by Frankie Rose
“About time,” he snaps. “What the hell is going on up there?”
“Just about what you’d imagine,” I tell him. “Absolute chaos.”
“Someone’s keeping it together. We’ve been getting covering fire from the higher levels. Been shooting off people that get too close to the entrance for the last twenty minutes.”
“You mean they’re not even in the building yet?” That doesn’t seem right. The Sanctuary guards have firepower of their own, and most likely have the numbers on us, too. They should have charged through the building by now, more than likely killing anyone standing in their way.
“No, a few of them broke through but we took them down. Since then the others have been biding their time outside, waiting for the opportunity to get in.” James blows out an exasperated breath, glancing around the room. “Can someone please figure out how turn that alarm off?”
I ignore the teenage boy who scurries off in answer to James’ command, taking the stairs behind us two at a time. “Did you get any sense out of them?”
“Out of who?”
“The guards? Before you shot them!”
James rests the butt of his rifle against the toe of his boot, shooting me an incredulous look. “Since when did guards show up in the middle of the night without making a sound? Since when did they start fighting with slingshots?”
“What?”
“Yeah, you heard me. Slingshots. They’re like us, Kit. Only slightly less civilised, if you can believe that.”
I can’t believe it. Or at least I won’t be able to believe it until I see it with my own eyes. “What the hell do they want?”
“To burn down the building? To kill us while we sleep? To steal our food? To take what we have?” James narrows his eyes, rubbing a dirty hand across the stubble marking his jaw. “Maybe it's to take back the guns they believe are theirs.”
And then it all becomes clear. “Rudy.”
James’ eyebrows rise. “Yeah. Rudy.”
******
The dawn brings with it smoke and the smell of cooking food. The deep blue sky is lethargic in its wakening, unlike the crowds of men gathered outside the Det. They didn’t sleep, didn’t move an inch despite the bullets raining down from an unknown floor above our heads. Callum came down about an hour before the first rays of dawn crawled over the shattered buildings of the city, with news that the mystery sniper was in fact Foster. Should’ve known. His sharp eyes saw what others couldn’t in the dark; he kept us safe. However, now that daylight is on our side, the guns up on red four are much more effective. The people can see where they are aiming, which makes our attackers more reticent to, well, attack.
James left when Callum arrived, grumbling about finding the kid responsible for all of this. He shows up later with a hand firmly gripped around the back of Seth’s neck. The skinny guy is terrified, his eyes showing too much white, and his hand is still bound, wrapped up securely and held against his chest. James shoves him forward, nearly pushing into the ground.
“Take a look out the window,” he demands.
Seth, looking mortally wounded by James’ hard tone, gapes up at him. “No! No way. They'll take my bloody head off!”
James smirks. “Hopefully not before you point out which one of those bastards is your good friend Rudy.” His remark is less than hope-inspiring. Seth blanches, taking a step back.
“He’s not my friend. I keep telling you people that. None of you seem to be listening, though.”
“Well, you did try to kill one of our own in defence of him. You can understand why we might be a little confused.”
“If I didn’t…if I hadn’t…if Rudy had beaten that one and her friend and I hadn’t helped, I would have been done for!” he stammers, gesturing a bloody, bandaged hand at me. “You don’t know him like I do. The man’s crazy!”
The fear in Seth’s voice is too obvious to ignore. He can only be telling the truth. I’ve known the guy for less than two days and I already know that he would never be able to pull off an act this convincing. “Leave him be, James. I saw Rudy. I’ll tell you if I see him down there.”
Seth’s shoulders sag with relief. He drops to the floor and a plume of dust blooms upwards from the concrete, settling in his hair and on his shoulders. James just shakes his head. With a rifle in my hand, I make my way to the window, pressing my shoulder into the grubby, exposed brickwork opposite Cal. He smiles at me, gesturing out of the window. “They only fire rocks at you if you poke your head out too far. Otherwise, they’re pretty friendly guys.”
“Good to know,” I say with a laugh. Yes, they may be essentially attacking us by very primitive means, but a piece of rebar to the face when fired from a slingshot is still going to hurt like nothing else. I inch my head out, careful to move slowly, to not attract attention to myself. Below, a fire crackles in an expertly made pit, and at least a hundred men, all with makeshift weaponry and dirty faces, gather around, talking amongst themselves. Toward the centre of the group, I see him. Sure enough, he’s there.
“There,” I say, pointing. James creeps up behind me, leaning in so he can glance over my shoulder. “That’s him.” James’ breath blows out in a steady stream over my skin, and my body shrinks away from the warmth of it. This seems to entertain James immensely.
“So the fat guy, yes? The one with the curly brown hair and the seriously pissed-off expression?”
I shimmy backward, standing as soon as I can navigate around James’ bulk. “That’s the guy that Ryka took down, yes.”
“Still don’t understand why he didn’t just kill him,” he mutters. “Would have saved us a lot of hassle.”
“What are you planning on doing about this?” I ask, ignoring the jibe.
“Well, if it were up to me, I’d be shooting them where they stand. But you people are a little more sensitive than some. I’d hate to do anything to irritate our venerable leader.”
“Which means?”
“Which means I'm going to wait until your boyfriend comes home.”
A clattering on the stairs snatches everyone’s attention away. Luke barrels into the room, all arms and legs. He’s breathing hard, blowing in and out like he ran down here at top speed. “Then… you…you won’t have to wait long,” he wheezes, holding his hand up to his chest. I’m on my feet in two seconds flat.
“He’s back? Ryka’s back?” Luke just nods. Relief mixed in equal parts with anxiety spills through my veins. Now that Ryka is here, the people of Freetown will feel safer. But how the hell is he going to get inside the building? And how on earth is he going to react when he sees the condition that his sister is in? It doesn’t bear thinking about.
“How far out is he?”
Luke swallows, gathering himself. “Foster says he saw him out past tower eleven. I don’t know where that is, but he said James would.”
James muses on this. He scrubs his hand over the back of his head, worrying the corner of his lip between his teeth. “Eleven’s on the outskirts. He’s got a ways to go before he reaches us, and he has no way of knowing what’s happening here. He’s going to walk straight into this mess blind, and goodness knows that won’t end well.” He looks up, eyes roving over each and every one of the others as he considers the problem. Cai shifts uncomfortably under the scrutiny that finally lands on him.
“Is there anything I can do?”
“Afraid of heights?” James asks, a small smile tugging at his mouth. Cai shrugs, shooting me a worried glance.
“Not really, I guess.”
“Good. You and your best friend here are going on a little reconnaissance mission.”
I still remember Foster asking me that question when he found me and was guiding me back toward the city. “Are you afraid of heights?” It hadn’t seemed important then. It certainly feels important now, as I stand alongside him and Caius on the roof of the Det. The wind is howling, gripping at my clothes, trying to tear them from my body. My hair whips around my face, blocking out the vista below—a ga
thering of people, ant-like, darting toward the building, probing, looking for a way inside. Thankfully the immediate panic of being under attack has subsided and people have found their heads. They have finally picked up guns, loose rubble, anything to launch out of the windows and onto Rudy’s people below should they stray too close to the perimeter of the building.
“You sure you want to do this?” Foster asks in the pensive way of his. In his left hand he grips onto a thick metal bracket, a sort of U-shaped design from which a couple of loops made from reinforced webbing hang down, forming what I can only imagine must be grips for a person’s hands.
“I don’t. I really don’t want to do this,” Cai tells him, his voice warbling a little. But he’s smiling, which means he’s going to do it, no matter how little he may want to.
“And this is the only way?” I ask.
Foster nods. “Unless you want to walk straight out of the front door and climb over the dead bodies we’ve left down there.”
Not a good idea, I’m sure. I survey the thick rail of iron that runs down the length of building below us and swallow. Hard. I saw the rail running from the top to the bottom floor when I first arrived with Foster, but I hadn’t thought to ask about it then. Nor since, in fact. On the long way up the stairs, though, Foster used the time to explain that the thick column of metal was once a guide rail for a sort of box, an elevator, that used to travel up the outside of the building, stopping at each floor where necessary to take people up or down. The elevator car is long gone now, but the guide rail remains. And we’re supposed to attach ourselves to it and just…jump. If I had a halo, this would be a breeze. But I don’t have a halo and the breeze is the reason my heart is in my throat.
“If you’re going to do this, it has to be now,” Foster tells us. “Ryka needs a heads-up before he gets lynched by those guys.”
Ryka is all I’m thinking about—how we’re going to get him back up this guide rail given its vertical nature, and how consistently downwards gravity tended to be. And also how the people currently waiting on his arrival on the floors below me are expecting a miracle from him once we do get him back inside. I try to ignore the other emotions—how relieved I’m going to be when I finally feel his arms around me—because those emotions aren’t going to help me right now. Right now, I have to be stone cold. Have to think about this logically.
“Okay, fine. Let’s do this.” I step forward first, unsure my nerve will hold if I let Caius go first. Foster hands me the loops, which I have to thread my hands through. I already know how this works—and I don’t like it. Not one bit. Once my hands are through, he fits the bracket over the top of the rusted guide rail. A rush of anxiety pulses through me; is this going to work? Is it going to jam and leave me hanging in mid-air? Am I going to die from a heart attack halfway down?
“Have you done this before?” I ask Foster. The blond-haired boy gives me an open smile.
“Sure I have.”
“And…has anyone died?”
He shrugs. “Not that I know of.”
Excellent.
“Oh, well. Consider me reassured.” Foster guides me forward, a hand on my elbow, until the toes of my boots are lined up with the ledge. Three more millimetres and then nothing stands between me and the dizzying drop down to the ground below. I let out a deep breath, shaking my arms. I can do this. I have to do.
“Ready?” Foster asks.
“Yes. No! Wait, how will I stop?”
“There’s a hydraulic cushion at the bottom. It’ll catch the bracket and lower you down slowly. Be ready though. If you don’t hold on tight, you’ll lose hold of the straps.”
“Great. Got it. Don’t let go.” I look over my shoulder at Caius. His cheeks are ashen, but he manages to shoot me a stoic smile. “Right behind you,” he tells me.
“Rudy’s men are still around the other side of the building. This should totally work so long as you don’t draw any attention to yourself,” Foster says, smiling.
“And how do I manage that?”
His smile spreads a little wider. “Just don’t scream.” And he pushes me. Pushes me! The wind howls in my ears and an awful moment of weightlessness ignites terror in the pit of my gut. I suck in a shallow breath, and I have to fight to heed Foster’s advice—I want to scream. I want to scream really badly. Even through the panic, I know that’s a bad idea, though. Regardless of how high up I may be, a screaming teenaged girl isn’t going to go unnoticed by Rudy and his men. My hands burn in the straps, and the world blurs as I fall, racing toward the ground. My stomach is up in my throat. The wind rips at my body, trying to push me into the building, which makes my heart rate careen into unsafe territory. Sparks shower from the bracket where the metal meets and for one awful moment I picture being blown into the guide rail. That would be a messy, messy death. I have to fight back the scream even harder. My palms sweat like crazy and for a horrifying moment I think I might slip, but the ground races up dazzlingly fast and then my body feels like it’s being yanked in four different directions. My descent has slowed so quickly that it feels like I’m barely moving at all; the cushion, it must have caught me.
My feet are suddenly throbbing; pain lances up through my heels and shins as I impact hard with the ground. Nowhere near as hard as I would have if the hydraulics hadn’t worked, though. The pain is relatively short lived. It takes me a moment to remember how to breathe, and when I do I start gulping air into my lungs, trying to stave off the explosive, strobing lights that are going off in my head due to lack of oxygen. I disentangle myself from the hand loops in time to witness Caius’ dark form hurtling toward me down the guide rail. His form seems better than mine, with his legs tucked up tight underneath his body. I scramble back to make way for him as he arrives; ten metres above the ground, his bracket hits the cushion, jerking his body like it did mine, and then in the space between blinking he’s on the ground, his legs collapsing out from underneath him.
“Holy hell,” he gasps as he rolls onto his back. “That was…”
“Terrifying?”
“Amazing!”
He and I have very differing views on what constitutes amazing. I stand, offering him my hand. He takes it, and we both straighten ourselves up, our eyes unable to avoid looking back up the vertical length of steel cable we just hurtled down.
“Come on, then. We’d better go find your boyfriend,” Caius says. We both check the vicinity, making sure Rudy’s men are still occupied around the other side of the building where the Det’s entrance is located. There’s no sign of anyone, so we head out. The streets are empty of people, but we stay on guard, holding our breath. Our path is relatively easy; the streets are clear for the most part, but where they aren’t we have to climb over barricades of splintering furniture and more of those wire carts.
We come to an intersection where Caius signals to the right, hugging the wall of the building on the right-hand side as he darts out and hurries along the perimeter. I’m right on his heels, carefully placing my feet to avoid tripping and noise. Once we’re round the corner of the building we rest for a second, breathing heavily.
“We need to get our bearings.” I look back to the Det, searching for and locating the window in the midsection of the building where James and the others are waiting for us to work some sort of miracle. It’s facing us, which means Ryka’s approaching directly behind, coming from the west. Gods knows how many blocks stand between us, or if he’s changed his mind and is zigzagging through the streets. We might never find him in time if he’s decided to do that. But we have to try.
“Come on.” This time it’s me urging Cai on. He gives me a military style nod of the head and we move, bodies half bowed to keep ourselves low and make our moving shapes smaller. Gunfire rattles like stones in a tin can behind us, signalling another fresh assault from Rudy’s people on the Det. I shake my head, trying not to imagine what will happen if they manage to get inside. They could overrun us. We have no idea how many people Rudy has at his disposal. Seth
wasn’t exactly helpful on that front; there could be hundreds more of them waiting below ground right underneath our feet. My wondering is cut short when we duck around a corner and straight into a group of men, six of them, sitting on upturned wooden crates, talking quietly. They rear back at our sudden presence, staggering to their feet, reaching for weapons.
“Kit, get down!” A missile sings through the air as the quickest of them looses something toward us in a sling: a sharp edged piece of rubble. I stumble backward, pulling my body out of the way, but not quite quick enough. It hits me on the arm, grazing the skin. Blood flows forth immediately, wasting no time in forming tiny rivulets to run down my arm. I grab hold of my throwing knives, one in each hand, reassured by the feel and weight of cold metal, and I throw both at once. Thuck,thuck. They land within an inch of each other, deeply embedded in the chest of the man with the slingshot. He peers down at the strange sight of something protruding monstrously from his torso, and then his body catches up with him and he slumps to the ground. The others are rushing forward while this happens. Cai has two of his own daggers in his hands; they’re the ones the Sanctuary gifted to him after his one hundredth victory. Meanly serrated, wickedly sharp, they’re a prime example of the blood lust that fuels the Sanctuary. They would never have given him such weapons if they didn’t want him to do maximum damage with them. For the jagged teeth of those blades to rip and tear at flesh and bone. For Caius to put on a good show with them. And if this destroyed street were the crowd-filled Colosseum, the chanting masses would definitely be thrilled by the show he’s putting on right now.
