Monsters of Men by Patrick Ness Page B

need to keep your own counsel, now won’t you? Have you kept up your practice with what I taught you?”
    “I don’t want nothing you could teach me.”
    “Oh, but you do.” He steps closer. “I’ll say it to you as often as it takes you to believe it: there’s power in you, Todd Hewitt, power that could rule this planet.”
    “Power that could rule you .”
    He smiles again, but it’s white hot. “Do you know how I keep my Noise from being heard, Todd?” he says, his voice all twisty and low. “Do you know how I keep everyone from hearing every last secret I’ve got?”
    “No–”
    He leans forward. “With as little effort as possible.”
    And I’m saying, “Get back!” but–
    There it is again, right in my head, I AM THE C IRCLE AND THE C IRCLE IS ME –
    But this time it’s different–
    There’s a lightness–
    A breath-stealing feeling–
    A weightlessness to it that makes my stomach rise–
    “I give you a gift,” he says, his voice floating thru my head like a cloud on fire. “The same gift I’ve given to my captains. Use it. Use it to defeat me. I dare you.”
    I look into his eyes, into the blackness of them, the blackness that swallows me whole–
    I AM THE C IRCLE AND THE C IRCLE IS ME.
    And that’s all I can hear in the whole world.

{VIOLA}
    The town is eerily quiet as Acorn and I walk through it, some of it even silent, the people of New Prentisstown having fled into the cold night somewhere. I can’t imagine how terrified they must be, not knowing what’s happening or what might be waiting for them.
    I look behind me as we ride through the empty square in front of the ruins of the cathedral. Hanging up there in the sky, above the still-standing bell tower, is another probe, keeping its distance from Spackle arrows but tracking me, watching me go.
    But that’s not all I’ve got.
    Acorn and I make our way out of the square and down the road that leads to the battlefield, closer and closer to the army. Close enough so I can see them waiting there. They watch me as I ride up, soldiers sitting on their camprolls, huddled around fires. Their faces are tired and almost shocked, looking at me like I could be a ghost coming out of the darkness.
    “Oh, Acorn,” I whisper nervously. “I don’t really have a plan here.”
    One of the soldiers stands as I approach, pointing his rifle at me. “Stop right there,” he says. He’s young, dirty-haired, with a fresh wound on his face, stitched badly by firelight.
    “I want to see the Mayor,” I say, trying to keep my voice steady.
    “The who?”
    “Who is it?” another soldier asks, standing up, too, also young, maybe even as young as Todd.
    “One of them terrorists,” the first one says. “Come here to set off a bomb.”
    “I’m not a terrorist,” I say, glancing over their heads, trying to find Todd out there, trying to hear his Noise in the rising
ROAR
–
    “Off the horse,” the first soldier says. “Now.”
    “My name is Viola Eade,” I say, Acorn shifting beneath me. “The Mayor, your
President,
knows me.”
    “I don’t care what yer name is,” says the first one. “Off the horse.”
    Girl colt ,
Acorn warns–
    “I said,
off the horse
!”
    I hear the cocking of a rifle, and I start yelling,
“Todd!”
    “I’m not warning you again!” says the soldier and other soldiers are standing now–
    “TODD!” I shout again–
    The second soldier grabs Acorn’s reins and others are pressing forward.
Submit!
Acorn snarls, teeth bared, but the soldier just hits him in the head with his rifle–
    “TODD!”
    And hands are grabbing at me and Acorn’s whinnying
Submit, submit!
but the soldiers are pulling me off the saddle and I’m holding on as hard as I can–
    “Let her go,” a voice says, cutting through all of the shouting, even though it doesn’t sound raised at all.
    The soldiers let me go at once, and I right myself on Acorn’s saddle.
    “Welcome, Viola,” the Mayor says, as a space opens between