Hammond had tried to commemorate those boys who had died in The Cull, but who would paint and hang a roll of honour for those who had survived? Who would paint Petts' name onto black board, or Belcher's, or Williams', or the rest of those boys killed in yet another pointless war they had little choice but to fight?
Who would paint Mac's name?
Who would paint mine?
As I raised my gun and brought it to bear on the man who had appointed himself my leader, I knew exactly how Grant had felt, nearly a century before me. I knew the anger and resentment of someone forced to follow orders that are cruel, cowardly and wrong. I felt the righteous hatred of a man who believed in justice and honour slaved to a ruler who cared only for power. I felt the despair of a man who longed for peace forced to resort to violence because of the madness of others.
I realised that my days of following orders were done.
So I pulled the trigger and shot the bastard.
CHAPTER TWELVE
He didn't fall down. The bullet hit him in the left forearm. Not where I was aiming, but my hands were shaking so much it's lucky I hit him at all. Why couldn't I be like Grant; cool under pressure, calmly ruthless?
We looked at each other, neither of us knowing what to do next. The hole in his arm started to leak. He raised his gun to fire back so I shot him again. I hit him in the right shoulder. This time he fell down.
"Drop it!" shouted Cheshire, raising his gun to cover me.
I stood there, staring at Mac, who had fallen backwards and was sitting on the floor with his back against the sofa. He'd dropped his gun and was trying to put pressure on the wounds to stop the bleeding, but neither of his arms was working properly.
Norton walked over to Cheshire, reached out and gently pushed the gun down.
"Leave him," he said.
I'd killed three people in the last few months. One I could justify to myself as a mercy killing. The other was kill or be killed. The third had been in the heat of battle. But shooting Mac without warning, without any immediate threat to myself, in cold blood… that was different. I wasn't sure of my own motives any more. Had I shot him to save the school? Was I taking revenge for Matron and Bates? Or was I punishing him for what he'd done to me, what he'd made me into?
I looked down at the smoking Browning in my right hand. I couldn't work out what it was doing there. I used to hate guns, I thought. How is it that this thing feels so natural? When did I become someone who always carries a gun? I relaxed my fingers and it fell to the floor.
Mac was fumbling, trying to find some way of repairing the damage. His arms flapped and spasmed uselessly.
I crouched down so I was on the same level as Mac.
"It doesn't hurt yet, but it will," I said. "At the moment you've got so much adrenalin going through you that your body's not letting you feel the pain. I don't know for sure, but I suppose that if you die you might never feel it. It's only if you survive and heal that it hurts."
He looked up at me. If I was expecting confusion or fear I was disappointed. There was only fury.
"You fucking coward," he said. "You pathetic, weak, stupid fucking coward."
The noise from outside had stopped the instant I'd pulled the trigger. I could hear people running back down the stairs. They must have left a guard on the door, but for now they'd stopped trying to get in.
"What is going on here?" demanded Cheshire.
"Call it a coup," said Norton as he sat down in an armchair. "Can you pass me that tablecloth, please."
Cheshire pulled the cloth off the table and began helping Norton to dress his wound.
"Why now?" asked Mac. "Why wait until we're alone and trapped and probably going to die anyway? What is the fucking point of doing it now?"
I didn't have an answer to that.
"I'll tell you, shall I," he went on. "I reckon…" he broke off as a violent coughing fit seized him. "I reckon you were hoping they'd do your job for you."
"Perhaps," I conceded.
"Coward," he said again. "I told you the rules. I explained how this works. You want me out the way you fucking challenge me like a man."
"Like you challenged Bates?"
"Bates was weak. He didn't understand, didn't deserve the respect. I thought you understood. I thought you got it."
"I get it, I just don't accept it. If I played it your way, by your rules I'd be buying into your bullshit, accepting this strong tribal leader bollocks," I said. "If I challenged you and proved myself the harder bastard then all I'd be doing was extending an invitation to some other hard fucker to come along and knock me off."
"That's how it works."
"I don't accept that. And you know what, the rest of the boys don't either. You might not have noticed, but they've left us – you – here to die. First chance they got, they cut you loose."
"So what's your alternative, eh?" he sneered. "You gonna run the school as a democracy? Student councils? Tea and scones and cricket on the green? Fucking fantasist."
His face was white as chalk. His ruined shoulder made an awful grinding sound as he tried to lever himself into a more comfortable sitting position.
"I don't know what it'll be like, but it's got to be better than rapes and crucifixions. There won't be executions. Boys won't be bullied and tormented."
"And my officers? You gonna deal with them?"
"If I need to."
He laughed bitterly. "Brilliant. Lee Keegan's brave new world kicks off with a group execution. You fucking hypocrite."
He was right. I knew that. But I was in no mood to argue any more.
"Your problem," I said, "is that you thought you were only vulnerable to someone stronger than you. But you never thought you might be vulnerable to someone smarter."
He gave a bitter laugh, which turned into another fit of coughing. His left sleeve was soaked with blood. It ran down his fingers and soaked into the carpet.
"The smart thing to do would have been to shoot me before we even attacked."
There was that tone of contempt again. I thought of James B. Grant and I knew that Mac was right.
Norton tried to interrupt but I waved for silence.
"I know that," I said. "But unlike you I try to avoid killing people."
He laughed again. "Tell that to the guy at the foot of the stairs with half a head. You're a killer, kid. Stone cold. You just don't want to admit it. Your problem, Nine Lives, is that you never want to do anything. You wanted to leave Petts here to die…"
"He's dead anyway."
"Not the fucking point and you know it," he shouted. "You want me out of the way but you can't pluck up the courage to challenge me like a man so you wait for someone else to take me out of the picture. And when that doesn't happen you figure, screw it, what've I got to lose, and you just fucking shoot me. And then, to add insult to fucking injury, you shoot me in the bloody arms! What's the matter, bullet to the head too fucking easy?"
"Don't tempt me."
"Oh piss off. Like you've got the guts to finish me off." He leaned forward. "Come on then," he whispered. "Pick up the gun. It's right there. Still loaded. One bullet and it's all over. Come on. Finish what you started. Show me you've got the backbone to be leader. Prove it to me. Come on. Look me in the eye when you pull the trigger. Come on!"
Without thinking about it I reached behind me, picked up the gun and pressed the muzzle against his forehead. I pressed hard. God, I wanted to kill him. I mean really, really wanted to kill him. I wanted to watch him die screaming. I wanted to laugh in his dying eyes and spit on his corpse. I actually smiled as I began to squeeze the trigger.
And then I saw the look of triumph in his eyes.
"Maybe you're right," I said. "Maybe I am a coward, maybe I was afraid. But I wasn't afraid of you, Mac. Not really. I was afraid of becoming like you."
I threw the gun aside. Mac laughed in my face, soundlessly.
"Face it Lee, you'll never be like me. You haven't got the balls."
I heard a
tiny metallic ping.
"Lee!" shouted Norton in alarm.
I felt something pressing itself against my stomach. I looked down and saw Mac's left hand holding a grenade. The pin was on the floor beside us.
I looked up. Mac was smiling.
"I'm holding down the lever, Lee. When I let go the chemical fuse starts and then nothing can stop it exploding seven seconds later. Reckon you can wrestle the grenade off me and throw it out the window in that time?"
I stared into his eyes as I reached down and wrapped my hand around his. There was little strength in his fingers; his shattered shoulder saw to that. As long as I kept squeezing he couldn't release the lever. We were at an impasse.
"You don't have to die here, you know," I said. "We can still get out of this, take you back to school, try and patch you up."
"And then what?"
"You leave. Just go."
Again with the laughing.
"Spineless wanker. You shot me in cold blood and there's no fixing that. At least have the integrity to live with it. I'm never leaving this room and you know it. But I can make sure you never do either."
I don't know how long we'd have sat there if Cheshire hadn't intervened.
He walked over to us, casual as can be, and then rammed his rifle butt into Mac's shoulder wound. He screamed and jerked in agony, and I slipped the grenade from his grasp. I picked up the pin and re-inserted it.
I think I'd been hyperventilating because I had a huge head rush as I stood up. Cheshire reached out to steady me until the world stopped spinning.
When Mac stopped screaming he looked up at me and sneered.
"What did I ever do to you, Nine Lives? What do you hate me so fucking much?"
"You made me a killer, Mac."
"Oh, I see. So basically, I shot myself, yeah?" He shook his head in disbelief. "Jesus, you are fucked in the head."
"Can we focus, please," said Norton, who had tied his arm tight into a sling and appeared to have stopped the bleeding. "Does anyone actually have a plan to get us out of here?"
"Maybe," I replied. "But the silence is bothering me. What can you see out the window?
Cheshire poked his head outside and leapt backwards as bullets ripped into the glass.
"Missed!" he shouted. He turned to me. "They're covering the window from the tower."
I walked to the door and knocked on it.
"Anyone out there?" I asked.
There was a pause.
"Um, yeah. Hi," came the tentative reply. It was a young man's voice.
Norton sniggered and started me giggling. Borderline hysteria.
"Hi yourself. So, you guarding this door to stop us escaping then, yeah?"
"There's three of us and we've got guns."
"Good to know. The others gone off to the morning sacrifice have they?"
"Got to purify the moat."
"Great." I turned back to Norton and Cheshire. "They're all going to be on the tower for a while, so we've got some time to prepare."
"Any chance of a cuppa while I'm waiting to die?" said Mac, witheringly.
The morning sacrifice was one of the Blood Hunters' more disturbing rituals. The selected victim was brought to morning worship and blessed by David, then everybody processed up to the tower. David then slit the victim's throat and two acolytes dangled the poor sod over the battlements so they bled into the moat. Fresh blood in the water every morning kept them safe, they reckoned.
Serenaded by singing and screams from the tower I opened Mac's backpack and we got to work. It took about ten minutes or so, but by the time the ritual was finished we were ready. Cheshire had picked Mac up and put him on the sofa. He was still conscious.
"You haven't got a cat in hell's chance," he said.
I ignored him.
"Hey, Norton," he went on. "How long you been planning this little takeover?"
"Since day one."
"Traitor."
"What you gonna do, slit my throat, like you did to Williams?"
"Come over here and I'll show you."
"Enough, already," I said. "Does everyone know what they're doing?"
Norton and Cheshire nodded.
"What shall I do, Nine Lives?" gasped Mac, sarcastically.
"Fuck off and die."
We heard footsteps on the stairs. A group of people coming to talk. Then a voice I recognised.
"Hello in there." It was their leader, David.
"Morning," I replied, cheerily. "Lovely day for a blood sacrifice."
"Are any of you hurt?"
"Why do you care?"
"We have first class medical facilities. If you open the door I give you my word your wounded will be given the proper treatment."
"What, no bleeding?"
He laughed. "Of course there'll be bleeding. Got to be made safe. But we need fresh, clean, healthy blood. So we'll make you better first. While there's life there's hope, isn't that what they say?"
"I've got a better idea. We want to convert. We want you to make us safe."
"Sorry. No initiations today."
"They've got a bomb," yelled Mac. I punched him in the face as hard as I could. I felt the cartilage in his nose shatter. Felt good.
"One more word and I'll finish you now," I hissed.
"Like you've got the guts," he replied, and spat in my face.
So I took my Browning and I smashed him over the back of the head, knocking him out.
"Everything all right in there?"
"Fine. We're just, um, conferring."
I gathered up the strings we had taken from the window blinds and backed towards the open windows, where Norton and Cheshire were already waiting.
"Ready?"
They nodded.
"All right, we agree. Come and get us," I shouted. Then we all three turned and leapt out through the windows.
The gunmen on the tower opened fire. As I fell I took the string with me. I felt a slight resistance at the other end and then it came free and sailed out the window after me, with the pins of all our remaining grenades attached to it.
We hit the bloodied water before any of the bullets could find their mark, and the room above us exploded while we were still submerged. Stone, glass, wood and furniture crashed into the water all around us as we swam for safety.
The fire, smoke and confusion that reigned in the building behind us masked our clumsy emergence from the water, using the rubble from the exploded bridge as a ramp. We made it to the tree-line safely. The other boys and the Hildenborough captives were long gone. I stood in the shadow of the trees and watched the conflagration take hold of the fragile wooden house.
Mac was in there. The explosion had probably killed him, and if he'd miraculously survived the blast then his wounds would probably finish him off. Either way, he was gone for good. Everything had gone according to plan. I'd gained his trust, lulled him into a false sense of security, and betrayed him. I was a traitor, pure and simple. I hated myself for it. Mac had been right, I was a coward. I'd opposed him because I'd never accepted that the ends justified the means, and yet look at what I'd done. In order to get rid of Mac I'd betrayed every principle I'd ever held dear. I'd lied and cheated, betrayed trust and committed murder.
But the school was free of him now, and with the Blood Hunters burning in front of me, and Hildenborough ravaged and leaderless, there was no-one around to threaten us. At least for a while.
The means had been despicable, but the end had been achieved. Still, I wondered whether I hadn't failed in one crucial thing: preventing myself from becoming the thing I hated. After everything I'd done I couldn't help but feel that I was that little bit more like Mac than I'd ever wanted to be. I didn't know how I was ever going to come to terms with any of this.
I'd killed two people today and seen many more die. As I watched the fire I prayed that this was the last I would see of killing.
Should've known better, really.
LESSON THREE: How To Be A Leader
CHA
PTER THIRTEEN
"Wasn't my fault. They were bigger than we were."
Wylie was making excuses, but his heart wasn't in it. Like all the best bullies he was a coward at heart. It turns out the boys hadn't blown the bridges to get rid of Mac and me. The adults from Hildenborough, scared out of their wits, some of them armed (by us), had demanded that the boys blow the bridges immediately. Wylie, who'd been in charge of that part of the operation, had agreed.
I was wet through, cold, tired and very, very pissed off.
"You left us to die," I said, through gritted teeth.
"You look fine to me." Cocky little shit.
I raised the Browning and pointed it at his face. He hadn't expected that.
"Give me your gun," I said.
"You what?"
I twitched the gun sideways an inch and fired a shot past his right ear. He jumped, yelled and backed away.
"What the fuck are you doing, man?"
"I won't ask again."
He threw the rifle at me. I let it fall to the floor.
"Here, have it you fucking psycho." His shout was half whine, like a spoiled brat being told to give back the car keys.
I didn't lower my gun.
"How old are you, Wylie?"
He glanced left and right looking for support or a way of escape. I had him cornered.
"Seventeen. Why?" he said. Half petulance, half defiance.
"And how many men have you killed?"
His eyes widened as he felt a jolt of genuine fear.
"Just the one."
"One kneeling man with his hands tied. What, you didn't off a few more when the Hildenborough men attacked?"
"My… my gun jammed."
I laughed.
"Not what I heard."
Rowles had found him cowering in the art room. He hadn't told anyone but me because he was too afraid of what Wylie would do to him if he blabbed.
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