“I’m trying to,” I say, not loud enough for anyone to hear over the crowd noise.
“I’m going to!” I shout, shifting my gaze from her to her terrifying group of friends.
They look like they all just got out of prison, which … I realize … they did.
“I’m going to rally everybody to help me, but I need to get to the middle of the crowd first.”
Rhonda’s eyes—Wes’s eyes—fill with hope. “Really?” She jerks my arm. “Really? Did y’all hear that?” she shouts over her shoulder. “Let’s get her to the clearing!”
Two big, burly men with facial tattoos and necks wider than my thighs step forward and, without so much as a hello, lift me onto their shoulders.
“Ahh!” I cling to their shaved heads as they push their way through the crowd like human bulldozers, the rest of the released prisoners pushing through behind them.
“Hey!”
“Watch out!”
“Ow!”
“Fuck you!”
Fistfights and shouting matches break out in the wake of my ex-con caravan as the clearing in the center of the crowd gets closer and closer.
The tops of Michelle’s and Lamar’s heads come into view, and I exhale. They made it. Lamar’s camera lens turns to face me, and the red light is already blinking as the bodybuilders barrel their way into the circular opening that has formed around Quint’s body.
Michelle is standing on one side of my blood-soaked friend while Lamar stands on the other, trying to keep a brave face.
Poor baby.
Michelle snaps her fingers at Lamar, instructing him to turn the camera toward her.
“This is Michelle Ling, reporting live from Plaza Park minutes before the Green Mile execution event is scheduled to begin. As you can see”—she does a spinning motion with her finger, instructing Lamar to turn the camera in a circle to get footage of the entire crowd—“quite a crowd has gathered here today to express their outrage over what many are calling ‘senseless, government-sanctioned murders’ and ‘public executions for profit.’”
Michelle gestures toward me, and Lamar takes the cue, unsteadily swinging the giant camera in my direction.
“I have our newest reporter, Ms. McCartney, here with the inside scoop on the allegations against Governor Steele and his controversial Green Mile event. Ms. McCartney, can you please tell us why today’s execution was rescheduled for this morning?”
I hear her question, but I don’t look into the camera, and I don’t climb down from my human throne. I don’t care about the people sitting at home. They can’t help me. The people I need to talk to are right here. Right now.
Sticking the microphone between my teeth, I cling to the stubbled heads of my helpers and slowly push myself to stand on their shoulders. They grab my ankles with their viselike hands, holding me perfectly still as I straighten my spine and look out over the park. Thousands of people have filled the space now, the tops of the saplings barely visible above their heads at the edge of the park. Riot cops line the perimeter, but they’re outnumbered a hundred to one. Anger and adrenaline rise off the crowd in waves as thick as steam. It’s a deadly powder keg of chaos.
And I’m holding a microphone shaped like a match.
While the crowd quiets to a hush, I scan the sea of faces for one to focus on. I think it will help me feel less nervous if I have one specific person to talk to. But I don’t find just one person. I find all the people.
Q and the runaways are front and center, horsing around like little kids. Brad has Not Brad on his shoulders, chicken-fighting Q, whose thighs are wrapped around Tiny Tim’s head. Loudmouth and the other runaways I never got a chance to meet are standing in front of them, cheering and trying to help Q win.
A sea of Bonys takes up the left half of the crowd. I pick out The Prez in his fur coat immediately as well as the kids from Pritchard Park who spray-painted our truck—I’d know that helmet with the nails sticking out of it anywhere.
But the person I decide to focus on, the one who makes me think that everything might actually be all right, belongs to an older man with a face like Santa Claus and a body like a grizzly bear. A man I’ve known my whole life. A man who was more of a father to me than my own sometimes. A man who has a broken leg that I should yell at him for standing on right now.
Mr. Renshaw.
When I lock eyes with him, I don’t see anger there. I see forgiveness. Remorse. Understanding. It is not the face of a man whose wife just died. It’s the face of a man whose wife did something regrettable, and he’s come to make amends for it. Agnes must be okay. And when Jimbo presses his lips together and gives me a single nod, I know we’re going to be okay, too.
If we survive what I’m about to do.
Clutching the microphone with two shaky hands, I inhale the crowd’s desperation and exhale the terrifying truth. “Today’s execution was rescheduled for this morning because Governor Steele has a meeting this afternoon.”
The crowd grumbles at the mention of our shared enemy.
“At that meeting, the CEO of Burger Palace is going to pay him five billion dollars to be the official sponsor of the Green Mile execution event.”
The grumbles turn to growls.
“They’re going to rename this place Burger Palace Park and project King Burger’s picture right onto the field. I know this because I heard the governor say it with my own two ears, and so did my friend here … right before he was shot in the back by Governor Steele’s bodyguard.”
Lamar pans the camera down to his brother’s body on the ground and almost drops it as his eyes squeeze shut in pain.
You gotta get through this, buddy. Stay with me.
“How do y’all feel about Governor Steele making five billion dollars for killing our friends and family members—good people—on live TV?”
Fists and shouts fill the air.
“Greed. That’s why our species was facing extinction. Not because we were wasting our resources on ‘nonproductive citizens,’ but because our resources were being hoarded by them!” I shove my finger in the direction of the capitol building, feeling the hands around my lower legs tighten to keep me from falling.
“One percent of our population owns ninety-nine percent of the wealth on this planet! Think about that. That’s not nature’s way! No other species hoards resources like that. They take what they need, and they leave what they don’t. That’s the true law that was being violated. This isn’t about survival of the fittest; it’s about survival of the richest!”
Mr. Renshaw nods his head in agreement, and a surge of pride fills the empty hole in my chest, turning the dark, decaying tissue into something pink and pulsing again.
“Have you seen the governor’s mansion?” I ask, shouting as loud as I can.
The people yell and raise their fists in response.
“Your taxes paid for that! Have you seen his fancy new helicopter?” I gesture toward the landing pad behind me.
Their shouts and fists rise up again.
“Well, you bought it for him! Have you seen the CEO of Burger Palace’s private island?”
“No!”
“You paid for that, too, when they started charging forty dollars for a King Burger Combo! They’re killing us for profit, y’all. And that’s what’s about to happen right here, right now, to Wesson Parker if we don’t rise up and say enough!”