Metaltown (45 page)

“I don't need my own daughter telling me how to run my business.” For the first time, Lena's father raised his voice.

“You're right,” she said dryly. “You have your son. Otto. Who is nothing if not dedicated to Hampton Industries.”

He shook his head, his perfectly groomed hair falling loose around his eyes. His hands came to rest on his hips, and suddenly he looked old, older than she'd ever seen.

“You want weapons?” she continued. “You need Division II. Without the Small Parts factory, you're missing the necessary pieces to complete an explosive device. You have an empty shell of metal, with no mechanism to blow it up.”

“I know what they do,” he said.

“Then you know how important they are,” she said, stepping closer. “You have deadlines. Shipments that will soon be overdue. There are soldiers waiting for weapons.”
On this side and the other.
“Wasting time and money to stop a press is less lucrative than giving the charter what they want. They will still work for you, just as hard as before, if you bend just a little. If you don't, they won't be the only ones out of jobs; you will be too.”

He looked past her, toward Metaltown, where more smoke filled the sky with every second that passed. Shima gripped her hand. She held on to it like a lifeline.

“Choose your war, Father. The one inside this Federation, or the one outside of it.”

He faced her slowly, a curious, heavy expression weighing down his features.

“It was never supposed to go this far,” he said, and whether he meant with the press or the Advocates, she didn't know.

He waved his hand to summon the chief of police.

 

40

COLIN

Colin pushed on. The Small Parts Charter and those who had chosen to fight beside them had thickened the chain before the factory until they were a giant, pulsing mass, unstoppable in strength. They pushed the Brotherhood into the street, across the street, straight to the sidewalk on the opposite side.

His pulse hammered in his ears. They were going to win this. The Brotherhood couldn't take the pressure.

A great cheer erupted near the front of the lines as Jed's men scrambled away. Colin jumped to see if others had followed, and when he found they had, he was filled with such a sense of triumph that he pumped his fist overhead and whooped right along with them.

We did it,
he thought.
We beat the Brotherhood. We beat Jed Schultz.

He was light as a cloud. Everything they'd wanted, everything they'd fought for, it all was worth it now. They'd shown a bunch of sellouts that they could not be pushed down or ignored.

He searched for Ty, wanting to see her face now. Wanting her to know that this, right now, was for her. With a sinking sensation he remembered that she'd gone after Lena.

He grabbed the nearest shoulder, which turned out to be Henry's. “You seen Ty?”

He shook his head.

Colin found Noneck, but he hadn't seen Ty either. Not since she'd gone into the factory.

He was just about to go in after her when he heard shouts to his right, fearful cries, in the direction of the beltway. The line collapsed near the employee entrance; the charter scrambled to escape whatever approached from the bottom of Factory Row. It couldn't be another explosion; there was no smoke, no quake. But all the same, he hadn't seen Matchstick in some time.

Colin stood as tall as he could and squinted, and then saw what had jarred the others.

A battalion of black uniforms, moving together as a unit, the way he'd always imagined the soldiers did on the front lines. They had gray shields and black guns, and were close, less than fifty yards away.

His ma kept by his side, unwilling to lose sight of him since they'd linked arms. She studied his face, searching for the answer.

“Cops,” he told her. But it didn't matter, because the message was already being carried back. Some were running. Others were looking to him.

The guilt poured through him like hot, liquid metal. It was one thing to take on Schultz's men, but another entirely to face the police. The Brotherhood fought with muscle and blades—they had to get close enough to scrap. But cops … It didn't matter how hard you hit or how fast you split, they could pick you off from a distance and you'd be done.

“Run,” his ma told him, iron in her tone. “They'll come for you, Colin. You have to run.”

She placed her body in front of his, even as the fighters before her began to bolt. Standing solid, she looked ready to take on the whole lot of them, and in that moment he loved her more than ever.

But he wouldn't abandon his post. That wouldn't be right. He'd started this. The right thing was to finish it.

For the hundredth time he glanced back at the main entrance to the building. The smoke had slowed; the building wasn't going to burn after all. Lena was safe. Maybe she and Ty had gotten out when he wasn't looking. Telling himself this didn't make him feel any better.

He took a deep breath, and pictured Ty, and her face, and every nightmare she'd had to endure because of the Small Parts factory.

“Hold the line!” he roared.

His ma didn't turn around, but her body grew stiff, and she lowered, ready for a fight from any angle.

“Hold the line!” shouted Gabe. Colin nodded to him gratefully.

The word spread, and soon the running had stopped. The Brotherhood had disappeared, slunk away. All that remained were the good men and women of Metaltown who had faced them, who now waited in silence to see if the police would fight, or gun them down.

A tense anticipation blanketed them. Factory Row grew silent as a graveyard. Colin attempted to swallow, but his heart was lodged high in his throat, and he couldn't push it down.

Please don't be here, Lena.

He glanced around for Ty, wishing above all else that she was beside him. There was no one he'd rather have his back in a fight.

The army stopped. Colin and the others braced for them to discharge their weapons, but the shots never came.

A metallic hiss, then static, like the sound of Minnick's speakerbox in the factory. And then a booming male voice filled the taut space between them.

“The owner of Hampton Industries is ordering all factory workers to cease and desist their protesting until he can meet with charter leaders.”

Colin heard the words, but they took a long moment to sink in. Cease and desist. Another meeting would occur, and this time Hampton was requesting it.

Their front line—men with helmets and long plastic shields—held their position, but those behind them turned and marched away. Those fighting watched in awe as the entire group retreated up Factory Row.

We're alive,
Colin thought. But he almost couldn't believe it. He didn't understand what had happened, why the police had stopped. Did Hampton really want to end the press?

He couldn't help wondering if this was just a stunt to get him alone—to throw him back in food testing for what he'd done to Otto.

For a moment, no one knew what to say. It was Chip who spoke first, his high voice calling above the silence: “That's what I thought!”

And then there was cheering. Colin found himself at a loss for words, and gaped at the others, who slapped him on the back and offered their congratulations. His ma kissed him on the cheek, then disappeared to find Hayden. Henry embraced him so hard he thought his ribs would crack. Any confusion he felt, any doubt, was forced into the ground beneath his feet. The joy took him over like a tidal wave, and soon he was grinning and laughing and dancing, just like the others.

“Colin!” It was Martin who grabbed his shoulders and turned him away from the party that had erupted in the street. His face was pale as death, and for a moment Colin didn't understand why. Then he remembered that Zeke had said the Brotherhood had gone after his uncle.

“Hayak. Is he all right?”

“He's fine,” said Martin, pulling Colin toward the building.

“Then what is it?”

There was a small crowd near the doors, and through their feet, he could see a body, lying out on the walk.

His ears began to ring; the sounds behind him disappeared. He didn't remember running over, or pushing the others aside. He didn't remember falling hard to his knees, and scraping his hands on the rubble as he crawled closer. All he knew was that he was suddenly crawling up beside his best friend, and she was bleeding from a great sopping wound in her chest, and her ribs were rising and falling, rising and falling, too fast. Her skin was white, and around her busted eye the blue twisted mass of skin was pulled taut.

“Ty?” His voice didn't sound right. Sounded like someone far away. He couldn't touch her. He was going to break her. No, that wasn't right. She was unbreakable. She was the strongest person he knew.

“Ty, stop!” he shouted, and then he did put a hand on her wound, and felt the warm, sticky liquid pool against his palm. “Stop, okay? Quit messing around!”

Doctor,
he thought absently. And then:
the Brotherhood doctor won't see her.
It was stupid. They'd find a doctor, and he'd help her, and if he refused Colin would kill him, plain and simple.

“Colin?” Her voice was a weak groan. She held absolutely still, her hands clenched at her sides. The only things moving were her heaving chest and her fluttering eyelids.

“Where's the doctor?” Every muscle in him twisted. “Find someone!”

Footsteps as someone tore off toward the Stamping Mill. He followed the sound, eyes locking on the red path from the Small Parts main entrance that Ty had left on her struggle to this spot.

She was hurting. She'd been hurting a long time.

He pressed down harder, trying to slow her bleeding, but she cried out in pain, and he ripped his hand away. It hurt him, too. The pain was in his chest, in his muscles, but though he would have gladly done so, he couldn't bleed in her place.

“I'm sorry,” he choked.
I'm sorry I wasn't there. I'm sorry I didn't have your back. I'm sorry I sent you for Lena. I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry.

Her lips were moving, and he leaned down over her face.

“Took you long enough, Prep School,” she gasped.

The sob tore through him, like thunder from a black cloud. He gathered her close then, pulled her onto his lap and held her as tightly as he could. He could keep her here with him if he just held tight enough.

“Don't die,” he whispered. “Don't die.”

She choked, and he heard the gargle of fluids in her lungs. It was the same sound he heard at home, every night—the sound Cherish made when she coughed. But Ty wasn't sick. Not like that.

Fight harder,
he willed, angry with her. Furious at how easily she was giving in after all they'd been through.

“Keep talking,” she rasped.

“I … I don't know what to do.” He didn't know what she wanted. He felt like an idiot. He was her best friend; he should know what to say.

“Rosie's.”

His chest ripped wide open. He didn't want to tell her. He didn't want to say a word, because that made what was happening even more real. Real, in a way Rosie's could never be.

But this was Ty, and she never asked for anything. He couldn't deny her now.

He pulled in a shattered breath. “It's on the sea. Where the water's still blue.” Her hands knotted in his shirt. “There's a dock in the sun, and it's warm, hot even, and when we get too hot, we'll just jump in the water.”

She smiled against his cheek. Her breathing slowed.

He wanted to die.

“And we'll fish, you and me. We'll go out on one of those big boats like they used to have. And we'll catch all sorts of stuff, and then we'll cook it up and get fat. You and me, we're going to be old and fat one day, okay?”

Her hand slipped from his chest. It landed on the cement and lay unmoving, and Colin rocked back and forth and stared at the hazy sky and tried to imagine Ty as an old lady.

He tried and he tried. But he could never see her older than she was right then.

 

41

TY

Blue water. Blue like steel. Blue like Colin's eyes.

She could feel it. Filling her. Seeping between her fingers and her toes. In the spaces between her bones. In the gaps between her teeth.

“Ty?” His voice was far away. She clung to it, even through the water. Even after the sky went dark, and his face faded into memory.

“
Ty!
”

*   *   *

He was thirteen. All arms and legs. Fresh meat. The older boys at the factory, they knew it. They'd backed him into the corner, intending to give him a proper Metaltown welcome, and he snapped back at them like a wild dog that didn't know he was already beat.
Back off,
she snarled.
I've got safety on him. He's mine.

*   *   *

They lay on their stomachs in the high grass, watching the trains. The bugs bit at her neck and her wrists but she didn't care. He told her stories about his brother. He told her about his family. And soon, they were her stories, too.

*   *   *

She taught him how to fight. To keep his elbows close to his body. To protect his throat.
Hit me,
she said.
If you can.
He would see how it felt then. He'd be ready next time.

He wouldn't hit her.

*   *   *

He was laughing with the others. He laughed so hard his eyes pinched shut, and he gripped her thigh and rocked back. Three layers of clothing to his touch. She could feel the heat from his palm.
Don't stare. Don't move.

He laughed, and she wasn't hungry anymore. He laughed, and she wasn't cold.

*   *   *