by V. L. Dreyer
As soon as Michael had brought the Hilux to a stop, I hopped out with my shotgun at the ready and scanned the surroundings for any signs of danger. I saw and heard nothing, just the occasional warble of birdsong and the pounding of the rain on the roof of the truck beside me.
"Stay out here and organise the watch," I instructed when Michael joined me. He nodded and went off to direct traffic, while I inspected the building that had brought us all that way. The moody weather meant that it was dark inside, too dark for me to be able to make out much beyond the ragged glass around the window frames. I reached inside my jacket and grabbed my torch, tucking it inside my sleeve to keep it from getting wet.
The golden beam probed the darkness and drove back the shadows, revealing a small room that had once been a lobby. Debris of a hundred different sorts littered the floor and gathered in the corners; I stepped over the window frame and made my way deeper, my feet crunching across a mixture of leaf litter and trash blown in over the course of a thousand windy days. Tiny, sparkling gems of broken safety glass glittered when my torchlight brushed past them, giving everything a strange, otherworldly feeling.
I heard quiet footfalls behind me, then Skylar's voice whispered, "We're here. Where do we go?"
"Cover me while I check the building is safe," I answered quietly. The response was a chorus of metallic clicks as my companions slipped the safeties off their weapons. I did the same, and led the way down the corridor towards the back of the building.
On either side of the hallway, doors hung open like shadowy, gaping maws. I checked each one, and found a couple of offices, a couple of sound studios, a small lunchroom, and a pair of single-stall lavatories beside an exit that let out into an empty car park.
"I guess the folks that worked here all went home to die," I commented, closing the door to the car park and locking it from the inside.
"Well, aren't you morbid today?" Skye answered, her voice dry and sarcastic. I grunted inarticulately in response, focusing on a more important question: was the power working in Tokoroa?
A light switch caught the beam of my torch. I gently slid past my sister and friends, and pressed it with my thumb. Light flared up, but it was dull and flickering, barely enough to see. I ran my gaze across the ceiling, and discovered that most of the bulbs had been shattered: only two were still intact. Whether that was deliberate or not was a mystery that I couldn't solve.
"Well, at least we've got power," I said, trying to make myself sound cheerful for the sake of my companions. I glanced at them to check who I had with me, and found Jim, Zane, and Ropata following me, in addition to my sister. I nodded and smiled at them. "I saw two sound studios. Let's split up and examine them, see if we can get one of them working."
They nodded obediently. Zane and Ropata headed off towards the studio on the right, leaving me, Jim, and Skye to look at the other one. I found a light switch just inside the door, and this one yielded better results than the one out in the lobby. Unfortunately, what it lit up was a bank of buttons, switches, and dials that looked about as complex as the control panel of a battleship to my inexperienced eye.
"Wow, I have no idea what to do here," I admitted, then I shot a look of appeal at the other two. "Help?"
"Don't worry, I know exactly what to do," Skye answered cheerfully.
Surprised, I lifted my brows and looked at her. "Yeah?"
"Yep!" She grinned suddenly and gave me a playful wink. "We find the manual. Then, we read it."
"Damn, I was hoping to be way out of town by sunset," I said, shaking my head. "Oh well. Nothing we can do about it. Anahera will never let me hear the end of it if we don't at least try."
"It's the right thing to do," Skye reassured me.
To my surprise, Jim also grunted and nodded his agreement. "We may not have liked having to leave our homes, but at least your warning gave us the option to choose. Better that than die unprepared."
"True." The thought cheered me up enough that the smile I gave them wasn't entirely forced. "All right, let's find this manual. You guys look in here, and I'll go check those offices we saw. Let's hope they kept a printed copy on hand, because we can't exactly Google it anymore."
Skye laughed and nodded. "I'll call you if we find anything."
I gave her a thumbs-up sign and left the room. Before I made it halfway to my destination, a shout from outside caught my attention. Startled, I raced back to the front of the building and dove out into the rain, just in time to see Michael standing at the head of a nearby alleyway, waving and yelling at someone I couldn't see. Beside him, Alfred was barking and wagging his tail, apparently oblivious to his master's distress.
"Hey! Come back!" he yelled, then shot a frantic look around. I could tell at a glance that he wanted to run after whoever had gone down that alleyway, and was straining to hold himself back.
I was at his side before he even realised I was coming. "What happened?"
Poor Michael almost jumped out of his skin, but as soon as he recognised me he grabbed my arm with a panic-stricken look on his face. "It's Priyanka!"
"What about her?" I demanded, my stomach dropping to my knees. "Is she okay?"
"She just ran off," he explained, out of breath from shouting. "I have no idea why. She just shouted something and then ran down that alley like all the hounds of hell were after her."
I swore under my breath. "We have to go find her. Come on!"
I heard his footsteps behind me as I raced down the alleyway. Alfred let out a happy yelp and bounded along after us. The old dog clearly presumed it was a game and was more than happy to play along. The alley swung sharply to the left, and emptied out into a vast parking lot that ran behind the shopping centre. On the far side, I could see Priya sprinting away from us as fast as she could go, her little pink running shoes splashing through the puddles.
"Priya!" I yelled as I ran after her. When that didn't reach her, I drew an even deeper breath, and screamed her name as loud as I possibly could. "Priya!"
The girl skidded to a halt, and shot a quizzical look back over her shoulder. As soon as she realised that we were following her, her entire face seemed to light up.
"Mama!" she called back, pointing at the row of houses on the other side of the car park. "Mama, there's a girl! I saw her!"
I didn't bother to waste the breath on answering her until we'd closed the gap between us. When we finally got close enough to speak normally, I slowed down to a walk, and then a stop.
"Honey, you can't run off like that," I scolded her gently. "Do you know how much you scared us?"
"Scared?" She blinked up at me, her big, expressive eyes full of confusion. "Why scared?"
I took a deep breath to calm my racing heart. "It's dangerous here. We have to go back, where it's safe."
"No!" Priya stomped her foot with sudden, unexpected vehemence and planted her hands on her hips; she'd never declined any instruction before, so the gesture took me completely by surprise. "I want to find the girl. I want to help her, like you helped me."
"She's probably not alone out here," I explained, gently placing my hands on her shoulders. "There might be bad people, people that want to hurt you."
"Then they'll hurt her, too," she answered stubbornly. "I want to find her and make sure she no hurt. Is dangerous, Mama. You said so."
"I…" I started to try and answer her, but then I realised exactly what she was doing. She was mimicking us, and copying our behaviour. While it was dangerous for all of us, what she wanted to do was ethically right. I sighed heavily and nodded. "Okay, we'll look for a couple of minutes. But we're going to be very careful, okay? Do you have your gun?"
"Yes!" She nodded and patted her pocket. "I have, like Baba taught me."
"Okay." I shot a quizzical look at Michael. "How good is Alfred at tracking?"
"Pretty good," he answered. "I think he was a working dog, back in the day." Michael knelt down, and ruffled the dog's ears. "Alfie? Alfie, fetch! Go fetch!"
The dog let out
a delighted yelp, and sprinted off in the direction Michael pointed. The three of us took off after him a second later, and followed when he jumped over a low fence and into an overgrown yard. There, the old sheepdog paused to sniff the ground thoroughly, then he lifted his head and barked. In response to his bark, we heard a child's voice cry out in fear.
"Here!" Priyanka shouted, pointing at an old porch. She dropped to her knees in the mud without regard for her clothing, and peered into the darkness beneath it. "Girl! Come out, girl. Come out. We help you. We nice."
"Go away!" the girl cried back, her words choked by a sob. "I don't want your help. Leave me alone!"
"Whoa, Priya. Back off," I instructed gently. "You're scaring her. Come over here, so we can talk to her without frightening her."
"Me not scary," Priya answered indignantly. "Me nice!"
"You mean 'I'm not scary'. But, just trust me and come here." I smiled at her, and beckoned her over. "Come on."
Priya seemed on the verge of protesting, but she paused to think about it. Then she let out a huffing sound, and pushed herself back to her feet. "Yes, Mama."
"Mama?" the little voice under the porch echoed the word. Suddenly, I found myself being watched by a pair of large, delicately-slanted eyes, through a tangle of wild black hair. The girl froze, staring at us with a look of terror on her face, clearly torn between warring emotions.
"Yes, that's me." I reached up and put my hood back to reveal my face. The rain plastered my hair down against the sides of my head and oozed down the back of my neck, but I considered it a worthwhile sacrifice. "Hi there, sweetie. What's your name?"
The girl inched back a bit, hiding within the shadows under the porch. A quick glance around told me that there was only one way in or out, so she was stuck there unless she wanted to risk running past us to get away. To try and show her that I wasn't a danger to her, I put my shotgun back over my shoulder, and held my empty hands up for her to see.
"It's okay," I said softly. "We're not going to hurt you. My name is Sandy. Do you have a name?"
"Of course, I have a name!" This time, it was her turn to sound indignant. In spite of the tension of the situation, I laughed.
"Sorry. That was a dumb question, I guess," I admitted. "What I meant is, will you tell me your name?"
There was a moment of silence, then the girl let out a long sigh. "Fine. My name is Jasmine. Will you go away now?"
"Not just yet. Maybe later," I said dryly, impressed by the girl's spunk. "It's nice to meet you, Jasmine. How old are you?"
"I'm twelve," she snapped, though her voice trembled in such a way that it gave away her fear, even if she didn't want it to. "I'm old enough to fight you! If you think I'm going to let you take me away, then you're crazy!"
"Take you away?" I shot a glance at Michael, and found him looking as alarmed as I felt. "No one's going to take you away. We're just passing through on our way south, and stopped to see if we could make the radio work. Priya saw you, and wanted to make sure that you were okay." I slowly lowered myself down to crouch, so that I could see her huddled under the porch and she could see me. "Are you all alone?"
"No!" she snapped, inching back further into the shadows. "I have friends. Lots of friends. Big friends! They'll fight you if you try to take me to him! I don't want to get married!"
"Married?" My jaw dropped in surprise, and it took me a second to piece my wits back together. Then, understanding struck and a dark cloud of anger began to descend across my mind. "Jasmine, is someone around here hurting your friends?"
There was silence again, and this time it dragged out even longer. Then, I heard a soft, tell-tale sniffing sound that told me the girl was crying. My heart dropped to my knees.
"Jasmine?" I asked again, as gently as I could. "Honey, who did they take?"
"My sister," the girl whispered, barely loud enough for me to hear her voice. "Lily. We were just playing, like we always do, and he surprised us. He grabbed her, and said that she was a pretty little flower, just ready to be plucked, and that she was his wife now. Then he threw her in his truck and drove away."
I took a deep breath to try and calm myself, but it didn't do much good. Rage seethed within my chest, driven by my own experiences combined with outrage that anyone would do such a thing to a child. "When did that happen?"
"This morning," Jasmine said miserably. "One of my friends went to go look for her, but he hasn't come back."
"Did you know the man?" I asked. "Do you have any idea where he lives?"
"We've seen him sometimes," she answered. "He comes to town and takes things, but he looks scary so we stay away. We call him 'the farmer', because he always smells like dirt. He comes from outside of town. From that direction." She pointed towards the south.
I nodded and eased myself back to my feet. One look at Michael's face told me that he felt the same way I did. Jasmine took the opportunity to scramble out from under the porch and run away, but none of us made any attempt to stop her. There was no point, and no need. She had the choice to be free, and she made it. Her sister didn't have the same option.
"Well, I don't think we have any choice in this matter," I said. "We have to go save that girl."
Michael just nodded solemnly.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The others were in a state of near-panic by the time we made it back to the radio station. The second that we stepped out of the alley, a cry went up and we were enveloped in a friendly mob. Once the initial excitement passed, I gathered everyone in around me and quickly explained the situation to them.
"I need two people to come with us to rescue the girl," I said, my voice raised enough to be heard over the general noise of rain and upset people. "Tane, Iorangi, you game?"
The brothers nodded vigorously and shouted their agreement; I could see the outrage etched on their faces even from afar.
"Good." I nodded, and looked at the others. "Everyone else, stay here and focus on getting the radio going. I suspect we're going to have to stay the night whether we want to or not, so scout out the local buildings and find one that we can secure. We also need to get some food into people before too long."
"We'll take care of it," Anahera said. Beside her, Skylar and Elly nodded silent agreement. "You just go. Save that little girl, before it's too late."
I gave them an appreciative smile, but wasted no more time on words. With a gesture to my companions, I raced over to where the bikes were waiting for us, and leapt onto one. Michael was a heartbeat behind me, and the brothers just behind him. There was a collective roar as we all started up our bikes, and then we were off.
I led the way towards the main road south, since I was the only one that had studied the map in great detail. Within minutes, we were bouncing along the uneven tarmac through a small shopping district that swiftly devolved into suburbia and even more swiftly transformed into farmland. Young native bush sprang up on either side of the road, fern fronds waving in the stiffening breeze.
Suddenly, a flash of lightning illuminated the world, followed by a deep-throated roar of thunder. A moment later the rain redoubled, as if someone had overturned a bucket in the sky. The full force of the storm had taken its time reaching us, but now it had arrived, it was vicious. The noise was so deafening that I barely heard one of my companions shouting an alert.
I carefully eased my bike to a halt, and looked back at the others strung out behind me. At the rear, Tane was yelling and pointing frantically into the bush, but he was too far away for me to make out what he was saying. Michael looked at me and tilted his head towards him; I simply nodded my understanding. Together, we wheeled our bikes around and drove back to the brothers.
"I think there's a pathway through there," Tane called as soon as we were close enough, pointing into the dense bush on the side of the road.
"I think you're right," I yelled back, shielding my eyes from the stinging rain. "I see tyre tracks in the mud, and the branches have been cut back recently. Come on!"
We
should have dismounted and travelled on foot, but my gut told me that time was of the essence. There was no time for caution. I opened the throttle all the way, and guided my bike into the gloom. All of our bikes had headlights, but the bouncing, uneven light made me feel even more reckless. Still, what choice did we have? At least the boughs of the trees kept the rain more or less at bay.
The path swung around a particularly large tree, and I followed it. It wasn't until I was fully committed to the manoeuvre that I spotted the human figure hiding in the brush beside the path. I slammed on the brakes so hard that my bike went into a spin, and came to rest facing back the direction we'd come. The beam of my headlights cut through the gloom, and illuminated the crouched figure; before the others even realised what was happening, I had my shotgun out and trained on the bushes.
"I see you!" I shouted; even under the trees, the storm was loud. "Come out with your hands above your head."
"Don't shoot!" The voice that responded was male, deep and hoarse. He stood up slowly, one hand raised and the other shielding his face from the glare of my headlights. "I don't want any trouble. I just want the little girl back. She's part of my group."
I lowered my shotgun, and took a deep breath. "You're Jasmine's friend, then?"
"Jasmine?" The man sounded startled. I squinted to try and make out the details of his face while he was speaking, but I couldn't see them. "Yes, Jasmine is her sister. Please, I just want Lily back. We don't have a lot, but we'll give you anything you want."
Suddenly, it struck me that he thought we were a gang, and somehow responsible for what had happened. I shoved my shotgun back over my shoulder, and shook my head.
"We have nothing to do with the guy that grabbed Lily," I explained, deliberately softening my tone. "We were coming through town from the north-west, and caught Jasmine spying on us. She told us what happened. We're here to free Lily, too."
"Free her?" Now, he sounded bewildered. "Why would you want to do that?"
