Unwind

The Admiral asks Risa for aspirin, but she insists on taking his blood pressure first. Outside, she hears a commotion.

The mob tries to get inside the jet, but Risa closes the hatch. “Then someone tears out the power line connecting the jet to its generators. The lights go out, the air-conditioning shuts down, and the entire jet quickly begins to bake in the broiling sun” (247).

Connor accuses Roland of murdering the five kids. Roland tells him he has nothing to confess. Connor says he can wait all day.

The kids outside the Admiral’s jet try to destroy it, but the aircraft is impenetrable.

Roland tells Connor that he has done many things, but he has never killed anyone. Hayden shows up and tells Connor he needs to get the mob to stop. When Connor arrives at the Admiral’s jet, one kid is already dead. Connor yells, “YOU SHOULD ALL BE UNWOUND” (252). Everyone stops. “The shock of hearing such words from one of their own snaps them back to sanity” (252). He gets the kids to help him put the staircase to the Admiral’s jet back up. Risa comes out and tells Connor that the Admiral is having a heart attack. They decide they need to take the helicopter to get him medical attention. There is only one pilot left: Roland.

A helicopter crash lands in the hospital parking lot. The kids in the helicopter tell the residents that the man does not want a transplant. As they take the man away with two of the kids, the third kid, the pilot, stops one of the residents. “I need you to call the Juvey-cops” (256), he says. He tells her the other two are runaway Unwinds.

The Juvey-cops show up to get Risa and Connor. Of the cops, Risa notes:

[…] there are two types of people who become Juvey-cops. Type one: bullies who want to spend their lives reliving their glory days of high school bullying. Type two: the former victims of type ones, who see every Unwind as the kid who tormented them all those years ago (257).

Risa realizes that, regardless of the Admiral’s fate, hers and Connor’s won’t change.

When Connor took him out of the crate, he had three other large kids with him. “They were kids who should have been on Roland’s side. Should have been. It was his first indication that everything had drastically changed” (258). He understood his support was gone. “Roland agreed to fly the helicopter to save the Admiral’s life, not because he had any desire to see the man live, but because taking that flight provided a new door of opportunity” (259). He tells the cop he knows where 400 AWOL Unwinds are.

“Roland won’t look at them. He won’t even acknowledge their presence in the room. He just leans back in his chair” (260). Risa tries to tell the cops that Roland is lying, but they tell her he isn’t because they already know about the Graveyard. “See, runaway Unwinds on the street—that’s a problem for us. But the Admiral gets them off the street….He doesn’t know it, but he’s doing us a favor” (260-1). Connor asks if they will be let go, but the cops pull out his file and tells him they can’t do that. Roland is in shock: Connor is the Akron AWOL.