by JD Nixon
He stroked my cheek gently. “You’ve lost so much weight and you look so tired.”
“Communal living doesn’t agree with me, I’m afraid.”
“What have you done to your arm?”
“Farrell thinks I was winged by a bullet. It’s okay. It doesn’t hurt very much.” He called over one of his men who grabbed a first aid kit out of one of the vehicles and temporarily patched me up. Then he hugged me tightly again.
“I didn’t know where you were, Matilda. They lied to me about everything. I’m so angry with myself for letting you drive away with a complete stranger. All alone here with a bunch of strangers.”
“Not all alone. I had Simon for support. We went to university together.” And I introduced them, Simon struggling to his feet and shaking Heller’s hand, wincing at his strong grip.
“Thank you for looking after Matilda for me,” said Heller sincerely.
“Matilda? I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone call her that before. In fact, if I remember correctly, she absolutely hates that name,” commented Simon, shooting me an amused look. He was rapidly recovering from his ordeal.
“I like it,” said Heller, which was the closest he’d ever come to an explanation for his stubborn refusal to call me Tilly.
The Farmers, shaken and dismayed at the destruction of half of their beloved compound, trickled over to us to check on Simon. He was obviously a popular member of the community, and from what they said to him, it appeared that there’d been more than a few Farmers upset about him being refused entry to the bunker. Some of them went so far as to jeer as the cops frogmarched the Head Farmer and Jye over to the patrol cars to be taken in for questioning. Other cops prepared themselves to search the property.
Heller stared at the Head Farmer and Jye as they walked past us, his face a cold mask. “I would have preferred to deal with them myself.” And though his voice was neutral, I had no doubt for an instant about what he’d do to them.
We watched until they were driven away, then I turned to stare sadly at the smouldering ruins of the office building.
“My iPod, phone and tablet were blown to pieces in that blast,” I said sadly.
He smiled at me. “I’ll buy you new ones, Matilda. Let’s go home. Daniel and Niq have been frantic with worry about you.”
“I have to say goodbye to Simon.” He was talking to a few Farmers, a happy smile on his face. He turned to me when I approached and gave me a huge hug.
“The other senior Farmers have just asked me to take over as the Head Farmer and to help rebuild our community. It’s such an honour for me. Of course I agreed.”
“Simon, that’s wonderful news! I’m so happy for you. You’ll do a fantastic job and it’s just what this place needs after those two.”
“Tilly, I know this was a difficult time for you, but I’m glad things finally came to a head. Now The Farm can move forward into the future the way that’s right for us.”
“Take care, Simon. And good luck with everything. Maybe you should concentrate on recruiting more young women?” I smiled.
“Maybe I should. Maybe it’s time,” he smiled back. We hugged again. He spoke into my ear. “It’s pretty obvious to me that your boss loves you. I don’t know why you doubt it.”
I demurred, as I usually did whenever anyone brought up that sticky issue.
Simon took my chin in his hand and looked deeply into my eyes. “Don’t be afraid of love, Tilly. And don’t be afraid to love.”
“I’m just afraid of . . . Actually, I don’t know what I’m afraid of.”
“Matilda,” Heller called. “Time to leave.”
“Bye, Simon. And again, good luck with everything.”
“Come and visit one day?”
“Sure, I’d love to,” I said, genuinely pleased by the invitation. We hugged once more and I left him to comfort and calm his Farmers. He had a long and tiring night ahead of him.
“Farrell, you can come with us too. You have that early morning job tomorrow,” Heller ordered and handed over the clean up task to Clive. I thought about going back to the dormitory to collect my belongings, but as everything I really treasured had been confiscated and blown up, I decided I didn’t have the energy to rescue a couple of pairs of jeans and some t-shirts.
I glanced back at Simon as I followed the two men to Heller’s Mercedes. He was surrounded by Farmers, nodding and pointing over at the buildings, as if he was already discussing the reconstruction of his community. He looked up and smiled, giving me a last wave. I waved in return, then resolutely turned around and climbed into the front seat of Heller’s vehicle with no regrets.
Chapter 17
I used the long trip home to tell the two men everything that had happened since I’d driven from the Warehouse with Jye three weeks ago. I tried to be professional about it, but almost broke down a few times when I talked about the hot box and my total frustration when I saw them driving away. His face grim, Heller’s hands clenched tightly on the steering wheel until his knuckles were shiny white. It was probably lucky for the Head Farmer and Jye that they were in police custody tonight.
I couldn’t stop yawning while I spoke, totally drained of energy. Nothing sounded more like heaven to me than the thought of sleeping in my own soft bed in my own lovely quiet flat, surrounded by people who cared about me.
In return, Heller told me how he’d soon calmed down and regretted my departure. But by then I’d moved out of phone range and he hadn’t been able to contact me – nobody had. The landline number Jye had given him turned out to be false and he’d also given Heller a false address for a property in entirely the opposite direction. After investigating further, he’d discovered that even the licence plates of the Kombi were faked.
He faltered momentarily when he described his feelings on realising that he’d sent me away with an unvetted stranger, with no idea of my location and no idea what Jye’s real agenda had been. His worst nightmare had come true – he didn’t know where I was.
When he rang and emailed me repeatedly and received no reply, he went ballistic. Niq and Daniel were beside themselves with worry, blaming Heller for his lack of care. I gathered from his tone that things had been tense at the Warehouse for the last few weeks. He told me that Daniel had even cancelled his date with Anton because he was too upset to go.
“No!” I cried, disappointed.
“Matilda, he didn’t care. None of us cared about anything, except finding you.”
“I tried everything to contact you. I had no phone reception, no internet access, no vehicle, not even a bike. I was lucky to be able to send that one email to you. Seriously, Simon and I had decided to walk a hundred kilometres into the nearest town when the bikies arrived. I would have left earlier, especially after the punishments, except for Simon.”
“Really? He kept you there?” he asked, and his voice held that bland tone that masked his emotions.
“I couldn’t leave him with them. They didn’t trust him and I worried what they’d eventually do to him.”
“Your email gave me the first clue. We were able to trace the IP address. I had to ask your brother for help to force the internet provider to give us the real address for The Farm.” I knew that would have been difficult for him and cost him a lot of pride to ask Brian for help about anything. “Matilda, I have to admit that when I received that email from you, I was so touched.”
“Why?” I was puzzled. It had been brief, incomprehensible and not intimate at all.
“Because even though you were in danger and in a hurry, you took the time to add a couple of kisses at the end. That meant a lot to me. It was my talisman that I’d be able to find you safe and sound.” He smiled at me.
I laughed a little. I couldn’t even remember doing that. “I really missed talking to you, Heller. You were right. Sending me away made me appreciate what I have. I missed you so much.”
“That was a foolish thing for me to say. You’ve always appreciated what you have,” he said quietly.
“But I’m sure you didn’t miss me as much as I missed you.”
He shot me a glance that sent a thrill up my spine, deep into my core. I changed the subject, only too aware of Farrell listening in the back seat. And that was a whole awkward situation in itself.
“Didn’t you check their credit details when you took them on?” I asked him. “They couldn’t lie about their financials, surely.”
“That man paid me in cash.”
Instant fury surged inside me. “What? Heller! You didn’t check out a client? What about my safety?”
“I was so angry with you that I couldn’t think straight, Matilda. That’s my only excuse. There’s none other,” he replied softly.
“They were going to sacrifice me, Heller. I trust you to make sure I’m safe at work. Are you going jeopardise my safety every time you’re angry with me? How will I ever know that I’m going to come home from an assignment alive? Do you know what it’s like in a hot box? Do you know what it’s like knowing that people don’t care if you die? That they’re willing for you to die? You drove off and left me with them!”
And then I did break down and cried and cried. He pulled over to the side of the road and got out, helping me gently out of my seat, propping me up against the vehicle. He let me cry, holding me closely. Eventually I petered out with exhaustion, wiping my eyes on my dirty sleeves.
“I’m sorry. I’m so tired. I haven’t slept properly for weeks.”
“I know, my sweet. Tonight you will be safe, I promise.”
We climbed back into the 4WD and drove off again. I felt for poor Farrell, probably very uncomfortable unwillingly witnessing our domestic dispute.
Heller changed the subject. “So Matilda, you and Simon?”
My smile was watery and unhappy, but I let myself be distracted. “Yes Heller, me and Simon. A long time ago. He was my first boyfriend.” I paused a beat. “My first lover. I was crazy about him, but he dumped me to join a religious cult.” I shrugged. “End of story. Hadn’t heard from him since, so it was a huge surprise to find him as one of the Farmers. A nice surprise.”
There was silence in the vehicle after I spoke. I wasn’t sure what either man was thinking. To take the attention away from me, I turned to Heller. “Do you remember your first lover?”
“I know you think I’ve slept with so many women I can’t remember them, but I do remember that one. I was very young, just turned eleven, but was tall, big and . . . mature, even then. I probably looked older, not that that’s any excuse. I was staying at a school friend’s house overnight. Well, he wasn’t really a friend, more an acquaintance. I didn’t really have friends. Anyway, he became ill and went to bed early, leaving me alone with his mother.”
His mouth twisted into something that wasn’t even close to a smile. “She was divorced, so there was no man around the house. She gave me alcohol and seduced me. Several times that night. She told me that I was the most beautiful boy she’d ever seen, that she’d been desperately in love with me for over a year. That she’d pushed her own son into being a reluctant acquaintance just to have a reason to invite me over. She said she wanted me badly, hungered for me. I didn’t even know what she meant, but I could see she was in the grip of some strong emotions and it all had something to do with the way I looked. And that made me feel powerful. That woman robbed me of my childhood, but gave me something much more valuable in return – self-awareness. That was the first time I realised the effect my looks have on other people, on women.”
I hardly dared to breathe listening to him. He’d never talked before about his supernaturally good looks and his apparent indifference to other people’s reactions to them. I guess he’d just grown used to it, only using them now to benefit his business.
He shot me a sideways glance. “Well, most women anyway. After that experience, I slept around as much as I could, even at that age. I turned into a wild teenager, totally out of control. I didn’t care who I slept with and broke up marriages, engagements, families. I ran into a lot of trouble with husbands and fathers and boyfriends and learned how to fight, then realised how much I loved fighting, how good I was at it. I hurt a lot of people in a lot of different ways. I was angry about so many things. And my parents . . . my mother . . . Well, anyway, I was recruited when I was fifteen, left home and only returned home once. And that was the best outcome for everyone.”
I listened to him with growing excitement. It was the most information that Heller had ever shared about his life. Wow, he actually had a mother! I hadn’t even been certain about that before.
“Recruited into the army?” Farrell guessed from the back.
“I had a military career,” Heller confirmed, without providing any further detail.
“Fifteen’s young to be recruited.”
“It was a specialised unit where training from a young age was an . . . advantage.”
“Special forces?” asked Farrell, an ex-SAS man himself.
He was deliberately vague. “Something like that.”
Farrell nodded, knowing he wasn’t going to receive any more information, but seemingly pleased to have his suspicions verified. I leaned back on the seat and mentally reviewed what I’d learnt tonight. Heller had been in some special force in the military, he had a mother, he’d lost his virginity at eleven, and had been a promiscuous scrapper as a teenager. Hmm, not much more than I knew before. I probably could have guessed all that myself anyway, if I’d thought about it. And Sid had already told me that Heller was still screwing around and picking fights in his twenties when they’d first met. But why had he left his own country? And what had he been going to say about his parents? Why did he go home again that one time? And would I ever know more about him, like his real name? It was all giving me a headache.
“Eleven is so young, Heller. That’s just wrong,” I protested. “It’s criminal. You should have told someone, one of your parents.”
“That wasn’t an option,” he said flatly, leaving me with more questions, but in no doubt that he wouldn’t discuss it any further. He’d shared as much as he cared to share, and I had no choice but to accept that.
Chastened, I turned to the back seat. “What about you, Hugh? Do you remember your first lover?”
“Of course I do, Chalmers. I was about sixteen. She was the girl I’d dreamed about all through high school and had a huge crush on for years. Cathy Malone. She never even noticed me. But one night we were both at a party. She’d recently broken up with her long-time boyfriend and he was also at the party with his new girlfriend, getting all hot and heavy in front of everyone. She became very jealous, drank too much, and decided to try to make him jealous by coming on to me. I didn’t know all this at the time though, I just thought all my dreams had come true. Anyway, we ended up in a bedroom together, and I lost my virginity to her. I thought that was it; that we were now going out. But when I approached her a couple of days later, she didn’t remember anything about that night before, denied everything and treated me as if I was some kind of pervert. So yeah, Chalmers, I remember my first, but she doesn’t remember me.”
“Oh Hugh, what a tragic story,” I teased, and turned around to smile at him.
He gave a huge ‘that’s life’ shrug and a rueful smile. “Story of my life.”
We pulled into a petrol station/all-night burger bar to buy some refreshments. I would have stayed in the vehicle, too embarrassed by my ugly dress and scruffiness to be seen in public, but nature was calling. In the ladies I tried to repair the damage using the cracked and spotted mirror and trickle of water from the basin. It was no good and I only ended up turning the dust and dirt on my face into muddy streaks. If anything, I looked even worse by the end.
Heller raised his eyebrows when he set sight on me, but silently handed over a coffee, a sandwich and a protein bar, all of which I gobbled and slurped greedily. I hadn’t realised how hungry I was. No more Indeterminate Stew for me! I hoped Simon plucked up the courage to retire The Farm’s cook.
I wanted
to hear all about how Heller had mobilised with the cops and approached the compound, but a full belly and the gentle motion of the drive lulled me to sleep, slouched against the door. My dreams were unsettling, full of explosions, gunfire and men running around, shouting and fighting. I woke up suddenly, sitting upright, looking around me, expecting to be in the shed with Simon, sleeping on the scratchy hay.
“Where am I?” I murmured in panic, and was immediately reassured by Heller’s warm hand clasping mine.
“You’re safe, Matilda. We’re nearly home. Thirty more minutes.”
I fell back into an uneasy doze, only jolting away again when we drove down into the Warehouse garage.
I was surprised and moved to see the crowd of men waiting to greet me, despite the very early hour. I’d thought that Heller had brought the whole office with him to The Farm, but he’d obviously left some behind to keep his business ticking over.
I jumped out of the vehicle, straight into a group hug with Daniel and Niq. They kissed me and teased me about my unattractive dress and unkempt appearance, simultaneously talking loudly and swiftly, each trying to tell me what had happened since I’d left. I turned from one to the other, adept at taking in the dual conversation, having twin cousins who did the same thing.
“Stop it, Daniel and Niq,” Heller ordered imperiously. “Matilda needs to sleep. You can talk to her tomorrow.” And they had to be satisfied with that.
I slapped a multitude of the men’s hands on my way to the stairs, putting up with a lot of good-natured ribbing about my appearance. The first thing I did in Heller’s flat was dig up some of my pyjamas and hit the shower. I stood under the hot blast of water, washing all the muck and dirt off me. And by the time I’d finished, I felt squeaky clean and cleansed of all traces of The Farm, the final step being to wad up the dress and throw it in the bin, along with the sandals.
I climbed into his bed and fell asleep immediately, luxuriating in the soft cotton sheets and peaceful surroundings, safe in his arms. My last thought before I gave into sleep was about Simon, not Heller. I wondered what Simon was doing and if he’d managed to settle the rest of the Farmers. At least the dorm hadn’t been destroyed.
