“You’re full of shit,” Sharon said.
A look up and down the length of her body and Flynn sneered at her, “Although, if I do set you loose, I don’t think you’ll be good for anything but eating. Even a desperate man would have a hard time finding you attractive.”
Red-faced and tight-lipped, Sharon pulled in a deep breath and straightened her back. But she didn’t reply to him.
“So why did you come back?” Dan said, a tight grip still on Brian, who twisted occasionally as if he could break free of his restraint.
“Because Home’s going to be attacked.”
“What do you care?”
“If it was just you three here, then I wouldn’t care at all. You three, Angelica, and Larry can go to hell. But it isn’t just you, even if you do run the place like it is. There’s an entire community out there. A community with children and teenagers who haven’t done anything wrong.”
“We haven’t done anything wrong,” Sharon said.
“You keep telling yourself that, sweetheart.”
“We haven’t!”
After drawing a weary sigh, Flynn looked at Sharon. “Do we really need to go over it again?”
“No.” Dan interrupted and looked at his wife as if to tell her to leave it.
The face Sharon pulled made Flynn smirk again. Screwed up tighter than a puckered arsehole, she looked ready to blow. He then said, “He’s got a tight leash on you, hasn’t he?” He turned to Dan. “Can you make her do tricks?”
“Stop being a prick, Flynn, and tell us who’s going to attack us.”
“I’m not telling you.”
“What?”
Another snap from Brian as he tried to break free, Dan restraining him again. “Just let me gut him. I don’t care about this nonsense,” Brian said.
But Flynn ignored him and addressed Dan. “I want to speak to the community. I want them to hear what’s coming for you. I want them to decide their fate.”
“We’re not letting you talk to them.”
“Worried I might tell them the truth?”
“We’ve got nothing to hide,” Dan said. “Vicky created this mess.”
Although Flynn tried to respond, Sharon cut him off. “You do realise we have your little girlfriend as leverage, right? No one knows we have her, so we can do what the fuck we like to her.”
“You won’t.”
“Why?”
“Because, although you’re complete fucking arseholes, you’re principled people. You act for what you think are the right reasons. And no matter how misguided the three of you are, even you can see there isn’t any reason to be mean to Rose.”
Silence swept through the room, and when Brian fought again to be free of Dan’s restraint, Dan let go. The bearded man walked out into the corridor, followed by Sharon a moment later.
After he’d looked at Flynn for a few more seconds, Dan shook his head and stood up. At the door, he sighed and pulled it closed. Just before he locked him in again, Flynn heard him say, “I hope you like the dark.”
Chapter 35
Hours passed before the door opened again. As before, the light stung Flynn’s eyes while he adjusted to the sudden change. He sat up on Larry’s bed—the old metal frame creaking—blinked repeatedly, and rubbed his face in an attempt to speed up his recovery.
Brian walked in first again. He still had the long knife. Any hint of the humour he’d brought in with him on the previous visit had vanished. Their last encounter had clearly damaged his ego and it looked like he’d come to make good on that.
Sharon and Dan also walked in behind him like they had the last time they’d visited.
Each of Home’s guards had tension in their form, defensive as if they expected Flynn to be a prick to them again. Understandably so. But the long hours in the dark had given him a chance to reassess. Whatever beef he had with them couldn’t get in the way of the people in Home’s safety. The Queen would attack at some point. She would kill the pregnant woman in the watery cell along with all of the others in there. Maybe some of them were pregnant too. The longer he spent behaving like a twat, the less chance he’d have of preventing it.
Not an apology, but Flynn opened his mouth to break the ice. However, before he could say anything, the guards parted and Rose walked in behind them. He let out the slightest gasp at the sight of her.
Like Flynn, Rose had been given new clothes. She even looked like she’d washed, her long blonde hair shimmering in the daylight behind her. She beamed a warm smile at him, which he returned.
It took a second for Flynn to see she had a tray in her hands. It had a cup and a bowl on it. The smell of stew wafted towards him.
Once Rose had placed the tray on the bed, Flynn reached out and squeezed her hand. He then picked up the cup of water, his throat so dry it felt like it had cracked.
“Not too quick,” Rose said. “You don’t want to be sick.”
The cup pressed to his dry lips and a desire to knock the entire thing back, Flynn took just one small sip and put it back down on the tray. She had a point. They’d not given him much to drink in what could have been days in that room, he didn’t want to fill his stomach immediately.
“Once you’ve eaten that,” Brian said and pointed down at Flynn’s stew with his long knife, “you can address the people of Home like you want to.”
Flynn nodded. Hard to accept Brian had any control over him, but he did. The sooner he put his ego to one side, the easier it would be to move forward.
“No funny business though.” This time Brian pointed the knife straight at Flynn and it took all Flynn had to let him. “I’ll be standing behind you. If I get even a whiff of nonsense, I’ll cut your fucking throat.”
Again, Flynn swallowed down his reaction, his snarky response running to the edge of his tongue and stopping there. He had to think of the people in Home and the women in the water. They deserved to live more than he deserved to serve his pride. Let Brian threaten him; he could rise above it.
The smell of the broth made Flynn’s stomach rumble. A nod at Brian, Sharon, and Dan, and he opened his mouth. He might have tasted the stew a thousand times before, but that didn’t stop the warm familiarity of it lighting him up.
Chapter 36
It hadn’t been long since he’d walked down the corridors of Home as a resident, but in that time, Flynn had seen so much it felt like a lifetime ago. The lack of change in the place unsettled him. The sun still shone down through the grates. The place still smelled of earth and dust. The linoleum floor still had scratches and gashes in it. He felt like no more than a guest now. The sooner they dealt with the Queen and her bullshit, the better. It was definitely time for him to move on.
Flynn marched down the corridor with Rose beside him. Brian and his unreasonably long knife walked behind them. Dan and Sharon walked in front.
“I’ve missed you,” Flynn said to Rose and reached across to hold her warm hand. To his relief, she reciprocated. The time in the dark had given him space to think. He’d missed many opportunities with her. Their number could be up at any point in this brutal world, he couldn’t die knowing he didn’t make a move. Too scared to take action in case his fragile ego took a beating. He needed to grow the fuck up and be an adult about it.
The sound of footsteps ahead pulled Flynn’s attention up the corridor. When he saw Angelica, butterflies shimmered through his stomach. Not that he missed her, but something about the intimacy he’d once shared with her made him feel vulnerable. Especially as he now walked with Rose’s hand in his.
As much as the coward in Flynn wanted to let go of Rose’s hand, he didn’t. In fact, he squeezed it tighter. Fuck you, Angelica.
Dan and Sharon parted for Angelica, and although Flynn smiled at her and went to move aside, she stared straight at Rose, knocking shoulders with her on the way past.
“Hey!” Flynn said, but Angelica ignored him, sidestepping Brian and walking off down the corridor.
“I said hey!” Still nothing fro
m Angelica. “You crazy bitch.”
When Angelica spun around to face Flynn, he stopped and stared at her. “What’s wrong with you, you nutter?”
Fire swirled through her eyes as she glared at him, but she didn’t reply. Instead, she spun around and walked off again.
When Angelica had gone from his sight, Flynn looked at Rose and shrugged. “What the fuck was that about? Has anything gone on between you two?”
“She’s been a bitch since I got here. Are you sure she finished it with you? She’s behaving like it might have been the other way round.”
Brian tutted behind them. “Come on! Sort your drama out in your own time.”
A shake of his head and Flynn walked off again, still holding Rose’s hand. “Yeah,” he said, “she definitely ended it with me.” He smiled at her. “And I’m so glad she did.”
Chapter 37
They’d set the crowd up so Flynn had to stand in front of Serj’s memorial grave to address them. Before he looked at all the people there, he looked down at the inscription on the headstone. They’d done it since he’d left. It read:
Leader, mentor, friend.
A lump lifted in Flynn’s throat and he drew a deep breath to combat it. It helped when Rose grabbed his hand and gave it a squeeze. He had this. He could do it.
When Flynn looked up at the sea of familiar faces, he smiled. “It’s nice to see you all.”
Some of the people smiled back, the July sunshine illuminating their warmth. Some, like Larry and the guards, didn’t. To see Maggie, one of the teenagers who’d gotten on really well with Serj, gave Flynn another lift. She beamed a grin at him. At least some people were pleased to see him.
“You’ve had years of relative peace in Home.” Flynn’s voice echoed over the silent crowd. “Some of the kids probably don’t even remember Moira.” A look at Sharon and Dan, he sighed. Their three would have been old enough now to get involved in this new fight.
“And believe me, not remembering that crazy bitch is a good thing. Some of you probably don’t remember Vicky either.” Tension snapped through the three guards, and when Flynn looked at Brian, he saw his knife twitch in his grip. “She was a great woman who knew how to deal with Moira, and all of you can thank her for your lives in Home now.”
“And for the virus,” Brian muttered so only Flynn and Rose heard him.
“But I’m afraid you have another threat coming your way. She’s called the Queen and she’s fucking insane.”
Rose stood slightly behind Flynn, so he grabbed her hand and pulled her next to him. “This is Rose. She and I met when we were imprisoned by the Queen. The Queen finds people by catching them out in the wild, or by promising travellers a better life than the one they currently have. She claims to give them food, shelter, and protection—the three things most people need in this world. But then she makes them compete in several brutal games that see all of them die until there’s only one person left. At least, that’s how she frames it to her community. There are limited spaces in the royal complex, so they can only help one. Might as well make a sport of it, eh?”
Twists of disgust shaped some of the staring faces.
“Well, we’ve since found out that the Queen and those closest to her eat the bodies of the people who die in the games. Turns out, the games are much more about feeding that greedy bitch than they are about offering one person salvation.”
Wherever Flynn looked in the crowd, he now saw a frowning face staring back at him. Even Maggie. And why wouldn’t they? Who wanted to hear about someone like the Queen? Especially when she would be coming for them in the near future.
“I’ve seen what she does when she comes into a community. Rose has seen what she does. She kills everyone and steals their resources.”
Not aggressive, but one of the crowd spoke up. “How do you know she’ll attack us?”
“She’s said she will,” Flynn said. “Several times. I mean, the choice is yours; you can risk that she won’t and hope everything works out, or you can be ready for it. With preparation, she won’t stand a chance.”
“People say a lot of things,” the man in the crowd said, the wind tossing his short hair. “Don’t make it true.”
A shrug and Flynn nodded. “They do. You can say you don’t want my help and I can walk away. If I’m being honest, I’d rather you said that. It means I don’t have to risk my life for a community I have no desire to stay in. But I had to come back here and warn you. What you do with this information is your choice.”
Before the man could say anything else, a woman stepped forward. Flynn recognised her from when she’d arrived at Home fairly recently. Her name was Ellie and she’d turned up about as pregnant as the woman in the water pit. She now had a small child in her arms. “I know the woman he’s talking about. I was in her community. She’s crazy and doesn’t allow anyone to have children because she can’t have them herself. Whenever a woman in her community got pregnant, they disappeared. But people kept having sex”—she flushed red—“because that’s what we do, right? The only problem being that the withdrawal method isn’t very reliable.”
Flynn looked at Rose and saw her eyes were glazed. She must have been thinking about the Queen’s fuck toy too.
Ellie reached out to her partner, Aaron. “We got pregnant and knew we couldn’t stay. Everyone lived in fear of her. So we got out and found Home.”
Brian stepped forward and threw his arms up. “And why are we only finding out about this now?”
Flynn looked from the bearded man to the woman and back to him again. “It’s not her fault, Brian.”
Before Brian could respond, Ellie said, “We didn’t know the people here. What if someone spoke to her regularly? We didn’t want her finding us, and we didn’t want to be associated with her and her actions. Everything Flynn’s said is true. She’s insane, and if she sets her sights on Home, you’d best be ready for her.”
Where Flynn thought he had silence from the crowd before, it now dropped to a whole new level. Instead of focusing on him, the gathered crowd now looked at one another. They needed to make a decision for their safety.
After a few seconds, the crowd broke into a hushed chat and Flynn spoke to Brian, Sharon, and Dan in a loud enough voice for everyone to hear him. “Now you’ve heard about the Queen, you need to decide if you want my and Rose’s help. Alternatively, you can wait here like sitting ducks and we’ll be on our merry way.”
Flynn grabbed Rose’s hand and led her away from Serj’s memorial stone. “We’ll be in the canteen. Come and find us when you’ve made your minds up.”
As they walked, Flynn spoke so only Rose could hear him. “You were thinking about that man she killed in the plaza too, eh?”
A deep sigh as she held her head up and stared at Home’s entrance, Rose said, “Yep.”
Chapter 38
Flynn sat opposite Rose at one of the canteen’s old tables. He watched her look around the place, her mouth open as she took everything in. “It looks a lot different than it used to,” he said.
Still looking around, Rose said, “I can imagine. I’m trying to picture it.”
To think of the old days made Flynn smile. “We’d all gather here. With the diseased outside, it seemed like the perfect place to hang out. I’d sit with Vicky, Serj, and the other guards most of the time. Although sometimes I’d ignore her. I was horrible to her when I was a teenager.”
“You’re supposed to be horrible as a teenager.”
Despite the sadness of how he’d treated Vicky, Flynn smiled. “Serj said that too. I just wish we’d been on better terms. Had I known I wouldn’t see her again, I would have made much better use of our time together. At that age, it felt like everyone was going to be around forever. Especially Vicky. We’d survived the worst of it and come out the other side.” The sting of tears itched his eyes and he blinked repeatedly. “I’m sorry.” He fanned his face. “It’s just being back here …”
Rose reached across the table and held both o
f his hands in hers. “It’s okay. It’s important you feel it. This world has thrown a lot of shit at us. If we don’t allow ourselves to be honest and let the pain in, it’ll eat us alive.”
A deep inhale pulled in the dusty reek of the canteen. Flynn also smelled the tang of cabbage. Maybe in his memory, maybe such a part of the room it still smelled of it. He continued to look around the place. “We had electricity for the longest time. The field behind the front door used to have solar panels in it.”
“The one with all the tubes in it now?”
A raised eyebrow and Flynn put on a mock serious voice, his vision still blurred from where his tears hadn’t completely cleared. “Our water management system, don’t you mean?”
Rose laughed. “Terribly sorry, old chap. Do beg your pardon.”
Still swamped with sadness, Flynn tried to smile through it. “We used to have screens running all the time so we could see if there were any threats outside. It all seemed a bit gross after half the community fell to the diseased. I couldn’t look at them for a while for fear of seeing a familiar face. Little did I know that Vicky was one of them. Probably a good thing I didn’t find that out then. I don’t know what I would have done. At sixteen, I could fight, but I doubt I would have survived on my own out there. God knows I would have tried though.”
When Rose squeezed Flynn’s hands, he snapped away from his spiralling thoughts and looked into her deep brown eyes. “I’m glad I met you, Rose. You’ve made everything a lot easier. My will to keep going was starting to ebb.”
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