Cruz shook her head. “But we should have . . . Maybe if we had, I don’t know . . . We just should have . . .”
A woman’s voice from the back of the crowd said, “Save one life, save the world entire.”
“We were helpless. You saved us!”
Cruz frowned in confusion. She looked to Shade for help, but her friend seemed amused and shook her head slightly.
Dekka leaned forward and whispered. “They want a hero, Cruz. They need one. Don’t fight it.”
Cruz swallowed and nodded to herself. “Okay. Okay. Okay, look, we tried. You’re right, we tried. We wished we could do more. We wished for, boy . . . for a lot of things. But I guess it’s too late for that now. We have to look forward. You know? All of you the same. You’re going to have to find some way to deal with this, to process it. To forgive. To forgive yourselves. What many of you did you were forced to do. You’re never going to be able to forget. Neither will we. I won’t.” For a moment she couldn’t go on. “But even if we can’t forget, we have to be clear on who the villain was here, who is to blame. And it wasn’t you people.”
Wilkes, the casino security chief, stepped up with a baby bottle. She handed it to Cruz.
“I don’t suppose you’re a mommy?” Cruz asked her.
“Better yet,” Wilkes said, “I’m a grandma.”
“Will you . . . ?” Cruz asked. “I’m so tired. I’m afraid I might drop him.”
Wilkes accepted the baby.
Cruz nodded. She closed her eyes and had to fight the urge to lie down right there, right then, in the door of Caesars Palace.
“What now?” a voice demanded.
Cruz shook her head, baffled. “What?”
“What now?” the voice repeated. “What are you six going to do?”
Cruz looked at the others beside her. At silent Malik. At Dekka standing like one of the pillars of the earth. At Francis, just a kid with a power almost impossible to describe. At Armo, practically in a loincloth.
As soon as they turn social media back on, that boy is going to have a very large fan club. And I’ll be its president.
Finally she looked at Shade Darby.
Shade, who had swept Cruz up in the wake of her obsession.
Shade, who had led Malik to disaster.
Shade, who had led Cruz to become . . . a hero.
“What are we going to do?” Cruz repeated. She shrugged. “I guess we’re going to try and save the world.”
CHAPTER 31
Aftermath
IN THE SUITE atop Caesars, they drank beer and vodka and whiskey from the minibar and ate room-service food. Management had sent up a spread fit for royalty. But they ate and drank in silence. Whatever words any of them had were not worth the effort to speak.
Wilkes had taken charge of the baby, the still-nameless baby whose parents had almost certainly died in the fire.
The army’s tank column was withdrawn. The National Guard, the Nevada State Police, the traumatized Las Vegas Police, and the hastily deputized California Highway Patrol restored order in the city. Two looters were shot dead, and that ended the looting.
Fire departments and EMTs from all over Nevada, southern California, Utah, and Arizona flooded Las Vegas with ambulances and medevac helicopters. Every burn unit in every hospital west of the Rocky Mountains was filled to overflowing.
Reassuring speeches flowed from Washington, D.C. No one believed them.
And Dekka, Shade, Cruz, Francis, and Armo slept through it all.