Page 113 of The Circle

I look at the stairs leading up. The winding, circular path that leads to, I presume, the roof. Or maybe a gun turret or something. And I don’t know why, exactly, but that is the direction I’m drawn. And so that’s where I go. I go up.

I sling my long gun in front of me and I begin running up. Up the stairs.

Up.

Up.

Up.

DANNY

Standing in the middleof this fucked-up playroom in the middle of this castle in the middle of this country in the middle of this continent in the middle of this planet in the middle of this galaxy in the middle of this universe, I’m like, Well, this is fuckin’ weird.

But it’s not weird to me for the reasons most people might think. It’s weird because I see it (through my rapidly dimming vision) as almost an encapsulation of my entire existence. Of all our existences, for that matter. A fuckin’ cosmic collision or something.

I busted Christine out of that foster home when she was ten and she’s been with me ever since. Not always physically, in front of me, but always with me. And I’ve always been with her.

And ever since Alec joined us, we have clung to each other in desperate and complicated ways, but we’ve never let go. Not really. Because we share something deep and cellular. Inexpressible and ancient. Something that binds us.

Christine’s childhood was robbed from her. Mine was robbed from me. Alec’s was robbed from him. All of us had them robbed in different ways, but they were taken equally and led us to become who we are and to end up where we are now.

So it’s weird that I find myself in a child’s playroom as the three of us fight to see to it that another childhood isn’t stolen away by forces outside that child’s control.

Or maybe I’m just delirious.

I hear Theo groan again and realize that I don’t know how badly he’s hit. I kneel down and roll him to his side so that I can see where the bullet may have lodged. It looks like there’s an exit wound near his ass. Which is great fucking news because it means it’s less likely that it hit anything that might prove fatal.

I have a shitload of questions. Everything that’s been answered has just generated a whole new batch of curiosities. I fuckin’ hope I get to ask about them.

Slinging my rifle from my shoulder, I pull off my jacket, strip off my shirt, and rip it to tie it around Theo’s leg. A field tourniquet is a shitty substitute for real, medical aid, but we’re all doing the best we can right now.

As I’m bent down, trying to stanch the bleeding in his leg, he continues to moan and mumble. I don’t know if I’m somehow less susceptible to agony or if everyone else is just a whiner but, again, I feel like I’m managing to play through a way more serious injury than everyone around me. Not a judgment and I don’t feel superior or anything, but it’s an interesting observation.

“The roof,” it sounds like he’s mumbling. “On the roof…”

The roof? Fuck is he saying?

I tie off the tourniquet as best I’m able and stumble over to an antique-ass window that opens outward. When I bang on it to get it free, it swings out and I poke my shirtless torso through, contorting and craning my body to look up. The early evening air is chilly and I get goosebumps. But I’m not sure if the goosebumps are from the bracing breeze or from the fact that I see something hanging just over the edge of the top of the castle, glinting in the moonlight.

Something that looks like the barrel of a rifle.

A sniper rifle.

ALEC

I’m done thinking. I’m done plotting or calculating or imagining. I’m done anticipating and scheming. I’m done with the façade. I am pure reactive instinct and I am beyond myself.

I have no idea if this is a good thing or not.

Reaching the bottom of the dimly lit stairs, I round a column of sorts and find that I am, indeed, back out in front of the castle, where one of the cars that brought us here is idling and the drivers from both vehicles, the two Bantu okes, are waiting beside it, doors open.

And limping toward the Mercedes is my father, my child, now wriggling and crying, wailing to be let down, hoist in his arms. It is a vastly different image than the one previous when he led her onto the stage. The air of civility and negotiation torn asunder, leaving the true, animal instincts we all share reigning at will.

“Father!” I shout. Or, like my earlier scream, I hear myself shout. It is out of my mouth before I am aware it’s me speaking.

He stops walking toward the car and turns to face me, Andra still bawling and squirming to free herself from his grasp. The newly shone moon is bright and it reveals all that is happening in front of me in a kind of bluish glow.

Something about the coloring causes my heart to beat relentlessly in my chest.