Michelle and Lamar.
I catch a glimpse of Lamar’s messy dreadlocks in the passenger side window as the van takes off down the street. I want to feel relieved that they got out, but instead I feel the sudden pull of gravity as a bullet whizzes past me and into the crowd holding me up. I start to fall as everyone around me screams scatters, but I manage to hold onto somebody’s shirt to keep my upper body from hitting the ground. When I finally get my feet under me, I notice that the man I was clinging to is standing perfectly still, staring at the ground through a bullet hole in the middle of his hand.
Then, I hear a scream.
It might be mine. I don’t even know anymore.
I keep my head down and keep pushing forward. Too low, and I’ll get trampled. Too high, and I might get shot. I trip and stumble over other people who have fallen, their bodies reminding me why I have to succeed today.
No more deaths in vain. No more blood spilled on this ground.
Especially not Wes’s.
Someone nearby raises her fist in the air and shouts, “Here’s your sponsor!” The words I spray-painted around Quint’s body.
Emotion squeezes my chest as the people around her do the same.
Chants of, “Here’s your sponsor!” spread like a ripple through the crowd, fists pumping and feet stomping.
It gives me an opportunity to get a little lower and weave my way under their raised fists.
Then, a fresh round of panic breaks out. I didn’t hear any shots fired, so I’m not sure what the threat is until I see a shiny metal canister spewing smoke careen through the air over my head.
“Tear gaaaasssss!” someone cries, and the pushing starts again.
I’m crushed by bodies moving in all directions as thick smoke pours in, filling what little open space there is left. Just before it gets to me, I pull the neck hole of my hoodie up to my forehead. Then, I yank the hood down past my chin. I can’t see anything through the layers of thick black fabric, but I can feel, and I can climb.
Keeping my breaths as shallow as possible, I try to pretend like I’m Q. I climb the jerking, screaming bodies around me until I’m grabbing hair instead of clothing. Then, I move forward. My eyes and nose and throat begin to burn as I blindly crawl over the coughing, crying heads of strangers.
I called them here, I think as stinging tears soak into the black cotton covering my face. I did this to them.
Someone in the crowd behind me fires aimlessly into the air, screaming about his eyes, just as something sharp pokes me in the cheek. I reach out and feel leaves. A branch.
A tree!
I yank the hood off my face and peek out of the neck of my sweatshirt just as the person below me succeeds in bucking me off. I tumble to the ground and land on my feet, but the mob pushes me forward, slamming me into the trunk of a recently planted oak tree.
The first of Governor Steele’s victims is decaying under this dirt, but I don’t have time to think about that.
I have to figure out how the hell to save the next one.
I want to fight my way down the line of saplings until I make it to Wes’s hole, but before I can take the first step, another wave of chaos breaks out. I cling to the tree as wailing police sirens get louder and louder and louder, followed by screaming and pushing and shoving worse than anything I’ve experienced up to this point. Reaching as high as I can, I grab the spindly branches and pull myself into the tree, praying that it will hold my body weight so that I can escape the crowd threatening to rip me to shreds below.
As soon as I climb above them, I see what all the panic is about. A massive tank, as wide as the entire street with a cannon the size of a telephone pole on the front, is charging straight toward the crowd, followed by two police cars and a SWAT SUV. People are climbing all over one another, trying to get out of the way as the tank lurches up over the curb and into the park. I can’t see if anyone gets run over, but a chunk of them seems to disappear in front of the tank as it turns and forces itself in between the hole that was dug for Wes’s grave and the rest of the mob.
Blue lights spill over everything as the police cars and SWAT utility vehicle pull in behind the tank and form a tight, square barricade around the hole. I notice that the riot cops have moved from their stations on the risers and are now marching up to the cop cars with their shields raised. One by one, they climb on top of the vehicles, facing outward in a ring of human turrets.
No!
My heart thunders in my chest, my hands shake, and my guts twist into violent knots as the driver’s side door to one of the police cars opens. Officer Elliott steps out, and with a solemn look on his face, he opens the back door to the cruiser. Governor Steele hoists himself out on the third try, and the car lifts a full six inches higher off the ground before Flip climbs out behind him.
Flip turns on his camera, which I assume is live now that Michelle is nowhere to be seen, and instructs the governor to stand in the center of their barricade with the SWAT vehicle behind him. I expect Officer Elliott to do another introduction, but Governor Steele doesn’t give him the chance.
He simply opens his mushy, shapeless mouth and bellows loud enough for me to hear over the madness, “Bailiff, bring out the accused!”
No! No, no, no, no! Somebody, do something! Elliott, please!
But Officer Elliott simply nods his head once, turns, and walks over to the other cruiser. Opening the back door, he reaches in and pulls Wes—my Wes—out by the elbow.
His hands are bound behind his back, and he’s wearing a burlap jumpsuit.
Not orange. Burlap.
The sight of him dressed like that rips a scream from my body. Somewhere in the crowd, another woman howls in the same heartbroken pitch, and I know his mama sees him, too.
“Elliott, do something!” I shout. “Somebody! Help him!”
But everyone is screaming. The riot cops are shooting people who try to climb onto the vehicles or who shoot at them first. Tear gas canisters are being tossed out like candy. The crowd is surging against the vehicles, making them rock back and forth. No one can possibly hear me.
But still, I scream.
I look to the driver’s seat of the patrol car Wes got out of and find Officer Hoyt gripping the steering wheel and staring straight ahead, his eyes at half-mast.
“Hoyt!”
Governor Steele says something I can’t hear and motions to the tank. A man steps out of it and walks across the clearing, but it’s not until he stands directly in front of Wes and turns to face him that I can tell who it is.
The executioner.
He’s wearing an all-black police uniform, and he has on a loose black mask that covers his entire head with two small eyeholes cut out. His hand is on a pistol holstered on his tool belt, and his focus is lasered in on Wes.
My Wes.
“Flip! Flip, do something!”
The cameraman takes his spot off to the side, next to Governor Steele. Everything is moving so fast. The crowd continues to slam against the vehicles in waves, making all but the tank rock back and forth, but with the riot cops standing on top, firing at anyone who climbs too high or shoots at them, nobody is able to do anything to stop them.
My hand dives into the front pocket of my hoodie, and I’m shocked to find my gun still tucked inside.
The moment my finger wraps around the trigger, I’m back outside Huckabee Foods, staring at a beautiful boy in a blue Hawaiian shirt, who is smiling at me with perfect white teeth. His light eyes sparkle under a canopy of black lashes, and I’m lost in them until his face contorts in pain. Blood explodes from his shoulder, and I don’t hesitate. I don’t think. I grab the machine gun off the dead guard beside me, turn, and pull the trigger, spraying two men and a sliding glass door with enough bullets to take out an entire army of meth-head gangbangers.