Burn by Julianna Baggott Page B

who’ll help us. We can reverse fusings—with no side effects. We can make everyone equal again.”
    “Including you. Finally you’ll be able to free yourself of the doll head,” Bradwell says to Pressia, “so you can be a Pure. What’s more selfish? Your desire to make yourself whole or revenge?”
    “That’s not fair,” Pressia says. “I want Wilda and the other children to survive. I want to save people.”
    “But admit it,” Bradwell says. “You’ll save yourself in the process.”
    El Capitan grabs his head with two hands. He feels dizzy. He says, “We can bring down the Dome, Pressia. This is why I survived. This is my mission! Jesus! Once and for all, we can end this.”
    “That’s no ending. That’s just more destruction!” Pressia’s eyes are angry and yet shining with tears. She looks at the barn’s wide floorboards. “Now that Partridge is in charge, we can make a difference. We can cure people of their fusings.” She turns to El Capitan and Helmud. “I think there could come a time when you two could be your own people again.”
    El Capitan hasn’t ever thought this was possible. Could he and Helmud be made Pure? Could they be taken apart and made whole? No , he thinks. No—it’s not possible . The idea terrifies him. It’s all he’s ever really wanted, and yet he refuses to believe it.
    Pressia says to Bradwell, “You could have those wings you hate so much taken from you.” Bradwell opens his mouth to fire back at her, but she raises her hand. “Look, you don’t have to want it for yourself. But think of other people out there. Don’t answer for them. Let them have a chance to answer for themselves.”
    “Pressia,” Bradwell whispers, but he doesn’t say any more than that. It’s a soft whisper, more like he’s pleading with her—for what?
    “She has a point,” Kelly says. “The people in the Dome have survivors’ guilt. They hate all who survived on the outside because they hate themselves. But if they have a new role and paternalistically save you all, well, they’ll be able to redeem themselves and feel like heroes.”
    “And maybe the survivors can forgive them because the Pures are finally doing the right thing. See?” Pressia says to Bradwell. “It could work.”
    “Hell no!” Bradwell says.
    “Why not? We could start to rebuild,” Pressia says.
    “I’m not letting the Pures get out of this,” Bradwell says, his voice rough with anger, “and I sure as hell am not letting them come out as heroes. Not after what they’ve done. Never.”
    El Capitan understands. His gut agrees with Bradwell, but he knows what Pressia’s thinking: What does it matter who comes out a hero if there’s a shot at starting over? It’s quiet again. Kelly’s waiting for the next question, and El Capitan knows what it has to be. He says, “What are you proposing exactly?”
    “I’ll give you the vial and the formula and get you airborne again, but you have to take the bacterium with you. If you choose not to use it, there’s nothing I can do.” He looks at Pressia for a moment and then back to El Capitan and Bradwell. “But if you want what’s yours, you’ll have to take what’s mine.”
    Airborne again. This is what El Capitan really wants right now—to be up in the air.
    Pressia turns to Kelly. “If we agree to this, how soon can you get us out?”
    He pauses, taking in the volatility of the conversation and then says, “Well, as El Capitan has seen, the airship is nearly repaired. We’ll need another few days, and you’ll need to time the trip so that you’re landing during daylight.”
    He opens his satchel, reaches in, and pulls out a small metal case. He pops a small clasp and opens the lid. The box is velvet lined and molded to protect a flat square slide—two pieces of glass held together by a thin welded metal border. He holds the square up to the light, illuminating small red flecks. The bacterium.
    “So, are you going to take it with you in