The Girl Who Ran

by Nikki Owen

  I slide in and out of consciousness for the next hour. Black Eyes returns to check on me, as does a doctor, probing between my legs, my body unable to escape. They take notes, swabs, record data, but no injection is given, no medicine is administered, but then, as the hour tips into the next, the door opens and Black Eyes returns with a nurse by his side dressed in a white tunic and trousers.

  ‘Maria,’ Black Eyes says, ‘it’s time.’

  I immediately hunch back, press my body as hard as I can into the belly of the bed. ‘Time for what?’

  ‘We have checked you thoroughly now,’ he says as, one by one, he unstraps my legs, ‘and we think we have everything we need.’

  My ankles drop to the mattress, the skin and bones throbbing, but I can’t rub them because my wrists are still tied to the frame.

  ‘I want to get out.’

  ‘I know, I know you do.’ He unhooks the monitor and I instantly worry. If he is doing this, he is following protocol – protocol that is set out as a routine to follow before administering Typhernol.

  The nurse moves forwards and I start to panic. ‘Get away!’

  ‘Maria, it’s okay,’ Black Eyes says. ‘We’re family and family don’t hurt each other.’

  ‘Yes they fucking do!’

  The nurse is closer now and I feel hot and no matter how much I will some strength and fight to come, nothing arrives. What do I do? Which way do I turn? I am tired, so tired. The nurse is nearer again and my mind goes to all the people I have ever known in my life, and I want to see them all again so badly, just once, see the face of my Papa, my kind, sweet, strong Papa, of Balthus and Patricia, and Ramon and Harry, Harry who helped me get acquitted for the murder of the priest yet then was murdered himself.

  The nurse is by me now, and I plead with her not to do it, not to put the needle into my blood and make me forget, because I want to remember. I so desperately want to remember all the faces of the people I loved, how they smelt, recall their hair strands and colour, the way they moved, what they said, how many times they tried to help me. I want to remember it all.

  ‘Stop, please,’ I say, and Black Eyes comes to my side and watches me as the nurse prepares the vial.

  ‘It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.’

  And he wipes my hair from my brow and I can’t stop him because my hands are tied, and so I thrash my head away from him and he removes his palm, but remains close as the needle hovers in the air, and all I can think of now, as a numbness of resignation flows over me, is that I was so near. I was so near to having a normal life, to having what I always craved. I had friends. For a while, I finally had friends.

  ‘Ready?’ Black Eyes asks the nurse.

  She nods, the needle lowering and I watch it, tears flowing freely, mind exhausted, my eyes closing.

  There is a vast crack of gunfire in the air.

  My eyes fly open to see the nurse collapsing as a red circle stains her white tunic, her torso falling onto the bed then tumbling to a dead slump on the floor, the needle clattering from her hand and rolling away under a metal cabinet.

  Black Eyes crouches, scurries to a wall where a small panic button sits, but before he can hit it, he is shot in the chest and he drops to the floor.

  I suck in air, over and over, watching it all, fear peaking now as the door flies open and the shooter slams fully into sight.

  ‘A—Abigail?’

  I blink in shock as Abigail now runs to me, unstraps my wrists and hauls me up from the bed. ‘You okay?’

  I gaze round at the floor, wobbling at the movement. The nurse is dead, but Black Eyes is still breathing. ‘How… how did you find me? I thought you were dead.’

  ‘Here, put this on.’

  She flings me a set of clothes and I shove them on, muscles weak, wincing as the combats go over my legs.

  ‘I’ve taken down the guards, and disabled the surveillance system and the alarm alerts so no one can track you.’

  I nod, the speed at which everything is happening making my brain shake. I draw in a breath, try to stay steady.

  ‘Chris knows you are on your way.’

  ‘On my way? What does this mean?’

  ‘That you’re getting out of the Project.’

  I stop, take in what she is saying, the words hard for me to comprehend. ‘Why are you helping me?’

  She exhales. ‘Because this is all fucked up. And besides’— she shrugs— ‘I’m dying, so what have I got to lose? Get out there, use the microfiche texts and nail the bastards.’

  Black Eyes groans on the floor; Abigail clocks him. ‘Let’s move.’

  We tiptoe, my legs shaking, along a corridor that leads to the cupboard where Abigail said my bag was and when I open it, inputting the code from memory, just as she said, it is there. I grab it, smell the fabric, it’s woody scent, the tiny slice of familiarity it offers helping my brain stay calm enough to think straight.

  ‘Chris says there’s a cell phone inside,’ Abigail says quickly. ‘He said he’s managed to link to it.’

  Willing some strength into my fingers, I rip open the bag, find the cell, switch it on. Straight away is a text from Chris that simply says:

  Hello, Google. Let’s get you out.

  A tear rolls down my cheek, my hands, as I read the message, fumbling, finding the photograph of Isabella with me in her arms, my Papa’s writing fading on the back, a lump swelling in my throat as I look at it and, searching in my bag again, find the second photograph, the one saved from my Salamancan villa of Papa and I. Next, quickly, carefully securing the images safely away, I search for my notebook and, when I find it, I drag it out and immediately flip to the page I want. I stop, trace my fingers on the words: Patricia and the meaning of her name – noble woman.

  ‘I’m sorry about your friend,’ Abigail says.

  I wipe my eyes, read again what I wrote so long ago in prison, then, looking to Abigail, say the words I know Patricia would have taught me to respond with. ‘I am sorry Daniel died.’

  A shout sounds from somewhere in the far distance and, grabbing the bag and belongings, we run.

  ‘Okay, so there’s not much time,’ Abigail says, running, struggling for breath, ‘but now your phone’s switched on, Chris’ll be able to track you.’ She pauses, coughs, smears away some blood. ‘He’s through the firewall and they don’t know he’s in their system. He’s been able to disable all alerts, but that’ll last, I reckon for only, what? Fifteen? Twenty minutes, tops? But if you get out now you should be fine.’

  I stop. ‘No.’

  ‘What?’ She slows to a halt, chest hauling in oxygen. ‘We need to move.’

  ‘I cannot go yet. I cannot leave her here.’

  ‘Leave who?’

  ‘Isabella. My mother.’

  Abigail hesitates. She smears away some more blood from her lips, glances up and down the corridor then checking her watch, she nods. ‘Which room is she in?’

  Muscle mass returning now, I start running, the map of the entire facility clear in my head for the final time. ‘Room 720. This way.’

  Chapter 35

  Black site Project facility, Scotland.

  Present day

  We arrive at the room and watch as an officer stands nearby. His position means we cannot get past. We need help.

  Abigail immediately gives me a small gun, checking her own and checking her cell. ‘Let’s see how much our friend Chris can help.’

  She taps her phone and I look at mine and message Chris our location, but he has already texted.

  I heard about Patricia

  I blink at the symbol he has put down and I think it means he is sad but am unsure. Swallowing and glancing down the corridor to check all is clear, I message him back.

  I am sorry, too.

  I pause, swallow, then recommence.

  There is an officer outside Isabella’s room. We require assistance

  He replies immediately.

  On it. The guard has a cell phone. Have accessed it and he sh
ould be gone in three, two, one…

  I look up. The officer’s phone bleeps. He scans the cell screen then, raising his head, strides the opposite way to us down a corridor that leads to the situation room.

  ‘Whoa,’ Abigail says. ‘Chris’s good.’

  I text him.

  Abigail says you are good.

  I am

  We creep down the walkway until we reach the door. I stop, look around, then set my eyes on the number: 720.

  ‘This the right room?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘This is the one Black Eyes told me of when I had the gun at his head.’ I keep my sight on the door, blue, made of metal and wood, no other markings, no other words or numbers adorning it.

  ‘Oh.’

  I place my hand at the door, fully expecting it to be locked but it’s not. Instead, the handle simply clicks open. I look to Abigail, worried.

  ‘I texted Chris the room number. He unlocked it.’

  Concern subsiding, I rapidly try now to call up in my mind the image of Isabella that we saw, of her older, more lined and worn self.

  I hesitate, suddenly feeling uncertain, doubting whether what I am doing is right, whether it will be good for me at all.

  ‘Are you going in?’ Abigail says.

  ‘She is my real mother.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How do I know whether meeting her is the correct thing to do?’

  She sighs. ‘Sometimes, we don’t know whether what we’re doing is going to be the right thing or not. But that’s the thing about the future – it’s unpredictable. You’ve just got to go with what you feel is right, what you think, for you, is good.’

  ‘But what if it is not good for you, but good for the other person?’

  ‘Then that’s called being selfless.’ She smiles, then coughs and, from my rucksack, I find a cotton handkerchief and hand it to her.

  ‘Thanks.’ She wipes her mouth and scans the corridor. ‘You’d better go in – we haven’t much time left. I’ll wait here. Be quick, yeah?’

  I nod and, linking my fingers around the handle, I go in.

  The light inside the small room is low and orange. I step one foot in, two, test the air. ‘Hello?’

  A low moan comes back, guttural, but faint. The room smells of medical bandages, antiseptic and emollient cream, and to my right is a lamp, small and black. I switch it on and immediately see a bed in the centre. Sitting on it, with her back to me, is a woman in a floral gown and light blue, crepe paper trousers.

  ‘H—hello?’

  Nerves rising, hands tapping my thigh, I inch round the bed where the large metal frame arcs over the end and links to the mattress and legs below.

  The woman, as I come nearer, looks up at me and my breathing almost ceases. It is Isabella. Her hair is speckled with more grey, her skin wrinkled and more shallow, her chin smaller, her body thinner, more boney, but when I scan her and compare what I see in front of me with the image in my brain, there is no mistaking – it is her. It is my mother.

  ‘Isabella?’ I say, her name when I speak it aloud seeming odd, alien.

  She lifts her eyes and at first, they do not move but then, as she scans me once, twice, three times, her hand raises and a shriek escapes her lips.

  ‘M… Maria?’

  ‘You know my name. Do you… do you know who I am?’

  She seems as if, for a second, she is going to tumble off the bed, but then she pulls herself up, staggers to a small wooden cabinet by the far frame where a small glass vase of woodland flowers rests. She opens the cabinet and, reaching inside takes something out then turns to me.

  ‘This is you,’ she says in a broken Spanish accent.

  I look down to what is in her hand and stumble a little to the side as I see there, in her hand is the picture of her holding me as a baby. The same one I have.

  Blinking, swallowing, fighting back the tears, I zip open my bag and pull out my photograph and hold it to hers.

  She points a finger at it, scratches and welts lining her delicate skin. ‘You and me.’ She smiles and there are so many creases by her eyes I cannot even begin to count them.

  ‘How…’ There is a lump in my throat and I cough it back, re-start. ‘How do you have this same photograph?’

  ‘Alarico gave it to me.’

  ‘Papa,’ I say, the tears falling at last.

  She nods. ‘He was a good man.’

  I look again to the image, turn mine and see the writing on the back, think of Balthus and how he loved this woman next to me all those years ago, and how he turned to Ines, thinking she would help them both. So many questions fly around my head that I almost start to moan aloud at the overwhelming sensation of them, but then I think of Patricia and smell my rucksack, see my notebook and its pages peeking out from the zip, and my brain manages to settle, to focus on what needs to next be done.

  ‘How did you know what I looked like now?’

  ‘Dr Carr showed me… he showed me pictures, but…’ She hangs her head. ‘I’m sorry, it’s been so long since I’ve spoken to someone else.’

  ‘Dr Carr showed you pictures of me – why?’

  ‘He said he didn’t want me to miss my daughter as much as he missed his.’ She falters. ‘I can only imagine what they have done to you… what they have made you do.’

  There is a faint knock on the door and Abigail’s head peers in. ‘It’s time to go.’ She pauses. ‘Are we… all coming?’

  A smile breaks out on Isabella’s face.

  Isabella finds it difficult to move. Her feet shuffling, we struggle along the corridor, checking for officers and dodging out of the way when a large group of subject numbers strides through one walkway towards the canteen.

  ‘I… I know they kept you,’ Isabella says when we come to a stop near the main side exit that Chris has disabled for a few minutes only. ‘I know Ines lied to… to Balthus.’

  I look to her. ‘She lied to everyone.’

  Isabella taps my hand, her fingertips warm, soft petals, and I find myself not flinching, instead oddly comforted by her gentle touch. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she says.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘For leaving you.’

  ‘But you have found me again.’

  She smiles, eyes downturned but lines spreading out on her skin. ‘I have.’

  ‘Stop!’

  I turn to Abigail and see three officers striding up ahead. I hold my gun, push Isabella behind me. ‘They may be walking past here. We should go now.’

  She shakes her head. ‘No. That could reveal our position. Let’s wait. They might be going to the canteen.’

  We wait, my finger tapping the handle of the gun with nerves as the officers move in a different direction to where we are standing.

  Abigail billows out a breath. ‘Phew. That was—’

  A gunshot fires in the air, hitting Abigail in the shoulder. She cries out and I instinctively start to go to her when she’s hit again, this time in the chest.

  Boots sound far away then nearer as I freeze, unmoving, my eyes locked on Abigail, Isabella crouching behind me.

  ‘Go,’ Abigail croaks as blood seeps on the fabric over her chest, red lines trickling from her mouth.

  ‘I have to help you.’

  ‘No.’ She coughs; the boots sound nearer now. ‘I’m dying anyway. I’ve got nothing to lose, remember?’

  I hesitate, scan her wounds. ‘You are losing blood fast.’

  ‘It’s okay.’ She coughs again and this time her eyelids ripple. ‘You only have five minutes left. Chris is… Chris is waiting for you. Outside here is… is moorland. Get to the edge of it. There’s a clear way through… through this door.’

  More boots, shouts now, too.

  I look at Abigail, glance to Isabella.

  ‘Go,’ Abigail says. ‘Go!’

  An alarm from somewhere sounds and, blinking at Abigail one more time, I reach for her gun and taking it, pause. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Go.’

  As the alarm
blares louder, I grip Isabella’s wrist and dart down a small walkway in a restricted zone. I stop, text Chris who uses the message as a trigger to release the door remotely.

  You have one minute to get out. The far gate is open for 60 seconds only.

  I shove the cell in my pocket and, drawing in a breath, haul open the door.

  Night air hits me and the sight of it, for a second, shocks my brain as I realise that I cannot recall the last true time I was outside since being at the black site. I can smell heather, peat, the heady scent of mud and grass when it has just rained.

  Shots sound from inside the building and, even though it is dark, I can see the perimeter fence. I start to run, but Isabella lags behind.

  I turn to her. ‘We have to go.’

  She catches her breath. ‘I… I can’t run. I haven’t moved like this for over ten years. You go, get away from here.’

  I hesitate, think of the little time left, then run to Isabella. I link my hands under my shoulders and hoist her up, gasps billowing from her. I saddle her on my shoulders and, checking I have all my belongings, my gun and my cell, I run with her on my back until we are through the perimeter fence and out of the Project compound entirely and I don’t stop. I stumble in the heather, I trip on the moor, but each time I get back up, secure Isabella on my back, run and run and run, until, finally on the edge of the moor, just as Abigail said he would be, I see a light and a car and the familiar shape of a man stood next to it.

  I sprint hard, get to the vehicle and slide Isabella from my back and stare now at this man, mud streaking my face as I take in his sunken eyes, his floppy hair, the familiar scent of his baked-bread skin.

  ‘Oh my God, Google, I cannot tell you how glad I am to see you.’

  He rushes to us, helping, his eyes with me the whole time as he slides Isabella into the car. I stand there, drained and scared. It hits me, all of it, everything that’s happened, and even though I know the Project and danger are just a few hundred metres away, the fact that Chris is here – someone familiar, a friend, one of my true friends, helping me, accepting me – for a reason I don’t understand and don’t want to analyse, I grab Chris’s arm, twist him to me and kiss him.