However, it is the granting of mercy, the choosing of empathy over punishment, that separates the real tenets of the Order from Theia’s corrupted version. Theia sighs, weary and long. How ungrateful we must seem to her. Not just those of us in the room, but everyone in the country who will never know of her work and her sacrifices.
“What choice do I have? I could resist, yes? Start another civil war, fracture our already precarious union? Make me the villain as you always intended.”
She directs the last line toward Roxana, who jeers at her. “I supported you, Jessa, and you know that. You didn’t want to share leadership with Paul and me.”
“Because you did not have the fortitude to do what was necessary to ensure lasting peace. You still don’t.” Her smile is deadly, and pitying. “I will resign, effective immediately. I do notwant to be involved in a drawn-out, dramatic transfer of power. Do as you wish with what I have built.”
She looks upon the tableau of Roxana, Lucy, and me, but I don’t see the scathing hatred of before. It is a resignation, both literally and figuratively, and it makes my heart ache.
“Perhaps one day we’ll learn to stop taking from one another, Roxana.”
Roxana hums but doesn’t respond or move from where she’s stood, almost guarding me. Between she and Lucy, Theia’s fearful presence cannot penetrate my nerves as it used to. The power she had over me has dissolved, washed away. In its place I remain, whoever I may turn out to be.
Lucy stands as Theia walks by her and sneers. “I wish I could’ve killed you.”
Oddly, Theia laughs. Short and fast, clearly surprised. “And I suppose the others talked you out of trying?”
“No, nobody did. I still might.”
“Oh, I don’t think so. You wouldn’t want your beloved to think you’re a ruthless murderer like me, would you? The pedestal upon which she’s placed you is dizzyingly high. The beacon of purity and light, Luciana Piccolo.”
They stand at an impasse, with Lucy’s hands twitching at her sides. Lucy takes a step back and watches Theia walk away. It is the end of an era, and the beginning of a new life for everyone present, and for many who don’t know it yet. I cannot help but feel a measure of sadness as she makes for the door.
A single gunshot rings out.
Theia falls to the floor, not unlike how Leader Piccolo did months ago. Maybe that is how the mighty actually fall—thunderous and quick. Delilah rushes toward Theia’s motionless body on the carpet. She takes her pulse, but it’s useless. The shot went clear through her brain stem.
Each of us turn toward the origin of the shot.
Hunter lowers a small handgun, no bigger than her hand, as tears stream down her face. “Mercy is a weakness.”
“Hunter, how could you?” Delilah stands, hands bloody, and her glossy eyes glare at Hunter from across the room. “How are we going to explain this?”
“I don’t know. Spin is your job, isn’t it? What I do know is my mother. I know my mother never would walk away from power. This was a farce. Why do you think she dismissed everyone? No witnesses to hear her pretend resignation. Besides, she told you herself—none of you had the fortitude to do what needed to be done for lasting peace. But, as usual, she didn’t account for me.”
Hunter tosses the gun on a side table and makes her way across the library with deliberate steps. Upon reaching Lucy and me, she stops and regards us with a pained smile. Lucy sticks out her hand and Hunter laughs wetly and shakes it. They appear to have come to an understanding the rest of us cannot comprehend. The scions of malignant persons, who grew to be much greater than their forebears. “Where will you go?”
“Thinking I’ll head back to the Southwest,” she says, wiping tears from her face. “I might have some unfinished business there. Looking at you two, the love you have…gives me hope, you know?”
Lucy smiles at me and reaches out to take my hand again. “Good luck, Hunter.”
“Back at you, Piccolo.” Hunter looks to me. “Don’t be a stranger, kid. The weather’s nice in Arizona.”
Unable to stop myself, I lean in and take Hunter in a tight hug. The burden she took on so that we didn’t have to bear it, it is another debt I can never repay. “We will see each other again soon, I promise.”
“I’m gonna hold you to that.” Finally, she pivots her attention to Delilah, who is a mixture of grief and confusion, of relief andunderstanding. “If you can, have them bring her to HQ. I’d like to bury her properly before I go.”
“Yes, of course.”
Hunter nods to us around the room, gives Theia’s body one last parting glance, and walks out of the library and closes the door behind her. The four of us—five, if you count Theia’s lifeless corpse and continued presence despite this—stare at each other. There is an insurmountable amount of work to do.
“So…” Lucy purses her lips in thought. “What now?”
“We need someone to step in her place temporarily. I can bring the council in and start restructuring the government, but I cannot do that and guide the nation.” Delilah rubs her forehead, smearing a bit of Theia’s blood on her skin. “Roxana, you and your people need to help get the towns in order. I will give you a list of my contacts. Patricia can handle hers, I’m sure. But the people will need to hear from someone.”
“Why not Taylor? The army knows her. You’d be hard-pressed to find a place where the Underclass haven’t heard of Eos, the hero who swoops in to help when in need. I can’t think of anyone better, or more deserving.”
“I can.” I nearly laugh, it’s so obvious. “You.”
