UnSouled

The sound of gunfire diminishes, until it’s gone entirely—and the sight of kids still ru

He pounds on his door over and over again, screaming at the top of his lungs, until someone comes.

It’s a kid at the door, and he looks familiar. Hayden quickly recognizes him as a message ru

“Hayden?” the kids says. “No way!”

•   •   •

He is led by three fugitives he knew from the airplane graveyard out into the common area, where the artificial turf swelters in the midday sun. There are bodies strewn everywhere. Some are tranq’d; others clearly dead. Most are kids. A few are guards. To the left, the harvest camp workers are being bound and gagged. To the right, there are vast numbers of kids racing out the camp’s gate, claiming their freedom. But not everyone is leaving.

The rest are being addressed by someone wearing the pastel-gray coverall uniform of an Unwind transport worker.

Hayden stops short when he realizes who it is.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he was holding out hope that it was Co

“Hey,” the kid who unlocked his door shouts. “Look who we found!”

When Starkey lays eyes on Hayden, there’s a moment of fear in Starkey’s eyes, which is quickly engulfed by steel. He smiles a little too broadly. “What was it you always said at the Graveyard, Hayden? ‘Hello. I’ll be your rescuer today.’ ”

“He’s one of them!” someone shouts before Hayden can come up with a clever response. “He’s been working for the Juvies! They even let him pick who gets unwound!”

“Oh, is that the latest news? You know you can’t trust a thing the tabloids say. Next I’ll be giving birth to alien triplets.”

Bam is there—she looks at Hayden, somewhat amused. “So the Juvenile Authority made you their bitch.”

“Nice to see you too, Bam.”

Shouts of “Leave him,” and “Tranq him,” and even “Kill him,” spread through the crowd of Cold Springs Unwinds, but the kids who knew him rise to his defense enough to spread at least a few seeds of doubt. The crowd looks to Starkey for a decision, but he doesn’t seem ready to make one. He’s spared, though, because three strong storks approach with the struggling camp director.

The crowd parts, and someone has the bright idea to spit on Menard as he passes, and pretty soon everyone’s doing it. Hayden might have done it if he had thought of it first, but now it’s just conformism.

“So this must be the guy in charge,” Starkey says. “Get on your knees.”

When Menard doesn’t obey, the three kids manhandling him push him down.

“You have been found guilty of crimes against humanity,” Starkey says.

“Guilty?” wails Menard desperately. “I’ve had no trial! Where’s my trial?”

Starkey looks up at the mob. “How many of you think he’s guilty?”

Just about every hand goes up, and as much as Hayden hates Menard, he has a bad feeling about where this is going. Sure enough, Starkey pulls out a pistol. “There’s twelve in a jury, and that’s definitely more than twelve people,” Starkey tells Menard. “Consider yourself convicted.”

Then Starkey does something Hayden was not expecting. He hands the gun to Hayden.

“Execute him.”

Hayden begins to stammer, staring at the gun. “Starkey, uh—this isn’t—”

“If you’re not a traitor, then prove it by putting a bullet in his head.”

“That won’t prove anything.”

Then Menard doubles over and begins to pray. A man who kills kids for a living praying for deliverance. It’s enough to make Hayden aim at Menard’s hypocritical skull. He holds it there for a good ten seconds, but he can’t pull the trigger.

“I won’t,” Hayden says. “Not like this.”

“Fine.” Starkey takes back the gun, then points to a random kid in the crowd, who looks to be no older than fourteen. The kid steps forward, and Starkey puts the gun in the kid’s hand. “Show this coward what it means to be courageous. Carry out the execution.”

The kid is clearly terrified, but all eyes are on him. He’s been put to the test and knows he must not fail. So he grimaces. He squints. He puts the muzzle of the gun to the back of Menard’s head and looks away. Then he pulls the trigger.

The pop is not loud; it’s just a pop. Like a single stray firecracker. Menard crumples, dead before he hits the ground. It’s quick and clean. Just an entrance wound in the back of the head and an exit wound right beneath the chin, with the bullet itself claimed by the artificial turf. There are no exploding brain bits and pieces of skull—Starkey and the crowd seem disappointed that an execution, in the end, is far less dramatic than the buildup.

“All right, move out!” Starkey orders, giving instructions to commandeer any vehicle for which they can find keys.

“What about him?” Bam asks, sneering at Hayden.

Starkey spares Hayden a brief glance and the tiniest hint of a superior grin before saying, “We’ll take him with us. He still might be useful.” Then he turns back to all those gathered and says in a powerful voice, “I hereby a

Starkey gets the cheers and adulation he’s craving, and Hayden, looking at the dead director . . . and the dead guards . . . and the dozens of dead kids littering the grounds . . . wonders whether he should be cheering or screaming.

33 • Co

Waiting is not in Co

Since the day he ran from his home, however, there has been no downtime—at least not until arriving on the Arápache Reservation. Even when sequestered in Sonia’s basement, there was a whole petri dish of viral angst to deal with. His guard had to be up at all times to protect himself, to protect Risa, and to keep an eye on Roland, who could have taken him out at any instant.

He still wonders if Roland, in the right circumstances, really would have killed him.

At Happy Jack, he had cornered Co

Co

He fired deadly weapons in a war against the Juvies at the Graveyard. He knows some of his bullets hit their mark and took people down. So does that make him a killer? Is there any way to be redeemed from that?

This is why Co

His one consolation is a growing feeling of safety. Normalcy—if anything about this situation can be called normal. The Tashi’ne family have been kind hosts, in spite of their initial coolness to him. From the moment it became public that Co

During the day, however, no one is there. Kele is off at school—which is a good thing because Co

Co

•   •   •

It’s late afternoon a week into August—their twentieth day there. The light coming through the windows is a rich amber, reflected by the ridge across the ravine. Shadows become long quickly in these cliff-side homes, and when the sun sets, it’s gone. There’s little room for twilight in the ravine.