Becca hadn’t been the one to use Carol’s NaU that night, nor was she responsible for it reflecting. It could have gone any which way, and it was only by chance that it directed itself right at Jolie. Neither side was responsible for that, nor that it only made it worse.
Becca could only imagine what it was like for her brother when that happened. The boy had immediately stopped what he was doing and raced over toward her. At that moment, he didn’t look like a monster. He didn’t look like some cartoon comic book supervillain at that moment, clutching the body of his dying, if not dead, girlfriend and child. Oh, that poor child, whoever was responsible for all of that was also responsible for what happened to it (he or she, no one would ever know).
Your brother isn’t the same, she reminded herself. She still saw him as the helpless boy in the wheelchair from all those months ago, the one who needed help with almost everything, regardless of how he felt on the subject. He wasn’t that kid anymore.
Instead, he could rip open buildings if he wanted to, and now with Jolie’s and Kent’s powers to boot, the man could do some serious damage. He had also killed someone, and even if he didn’t want to do it, he did it, all the same, sending a message as clear as crystal to Becca and Walter. He might not like what he was doing, but he’d do it anyway.
And now Jolie was gone, the rock that more or less kept him in line was now gone. As much as Matt had grown a lot since getting his NaU, he still very much cared about what Jolie thought and did. He loved her—if the two of them were old enough to even know what that fully entailed. He would have died for her. Underneath it all, his rough exterior, he would gladly have laid down his life in order for Jolie and the baby to live. Without that, and without anything, there wasn’t much tethering him to the path of sanity.
I killed Danni, Becca thought, thinking back to that moment.
It had happened so fast that she hadn’t even thought about it. She had been holding her. When Jolie’s arcs hit Walter instead of her, Becca felt the girl’s grip loosen. She turned on her father’s NaU at that and shoved Danni against the side of the rest stop. Bones cracked behind her as she did so, and her arms flew off of her. She activated Nigel’s NaU and sliced the girl’s head off.
It was only for a moment, but perhaps that was all the girl could muster before the darkness came. Danni smiled. And then her head fell off its body and the girl’s torment, all of the pain she might have been feeling, all of the misplaced anger and range, was gone. She had quieted the voices in her head.
The plan then had been to take Danni’s NaU. She expected Matt or Jolie to try and stop her from taking it.
But instead of feeling Matt’s touch on her, she saw it go to Walter. Before Becca could even understand what her brother intended, it was too late, and the NaUs had found their new host with almost no problem at all. She tried to stop it, but Matt held her back.
And Walter was infected with the NaU.
There was a chance that Walter was going to make it out of all of this somewhat unscathed. No real reason to kill him. Matt might have threatened to kill him before, but based on Jolie’s reaction to said event, Becca didn’t put much faith in either one of them pulling through on that promise. It was just to keep Walter in line, at least until he got in the way. Now that he had a NaU, perhaps they had figured he’d go over to their cause, that he’d be as desperate as they were, and just as likely to join their side against Becca.
But Walter hadn’t, or at least not yet. For all Becca knew, Walter was down the hall in that room, slowly talking to Matt over a radio and letting him know where he was and that they’d both kill her together.
Walter wasn’t that kind of guy, though. He might have been when he was younger, but age had done a number on him, and whose whole potential evil streak had run about dry in Becca’s estimation.
He had a life here once, just like Matt was probably going to have a life. Becca shouldn’t have asked him about the kids. She should have been able to figure out that he had lost his kids a long while back. Bringing it up hadn’t exactly helped her cause, and for all she knew was the reason he was down the hallway at the moment, wanting some time alone.
Robbie’s intrusion into trying to save Carol had doomed many people to horrible fates, sometimes turning them into animals. She still loved her father, but her last words to him had been true. If he had loved her, then he never would have done what he did, never doomed all of these normal and good people to these awful fates. He didn’t mean to, but that didn’t hold much salt to Becca. He shouldn’t have done what he did. He just shouldn’t have.
The door down the hallway started to open. Whatever moment Walter was having appeared to be done. Becca stood up but stopped. She heard a ringing sound, which was growing louder.
“Becca!” Walter said.
And then all of the windows shattered.
Chapter Nineteen
Matt’s known his friends for years. They’ve stayed with him through thick and thin. Without them, Matt might have gone off the deep end long before his father’s death.
-Robbie’s Journal
The bodies lay around the rest stop.
The NaU no longer being in
