“What’s your name, boy?”
It took a second to get the words past his dry throat. “William, sir.”
A nod as if he approved, Robert Mack came close enough to put an arm around Spike’s shoulder. As he breathed—half in through his nose, half through his mouth—he snorted. “Now understand this, boy. I ain’t a fag.”
Fire lifted beneath Spike’s cheeks. “I never said you were, sir.”
“I mean, can’t a man put an arm around another man without wanting to be intimate with him?”
Spike chose not to answer, a slow writhe turning through him at the man’s close proximity. He had to remember why he’d come here: Artan needed him. Whatever else happened, Artan needed him.
“How long ’til the trials, boy?”
“Just under three weeks, sir.”
“You ready?”
“I’m training every day.”
Robert Mack pulled Spike in even closer. The truffling snort sounded like he thirsted for Spike’s scent, but he could have simply been breathing. A slight glaze ran across his eyes and he licked his lips. He then shook his head as if to help him break from his own trance. “Very good. So what do you think of fags, boy?”
A thousand curses screamed through Spike’s mind so loud they damn near made his ears ring, but he had to think of Artan. If he had any chance of seeing him today, he had to keep the peace. The words almost didn’t come, the thoughts of Mr. P and his lover being killed in front of him. “I hate them, sir. I think they should all be evicted from Edin. Now I’m not homophobic,” he said—the utterance of every bigot he’d ever met—“but I feel like they’re a waste of the city’s resources. We need to work towards growth, both with increasing Edin’s footprint and population. What good is one without the other?”
With every point Spike made, Robert Mack’s smile spread until his large incisors were on full display and glistening as if the thought of evicting homosexuals made him ravenous.
“So what are you here for today?”
It took a moment for Spike to temper the utter disdain he had for the man. “There’s been a terrible mix-up. A very good friend of mine has been imprisoned, so I’ve come to see him. I came last week, and they told me visiting was today.”
“So here you are.”
“Here I am.”
As Robert Mack pulled away, Spike fought against his desire to look for a grease stain where the hot, sweaty man had been pressed against him. “Well, good luck, son. I hope you manage to get everything sorted with your friend. Our justice system is a fair one—we pride ourselves on that—so I’m sure everything will be fine.” A lie delivered with utter certainty. From the look on the man’s face, Spike wondered if his life as a politician had removed his ability to discern fact from fiction.
The wiry snake then drove a hard slap against Spike’s back, sending him stumbling forward a couple of steps and leaving a stinging patch between his shoulder blades.
Robert Mack walked away. What Spike would give to be able to cave his head in …
It took for Spike to look at the woman in reception to realise she’d been watching him. How much of the interaction had she heard? What thoughts did she have on gay people? By agreeing with Robert Mack, had he just screwed over his chances of seeing Artan? Only one way to find out.
When he got to the desk, Spike cleared his throat. “Um, hi.”
The receptionist looked at him, her slack face leaving white bands along the bottom of each eye. A slim woman in her twenties, she had dark skin, not as dark as Spike’s, but not as light as Matilda’s. Her mouth hung agape at the presence of the horrible boy in front of her. Black hair scraped back in a ponytail, dead straight strands left to hang down either side of her face gave an ominous frame to her displeasure.
“I’m not a homophobe,” Spike said.
“You sounded like one to me.”
“What else was I supposed to say? We all know what kind of rules Robert Mack makes. I want to cause as few waves as possible.”
“So you gave up your morals like a puppy wanting its belly tickled?” The woman sighed. “What do you want?”
“I came here last week to see someone who’s been wrongly imprisoned. I—”
“Did I ask for your life story?”
“I’ve come to see Artan Sykes.”
“He’s not allowed any visitors.”
“But I was told last week to come back today. That today’s the day for visiting.”
“It is. Just not for him. After what he did to his dad, we’ve decided to keep him in solitary for the next few years. And then, when he’s of age, we’re going to send him out into the wild as a lesson to everyone else. It’s a shame we can’t send him now, but we don’t want a riot on our hands. We can’t evict minors.”
Every sentence drove a harder gut punch into Spike. What would he tell Matilda? “There must be something I can do.”
“There is.”
“What?”
“Go home.”
“No.” How could he go back to Matilda?
“No? You like that medal around your neck?”
Spike chose not to reply.
“We have the power to take it away. Now go home and give up on the murdering little shit.”
“It was self-defence.”
“Said every murderer ever. Other than his sister, no one else has backed up that statement.”
“I’m backing it up.”
“And you were there?”
The tension winding tighter, if Spike remained, he’d just make things worse. He had nearly three weeks until the trials. They could think of some other way to see Artan in that time. He turned his back on the woman without another word and walked out of there. He needed to return to Matilda so they could work out a new plan.
Nearly a week had passed since Artan had killed his dad, and Matilda hadn’t stopped crying in that time. As she sat in her front room, the place now clear of blood—it took several days to clean it, and for the next few after that Spike kept finding small stains they’d missed the first time around—she held her head in her hands. “So unless we have a witness that says what happened, they’re going to treat Artan like he’s a murderer?”
“That’s pretty much what she said.”
“But the neighbours won’t even talk to me, let alone give a statement. They saw Mum as either weak for taking a beating, or moaning for complaining about it. No one ever judged that arsehole of a man despite how violent he got. Even the guards turned a blind eye. What’s wrong with this city? Men are allowed to break because of their experience on national service, even if women and children are the victims. All the while, the rest of us have to hold it together and keep our mouths shut. As long as they get their precious, bloody wall extended, who gives a shit, right? And the neighbours are even less likely to help now you’ve moved in—”
“Would it help for me to move out?”
“No.” When she lifted her face, her cheeks blotchy with her grief, the fire that had driven her words left her. “Unless you want to move out? I can imagine it’s draining being here, and you need to be ready to compete next month.”
“I’d hate to move out. I want to do everything I can to help.”
“I’m out of ideas, Spike. It’s not like we’re going to get any neighbours to come forward, and who else will help us? If the receptionist gave you a hard time, what will the politicians do if you try to talk to them about it?”
The thought of Robert Mack made Spike shudder. And then it hit him. “Bleach.”
“Bleach?”
“I could go and see him. See if he can help.”
“But you two hardly parted on good terms. He voted against you for the trials.”
“So he owes me.”
“He won’t see it like that.”
“You have anything better?”
Another wave of tears derailed Matilda. Spike waited for her to compose herself. “I suppose it’s not going to do any harm.”
“N
o. I’ll go and see him in the morning. It’s something. We have to hold onto hope until there is none. And as long as Artan’s alive, there’s hope.”
“I wish I had the faith in the system that you do.”
“I don’t have a choice. Our destiny and happiness relies on faith in the system.”
Matilda’s eyes filled again and she said, “God help us.”
Chapter 10
“Hey,” Hugh said as he walked into the front room, a box in his hands. “Look what I found under my bed.”
On account of it being a Saturday morning and James being eight years old, he had to find things to keep himself busy lest he drive everyone in the house crazy. At present, he sat at the table, hunched over a piece of paper with a stick of charcoal in his small grip. He nodded at the box. “What’s in there?”
“Clear a space.” After putting the box on the table, Hugh pulled out some crudely carved models. “I made these when I was your age. Look …” He pulled out a taller and wider section that had a thicker base than it did top. It stood about twelve inches tall and stretched about twenty inches wide. The models were only six inches at the most. “It’s a wall.”
To be fair to James, he needed the guided tour to make sense of Hugh’s creations. While pointing at the smaller models, James said, “And these are the protectors?”
“Right!”
James shoved his drawing aside and pulled some of the figures from the box, helping Hugh set up the models. When he pulled one out that had a missing arm, he showed it to his brother. “And what’s this?”
“Well, it might have once been an attempt at Crush.”
“With only one arm?”
“Attempt. Whenever I failed with a model, they earned their space on the other side of the wall.”
While smiling to himself, James put the poorly carved figurine outside Edin’s perimeter. “I hope I get through to the trials like you.”
Ranger, Lance, Elizabeth, the deep cut, dark blood, the diseased …
“Hugh?”
A shake of his head to help him return to the moment, Hugh said, “Sorry.” He removed his medal from his inside pocket and hung it around his brother’s neck.
James straightened his back and beamed a grin. “What was it like?”
When Hugh opened his mouth, James cut him off. “And spare me the bullshit. I’m old enough to hear it.”
Snapping mouths. Yellow teeth. Spasming limbs. The images crashed into Hugh’s mind like meteors dashing a planet.
“You know how important it is to talk about it, right?”
“You’ve been spending too much time with Mum.”
“You think I stand a better chance by learning from Dad?”
What could he tell his brother of his experience? The pain in his heart had no words. The limitations of the human language had no chance approximating what he’d been through. Besides, what good would it do? It would change nothing and help no one, but his brother needed something; otherwise, he’d keep asking. “I met all the protectors.”
“All of them?”
“Yep.”
“Even Magma?”
“You should be asking about Warrior. Sure, Magma’s a leader. Stoic, strong, powerful. But Warrior? He’s insane.”
“And that’s a good thing?”
“You have to be nuts to be a protector. Also, I looked after the weapons for my team. They came apart easily, so I made sure they were maintained. You need to make sure you do the same. It would be a shame for you or your team to die from such a preventable cause.” Thoughts of Olga and Max. Of Ranger’s smug grin. Elizabeth’s bloody nose. Dark red blood from the deep gaping cut.
“Who was your team leader?”
“A man called Bleach. He was a good man. Straight-laced. Very straight-laced. A little too much if you ask me, but he was always fair. I believe every decision he made was based on getting the job done in the best way. He seemed very aware of his own ego, doing the best he could to account for it while he led us.”
The light in the room changed. When Hugh looked up, he saw the canted figure of his dad leaning against the doorway. “What are you two talking about?”
Neither of them replied.
The same disgust he always regarded Hugh with, his dad nodded at James. “I hope you’re not filling his head with nonsense about your time on national service? I hope you’ve told him the truth of it? That it’s brutal and sad, and he’ll be lucky to come home alive.”
Dark red blood. A tight clench to his jaw, Hugh spoke through it. “What I’m telling him is none of your business. If you want to start being a dad rather than a thorn in our family’s side, then let us know; otherwise, we don’t need your input.”
The slightest twist of his head, his lazy green eyes narrowed as they fixed on Hugh. For a moment, he looked like he might offer a spiteful retort. Then the tension fell from his face. After tucking his long ginger hair behind one ear—the atmosphere in the room thickening—the man shook his head and left.
Silence filled the space for a few seconds. James broke it. “There’s rumours, you know?”
“Rumours tend to have little value.”
“About a boy in the woodwork district.”
“You don’t go anywhere near that district, you hear me?” Scar tissue. Dark red blood. Leering faces. What had they done to her?
“That he had a run-in with someone from this district. A strong boy with a medal around his neck.”
Hugh didn’t reply.
“They say an entire gang attacked him. It was the same night you fell over when out running. The night you came home covered in bruises. Anyway, they say a gang attacked him, but he managed to get a hold of their leader and his blade. He held the kid at knifepoint while he led him away, forcing the rest to stay put.”
Dark red blood. The screams of a teenage boy.
“The boy came back with a star cut into his stomach. A deep cut too. So deep it tore his abdomen and pierced his gut.”
Unable to control the shake running through him, Hugh stared at the table. “And the boy? Is he okay?”
“Too early to tell. It doesn’t look good though. They just hope he doesn’t pick up an infection.”
“If he dies, it’ll serve him right.”
The statement derailed his brother, his mouth hanging half open.
“Just make sure you stay away from those boys, you hear me?”
“Will they hurt me?”
If Hugh could have answered that, he would. Ranger. He looked into his little brother’s innocent face. Blood. Had he just condemned him to ten years of hell before he went on national service himself? Lance. Ranger. Elizabeth. Dark blood. Shit. Bile. “You’ll be fine.”
“How do you know?”
“You’ll be fine. Okay?” Anxiety ate away at Hugh’s gut, slashing it like the sharp blade of a knife. He had to leave for the trials soon. How could he tell the boy in front of him that everything would be okay? His gut knew the truth of it. He’d just made his brother’s life a hell of a lot worse.
Chapter 11
Because Spike spent a lot of time outside every day, he felt the changing weather as they moved deeper into winter. The burn in his throat when he ran, the increased size of the clouds of condensation, the quicker he felt the chill when he stood still—which he did now.
It had taken a little bit of digging, which finally ended with him asking one of the retired team leaders in ceramics. Even then, he only found out in which district he could find Bleach. When he got to construction though, he soon found someone who knew the man and where he lived.
The houses in construction were patchwork from where they’d been strengthened and improved upon piecemeal. The repairs gave the properties history. It looked like they’d added to their buildings as they’d discovered new techniques. A district undergoing constant renovation, from the look of the place, Spike would have guessed that far fewer houses collapsed here than anywhere—except perhaps the political district. Influence and po
wer allowed snakes like Robert Mack to be supplied with only the best.
Regardless of the final decision Bleach had made, with everything else that had gone on during his six months of national service, surely he thought fondly of Spike? And he owed him. He should have voted for him. Maybe he’d see this as his chance to address his error. If Spike thought about it for too much longer, he’d stand there all day, so he raised his hand and knocked on the strong wooden door he’d been directed to.
The sound of steps on the other side, the door then pulled open in front of him. The sight of the woman forced Spike back a step. A beautiful woman in her thirties with long blonde hair and bright blue eyes, a fierce intelligence and strong will fixed on him. In a city filled with patriarchs, this woman stood as an equal. As she appraised Spike, he opened and closed his mouth, unable to get his words out.
“Can I help you?” the woman finally said.
“Uh, I think I’ve come to the wrong house.”
“You’ve knocked on my door to tell me you’ve come to the wrong house?”
Two children appeared. One boy and one girl, they both had the blonde hair of their mother. They couldn’t have been any older than ten. Not only did the girl have her mother’s hair, but she had her looks. The boy appeared to be made from thicker stock. For a few seconds, Spike looked at the boy. The uncanny resemblance couldn’t be a coincidence. He’d come to the correct house. “Is Bleach in, please?”
The woman pushed the children behind her as if she feared for their safety. “Who?”
Heat flooded Spike’s cheeks. “Bleach? I’m sorry; I must have got the wrong place.”
“Are you from national service?”
The whole interaction had left Spike reeling, and he said it more as a question, as if he didn’t even know himself. “Yes?”
“You either are or you’re not.”
Retribution - Book three of Beyond These Walls: A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Thriller Page 6
