If another city was ended today, Katie had no way of knowing. Tied up on a chair God-only-knew-where with a blindfold over her eyes, she had never felt this trapped in her life. She could not move, she could not see, she could hardly even feel anymore.

  Nolan had come again. He beat her bad. Her face was swollen with bruises after he’d spent the better part of an hour punching her. Every time his fists made contact, it felt like a train colliding with her skull. Once her face had lost all feeling, he dug into the rest of her body. By the time he was done, Katie wanted to die.

  But she knew he would not let her. Not while she still owed him money. This was how he’d about anyone but herself all her fucking life. Why now? She didn’t care that she was thrown out of school when she was only nine. She didn’t care that she couldn’t even remember what her parents looked like. She certainly didn’t care that she’d been so alone all her life that the fucking alien creature she talked to twice was the closest thing she’d ever had to a friend.

  Her cheeks were numb to the tears streaming down them. Her heart was pounding so loud she was deaf to the sound of her own crying and wailing.

  So deaf, in fact, that she did not even hear the dreadful noises coming from outside the room. Metal crashing against metal, cars tearing through wood, bodies snapping like twigs as bullets rained and splashed and splayed across flesh and concrete. And then, it stopped.

  The door was kicked open and Katie heard heavy footsteps pacing in her direction. Katie took a deep breath and steeled her stomach for another beatdown, but when the blindfold was pulled off her face and she saw Jonah standing over her, she promptly burst into tears again.

  Jonah crouched down to meet her gaze and inspected her bruises with a gentle touch. “Jesus, doll, what did that monster do to you? Don’t you worry, now. I’m here. I promise that bastard’s never gonna trouble you again.”

  “Oh God, Jonah. God, I… You have no idea how… how glad I am to see you.” She spoke in almost a whisper. Even breathing was painful.

  Jonah used a knife and got to work cutting her free. “It’s gonna be okay, doll. Breathe easy. We’ll take care of it.”

  “H-how did you find me?”

  “I knew you was gonna go looking for them Mason kids the moment I left. And given everything I knew and heard about them, I didn’t feel it right letting you near them alone. So, I went to look for ya shortly thereafter. But I saw your RV near their Junkyard and blood on its doorstep and I knew something nasty had befallen. Oh, I was so angry, I wanted to go in and show those kids what-for. But then, I saw these odd tire tracks near where the blood was spilled and knew something else was up.”

  Now that her vision was clearing up, Katie noted that Jonah’s shirt was covered in blood. She gasped. “Jonah, you—”

  “What, this?” He laughed. “Don’t worry. It ain’t mine. All my blood’s still resting exactly where it belongs. I may not be some fancy school Einstein but I ain’t no fool either. I recognized those tire tracks and they weren’t no local make. I knew we were in for big trouble the moment I set eyes on them. So, I brought all my friends and as many guns as we could carry and blew this place to kingdom come. Suffice to say, that Mr. Reed fellow won’t be bothering you anymore.”

  “You did all that for me? Jonah, I… I really don’t know what to say.”

  With another swish of the knife, the ropes came loose. They’d left marks all over Katie’s body. God, it hurt even to move. Jonah caressed her head with a delicate hand and smiled. “Don’t say nothing. Just tell me what you learned. Our town about blown itself to hell.”

  With a bit of support from Jonah, Katie lifted herself off the chair. Every step was agony. Every breath was misery. But they could not afford to waste another second. “I’ll tell you on the way. Just get me back to town as fast as you can. There’s a chance we can still stop this.”

  Safi had been non-stop flying for hours. The cool breeze of the south-west desert gently tickled their skin. The sun setting on the horizon painted the clouds a thousand shades of red and orange. The desert shrubbery and sand dunes danced in the wind beneath them. And yet, all they could think of was the town of Gentle.

  The Cult of the Savior had amassed followers all over the world. Wherever they went, whatever city or country they flied over, every crowd of protesters would have at least one or two people holding up posters with their face on it. That brought them some comfort but it wasn’t enough. In all the places they visited, most still saw them as a monster, a bringer of death.

  The moment someone would notice them hovering over their city, the people would start screaming and running for their lives. Perhaps, they were right. Even after all the death and destruction Safi had brought them, nothing had changed. The planet was gasping for breath and getting warmer every minute. A handful of people lived in perpetual comfort while the overwhelming majority struggled to make ends meet. And every day, people found new reasons to hate and hurt and kill each other.

  That’s why they admired the town of Gentle. No matter what differences the people might have had before, they had come together as one in worship of their Savior. No reason to hate or hurt one another, just a peaceful acceptance of the inevitable. Safi could not help but smile.

  As they approached the airspace above the town of Gentle, Safi noticed what appeared to be a hundred flickering candles marching away from the church in ant-like discipline. Looking closer, they seemed larger than candles, far larger. As the people walked in perfect coordination, they were chanting “For the Savior! For the Savior!” over and over.

  Safi did not recall disqualifying a city in this region. Where were they going to pay their respects? They observed them even closer and what they saw shook them such, they wished they’d go blind in all seventeen of their all-perceiving eyes. Every single one of the marching people carried torches in one hand, pistols in the other, and a large rifle slung over their backs.

  They stopped. The person standing at the head of the army turned to face his people, raised his torch to the sky, and screamed, “For the Savior! For the Revolution!”

  The people in turn also raised their torches and repeated the battle-cry in unison. “For the Savior! For the Revolution!”

  No no no, this made no sense. There was no government office or military base anywhere near them. Who were they going after? Safi made note of their movements, did some quick mental calculations, and peered in the distance at their target. They were heading for some sort of wreckage full of broken cars and machine parts and—

  Oh no.

  They rechecked the trajectory of movement. No. They checked for anomalies and accounted for forks in path and likeness to other nearby targets. They checked it again and again and again. Every time, the answer was the same. They wouldn’t, right?

  The leader of the army cried out, “Heal the world! Heal the world!”

  The people repeated after him. “Heal the world! Heal the world!”

  Safi’s face was frozen with horror. They could not move. They could not think. They could hardly even feel the breeze against their skin anymore. Only a singular utterance managed to escaped their throat. “What have I done?”

  Katie pressed an icepack against her cheeks let out a soft sigh of relief. Her swelling had come down a little and she could finally feel her face again. That meant she could once again feel the pain of every last cut, bruise, and fracture Nolan Reed had left her. She wanted to dig up his body and kill him all over again. But even that was another delusion. There was no time for anything else anymore.

  Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She ignored it.

  Even with Jonah pushing his car to its very limit, there was no guarantee they’d reach on time. The car shook violently as it tumbled over weeds, rocks, shrubs, cacti, and God-only-knew what other critters they’d run over. Thanks to Nolan’s paranoid obsession with safety, they were at least a couple miles from any clean road, let alone their target. They had a long trip ahead of them and Katie made sure that she and Jonah was on the same page. She told him everything she’d learned at the Junkyard. The history of the Mason kids, their troubles, how they were long gone but the kids were still stuck with their damned name and even more damned reputation. She could hardly even call it bad luck. This was just ignorant nastiness.

  Her phone buzzed in her pocket again. She ignored it.

  “Poor kids,” said Jonah. “I was around when the barn burnt down, you know? I was right there helping chase them out of town. We just pushed ‘em all out of sight and out of mind. Until we needed a scapegoat. If only I’d gone to check on them.”

  “You should have,” said Katie flatly. She owed Jonah her life but this was different. She was not hearing any excuses about this from anymore. “There’s at least 400 people in this piece of shit town. Any one of you could’ve taken that small trip to the Junkyard and seen how things really are. But, no! You made your fucking choice. You chose to listen without seeing and hate without knowing. And you let that hate fester and fester till it became just another delusion, like the fucking Savior.”

  “You’re right.” Jonah sighed. “No… yeah, you’re right. So, how do you suppose we’re gonna stop ‘em now? Think they’ll listen to reason?”

  “I don’t know.” Katie shook her head. “But I have to try. God, how did this happen? I thought they were gonna stay put till there was more proof.”

  “They were. Then they found it.”

  “What?” Katie jumped to face him, eyes wide and mouth agape.

  Jonah nodded and clicked his tongue. “Last night, Gertie found the church door desecrated by the Masons. The Savior’s insignia was splashed over with white paint.”

  “But that could’ve been done by anyone!”

  “Under the paint job, it read ‘Sincerely, the Masons’ in big bold letters.”

  Katie fell back in her seat. “Shit.”

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  “That’s one word for it.”

  “This could not more obviously be a frame job.”

  “Tell that to them.” Jonah drew her attention to the right and Katie’s face grew white with horror. Over a hundred people were marching in coordination with guns and torches while chanting slogans of the Savior. “Guess, I should get us to the Junkyard first.”

  Katie had just met these people the day before yesterday. She’d watched them have drinks and worship in church and watch the children play. She knew their names. Many of them had helped her move the furniture into her store. She even knew their kids. How could they do this?

  When Katie’s phone buzzed in her pocket for the third time, she could not take it anymore. She groaned and pulled it out. It was a call from Colin. Katie could not have pressed the accept button any faster. “Colin? You okay, man? Where are you?…. Oh…. Oh!…. Oh, my God!…. No, that’s okay. My God, Colin. This is huge!…. Yeah….. Yeah, no…… No, you stay put. We’re coming to you.”

  She ended the call and exhaled. “Okay, new plan. Get us to the town.”

  “What? Are you crazy?” cried Jonah. “Aren’t you seeing that, doll? The mob’s left already. There’s no point.”

  “Just trust me on this one, Jonah. This changes everything.”

  Jonah studied her expression with care. He saw anger, he saw fear, and even a bit of self-loathing. But he did not see any hesitation. He shook his head and turned the car around. “You better be right about this, doll.”

  “I finally know how to solve this mess.”

  Safi watched frozen from above as the mob tore down the wall of cars. They’d brought trucks with winches. Once the rope was connected and the drivers pushed their feet down on the pedals, the cars came tumbling down like a landslide. The defunct cars banged and clanged against each other, metal ringing into metal, glass shattering, tires coming undone and running amok. The noise was like bullets.

  Once the wall of rejects had fallen and the dust settled, only children were left standing. Twenty teenage boys, not men, trembling in every limb holding metal pipes and baseball bats stood proud inside the remains of their Junkyard. The oldest had a pistol, likely borrowed from his father.

  He gulped and stepped forward to approach the mob. “We got no quarrel with you people. You the ones come knocked down our fort. It ain’t need to get ugly.”

  “Silence, heathen!” cried Garry from the front of the mob. His face bore an expression of terrible irrational anger. “You come to our town under the cover of night, you leave our mayor for dead, and as if that wasn’t enough, you have dared to desecrate the church of our Savior!. We were willing to forgive and forget what you mongrels did all those years ago. But now, you have forced our hand. You must be punished.”

  The boy did not back down. “What are you babblin’ about? We ain’t been anywhere near your town. We ain’t want nothin’ to do with you folks.”

  “Lies!” Stu spat with as much venom as he could muster in his voice. “Not only do you commit crimes against our Savior but you dare to deny them? Oh, lord, please have mercy on these poor lost souls. They know not what they speak. We say unto you still: accept your charges and accept your punishment. You shall be accepted by the Savior into his kingdom of heaven with open arms.”

  The boy crossed his arms and stood firm. “Bullshit! Y’all ain’t got no proof we did anything. Listen, as I said, we want no quarrel. Leave us be and we’ll leave you be. You already wrecked our place to bits. What more do you need?”

  “The Savior demands your blood!” Gertie yelled with as much bitterness as was humanly possible. “Give it freely, wretch, and you shall be saved by our sweet Savior! Repent! Repent!”

  The boy rolled his eyes. “We ain’t done nothing wrong. We ain’t going nowhere. I’ll tell you exactly where you can take your fucking repentance and shove it.”

  The crowd gasped in horror. A long and confused murmur of whispers spread through their ranks. Stu and Gertie tried to silence them but to no avail. The chaos had already spread to the back of the mob. It seemed as though most of them hadn’t actually expected resistance.

  Garry fired a shot into the sky. The bullet rang with such power and volume that, all of a sudden, all eyes were on him. “Quiet!” he said decisively. The mob did not so much as whisper after that.

  He turned to face the boy again. “So, you will not surrender?”

  The boy smiled back. “No, sir.”

  “Then, you leave us no choice.”

  Garry pulled the trigger and the boy fell with a thud, still smiling.

  The crowd roared and cheered as it descended upon the Junkyard like flies, cocking their rifles at the crying, trembling boys who had already surrendered.

  “You made us do this, children,” said Garry tearfully. “Why would you not help us ‘heal the world’?”

  The moment that accursed phrase penetrated their skull, Safi’s mind went blank. Every inch of their skin felt as though it was set on fire. Their ears still rang with the cruel volume of that first bullet. And all they saw was red.

  They fell upon the battlefield with a light step. All their life, they’d told themselves that the suffering mattered not, that suffering was unnecessary. But when their claw tore through Garry’s chest like wet paper and dragged his heart out the other side, still beating and thumping like clockwork while he cried in helpless agony, they realized that his death mattered not. All that mattered was the suffering.

  They let Garry’s still living body fall to the mud as he cried and convulsed and bled out ever so slowly, stared blankly at the crowd, and offered them a single utterance, “You made us do this, children.” They bit his face off.

  By the time Katie and Jonah arrived at the scene, the Junkyard was bathed in blood. Cries of townspeople rang in the air as they crawled and dragged themselves as far away as they could.

  “What the hell happened here?” cried Jonah.

  “Safi…” Katie jumped out the car and made a straight dash for the center. People ran and squealed and pushed past her. Their expressions were haunted. Katie did not have the time to wonder if she was too late. The whole damn place was on fire. All she could do was try to minimize the collateral. A running person crashed into her and nearly knocked her to the ground. Before she could push them away, they grabbed on tight. Their eyes were chocked full of tears and they were babbling incoherently.

  “Thesaviuhthesaviuhthesaviuhishere! Theygonkillus! Theygonkillusall!”

  Katie did not have time to deal with this. She kicked them off her body and kept running. Goddammit Safi. What the fuck happened to the directive? At first, they were all directive this and directive that. And now what? They suddenly grew a fucking heart?

  Oh, fuck, like she was any better. No wonder she was such a mess. She should’ve listened when Uncle Jed told her to go to therapy. Too bad he was dead now. Hell, all her folks were dead. She probably had a lot of that to work through. Fuck it, it was settled. If she made it out of this bullshit alive, she was gonna go to therapy.

  She reached the center panting and gasping for breath. The kids were safe. She breathed a sigh of relief. They were holding onto each other for dear life and shivering like no tomorrow but, at the very least, they were alive. Huh, weird. She couldn’t see Hunter anywhere.

  Oh, fuck.

  Not even a few feet from the kids, Hunter’s lifeless body was splayed out on the soil. Katie covered her mouth to hide her quivering lips but she could not hold back the tears. They fell as they came, drenching the bloodied ground, diluting the red just a little. “Goddammit, you s-stupid kid.”

  Katie did not have time to mourn. A blood-curdling animalistic roar drew her attention. She could not believe what she saw. Claws covered in blood, mouth appendages morphed into pincers snapping shut over pleading necks, jet-black wings vast as buses casting a demonic shadow over the desert, and seventeen blood-red eyes gushing tears. Was this really Safi?

  Katie blinked and they crushed another skull with their foot. She tried to approach them. “Safi!” she said. Her voice did not reach them.

  They were panting and breathing like a rampaging animal. Any poor soul that went anywhere near their line of sight got snatched up and torn in half. They let out another ear-piercing roar.

  “Safi!” Katie cried even louder.

  They snapped to her direction. Their mouth pincers were vibrating and wriggling like a fly sniffing its meal. Their eyes lacked the warmth of familiarity.

  “Safi?” Katie took a nervous step back. “Safi, it’s me, Katie Marsh.”

  Safi breathed and twitched and crept toward her ever so slowly.

  Katie kept walking back. Her heart was trembling. “Safi, come on, you have to come back to me. This isn’t you. Please, I know you’re angry and probably scared but I know this isn’t you. Come on! You don’t enjoy suffering. You just want what’s best for everyone.”

  Katie almost tripped over a pebble but somehow managed to keep her balance. She glanced at the kids to her side. They were in tears. She had to be strong. “You are designated Safi Yo’or. You are a rep of the Galactic Council leading the Boom or Bust Program. You job is to help rejuvenate struggling planets.”

  Safi roared again. Their mouth pincers were turning back to soft appendages.

  “You do your job because you like helping people. You want to see them thrive. You care about people, that’s who you are.”

  The wings slowly retreated back into their body. Their breathing was steadier.

  “And you care because… You know what it’s like to lose someone you love. That’s why you do what you do. To ensure that what happened to you can never happen to anyone ever again.”

  Their claws became delicate fingers again. Their eyes returned to their normal red, green, and blue. Safi fell to their knees. “I failed.”

  Katie rushed to comfort them. “You didn’t fail. You were only doing what you thought was right. That’s all any of us can do.”

  “The directive was… defective.”

  “Maybe so, but how could you have known?”

  Safi rose to their feet, their head still bowed in shame. “I should’ve known. I blinded myself to the suffering I was causing so that I didn’t have to think. But in my blindness, I was only feeding a delusion. For me and for those that looked up to me.” They looked at the severed corpses scattered all over the Junkyard and shut their eyes. “I was their Savior and I did this to them. There’s no taking that back. I created these… monsters. Savages willing to slaughter in my name because slaughter was all I had shown them.”

  Katie breathed. “Safi, I know you don’t want to hear this right now but all of this? They did this to themselves.”

  Safi tilted their head. “I do not understand.”

  “Earlier tonight, I received a call from Colin. He told me that even though lost consciousness right after he was attacked, he was woken up by something. Something really freaking painful. Like someone was digging fire into his chest. And you know what he saw when he woke up? Gertie’s face. Don’t you get it? These assholes had no monster so they manufactured their own. They framed the kids to justify their actions. Don’t you get it, Safi?”

  Katie shook her head. “If it wasn’t for you, they would’ve just found some other excuse to justify their evils. But you stepped in today. You saved those kids, Safi. Look at them. They’re alive because of you.”

  Safi turned to face the kids. Every single one of them burst into tears. They sighed and turned back to Katie. “Violence, good or bad, will always inspire violence, Katie Marsh. I chose. I could have stepped in at any time and told these monsters: No, you will not commit these deeds in my name. But I chose to be blind to it all. Blinded by the love I believed they had conferred upon me when, the truth is, I just wanted to feel like I was doing the right thing. But in the end, they simply succumbed to their true nature. And I’m done sticking my neck out for them. No more. This is… I’m done.”

  “Safi, what are you talking about? What about the directive?”

  “Fuck the directive.” They laughed. “I wanted to believe, I really did, that humans were capable of change. That, if they were given the right incentive, they could achieve great things. But no. You are designed for failure. Your whole world is… I-It’s just fucked. You worship the people literally destroying you and hurt anyone that dares to disagree. You wear poverty like some kind of badge of honor and praise the people keeping you poor in the first place. You always find reasons to hate each other and if there aren’t any, you just make shit up!

  “The truth is, Katie Marsh, that if humans really wanted to improve, you wouldn’t need people like me to come tell you in the first place. And you won’t. Not anymore.”

  “Wait, what? What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked.

  Safi shook their head, playing around with the device on their arm while muttering something to themselves. “I’m getting earth declassified. Your planet will not show up under the Galactic Registry anymore. That means no more visitors, no trade, no communication from anyone from any planet under the Galactic Council. Congratulations, your species will be alone forever. Become the greatest economy in the known universe or go roll around in your own shit and die. See if I care.”

  “I… see,” said Katie, still attempting to process this news. “So, no more cities getting turned to ash?”

  “Well, not by us.” They scoffed. “Although, I can’t make any assurances by the rest of your species.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Safi pressed one last button on their device, breathed a sigh of relief, and clapped their hands together. “Aaand done. You’re officially off the network. Not my planet. Not my problem anymore.”

  “So, what will you do now?”

  “Me?” asked Safi. “I’ll probably get reassigned to a planet in another system. Hopefully, this one has more sense about it. Welp, goodbye, alien freaks. I look forward to never having to see you ever again. Toodles!”

  A large column of light burst out of the sky and engulfed Safi. It shone brighter and brighter until it nearly blinded everyone. By the time they could see again, the light was gone and Safi with it.

  Colin finally made his way to the Junkyard. He squinted his one good eye and tried to look around but his vision was still blurry. “What happened? Was that really the Savior?”

  “It was,” said Katie. “And now, he’s gone. Forever.”

  “Like forever and ever?”

  Katie groaned. “Forever and ever and ever.”

  “Well, what the fuck are we supposed to do now?”