Vivian Apple Needs a Miracle (21 page)

It's a small room, but so full it's difficult to pass through. I feel slightly safe under the cover of the bonnet, but there are too many people here; it's impossible to keep my eyes on all of them at once. I inch through the crowd, glancing around wildly for Peter. As guests lift glasses from the tray, it gets lighter but more awkward to balance. Everyone seems absurdly rich and very drunk. I notice with annoyance that there's no adherence to modesty here: I see short skirts and plenty of cleavage, bare necks adorned by jewels. I guess if you have enough money, the Church will overlook a selection of your sins. I see Blackmore hunched low and murmuring into the ear of a miserable-looking Dylan; a woman trills loudly a few feet away, and I realize it's Michelle Mulvey. My arm begins to tremble. If I drop the tray, all eyes will be on me. I decide to abort; it's time to bolt before anyone gets a good look at my face, but then the last glass of champagne is lifted from my tray and someone grabs my elbow.

“Seems like you need a refill. I'll help.”

Peter. Relief floods through me; I struggle not to throw my grateful arms around him. He steers me by the elbow through the lobby and down an empty hallway. He hesitates before a large coat closet, then pulls the door open and throws me in, following quickly. He closes the door behind him. The closet is stuffy; it smells like ancient wool. Peter flicks on the bare light bulb above us.

“Have you lost your fucking mind?”

My knees go shaky and my breath is coming out in a ragged wheeze, but I laugh in spite of myself at the look on his face. “Possibly, Peter. I'm not going to lie to you: it is very, very possible.”

“This isn't funny, Viv. It's not safe. You could have been stopped by a Peacemaker; you could have been stopped by just a random crazy person. Last night there was a drive-by in front of the hotel—three people shot dead for no reason at all, as far as the Peacemakers could tell. For no reason! And that's just outside. This is the worst possible place for you to be. Mulvey was three feet from you! Do you have any idea what would have happened if you'd been seen?”

His voice is so angry. I feel annoyed, defensive. “I have many ideas,” I say, ticking them off on my fingers. “The Angels capture me and kill me. They capture me, torture me, and then kill me. They make me tell them where Harp is, and they kill her, too. They string my body up on the Hollywood sign as a warning to slutty lying witches everywhere. At this particular point in my life, ideas about what will happen to me if I'm seen are pretty much the only ideas I have.”

Peter's expression softens. He pulls me to him. “I'm sorry. I was just scared. When I saw you out there—it was like seeing a ghost. My heart stopped.”

“I know, I know. I was planning to be a lot stealthier than this, but the head waiter saw me and everything went to shit. Probably I shouldn't have come in the first place, but I needed to see you. As far as we know, the attack is next week, Peter. Next week! Why are you still here?”

We break apart and I see the grave look on his face. “I tried to convince them something big was coming. But when I wouldn't tell Blackmore the name of the donor who gave me the tip . . . I don't know if he just doesn't trust me anymore, or if he thinks I'm as crazy as my dad, but I've tried all I could and he's not listening. You think they're honestly going to go through with it?”

“I don't know yet. We don't have anything solid about the missing Raptured, and Amanda wants this place gone. It's possible my sister's group will refuse to go through with it, but even if they do . . . Amanda will find others. What about the Messiah? Any developments?”

Peter shakes his head. “I haven't seen Blackmore meet with any actors in a while, but that could mean anything—maybe he was already cast; maybe I'm wrong about the whole thing.”

We stare at each other. Peter has a sad, helpless look on his face, and I feel like my head's about to split open from stress. How easy everything would be, I realize, if I didn't feel responsible for everything that's coming, like Winnie says I do. If Harp and I had never driven to California, if we'd never seen Frick in the compound, I could just be like the thousands of other Non-Believers right now—frightened, clueless, waiting for the end, but without the excruciating feeling that change is right at the tips of my fingers, yet impossible to grasp. I feel like crying. But then I notice that Peter's mouth has flicked up into the barest hint of a smile.

“You look,” he says, “completely insane in that bonnet.”

I laugh loudly, and he covers my mouth with his own. I let the tray fall to our feet and grab him by the lapels of his jacket. We're being reckless and I know it, but something about him—the shape of his lips, the heat of his skin beneath his shirt, his grip at my waist—makes it worth the risk. He lifts me up and I slip my legs around his hips; he presses me against the wall of the closet and holds me there, kissing me. When he finally pulls away, his hair is adorably messy and he wears a satisfied grin. He lowers me to the ground.

“They're going to notice I'm gone, if they haven't already. I should get back.”

“Stay here. Tell them you were trying to Magdalene a wayward caterer.” I tug at the front of his shirt, unwilling to let go. “You saw the lust in her eyes as she offered you champagne, and the Holy Spirit compelled you to show her the error of her sinful ways.”

Peter smirks, mischievous. “That might work. Unfortunately I'd have to admit defeat—you've still got, like, a ton of lust in your eyes.”

I lean in to kiss him again. “Maybe you're not trying hard enough?”

“Vivian,” says Peter, fake serious. “I swear on the Book of Frick that I'm never going to try very hard to get the lust out of your eyes. I really, really like it there.”

Again, a shadow of the old Viv passes over me. She'd be blushing right now, hiding her face from Peter's sight, trying to convince herself he didn't mean a word of it. How many simple pleasures I denied myself, because I thought that was what goodness was. How stupid that it took me until the end of the world to realize it was something else entirely. Peter takes my hands into his and squeezes.

“When will I see you again?”

I shiver. “I don't know. Before next Friday, for sure. If the militia decides to go through with the attack, I'll come for you—Harp and I will come for you. We'll get you out of here.”

“That's going to be harder than you're making it sound,” Peter tells me. “And even if we pull it off—what about the rest of them?” He waves his hand in the direction of the party outside the door. “What happens to them?”

“I don't know,” I say helplessly. “We'll think of something, okay? I promise you we'll think of something. In the meantime, keep trying to convince Blackmore that it's a credible threat. The second I know what's coming, I'll be back to tell you directly.”

Peter says nothing, and I smile at him despite my nerves.

“Aren't you going to tell me it's too dangerous?” I ask. “It's an unnecessary risk? You wish you could protect me; if anything ever happened to me, you'd never forgive yourself . . . ?”

“If anything happened to you,” Peter says firmly, “I'd never forgive the person who did it. But I'm not going to lecture you, Viv. Why would I? I've never met a person more adept at handling herself than you. The last thing my girlfriend—my smart, stubborn badass of a girlfriend—needs is my protection.”

I feel my cheeks go pink. Peter has always considered me ten times more capable than I consider myself. There's something so intoxicating about being seen that way—the more convinced he seems of it, the more he convinces me. But that's not the reason I feel a happy glow like a sip of whiskey warming my insides.

“You just called me your girlfriend.”

Peter kisses me lightly on my forehead, nose, lips. “Get a hold of yourself, Apple,” he says, before he heads back into the party. “I'll give you my varsity jacket after we stop the apocalypse.”

I wait a few minutes, and then I slip out and pass through the kitchen with ease, concealed by the bustle of activity among the waiters, by the look of determination on my face, like I have a destination in mind and it's the next plate of shrimp cocktail. I glide through the back door without anyone stopping me, and once I'm past the fence I break into a run, shedding my bonnet and bow tie on the way. My heart pounds the whole drive home—thinking of Peter's scent, his warm proximity—but also it's like Winnie said: right or wrong, I can't help but feel invincible, slipping through the Church's fingers again and again, like water.

The next few days that follow are at once endless and far too short. I can't sleep more than a couple of hours a night; I don't have nightmares anymore because I don't sleep deeply enough to get them. I'm worried and exhausted, waiting each day for Diego to confirm whether or not they'll carry out Amanda's plan, but he's more inaccessible than ever, and Winnie has no insight. I can feel the cracks in the soldiers' resolve deepen, a tension humming under the surface of everything, ready to explode. When they aren't training, they run in and out of the command center throughout the day, checking with Harp for updates on the missing Raptured. But she's evasive with them; she won't give them a straight answer, and on Wednesday, when Colby storms out, dejected by her nonresponse, I ask, “Did anything ever come out of that correspondence you mentioned?”

Harp continues typing, staring at the screen like she hasn't heard me.

“Harp?” I say, louder. “Hello?”

“What?” She looks up, seemingly dazed. “Did you say something?”

But there's something false in her tone, like she's feigning confusion. “What's going on?” I ask. “Why won't you tell anyone what you're working on? Why won't you tell me?”

Harp pauses. “I don't know if it's for real yet, Viv. It seems kind of impossible that it's for real. I don't want to get anyone's hopes up until I'm sure.”

“There's no time to be totally sure,” I point out. I want to sound reasonable, but my voice comes out high and slightly panicked—I'm worried for Winnie and the others; I haven't yet figured out a way to get Peter and Dylan out of the Chateau. “As far as we can tell, the attack's in two days. If there's any chance at all that you have a lead, you need to share it now, while you still have the chance to change Diego's mind.”

“I'm working on it,” Harp mutters, returning to her typing.

“Harp—”

“Viv, I said I'm working on it! It's not like I don't get the stakes, okay?”

She doesn't quite yell, but her voice is hard, and I see something entirely new in her eyes—a kind of grit. I don't know what she knows right now, what her informant has told her, but I know she'll turn it into a weapon if she can. I don't push her any further.

Late that afternoon, Frankie bursts into the command center, rushing to the shelf where she keeps the first-aid kit; Birdie trails behind, half carrying Kimberly, whose face is beaten and bloody. Harp and I rush to help, but Kimberly claims to be better than she looks. She tells us she was walking home from training with the others when she noticed a group of young Non-Believers breaking into an electronics store to loot it; when she tried to intervene, they pounced on her. Kimberly tries to laugh it off with us—“I'd have been dead if it hadn't been for Dragoslav over here,” much to Birdie's vexation—but the incident unnerves everyone. It's hard to accept that it's no longer just the Believers that we ought to fear. We have to be on guard from every single person, no matter their ideology.

Thursday morning Diego informs me that I'll be joining him, Winnie, Elliott, and Robbie (filling in for the recovering Kimberly) later, on their final casing of the Chateau. I realize with a sinking heart that everything's settled: the attack will take place at noon tomorrow. Perhaps there was never any question whether it would or not.

“You're really going through with this, then.”

Diego looks exhausted. “Don't start, Vivian.”

“If you refused to attack the Chateau, Amanda would listen to you. She trusts you!”

“Vivian, please—”

“Don't do this to them.” I gesture to the rest of the militia milling about the room, lacing up boots and polishing weapons, pretending not to eavesdrop. “We won't survive this—you know we won't. There has to be another way!”

“See, this is what I don't think you get,” Diego snaps. “Amanda's not the only one who thinks this is a good idea—she and I planned it together, understand? You're seventeen, Vivian. I'm sorry, but it takes more than crossed fingers and daydreams to make real change happen.”

I balk. “Don't act like that's what I'm doing! And don't pretend you're
actually
a soldier! I don't understand how you could possibly think this is the only solution—how you could think it's even a good one. Diego—you're not a murderer!”

He pauses then, and sounding truly curious, he asks, “Do you think it's that simple? Do you think it's a case of being a killer, or not being one? Because I think it's more complicated than that. We all have this monster inside us. For the most part we're able to keep it under control. But when things get dire—when the world keeps pushing you down, keeps pushing your family down, like it's trying to drown you—something snaps. And you realize: That ability is there. It's always been there. And it doesn't seem so inconceivable anymore, to take a life. Not if it means getting your head above water.”

I'm silent, considering it. It's not that I don't understand him—I've felt it too, that monster. After Raj was killed, after I found out about my dad. When I thought the Angels were hurting Peter. When I thought Peter was one of them. I think at those moments I could have done it, if I'd had to. If it had come down to a choice between them or me, I think I could have killed the people who hurt me.