Flynn raised his fist and gritted his teeth as he glared down at the man. But before he could swing for him, Vicky darted forward and put a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t.” She tugged on Flynn’s arm and encouraged him to his feet.
Although Flynn came with her, Vicky had to pull hard to move him. Still breathing heavily, Flynn twisted away from her and continued to lean over Dan, both of his fists clenched and his face red. “Have you seen the community they had Vicky trapped in?”
Tears ran freely down Dan’s cheeks and sobs bucked through him as he lay in the long grass. He shook his head.
“I have. They torture people down there. They feed them scraps of vegetable peelings and offcuts of rancid meat mixed with used sanitary towels.”
Dan’s eyes widened as he looked at Flynn.
“They have two pits down there. Did you know that?”
A shake of his head—his lips buckling out of shape—and Dan still didn’t speak.
“Well, they do. One of them is a dark manhole they put people in and slide a cover over the top of. The other one is a pit filled with diseased. Of course Vicky escaped from that; anyone would in her situation. Your anger needs to be at Moira and her community, not at Vicky for doing what anyone else would have done.” Flynn pointed at the brick on the ground. “You try a trick like that again and I’ll cut your throat, you got me?”
If Dan took in what Flynn had just said to him, it didn’t show. Instead, he remained on his back and brought his hands up to cover his face. He sobbed as he lay there, his quiet cries turning into full-blown screams.
“Come on,” Vicky said as she tugged on Flynn’s arm again.
Dan screamed louder, his broken wail calling across the open meadow.
Some of the adults in the community stayed with Sharon and Dan, but the guards walked away—the guards and Meisha. Vicky reached across and touched Flynn’s back. “Thank you.”
“I did it for the sake of the community,” he said as he scowled at her. “We can’t have infighting.”
Although his words had been clearly designed to hurt her, Vicky couldn’t rise above it. Each syllable cut to her core. Of all the people in the world, Flynn had the most direct link to her heart. She remained wide open in his presence, and he could hurt her any time he chose to.
When Vicky looked up, she found Piotr staring at her. The large man winced—like she needed his fucking sympathy. “This can’t go unpunished,” he said in his thick Russian accent. “We need to retaliate.”
“We do,” Vicky agreed, “but not immediately. We go down there tonight and they’ll be ready for us. We need to give it a few days to wait for them to lower their guard.”
Nods passed around the guards as they walked through Home’s large entryway, their footsteps echoing in the empty foyer. Moira’s community would fall and Vicky would make sure her knife ended the vicious bitch.
Chapter Twenty
The moon hung as a silver fingernail in the starry sky, providing very little light and giving Vicky the perfect opportunity to hide in the darkness. Although the lack of light gave with one hand, it took away with the other. It made it much harder to navigate the uneven and tufty ground.
As Vicky walked alongside the prison in the dark, she scanned the emaciated occupants. What if she’d persuaded Aaron to trust her and he’d been thrown into the pit? What if Moira had taken some of the other prisoners too?
When Vicky saw Aaron, she let her relief out with a heavy breath. She moved close to the fence and the rich smell of dirt and shit.
Many of the prisoners looked up at Vicky’s approach and saw her before Aaron did. They shuffled to meet her as she dropped her heavy bag and unzipped it. She tried her hardest to stifle her reaction to the stench as she handed out the refilled bottles of water. Home had many assets; among its best were the water filtration system and its solar power. Not many people had those luxuries in the world now.
Aaron regarded Vicky with sunken green eyes as he took a bottle of water from her. “It’s been one day already. You said you’d be rescuing us within two. You coming for us tomorrow?”
Vicky looked at Aaron, his gaunt face twisted with the sneer of a skeptic. “Um …” she said.
A roll of his eyes and Aaron sighed. A lot of the others sagged around him too.
“There’s been a hiccup.”
“Oh, well, that’s okay, then.” An already sunken face, Aaron’s features dropped farther. “I mean, it’s not like our lives are on the line or anything, is it?”
The memory of the three kids flashed through Vicky’s mind and she flinched at the mental image. It suddenly became harder to keep her thoughts straight. “I know that, Aaron. It’s been a hard day.”
“You’re coming to me for therapy now?” Aaron grabbed the chain-link between them and sent a rattle along the fence when he shook it. “In case you haven’t noticed, I have slightly more pressing issues to deal with. You’ll have to find someone else to listen to your bullshit. Why don’t you just tell us the truth?”
The others closed in like the diseased. They looked ravenous for her flesh. “Which is?” Vicky asked.
“You’re not coming to rescue us.”
“But we are.”
The lethargy left Aaron as he surged forwards, his face crashing into the fence. “When?” he barked.
“Shh!” Vicky looked towards the section with the guards in it. “Keep it down; otherwise the answer will be never.”
Although Aaron opened his mouth to reply, Vicky cut him off, “Moira killed three of the children from the community today.”
When Aaron looked like he’d say something else, Vicky added, “She gouged their eyes and hearts out. She nailed each of them to a cross.”
Aaron’s face dropped at the same time a gust of wind rushed through the pen. It forced the reek of rotting food and human waste at Vicky and she couldn’t help screwing her nose up.
The anger left Aaron and he spoke in a soft voice. “Which three?”
“Do you know Sharon and Dan?”
“Blythe?”
Vicky looked behind her. Probably just paranoid, but it sounded like movement in the darkness. As she stared into the inky blanket of shadow, her mouth dried. She couldn’t see a thing. While holding her breath, she reached down for the knife on her hip and listened for sounds of movement. Nothing. She turned back to Aaron. “Yeah, Sharon and Dan Blythe.”
“All three of their kids?”
“Yeah.”
“Fuck.”
“They left a note saying they did it because I broke out. A lot of people in Home are pissed off with me.”
“Fuck!” Aaron said again. “But what did they expect you to do? Stay here?”
“They’re hurt. Their children are dead and the murderer attributed their death to me. I can’t blame them for being pissed off.”
A shake of his head and Aaron looked down at the ground.
“So I will get you out.” Vicky looked at all of the faces on the other side of the chain-link. “I’ll get all of you out, but this has knocked us back by a few days.”
The other prisoners passed the empty water bottles back to Vicky and she put them into her bag one at a time. As she focused on loading up her pack, she said, “Your lives are important to me. I have sleepless nights thinking about you all in here. I see what you’re going through, but I can’t break you out on my own.”
“We’re three people down since you came here last,” Aaron said. “Three people who’d managed to get three heads every single time they went out. This time each of them came back with two and Moira dropped them straight in the pit. No strikes, just straight in the pit.”
“I promise I’ll come for you soon,” Vicky said.
As the last of the group slid his bottle through to Vicky, she and Aaron stared at one another. “I hope you do,” he said. “I really hope you do.”
***
Guilt had turned into a parasite inside Vicky. It gnawed at her, taking bigger bites with eve
ry step she took away from Aaron and the other prisoners. The previously warm summer night took on a bitter twist and Vicky shivered as she drew close to the guards’ side of the complex.
Unlike the previous evening, the door to the communal building hung wide open and the firelight spilled out into the forecourt. It showed the family in the cage more clearly than when she’d last visited. Before Vicky knew it, she said, “They look like fucking ghosts.”
The family only held Vicky’s attention for as long as it took her to notice the woman outside the cage. The look of her sent ice through her blood. Moira.
A witch of a woman, Moira peered in at the family and the man in the cage. The flickering light from inside the communal building turned her twisted leer into a gargoyle’s mask.
When Moira laughed, her wicked cackle cut through the night and all five of the prisoners jumped. So taken over with her glee, she arched her back and pushed her pelvis forward. “Someone will have to make a decision sooner or later, you know?” she said once she’d finished laughing.
Although Moira addressed the people in the cage, none of them responded. The family huddled in one corner, the mum and dad hugging the children close; the older man huddled in the other, his eyes wide as he stared at the family and shivered. It hadn’t been cold enough in months for hypothermia, but the man looked to be in a bad way with something.
The crush of plastic water bottles called out as Moira slipped them through the gaps in the cage. “I’ll give you guys all the water you can drink. However, to get food, you’ll need to be”—she looked from the family to the man and back to the family as a wicked grin stretched across her gaunt face—“resourceful.”
In the silence that followed, Vicky’s heart beat so hard it damn near rocked her where she stood. Each throb of her pulse kicked like a fucking horse.
Vicky’s stress level peaked when the mum’s shrill scream rang through the night. She stepped toward the older man in the cage. Her face twisted with rage as she jabbed her finger at him. “You’d best not touch my fucking children. I swear, if you come near us, I’ll bite your fucking throat out.”
The two teenage girls’ eyes widened as they looked at their mum.
Moira continued to grin and bounced on the spot as if struggling to contain her excitement.
The unspoken had been pretty obvious, but something about the dad’s words sank frigid dread through Vicky.
“Just so you know,” he said to the man, his voice low, “you ain’t eating any of us. If I were you, I’d take that idea from your head right now.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Vicky kept her back to the group and looked out over the swaying grass. They were in the meadow directly outside Home, not more than fifty metres from its front door. She didn’t need to watch the children being buried. Another three little ones that wouldn’t inherit this shitty world. And she didn’t need to be amongst the others either. Most of the people at Home still looked at her like she’d killed them herself. Besides, they needed a few of them to keep watch in case any diseased gate-crashed the funeral.
And what could Vicky say to the people of Home anyway? If she got captured and had a chance to escape again, she’d do it. A twisted bitch like Moira would always find an excuse to kill regardless of what happened around her. They needed to end her before she got to more innocent people. As long as Moira lived, she’d inflict pain.
Three other guards stood watch with Vicky. They formed a square around the congregation and took a corner each. Piotr, Flynn, and Serj all looked out over the open space.
From her position Vicky could see Piotr to her left and Flynn to her right but not Serj. He stood behind her on the opposite corner of the square. Both Piotr and Flynn’s faces reflected the heavy mood. They wore deep scowls as the wind buffeted their hair and clothes while they stood ready for the diseased should they turn up.
No matter how many deep breaths or blinks, Vicky couldn’t rid herself of her tiredness. Aches sat in her heavy body. Another late night from visiting Moira’s community, followed by tossing and turning until it got early enough to get out of bed; it had been days since she’d had a good night’s sleep. The lives of those at Home and Moira’s prisoners rested so heavy on her shoulders she felt barely able to move at times. If she had the chance, she’d have to get the camouflaged family out too.
The brief flash of summer yesterday had vanished. More grey clouds clogged the sky and the wind picked up to the point where it cut to Vicky’s core. Maybe it had been the grief of the past few days that had created the rock in her stomach, maybe her exhaustion caused her perpetual tremble; either way, the bitter wind certainly didn’t help. In just a T-shirt and jeans, of course she’d feel it, and gooseflesh covered her arms.
Another scan of the horizon and Vicky turned to look at Scoop. She hugged a sobbing Meisha close to her. As the only one of them not on sentry duty, she gave the funeral service. Of all the guards, she was the closest to Sharon and Dan, so it seemed appropriate.
The amount of people gathered around made it impossible for Vicky to see the three children’s bodies. But because she’d helped lay them down and had dug their graves, she knew Scoop was standing right by them.
“As a parent,” Scoop said, her tone sombre, her eyes glazed when she looked at Sharon and Dan, “I can’t imagine what you’re having to go through at the moment. No one should outlive their children. I’m so sorry.”
Both Sharon and Dan nodded at her before they dropped their gaze to the ground again.
“Jack, Lola, and Alvin were good kids. They were always polite, always full of energy, and always eager to help whenever they were needed. They were a credit to your wonderful parenting.” Scoop’s bottom lip buckled. “They shone brighter than the sun.”
A lump rose in Vicky’s throat and she heard some of the crowd break, the near silence punctuated with their gentle sobs.
The start of tears itched Vicky’s eyeballs and she blinked repeatedly, but it did little to prevent her view of the world from blurring and her throat aching in grief.
Although Scoop spoke again, Vicky snapped out of her sadness when she turned to see an awkward form travelling towards them through the long grass. Lopsided shoulders and limp arms, the diseased woman swayed as if she were as susceptible to the breeze as the nature surrounding her. She loosed a scream that cut Scoop dead and many of the congregation looked over.
Vicky cleared the lump from her throat and shouted, “Carry on.”
As the next closest guard to the diseased, Flynn stepped forward with Vicky to meet the creature.
Nearly telling him to stay back, Vicky kept it to herself. No need to humiliate the boy in front of everyone.
Vicky took off towards the diseased woman at a jog and another one appeared over the brow of the hill beside her. The second one—a man—stood tall and slim. As she looked at him, she stopped and raised her crossbow.
Because they were downwind from the diseased, Vicky smelled their rotten stench. She shouldered her crossbow as Flynn ran past her, closed one eye to improve her aim, and pulled the trigger. The weapon kicked as she fired the bolt and a second later red mist exploded out the back of the taller one’s head. His legs buckled beneath him and he went down.
Vicky loaded a second bolt and dispatched the diseased woman before Flynn could reach her. Her legs turned to jelly and she too folded to the ground.
Still five metres away, Flynn stopped, his shoulders slumped. “I can kill them you know.”
“I know you can,” Vicky replied.
“Then why waste your bolts? Why not let me take one?”
“I thought I was doing both of us a favour. They’re dangerous, Flynn—”
“You think I don’t know that?”
“So why fuck about? If I can take them out, then I should, right? I’m not having the blood of any more people on my hands. Especially not yours.”
“So now you take responsibility?”
“I’ve always taken responsibility
for you, Flynn.”
“I’m not talking about being responsible for me. You’ve been too fucking responsible for me. I’m talking about that mess over there.” Flynn looked in the direction of the pen of diseased.
Vicky lowered her voice and moved closer to him so only he could hear her. “We’re doing that to protect people.”
“I’m sure they’ll be grateful to know that.”
Vicky didn’t respond.
The pair turned and walked back toward the funeral service. Both of them looked out for more diseased. When they got closer to the gathered crowd, Vicky spoke beneath her breath. “Do yourself a favour.”
Flynn looked at her.
“Stop being such a jumped-up little prick.”
Although he looked like he would respond, he kept it to himself. Never appropriate to kick off at a funeral, even the petulant teenager knew when to shut the fuck up.
They continued the rest of the walk back in silence and Vicky watched many people in the crowd looking up as if to check for more diseased. Although she felt Flynn’s rage burning into the side of her face, she didn’t give him the satisfaction of looking at him. He could keep his fury.
Closer still to the group, Vicky and Flynn split to return to their respective posts.
Although she kept her wits, Vicky turned to watch Sharon and Dan lower their children’s bodies into their graves. They tossed earth on top of them. The guards had dug relatively shallow because it would have taken too long to go six feet down.
After Dan stepped back, he looked up at Vicky, tears streaming down his face, rage and accusation burning in his glare. She’d seen that look a lot lately, but it didn’t hurt any less for the familiarity.
At Home Vicky felt guilty because of the dead children. Away from Home she felt guilty because of the prisoners. If she went to them when she’d promised to, she’d go tomorrow, but she couldn’t do that. She wasn’t ready yet. And then she had the family in the cage—the family they should have saved when they were getting door locks from Wilkinson’s. The family that would have been free now had her and Serj done the right thing by them.
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