Free Burn by Julianna Baggott Page A

the faces of his family staring up at him accusingly. He was once a baby; now he’s a murderer.
    “This room is yours now,” she says.
    “What if I don’t want it?”
    She walks toward Partridge, kneels down, and picks up another picture of him as a baby. In this one, Partridge is wearing a cap. His face is a bright pink. And it’s his father who’s holding him. “You were a pretty baby,” she says. She stands up and hands it to him. He stares at it for a minute. And in an unexpected rush of longing, he wants to go back. He wants to be that baby again. He wants to do it all over.
    But he can’t let his father get to him. He was led here, and he’ll use this room for his own end. He’ll use his father’s secrets against him, try to undo what his father’s done.
    He hands the picture back to Lyda, walks to his father’s desk, and says, “What else does he have hidden in here?” He won’t sit in his father’s chair again. He pushes it back from the desk and then presses his hands flat against the glossy surface. Suddenly the desk lights up.
    Before him is a map of the world, dotted with blue lights, each of them pulsing except for one—located on the map where the Dome stands. It glows.
    “What the hell?” Partridge whispers.
    Lyda walks up and stands beside him. “It’s the world and that’s us.”
    “Yeah,” he says. “So the question is what do all the blinking lights represent?”
    “ What do they represent, or who ?” Lyda says quietly.
    Partridge’s skin feels suddenly chilled. “These could be other places that were spared. Could it mean that there are other survivors out there?”
    “Touch one,” she says.
    Partridge thinks of Pressia’s father, Hideki Imanaka. He was one of the Seven. One of the tattoos still pulsing on his mother’s chest before she died was proof that he was still alive. Maybe this is one way to find him. One of the flashing lights is on the island of Japan. Partridge reaches out and touches it.
    Static rises up from unseen speakers, and then a voice. “Partridge.” It’s his father’s voice, and for a second, he thinks that his father’s still alive, that the murder wasn’t a success. He looks at the door to the chamber, but it’s closed. Lyda reaches out and grabs his hand. Is his father back from the dead? Is he unkillable? “My son,” his father says.
    “No.” Partridge feels dizzy. He grips the edges of the desk and sits in his father’s chair.
    His father’s voice goes on: “Your fingerprint—that tiny swirl that’s been there since birth. You found this room, this map, my world. You unlocked my voice with a single touch. And this means only one thing: You’re alive and I’m dead.”
    “Lyda,” Partridge whispers. “I can’t listen to this.”
    She grabs his arm. “It’s okay,” she whispers. “We have to.”
    “With that touch, a message has now gone out to all the others that I’m gone and you’re in charge. Did you really think I was content with just one little Dome to take care of?”
    Partridge wants to press the heels of his palms over his ears, but he can’t move. He can barely breathe. He killed his father, and his father’s still here.
    “Open the top desk drawer. There, you’ll find a list of my enemies—now they’re yours. You’ll find out the truth that I’ve hidden from everyone—even you. You’ll find the simple, honest irony of everything I’ve tried to accomplish. Hopefully you’ll understand the fragility of what you’ve inherited. You might hate me. I understand. I hated my parents too. This is the way of the world. I saw the end, Partridge, and I was trying to save you from it. Believe what you want, but this is what fathers do.” His father pauses then. Did Willux see his own end in sight? What end? “One more thing,” his father says. Is he going to sign off by telling Partridge he loves him? What does Partridge really want from the dead man?
    His father lowers his voice and says, “A question.