Chapter 17: XV: PERFECT FOR THE APOCALYPSE!

[ ━━ ❝ ✧˚⋆｡☾✩˚⋆｡࿐❞ ━━ ]

MAYA

(tw: lots of death. mention of police brutality n racism. rich people and cops being assholes, the usual)

IF ANYONE FROM MAYA'S PAST LIFE is still alive, it's going to be motherfucking Vic Daugherty. That ginger bitch had been a motherfucking apocalypse prepper. She'd kept a Wall of Beans in her basement.

Beans. Huh.

Maya's salivating at the idea of beans.

She's trying very hard not to think about food.

It's Ramadan, so it's not like she'd be eating anything right now, anyways. But still. She didn't eat anything last night. She hasn't had anything to eat or drink for the past two days. Her hunger's a constant ache in her stomach, a knife weaving its way through her intestines. Her throat burns like the pricks on a dry desert cactus. Cain keeps complaining about how hungry he is, and the jackass better feel lucky that it's Ramadan, or he'd be getting his ass beat right about now.

Okay, okay. Maya knows she shouldn't be swearing, not even in her head. But it's hard, okay? She gets hangry, and Cain's really testing her patience.

Luca navigates the van he'd hot-wired into Vic's blue-paved driveway. The house is a small two-story, the windows boarded up. It's covered from roof to ground in BEWARE OF DOG stickers, literally. Maya can't see a square inch of wall left uncovered. Luca parks the car, and the group begins to pile out. From inside the house rings the sound of two dogs baying, deep and guttural. There's a short set of stairs leading up to the front porch, but, long ago, after Maya's accident, the Daugherty's had a wheelchair ramp installed for Maya. Maya and Vic had been that close.

She'd been ten years old when it happened, playing Peewee ice hockey. The last thing she saw before she was slammed into the ice so hard she'd never walk again was Brittany Davidson's beautiful face.

Peewee ice hockey took no prisoners, and Brittany Davidson was kicking ass and taking names.

She'd actually go on to play professionally for the Buffalo Beauts. Not that Maya cared or anything. It was just that she'd loved hockey and she'd loved walking and running and dancing and skating and Brittany Davidson took everything away from her and, really, that bitch did not deserve to play for the Buffalo Beauts. Not after what she'd done to poor little ten-year-old Maya Zaman.

Maya's already on the verge of tears, thinking about such characters as Vic Daugherty and Brittany Davidson. "Oh, thank God, at least her dogs are still alive." She sniffles into her shirtsleeve. "Last time I saw 'em, they were just little puppies."

She reaches up to ring the doorbell, but no sound comes out. Nothing happens. The dogs start barking louder. Maya's a little intimidated; they sound ginormous and terrifying, and she's never really been around an animal any bigger than Fidel Castro. She peers in through the cracks in the boarded-up windows, but she can't see any light coming from inside.

Is Vic dead? Are her dogs the only reminders that Maya's past life ever even existed? How come they haven't starved to death? Did they have to resort to eating the rotting corpse of their owner? Did they have any morals restraining them from initially eating her?

Impatient, Maya knocks on the door. Nothing happens. She knocks again. The dogs are practically shitting themselves on the other side of the door. She sighs, knocks another time. There's a loud creaking noise coming from behind the door. Maya's practically shitting herself on this side of the door.

Slowly, a wooden plank is removed from the window closest to the door. Blackout curtains are frantically pushed to the side, even though the house is so dark, Maya doesn't know why she'd need them. She can only see the whites of a pair of eyes looking out at her.

The blackout curtains fall shut, and Maya hears the plank being put back up on the window, the scrape of wood against glass. The same creaking sound filters out from behind the door.

"Is that her?" Callie asks, a whisper.

Maya can't let herself hope. If it's not Vic . . .

The dogs give one last howl. The door opens a crack, and a tall, thin girl squeezes half her body out of it, the blue light from her phone lighting her face up. She stands for just long enough for Maya to get a good look at her, and boy, is there a lot to look at: a beautiful but tragic face, horrifically scarred and gaunt from starvation. Cracked lips. Skin as pale as hospital sheets. A wild tangle of red curls and fiery freckles and emerald green eyes. A jumble of clashing layered clothes. She looks like what would happen if Shake It Up era Bella Thorne was on the verge of death.

"I HAVE PEPPER-SPRAY!" Vic Daugherty screams. Behind her legs, her dogs growl.

"Calm down, babe." Maya holds her hands out, showing that she's weaponless. "It's just—it's just me. Maya Zaman. Don't you remember me?"

Vic stares at her for a moment, her chest heaving, her piercing green gaze peering through the doorway like poison rolling through waves of oil. "Maya?" she asks, incredulous. "I thought you were dead."

"I'm not," Maya mumbles. She feels like a cleaver's struck her in the back. "I think I'm alive."

Vic grins. "You bastard, we had a funeral for you and everything! I had to burn all my old Hannah Montana CDs because they reminded me so much of you!" And then she tackles Maya with a hug, sobbing into her shoulder, knocking her chair backwards a few harrowing feet. She slams the door shut with her foot, and her dogs begin frantically scratching at it in protest.

"Food," Maya mumbles. "Water."

"What?" Vic almost seems knocked back a step. "Do you guys need something to eat? I don't know if I have enough to feed all of you, but I can try to come up with something . . . "

"I need food," Maya reiterates.

"Okay, okay." Vic steps aside, gesturing for Maya to come in, shoving her dogs behind her . "Come on in, all of you. My home is yours. You still remember where the kitchen is?"

"Boy, do I." Maya wheels herself inside, her new friends—should she even call them that?—and Callie trailing awkwardly behind her. She sees Vic's eyes linger on them a second longer than necessary, drinking them in. Maybe seizing them up, deciding how many of them she could hold off in a fight. Vic is that kind of girl, after all.

"Maya, you're a mother duck. They're all following you," Vic says, smiling like the sight of it amuses her. Of course it does. The bastard. "So cute."

Vic leads them into a dark room, cramming them all into it like sardines. She turns on a single light—an electric lantern that washes all of their faces in a thin shade of television-static blue. The low lighting makes it difficult for Maya's eyes to capture the big picture, she can only put tiny pieces together: a blue knit blanket thrown over an old leather couch, two big, slobbery mastiffs, a collection of photographs hanging over the fireplace on rusty nails.

Vic has her arms crossed over her chest, standing there in front of her couch. She looks like she's waiting for something. "So, are you gonna introduce me to your new friends, or?"

Is Vic really doing this right now? Maya feels her blood start to itch and burn. They used to get in dumb little fights like this all the time. With all that happened, what, with the nuclear bombs and nearly dying of radiation poisoning and everything, she figured Vic might have grown up a little bit. Maya knows that she has, at least. "So, are you gonna feed us, or are we gonna starve to death? I've gone two days without food, Daugherty. Much longer than you could go without looking in a mirror." So maybe she hasn't. Maybe Maya's the same petty bitch she was when she was fourteen years old. Who cares? She's starving, and Vic has the nerve to keep food from her. All because she's jealous of Maya's new fucking friends!

Vic's eyebrows arch, disappearing under a blanket of red.

"Maya!" hisses Silas, like he gets any say in the matter.

"Oh, you wanna 'Maya' me?" Maya asks. "I'll 'Maya' you, you son of a—"

"MAYA." Callie insists, grabbing her roughly by the shoulder.

Meredith steps protectively between Maya and Silas, pushing her shoulders back. She can be really kind of intimidating when she wants to be. She looks like some kind of Viking warrior goddess. "Leave him out of this."

Vic has disappeared.

"Oh, fuck," Maya mumbles. "Where'd she go?"

Cain's made himself at home, spread out on the couch. "You scared her off."

"But she had food."

"This was a mistake," Callie whispers, nervously toying with a blackout curtain.

"What?" asks Maya. "No."

"Yes, it was!" Callie exclaims. "That ginger chick is gonna tell you that your family's dead, and then you'd've gotten us all killed for nothing!"

Rachel and Avani are standing still, quietly observing. Avani looks straight on the verge of tears.

Cain suddenly sits straight up. "What do you mean, she's gonna get us killed for nothing!"

"Not for nothing!" Maya insists.

"The radiation poisoning!" Callie replies. "I don't know, it might . . . it might kill us?"

"Caroline. Be honest with me." Bianca puts her hands on the girl's shoulders. "Do you think we're going to die?"

"Probably not."

"Do you think my family's dead?" Maya asks. "Do you think my family's fucking dead?"

It's at that moment that Vic returns, carrying a tray of white rice, pinto beans, and something that looks like moldy slabs of dog food—some kind of meat. She's tucked a gallon-jug of water under her arm. "You guys, I brought refreshments!"

There's a moment of still silence. Callie and Maya stare her down. Cain's the first to move.

"Food is food, amirite?" He sits up, his eyes falling on the meat slab. "Yo, what the fuck is that?"

"Have you never seen rice before?" Atlas asks, genuinely confused.

Cain gasps, his hand flying to his chest. "I literally live on carbs, you uneducated piece of shit."

"Sorry, sorry."

"This old puppy? It's pemmican." Vic proudly holds up a piece of the meat slab. "The Native Americans invented it, and my dear old dad taught me how to make it. It'll last for ten years. Perfect for the apocalypse . . . " She vaguely gestures around her. "Or whatever the hell this is."

"It's edible." Maya doesn't care how nasty the pemmican looks. She also doesn't care that the sun's still out; she's legitimately starving. She might die if she doesn't eat soon. She knows Allah will understand. Besides, she's already salivating at the mouth. There's no going back. "Give it here."

Vic passes out bowls, cups, and the jug of water, letting everyone pour their own. She dishes out everyone's food, but Maya thinks it's more like rations. She only gives her about a cup of rice and beans and a slice of pemmican. When Maya complains, all she does is purse her lips and move on to serve Avani. They eat in silence in a circle in the middle of Vic's living room, her mastiffs watching them expectantly. Maya doesn't care. She devours her food, Callie telling her to slow down or she'll get sick. Actually, everyone's devouring their food. Hungry and desperate, they eat like animals. It's weird, sitting here in this dark house, huddled around the only light source, scarfing down post-apocalyptic food. Maya feels like she's hiding in a bomb shelter.

Well, everyone devours their food except Vic, who eats it calmly and slowly, like she's trying to savor the taste. She watches as her visitors eat, looking curious, almost bemused. She seems horribly proud of herself. She gathers their dishes once they're finished, disappearing only to return a few moments later.

Maya thinks it might be fair for her to be enjoying this because, like, come on. The dumb bitch has been prepping all her life for something like this to happen. Let her have her moment to show off for her old best friend.

One of the dogs rests her slobbery muzzle on Maya's knee, the drool catching in the fabric of her cheap leggings. The second one is on its back, stretched out over Atlas and Silas' laps. Her tongue's lolling out of her mouth, drool dripping like honey, her tail lazily wagging. Both the boys are absolutely ecstatic over this development. Maya can't tell who looks happier: them or the dog.

Maya scratches the dog's head. "What's this lil guy's name?" she asks. Vaguely, she remembers it being something dumb . . . Cat? Tiny? Something like that.

"Syrup." Vic answers, looking fondly down at her dog. Then she gestures to the other one. "And that's Maple."

"Maple Syrup," Atlas realizes, his face full of pure glee. "Oh, my God! That's so cute!"

"I'm literally gonna kill myself," Silas cries. "I'm never gonna have it this good again."

"You know what else is cute?" Cain interrupts. "Me. I'm cute."

Atlas dismisses him with a wave of his hand. "Oh, shut up already."

Vic tucks her legs up against her chest, resting her chin on her knee. "So, who are you?"

Maya jumps in instantly, pointing at the Royal Jackass himself. "This is Cain," she says, affectionate. "He's gay."

"Still seeking to find all the gays in the world and befriend them, huh?" Vic asks.

"It's the lesbian agenda," Maya explains. "Your straight ass wouldn't get it."

Teasing, Vic slaps her own ass.

"Real talk, I'm helping them and now they're helping me." And Maya goes through and introduces the rest of them to Vic, blending her old friend in with the new.

Vic buzzes happily. "It's been so long since I've had anyone actually exciting to talk to . . . the only one that comes around anymore is Mr. Jansen from next door, and he smells like cheese curds."

Maya hates to burst her bubble, but there's been something bothering her ever since she entered this place. "You know they made you guys pay for this?"

"You think I don't know?" Vic has her arms crossed over her chest, her eyes narrowed to silts.

"What do you mean?" Bianca asks.

"Like I said. How they had to pay a fee most couldn't afford to get out of this place before the bombs went off and the wall went up," Maya explains.

"But the corruption started long before that," Vic adds. "Before they even started building the wall, taxes skyrocketed."

Callie rolls her eyes. "You know, I'm just so glad Syria didn't bomb us for killing our own people."

"They had them pay to secure their own spots in this death trap?" asks Atlas, sounding horrified, though he doesn't look it. Syrup's abandoned Maya to be with him, and now he's snuggling with both the dogs, cooing at the about what good puppies they are and how much he loves his babies. He looks like he's in heaven.

Silas, beside him, absently rubs Maple's belly, his expression troubled.

"But the taxes didn't apply to any of the rich fuckers that would actually be benefiting from the wall," Maya says. "Whole Foods, Von Maur, Vineyard Vines—all those places the bourgeoisie like to shop were hardly taxed at all. But Walmart and Goodwill, they were taxed like crazy. The rich didn't pay a dime to live, but the poor just about had to pay their life savings to die."

"But that's not fair," Silas protests, soft but angry. "That's not fair. Why didn't anyone say anything? Why didn't somebody do something?"

"People have and people did, but everyone with the power to do anything was benefitting from it," Maya replies. "Besides, most of the people protesting were people of color. White people were too busy drawing vaginas on picket signs to give a shit. And you know how it goes: people of color daring to speak up are never taken seriously. We're angry and irrational and dangerous and a threat to society; white protesters are brave and inspiring and the future and democracy in the flesh. It's bullshit."

"And the people that benefitted from it, they just let it happen?" Silas questions.

"Of course they did." Rachel rolls her eyes; it's the first thing she's said the entire time we've been here. "People are selfish, Silas."

Maya folds her hands together in her lap. "Okay, Si, let's say that I can grant you immortality, but it's at the cost of ten other people's lives. If you don't take me up on the offer, I'll kill you. You'd accept it."

"I would not," Silas shakes his head, looking at Maya almost defiantly.

"Maybe you wouldn't," says Atlas, "but the US government would."

Luca Terranova holds his hand up in agreement. "Trump's a motherfucking billionaire and people in our country's own streets are starving. Trump's a motherfucking billionaire and Flint, Michigan still doesn't have clean water. Trump's a motherfucking billionaire and millions of Americans don't have access to health insurance. He's Louis XIV in his palace, and we need to bring back the guillotine. That or socialism."

Maya, Callie, and Vic stare at him, confused.

Maya is the one to question him: "Who the fuck is Trump?"

"You know." He stares at her. "Donald Trump, our transphobic, sexist, xenophobic, racist, Islamaphobic POTUS. And I could go on."

"Never heard of him," says Vic.

"Our president is all those things, but her name's Joan Baumhauer," Callie replies.

Maya grins sardonically. "But at least she's a woman, right? Go feminism!"

Vic lets out a short, sharp laugh. "So, Maya, why are you here?" she asks. "Why, after all these years, did you show up on my doorstep? I'm guessing it's not because you missed me."

"No. I mean, I did miss you, but . . . " Maya trails off, spinning her necklace around in her fingers. "I need your help."

"With . . . ?"

"My family . . . " Maya trails off, rolling the thought around in her head like tough dough. Something poignant cuts into her chest; maybe guilt, maybe loss, maybe bitter nostalgia. Her family. Her dumb dorky parents, hopelessly in love even after twenty years and two children. Her annoying little sister, still kicking ass on the ice even after Maya's accident. Her family. She takes a deep breath, steeling herself over. "I need to find my family. Do you know what happened to them? Do you know if they're still alive?"

Maya isn't some hippie-ass white bitch. She doesn't have her chakras aligned with with her fucking kale smoothie. She doesn't even know what kale is. This emotional vulnerability . . . she's not familiar with it, she's not comfortable with it. It kind of scares her.

She might not be as in-touch with her emotions as she'd like to be, but she knows that the worst part of bearing the weight of the world is knowing that you don't have to bear it alone. It would be one thing if she was some kind of hermit that didn't give a shit about anyone but herself and her home town was bombed by a corrupt institution, killing all the innocent people trapped inside, but she cares about people. She cares about everyone. Maya Zaman has a huge-ass heart, and it's horribly inconveniencing.

She wonders how many of them survived the initial bombing.

She wonders if a quick death would have been kinder.

Something softens in Vic's harsh green eyes. She takes a moment to mull over her answer, temporarily caught off guard. "Sweetheart, I'm so sorry." There's a heavy, horrible pause; her words hang in the air, deadly as carbon monoxide. "Nikki disappeared just after you did. We thought you left together. We thought both of you were killed. We gave you a joint funeral and everything. And your parents . . . your parents passed away about six months ago."

Maya's never seen death up close before. As a child, the only person she ever lost was her great-grandpa. But he'd been 107 years old and died peacefully in his sleep, his old heart finally calling it quits, so it wasn't like he counted as an actual death. Besides, she'd only been three when he passed. The only thing she remembers about him is that he only spoke Hindi, and her grandma would refuse to translate what he said into English. Maya never understood a word the man said.

She knew that her family was going to die the second that the wall went up, but it never exactly registered with her. Not until she saw the security footage of Rachel inside the wall. Not until she actually went into the lion's den for herself. Not until now, when she's sitting across from Vic Daugherty, and she's telling her that her family's dead.

Death is inevitable and life is largely meaningless. There are seven billion suffering hearts underneath this same starry sky, seven billion hearts beating together. And every heart will one day still. Maya knows this, has known this.

She just never thought that the hearts of those she loves the most would ever still.

Which of her friends will go next? Her beloved Callie, sweet little Avani? What if it's Silas, precious Silas? Do the good really die young? And what about Cain and Atlas? Will they go out hand-in-hand, like lovers do? What if Maya herself is next? Would that be fair? Is any of this fair?

"From radiation poisoning," Vic's explaining, as if Maya would even want to hear it. "It was a peaceful death, not much suffering. Not as bad as others were. Neither of them had been sick very long, and your dad went in his sleep—"

"Stop talking," Maya insists.

"Sorry!" Vic squeaks.

"I said stop talking. So. Shut. The. Fuck. Up." Maya hisses.

Callie takes a tentative step forwards, placing her gentle hands on Maya's shoulders. "Are you okay?"

"No!" Maya exclaims, her grief exploding in an angry red fire. She keeps slamming her fists into her thighs, overandoverandoverand again, trying to get her body to feel something, to feel anything, to SUFFER, GODDAMNIT, SUFFER, SHE LEFT HER FAMILY TO DIE, SHE LEFT HER GODDAMN FUCKING FAMILY TO DIE, WHY CAN'T HER LEGS BURN AND BRUISE AND BREAK? WHY CAN'T ANYTHING INSIDE OF HER BREAK? WHY DIDN'T SHE SAVE THEM? WHY DIDN'T SHE SAVE ANYONE? WHY COULDN'T SHE?

A voice in the back of her head is screaming at her, screaming at her, screaming at her. She could have saved her family. She could have brought them with her. She could have saved everyone . . . she could have torn the wall down with her bare hands. She could have bombed the Terranova Institute, given them a taste of their own medicine. Or she could have stayed; she could have died with them. Even that would have been better than this, this feeling of overwhelming loss and helplessness and guilt.

She could have saved someone if she hadn't been so focused on saving herself.

Callie, undeterred, grabs hold of Maya's wrists. "Stop it, Maya, you're gonna hurt yourself!"

"Don't touch me," Maya demands, her voice more a shriek than a command. "Get away from me. Get away from me, you sick son-of-a-bitch."

Callie flinches. "What do you mean?"

"You killed my parents," Maya sobs. "You killed my sister, and you killed my family. Your fucking institute killed my family. Why didn't we try to stop them, Callie? Why didn't we do anything? Why don't you do something now, to . . . to avenge all the people they killed? Why do you still support them?"

Callie drops Maya's hands, blundering back a step, stammering. "I . . . I don't support them. I need the job, and I need the experience, and I want to try to make a change in the way that they—"

"You and I both know that isn't true."

Callie just stands there for a moment, dumbfounded. Her eyes glow brighter than the lantern. "Maya, I'm sorry," she finally says, her voice as soft and as smooth as warm velvet. "I'll leave my internship the second we get home. I'll have my mom try to get me one at the hospital she works at. And I promise you, I'm going to do everything that I can to bring that institute to its knees."

Maya doesn't even care about Callie's stupid fucking institute. She just wants her family back—she just wants all of the lives lost to come back to life. Because only now that she's tasted death's breath has she really begin to digest what happened to her home town.

Warwick, at its prime, was a city just shy of 100,000 people with almost 40% below the poverty line, making it one of New Hampshire's largest and poorest cities. By the time the wall went up, around half the population was left inside of it. The other half had dug their way out. Within six monts, with the exception of around a thousand or so stragglers like Vic, 50,000 people were dead.

The Luca Terranova of Maya's dimension wasn't just murderous. He was genocidal. He killed 50,000 members of the lowest class so 50,000 rich bastards could live.

The numbers made it difficult for Maya to wrap her head around. The human mind wasn't made to process suffering on such a massive scale. If a hundred people had died, she'd have understood it, been hurt by it, grieved over it, gotten angry and upset and frustrated. If two hundred people had died, maybe it would have caught her attention. But anything more than that and the death toll started making less and less sense. What was the difference between three- and five-hundred? A thousand and two thousand? Ten- or twenty-thousand? A mere thousand to fifty-thousand?

The larger the numbers, the fuzzier the lines. Fifty percent of her home town's population was gone in a puff of smoke and blood, and what did it mean to her? Numbers are relative. One can't rationalize the magnitude of such a tragedy until it directly affects oneself, and once it does . . .

Maya isn't going to let him get away with it any longer.

The first tear drips down Maya's cheek. Angrily, she wipes it away.

"It's okay," Callie whispers. "It's okay to cry, it doesn't make you weak."

[ ━━ ❝ ✧˚⋆｡☾✩˚⋆｡࿐❞ ━━ ]

THAT NIGHT, Maya remembers the fire.

She does most nights. It's kind of hard to forget—watching a young child murdered in front of her very own eyes.

Four years ago, she, Callie, and Mo had briefly attended a nonviolent protest (well, nonviolent aside from the fire itself) against the wall and against the bombings. It quickly turned violent when police officers attempted to keep the peace. The main orator, a young black boy, had ordered the crowd to burn the wall, burn the wall, burn the wall. He'd then been shot and killed by a white police officer. Those three little words were the last things he ever said, and those three little words never left Maya's head. They were white noise, an ever-present hum.

Beside her, Callie's snoring like a pig, blissfully unaware of Maya's inner turmoil. Her head's buried underneath her pillow like a panicked ostrich burrowing through the sand. Her hair spills out from beneath the pillow, long brown strands curling gently at the ends, the only indication that there's anything living under there. Other than her snores, the room's silent. Everyone's asleep other than Maya, as per usual. She's lucky if she gets two or three hours asleep a night. Really, she's running on coffee, Red Bull, and, occasionally, adderall.

They're spending the night at Vic's house. She was, after all, the one who told Maya that her family's dead. It's the least she could do.

Deciding to give up on sleep, Maya's eyes roll open. It takes them a second to adjust to the dark; the only light comes from the pale moonlight filtering in through the open window. The sounds of crickets and frogs and owls carry in on a breeze tasting of early summer.

Maya sits up in her sleeping bag, the wooden floor cracking and popping like a bonfire underneath her as her weight shifts. Gently, she lifts the pillow from Callie's head and tosses it to the side. Still, the sleeping lion doesn't wake.

Callie and Maya's sleep patterns are vastly different. Callie complains about how tired she is if she gets less than nine or ten hours of sleep. Maya genuinely can't remember the last time she slept that many consecutive hours.

Maya groans and roughly shakes Callie until her eyes snap open.

"What time is it?" Callie asks, groggy and tired.

Maya fumbles for her phone in the dark. "A little after two."

"God. Okay. What do you want?"

"Do you remember that protest we went to with Mo, the one in Manchester?" Maya asks. "I've been thinking about what that boy said before he was killed."

"Which one?"

"The guy with the megaphone."

"Didn't he want to burn the wall?"

"I think he should have."

"Yeah, and I think things would have been a lot better if we'd killed Joan Baumhauer while we had the chance, but that doesn't mean we should assassinate the fucking president." Callie sighs. "This isn't some dystopian novel, Maya. You do that, you'll get arrested, and jack-shit will change. It's just not worth it."

"They killed Mo." Maya knows it's a low-blow. She doesn't care. "They killed my family. They killed 50,000 innocent, impoverished people. And you think we should just let them get away with it."

"Just because I don't want to commit fucking arson doesn't mean I think it's right!"

"You don't think it's right? Then do something! Don't let them get away with it just 'cause they're millionaires!"

"Mo didn't deserve to die." Callie's eyes steel over. In the darkness, they crackle like the embers of a fire. "Let's go commit a federal offense."

***

okay so????? HOLY HECK YOU GUYS!!! THIS BOOK IS ON THE WATTY'S SHORTLIST AND IM Y E L L I N G. i seriously can't thank y'all enough for all your support. it means the world to me, it really does.