Burn by Julianna Baggott Read Free Book Online

my own mother. My father killed her and my brother too. I was a witness.” This feels like the most important thing, suddenly. Giving witness. He sees a flash of his mother and Sedge, the explosion. He looks down at the podium and back up again at the sea of blanched faces, staring at him wide-eyed. He sees Iralene. Her eyes are shining with tears. She shakes her head just the tiniest bit, urging him to stop, but he can’t stop now. “The only reason you all needed saving was because he blew up the world as we knew it. My father saved you because he wanted to scorch the entire earth and start over.”
    Foresteed has started pushing past Hoppes and Purdy up the aisle toward the back of the hall—maybe looking for the person in charge of the cameras.
    Partridge speeds up. “Why start over alone? In addition to having the lower class of fused and broken wretches as servants, why not have a more or less handpicked population of like-minded sheep to herd into some new version of the planet that my father wanted to rule, solely? You were his sheep.” He shakes his head. “No—he was no shepherd. Not like that. You weren’t his sheep. You were his audience. We are all complicit. We let the Detonations happen. We have to be honest. How else can we move forward into the future if we can’t at least acknowledge the truth of the past?”
    Iralene’s mother, Mimi, is out of her seat, marching toward the aisle, saying, “I can’t take this! I can’t take it!”
    Iralene scrambles after her.
    Others are standing up too, trying to leave, pulling others with them.
    Partridge has lost Foresteed in the lights at the back of the hall, but he hears his voice now. “Cut the mic! Cut it!”
    Many voices rise up, but Partridge keeps going. “We owe it to the survivors out there—the ones we call wretches—and we owe it to ourselves. We can do better. We can move into the New Eden with all of our losses. We can own up to them now. And we can feel the guilt at last. If we do, that’s how we can maybe—just maybe—be forgiven. I want each of you to know—” The mic cuts out. The spotlight dims. Partridge can see more of the audience now. Those still in their seats are stunned. Their faces are slack with shock, their eyes widened with fear. The boy who saluted him earlier is sitting next to his mother, who’s covered his ears with her hands.
    It’s silent. The cameramen shift away from the cameras, now dead.
    Partridge says, “I want each of you to know that I’m going to build a bridge between the Pures and the wretches—from inside the Dome and out. I’m going to make it right again so when we move to New Eden, we’re not—” Foresteed is rushing toward him. He would call the guards, but he has no control over them. They answer to Partridge alone. “We’re not tyrants and oppressors. We have to say the truth so that we can forgive ourselves and one another and hope to be forgiven by the ones we left out there. The ones we left to die.”
    Foresteed is standing next to him now, breathless from running behind the scenes. He grabs Partridge’s arm and shoves him back a little. “It’s okay,” Partridge says calmly. “I’m done now.”
    He steps down from the stage, loosens his tie, and marches down the middle aisle. The guards jog to catch up and flank him on either side. He passes the anteroom and pushes open the double doors.
    But he’s not outside. He’s never out side.
    For a second, he doesn’t know where he’s going, but of course he does. He wants to know if Lyda saw the broadcast. He wants to see the one person who’ll understand, who’ll know he did the right thing.
    However his future unfolds, he’ll build it around her. That’s the next truth that has to go out to the people. He’ll force Hoppes’ hand. One truth at a time…until there’s just one truth left—that he killed his father. He’ll hold on to that one.

O RIGAMI
    T he repairman is long limbed, wiry, and tall. Lyda imagines him