by Casey, Ryan
She thought of Kayleigh and her friends, then, and forced herself not to think too much about them.
There was nothing else she could do for them. Nothing she could do for them at all. As guilty as she felt about it, she had to trust her instincts and get out of the city and into the wilderness.
Fortunately, Dad taught her a few things about survival. He didn’t treat her brother the same way, but then she was always his favourite.
And besides. Her brother was an interesting character. It didn’t exactly surprise her that he and Dad didn’t have the best of bonds.
She looked around at Max, hoping that at this point, he might’ve defrosted a little bit.
“So, where are you heading?”
He glared at her.
“Oh, come on,” Aoife said.
“We said no questions.”
“I didn’t think we actually meant we weren’t going to exchange a word this whole bloody way.”
“Well, I did.”
Aoife puffed out her lips, sighed. “At least tell me a bit about yourself.”
“What is there to know?”
“I dunno. I mean, I would ask if you had any family, but I figure that’s unlikely the way you are.”
He stopped, then. And Aoife saw his eyes widen. Just for a moment, an expression she hadn’t seen from him before. Something like anger.
“Sorry,” Aoife said, sensing she’d hit a sore spot. “Just making conversation.”
“I’ll flip it back on you then,” Max said, sounding a bit pissed off.
“What about me?”
“Tell me about your life. Tell me about where you’re from. And, hey. While we’re at it, tell me about your relationships. Because it’s hard to imagine you getting far in one, too, for what it’s worth.”
It was the most she’d heard him speak, and his words stung a little. And they further reinforced Aoife’s opinion that he wasn’t all that great a guy.
But then she sensed there was pain beneath those words.
But what he’d said about her. About it being hard to imagine her having a personal life of her own, too…
“What do you mean by that?”
Max turned around, shook his head. “We said no talking.”
“I want to know what you meant when you said—”
“I didn’t mean anything,” Max said. “I just… Don’t go asking people about themselves. Don’t go making assumptions. Especially if you aren’t willing to talk about them yourself.”
Aoife heard Max’s words, and she wanted to argue. But she figured he might have a point.
Did she really want to go telling him about Jason?
About what happened with him?
About what he’d chosen over her?
Maybe Max was right. Maybe it was better to stay quiet.
She walked along, Rex wandering beside her, happy and oblivious to everything going on. And no matter what happened, at least she had his company. All she needed when it came down to it.
“Shit,” Max said.
She looked up. “What?”
Max was walking over to something lying on the side of the road.
It was a motorbike.
An old bike. Silver. Looked like a classic type, although Aoife couldn’t pretend to know much about bikes.
The biker lying dead by its side.
The keys still inserted.
Max lifted it up. “An old Yamaha. Old enough not to be computerised, too. If we’re in luck…”
He started up the bike, and it came to life.
He smiled for the first time Aoife had ever seen. Chuckled a little.
And it felt weird, seeing the absurdity of a dead man’s bike being stolen, and yet it being treated as such a normality.
It felt wrong.
“A working bike,” he said. “Not an opportunity anyone wants to pass up.”
He looked at Aoife, and Aoife sensed there was a question, there. Sensed that he wanted to ask her if she wanted to join him. Like it was unspoken. Was he waiting for her to ask? To make the first move?
Dammit. She didn’t want to give him that satisfaction.
“Well,” he said. “It’s… I guess it’s going to be hard carrying a dog on the bike. Especially a big dog like that.”
Aoife’s stomach sank. “So you’re leaving us?”
“I thought… Well. I thought you said you were just going the same way as me?”
Aoife wanted to tell Max that as much as she didn’t like him and as much as he seemed a bit of a pig, she kind of liked him.
She sensed something there, under the surface.
Hidden pain.
She wanted to ask him if he’d stay with her, if she could join him.
She wanted to at least ask him where he was going.
But she couldn’t.
She just couldn’t.
She went to open her mouth to say something when she heard footsteps behind.
“Hey, bitch,” a voice said.
Aoife spun around, jumping out of her skin.
Beside her, Rex growled.
And when Aoife saw who was standing there, she could barely believe it.
She thought she was staring at a ghost.
But it was him.
Burned. Wounded. Covered in blood.
But it was him.
“Harry?” she said.
Chapter Thirty-One
Aoife stared at Harry standing there and couldn’t quite believe what she was looking at.
He was alive. More battered and bruised than she remembered, but there was no mistaking it was him.
It was Harry.
The last time she’d seen him, he’d been shouting for help, trapped inside the same bus she only narrowly managed to escape from.
She’d raced away from that bus in search of someone who could help, but then out of nowhere, a plane hurtled from the sky. Sent the whole bus up in flames.
And now he was here. Dried blood all over his face. His dark hair dripping sweat.
And a look in his bloodshot eyes of hatred.
“Harry?” she said. “How… how did you…”
“What?” he said. “Surprised to see me?”
“I—I—”
“Lost for words? Yeah. I would be too. If I’d left someone for dead, I’d be exactly the same.”
He walked towards Aoife, and she heard Rex growling beside her. A protective growl. Kicking his back legs a little. Docked tail definitely not wagging now.
“You left me for dead,” he said. “You could’ve helped me. But you didn’t. Because of some shitty argument we had before the crash.”
“That’s not true,” Aoife said.
“Bullshit,” Harry shouted. And then she saw in the moonlight the scratches across his face. The scratches she realised she’d given him. “You turned your back on me, and you ran away from me. I barely got out. I barely escaped. But I did. I did, and now I’m here. No fucking thanks to you.”
Aoife stared at Harry, and she shook her head. She felt so guilty for leaving him behind, for leaving him to die.
But he was here now.
He’d managed to escape.
He’d managed to fight his way free of the bus.
And for some reason, she couldn’t shake the feeling deep within that maybe things would have been easier if he hadn’t shown up out of the blue.
Because he was alive, and he clearly wanted some sort of revenge, which was a problem.
He stepped towards Aoife. Rex growled even more. Max was deadly quiet behind them all.
“I didn’t want you to die,” Aoife said.
“Bullshit. At least on the bus when you were scratching my face like a fucking animal, you were honest.”
“Harry,” Aoife said, digging her heels in. “I wanted to help. I had to save myself. I tried to find help. I tried. You can believe me or not. But that’s how it went down.”
But he kept on walking towards her.
Walking with anger on his face.
<
br /> Like he wanted to hurt her.
He stepped up to her as Rex started to bark at him.
“Can you shut your dog up? It’s getting on my—agh!”
Rex bit his ankle.
Harry fell to the floor, screaming like a child.
And as Aoife stood there, watching him roll about so pitifully, she kind of wanted to leave Rex to it. Because as much as she hadn’t wanted him to die, Harry was quite clearly a piece of shit. He’d spat in her face. And way before that, he’d made it clear he was misogynistic trash.
But then, on the other hand… well. He’d been through a lot of shit tonight too. A lot of trauma. He was bound to be fired up right now.
“Rex, stop,” Aoife said.
Right on cue, Rex backed off, stepped away.
She stood over Harry, then. Looked down at him as he clutched his ankle, rolling around on the ground.
“Listen to me,” she said. “I’m not here to have some futile little petty argument about whether I did or didn’t walk away. On whether I did or didn’t leave you to die. It’s bullshit. All I’m here for is to get out of the city. I don’t want to be held up by dickheads like you. So you’ve got a choice, here. You can get up, and you can actually stop whinging and acting like an adult. Or you can stay there, and you can get fucked, quite frankly.”
Harry looked up at her. The attention he was giving his ankle seemed to have faded now.
“You’re crazy,” he said.
“Maybe so,” Aoife said. “But that’s how it is.”
She held out a hand.
He looked at it, just for a second.
And then he ignored it and clambered to his feet.
“Wait,” Max said. The first things he’d said in this entire exchange. “I remember you.”
Harry looked over at him. And Max looked back at him, smirk on his face.
“The dick trying to get in the nightclub I was working at. Surprised you made it this far.”
Harry shook his head. “Oh, piss off.”
“Strongly considering it,” Max said, perched on that motorcycle. “Strongly considering it.”
Aoife looked at Harry, and she didn’t know what to say to him. Didn’t know what to suggest. He’d clearly followed her here. He clearly just wanted to confront her.
But right now, she had bigger priorities on her mind.
“I don’t know what your plan is,” she said. “But I’m getting out of the city.”
“I might just join you,” Harry said.
“You’re not welcome.”
“I can walk with you if I want to walk with you. No rules against that. Right?”
She opened her mouth to argue, then she remembered saying the same thing to Max and sensed her hypocrisy.
She closed her mouth. Sighed. “You can walk the way I’m going if you want to. But believe me. You aren’t coming with me.”
“You owe me that much.”
“No,” Aoife said. “I owe you literally nothing.”
She went to turn around when she heard something up ahead.
Something from the direction of the houses.
A group of people, running their way.
“Give Rex back!” one of them shouted. Blood trickling down his face.
The bloke she’d attacked.
And he wasn’t alone.
He was with four other people, all with baseball bats, all running towards them.
She swallowed a lump in her throat. “What do we do…”
And then she stopped.
Because she heard an engine rev up.
She turned around, and she saw Max turning the bike.
“Max?” she said. “What…”
“Sorry,” he said. “Nothing personal. But this isn’t my business. Good luck.”
He turned around, and he drove off into the distance.
And the group of thugs got closer and closer.
Chapter Thirty-Two
“Well,” Harry said. “It looks like you’re in deep shit now.”
Aoife watched Max disappear into the distance on the motorbike he’d found. He didn’t look back. And she felt betrayed. She hated that she felt this way. She hated feeling so dependent on somebody, especially somebody she didn’t even know, not really.
But then there’d been something about him. Something that, dare she say it, reminded her of her dad.
She gritted her teeth. Shook her head. He didn’t owe her anything. She’d walked with him for a while, but they were just strangers at the end of the day.
Nobody owed anybody anything.
She heard the group running towards her, towards Harry, and felt a knot of fear in her stomach.
“I mean,” Harry said. “They don’t sound like they’re best pleased with you.”
“Shut up.”
“You have a real way of making friends, don’t you?”
“I said shut up, okay?”
Harry raised his hands, which were cut and bloodied. “I’m just saying. It looks like someone’s finally gonna make you pay for your actions. The past always catches up with you in the end.”
Aoife looked around at the approaching group, and she hated to admit it, but she was afraid. She didn’t like feeling afraid. Didn’t like that sense of fear. It was the sense of vulnerability that bothered her, more than most things in life. The sense that someone might have the satisfaction of feeling stronger than her, somehow.
She saw them approaching, and as much as she wanted to stand her ground, as much as she wanted to show her strength and stand up to them, she knew she had to run.
She turned and ran as quickly as her sore leg would allow.
She ran in the direction of Max’s bike, and she heard Harry shouting for her.
“Hey! I can’t run too well here. Don’t fucking leave me again.”
And when she looked back at him, she felt bad for him, once again.
Because looking at it from his perspective, much of a shit as he was, for just a moment…
She’d left him in that bus to fend for himself.
And then, when he’d approached her about it, her dog had attacked him.
She looked at him and the approaching group.
And she saw Rex standing his ground and barking, too.
She knew she should take a leaf out of Max’s book. She knew she should just drop her petty attachments and run like the fucking wind.
But that wasn’t her.
She took a deep breath, gritted her teeth, and walked back.
When she got back to Harry’s side, she regretted it right away.
The man she’d hit over the head stood right there, right opposite her. Blood trickled all down his face. He didn’t look good.
“Take my dog?” he said, baseball bat in hand. “Hit me over the head? You’re a real piece of work; you know that?”
“Come on,” Aoife said, knowing she should hold her tongue but unable to—a problem she’d always had. “You were barely looking after the dog in the first place. One less mouth to feed if you let me take him anyway.”
“She’s a right bitch, Gary,” a bloke by his side said. “You should teach her a lesson, lad.”
“Yeah,” Aoife said, heart racing, adrenaline surging. “Fighting amongst ourselves. That’s really going to achieve a hell of a lot right now, isn’t it?”
The man called Gary stepped forward. Walked right up to Aoife, right up in her face. She could smell his sour breath. Stunk of booze. And his eyes were massive like he’d taken drugs.
He looked dangerous. And she couldn’t help feeling a little afraid of him.
But she’d be damned if she didn’t stand up to someone when she felt like they were wronging her.
“I should fucking kick the shit out of you,” Gary said. And then he checked her out. “But maybe we can all have some more fun with you.”
He scanned her from head to toe.
Licked his lips.
She tensed her jaw, gritted her teeth, and got ready to fight with eve
rything she had.
But she couldn’t shake her fear.
Couldn’t shake her horror.
Couldn’t—
“Leave her alone.”
She wasn’t sure where the voice came from. Not at first.
But then, as Gary looked around, she saw exactly where he was looking, too.
“Who the fuck are you?” Gary asked.
Harry stood tall. Covered in blood. Shaking.
But standing his ground.
And standing up for Aoife.
Gary walked towards him. Gary’s friends walked towards him. All of them turning their attention towards Harry now. Circling him.
“I asked you a question,” Gary said. “Who the fuck are you?”
“It doesn’t matter who I am,” Harry said. “Leave her alone. Move on. Surely you’ve got something better to do right now.”
There was silence. A few laughs from the group.
A smile across Gary’s face, even though he was quite clearly pissed off, too.
“Wow,” Gary said. “Confident. I like that.”
He looked around at Aoife, and a grin stretched across his face.
“This your boyfriend?” he asked.
“No. He’s—”
“What the hell. I don’t give a shit.”
And then he turned on Harry.
Whacked him over the side of the head with his baseball bat.
And then his friends descended on him as he fell to the floor and started beating him to a pulp.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Max accelerated forward and didn’t look back.
It was still dark, but he could see the sky turning bluer now as morning approached. He definitely wanted to be far away from the city when the sun rose. People were going to lose their shit when they woke up, hungover, and in realisation that the power was still out and that there was no information at all about what the hell was going on.
Max gritted his teeth and focused on the road ahead. He couldn’t go as fast as he wanted because there were so many obstacles on the street. Debris. Cars. But he was going quick enough. As quick as he needed to go.
