by Casey, Ryan
What he had to do.
And he had no doubt about what that was.
He got up. Walked to the foot of his bed. Heard rain hammering against the window. It was going to be a wet one. He was gonna get drenched, no doubt.
But that couldn’t stand in his way.
Nothing could stand in his way.
He threw some clothes on. Wrapped up. Packed a few changes of clothes into his bag, and a few other things—toothbrush, dental floss, a first aid kit. And a Becker BK-2 knife, too. ’Cause he didn’t know how long he was going to be out there. He didn’t know how long his journey would take.
He just knew one thing.
He had to go out and search for Ella.
If there was even the slightest chance she was out there, he had to find her.
He walked to the bedroom door. Even though he hadn’t slept much over these last few days, he felt more clarity than usual. Maybe ’cause he hadn’t had anything to drink. Maybe because this was such a sudden decision he’d reached. Because he was still psyching himself up for what he had to do.
Go out there.
Find Ella.
Defy Harold’s orders.
And defy his promise to Harriet and to Oscar, too.
He felt sadness as he walked across the creaky landing area. As he climbed down the stairs. He wanted to uphold his promise to them. He wanted to stay here. He wanted to look forward. He wanted to change.
But at the same time, he was convinced about what he’d seen. Ella wasn’t a spectre. She wasn’t a ghost. She wasn’t a figment of his imagination.
She was real. She was out there.
And she needed him.
He reached the front door and heard footsteps behind.
He turned around. Half-expected to see Harriet standing there, even though she was in another house, chastising him, telling him he couldn’t do this, he couldn’t leave.
But when he looked around, he saw someone else.
Bruce.
Bruce ran up to him. Wagged his tail. Lowered his ears. Looked ready for a walk. Surprised to see Martin up and about.
Martin crouched beside him. Ruffled his fur. “Not you, lad. Not you. I’ll be back in no time. Until then... you’ll be looked after. Harriet and Oscar’ll look after you. I promise.”
He felt something, then. Bruce planted a paw on his arm. Let out a sad little whine. Like he knew what was happening. Like he knew Martin was leaving him. Knew he was walking away.
Martin swallowed a lump in his throat. He pulled Bruce close, hugged him tightly. “I’m sorry, buddy. I’m sorry. But it’s not safe for you out there. It has to be just me. You’ll be okay here. You’ll be looked after here. I promise, okay? I promise.”
He looked down at Bruce as he sat there. So good. So inquisitive. And so damned confused.
And he wanted to apologise even more to him. He wanted to stay here. To change his mind and stay. To believe what Harriet said. That this was in his head. It was all in his head.
But in the end, he could only turn around before he started crying. Open that front door. Step out into the rainy night.
He heard another whine behind him. Heard paws scratching against the wooden floor.
He looked back at Bruce.
Looked back, one final time.
And he smiled at him.
“I’ll be back for you, lad. I’ll be back for you. I promise.”
And then he stepped outside, into the rain and the dark, and he closed his door.
Martin rushed down the street and into the night.
He kept his head down, his feet splashing through puddles. He didn’t look up. Not for anyone. Just kept on walking. Kept on moving. Kept on walking where he had to go.
He only looked up once. And that was when he reached Harriet’s house. He felt guilt when he reached there. Sadness. He almost wanted her to come out. To tell him not to leave. To convince him he had this wrong.
But he found himself walking up her pathway.
Lifting the note he’d written for her, and posting it through her letterbox, quietly as he could.
And then before he could attract any attention, he walked back down the pathway and down the street.
He approached the gaping hole where the wall once was. Stopped when he reached it. Made sure nobody was around. He looked at the street beyond. And then at the street behind. The community he was leaving behind. The life he was leaving behind.
He thought about Harold. And he felt for him. ’Cause he cared about this place. There was nothing more to it than that. He cared about the people here. And he wanted to protect this place. No matter what it took.
But this went beyond the greater good.
This was personal.
Lockdown or no lockdown, Martin didn’t have a choice.
He took a deep breath, and he turned around.
He stared up the street. Out of the shelter. Out into the night.
Then he tensed his fists, and he took a deep breath.
He took a step, and he walked off into the night, into the darkness, towards whatever lay ahead.
He was going to find Ella.
Even if it killed him.
Chapter Fifteen
Jax looked out at the city of Lancaster, and he smiled.
It was late. The rain banging against his tent had woken him. Often, when he woke up in the night, he’d head outside. Sit and mediate for a while. Reminded him of his time at a meditation retreat in Burma. The sleep deprivation was the hardest part, at first. Bed at midnight, and up to the sound of a gong rattling down the corridors at four a.m. No wonder so many people’s sanity slipped; so many people pulled out so early into the experience.
And Jax found it difficult at first. He thought he’d have to give up. Go home. Go back to his science degree, back to his ordinary life. Back to a life trapped on the hamster wheel of ambition. Back to dead-end jobs, to no free time, to having his soul and his dreams chipped away at, only to be relieved by a mass of booze at the weekend, time after time after time.
But he stuck with it. He persevered. He got up when he was supposed to get up, and he ate the same small portion of rice every single morning. He did his hour of sitting meditation, followed by his hour of walking meditation, followed by a light lunch—the last meal of the day—before a dharma talk in the afternoon, and then more meditation.
And as difficult as it was, he submitted to the retreat. He gave in. Allowed himself to succumb to the process. Even though he went to bed at night crying. Even though he woke up in the morning starving, gasping for water, desperate to escape this hell.
But then something changed. One day, something just clicked. It happened when he was sitting in meditation. Even though he was supposed to be focusing on his breath, he found his thoughts drifting back home. Back to his ex-girlfriend at the time, Becca. Their messy breakup. Her dog, Fluff, who he missed greatly. That human company and affection he missed so dearly.
And then something just shifted in his perspective. He saw his clinging to a past he wasn’t sure he was even totally happy in at the time. He saw the arguments he and Becca had. The longing for something greater.
He saw it all, and he saw himself here. Witnessing his thoughts. Observing all consciousness as it floated by.
He’d never been the same since.
He looked down at the city of Lancaster, and a smile crossed his face. It was dark. Rain poured down from above, drenching him. He was tempted to complain. Tempted to feel irritated by it. But since his life as a monk and engulfing himself in meditation, he was a changed man. He noticed that irritation for what it was. And he let it pass by.
But you’re not a changed man. Because vengeance still drives you. Anger still drives you.
He took a sharp breath in. Tried to push that thought away, or just allow it to sit there.
But there was something about it.
Something deeply ingrained in his psyche.
Something he couldn’t push past, no matter how much h
e tried.
It consumed him.
It was him.
Even if he no longer knew where he was anymore.
He saw the past flashing before his eyes again. He saw their hope. He saw that gunshot. And he saw everything that had happened since.
And as much as he wanted to grow beyond it, as much as he wanted to look past it, there was no growing through this.
Not until he was absolutely sure he’d got what he wanted.
He took a deep breath. Felt the rain trickling down his face. Smelled something in the air. That smoke in the distance. The smoke from the fires that’d burned earlier that day.
And for a moment, he felt guilty. Guilty about what he’d done. About the direction he was going in. About whether there needed to be any collateral damage at all.
And then he allowed that thought to sit there.
Let it drift by like a cloud in the sky.
Watched it leave.
He stood up. Walked across the sodden ground. Walked towards his camp. Towards the trees.
And he found himself looking back, just once, at the city. At the destruction. Because he knew what needed to happen next. He knew what the next step was.
And he knew this was only the beginning.
This revenge had been on his mind for so long, and this was only the start.
He went to turn away when he saw something.
Movement.
Movement in the distance.
He frowned. Lifted his binoculars. Tried to peer into the distance. Tried to see, even though the lenses were dirty and specks of rain covered his vision.
He kept on squinting, kept on trying to look ahead, kept on trying to see the source of that movement.
And then he saw it.
His eyes landed on it.
And he smiled.
In the distance, there was a man.
Tall. Dark-haired. Bearded. Well-built. Rucksack over his shoulder. Powering into the rain.
Jax lowered his binoculars, and his smile widened further.
“Well, well,” he said. “Just as we thought.”
He let go of his binoculars.
And he lifted his rifle.
He knew what he had to do.
Chapter Sixteen
It didn’t take Martin long to reach the woods.
It was dawn. The sun peeked over the horizon, casting a stunning orange glow. The rain had eased a little, but he was drenched. His leather boots were leaking. Damned things. They were supposed to be weatherproof. He could feel cold water squelching around in the bottom of those boots, covering his feet. His back ached with the rucksack hanging over it, filled with supplies for his journey. If anything, he’d over-packed. He didn’t know how long he was going to be out here. Didn’t know how long he was going to spend outside the confines of the shelter.
He had to be ready for any eventuality.
He looked at the trees around him. His instincts were to take a slightly different route to usual. Annoyingly, he’d found no trace of the group that attacked his people—or of Ella—on the way out of Lancaster, or in the surrounding countryside, or even in the woodlands. He figured this could be totally wrong. Could be on a wild goose chase. Could be heading in the wrong direction entirely. No way of knowing. No way of being totally certain.
He just had to follow his instincts.
He just had to follow his gut.
And he just had to hope that was enough.
He stopped. Put his hands on his knees. Coughed a little. His throat was dry. His stomach churned with hunger. He knew he should stop and have a drink, maybe even catch something to eat soon.
But he still felt that urgency inside.
He still felt like time was running out.
And there was something else, too.
He felt like he was being followed.
He looked over his shoulder. He wasn’t sure what it was. Probably completely wrong, in all truth. When you were on your own in such a lonely place as this, there was always a sense that you weren’t really alone. That there were people out there. People in the trees. People watching.
But this felt different entirely. Every now and then, Martin swore he heard footsteps. He swore he heard voices. He swore he heard rustling in the trees behind him. And when he looked around, he swore he saw movement, too.
But every time he looked, every time he felt close to resting his eyes on some evidence his instincts were right, he saw nothing.
So he had no choice but to press on.
He scanned the ground for a trace of footsteps. It’d rained heavily, so if anyone was out here, there was no chance they hadn’t left footprints in the mud. But still, his journey was growing annoyingly fruitless so far.
He thought about what Harriet told him yesterday. How he needed to stop pushing others away. How he needed to stop looking to what happened in the past and start thinking about the present and the future. But that was easier said than done. Especially with what happened with Ella. How he’d spent so long not believing he was good enough for her. How she’d fallen back into his life, and then slipped away, all over again.
And further back. Gary. His little brother. Reading those news headlines about negligence. Hearing his parents whisper to one another when they thought he wasn’t listening. Being bullied at school by people who told him they’d seen Gary—that he’d been round at their house, or seen on holiday, or dead.
And the older he’d got, the guiltier Martin grew for what’d happened to his little brother. Because he was sure of one thing. Gary wasn’t alive. There was no chance a kid just went missing like that and survived to tell the tale. He’d seen it since, and none of those cases had a happy ending.
He lived with that guilt.
And that guilt had got in the way of so many relationships. So many friendships. So many opportunities.
But he’d seen Ella out here. He’d sworn he’d seen Ella out here. And even if he hadn’t—even if he was wrong—he had to know for himself. He had to be certain. He couldn’t just accept failure. He couldn’t just give up.
He went to take a right when he saw something in the mud.
They were faint at first. Unclear. Almost washed away by last night’s rain entirely.
But then he looked closer, and his suspicions were confirmed.
Footprints. And not just a couple, either. A whole bunch of them. Leading off to the left, off into the woods.
A shudder of excitement surged through him. He looked up at those footprints, emerging like an optical illusion revealing its true nature before his very eyes.
He looked off into the distance, and he knew where he needed to go.
He followed those footprints. Kept his eyes on the ground, but kept on checking his surroundings, too. Made sure nobody was around. Nobody was going to ambush him.
He followed those prints further into the woods. The trees thickened. The light grew fainter. He had no idea how long he’d walked, how long he was following them. He just kept going. Kept his focus.
And kept his knife close, too.
He walked deeper into the woods. Followed the prints. And the further he got, the more he swore he saw. Like there were more of these people than he first thought. All of them arriving from different directions.
He went to take a step, went to follow these prints, when he saw something.
Or rather, stopped seeing something.
The footprints.
They stopped dead. Right in front of him.
He froze. Frowned. Squinted at the prints and the way they just ended. So many of them. And then they’d just stopped. Just disappeared. Just like that.
He looked around. There was no explanation for this. He couldn’t just lose track of them. They couldn’t just disappear.
He went to head back to see if he could trace a lighter print or see if he’d walked off course when he heard something in the distance.
Movement.
He froze.
He wasn’t alone.
&
nbsp; Chapter Seventeen
Martin heard the movement up ahead, and he froze.
The sun was rising, but the woods were still dark and mysterious. Thick trees blanketed the sky above. The rain had stopped, and it was quiet, no wind at all. The air felt humid. There was freshness to it, that earthy smell that always followed a downpour.
There were no sounds. No movement. Nothing at all.
Just the movement up ahead.
The footsteps up ahead.
Martin felt torn. On the one hand, he wanted to back down. To walk away. Because if this group was as dangerous as he thought, he knew he wouldn’t stand a chance on his own. Especially not against their numbers.
But then on the other hand, he’d seen Ella with these people. He was sure of it. Doubting it, questioning it a little... but still sure of it. Whether he was just telling himself that to keep an element of hope alive, he wasn’t sure.
But one thing was for sure.
There was only one way he was going to find out.
He crept through the mud, past the trees. Held his knife in hand. The closer he got to the movement, the madder he felt about all of this. It could be anyone. Anything. Might not even be frigging people for all he knew.
But then he heard voices, and he froze.
Voices. Right up ahead. More than two. Three—at least.
He could have no doubt now.
He’d found them.
He’d found the group who’d attacked his home.
The group led by the bald guy.
Which meant he was one step closer to Ella.
He crouched down. Crept across the ground, through the trees. His boots squelched with every step, a little too loudly for comfort. He kept on telling himself he was doing the right thing. He was doing the only thing he could.
But then he kept on thinking about Harold’s doubts, and Harriet’s doubts.
What if they were right and he was wrong?
And what if he ended up losing his life because of it?
He crept further forward, so close he could hear the voices now. Bits of what these people were saying. Only fragments. But enough.
And when he took another step forward, he saw them.