Gates started pacing and muttering to himself.
“You know what Sam would do if he was in our place? He’d get on the PA,” Will said. “He’d have P-Nut giving news updates until there was nowhere left to hide. Let’s get every gang organized. I mean, we’re all in this together, right?”
“Nobody else gets him,” Gates said. “Sam belongs to me.”
Pruitt crossed the room. “Listen to Will, he’s making sense…”
Will felt huge relief that he and Pruitt were on the same side of this.
Pruitt continued. “It doesn’t matter who captures Sam—”
“I want him!” Gates said, squaring off to Pruitt. “I want that motorcycle helmet fuck up there to see exactly what happens when he crosses me!”
“What are you gonna do?” Will said.
Will looked to Pruitt whose forehead was crinkling with concern.
“You can’t kill him,” Pruitt said.
“I can,” Gates said. “Right in front of their eyes. They’ve had it coming for too long.”
“Get a grip, Gates,” Pruitt said, walking toward him, using his size to get his point across. “Those adults up there are not the same adults that made our life miserable before. It’s only gotten this bad because you took it too far!”
Gates’s eyes were crazy. “How can you possibly be on their side in this?”
“I’m not on their—”
“They’re evil, Pruitt! Adults are the enemy. You know this! Why aren’t you furious?!”
Pruitt wanted to answer, but Gates didn’t give him a chance.
“You know what they did! They told my baby brother they would take him to safety. The military said they’d protect him—”
“That’s not how it—”
“You were there, Pruitt! That soldier shot Colton in the head!”
Pruitt threw his rifle across the room in a rage and it clattered against the wall. It made Will jump. He didn’t know what to say or how to help ease the situation. This was something he wasn’t a part of. Pruitt pushed Gates, who stumbled back to the blackboard, confused.
“You’re right!” Pruitt said. “I was there. Except what I remember doesn’t match this story that you like to tell people.”
Pruitt loomed over Gates so completely that Gates had nowhere to look but up into Pruitt’s shaggy beard.
“And I can’t stand to listen to you keep lying,” Pruitt said. “I don’t care if Will’s here. Let him hear this. He needs to hear this.”
“What are you talking about?” Gates said, shrinking.
“You, me, and Colton were out scavenging in that subdivision. What was it called?”
“Deerlake…”
“Deerlake, right!” Pruitt said. “Then, we saw one soldier. In a haz-mat suit. You remember that?”
Gates shook his head. “There was a mobile unit. It was picking up infected—”
“No, Gates! There was one soldier. He saw us and ran. We couldn’t let him get away, he’d come back for more. So we went after him.”
Will watched Gates closely. He blinked like his eyes were on fire. His cheeks trembled with his lips.
“No, that’s not how I…,” Gates said. He shook his head continuously.
“You and Colton were always faster than me. The three of us split up, and searched all around that neighborhood. And when I caught up with you behind that big yellow house, someone came running around from the side yard and you shot, and he went down.”
“That’s not what happened,” Gates muttered.
Gates was clutching his long hair. His eyes were flared wide, like he was seeing the whole scene play in front of him. He was breathing in soft pants. Will stared, speechless.
“You were a mess when you saw Colton on the ground. You couldn’t talk, nothing. And I didn’t blame you. That’s why I told you to go back to camp. Somebody had to bury him, and you were too out of it,” Pruitt said.
Gates was sobbing now, moaning and covering his face. His long white hair draped over his hands.
“When I got back to the others and heard you’d told them all that a soldier shot Colton when he’d tried to turn himself in, I went along with it,” Pruitt said. “Because it was an accident and it only would have hurt morale if they knew. But somewhere along the way, you started believing your lie.”
Pruitt put his big hand on Gates’s shoulder and shook him. Gates still covered his face, shaking underneath.
“I know it’s hard, but you’ve got to face it and move on. You shot your brother, Gates. You killed Colton.”
Gates screamed. He pulled something out of his pocket and jabbed it into Pruitt’s gut. Pruitt stumbled back with a groan. Gates charged the giant and tackled him to the ground. Will could feel the impact through his sneakers when Pruitt’s heavy body hit the floor. Gates and Pruitt grappled. Pruitt couldn’t move as fast as Gates, who slipped behind Pruitt and wrapped him in a headlock.
Will moved toward them. “Guys, stop it. We should be—”
Will stopped short when he saw what Gates had hit Pruitt with—the yellow box cutter he’d threatened to use on Sam in the quad. He dug the triangular blade into Pruitt’s left temple and dragged it across his forehead, just under his hairline. Pruitt howled. Will jumped back in horror and fell over a nearby chair.
Gates dug his fingers into Pruitt’s open wound, and the giant screamed louder. Gates’s hooked fingers bulged under Pruitt’s skin. He tightened his grip on Pruitt’s scalp and pulled. The wound opened like a mouth. The underside of Pruitt’s scalp was a red, wet carpet of nerves without skin. The exposed cranium below was ivory white. Pruitt’s scream went silent. He must have been in shock. When Will looked back, he saw Pruitt squirming on the floor, trying to hold his loose flap of scalp on.
Will stood up and bolted for the door, but Gates jumped into his path. He held the box cutter up, pointing it at Will. Pruitt’s blood dripped from Gates’s hand. Will put his hands up and backed away from the blade.
“Don’t do this, Gates,” Will said. “Whatever’s going on we can—I don’t know, man. It doesn’t have to go like this.”
Gates looked at the blood-smeared box cutter in his hand, then back to Will. Pruitt groaned low. Gates’s face was red from strain, his cheeks were inflated and spit bubbles percolated at his lips. Will kept one eye on the open door twelve feet behind Gates, waiting, hoping, praying that someone would walk past.
Gates closed his eyes. When they popped back open the turmoil that had raged across Gates’s face was gone.
“I love you, Will,” Gates said.
Will remained perfectly still. Gates walked to him and placed his bloody hand on Will’s shoulder. Gates backed him into the wall. The bloody box cutter was still gripped in his hand.
“You love me, right?” Gates said.
Gates’s desperate eyes flicked over Will’s face. His face was way too close to Will’s. A thumb’s width away. Every direction that Will tried to move his head to look away, Gates would move his face there.
“Come on,” Gates said. “Say it back.”
“Uh…” Will’s throat had gone dry with fear.
“I need you to say it. It’s not so hard,” Gates said. “Friends say it all the time.”
“They don’t,” Will said, but he didn’t know why he was bothering to talk sense into Gates. The guy was sick. There was something wrong with him. Will might have had a glitch in his brain, but this dude’s brain had a fatal error.
“You’re stalling, Will. Just say it. Don’t make it weird,” Gates said.
Gates’s pupils were bottomless. He blinked and scratched at his red eye.
“You’d do it for David,” he said. “Do it for me.”
“David’s my brother.”
“David’s dead! And I’ve given you everything!”
The air around them was still and silent. Will started to sweat all over. He could feel Gates’s breath on his face. His stomach flip-flopped.