Now he stood where he’d always dreamed of standing, Spike looked over at his family: his mum and dad with Matilda next to them. Matilda remained as pale as before, her cheeks glistening with her tears. Because she didn’t have Artan with her, the boy must still be locked up. Now Spike would be returning as an apprentice, he could help get him free. Beside her, his mum sobbed and his dad wore the slightest hint of a smile. His boy had achieved something great today.
When Magma stepped from the line of protectors with a medal in his hand, Spike’s heart skipped and his breath caught in his throat.
Dressed as if he was about to go out and slay the diseased, the thickset protector strode forward, Jezebel strapped to his back.
Every step the large man took towards him made Spike squirm. He and Magma hadn’t exactly hit it off, and now he had to take an award from him that the protector might believe belonged to his son. A son who currently stood as a snivelling and bloody mess, publicly shamed and remaining there for all to see. What a pathetic weakling.
As Magma drew closer, two guards came with him and stood near Spike and Ranger. Maybe they were anticipating trouble. With Ranger’s track record, they were right to.
The medal in one hand, Sarge’s loud hailer in the other, Magma turned his back on the podium and addressed the crowd. “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, thank you for making this trip today, for coming to witness the next apprentice. And we’re so pleased to welcome them to the team. First, I’d like to say a few words about my boy.”
The already quiet crowd fell silent. Spike looked at Ranger like everyone else. Even now, he had to have a moment to be the centre of attention.
“Ranger’s mum died when he was just four years old. I did everything I could to be a good dad to him, but no matter what, a boy needs his mum, and I couldn’t ever provide that.”
Even beneath the mud and swelling, Spike saw Ranger’s face flush. Part of him wanted to shout at Magma. To tell him it wasn’t the time to be talking about Ranger, to not steal his thunder. But what did it matter? Let him have his moment. Spike had won. He’d be the next apprentice no matter what Magma said about his boy.
“I wanted to say,” Magma continued, “how proud I am of my son. Of the man he’s become. Of the adversity he faces on a daily basis and how well he deals with it. It’s hard to follow in a famous person’s steps.”
If Magma truly believed the words, he clearly didn’t know his son very well. A toxic little shit, he did nothing but poison every social situation simply with his presence, but let him have his moment.
“You might want to know why I’m talking about Ranger and not William.”
The crowd’s attention turned from Ranger to Spike, and Spike shifted his weight from foot to foot as if he could work his way free of his discomfort.
“Something happened during training.”
Dread sank through Spike’s stomach. Where was this going?
“William and Hugh released a diseased from the pit.”
“Ranger did that!” Spike said.
Magma ignored him. “And that diseased killed one of the cadets.”
Spike felt Liz’s glare burning into him.
“Jamie Swank died because a practical joke went wrong. Although, I think it’s being generous to call it a practical joke, but we’ve held counsel on it, and I’ve been outvoted on that front. Personally, I think it was an all-out attack on my son.”
The words exploded from Spike. “Ranger set the diseased loose.”
“I think Spike knew he wouldn’t stand a chance against him—”
“I beat him!”
“So he did everything he could to unsettle and destabilise him.”
While his dad spoke, Ranger nodded along. The slump he’d stood with only seconds before lifted as he pulled his shoulders back and raised his chin.
“Because of that, we’ve decided that both Hugh and William are disqualified. So, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, please give it up for your next apprentice.” His words caught and his eyes glazed when he looked at his son. “My boy, Ranger Hopkins.”
“No!” Spike shouted, but the noise from the crowd drowned him out. Screaming so loud it drove stars across his vision, he stamped his right foot, the nail sending a lightning bolt of electric pain streaking up his leg. “How do you expect anyone to trust those in power in Edin when something like this happens? It’s all a lie. It’s all a big lie.” The sound of the crowd grew louder and damn near drove Spike from the podium. No one heard his words, not even Ranger next to him. He looked at Fran and Liz on the number three platform. Fran nodded and clapped while Liz continued to glare the same accusatory rage she’d levelled at him since Jamie’s death.
When the applause died down, Spike still standing the tallest of all the cadets on his number one platform, Sarge said, “You’re allowed one final meeting with your loved ones in the gym.”
Dazed and exhausted, Spike stepped from the podium, the nail in his right boot stabbing the sole of his foot again. He walked out of the arena to the sound of the crowd chanting Ranger’s name.
As he passed his mum, dad, and Matilda, Spike looked up to see all three of them in tears, but something else sat in Matilda’s grief. A moment’s eye contact, she looked like she couldn’t hold it in anymore. “They’ve evicted Artan.”
It took Spike several more steps before the words hit him. Walking in a daze, tears blurring his vision, he barely managed his slow trudge from the arena.
Chapter 39
Hugh grabbed the withered arm that reached for him and jerked it hard to the left, the bone snapping where the bars halted its movement. Tears ran down his cheeks as he listened to another diseased pull away screaming. Where one left, several replaced it, so he grabbed another arm, the nails on its fingers scraping against his palm from where they’d continued to grow much like those of a corpse. This time he pulled the thing towards him until its face met the resistance of the cage it stood trapped behind. Spike had told him all about the hole. As long as he remained in the spotlight from above, the creatures didn’t stand a chance of getting to him.
Since Elizabeth’s death, Hugh had been constantly challenged to talk. Told that he needed to let it out. A hard yank to the side snapped the creature’s arm much like the one before it, but he knew what he was doing.
A wail he had no control of exited Hugh’s body, and he wiped his running nose with his sleeve. They said he needed to let it out, but he couldn’t have let it out any sooner than now. Not if he wanted his plan to work.
His eyes burning with his grief, his broken voice echoed in the underground cell and the dungeon beyond. “You want me, you pieces of shit?” Hugh grabbed yet another arm and pushed it up this time, breaking it against a horizontal bar. Their weak limbs gave out like cornstalks when they met the strong metal. Every one of them retreated from where they clearly felt pain—although hard to tell how much—and no matter what state they were in, they remained ruled by their need to destroy.
He’d waited until now because now he could let it out. With Spike as the next apprentice, he’d given his friend the chance to be with his love, almost as if helping Spike and Matilda be together somehow filled the gaping hole left by Elizabeth’s passing. Matilda needed Spike more than ever with Artan being evicted from the city.
The vinegar reek of the diseased mixed with the heady funk of damp earth. Hugh found it hard to see in the dark and through his blurred vision. How could they have even considered Ranger to be the next apprentice when a trip down here broke him? If nothing else, it had been his duty to help Spike become the next future protector for the good of Edin.
Before he grabbed another limb, Hugh heard his name and stopped. He blinked against his tears and the lack of light in the hole. The bright daylight shining down on him from above made it even harder to see into the inky void filled with diseased. The winter sun made the dark impenetrable by comparison. He must have imagined it. The diseased didn’t speak.
Another pair of
diseased arms reached for Hugh. He grabbed both of them, yanking them down with a deep crack!
“Hugh?”
“Wha …?” Hugh spun on the spot several times, trying to locate the sound. He then smashed the heel of his palm against the side of his head. “Get out. Get out.” Hadn’t he been punished enough? Hadn’t his mind tormented him too much already?
“Hugh?”
He stopped hitting himself.
“Hugh, what’s happened to you, man?”
More limbs reached through the bars, touching Hugh’s chest with their long nails as he stepped towards the sound. Without the glare shining down on top of him, the shadows gained definition. Amongst the twisted hatred of the diseased, he saw a face that took him a few seconds to recognise. It looked different from when he’d seen it last. Surely, he was imagining it? “Max? What are you doing down here?”
The Max Hugh had seen several months previously had more weight on his bones. Now he had sunken eyes and his clothes were too big for him. The boy shrugged. “This is my one chance to get out of the prison they keep me in in the labs.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m an experiment to them, Hugh. You should know about that, you worked in the labs, right?”
“Because you haven’t turned?”
“Yeah. They use my blood to test on. They sell me a speech every day about how I could be part of the solution. I could be Edin’s saviour. But I can’t go anywhere, and while my room is comfortable, a prison, no matter how you furnish it, is still a prison.”
“So when will they let you out?”
“Never.”
Hugh’s mouth fell wide.
“I’m a carrier, Hugh. It would be too dangerous to have me in society.”
Hugh’s heart raced. Now he’d let the madness out, it didn’t feel like it would stop. More hands reached for him, their long fingernails running down his front. “So you keep the hole stocked up with diseased?”
“Like I said, it gets me out of my prison.”
“Wow. What’s it like to walk amongst them?”
“They barely notice me. I’ve gotten used to it.” Before Hugh could say anything else, Max added, “I heard how the trials went.”
“Good news travels fast, eh? I’ve paid back some of the people who wronged Elizabeth, including Lance. I damn near beat the breath from his lungs before coming on the trials. The last piece of my plan was to humiliate Ranger by besting him in every trial and making sure he didn’t get the next apprenticeship.”
When Max didn’t reply, Hugh shuffled forward to get a better look at him. Several pallid hands with surprising strength gripped his arms and shoulders. “What is it?”
“You haven’t heard?”
“What?”
“Ranger’s the next apprentice.”
A shake took control of Hugh and he couldn’t find his words.
“They said you and Spike released a diseased that killed Jamie.”
Hugh balled his fists, and his entire body tensed. He then spun around, grabbed the closest outstretched arm, and pulled it towards him. While screaming so loudly it silenced the diseased, he shoved the creature away and pulled it, shoved it away and pulled it. Again and again, he dragged the thing into the metal bars between them, the creature’s head clanging with every contact.
A deep tearing sound as the creature’s arm finally came off in Hugh’s grip, the beast yelled at a pitch so high it hurt Hugh’s ears.
After discarding the diseased limb, Hugh fell into a cross-legged slump in the spotlight from the hole above and shook his head. “All that for nothing. With what’s gone on over the past five months, they give it to Ranger anyway. I’m an idiot to believe Spike even had a chance. And an arsehole for making him believe it too. It was my one consolation to know he and Matilda would get the rest of their lives together, even with Artan gone.”
“What?” Max said.
“Matilda told me they’ve evicted Artan.”
“No, they haven’t.”
“Huh?”
“I’ve spoken to him. We had a problem with the prisons in the labs, so they moved us to the political district and put us in the justice department’s cells. Part of me thinks they did it to show us how good we have it, but like I said, no matter how you furnish it—”
“We?” Hugh said, cutting him off. It had clearly been a while since Max had spoken to someone new.
“Me and the lady they brought in when we were on national service.”
“Can anyone understand her yet?”
“No. But it turns out she’s immune too.”
“And what’s it got to do with Artan?”
“I spoke to him. There’s not a lot else to do in the tiny cells with nothing but a chamber pot in the corner. He happened to be in the cell on the left of mine. I was only in there for two days and nearly lost the plot, so I’m not surprised he was in the state he was in. It took me a full day to get his name from him and about half as long to work out he was Matilda’s brother.”
“When was this? Matilda told me he’d been evicted weeks ago.”
“I only came back yesterday.”
“So they lied to her?”
“It wouldn’t be the first time. What I know for sure is that he was alive yesterday.”
“They lied to her. I need to let her know.”
“How?”
“There has to be a way. Max, you have to help me.”
Silence.
“Max?”
“I don’t know if they can punish me any more, so I will. Just do me a favour and hide this when you get out. I’d rather it didn’t come back on me.”
“What are you talking about?”
A piece of rope landed in front of Hugh. A second later, it was joined by a large wooden stick at least three inches thick and four feet long. “I use the rope and stick as part of my diseased herding tools. It’s better than touching them, even if I am immune. You should be able to make a grappling hook of some sort with it and get out of here. Will you wait until it’s dark so they don’t know I’ve helped you?”
“Sure.” While lifting the rope and gathering it up, Hugh said, “Thanks, Max. I won’t forget this.”
Chapter 40
Before Spike, Matilda, his dad, and his mum reached the gym—Matilda sobbing every step of the way, Spike and his parents staring at their destination without talking—Spike felt a heavy arm fall around his shoulders. Despite a violent urge to shake it off, he turned to see his old team leader.
Bleach leaned close to him and spoke just loud enough for the four of them to hear. “Hugh’s in the hole, Liz wants to go home, and Fran will see Ranger whenever she likes, so I’ve spoken to the powers that be, and they’ve agreed to let you and Matilda spend the night together in the dorm you’ve been staying in. Just you and her for one night.”
“So we can say our goodbyes? What, you want us to thank you for that?”
“It’s the best I can get, William. I can lead your parents out of the training area and you can see them tomorrow?”
His foot still sore from the nail in his boot, Spike pressed down, the throb of it pulsing through him. What other choice did they have? He looked at his mum and dad. His mum was too lost in her tears to speak, so his dad said, “We can catch up in the morning, yeah?”
In the stark glare of his dad’s strength, Spike wanted to crumble. He leaned closer to the man, stumbling into his embrace.
The deep baritone of his dad always took Spike back to being a little boy: a simple life when his dad was his hero and he didn’t have to worry about a thing. “I’m so, so sorry,” his dad said. “You deserved the apprenticeship.”
“Ranger let the diseased out and pinned it on Hugh and me.”
Although he aimed the statement at his dad, Bleach said, “No one doubts it.”
It lit Spike’s fuse, his words breaking as they burst from him. “Then why am I being punished?”
“Because it’s Ranger. They’re going
to use anything they can to get him into the apprenticeship.”
“It’s bullshit.”
“Welcome to Edin,” Bleach said.
“I always thought …” Spike paused. “I always hoped that if I did the right thing and played by the rules, I’d be rewarded. I played the trials as straight as I could have. It makes a mockery of this entire city.”
“While I agree with you,” Bleach said while glancing at the other families heading towards the gym, “I’d advise against making a fuss here because I had to fight for you two to have tonight together. Go to the dorm and maybe don’t say anything until you get there. This city’s cruel. I’m sorry you’re having to find that out so young, and while I respect your right to express it, I’d advise against risking what little they’ve given you.”
After another embrace with his dad and then mum, Spike managed to thank Bleach. He couldn’t blame his old leader for what had happened. On their way to the dorm, they passed the remaining families, who continued towards the gym. Spike glared at them and they stared back, the silent accusation of murderer emanating from every one of them. Ranger had remained in the arena, which was for the best. If Spike saw him now, they’d be leading him to a cell rather than letting him lead Matilda to his dorm.
By the time they got to the small hut, Spike had let the pain in the foot get the better of him, and he moved with a pronounced limp.
The second they stepped inside, Matilda fell into Spike’s arms, and he held onto her shaking form. “They evicted him before Jan and I even had a chance to plead his case. They said he was too much of a liability.”
What could Spike do other than hug her? What could he say? Just a few short minutes ago, he’d been standing on the podium in first place, waiting for the winner’s medal and thinking how he could help his love rescue her brother. Now he’d lost everything, his consolation prize being one last night with the girl he’d intended to be with for the rest of his life.
Retribution - Book three of Beyond These Walls: A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Thriller Page 16
