“I am.”
“I think you want Dave.”
“Dave?”
She didn’t say anything else; instead, she turned her back on Spike, shoved the children into the house after they hadn’t gone on the first push, and shouted, “Honey, one of your cadets is at the front door.”
If the thuds of Bleach’s steps were anything to go by, Spike shouldn’t have come here. Had he longer to think about it, he would have run, but before he’d had a chance, Bleach filled the doorway and looked him up and down. “What are you doing here?”
“Hi, Bleach.”
“Dave. I’m not on national service now. What? You think my wife and kids call me Bleach?”
“I didn’t know you have kids. Although, I would assume they call you Dad.”
“Well, I do have kids. Kids that I had to spend six months away from because I was dealing with your nonsense on national service, so don’t get smart with me, boy. And I suppose you get people to call you Spike all the time?”
Spike didn’t answer.
“It’s all bullshit. Surely, you’ve seen that by now? All the names. The ceremony. It’s all window dressing for a badly run construction project with an atrocious safety record.”
Spike drifted away for a moment. “I’d not really thought about it before, but why don’t they have more guards outside the city to deal with the diseased on national service?”
“You’re only just asking that now? Eighteen years on this planet and you’re only starting to question these things?” He lowered his voice as if trying to prevent his family from hearing him. “I suppose you still believe in Santa too, right?”
Spike didn’t answer.
“We have a shortage of citizens in every district. Besides, the more people we put outside the wall, the more diseased it attracts. Any more than about one hundred protectors out there has diminishing returns. We’ve tried it in the past and spent most of the time in a war just outside the gates. Anyway, I’m sure you haven’t come here to have a candid discussion about how the city runs. And you’ve deemed it important enough to take me away from my kids, so what do you want?”
Spike’s tongue felt too thick for his mouth. He hadn’t thought it through. He managed just one word. “Artan.”
“What’s Artan?”
“Matilda’s brother.”
“You’ve not given up on each other yet?”
“I’m still in the trials. No thanks to you.”
“So you’ve come to moan at me? Besides, you’re in the trials against Ranger Hopkins.”
After drawing a deep breath, Spike said, “Look, I need your help.”
“I figured this isn’t a social visit. And why would I give it to you?”
“Because you …” He left the sentence hanging.
“Were you just about to say I owe you?”
“No …” Although if the heat in his face looked as bad as it felt, he hadn’t hidden the lie very well. “Because you understand what it’s like to have a brother who needs help.”
The already dark mood darkened, and Bleach appeared to swell, filling more of the doorway as he straightened his back.
“Matilda’s dad was violent towards her, her mum, and her brother for years.”
“She’s not special in that regard. National service screws people over. It breaks lives and ruins families. The city expects them to deal with it behind closed doors. So why should I care?”
“Her dad killed her mum the other week.”
Bleach’s green eyes remained on Spike, although the skin around the edges of them twitched.
“Her brother fought back and killed her dad.”
The facade dropped and Bleach exhaled hard, scratching his head and looking at the ground. “I’m not sure what you want me to do about it?”
“We just want to get visiting rights to him.”
“We? She ain’t going anywhere in the city other than her district. Especially not to go and visit a murderer.”
“I want visiting rights. It’s the first step in getting him out of there.”
Bleach shook his head. “It won’t happen. You should give up now. This city ain’t what they tell you it is. Move on.”
“Did you give up on your brother?”
Bleach’s words rolled like a landslide, lifting the hairs on the back of Spike’s neck. “Careful, William.”
The wind taken from his lungs, Spike sagged where he stood.
After a few seconds of silence, Bleach stepped back into his house. “Goodbye. Don’t come here again.” He closed the door. A second later, the definitive sound of three bolts slammed home on the other side.
Chapter 12
Spike emerged from the bathroom with just a towel around his waist to see Matilda at the front door, her neighbour Jan pointing an angry finger at her. The two women stopped mid-argument, and both turned his way. Matilda rolled her eyes while Jan’s already puce face turned into a beacon of indignation. “See?!” she said, waving her index finger in Spike’s direction. “This isn’t right.”
“There’s nothing that says he isn’t allowed to be here.”
“If you ignore your morals.”
“What are you talking about?”
Jan finally dropped her finger and placed her hands on her ample hips. “Do I need to spell it out?”
When Matilda balled her fists, Spike stepped forward. He’d seen this precursor to violence too many times before. She had done it before she knocked Hattie McGraph’s front tooth out in primary school, before she drove a kick that sent Duncan Pollark’s nuts into his nostrils, and before she landed an uppercut on Jason Mark’s chin. It had ruined his reputation as the toughest kid in the school.
Maybe she saw it coming too, because Jan raised her voice. By drawing attention to their argument, she also drew in witnesses. “You’re living like a whore! There, I said it.”
As Matilda lunged forward, so did Spike, his towel slipping from him when he wrapped both his arms around her.
If Jan wanted witnesses, Matilda helped her get them, drawing more attention to their argument, her voice taking flight through the district. “Screw you, Jan. What do you know about anything? You live for idle gossip, you small-minded fool.” She twisted against Spike’s restraint, his still-wet body giving her lubrication.
But if Jan heard Matilda’s torrent of abuse, she didn’t react. Instead, she stared at Spike.
The lack of response from her neighbour settled Matilda. A look from Spike to Jan, her face twisted again. “Oh, I see. So you come over here and have the audacity to call me a whore while copping an eyeful of him? Have a good look, why don’t ya? You’re despicable.”
Spike seized his moment and yanked Matilda away from her neighbour, flashing Jan and the district his bare bottom as he kicked the front door closed with his heel.
The wooden barrier between them only did so much to muffle Jan’s cry of ‘whore’, and Spike had to redouble his efforts to stop Matilda charging out into the street for round two. If she got out the front door, she belonged to the guards. He couldn’t follow her out in his current state.
Both of them out of breath, Spike grabbed Matilda’s shoulders, forcing her to look at him.
Rage-fuelled tears shone in her eyes. “I’m not a whore.”
As he took her in, half of her hair loose from the hummingbird clip, Spike smiled, swiped it from her face, and kissed her. “I know.”
A knock rapped against the door. Spike let go of Matilda and rushed to his towel. Although Matilda directed her venom at her neighbour by shouting, “Go away, Jan,” she let Spike answer it this time.
Where he expected a woman no taller than five feet two inches, Spike stepped back at the size of the man in the doorway. “Bl—Dave?”
The very sight of Spike in a towel looked to be an affront to Bleach. A hard frown hooded his eyes, and he pressed his lips together, the skin around them whitening from the pressure. The pause lasted just long enough to be uncomfortable, but for Bleach to
speak before Spike did. “Don’t use my brother like that again. I trusted you by telling you what happened with him. If you want something from someone, you should have the courage to ask it outright and accept the answer, even if it’s not the one you want to hear.”
The cold winter wind bit into Spike’s damp skin and he shivered.
“That being said, I’ve arranged for you to see Artan today. Just you.” He peered past him at Matilda. “She has to stay in her district. They said they’d let you in when you turn up. Now don’t bother me again, okay?”
As Spike opened his mouth to thank him, Bleach turned his back and walked off.
Spike closed the door to be met by Matilda with his clothes in her arms. “Quick! Get changed and get over there now!”
Chapter 13
A good test of his fitness, Spike made it to the justice department building in record time. As he burst through the front door—the large foyer amplifying his tired breaths—he saw the same receptionist he’d encountered on his previous visit. The place hadn’t changed in size, but the gap between the entrance and her desk now appeared to be at least twice the distance. As he walked across the stone floor, his steps echoing, he watched the woman.
When Spike got to within about ten feet of her, the woman finally lifted her head and regarded him with utter contempt.
Spike gulped. “Hi—”
“I think you’d do better to not say anything today.”
As much as he wanted to plead his case—to tell her he wasn’t a homophobe, that he thought Robert Mack was a despicable human being—it didn’t matter what she thought of him. He’d come to see Artan. If she facilitated that, that was all he needed. “Bleach … uh, I mean Dave, I mean Bleach … I dunno what you call him here, but the man who was my team leader on national service came to see someone?”
“Yep.”
“They said I can see Artan?”
“Yep.” A small bell on her desk, the receptionist picked it up in a two-fingered pinch, her pinkie sticking out as she rang it. Like every other sound in the cavernous foyer, the tinkling started small and swelled to fill the space. While she waited, the receptionist levelled a deadpan stare at the medal around Spike’s neck.
It only took a few seconds—but it felt much longer—before a large man and woman appeared from a door behind the receptionist. They were built like they used to be protectors. They had bulky frames, a layer of cushioning covering their solid mass to show they clearly didn’t work out like they used to. Although neither was as tall as Spike, they were both wider—much wider. They stood with relaxed postures, emanating a comfort in their abilities to deal with whatever came their way.
Because the receptionist held on for so long, Spike nearly introduced himself, but just before he could, she said, “This boy’s here to see prisoner twenty-two.”
As much as Spike wanted to correct her and call him Artan, he didn’t. Matilda would have. Maybe that was why he was the better person to come today. It didn’t matter what they called him as long as he found a way to get him free.
Again, the two guards watched Spike, and neither moved. The woman finally turned and opened the door she’d just walked through. The man followed her, and Spike took up their tail.
The corridor—low ceilinged and made from exposed brick and rock—stretched both ways. Doors lined the wall opposite, a gap of about eight feet between each one. They were strong wooden doors, and there must have been at least twenty of them. How many had prisoners on the other side?
The man turned left and Spike followed him, the smell of human waste and dirt hanging in the air. He looked at the doors as they passed them. What had the prisoners done to be locked up? Had any of the others killed someone? How many of them were minors waiting to be old enough to be evicted?
The man finally stopped at a door that looked just like the others. Three heavy bolts ran from the top to the bottom, which he unlocked with three loud cracks that ricocheted through the long corridor. Groans, moans, and shrieks rose from the oppressive atmosphere as if the sound agitated the insanity cooped up in some of the cells. Many of them sounded like they had no idea what they were responding to, as if they’d lost their minds along with their freedom.
The hinges released a yawning groan when the guard opened the door, and Spike winced at what he might see. Had Artan contributed to the deranged chorus?
When Spike walked into the cell, he gasped at the state of the boy. Normally well groomed and fresh faced, his cropped hair had grown out to a thick fuzz, and he fixed his gaze on Spike’s feet. The cell smelled worse than the corridor, a ceramic pot in the corner that clearly hadn’t been emptied for some time. Yellow foam floated on the brown liquid.
As he took him in, breathing through his mouth, but not covering his nose—as much as he wanted to—Spike was already editing his experience so he could relate it to Matilda. She didn’t need to know just how bad her brother looked.
Artan finally lifted his tired gaze, deep bags beneath his eyes.
Spike smiled through his shock and searched the familiar face for the boy he knew. In a few short weeks, he looked to have aged years. He pushed aside his trepidation and said, “Hi, mate.”
Bars of white beneath his irises, Artan looked at Spike like he didn’t recognise him.
“How are you?”
“Where’s my sister?”
“She’s not allowed out of ceramics. I had to come on her behalf.”
“I want to see her.”
“And she wants to see you, but she’s not allowed.”
Artan slowly returned his attention to the floor.
“We’re going to get you out. Everything will be okay.”
While tracing the same small circle on the stone floor with his right index finger, Artan said, “I’m not sure how much longer I can keep it together. I’ve been going out of my mind.”
“I can imagine. But we’re working on a few things. We’ll get you out, I promise.”
Artan’s defences visibly dropped. He looked at Spike again and, in that moment, returned to being Matilda’s little brother. “Do you really think you can get me out?”
What else could he tell the boy? “Absolutely. We’re close to it. Things can take a while in this city, but it is happening.” They both had to believe in the system. Artan in Edin’s justice; Spike in Edin’s selection of the next apprentice.
Artan’s eyes swelled with tears. “I’m so scared, Spike.”
Despite the boy smelling almost as rancid as the pot in the corner, Spike hunched down close to him and leaned forwards so their foreheads touched. “I can only imagine. Just know there are two of us working hard to get you out. Don’t lose hope, because we won’t. Ever.”
Because he couldn’t tell him anything more than he already had, Spike wrapped Artan in a hug and let the boy sob.
At least five minutes passed with the two of them locked together before Spike finally let go of Artan and got to his feet. “Is there anything you want me to say to Tilly?”
“Tell her it was self-defence.”
“She knows that.”
“Tell her I’m sorry.”
“You have no reason to be sorry.”
“Tell her I’m depending on her.”
She didn’t need to hear that. “I’m hoping I can get a couple more visits in before the trials. It’s good to see you. Know we’ll have you out of here in no time.” Whether Spike believed it or not, he had to for both Matilda’s and Artan’s sakes. Hell, he had to for his own sake. Without hope and faith in the system, none of them stood a chance.
While knocking on the door to be let out, Spike fought to keep it together, his eyes burning with the start of his tears, his vision blurring. Artan didn’t need to see him upset, but he needed to make sure he let it out before he returned home to Matilda.
The bolts snapped free on the other side of the door before it opened. As much as Spike should have turned around to say goodbye to Artan, he couldn’t. He’d already given him all
the hope he had for that day. The spark of negative thought had caught ablaze and was suffocating his mind with its noxious cloud. If they didn’t find a way to get him out, Artan could quite conceivably spend the next few years of his life in that small room, pissing and shitting in a bucket while he waited to be evicted from the city.
Chapter 14
Maybe Hugh couldn’t sleep because he had the trials in the morning. Maybe the images of blood and violence that played on a constant loop through his mind kept him awake. His thoughts of Lance and Ranger. How he remembered Elizabeth, wild with the disease, her arms and legs spasming as it took control of her body. Her cries the moment they morphed into something else, something animal: the distorted and tormented roar of a diseased. It gave an audible indication of her transition from human to one of them. Whatever the cause of his restlessness, the fact remained, he’d been lying on his back in his bed for what felt like hours, and there seemed little chance of him dozing off any time soon.
The bright moonlight shone through Hugh’s flimsy curtains. Something he wouldn’t normally notice, but tonight it had become an interrogator’s spotlight, adding to the white noise of insomnia.
At that time of night, most of the district was at home in bed, the near silence only broken by the occasional shuffling of feet. More often than not, they were the gangs of youths who had no desire for anything other than to survive national service. They were too young to care about tailoring and too old for their parents to force them to stay in. With the mortality rate of national service, why should they think about a life beyond that? Half of them wouldn’t ever get to live it. As long as the trouble they got into didn’t come back on their family, then who cared? Besides, the kids who went out at night armed with knives and catapults had a good chance of coming home with nocturnal animals. Mostly mice and rats, but they helped bolster each family’s austere rations.
As if on cue, Hugh heard something. He strained his ears to listen again, but the sound came from inside his house. From across the hall. From James’ room.
Retribution - Book three of Beyond These Walls: A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Thriller Page 7
