“Viola?” he says, holding me against himself, my head against his chest, the water on me soaking into his dusty uniform, my arms out, not able to grab anything, the metal band throbbing.
And I glance up to see the shiny silver A on his shoulder.
“Let me go,” I say.
But he still holds me there.
“Let me go,” I say, louder.
“No,” he says.
I try to push him away but my arms are so weak and I’m so tired and everything is over. Everything is over.
And still he holds me.
And I start to cry again and I feel him hold me tighter and I cry harder and when my arms can move a little I put them around him and cry even harder because of how he feels and how he smells and how his Noise sounds and how he’s holding me and his worry and his fretting and his care and his softness–
And I didn’t know until just now how much I missed him.
But he told the Mayor–
He told him–
And I have to try and push him away again, even though I can hardly bear to do it.
“You told him,” I say, choking it out.
“I’m sorry,” he says, his eyes wide and terrified. “He was drowning you and I couldn’t, I just couldn’t–”
And I look at him and there I am in his Noise, dropping down into the water with him pounding on the other side of the mirror and worse, I can see what he felt, see the hopeless rage of it, see him unable to save me–
And his face is so worried.
“Viola, please,” he says, begging me. “Please.”
“He’ll kill them,” I say. “Every one of them. Wilf is there, Todd. Wilf.”
He looks horrified. “Wilf?”
“And Jane,” I say. “And so many others, Todd, all of them. He’ll slaughter them and that’ll be the end. That’ll be the end of everything.”
His Noise goes black and barren and he sort of crumples down next to me, splashing in the little puddle that’s formed around us. “No,” he says. “Aw, no.”
I don’t want to say it but I hear my voice saying it anyway. “You did exactly what he wanted. He knew exactly how to get it out of you.”
He looks at me. “What choice did I have?”
“You should have let him kill me!”
And he’s looking at me and I can see his Noise trying to find me, trying to find the real Viola that’s deep down in this mess and pain, I can see him looking–
And for a minute I don’t want him to find me.
“You should have let him kill me,” I say again quietly.
But he couldn’t, could he?
He couldn’t and still be himself.
He couldn’t and still be Todd Hewitt.
The boy who can’t kill.
The man who can’t.
We are the choices we make.
“We have to warn them,” I say, feeling ashamed and not looking into his eyes. “If we can.” I grab the edge of the tub of water to pull myself up. Pain shoots up my legs from my ankles. I call out and fall forward again.
And once more, he catches me.
“My feet,” I say. We look at them, bare and swollen badly, turning ugly shades of blue and black.
“We’ll get you to a healer.” He puts an arm around me to lift me.
“No,” I say, stopping him. “We have to warn the Answer. That’s the most important thing.”
“Viola–”
“Their lives are more important than my–”
“She tried to kill you, Viola. She tried to blow you up.”
I’m breathing hard, trying not to feel the pain from my legs.
“You don’t owe her nothing,” he says.
But I feel his arms on me and I’m realizing things don’t seem so impossible any more. I feel Todd touching me and there’s anger rising in my gut but it’s not at him and I grunt and I pull myself up again, leaning on him to keep me there as I stand. “I do owe her,” I say. “I owe her the look on her face when she sees me alive.”
I try to take a small step but it’s too much. I cry out again.
“I have a horse,” he says. “I can put you on her.”
“He’s not just going to let us leave,” I say. “He said guards would escort us back to him.”
“Yeah,” he says. “We’ll see about that.”
He puts his arm further around me and leans down to put his other arm under my knees.
And he lifts me in the air.
The pull on my ankles makes me cry out again but then he’s holding me up, carrying me like he did down the hillside into Haven.
Holding me up.
He remembers it, too. I can see it in his Noise.
I put my arm around his neck. He tries to smile.
And it’s crooked like it always is.
“We just keep on having to save each other,” he says. “We ever gonna be even?”
“I hope not,” I say.
He frowns again and I see the clouds roiling in his Noise. “I’m sorry,” he says quietly.
I grab the cloth of his shirt front and squeeze it tight. “I’m sorry, too.”
“So we forgive each other?” The crooked smile climbs up one more time. “Again?”
And I look right into his eyes, right into him as far as I can see, because I want him to hear me, I want him to hear me with everything I mean and feel and say.
“Always,” I say to him. “Every time.”
He carries me to a chair and then goes over to the door and starts pounding on it. “Let us out!” he shouts.
“This does mean something, Todd,” I say, taking as little breath as possible because my feet are throbbing. “Something we have to remember.”
“What’s that?” He pounds on the door again and says “ow” quietly with how it’s hurting his hands.
“The Mayor knows I’m your weakness,” I say. “All he has to do is threaten me and you’ll do what he wants.”
“Yeah,” Todd says, not looking back. “Yeah, I knew that already.”
“He’ll keep trying it.”
He turns around to face me, fists clenched at his sides. “He won’t be laying his eyes on you. Not never again.”
“No.” I shake my head and wince at the pain. “It can’t be that way, Todd. He has to be stopped.”
“Well, why’s it have to be us that stops him?”
“It’s got to be somebody.” I arch my back a certain way to keep any weight off my feet. “He can’t win.”