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“PC!” an officer orders, but the man doesn’t reach for anything.
“What’s happening?” the man calls out instead.
“We need to see your privilege card,” the officer says, ignoring the man’s question.
The man steps forward, trying to see into the transport, but he’s stopped with the butt of a rifle.
“My wife and children are scared. The sky has been dark for hours,” he says.
“Return to your home,” the officer says.
I catch my breath, silently willing the man to listen.
To stop asking questions.
“Your job is to protect us,” the man says, shoving a finger in the officer’s face. “I want answers.”
“Sir, step back.” His warning is ripe with violence.
“My daughter is four years old,” the man says. “She wants to know where the sky has gone.”
Nothing about the man seems dangerous. He’s young but starting to bald and a sheen of nervous sweat glimmers on his skin. His questions come from a place of confusion, not rebellion. He’s simply scared, and I can’t blame him.
Cormac steps in front of the van, and I blink. He’d been beside me a moment ago.
“Tell her the sky will return soon,” Cormac says. His back is to me, but I can imagine his practiced smile.
“Prime Minister,” the man says, and I hear the shock in his voice.
“Go home,” the officer next to the man orders again. The command is more insistent, almost nervous.
“No!” he refuses, and my pulse jumps up a notch. More rifles train on the man.
Go home, I beg him silently.
“I’m a citizen of Arras and I deserve to know what’s going on,” the man says.
A burst of laughter slices through the air, but it doesn’t break the tense mood. Cormac is laughing. He finds this funny. A warning bell goes off in my mind.
“I’m not sure what’s funny,” the man says, but it’s not confusion coloring his voice anymore. Now he’s angry.
“I deserve to know what’s going on,” Cormac repeats mockingly. He strides up to the man and places his hands on his shoulders. “You really want to know?”
I don’t hear the man say yes, but I dread where this is going. Before I realize it, I’m out of the van and moving toward them. An officer grabs me by the waist and my hands lash out toward his strands, but I pull them back before I hurt him.
“Your entire world is a lie,” Cormac tells the man. “The Spinsters have abandoned you, and you’re all going to die.”
The man steps back and stares at him and so do I. Doesn’t he know his men will talk about this?
Before I can process Cormac’s reckless indifference, the man lunges toward Cormac, who sidesteps him. A split second later a shot shatters the air, hitting the man squarely in the chest.
“No!” I scream, pulling loose from the officer’s arms and running toward the man.
He stumbles back, a fleeting look of surprise crossing his face. By the time I reach him, there’s a pool of blood under his body. I press my hands to the wound and he covers them with his own.
“My daughter.” His words are punctuated by gasps as airy as oxygen leaking from a balloon.
“I’ll protect her,” I promise him, but he doesn’t hear me. He stares at me with unseeing eyes, glassy as the still ocean.
