Who’s already smiling, his gun still in Viola’s back.
“So it’s a stand-off, is it?” he says, grinning from ear to ear.
“Let her go,” I say.
“Please take your gun back from Todd, David,” the Mayor says, but he has to keep looking at me, watching me with the gun.
“Don’t you do no such thing, Davy.”
“Stop it!” Davy says, his voice thick, his Noise rising. I sense him putting his hands to the sides of his head. “Can’t you both just effing stop it?”
But the Mayor’s still looking at me and I’m still looking at the Mayor.
The sound of the ship landing screams over the city, over the Noise of the army marching its way back down the hill, over the distant booms of the Answer making its way up the road, and over the terrified, hidden ROAR of New Prentisstown all around us, not knowing that their whole future depends on this, right now, right this second, me and the Mayor with our rifles.
“Let her go,” I say.
“I don’t think so, Todd.” I hear a rumble of Noise coming from him.
“My finger’s on this trigger,” I say. “You try to hit me with yer Noise and yer a dead man.”
The Mayor smiles. “Fair enough,” he says. “But what you need to ask yourself, my dear friend Todd, is if, when you decide to finally pull that trigger, can you pull it fast enough so that I don’t also pull my own? Will killing me kill your beloved Viola, too?” He lowers his chin. “Could you live with that?”
“You’d be dead,” I say.
“So would she.”
“Do it, Todd,” Viola says. “Don’t let him win.”
“That ain’t happening neither,” I say.
“Are you going to let him point a gun at your own father, David?” the Mayor asks.
But he’s still looking at me.
“Times are changing, Davy,” I say, eyes still on the Mayor. “This is where we all decide how it’s gonna be. Including you.”
“Why’s it have to be like this?” Davy asks. “We could all go together. We could all ride up on horseback and–”
“No, David,” says the Mayor. “No, that won’t do at all.”
“Put the gun down,” I say. “Put it down and end this.”
The Mayor’s eyes flash and I know what’s coming–
“You stop that,” I say, blinking furiously and looking over his shoulder.
“You cannot win this,” the Mayor says and I hear his voice twice over, three times, a legion of him inside my head. “You cannot shoot me and guarantee her life, Todd. We all know you’d never risk that.”
He takes a step forward, pushing Viola along. She calls out at the pain in her ankles.
But I find myself taking a step back.
“Don’t look in his eyes,” she says.
“I’m trying,” I say, but even the sound of his voice is getting inside me.
“This isn’t a loss, Todd,” the Mayor is saying, so loud in my head it feels like my brain’s vibrating. “I wish for your death no more than I wish for my own. Everything I said earlier was true. I want you by my side. I want you as part of the future we’re going to create here with whoever steps out of that ship.”
“Shut up,” I say.
But he’s still stepping forward.
I’m still stepping back.
Till I’m behind even Davy.
“I want no harm to come to Viola, either,” the Mayor says. “All along I promised both of you a future. That promise still stands.”
Even without looking right at him, his voice is buzzing in my head, weighing it down, making it seem like it’s easier just to–
“Don’t listen to him!” Viola shouts. “He’s a liar.”
“Todd,” says the Mayor. “I think of you as my son. I really do.”
And Davy turns to me, his Noise rising all hopeful, and he says, “C’mon, Todd, you hear that?”
And his Noise is reaching for me, too, eagerness and worry coming forward like fingers and hands, asking me, begging me to put the gun down, put it down and make everything all right, make it so all this stops–
And he says, “We could be brothers–”
And I cast my eyes to Davy’s–
And I see myself in them, see myself in his Noise, see the Mayor as my father and Davy as my brother and Viola as our sister–
See the hopeful smile rising to Davy’s lips–
And for the third time, I have to ask–
Forgive me.
I point the rifle at Davy.
“Let her go,” I say to the Mayor, not quite able to look Davy in the face.
“Todd?” Davy asks, his forehead furrowing.
“Just do it!” I snap.
“Or you’ll what, Todd?” the Mayor teases. “You’ll shoot him?”
Davy’s Noise is spilling over with more asking marks, with surprise and shock–
With a betrayal that’s rising–
“Answer me, Todd,” the Mayor says. “Or you’ll what?”
“Todd?” Davy says again, his voice lower this time.
I look him briefly in the eyes and look away again.
“Or I’ll shoot Davy,” I say. “I’ll shoot yer son.”
Davy’s Noise is pouring with disappointment, disappointment so thick it falls off him like mud. I don’t even read no anger in his Noise, which makes it worse. He ain’t even thinking of jumping me or punching me or wrestling the gun away.
The only thing in his Noise is me holding a gun on him.
His only friend holding a gun on him.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
But he don’t look like he hears.
“I gave you yer book,” he says. “I gave you back yer book.”
“You let Viola go!” I shout, looking away from Davy, anger at myself snapping my voice loud. “Or I swear to God–”
“Go ahead then,” the Mayor says. “Shoot him.”
Davy looks at the Mayor. “Pa?”
“Never much use as a son anyway,” the Mayor says, still pushing Viola forward with the rifle. “Why do you think I sent him to the front line? I was at least hoping he’d die a hero’s death.”
There’s pain on Viola’s face still but it ain’t all her ankles.