by Ryan Casey
“You stabbed me. You left me to them. You…”
And Aoife realised then that by offloading like this to Grace, by showing how worked up she was about everything, how much it’d got to her, she was actually giving her what she wanted.
Because Grace wanted Aoife to be in pain.
She wanted Aoife to suffer.
“Fuck you for this,” Aoife said. “Seriously, fuck you.”
Grace’s eyes looked happy. Genuinely happy. “I was never going to leave you here. You didn’t deserve to be let off the hook like that. Now come on. Let’s get a move on. The other blokes’ll be onto us in no time.”
She turned around, rushed over to the window, which Aoife realised was smashed, now.
Stopped when she reached it. Looked down, down below.
Aoife tried to limp over towards it but walking hurt. The stab wound wasn’t as bad as it could have been, but it still wasn’t great. No way she could do any running, that was for sure.
She limped her way over to the window. She could hear footsteps approaching, even though she was deaf in one ear from the kicking she’d had—hopefully only temporarily.
She reached Grace’s side, and she wanted to bury that blade into her.
But at the same time… it struck her that she needed a hand right now.
She needed a hand because of her leg wound.
She had to use Grace to her advantage right now.
And there was something else, too.
That sense.
The sense that she deserved what had happened to her.
And that sense that Grace was going to get what was coming to her, eventually.
“Besides,” Grace said. “Look down there. I brought a friend of yours to see you.”
“You really want me to go first again? Think I’m actually falling for that again?”
“Seriously,” Grace said. “Just take a look. Besides. I’m not one for pulling the same trick twice.”
Aoife leaned forward, half-expecting another blade to the leg.
But when she saw who was down there, she couldn’t quite believe what she was looking at.
Sitting there in the darkness.
Wagging his tail.
“Rex,” Aoife said.
“We’ve got a slight problem,” Grace said. “We’re going to have to climb down to the next window. The ladder I propped up against the front, it only reached so far. But there’s plenty to hold on to, don’t worry.”
Aoife shook her head. “After what you did to my leg? You really think I’m climbing my way down here?”
“You can do what you damned well want. But do try to stay alive, wouldn’t you? I’m not quite done with you yet.”
For a moment, Aoife swore Grace winked at her.
But then she walked to the window and dropped down.
Climbed her way down the loose bricks protruding from the side of the building.
Got to the window below, then hopped down onto a ladder and clambered her way down.
“See?” Grace said. “Simple.”
Aoife gritted her teeth. She could hear the footsteps of the others approaching. She knew she needed to act pretty damned quickly if she wanted to get out of this.
“Fuck it,” she muttered.
She went to climb her way down the side of the window.
Clawed at the loose, protruding bricks.
The cold air blowing against her, icy, biting.
“What are you doing?” she muttered. “What are you actually doing?”
She climbed further down when she heard the voices in the room above. They were in there now. They’d found the two blokes she and Grace had killed. Shit. She didn’t have much time left.
She climbed further down, leg aching like mad, arms weak, body totally drained.
Kept on going until she reached the next window.
Until…
One of the bricks.
Going loose, in her palm.
Holding her breath.
Waiting to fall.
And then it holding. Holding just as long as she needed it to.
She climbed further down the side of the window. Dangled her foot down, desperately trying to find the ladder.
“Hurry up,” Grace called.
“I’m trying, okay? Would really help if you hadn’t stabbed me.”
She dangled her leg down further, trying to find the top of the ladder, when she felt it.
Felt it right there beneath her.
The ladder.
She was on it.
She could start climbing down it.
She could get away from this.
She eased onto it. Gasping with relief. Then she climbed down it, further and further.
She was almost at the bottom.
She was almost there.
She was almost.
“Fuck!”
She stopped.
Froze.
Footsteps.
Footsteps below.
She could see two men. Reaching Grace.
She could see Rex barking. Kicking back.
She could see the way Grace tried to stand her ground, tried to fight.
And she could see then how these two men wrestled her to the ground.
She looked down at Grace. Right down into those bright green eyes. Saw the way Grace looked up at her. Knowing. Accusing.
And Aoife kept still, in the darkness. Completely still.
She watched as those men dragged Grace away, back inside the building.
She waited until she was absolutely sure she was in the clear.
And then she climbed down that ladder and reached Rex’s side.
“Come on, Rex,” she said, fussing him, cuddling him, rubbing his fur. “Let’s… let’s get out of here.”
She looked into the darkness of the derelict old hospital.
And then she took a deep breath, turned around, and walked.
Chapter Forty-Six
Aoife limped off into the woods as night turned to day.
But she couldn’t stop thinking about one thing. The most surprising thing of all.
Grace.
She looked over her shoulder, back towards the town, back towards where she’d come from. The abandoned hospital she’d escaped. She thought about what’d happened to her in there. How she’d been beaten. And how she’d been so close to being sexually assaulted.
She thought about it, and she thought about Grace, back there with whoever was still alive in there.
She thought of what she might be going through right now. The horror she might be feeling. All because Aoife had turned her back on her, just as Grace had turned her back on Aoife.
The betrayal.
The abandonment.
Why did it feel so wrong when really, it was so right?
Grace had murdered Max. She’d murdered so many of her people. She’d destroyed her home. Left her for dead. Stabbed her in the leg and then gone back for her in some kind of emotional rollercoaster.
And despite all that, Aoife felt this urge. This desire to get to her. This sense that this couldn’t be the way things ended.
This weird feeling that Grace didn’t deserve this. That the pair of them had already put each other through enough hell as it was…
But no. She couldn’t think like that. Couldn’t show weakness.
Grace deserved everything she was getting.
She limped further along. Her leg ached like mad. The bandage the blokes had wrapped around it didn’t look the cleanest, and blood was leaking through. She just had to hope the wound was superficial and would heal by itself. Just had to hope it didn’t get infected. That’d be a real shitter. Killed by a second-rate infection after all she’d been through. Really made her question the point of everything. Whether life even had a point at all.
She thought about Max. How his life ended, so abruptly, so suddenly, so without resolution. Life didn’t have neat little resolutions. Maybe Grace was destined to die at the hands of those men, and maybe A
oife was destined to die at the hands of blood loss and infection.
And did either of them really deserve any more?
She stopped. Rex stopped by her side. She checked the bandage. The wound wasn’t bleeding too badly, not as badly as she thought anyway. But she was going to have to stop at some point. Going to have to take a breather.
She sat down. Leaned back against a tree. But the tiredness that hit her scared her. Fuck. What if she was losing more blood than she thought? What if infection was setting in already?
What if she was dying?
So she yanked herself back to her feet, afraid to stay still in case she passed out and died, when suddenly a crippling sense of dread hit her.
It didn’t matter who’d instigated the horrors that had gone down.
It didn’t matter who was more or less to blame.
And it didn’t matter that Aoife hated Grace with her fucking life for what she’d done.
She could be the better person here.
She could be the one who rose above all the shit and all the horrors that’d happened.
She could be the better person.
She stared back, right back, right through the trees. Right along the path she’d walked.
She thought about Max.
Thought about her community. Thought about her home.
She thought about what Grace had taken away from her.
And then she thought about what she had taken away from Grace, too.
Just for a moment, she let herself think about that.
Then she swallowed a sickly lump in her throat, and she sighed.
She looked down at Rex.
Then, back in the direction she’d come from.
And as much as her body told her not to do it, as much as her mind told her to hold back, to resist… Aoife walked.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Grace felt the man slam his fist into her face and tasted blood.
And at that moment, she didn’t care.
She hadn’t cared about anything for a long time. Especially didn’t care about someone kicking the shit out of her. Her face was a decent target, in all truth, because she didn’t feel much pain there anyway.
But in a way, she wished she could feel pain.
Because she’d let that bitch Aoife get one over her.
She’d come back here, stupidly. Come back here to help her out. Well, not to help her… or fuck, maybe it was to help her, she didn’t even know herself.
But she’d come back here for whatever reason and helped Aoife out of the mess she’d found herself in, only something had happened.
She’d been caught.
And Aoife had stood there on that ladder, staring down at her just like she’d stared down at her when she was in that burning pit, coldness in her eyes, and she’d got one over her, once again.
Another crack against her face. The taste of blood intensifying. She didn’t know how long she’d been here, locked in this room. These two men before her, trading punches, again and again, and again. She could hear them saying things. Lewd things. Things about her appearance, about how fucking ugly she looked, about how she was a monster.
And as much as the residual shame haunted her, she just let the words wash through her at this point.
Because at the end of the day, what else could she do?
Sit here. Feel those punches crack against her. Wait for them to abuse them in whatever ways they deemed fit.
All she had to hold on to was her hatred for Aoife.
Her hatred for doing this to her.
But can you blame her, really?
It was that thought she kept coming back to. The thought of her actions, of the things she’d done to Aoife to make her react in the way she had.
Could she really blame her?
Hell. Who gives a fuck?
The bitch wasn’t supposed to get one over her like this. She wasn’t supposed to have the last laugh. It was supposed to be Grace who had the power, who got her revenge, not Aoife.
But Grace had let her guard drop.
She should never have gone back for Aoife. She should have left her to suffer at the hands of these creepy fuckers.
She should have let them finish her off.
But then that guilt, and that attachment, and…
Another punch right across her face.
Head spinning.
Darkness approaching.
Grace sat there on the chair, and a part of her still couldn’t quite believe this was the end. Couldn’t quite accept it. This wasn’t how her story was supposed to go. She was a clever kid. A bright young girl. She’d had a good life, and she was destined to go far.
And now she couldn’t even see herself in that old life.
Now, she didn’t even recognise the person she used to be.
The things she’d done.
What would the old Grace think of her?
What would her parents think of her?
What did she think of herself?
Another hit.
More blood.
More darkness.
But this time, something else, too.
A feeling.
A feeling buried beneath all the strength, all the coldness.
A feeling of pain.
Of sadness.
Of longing for what she’d lost.
Of her little brother, Tim, and the play fights they’d have. The running races they’d have by the side of the pond when they were kids.
The happy childhood they’d had.
She thought of it all, and then she took a deep breath through her blocked and bloodied nose and waited for the next punch.
Another crack.
Another burst of blood.
And then, darkness.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Aoife saw the abandoned hospital in the distance, and she knew exactly what she had to do.
She knew she was mad. Fucking crazy, even. Her leg was sore as hell, and she was absolutely exhausted. She’d spent God knows how long awake, walking through the woods, finding the supplies she needed to get through, to survive.
And all for what?
To save a woman she despised.
A woman who’d killed Max and destroyed her home.
She might be fucking crazy. But she wanted to be the better person.
She had no idea what she’d do with Grace when she got her out of this place. No idea whether she’d just end up killing her after all.
But in a weird kind of way, she knew Grace was right when she’d said they had business to settle between them.
And that’s exactly what they had to do.
She took a deep breath. Looked down the slope towards the entrance to the abandoned hospital. She knew there weren’t many scavengers left in that place. Only a couple, maybe a few more.
They’d be manageable. Easy enough to get past.
But still, she had to be careful.
It was dark, at least. It was dark, and that gave her the best cover. The best opportunity. The best chance.
Only there was one problem.
Rex.
She wrapped the lead around his neck and tied him around a tree. Felt so bad doing so, seeing his ears drop, hearing him whine.
“Ssh, lad. Ssh. This isn’t the end. I’ll be back for you, I swear.”
She made sure not to tie the lead too tight. Part of her wanted to know he could slip it if he absolutely had to. If it came to biting it off, he’d be able to, that was for sure.
But she couldn’t risk dragging him in there with her. Couldn’t risk losing him.
No. This was a mission to handle herself.
She patted his head, ruffled his fur. And as she looked into his big, brown eyes, she felt an air of finality about everything. A sense that this might just be the last time she ever looked into his eyes. The last time she stroked him.
And in a deep sense, maybe that’s what she deserved. Maybe she didn’t deserve another opportunity. Another chance.
; But shit. Whatever she deserved or didn’t deserve, she knew what she had to do. Knew there was only one way.
She had to go get Grace out of the grips of those fuckers inside.
At least Grace had a reason for attacking Aoife. For doing what she was doing. For doing everything she had done.
A twisted, messed-up reason that Aoife would never see eye to eye with. But a reason all the same.
These men just wanted to hurt. Just wanted to cause pain. Just wanted to dominate.
But Aoife couldn’t allow that.
She took a deep breath, stroked Rex’s head again.
“It’ll be okay, lad. I’ll come back for you. I swear I will.”
Then, she stood tall and tensed her fists.
It was time to go get Grace.
And then it was time to settle the score between them.
Once and for all.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Mitchell went to take another swing at the ugly bitch when he heard something creaking from the corridor behind him.
He stopped. Looked around. Probably Dave-o goofing around again. Always liked pulling pranks. Bit of a dick, that one. Mitchell never really liked him.
But he was one of the last ones left. So they had to stick together.
For now, anyway.
He looked back. Back across the dusty, dark room. Over towards that corridor. Come to think of it, Dave-o had been gone for a while now. Which wasn’t like, weird in any way. He often snook off and smoked drugs in his spare time. Had a shitty little cannabis plant and a greasy old bong. Absolutely reeked of weed at all times, he did.
But hey. Everyone had their ways of getting through this world.
He looked back at the woman. Or at least what was left of her messed up face, anyway. Her eyes were bruised and swollen over now. Hardly much of a face left.
He could still hear her breathing, wheezing. And for a second, he felt bad for her. Behind that messed-up face, he wondered if she was pretty underneath. Wondered what secrets she had. Hell, maybe he’d stop punching her now. Maybe he’d keep her around, get to know her.
After all, the people her and that other bitch killed?
He didn’t like ’um so much. Not really.
They were always dicks to him. Took the piss because he was a bit slow.
