My Noise rises in anger and embarrassment. Viola squeezes my arm harder.
“I know that you’ve sent the boy called Lee to warn the Answer.” He leans against the broken table. “And of course I also know the exact time and place of their attack.”
“Yer a monster,” I say.
“No,” the Mayor says. “Just a leader. Just a leader who can read every thought you have, about yourself, about Viola, about me, about this town, about the secrets you think you’re keeping, I can read everything, Todd. You’re not listening to what I’m saying.” He’s still holding the rifle, watching us sit before him. “I knew everything about the Answer’s attack this morning before you even opened your mouth.”
I sit up in my chair. “You what?”
“I had the army gathering before we even started Asking Viola.”
I start to rise. “You tortured her for nothing?”
“Sit down,” the Mayor says and a little flash from him weakens my knees enough that I sit right back down. “Not for nothing, Todd. You should know me well enough by now to know that I do not do anything for nothing.”
He sits up from the broken table, showing again that he likes to walk and talk.
“You are completely transparent to me, Todd. From our first proper meeting here in this very room until how you sit before me today. I’ve known everything. Always.”
He looks at Viola. “Unlike your good friend here, who’s a little tougher than I imagined.”
Viola frowns. If she had Noise I’m sure she’d be slapping him around a bit.
I get a thought–
“Don’t try it,” the Mayor says. “You’re not nearly that advanced yet. Even Captain Hammar has yet to master it. You’d merely end up hurting yourself very badly.” He looks at me again. “But you could learn, Todd. You could advance far, farther than any of those poor imbeciles who followed me from Prentisstown. Poor Mr. Collins barely worth more than a butler and Captain Hammar just another garden-variety sadist, but you, Todd, you.” His eyes flash. “You could lead armies.”
“I don’t wanna lead armies,” I say.
He smiles. “You may have no choice.”
“There’s always a choice,” Viola says by my side.
“Oh, people like to say that,” the Mayor says. “It makes them feel better.” He approaches me, looking into my eyes. “But I’ve been watching you, Todd. The boy who can’t kill another man. The boy who’d risk his own life to save his beloved Viola. The boy who felt so guilty at the horrible things he was doing that he tried to shut off all feeling. The boy who still felt every pain, every twitch of hurt he saw on the face of the women he banded.”
He leans down closer to my face. “The boy who refused to lose his soul.”
I feel him. He’s in my Noise now, rummaging around, turning things over, upending the room inside my head. “I’ve done bad things,” I say and I don’t even mean to say it.
“But you suffer for them, Todd.” His voice is softer now, almost tender. “You’re your own worst enemy, punishing yourself far more than I could ever hope to. Men have Noise and the way they handle it is to make themselves just a little bit dead, but you, even when you want to, you can’t. More than any man I’ve ever met, Todd, you feel.”
“Shut up,” I say, trying to look away, not being able to.
“But that makes you powerful, Todd Hewitt. In this world of numbness and information overload, the ability to feel, my boy, is a rare gift indeed.”
I put my hands to my ears but I can still hear him in my head.
“You’re the one I couldn’t break, Todd. The one who wouldn’t fall. The one who stays innocent no matter the blood on his hands. The one who still calls me Mayor in his Noise.”
“I’m not innocent!” I shout, my ears still plugged.
“You could rule by my side. You could be my second in command. And when you learn to control your Noise, you may have power to overtake even mine.”
And then the words thunder thru my whole body.
I AM THE CIRCLE AND THE CIRCLE IS ME.
“Stop it!” I hear Viola shout but it’s from miles away.
The Mayor puts a hand on my shoulder. “You could be my son, Todd Hewitt,” he says. “My real and true heir. I’ve always wanted one that wasn’t–”
“Pa?” we all hear, cutting thru everything like a bullet thru fog.
The Noise in my head stops, the Mayor steps abruptly back, I feel like I’m able to breathe again.
Davy stands behind us, rifle in one hand. He’s led Deadfall up to the steps and is looking over the rubble to the three of us here. “What’s going on? Who are the men out there on the ground?”
“What are you doing here?” the Mayor snaps, frowning. “Is the battle already won?”
“No, Pa,” Davy says, climbing over the rubble towards us. “It was a trick.” He plants his feet next to my chair. “Hey, Todd,” he says, nodding in greeting. He glances at Viola but he can’t hold her eye.
“What was a trick?” the Mayor demands but he’s already looking angry.
“The Answer ain’t coming over the hill,” Davy says. “We marched way back deep into the forest but there ain’t no sign, not nowhere.”
I hear Viola take a little gasp, a bit of pleased surprise escaping from her even as she tries to hold it back.
The Mayor looks her way, his eyes fierce, his face thinking and thinking.
And he raises his rifle at her.
“Something you’d like to tell us, Viola?”
{VIOLA}
Todd’s already up and out of his chair, standing between me and the Mayor, his Noise raging so loud and furious the Mayor takes a step back.
“You see the power in you, my boy?” he says. “This is why you watched her being Asked. Your suffering makes you strong. I’ll teach you how to harness it and together we’ll–”
“You hurt her,” Todd says, clearly and slowly, “and I’ll tear every limb from yer body.”
The Mayor smiles. “I believe you.” He hoists the rifle. “Nevertheless.”
“Todd,” I say.
He turns to me. “This is how he wins. Playing us off each other. Just like you said. Well, it stops here–”