Page 138 of Chaos

All that’s left is chaos.

He succumbed to it long ago.

And it’s been calling for me.

He’sbeen calling for all of us to give in.

“But it wasn’t the plague,” I whisper.

“What …” He coughs. “… was it?”

The clearing air reveals something in his arms, something I hadn’t noticed.

A pigeon held flat to his chest.

It warbles in his arms, swiveling its pigeon head around, moving its tiny, black, beady eye, as Ben holds it.

“You,” I whisper. “It was you.”

He chokes and sputters, and I genuinely think it’s an accident when his grip on the bird shifts, because he reaches out, fingers closing around feathers a second too late.

I lunge for it, and miss.

Dust sprays off the bird’s wings as it launches upward, into that single shaft of glittering sunlight, turned nearly opaque by smoke and dust.

Shane and Ephie emerge from veils of smoke and dust in time to see it take flight, a tiny square-shaped slip of folded paper dangling from its leg.

I reach for my gun, but of course it’s gone.

“Out of bullets.” Shane flips on its side to rest sideways in his palm. “I used the last one on Duane.”

“Ooops,” Ben says. And I don’t think he’s lying for once. “Says Yorke’s … name … and Thornewood.”

I turn up to look at the pigeon.

And then the wall.

Soldiers stand along the rampart, but they’re not looking out, they’re looking inward, watching us.

“Does it go to the general?” Ephie asks.

“Yes,” Ben chokes. “He … only cares … about you … if Hope cares. Enemy of my enemy …”

A speck of white draws my focus. Beast racing closer.

Just behind him Auden.

And Yorke.

“We’ll figure it out,” I say.

35 |I do

YORKE

DUST AND RUBBLE SCRAPEunder my boots as I skid to a stop on the terrace in front of Frankie, Shane, and Ephie.

They’re covered in a thick gray-brown coating, their eyes the only spots of color, radioactive green, electric blue, bright chocolate, and apocalypse red.

---