I still don’t say nothing.
“And after all this betrayal from you, Todd,” he says, looking right up at me. “I still want you by my side. I still want you fighting next to me.” He pauses. “We can win this together.”
“I don’t want to win this with you,” I say, looking down the barrel. “I beat you.”
He nods as if in agreement, but then he says one more time. “Things change, but they stay the same.”
I hear marching feet getting closer to the church. A troop from the army’s finally pulled itself together enough to come into town. I can hear them heading down a side road, towards the square.
There ain’t much time.
“I don’t even mind that you tied me up, Todd,” the Mayor says, “but you have to let me go. I’m the only one who can beat them.”
Viola–
Viola, what do I do?
“Yes, Viola, again,” he says, his voice slinky and warm. “Viola out there among them, all by herself.” He waits till I’m looking him in the eye. “They’ll kill her, Todd. They will. And you know I’m the only one who can save her.”
The horn blasts again.
There’s another BOOM to the east.
The feet of the Mayor’s soldiers getting closer.
I look at him.
“I beat you,” I say. “You remember that. I beat you and I’ll do it again.”
“I have no doubt you will,” he says.
But he’s smiling.
VIOLA I think right at him, and he flinches.
“You save her,” I say, “and you live. She dies, you die.”
He nods. “Agreed.”
“You try to control me, I shoot you. You try to attack me, I shoot you. Got it?”
“I’ve got it,” he says.
I wait a second more but there ain’t no more seconds.
There ain’t no more time to decide nothing.
Only that the world’s marching to meet up right here, right now.
And she’s out there.
And I ain’t never parting from her again, not even when we’re not together.
Forgive me, I think.
And I go behind the Mayor and untie the rope.
He stands up slowly, rubbing his wrists.
He looks up at another blast of the horn.
“At last,” he says. “No more of this slinking, secret fight, no more running after shadows and all this undercover cloak and dagger nonsense.” He turns to me, catches my eye, and I see behind his smile the real glint of madness. “Finally, we come to the real thing, the thing that makes men men, the thing we were born for, Todd.” He rubs his hands together and his eyes flash as he says the word.
“War.”
“War,” says Mayor Prentiss, his eyes glinting. “At last.”
“Shut up,” I say. “There ain’t no at last about it. The only one who wants this is you.”
“Nevertheless,” he says, turning to me with a smile. “Here it comes.”
And of course I’m already wondering if untying him so he could fight this battle was the worst mistake of my life–
But no–
No, it’s gonna keep her safe. It’s what I had to do to keep her safe.
And I will make him keep her safe if I have to kill him to do it.
And so with the sun setting, me and the Mayor stand on the rubble of the cathedral and look out across the town square, as the army of Spackle make their way down the zigzag hill in front of us, blowing their battlehorn with a sound that could tear you right in two–
As Mistress Coyle’s army of the Answer marches into town behind us, bombing everything in its path Boom! Boom! BOOM!–
As the first soldiers of the Mayor’s own army start arriving in quick formayshun from the south, Mr. Hammar at their front, crossing the square toward us to get new orders–
As the people of New Prentisstown run for their lives in any and every direkshun–
As the scout ship from the incoming settlers lands on a hill somewhere near Mistress Coyle, the worst possible place for ’em–
As Davy Prentiss lies dead in the rubble below us, shot by his own father, shot by the man I just set free–
And as Viola–
My Viola–
Races out on horseback into the middle of it all, her ankles broken, not even able to stand up on her own–
Yes, I think.
Here it comes.
The end of everything.
The end of it all.
“Oh, yes, Todd,” says the Mayor, rubbing his hands together. “Oh, yes, indeed.”
And he says the word again, says it like it’s his every last wish come true.
“War.”