Vivian Apple Needs a Miracle (25 page)

I try to let Peter's words sink in. If it's a lie, it's a sweet one. If it's what he really believes, it makes me love him more. I don't think I believe it quite yet, but I want to, and that alone seems to fill this pit of despair in my stomach. I lean forward to kiss him.

“You give good speeches, Ivey,” I tell him when I pull away. “It must be hereditary.”

Peter can't help grinning—he pushes me onto the bed, pinning my hands above me, kissing me hard. I close my eyes, feel Peter trace a line of kisses down my throat to the hollow of my collarbone. The pleasure is like a tangible thing inside me, a tight line drawn from my head to my toes, a guitar string plucked and thrumming. He lets go to unzip my hoodie, and I touch the warm bare skin of his shoulders. I'm consumed with a weird urge to take a bite out of him.

He says: “Listen, don't take this as an insult—”

“Always a promising start to a sentence.”

“I thought you were pretty before and everything. But this dressed-in-black, traipsing-around-enemy-territory-in-a-bonnet, climbing-up-fire-escapes Vivian is really doing it for me.”

I push him off me; he laughs and rolls onto his back. Hesitating a second at my still-new boldness, I climb on top of him.

“You realize, of course, that us bringing down the Church means I won't be climbing up many fire escapes after tonight, right?” I say. “Once I lose fugitive status, I'll probably revert to wearing bright colors and using doors.”

Peter's eyes grow wide. “Maybe we should postpone this demonstration a while. I'm not ready to say goodbye to Ninja Viv.”

We lose nearly an hour this way, kissing, pausing only to try and make each other laugh. It's the most alone I've ever been with him, and I feel a slippery, tumbling feeling, the unasked question: Are we doing this? Right now? But I decide to relax. It's enough to be here with him; it's enough to know that after tomorrow we'll have who knows how many secluded hours to spend together. Finally he pauses and opens a drawer on the bedside table. He pulls the sledgehammer pendant out from within and folds my hand around it. “Keep it,” he says. “You'll need it even when Ninja Viv retires.” I slip it into my pocket.

“I should go,” I say.

“I'll see you tomorrow, though.” Peter leans back and blinks sleepily, smiling at me. “In public, even. The sun will be up!”

The crook of his shoulder looks so inviting that even though I know I have to leave, I crawl into it, laying my head on his chest. I hear the steady, comforting thump of his heart. “Do you realize that after tomorrow, we could go on dates? Theoretically, we could eat a meal together. We could sit down in public with each other and actually eat a meal.”

“Oh man.” Peter yawns. “I'd enjoy that so much. We should go to movies. You like movies, right?”

“Who doesn't like movies, Peter?” I hear him laugh. I feel my eyelids grow heavy; I try to force myself up.
Five more minutes.

“You'd be surprised, Viv. Anyway, that's what we'll do. After tomorrow.”

And his chest starts to rise and fall, slow and steady. I feel temporarily drained of my sadness and fear—there's a pleasant, numb sleepiness in my limbs.
I'm just going to close my eyes for one second,
I tell myself, and warm and comfortable, with Peter's arm around me, I drift into sleep.

When I snap awake, I know instantly it's much later. I still hold the last image of the nightmare I had in my head: Robbie's bloodied face, his mouth open and screaming. The ceiling is bright with sun, and I realize with an awful plummeting sensation that the thing that woke me was a sharp noise—the smacking of skin on skin, a burst of angry muttering. I push myself up in bed and there they are at the foot of it, smiling curiously down at me: Ted Blackmore and Michelle Mulvey. Their expressions are a perfect blend of malevolence and genuine pleasure, like I'm a delicious meal they're eager to dig into. I stare back at them, reaching beside me to where Peter lies, to wake him. But he's not there: the bed is empty. I feel a flare of horror at the sight of the empty sheets, but then Mulvey shifts, revealing the scene behind her. Peter is on his knees by the window; two Peacemakers hold his arms at a painful angle behind his back. His mouth drips blood. I nearly scream, but Peter shakes his head. We're long past the point of screaming.

“Vivian Apple!” Mulvey delights in drawing out each syllable. Her blond hair is pulled into a bun so tight I can see the outline of her skull. “You look
positively
angelic when you sleep! Doesn't she look like an angel, Ted?”

“Frick bless her,” Blackmore agrees, starting to laugh. “She really does. Like an absolute angel.”

I don't speak. I don't move. I sit there in bed and wait for the Angels to stop laughing at the joke. When they finally do, Mulvey wraps a strong hand around my forearm, digging her nails—painted a pale pink but filed sharp, like talons—into my skin. She yanks me out of bed.
Don't fight; don't cry out.
I catch the time on the clock as I fall to the floor: just after seven. Harp will have posted Joanna's story by now, and soon she'll be here. Maybe Peter and I can escape during the chaos, but only if we give them no reason to hurt us. Mulvey kicks the pointed tip of her shoe into a tender spot below my rib cage.

“Up,” she demands.

I get to my feet. Two more Peacemakers have arrived. One is older, with an eager, friendly face; the other is Derrick, the huge Peacemaker usually stationed outside the kitchens. Under Blackmore's orders, Derrick pins my arms back; he and the other Peacemaker escort me into the hall. Peter is dragged out behind us. “Don't hurt her!” he calls out—an unconvincing warning that makes all the Peacemakers laugh.

Doors open by inches as we struggle down the hall, and I see the eyes of nervous Church employees peer through the cracks, only to disappear when they see Mulvey and Blackmore bringing up the rear. The Angels get into the elevator, but the Peacemakers drag Peter and me down the stairwell. I feel Derrick slow down slightly, and I realize with a crushing panic that he's letting Peter and the others pass. “What are you doing?” Peter shouts, struggling against the arms holding him. “Viv!” But they just pull him screaming down the steps. My composure cracks when Derrick pushes me against the wall of the narrow stairwell; I lose my footing and slip a bit, crying out, but he presses himself firmly against me.

“Come on now, son,” warns the older Peacemaker, sounding nervous.

“Tempted the blessed Taggart's son into falling? Is that what you did?” Derrick's voice is a hot wet slick in my ear. “Do you know what happens to whores, little girl?”

“Derrick, let's not—”

“Shut up, Wilkins!” Derrick snaps at the other Peacemaker. He returns his mouth to the side of my face. “They shall be burnt with fire, little girl. That's what's going to happen to you, when the Day of Judgment comes.”

“Come on.” Wilkins sounds firm now; he pulls Derrick back. “They're waiting. You can have your fun later on.”

A pause, then he relents. Wilkins takes my arms now, but if I thought he'd be gentler, I'm wrong—he yanks me down to the lobby with even more force, drags me through the ornate, oak-paneled foyer where I once surreptitiously served champagne, and down another short set of steps through a door I recognize as the main entrance. Two sleek cars wait in the drive. I glance hopefully at the gates where Harp and the others will gather—maybe they're here already? Maybe they came to look for me? But in the brief moment before I'm pushed into the nearest car, I see no one. The gate is open, anticipating our exit; the spot where Harp will stand shimmers in the excruciating heat. But it's empty.

Inside the car is icy air conditioning and Michelle Mulvey typing on a smartphone. “Okay,” she calls to the driver, and we trail the other black car into the hills of Los Angeles.

We weave through a maze of wide commercial boulevards lined by tall palms and dotted with signs of impending doom: the smashed glass of storefronts; starved-looking families pushing their belongings in shopping carts; huge signs reading
NO WATER
in front of the scorched façades of restaurants; more than a few motionless heaps by the side of the road I realize after a moment to be bodies; a red pickup truck straddling an intersection, on fire. I glance up to read a Church billboard above—
THE ROAD TO HEAVEN IS NARROW, AND OVERCROWDED WITH THE DAMNED
—and notice the foreboding heaviness of the clouds, the sepia-toned sky.

The wide boulevards soon give way to narrow residential streets lined by hauntingly empty mansions. Mulvey finally slips her phone into her attaché case and turns to me, folding her hands primly over one knee.

“So, Vivian.” She has a bright, expectant look on her face. “You know, it'll sound funny, considering the position we're in, but I do admire you, in a way. It takes a bold young lady to stand up to something capable of squashing her like a bug. That's what I think you are, Vivian—a bold young lady, I mean. But in these times, you might find it a safer course to put the emphasis on the
lady
rather than the
bold.

“If you could stand a little advice, I think you should consider . . .
redirecting
your prodigious energies,” Mulvey continues. “You're smart. Surely you can appreciate that the situation is not as simple as your friend's blog makes it out to be. For instance, I notice Harp never once mentioned all the Church of America's charitable works. Just last year, we gave over ten million dollars to inner-city food banks!” She raises an eyebrow at me as she pauses to let this sink in. “And even if—theoretically—we told a lie or two, can't you appreciate that such lies give sense to the senseless? Do you understand how much chaos would reign if people didn't understand what was happening, or why?”

“It seems pretty chaotic even
with
the lies,” I say, thinking of the bodies on the sidewalk, but Mulvey shakes her head.

“Trust me, Vivian. It would be worse. Any idiot can see the planet is dying. Can you imagine what would happen if we told ourselves it was all our fault, rather than the righteous course of an angry God? The guilt would be unbearable, Vivian. As a nation, we'd fall apart. The government would shut down. Mass suicide. Mass murder. It'd be the collapse of civilization as we know it.”

“But . . . it
is
our fault!” I protest. “And those things
are
happening now, because you've convinced everyone there's no time to stop it!”

Mulvey makes a disappointed,
tsking sound at me. “Here's some more advice: I think you really need to work on how you get your message across. You sound
very
negative right now. It might interest you to know that we did some internal polling? And about sixty-seven percent of Believers said they didn't believe your story because you and Harp both came across as, quote, ‘angry shrews.' You should think more about the image you project into the world.”

I'm amazed. I can tell she's no fool—some part of her genuinely believes what she's telling me, wants me to believe as well—but her lack of self-awareness makes me furious.

“It must be really nice,” I say, turning to the window, “to have this story to tell yourself when you're up late at night, thinking of all the people you've killed.”

Pain, stinging and sharp across the left side of my face. Then a dull roar in my head. Mulvey has hit me hard, the force of it smashing my head against the window. I touch my jawline and come away with bloody fingers; her nails have sliced me.

“You're a child.” She speaks calmly now, but I sense the quivering undercurrent of rage, and I make a point to remember:
sore subject.
“It was optimistic to hope you'd be capable of understanding things far beyond your maturity level.”

Coolly then, as though only pleasantries have passed between us, Mulvey takes her phone from her bag and types furiously upon it. When she looks up again, she has a cruel smile on her face. “By the way—though of course you'll say it's none of my business—but even a secular society considers it pretty déclassé to give it up to boys you barely know in hotel rooms. Not a good look, Vivian. Have some self-respect.”

The car enters a wooded area, climbing higher through the rolling hills. I press my face to the window, trying to memorize our route. I catch snatches of a breathtaking vista through the trees: the city before us, thick tendrils of smoke rising up disconcertingly from more than one neighborhood. How far are we now from the Chateau Marmont? Soon my friends will descend upon it with the supposed Raptured. When that happens, will Mulvey and Blackmore be called away to deal with them? Will Peter and I be able to overtake the Peacemakers? I remember Derrick's breath on my face and try to still the queasy flutter in my chest.

Finally a structure appears in front of us—white brick with a large gold domed roof. An expanse of green lawn in front of it has been turned into a parking lot; our car rolls up to the front steps of the building, and I watch an alarming number of Peacemakers burst through the front doors. The group splits in two, and one marches to my door—before I can react, they've flung it open and pulled me from the car.

“Beautiful, isn't it?”

I look across and see Peter being handled in the same way. His mouth falls open at the sight of my bleeding face. Blackmore, following at a short distance, continues speaking as if we're in the middle of a casual conversation.

“It used to be an observatory, until we bought it last year.” He walks alongside the guards pushing me up the steps and inside. “I have to say, I feel a twinge of guilt when I think how we've denied the public this place. But it's just too rich a metaphor, don't you think? This open view up to the heavens? Makes you want to cry.”