Spike quickened his pace, and when he rounded the next corner, he found a crowd outside Matilda’s house. He didn’t want to believe she was the screaming woman, but he couldn’t avoid the red-faced and tear-streaked reality. A bear of a guard standing at least six feet and four inches tall had a hold of her while she did her best to twist free from his grip. She screamed again, “It was self-defence!”
Another guard blocked Spike’s way, but he had a greater will than her and pushed through. On any other day, she might have drawn her baton; who knew why she chose to let him pass today. What looked like most of Matilda’s neighbours had crowded around her and her house. The congestion of bodies prevented him from getting to her, so he went to the house and peered in.
Despite everything Spike had seen on national service, nothing prepared him for that moment. Were he not close to a neighbouring building, his legs would have failed him. While leaning against the brightly coloured wall for support, he continued to stare through the open door. Every inch of Matilda’s front room glistened with spilled blood. Both Matilda’s mum and dad lay on their backs dead. Her mum’s head was misshapen across the brow from where she’d clearly been bludgeoned to death. The handle of a knife protruded from her dad’s right eye as if it had been used to pin him to the floor.
Four guards emerged from the house, a writhing Artan in their grip. It took the strength of all four to contain him, all of them as caked in blood as the front room. The whites of Artan’s eyes and teeth stood out from his crimson mask.
All the while, Matilda continued to scream the same words as if her shock had trapped her brain in a loop. “It was self-defence!”
It hurt Spike’s heart to see her in such a state. A dense press of bodies still between them, he shoved his way over, ignoring the tuts and snark thrown at him.
The guard holding Matilda locked on Spike as he approached.
Spike raised his hands and fought to keep the wobble from his voice, adrenaline surging through him. “What’s she done?”
A tight twist cramped the guard’s thick features as if he might swing for him, but when Spike offered no counter to his aggression, the guard relaxed his wide frame. “Nothing, we just need to keep her away. It’s the boy we want.”
Despite standing no more than a few feet from him, Matilda didn’t seem to have noticed Spike. “Tilly!”
Locked in her battle with the guard, she shouted again, “You can’t take him away.”
The guard clenched his square jaw as he wrestled with her.
Spike stepped closer, and the guard’s broad frame tensed again, but he focused on Matilda rather than her captor. “Tilly! Please calm down. This isn’t getting you anywhere.” Although he waited for her response, none came.
The guard said, “You need to step back now. I can’t deal with both of you. Don’t make me draw my baton.”
Spike ignored him; he needed to get Matilda away from there. “Matilda! Listen to me. You’re going to end up in prison too.”
“Sir!” the guard said. “I have the power to take that medal from around your neck. Don’t make me ask you again. Step back.”
Spike stepped forward. “Matilda.” This time they made eye contact. She looked like a spooked animal who’d just staggered from a bush fire. Her eyes rolled in her head, and her chest rose and fell rapidly. Although she focused on him, she only managed to hold it for a second before her eyes rolled again.
“Sir!” the guard said again.
“Give her to me.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Are you arresting her?”
“No. The boy did it.”
Matilda turned on the guard, spraying his face with spittle as she said, “The boy didn’t do anything. It was self-defence!”
A fraction of a second later, the guard had his baton raised above his head. His features turned dark with his intention, his muscly shoulders powerful enough to hammer her into the ground like a wooden peg. Spike stepped between them, lifting his arm to block the man’s blow as he eased Matilda away.
Although he panted, his knuckles white around his baton’s handle, the guard didn’t bring it down on them. He clenched his teeth. “You need to hand her back over.”
“How about I take her away from here? We’ll come back later and clean up. You said yourself that she’s not the one being arrested.”
“That was before she spat at me.”
“She didn’t do that on purpose. Please have some compassion for her situation. That’s her entire family in that house.”
The guard relaxed a little, appraising Spike for a few seconds. He lowered his baton. “Don’t make me regret this, boy.”
“I won’t, sir. Thank you.” Spike used all his strength to drag Matilda away while the crowd watched on. It took for him to feel the dampness of her clothes to realise she also wore the spilled blood of her parents.
When they were away from Matilda’s house and in the square in front of what had once been Mr. P’s, Matilda looked at Spike, and for the first time, he saw the girl he recognised in her eyes. “Oh, Spike. What a mess.”
They were sat on the wall of a small decorative pool of water, the bottom filled with wishing stones thrown in by the local kids. “What happened?”
First, her bottom lip buckled, and then Matilda cried, sobbing so hard she wailed as if something inside her had ripped.
For the next few minutes, Spike held onto his love, rocking her gently while trying to ignore the feeling of her blood-soaked clothes.
“Artan and I went out because he was nowhere to be seen.”
“Your dad?”
She nodded. “We wouldn’t have left her on her own if we’d have known he was coming back. The blood, Spike, it covered the entire room.”
“I saw it.”
“We were only gone for a few minutes. We wanted to get some more rations. We wouldn’t have left her if we’d have known.”
“So you came back and found your mum like that?”
“He’d picked up a rock from the garden and caved her skull in. He still had it in his hand when he charged at Artan. Before I knew it, Artan had picked up a knife and stabbed him.”
The image of Matilda’s mum and dad in the front room flashed through Spike’s mind. An image it would take him a lifetime to forget.
“Mum must have screamed when he attacked her, because by the time he and Artan started fighting, the neighbours had gathered outside.”
“Which is why they only took Artan away? I’m sorry to drag you from there, but I could only see things getting worse between you and the guard.”
When Matilda looked at him, her brown eyes shifted from one of his to the other as if searching his face would reveal an answer. “What are we going to do?”
What could he tell her? To trust the system? That they’d recognise Artan’s innocence and set him free? They lived in a city where you got evicted for being gay. “I think we need to take it one step at a time. We need to clean your house first. I’ll do the worst parts so you don’t have to look at them. Then we’ll have to find a way to get to Artan.”
Even as Spike said it, the truth of her situation screamed at him, daring him to speak it. Artan had killed someone. They were screwed.
Chapter 8
“Where are you going at this time, boy?”
Instead of answering his dad, Hugh kept his head down to hide his face as he shoulder barged him out of the way. A loud bang resulted from the man falling against a cupboard in their front room.
“Oh, shit, you didn’t just do that.”
Although he had an awareness of his dad limbering up as if to fight, Hugh kept his attention on the floor. He might have adopted the pose of a pugilist, but the man had nothing but hot air running through his decrepit frame, his fingers twisted and gnarled from a lifetime of pinching needles.
The sound of his dad’s heavy breaths behind him, Hugh stepped out of the house into the early October morning. A layer of frost ran a white fuzz over his surro
undings. In the next few hours, many of the district’s tailors would be heading to work. It was why he left so early. He needed to be alone.
Although not heavy, the straps of Hugh’s backpack restricted his shoulders when he broke into a jog, his breath billowing out in front of him as he found his rhythm. The cold wormed into his joints, leaving his knuckles sore. At least he had a scarf on; it would do something against the frigid bite of the early morning air.
In the several years Hugh had been away from the tailoring district, not much had changed. Yet, as he looked at it through his older eyes, everything had. The uniformity of the shops made it hard for their posh and privileged visitors to choose one from another. It had been done by design to create a level playing field amongst the tailors. Although, truth be told, they’d do a similar job whoever you visited. Not that he’d say that to one of the many distinguished masters of cloth, their egos demanding they get recognised as the best in their generation.
As he found his rhythm, Hugh let some of the tension from his frame. He rounded a right-angled bend and came across a child no older than James in the street. When the boy saw Hugh’s face, he gasped, broke into tears, and ran to the other side of the road.
Although he watched the kid, Hugh continued at the same pace, every step against the hard ground sending a snapping jolt up through his body. It disturbed the swelling on his face, each stomp sending a streak of electricity through his tender and swollen skin.
Passing the recreation ground, Hugh looked at the goal he’d played in with James a few days previously. Even smiling hurt. The boy would be fine when he left. Hell, he’d probably be better for it. Hugh could see how his presence unsettled the kid. It wasn’t like he could teach him anything because when James went on national service, he’d be going with his mum’s philosophy rather than his dad’s. A pragmatist who saw the importance of talking and knew how to express himself, hopefully that would get him through.
On his way out of the tailoring district, the medal heavy around his neck, Hugh made eye contact with the one guard standing there. The woman flinched to look at him, but when he held up his medal, she dipped her head and stood aside.
Despite the early hour, there were plenty of people on Edin’s main street. Carts carried supplies. Guards moved from their home district to the one they policed. There were teenagers who looked like they were in training, preparing for their time on national service. Of all the people, the teenagers stared at Hugh’s medal the most. He ignored them. If only they knew what lay ahead.
The busier environment encouraged Hugh to pull his scarf up to cover the lower half of his face, leaving just his eyes and above visible. White clouds of condensation pushed out through the fabric. It also took the bite from the air he breathed.
The textiles district sat next to tailoring, so after a minute or two, Hugh made his medal visible again and headed towards the guard checking who went in and out. He expected he’d have to reveal his face but hoped they wouldn’t search his bag.
If the guard cared, he didn’t show it, letting Hugh through with barely a glance in his direction. In a place like Edin, disobeying the rules came with a heavy punishment. Many of the guards had grown complacent, putting far too much trust in the state-sponsored deterrent that was eviction.
Olga had helped Hugh in many ways, his fitness above all. When he’d first started training with her, he’d vomit after about fifteen minutes. By the time he’d left national service, he felt like he could run forever. Her training, coupled with the loss of Elizabeth, had taught him to switch off. To ignore what his brain told him about his limits.
The textiles district had a central plaza, where they hung a lot of their fabrics to dry. When Hugh jogged into it, he found it empty, as he’d hoped it would be. A large pool filled with the water used for washing their materials and surrounded by a red brick wall sat in the centre of the space.
All the buildings overlooking the plaza were used for industry and, being too early for anyone to have started work yet, currently sat empty as well. As Hugh sat on the red brick wall, he checked for people again before slipping his bag from his shoulders and unbuttoning it. He had last night’s top inside. Covered in blood, he’d wrapped it around the knife. Just as he reached in to remove it, the sounds of footsteps approached.
Hugh’s pulse raced from zero to overdrive. Fight or flight. The steps entered the plaza. A girl appeared, no older than twelve. She stared at him and froze.
The scarf hid so much of Hugh’s face the girl had no way of recognising him. She opened her mouth as if about to speak, but before she could, Hugh growled at her.
The girl hugged herself as if the temperature had suddenly dropped.
He then hissed.
The girl turned and ran, leaving the square empty again, her footsteps growing fainter until they vanished.
Hugh quickly removed his bloody top and dropped it into the pool. The blood turned the water around it pink. He then dropped the knife in after it, glanced around one last time, stood up, and ran back the way he’d come from.
Now back in the tailoring district, Hugh planned to go straight home. His old man would have left the house by now, and he needed the rest. But as he approached the gap in the wall between tailoring and woodwork, a boy stepped through.
The tall frame of Lance Cull appeared. A grease stain of a person, he blocked Hugh’s way, his hands on his hips—not that it would take much to knock him down. His usual smile, he said, “If it’s not our district’s hero.”
Hugh kept his attention on the ground, his face still covered by his scarf. Just a few feet separated them.
“What’s wrong, boy? Too afraid to look at me?”
Again, Hugh didn’t reply. Elizabeth and her bleeding nose smashed into his memory. Lance and Ranger laughing. The star on her stomach. The knife going in, blood belching from the deep wound. Dark red blood.
“I don’t know why you’re doing all this training anyway. Seems like a waste of time, if you ask me. I mean, look at you. You’re hardly built to win the trials. You might as well give up now.”
His focus still on the ground, Hugh watched his breaths. Elizabeth, blood, Ranger, Lance. A deep gash in a firm stomach. The knife so sharp it was like cutting into wet mud. He had Lance on his own. That might not happen again.
“So,” Lance continued, “I’ve just come back from the woodwork district. They tell me they want some fresh meat for the gangs. Asked if I knew any boys. They like them young. They like to break them in early. Get them subservient to the cause. You know anyone like that?”
This time, Hugh looked up, stinging lightning bolts streaking away from his narrowing eyes.
“There he is. It ain’t that cold, you know. Why are you so covered up?”
Elizabeth, Ranger, blood. A diseased’s shrill scream ran through Hugh, making him flinch. Lance’s sneering face, the same sneer he wore in national service. Then Hugh pulled down the scarf and threw his hood back.
Lance’s mouth fell open, his lazy eyes widening. The tall and skinny boy’s bottom jaw worked, but he spoke no words.
While staring at him, Hugh watched Lance step back through the gap he’d just entered through until he vanished from sight. The sound of his feet took off as he sprinted away.
Hugh waited for a few seconds and stared at the gap. When nothing else happened, he pulled his hood over his head, dragged his scarf up to cover his mouth, and broke into a jog back in the direction of his house.
Chapter 9
Training, training, training. Whatever tasks he had, Spike used them as an excuse to train harder. Sweat ran into his eyes as he ran in the direction of the justice department’s building, his pace quickening on account of his unease at being inside the political district. The place spoke of authority. Of the establishment. Of condemnation. A district designed by politicians, for politicians. This was their world and you knew it.
The grey buildings stood at least one storey taller than most of the others in Edin. The ston
e structures loomed over Spike. The design almost gave them a voice as if they were the front line in questioning his decision to visit in the first place. He reached up for the medal around his neck, the cold metal disc offering little reassurance, but he had every right to be here. As long as he had his symbol of the trials with him, he could go wherever he liked … within reason.
The large foyer in the justice department’s building amplified the sounds of Spike’s heavy breaths. He should have gathered himself before entering. Too late now. He walked towards the desk slowly to help him recover, his steps beating an echoing metronome in the cavernous space.
A door flew open on Spike’s right as if driven wide by the guffawing of the three men who emerged from it. To see the politicians stopped him dead. They also halted. He only recognised one of them, notorious as a hero or a villain, depending on how you viewed him: Robert Mack.
A wiry man, his face glistening with what looked like grease, he raised a cautious smile in Spike’s direction. It revealed two overdeveloped and yellowed incisors as if the savagery of human ancestry had made one last bid for survival in him. When his eyes fell to the medal around Spike’s neck, he laughed. “Well, well, look at what we have here; someone due for the trials.” He addressed the men with him. “Gents, do you mind if I bend the ear of this fine citizen? The young wannabes often remind me what it is to be alive. They’re so full of spunk.”
From the way they regarded Spike, they wanted to question Robert Mack’s decision. From the way they deferred to him, they clearly didn’t have the authority. A subservient shrug from each, they walked back through the door they’d exited through.
Sporting a grin almost as wide as his head, Robert Mack moved closer.
With just a few feet between them, Spike’s fight or flight kicked in, and it took all he had to refrain from balling his fists. The thud of his pulse a tribal beat in his skull, if he could have ended the man right there and gotten away with it, he would have. The breathing he’d fought to manage ran away with him again in the face of the man responsible for the eviction of so many people because he didn’t agree with how they chose to live their lives—the man responsible for evicting Mr. P and his lover.
Retribution - Book three of Beyond These Walls: A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Thriller Page 5
