“I know!” she shouts. “But I keep seeing him. I keep seeing the knife going into his–”
“Yeah, okay, you wanted to,” I stop her before she gets worse. “So what? So did I. But he made you want to. He made it so it was him or us. That’s why he was evil. Not what you did or what I did, what he did, okay?”
She looks up at me. “He did just what he promised,” she says, her voice a little quieter. “He made me fall.”
She moans again and clamps her hands over her mouth, her eyes welling up.
“No,” I say strongly. “No, see, here’s the thing, here’s what I think, okay?”
I look up to the water and the tunnel and I don’t know what I think but she’s there and I can see it and I don’t know what she’s thinking but I know what she’s thinking and I can see her and she’s teetering on the edge and she’s looking at me and she’s asking me to save her.
Save her like she saved me.
“Here’s what I think,” I say and my voice is stronger and thoughts are coming, thoughts that trickle into my Noise like whispers of the truth. “I think maybe everybody falls,” I say. “I think maybe we all do. And I don’t think that’s the asking.”
I pull on her arms gently to make sure she’s listening.
“I think the asking is whether we get back up again.”
And the water’s rushing by and we’re shaking from the cold and everything else and she stares at me and I wait and I hope.
And I see her step back from the edge.
I see her come back to me.
“Todd,” she says and it ain’t an asking.
It’s just my name.
It’s who I am.
“Come on,” I say. “Haven’s waiting.”
I take her hand again and we make our way up the rest of the steps and back to the flatter part of the ledge, following the curves out from the centre, steadying ourselves again on the slippery stones. The jump back to the embankment is harder this time cuz we’re so wet and weak but I take a running go at it and then catch Viola as she comes tumbling after me.
And we’re in sunlight.
We breathe it in for a good long while, getting the wettest of the wet off of us before we gather up and climb the little embankment, pushing ourselves thru the scrub to the trail and back to the road.
We look down the hill, down the zigzag trail.
It’s still there. Haven’s still there.
“Last bit,” I say.
Viola rubs her arms to dry herself a little more. She squints at me, looking close. “You get hit in the face a lot, you know that?”
I bring my fingers up. My eye is starting to swell some and I notice a gap on the side of my mouth where I lost a few teeth.
“Thanks,” I say. “It wasn’t hurting till you said that.”
“Sorry.” She smiles a little and puts her hand up to the back of her own head and winces.
“How’s yers?” I ask.
“Sore,” she says, “but I’ll live.”
“Yer indestructible, you,” I say.
She smiles again.
And then there’s a weird zipSNICK sound in the air and Viola lets out a little gasp, a little oh sound.
We look each other in the eyes for a second, in the sunshine, both of us surprised but not sure why.
And then I follow her glance down her front.
There’s blood on her shirt.
Her own blood.
New blood.
Pouring out a little hole just to the right of her belly button.
She touches the blood and holds up her fingers.
“Todd?” she says.
And then she falls forward.
I catch her, stumbling back a bit from the weight.
And I look up behind her.
Up to the clifftop, right where the road begins.
Mr Prentiss Jr.
On horseback.
Hand outstretched.
Holding a pistol.
“Todd?” Viola says against my chest. “I think someone shot me, Todd.”
There are no words.
No words in my head or my Noise.
Mr Prentiss Jr kicks his horse and edges him down the road towards us.
Pistol still pointed.
There’s nowhere to run.
And I don’t got my knife.
The world unfolds as clear and as slow as the worst pain, Viola starting to pant heavy against me, Mr Prentiss Jr riding down the road, and my Noise rising with the knowledge that we’re finished, that there’s no way out this time, that if the world wants you, it’s gonna keep on coming till it gets you.
And who am I that can fix it? Who am I that can change this if the world wants it so badly? Who am I to stop the end of the world if it keeps on coming?
“I think she wants you bad, Todd,” Mr Prentiss Jr sneers.
I clench my teeth.
My Noise rises red and purple.
I’m Todd bloody Hewitt.
That’s who I effing well am.
I look him right in the eye, sending my Noise straight for him, and I spit out in a rasp, “I’ll thank you to call me Mr Hewitt.”
Mr Prentiss Jr flinches, actually flinches a little and pulls his reins involuntarily, making his horse rear up for a second.
“Come on, now,” he says, his voice slightly less sure.
And he knows we both can hear it.
“Hands up,” he says. “I’m taking you to my father.”
And I do the most amazing thing.
The most amazing thing I ever did.
I ignore him.
I kneel Viola down to the dirt road.
“It burns, Todd,” she says, her voice low.
I set her down and drop the bag and slip my shirt off my back, crumpling it up and holding it against the bullet hole. “You hold that tight, you hear me?” I say, my anger rising like lava. “This won’t take a second.”
I look up at Davy Prentiss.
“Get up,” he says, his horse still jumpy and edgy from the heat coming off me. “I ain’t telling you twice, Todd.”
I stand.
I step forward.
“I said put yer hands up,” Davy says, his horse whinnying and bluffing and clopping from foot to foot.
I march towards him.
Faster.
Till I’m running.
“I’ll shoot you!” Davy shouts, waving the gun, trying to control his horse which is sending Charge! Charge! all over the place in its Noise.
“No, you won’t!” I yell, running right up to the horse’s head and sending a crash of Noise right at it.
SNAKE!
The horse rears up on its back legs.
“Goddammit, Todd!” Davy yells, wheeling and whirling, trying to control his horse with the one hand that’s not holding the pistol.