Eliot Strange and the Prince of the Apocalypse

36) Last Stand of the Rebel Editor

"The girl was trying to get them to go look somewhere else. Said I didn't know anything. She found the poster with the prince's picture on it, but she didn't show it to the men. She went outside, said she was getting some water. When she didn't come back, and the other guy went to find her and got gone too, the guy got mad. He hit me with a club he had, but I didn't tell."

"Tell what?"

"I didn't tell him where the prince is. I didn't tell him that I got the word out. Help is coming. From our guys. Towns all around. They are headed here. Coming to help. Help you Eliot. Save your prince."

He coughs and blood comes out his nose and mouth.

"One problem," he says. "Big problem."

"What?"

"They are coming too. They might be closer. One Nation is coming. He is coming too. One is coming. Coming. He is coming for your prince."

I am suddenly very scared. The man who started all of this is personally making it his mission to capture Torin. I want to know more. I want to know why. I do not understand any of this. "Who is this guy? Who is this guy they call One?" I ask a dying man.

"His name is One. His real name is Kerry Nation. His middle name is One. Get it? Kerry One Nation. Sounds like Carry One Nation. His followers believe it is a sign." Ned coughs more blood. "Bunch of crazy assholes."

I cannot believe what I am hearing, although finally things with my mother make sense. "He's a professor. Professor Kerry Nation," I say.

"You're right. How did you know? You would make a good reporter, Eliot."

"I know him. I met him once. My mother knows him from college. He was her professor and my dad's." I can barely admit this even to myself. "He's her boss now. She works for him."

All of it, all of it makes sense now. What a fool I was. I have been a blind fool. Is my mother a part of this. Did she know? I want to scream in fury. That is why she had Mr. Thomas watching out for me. She knew this was coming. Did my dad know too? Surely, he did. I am shaking with the horror of it all when Steven comes back. He has a first aid kit that is not going to help Ned, but he tries. Steven wipes some blood from his face with a cotton swab.

Ned coughs more blood. "You can't blame yourself," he says to me.

"Blame yourself for what?" asks Steven.

I look at Ned, then Steven. I think of Nana. I think of the Milk Massacre. The execution. The school shootings. The abandoned children. Ned's pregnant wife. Myrtle and her bloody baby dolls. Babies off bridges. The millions who have died. I can't tell Steven. I feel the tears well up in my eyes. I am a crybaby, just like Cindy said Myrtle was. A big 'ol crybaby. Ned starts to cry too.

"It's ok, it's ok," says Steven trying to comfort us, but he is crying too. "Shhh, it is ok, it is ok." He wipes Ned's forehead with a wet rag.

Ned begins again to tell what happened. "He saw the poster too. The bad guy saw the prince too. He was really mad when he saw it. He ran to the window and yelled for his friends. They didn't come. He was so mad. He kept hitting me, but I didn't tell."

"Never reveal your sources," said Steven.

"Exactly," says Ned and then asks a question, "Did you know my wife is having a baby boy?"

"I heard that. You'll be a great dad," I say in between my tears.

"A great dad," he says and then coughs one last time and dies. Just that quick, right when we were still talking, and Steven was still trying to clean his face up.

I tell Steven it all in between my sobs. When I tell him about my mom helping Carli and not even letting me know she is alive, he asks, "So, Carli is in on it too? I love her. She cannot be in on it too. She is too beautiful and kind to be.." He pauses here and then says, "evil."

We exchange looks. Steven asks, "Do you think she was the one at the library that Clay heard? He said there was a woman. Do you think she did all this?" Steven points to Ned.

I nod, "Maybe?" I don't know. "She did that internship last summer with my mom. But, I don't know? New York was wiped out. Her parents were there. I can't see it. But, I can't believe any of this. Though, some of it makes sense now."

"You know when you went to bed last night?" Steven asks.

"I couldn't stand watching them together anymore."

"Well, I didn't want to tell you this, but Adam got his harmonica out and played some."

"I thought I heard music, thought I was dreaming."

"There was dancing," Steven says like he is confessing. "Some of us danced a little." He pauses like what he has to say is painful, and then he blurts it out, "Carli danced with your prince. She danced with Torin."

Carli danced with my prince at the ball. That boyfriend-stealing bitch. Oh my gosh, I just called my cousin, who I love like a sister, the 'B' word. I am terrible, I know, but somehow I don't feel too bad about it.

My cousin Carli might be a member of The One Nation Army, and she is with the prince. The army is looking for the prince. "We have got to go," I say even as we are running to the car.

"I'm driving," says Steven. "We need to hurry."