Page 63 of Sparktopia
But just as I think these thoughts, he leans back and that rescue I was anticipating disappears.
“Finn!”
“I can’t, Clara! Ican’t!” He yells this over the tolling of the bells. But then, in the moments after, there is silence. It is midnight and I am at the threshold.
There’s no way for me to not cross it. I’m not in control anymore. It’s like… the god is compelling me to keep walking. This is what sends me over the edge. This is what makes me throw out any thoughts of entering this tower with grace. This is what sends me into a fury.
None of this is in my control. And I know for certain that it’s not in Finn’s control, either. He can’t come rescue me any more than I can rescue myself.
Still, all I have left is fear and rage, so that’s what I cling to. “Whatever happened to ‘You’re my future. And the god can’t take you away from me. Not ever?’ Whatever happened to that?”
When I look over my shoulder Finn is panicking. But he’s not going to do anything and I only have one breath left so I scream, “I will never forgive you!Ever. I will hate you ’till the end of time!”
Then I am across the threshold, entering the blackness, and the God’s Tower doors slam shut behind me.
“How did we get here? It’s a question I ask myself often. How did this world arrive to a place where murderers are celebrated with pretty watercolor illustrations in books? How did we come to a place in time where one half of the line believes the murder of gods is justified? I’ll tell you how. We have isolated ourselves. We have split ourselves into two camps—Alpha and Omega. But there’s room, folks. There’s room for the middle ground here in the Medians where we don’t condone the murder of the innocent, regardless of species. At least give them a trial! The Godslayer is a black mark on the name of gods everywhere. Whether they are for or against this genocide, they will all be judged for his actions.”
—Maj. Gen. Margorie Garcia, Many-Worlds Recruiting Command, The Medians
CHAPTER TWENTY
Somewhere, something is buzzing.
I turn over in bed and shove my head under the pillow, ignoring the buzz until it stops. There is a moment here where I imagine what the buzzing might mean for me, but it’s quickly overtaken by the need for sleep, so I just drift off.
The next time the buzzing sounds, I reach over, grab the phone off the nightstand, and throw it against the wall.
This time I drift back to sleep chuckling.
Moments later, there is a pounding on my door.
I sit up, throw my pillow, get out of bed, and stumble over to the door. “Whoever you are, ya had better be ready for a fight because I’m gonna kick the livin’ shit outta ya.” I throw it open, growling into empty space. Then I look down. “Fuck.” A small child. Little girl, about seven. Big brown eyes and mismatched clothes. “Anneeta. What. The hell?”
She sniffles, drags a sleeve across her nose, and sighs as she holds out her hand, offering me a disposable phone. “Someone wants to talk to you.” Then she turns those giant brown eyes upto meet mine and smiles, revealing the space where her front teeth used to be just last week. “Would you like to come have tea with me today?”
“No.” I feel a little bit bad for being so blunt, but I fell for this once. Tea with Anneeta is a mud-like mixture of boiled weeds scavenged from the outside walls of the tower and the biscuits are made of paper.
I take the phone, then search my pockets for a coin to pay her. But I’m wearing boxers, so I hold up a finger. “Stay right there. Be right back.” I close the door on her and redirect my attention to the phone. “Whoever this is, it had better be good.”
Stayn’s voice comes back at me as a yell. “I’ve been calling you for five fucking hours, Tyse. And don’t try and tell me your phone was dead, because it wasn’t. You could’ve at least texted a reply.”
“Sorry. I was sleepin’.”
“It’s five-fifteen in the afternoon, you worthless bum. I’ve got a job for you. So get your ass up and get on it!”
“What job?”
“There was a disturbance—five fucking hours ago!—down in the tower’s lower levels. I need someone to go check it out.”
I rub a hand across my eyes, sighing. “You waited five hours for me to answer the phone so I can check out a couple of vandals in the basement? Why didn’t ya just send Anneeta to check it out?”
“Because that location is magnetically locked. No one has been down in that sector since the god left. It’s not avandal. It’s somethin’ else—ya know what? You don’t need to know why I want you to go check it out! You just need to get your ass down there and then report back when you’re finished!”
I hold the phone away from my ear and look at it because he’s seriously pissed off. When he’s done, I yawn into the phoneas I ask my next question, doin’ this just to make him angrier. “What’s my take in this?”
“Yourtake?” He’s growlin’ at me now.
Which was the whole point of me asking the question. I kinda love pissin’ Stayn off. He’s very excitable. “Yeah. What do I get if I go check out this disturbance for ya?”
