The Heavens Rise Read Online Free PDF Page A

have scrambled out into the alley without knocking the poor boy out of his wheelchair?
    These thoughts were assaulting Arthelle from all sides, reducing her to a quivering wreck in one corner of the room while her colleaguestried to stop the flow of Tammy’s blood, ignoring as they worked the fact that Tammy’s eyes now stared up at the ceiling with the glaze of death.
    An alarm screamed. But it was the wrong one, not the steady honking of the Code Blue alarm meant to summon all of them to a patient’s room. This was the old whoop and wail, as the girls called it; the shrill, screaming fire alarm. An alarm’s an alarm , she thought. And what does it matter now? She’s gone. Tammy’s plum gone.
    Emily was halfway across the room before Arthelle sprang to her feet. The crazed girl had hauled the fireman’s ax back over one shoulder, its red and silver blade glinting in the fluorescent light. The nurses working on Tammy were too busy to see what was about to happen, but Arthelle did. The ax blade struck the arm of the wheelchair a few inches from Marshall Ferriot’s limp right hand. By then, Arthelle had driven Emily face-first into the floor with enough force to knock the wind out of the crazy little bitch.
    Thanks to Arthelle Williams, they had all been spared two gruesome deaths at the center that day. But as soon as Arthelle felt a surge of triumph, she looked up and saw Tammy Keene’s blood sliding toward them across the linoleum, making the victory feel as empty as the patient sitting a few feet away appeared to be.

FROM THE JOURNALS OF NIQUETTE DELONGPRE
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    A nthem Landry came to us in the middle of sophomore year, a transfer student from an all-boys’ Catholic high school in Jefferson Parish, where he’d been required to wear a khaki uniform to class each day. That’s why he showed up for his first day of class at Herschel B. Cannon in acid-washed blue jeans and a black T-shirt with the phrase PAIN IS WEAKNESS LEAVING THE BODY printed on the back in paint-splatter font. Obviously he thought the absence of an official dress code meant he could attend his new school looking like he was about to go fishing with his brothers.
    If he hadn’t been almost six feet tall, there might have been a few snickers as he made his way to the nearest empty desk. But the other students in our English class that day registered his size and his outfit with the same stunned silence.
    What I remember even more vividly is the look he gave me once he took a seat and sensed me staring holes in the back of his thick, olive-skinnedneck; a look of such unguarded fear that my breath caught in my throat. At first, I was filled with pity for him—there’s nothing worse than being the new kid. If Ben and I hadn’t had each other the year before, I’m not sure what we would have done. But then I found myself dizzy from a strange combination of desire and opportunity. I wasn’t used to seeing that kind of vulnerability in a boy of his size and good looks, and I couldn’t help but see it as an invitation.
    That afternoon, Ben and I found him sitting alone in the central courtyard, a few yards away from the giant oak tree where most of the freshmen and sophomores gathered during lunch, inhaling a plate of turkey tetrazzini as if it were the first meal he’d consumed in months.
    I think I was the first one to speak. So your name’s Anthem, huh? That’s kinda cool.
    And Anthem said something like. My mom’s got a thing with names. My brotha says she likes tuh name her kids like we all celebrities or royalty or something.
    Ben and I exchanged a look as we heard the guy speak. The accent was way too Jefferson Parish, that was for sure: 100% yat. (And yat, by the way, is a derogatory nickname for working-class folk who live along the lakefront, folks who see crawfish boils and hair spray as a religion, folks who dress their toddlers in Saints gear every game day and speak with what is essentially a Cajun accent deprived of its French