The Ask and the Answer

I stare back at Mayor Ledger, my Noise still high. “I ain’t thru with you.”

“It was in your Noise,” he says, but I’m already out the door and locking it behind me. Ker-thunk.

I stomp my way down the stairs, thinking of ways to get the girl away without Mr. Collins bothering her, without her having to go thru any of that for any reason, and my Noise is boiling with suspishuns and wonderings about Mayor Ledger and things beginning to come clear when I get to the bottom of the steps.

Mr. Collins is waiting, leaning against the wall of the lobby with his legs crossed, all relaxed and smiling. He points with his thumb.

I look over.

And there she is.

{VIOLA}

“Leave us,” Todd says to the man who let me in, not looking away from me when he says it.

“Told you she was a piece,” the man says, smirking as he disappears into a side office.

Todd stands there staring. “It’s you,” he says.

But he isn’t moving towards me.

“Todd,” I say and I take a step forward.

And he takes a step back.

I stop.

“Who’s this?” he says, looking at Lee, who’s doing his best to act like a real soldier behind me.

“That’s Lee,” I say. “A friend. He’s come with me to–”

“What are you doing here?”

“I’ve come to get you,” I say. “I’ve come to rescue you.”

I see him swallow. I see his throat working. “Viola,” he finally says. My name is all over his Noise, too. Viola Viola Viola.

He puts his hands up to the sides of his head, grabbing his hair, which is longer and shaggier than when I saw it last.

He looks taller, too.

“Viola,” he says again.

“It’s me,” I say and I take another step forward. He doesn’t step back so I keep coming, crossing the lobby, not running, just getting closer and closer to him.

But when I get to him, he steps back again.

“Todd?” I ask.

“What are you doing here?”

“I’ve come for you.” I feel my stomach sink a little. “I said I would.”

“You said you wouldn’t leave without me,” he says and in his Noise I can hear loud irritation at how he sounds. He clears his throat. “You left me here.”

“They took me,” I say. “I had no choice.”

His Noise is getting louder now and though I can feel happiness in it–

Oh, Jesus, Todd, there’s rage, too.

“What have I done?” I say. “We need to go. The Answer are going–”

“So yer part of the Answer now?” he snaps, bitterness suddenly rising. “Part of those murderers.”

“Are you a soldier now then?” I say back, surprised, heat growing in my voice, too, pointing to the A on his sleeve. “Don’t talk to me about murder.”

“The Answer killed the Spackle,” he says, his voice low and angry.

And the bodies of the Spackle in his Noise.

Piled high, one upon the other, tossed there like garbage.

The A of the Answer written on the wall.

And Todd in the middle of it.

“They might as well have killed me along with them,” he says.

He closes his eyes.

I am the Circle and the Circle is me, I hear.

“Viola?” Lee says from behind me. I turn. He’s crossed half the lobby.

“Wait outside,” I say.

“Viola–”

“Outside.”

He looks so concerned, so ready to fight for me, my heart skips a little. He broadcast as loud as he could that I was his prisoner on the way here, so loud other soldiers thought he was covering up for a rape he was going to commit and whistled him good luck as we passed. Then we hid by the cathedral, seeing Davy Prentiss riding away from here, thinking things I wouldn’t want to see again, thinking about how a celebration was due to him and Todd.

And so we pretended to be the celebration.

And it worked.

Kind of upsetting how easily it worked, frankly.

Lee shifts from foot to foot. “You call me if you need me.”

“I will,” I say, and he waits a second, then steps out the front door, keeping it open to watch us.

Todd’s eyes are still closed and he repeats I am the Circle and the Circle is me which I have to say sounds an awful lot like something from the Mayor.

“We didn’t kill the Spackle,” I say.

“We?” he says, opening his eyes.

“I don’t know who did it, but it wasn’t us.”

“You sent a bomb to kill them the day you blew up the tower.” He’s almost spitting the words. “Then you came back on the day of the prison break and finished the job.”

“Bomb?” I say. “What bomb–?”

But then I remember–

The first explosion that made the soldiers run away from the communications tower.

No.

She wouldn’t.

No, not even her. What kind of people do you think we are? she said–

But she never did answer the asking.

No, no, it’s not true and besides–

“Who told you that?” I say. “Davy Prentiss?”

He blinks. “What?”

“What do you mean what?” My voice is harder now. “Your new best friend. The man who shot me, Todd, and who you ride to work with laughing every morning.”

He clenches his hands into fists.

“You been spying on me?” he says. “Three months I don’t see you, three months I don’t hear nothing from you and you been spying? Is that what yer doing in yer spare time when yer not blowing people up?”

“Yeah!” I yell, my voice getting louder to match his. “Three months of defending you to people who’d be only too happy to call you enemy, Todd. Three months of wondering why the hell you’re working so hard for the Mayor and how he knew to go right for the ocean the day after we spoke.” He winces, but I keep going, thrusting out my arm and pulling up the sleeve. “Three months wondering why you put these on women!”

His face changes in an instant. He actually calls out as if he felt the pain himself. He puts a hand over his mouth to stifle it but his Noise is suddenly washed with blackness. He moves the fingertips of his other hand within reach of the band, hovering over my skin, over the band that’ll never be removed unless I lose my arm. The skin is still red, and band 1391 still throbs, despite the healing of three mistresses.

“Oh, no,” he says. “Oh, no.”