They never signed it. Now she remembers them telling her that as she stood at the door—but she told them it was her choice to go, and she got into the van anyway.
“Even if you had made it to Wood Hollow, you would have just been sent home once they double-checked the paperwork. Can’t unwind without an order.”
She laughs at the irony of it. All this time fighting to finally be tithed, and not only won’t it happen, but it was never going to happen. She wants to be angry—but how can she fault her parents for loving her too much to let her go? She wonders how things would have been different if she had known. Would she still have taken the journey west with Lev after escaping from the parts pirate? Would she have stayed with him long enough to forgive him, granting him that absolution he so desperately needed?
To her amazement, the answer is no.
Had she known she’d never be tithed, that call she made to her parents wouldn’t have just been a message that she was alive—it would have been a plea to come and get her. She would have let Lev finish his journey alone—solitary and unforgiven.
“I know how tithes are,” says the shotgun cop sympathetically. “If it’s what you really want, you can take it up with your parents when they get here.”
And although it is what she wants, she’s coming to terms with the disappointment of staying whole.
“Thank you,” she says. “Thank you so much.” But it’s not them she’s thanking.
Either things happen for a reason, or they happen for no reason at all. Either one’s life is a thread in a glorious tapestry or humanity is just a hopelessly tangled knot. Miracolina has always believed in the tapestry, and now she feels blessed to have had a glimpse of its smallest corner. Now she knows her desire to be tithed was not there to leave her in a divided state—it was there to propel her into the right place at the right time to have a hand in the redemption of the boy who would blow himself up.
Who would have thought that the singular whole of her forgiveness was a more valuable gift than a hundred of her parts?
So she will return into the arms of her wildly emotional parents and will live the life they dream for her until she can find her own dream. She had no tithing party, but right now, she resolves that she will have herself a grand celebration someday. Perhaps a sweet sixteen. And she will find Lev, wherever in the world he is, ask him to attend, and refuse to take no for an answer. And then, finally, she will dance with him.
81 - Hayden
To the best of Hayden’s knowledge, they’re the last ones left. There are fourteen others in the ComBom with him, all kids from the various communication shifts, who put more faith in him than in anyone else—which shocks Hayden. He had no idea there was anyone who looked up to him. One kid is noticeably absent. Before power was cut to the cameras, Hayden saw Jeevan getting into the Dreamliner with the other storks, his arms packed with pilfered weapons.
Connor had stopped responding in the middle of the battle, and the Juvies had, one by one, taken out the power generators, plunging the ComBom, and every other jet, into darkness.
By midnight it’s over. Through the windows of the Com-Bom, Hayden can see the heavy transports, the battering ram, the riot trucks, and most of the Juvey squad cars pulling out: Mission accomplished.
Hayden thinks that maybe they’ve been forgotten—that they can sit it out for a few more hours, then make a break for freedom. But the Juvenile Authority is smarter than that.
“We know you’re in there,” they shout through a bullhorn. “Come out, and we promise no one will get hurt.”
“What do we do?” the kids around him ask.
“Nothing,” Hayden says. “We do nothing.” Being that the ComBom was the communications center and brain of the Graveyard, it’s one of the few crafts with all its outer doors in place and in working order. It’s also one of the few crafts that can only be opened from the inside. When the battle began, Hayden had sealed the airtight hatch, leaving them as self-contained and cut off as a submarine. Their only defense is their isolation and a submachine gun Connor insisted that Hayden have. He doesn’t even know how to fire the thing.
“You’re in a hopeless situation,” the Juvies yell through their bullhorn. “You’ll only make matters worse for yourselves.”
“What could be worse than all of us getting unwound?” Lizbeth asks.
Then Tad, who from the very beginning has been hanging close to Hayden as if they’re joined at the hip, says, “They won’t unwind you, Hayden. You’re seventeen.”
“Details, details,” Hayden says. “Don’t bother me with details.”
“They’ll storm us!” warns Nasim. “I’ve seen it on TV. They’ll blow off the door and gas us, and a SWAT team will drag us out!”
The others look nervously to Hayden to see what he’ll say. “The riot police have already left,” Hayden points out. “We’re not important enough to storm. We’re just cleanup. I’ll bet they just left the fat, stupid Juvies to wait for us.” And the kids laugh. He’s glad that they can still laugh.
Regardless of IQ and body mass, the Juvies aren’t going away. “All right,” they announce. “We can wait as long as you can.”
And they do.
At dawn they’re still there—just three squad cars and a small gray transport van. The media, which the cops held back through the raid, are now camped out just fifty yards away, their antennas and satellite dishes high.
Hayden and his holdout Whollies have spent the night dozing on and off. Now the sight of the media gives some of them a surreal sort of hope.
“If we go out there,” Tad says, “we’ll be on the news. Our parents will see us. Maybe they’ll do something.”