Monsters of Men Read Online Free Page A

myself, how did it turn into his choosing to help me, I had him tied up, I had him at my mercy, I won–
    But there’s no time cuz I see where he’s heading–
    The left flank, the one away from the river, is the weakest, it’s where the men are thinnest and the Spackle have seen that and a surge of ’em is pressing forward. “ATTEND TO ME!” the Mayor shouts and the soldiers nearest us turn and follow him–
    Doing it immediately, like they don’t even think about it–
    And they follow us towards the left flank and we cross the ground way faster than I’d like and I’m just swamped on all sides by how loud it all is, the men shouting, the weapons firing, the thump of bodies hitting the ground, that effing Spackle horn still blasting every two seconds, and the Noise, the Noise, the Noise, the Noise–
    I’m riding into a nightmare.
    I feel a whisk of air by my ear and turn quickly to see a soldier behind me shot in the cheek by the arrow that just missed my head–
    He screams and he falls–
    And then he’s left behind–
    M IND YOURSELF , T ODD , the Mayor puts in my head. W OULDN’T WANT YOU LOST IN THE FIRST BATTLE, NOW WOULD WE?
    “Effing STOP that!” I shout, whirling round to him.
    I ’D RAISE MY GUN IF I WERE YOU , he thinks at me–
    And I turn–
    And I see–
    The Spackle are on us–

{VIOLA}
    “You’re alive!” Mistress Coyle says and I see her face change, making one kind of astonishment into a different, lying kind of astonishment. “Thank God!”
    “Don’t you dare!” I yell at her.
“Don’t you dare!”
    “Viola–” she starts but I’m already sliding off Acorn, grunting badly at the pain in my ankles, but I stay standing, just, and turn to Simone and Bradley. “Don’t believe anything she’s told you.”
    “Viola?” Simone says, coming forward. “Is it really you?”
    “She’s as responsible for this war as the Mayor. Don’t do anything she–”
    But I’m stopped by Bradley grabbing me in a hug so tight I can barely breathe. “Oh, my God,
Viola,
” he says, deep feeling in his voice. “We’d heard nothing from your ship. We thought–”
    “What
happened,
Viola?” Simone says. “Where are your parents?”
    And I’m overwhelmed by seeing them, so much so I can’t speak for a minute, and I pull a little away from Bradley and the light catches his face and I see him, really
see
him, see his kind brown eyes, his skin the same dark shade that Corinne’s was, his short curly hair, greying at the temples, Bradley who was always my favourite on the convoy, who used to teach me arts and maths, and I look over and see the familiar freckled skin of Simone, too, the red hair tied back in a ponytail, the teeny tiny scar on the rise of her chin and I think, in all that’s happened, how much they disappeared to the back of my mind, how much the process of just surviving on this stupid, stupid world made me forget that I came from a place where I was loved, where people cared for me and for each other, where someone as beautiful and smart as Simone and as gentle and funny as Bradley would actually come after me, actually want what was best.
    My eyes are flooding again. It’s been too painful to remember. Like that life happened to a whole different person.
    “My parents are dead,” I finally choke out. “We crashed and they died.”
    “Oh, Viola–” Bradley says, his voice soft.
    “And I was found by a boy,” I say, getting stronger. “A brave and
brilliant
boy who saved me over and over again and now he’s down there trying to stop a war that
she
started!”
    “I did no such thing, my girl,” Mistress Coyle says, not looking fake astonished any more.
    “Don’t you dare call me that–”
    “We are fighting a tyrant down there, a tyrant who killed hundreds if not thousands, who imprisoned and banded women–”
    “You
shut up,
” I say, low and threatening. “You tried to
kill me
and you don’t get to say anything more