, then?” I say through my teeth.
“You’re better because you’re an Atvist, and they’re not. Because you have a future, and they don’t.”
A tiny crack forms in my shell. Before I can seal it, a glint of desperation shines through. “Can you get me out?” I ask my grandfather.
He smiles. “Of course I can.”
He walks away.
? ? ?
“R,” Julie says.
My eyes are already open but I blink them, snapping back to the present.
“Are you okay?”
It’s a basic question, often asked by strangers. I give it the response it deserves: a shrug and a nod.
“It wasn’t your fault, you know,” she says, and it takes me a moment to realize she’s talking about the recent massacre, not the dark path unfolding in my memories.
“It wasn’t your fault,” she repeats. “You did what you thought was right with the knowledge you had at the time. That’s all anyone can ever do.”
She is not inside my head, and I’m dismayed by how much this relieves me. There was a time when I wanted nothing more than for her to visit me in here, to know my thoughts, to know me. When did I revoke her invitation? I wish the absolution she’s offering were for the wretch in my basement, but she has never even met him.
“Are we still going to Iceland?” I ask her.
We are sitting on the floor in the rear of the plane, leaning against the wall, watching her mother gnaw at the shredded flesh of her fingers. Julie has given up trying to stop her.
“R,” she says, giving me a pained look. “Do you understand that I have to do this?”
“Do you understand that you can’t save her?”
The words don’t feel like mine. They feel like his. A bitter young man sulking in his cell, whispering cruelties through the bars. Is he calling out to his counterpart, the girl in Julie’s basement? The scarred orphan who cries in her sleep and kills without blinking, who’s convinced she’s unworthy of love?
We were building a home. It was going to be beautiful. How did we let them lock us out?
“Yes,” Julie replies to my cold question, and the lack of anger in it stings me. Instead of exploding, she shrinks inward, clutching her knees and staring at the floor. “I understand.”
I want to pull her against me and melt our barriers with a simple warm gesture, but the wretch holds me back. He keeps my arms folded, my face stiff, and he whispers, You’ll hurt her. She’ll hurt you. He whispers, Not safe.
Nora brushes through the curtain and sits next to me. The three of us watch Audrey, whose eyes drift around the cabin with a vaguely troubled squint.