by Ryan Casey
A man stood above Aiden. He had a gun. It was the main bad man. The one called Mike.
“Well, what do we have here?” he said.
“Please!” Sue shouted. “Please! Let him go! Let him go!”
Mike tilted his head to one side. He focused right on Aiden’s eyes, the gun in his hand. Aiden knew what guns did. He’d seen what they did on the computer games Dad used to play, the ones he didn’t like him watching. And as he lay there, he felt himself start to wee.
“Weren’t you lot briefed on what happened if you attempted to run away?”
“Please,” Sue begged. She struggled against the people holding her back. The rest of the people with them—the others who the bad men had captured—looked similarly terrified. “My boy. Not my boy.”
Mike’s smile widened. He crouched down, right above Aiden. He put the gun to his head.
“We told you we’d punish runaways,” he said.
“Aiden!” Sue shouted. “Aiden. Pl—”
Sue went silent.
Aiden looked up, tried to see his mum. But she was on the ground, and her head was bleeding. Someone had hit her.
Mike pulled the gun away from Aiden’s head.
He put a hand on his shoulder.
He smiled.
“I’m a man of my word,” he said.
Then he pulled back his fist.
Chapter Sixteen
It was on the second day of walking that I really, really started to miss our home.
It was late afternoon, and despite it being bright, there was a distinct chill in the air. Just typical that it would go chilly right when we were sent on our way, out of the comfort of our home and into the unknown. It’d been fine when we’d been cooped up there, the weather sunnier and warmer than I thought possible. Now we were on the road, of course it had taken a turn for the worst.
We were walking down a country lane. We’d passed through a few villages, a few woodlands, with no real sense of which direction we were going in. Really, we just had to hope for the best. The goal? To get somewhere safe, of course. But how could we get somewhere safe when we didn’t know who was out there? How could we define safety when we didn’t know who we could trust?
And how could we simply move on when we knew there was someone out there with Hannah, Sue and Aiden?
Remy walked on up ahead. Haz was a little further ahead, with Lionel by his side. He’d spent most of the day trying to explain how to identify edible plants. It was nice of him to tell us belatedly that it was mostly a waste of time going after game and animals. We’d been living together a while before he broke that news. But he’d spent a lot of time explaining various edible plants to us before we’d left to go on the road. Wild spinach, cattail, clovers, and even dandelions. But it was hit and miss, because picking the wrong kind of plant was disastrous and potentially fatal.
So in all truth, our hunting was unglamorous a lot of the time. And by unglamorous I mean small frogs. Poor things.
Nutritious, though.
Holly was walking with me. She’d taken something of a shine to me, which I wasn’t sure whether I liked, mostly because someone taking a shine to me was bad news where attachment was concerned.
I didn’t want to be attached with Holly because I knew it was bad news. If I let myself get close to her, then there would be more for her to lose. More for me to lose.
But at the same time, I couldn’t just blank the kid. She’d lost her dad, then she’d lost her mum and her brother to whatever fate. She was one of my people. I had to do what I could to make sure she felt as safe as she possibly could.
“You okay, Holly?” I asked.
She looked up at me and smiled. “It’s a lovely day.”
I felt both happy and sad about the way she’d said those words with such boldness. I longed for the naivety of youth in this world, a life where you didn’t know what was going on but in a more blissful way rather than the dangerous outlook everything had to adults.
I smiled back at her. “It is. It is.”
“When do you think we’re gonna see my mum and brother again?”
My stomach sank. I looked over at Remy, who glanced back at me. I knew what that look was. He thought we should be going after Hannah, Sue and Aiden. After all, they were a part of our group. It was our duty to go after them.
But how did we even start?
“I don’t know,” I said, realising that I didn’t have to be completely honest, just a little. “But we will find them, someday. I promise you that.”
“My brother used to promise me things all the time. Toys and games. He never gave them me.”
“Well I’m not your brother. I’m a grown-up. And grown-ups keep their promises.”
The concern she’d had just moments ago wiped from her face.
As long as she believed she was going to be reunited with her family, then… well. That was all that mattered.
For now.
I caught up with Remy, leaving Holly with Haz and Lionel. He was checking the compass that he’d made by hand, although I wasn’t sure what good a compass was. We weren’t heading in any real direction. We were just walking and hoping for the best. That was what our lives had come to now.
“What’re you thinking?” I asked him.
“You know what I’m thinking.”
The skin on the back of my neck prickled with discomfort. “We’ve talked about this.”
“We owe it to the others to go after them. To at least attempt to go after them.”
“And where do we even start?”
“We start by looking for trails. We start by… by…”
“You see, you don’t know yourself.”
“Look, Scott,” Remy said. And he said it more assertively than I’d ever heard him speak. “It might be easy for you to just give up on other people at the click of a finger. But it isn’t for me. Not for me.”
My chest tensed. “And you think it’s easy for me? Really?”
Remy lowered his head. “I didn’t mean that.”
“No, you meant it alright. I know you’ve had it bottled up inside for God-knows-how-long now. Well good. I’m glad it’s out in the open. I’m glad I know where I stand.”
“Why are they arguing?”
I heard Holly’s voice and it made me feel guilty. I looked at her. She was standing by Haz’s side, observing Remy and me closely. She looked concerned. Really concerned.
I looked back at Remy and I dared him to tell the truth. I dared him to tell Holly why we were arguing. If he did, I couldn’t promise I wouldn’t punch him right across the jaw.
But instead, Remy just shook his head. “You’re going to drive everyone away, Scott. And before you know it, you’ll be the last one left. But maybe that’s what you want, too.”
I wanted to bite back at Remy. I wanted to put him in his place and give him a piece of mind.
But I didn’t.
Not when I saw the movement on the road ahead of him.
Not when I saw the people walking towards us, led by Mike.
Not when I saw Sue, Hannah and Aiden trailing behind them, prisoners.
Chapter Seventeen
I watched Mike, trailed by Hannah, Sue, Aiden and about eight other people, walk down the road towards us and immediately I jumped into the hedge beside us, Holly’s hand in mine.
The branches scratched at my face. I could taste blood on my lips, so I knew I’d taken a nasty cut. But I couldn’t worry about that right now. I had to worry about making sure we were out of sight.
I turned around. Haz and Remy were still in the road, Lionel by Haz’s side.
“Quick!” I said.
Haz and Remy both looked at me as I wormed my way deeper into the branches. I could tell from the concern on their faces that they didn’t know whether they could make it in time.
There was only one way to find out.
“Come on!”
The next moment, I saw the pair of them run towards me, leaping into the hedge beside me
.
When Haz landed, a few of the branches fell away, exposing our position.
“Oh bloody hell,” I said. I tried to pull the branches back over us.
Haz gasped, covered in sweat. “I’m sorry, okay? I couldn’t help it.”
“Well.”
“Don’t mention my weight, man. Lay off. Please.”
We were silent then, all of us. I held tightly on to Lionel to make sure he didn’t make any sudden moves, but of course, him being a dog, that was difficult to enforce. I listened as the footsteps of the approaching group neared. I could hear talking. Laughing.
And I could hear crying.
The group drifted into view.
I held my breath.
Mike was leading the way, armed with a gun. He had that smug smile on his face; the smile he always had. There were a few people with him, a couple of those also armed with guns.
Behind them, Hannah. Then a few other people—prisoners, clearly.
And behind her, Sue.
Further back still, Aiden.
My body felt like it was caving in when I saw Aiden. He had a bruise right above his left eye. I didn’t know what had happened, how he’d got it, only that it wasn’t there when we’d been separated. I dreaded to think how he might’ve got it. It made my skin crawl.
But some of these people were armed, and we were not. What exactly could we do about it?
“Mummy,” Holly muttered.
I covered Holly’s mouth with my hand, instinctively. I didn’t want to silence her like that, just didn’t want to draw any attention to our position.
I watched the group pass by. None of them looked at us. But my heart raced, because I knew all it would take would be for one of them to glance in our direction and it would be finished; we would be finished.
I didn’t want to run, or hide, like a coward.
But at the same time, I didn’t want to die, either.
If that meant hiding while this group passed by—even though they had our people—then that was a tough decision I just had to make.
“We need to act,” Remy whispered.
My stomach sank. I shook my head. “How the hell are we supposed to act?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I just know that these people are our friends. One of them is Holly’s mother. We can’t just leave them behind.”
I gritted my teeth. “We’re not leaving them behind. We’re just…”
One of the men at the back of the group looked right in our direction.
I swore he made eye contact with us, for just a split second, but long enough to realise there was someone there. Sure, visibility wasn’t as bright as it had been an hour or two ago, but it was still clear enough to recognise somebody; a face in the undergrowth.
I kept still. Completely still. I held my breath. I didn’t want to move a muscle.
But just as quickly as he’d looked at us, he glanced away, and carried on walking.
I let myself breathe as the group passed by. And as they moved, my heart pounded. I realised we were onto them now. By some miracle we’d ended up running into them, which meant we knew their position.
And sure, there wasn’t a lot we could do about them. Not while we were down on numbers and down on weapons.
But at least we knew their position.
At least we had an idea where they were.
Remy stepped out of the hedges and into the road.
I followed shortly after, Holly’s hand in mine. Then we were all out on the road, staring ahead at the turn in the road which the group—and our people—had turned around.
“Where’ve they gone?” Holly asked.
It pained my heart that she should be so close to reunion with her mother and brother only to have her hopes ruined all over again. “They’re not far off. I promise.”
“So you see what we have to do now?” Remy said. “You see we’ve got no choice but to go after them?”
I swallowed a lump in my throat. On one hand, I wanted to. Of course I wanted to. After all, I had feelings of my own for Hannah. She was the closest person I’d been to since Harriet’s death—which of course brought problems. Attachment problems, things like that.
But I cared about her. I couldn’t just leave her to those people.
“Yeah,” I said, summoning up all the courage I had. “We’ve… we’ve got to do something.”
But then I froze.
I froze because there was something behind us.
A noise.
Movement.
I didn’t want to turn around but I knew I had to. I knew there was no choice.
I held my breath, prayed I was just imagining things, and I turned.
That’s when I saw the movement.
Chapter Eighteen
I didn’t have to turn around to know I was in deep shit.
I heard the rustling of footsteps again and my heart sank. By my side, I knew Haz, Remy and Holly must’ve heard it too. Lionel was getting restless too, turning around and looking behind him.
Part of me just wanted to stay put. To never face the people who were approaching us. At least that way, I wouldn’t have to stare inevitable imprisonment—or worse—in the face.
But life didn’t work like that. Holly’s hand was in mine. I’d made her a promise to get her back to her mother, and as sceptical as I was about my own promise, I couldn’t just give up.
So I took a deep breath and I turned around, preparing to face up against another member of the rival group.
But there was something different about the man standing there.
He was skinny. His clothes were torn. His cheekbones were narrow. He didn’t look to be holding a gun. Nothing… well, as privileged as a gun.
Instead, he was holding a long blade.
I stood there, my unease growing. I glanced at the others, who were facing this man now too. He didn’t look like he was a part of the group we’d just run into—the one who had Hannah, Sue and Aiden captive.
He looked… well, more run-down. Dirtier, in a sense.
I was about to open my mouth and speak to him—as much as I wanted to get away from him—when I saw more people emerge from behind.
They too were holding knives, and were wearing torn clothes. They looked like they’d been pulled off the set of some dystopian television series, except… I guess that’s kind of what this was now, minus the cameras.
There were quite a few of them. Eight, on first count.
They didn’t look at us with much surprise. In a way, they just examined us like we were a part of the landscape; like we weren’t the ones they were after.
I felt a shiver creep up the back of my neck when I saw them all standing there, at the opposite side of the road.
At the other side of the road, somewhere ahead of us, the other group, who had our people.
Sandwiched between two groups.
I opened my lips to start speaking. “Who…”
Then the group started to jog in our direction.
My stomach dropped. I froze. I watched them all fly in our direction, gradually picking up in speed.
Then, I ran.
I looked around as I sprinted away. All around us, there were hedges, which we’d hidden in once. Hedges, all around us. They were too thick to push through.
But the footsteps were coming. So we had to try.
“Quick!” I shouted.
I ran towards the hedges once again, Holly’s hand in mine. Haz and Remy followed closely behind, Lionel by their side.
Up the road, the sound of footsteps echoed through the silence. I imagined them coming down on us, splitting us into pieces. That wasn’t how I wanted to go. That wasn’t the last thing I wanted Holly to know, not when she’d been so close to reunion with her mum and her brother.
That wasn’t how I wanted to die before I had the chance to tell Hannah how I really felt about her…
The hedges slammed against us. They scratched at my face, and at my body.
But I pulle
d the leaves aside. I slashed them away with my knife. I cut at them, pushing and pushing until the twigs fell and a road opened to the other side. Small, but there.
The footsteps were so close now. But we weren’t far enough away. I didn’t know where Haz and Remy were. I looked down at Holly, who looked back up at me with tears in her eyes.
“Are we going to die now?” she asked.
I turned around, tried to open up the hedge.
There was no pushing through.
The footsteps were imminent.
So I turned back around and I held Holly close. If this was it, then I wanted her to know that someone was with her in her final moments.
“No one’s going to hurt us,” I said.
The group were right beside us now.
“No one’s going to…”
Then, something happened.
The group didn’t stop when they reached our position.
They didn’t pull back their blades and slam them into our flesh.
They didn’t do anything to us. Not at all.
Instead, they kept on running.
I watched them pass by, my mouth wide. I wanted to understand; I wanted to speak, but I just couldn’t get the words out. I couldn’t interpret what was happening.
All I knew was that the group were running past us.
They weren’t after us.
They…
When the bulk of the group passed by, I looked to the other side of the road, where Remy, Haz and Lionel had been standing just moments ago.
They were nowhere to be seen.
I looked down at Holly. She was crying.
“It’s okay,” I said. “You’re going to be okay now.”
I went to help her out of the hedge when I saw movement to my left.
And when I realised there was a man right beside us, slowly walking towards the hedge, knife in hand, I should’ve known getting away wasn’t going to be quite so easy…
Chapter Nineteen
Remy watched the man with the knife move closer to Scott and Holly through the gap in the branches and he knew, deep down, what he had to do.
