by Ryan Casey
But he wasn’t slow. Mum always used to say he was special. He was quicker than the rest. Just a different kind of person to the rest of ’um on the planet.
But then Mitchell was pretty sure his mum used to fuck his uncle on the regular, so she wasn’t exactly the most sane role model, really.
Hell, even Dad said Young Mitchell was the spawn of incest, once.
He looked at this woman, and he wanted to stroke her bloodied, bruised face. He wanted to look after her. Wanted to care for her. She’d be okay, here with him. Maybe the two of ’um could survive together. Maybe they didn’t need Dave-o at all, even though the rest of the folks here knew more than he did about survival stuff. He was good at killing, and he was strong, and that’s why they liked him around. He knew that.
But maybe he was cleverer than they all thought.
Maybe he was stronger than they all thought.
He looked back around. Heard those footsteps.
“Dave-o?”
Nothing. Nothing but his voice echoing.
He sighed. Looked back at the woman. She wasn’t going anywhere fast.
He grabbed a match, lit a candle.
He turned around again and left the room, headed through the darkness into the corridor. Regretted it right away. It was so dark out here. Even darker than he remembered.
When he got to the corridor, he stopped.
He couldn’t see anyone. Anything.
No sign of Dave-o.
But…
A sound.
A sound, right at the top of the corridor.
Floorboard creaking.
Then movement.
He held his breath. His heart racing like mad, just like it did when Dad used to burn him with that hot poker. Just like it did when he used to punch him again and again and again then make him…
No. He didn’t want to think about that.
That movement up ahead.
Had to go check on it.
Had to go see.
“Dave-o? Quit it, pal. You’re creeping me out.”
He walked down the corridor. Further into the darkness. Every step felt like it was taking forever. He just wanted to get to the end of this corridor. He just wanted to find Dave-o.
Then he wanted to get back to his girl.
He reached the end of the corridor.
Stopped, right by the corner.
Then he stepped around it.
He could see someone standing there in the dark.
They looked tall. About Dave-o’s height.
But he was dead still.
Completely still.
“Dave… Dave-o?”
He looked around. Turned and started stumbling towards Mitchell.
And Mitchell realised what it was, then. A prank. A damned prank where he pretended he was some kind of zombie.
“Come on, Dave-o. You really creeped me out there.”
But Dave-o didn’t stop walking.
“Dave-o?” Mitchell said. Shaking a little. “Stay back, man. Stay back. Or I’ll…”
He saw something, then.
Saw Dave-o as he stepped into the candlelight.
He was bleeding.
Bleeding back from between his legs. Right from his private parts.
Naked from the waist down.
Bleeding from a gaping hole where his cock once was.
“What… what happened to…”
And then Mitchell saw something else.
Dave-o’s cock.
It was sticking out of his own ass.
He stood there and stared at Dave-o as he whimpered, cried, shivered.
And then he felt warmth behind him. Heard movement.
“What—”
He felt a slice against his throat.
Dropped the candle to the floor.
And as he collapsed down, hand around his choking mouth, the last thing he saw was the woman—the prettier woman—standing over him.
Staring down at him.
As the flames got closer to him, closer to Dave-o, swallowing them up whole...
Chapter Fifty
Grace heard footsteps approaching and braced herself for the next bout of whatever beating was coming her way.
She kept her eyes closed. Didn’t really have much say in the matter, in all truth. She’d been beaten. Thumped repeatedly. Her remaining teeth were loose, and she couldn’t taste anything but the rustiness of blood.
And as she sat there in this chair, in total darkness, a part of her wondered if maybe she deserved it.
Maybe this was the ending she was always going to face.
Maybe this was what she got for pursuing her vengeance over Aoife for all this time.
And maybe this was what she deserved for getting sloppy. Getting complacent.
She gritted her teeth together and waited for those footsteps to reach her. For the taunting to start. To hear all over again about how fucking ugly she was, how much of a freak she was.
But she didn’t hear any of that.
The footsteps stopped. But it felt like there was someone here with her. Like she wasn’t alone.
She opened her eyes as much as she could. Squinted through the blood and the tears, towards what little light shone through.
She saw someone standing over her. A figure.
Initially, she thought it must be one of the thugs who’d been beating the shit out of her. Thought some even harsher punishment might be heading her way.
But the more she squinted into the dark… the more she realised it wasn’t any of those people at all.
“Yeah,” Aoife said. “Surprised to see me?”
Grace felt two things. The same two things she’d always felt about Aoife lately: both a deep, unshiftable hatred and burning desire for revenge. But also a sense of relief. Relief that she was still here. That she still had an opportunity to settle the score with her, if that’s what it came to.
A sense of guilt.
“Couldn’t leave you to these tossers,” Aoife said, walking over to her, untying the binds around her. “It’s like you said. Can’t exactly let a bunch of men decide our fate when we’ve got far more to settle between us. Now come on. Let’s get out of here.”
She sat there as Aoife untied her. And the more she untied her, the more her strength seemed to grow. She realised then she’d given up. She’d lost all hope. And losing all hope had made her start to accept her fate.
But now, seeing there was an opportunity, seeing there was a way out… she felt energised. She felt recharged.
“Come on,” Aoife said. “That should do it. Now let’s get the hell out of here.”
Grace gritted her remaining teeth together. Opened her bruised, swollen eyelids even more. She tried to stand, but she was shaky and weak. Tried to stay on her feet. Tried to stay tall, to maintain her composure.
But she just strafed from side to side.
Tumbled forward a little, then backwards.
As much as she wanted to prove she was strong enough, as much as she wanted to show a display of strength despite everything she’d been through… she fell forward to the floor.
Pain hit her this time. A pain she didn’t even think she was capable of feeling. Right across her face. Or was she imagining it? Was it all in her head? She didn’t know anymore. Whatever it was, she didn’t like it.
Because it wasn’t just physical. It was emotional, too.
She wanted someone to help her up.
She wanted someone to help her to her feet.
She wanted someone to look after her.
And then she felt it.
A hand against hers.
Aoife’s hand.
“Come on,” Aoife said. “You need to get up. And we need to get out of here.”
Grace turned around. Looked up at Aoife. She could see the bloodied bandage on her thigh. She could see her own bruises on her pale face. And she could see that look of conflicted hatred in her eyes. The same look Grace knew she looked out with.
But she coul
d see Aoife holding her hand, too.
“On your feet. We need to get out of here. Before anything else.”
And as much as Grace didn’t want this woman lifting her to her feet, as much as she didn’t want her help or any shred of her pity… she let her ease her up.
Got to her feet. Stood there, right beside her.
“Where’s the dog?” Grace asked. It was the first thing she could think to ask, and she wasn’t even entirely sure why.
“He’s safe,” Aoife said.
“Good,” Grace said. “Despite everything… I’ve grown rather fond of him.”
Aoife didn’t say anything back to that. Grace wasn’t even sure why she’d said it either. All this having the shit kicked out of her business was doing funny things to her.
But the fact of the matter was… she was standing. She was out of the chair. She was free.
And Aoife was right here beside her.
“Come on then,” Grace said, her voice shaky, raspy. The taste of blood so strong in her mouth it made her want to puke. “Let’s… let’s get out of here, then.”
Aoife nodded. “That’s the spirit.”
She walked on, then. Led the way, across the dark, dingy room, over towards the door.
When she reached the door and opened it, she froze.
“Shit,” Aoife said.
“What?”
But when Grace stepped around the doorway and looked out into the corridor, she didn’t have to ask.
The corridor was filled with flames.
The building was burning.
They were trapped.
Chapter Fifty-One
Aoife stared out at the burning corridor and, in a weird way, felt a kind of poetic justice about this whole thing.
The flames had spread fast. So fast that she hadn’t heard anything, hadn’t smelled anything, hadn’t even noticed. But they were crawling up the walls of the building. On the ceiling. And on the floor, too.
It must’ve been from the match. Shitting hell.
She stepped out, Grace by her side.
Stopped right away, the heat too intense.
“Fuck,” Aoife said. The smoke catching on her lungs, making her splutter. Fuck. They were stuck in here. They were stuck, and time was running out fast.
“What the hell are we supposed to do now?” Grace asked.
Aoife looked at her, standing there, shaky on her feet. Then back at the dark room behind them both. There was the window, but the drop from this level was too risky, especially when she had a bad leg and Grace had been beaten to within an inch of her life. The ladder they’d used before was gone. There were no doors from the room they were in to the other side of the building.
There was no hope.
She looked at Grace, and on her bruised face and in those bright green eyes, she saw horror. The same horror she’d seen when she’d looked down into that burning circle and seen her looking back up at her. Her blindfold burned away by the flames. The look of fear in her eyes. Of horror. Of pain.
She saw it reflected back at her, and she knew they only had one choice.
“We need to get through the corridor,” Aoife said.
Grace shook her head. “No chance we’re getting out that way. What about the window?”
“The drop’s too far.”
“We—we can climb.”
“Neither of us can climb.”
“We have to climb!” Grace shouted.
Seeing her like this, seeing her so bereft of composure, seeing her so scarred by the flames, by the prospect of facing them once again… traumatised by what had happened to her… she couldn’t help pitying her.
“Grace,” Aoife said. Not seeing the woman who’d murdered Max. Not seeing the woman who’d destroyed her community. Who’d taunted her and put her through hell.
But seeing a woman who wanted the same thing as her—revenge—and allowed that lust for vengeance to drive her every move.
Grace looked around at her. Lowered her head. Didn’t quite look into her eyes.
“I know this isn’t easy. And it might just be the death of us. But… but we need to try going down that corridor while we can. I can still see the stairs. And I… I know it’s not going to be easy. It might not come to anything. But we have to try. We just have to try.”
Grace looked up at her, then. Right in her eyes, just for a moment. “You don’t know a thing about burning. You don’t know a thing about the heat. About the pain. The agony. And the sad thing? Despite everything I think of you for what you’ve done… I don’t wish it on you. I wouldn’t wish it on anybody. And I’m so sorry for putting other people through what you put me through.”
Hearing those words, Aoife felt bitterness inside. The knowledge that Grace knew just how much Max would suffer—knew just how much so many others in the community would suffer—and still did it anyway.
But then Aoife had done it, too.
She’d put Grace and so many others through it.
She couldn’t take the moral high ground right now.
“It changes nothing,” Aoife said. “We need to get out of here. And it’s… it’s the only way.”
Grace looked at her, the flames reflecting against her face, lighting her up.
Then, she sighed, and she nodded as the smoke grew thicker. “It’s the only way.”
She turned around. Faced the corridor.
And Aoife turned and faced it, too.
She saw the flames on the walls.
The thick smoke growing heavier and heavier, blocking their view of the staircase now.
She felt the heat growing more and more intense.
Saw the flames even dancing along the floor.
And she knew she had no time to wait.
She walked.
Walked towards that heat.
Walked, Grace by her side.
It hit her in an instant. So much hotter. Unbearably so. So hot, she could feel her eyeballs actually drying out.
And it didn’t get easier. The air. The air was actually hot to breathe. Impossible to inhale, not just because of the smoke but because of the heat.
So hot it felt like her body was going to set on fire all by itself.
Just another step.
The soles of her feet feeling like they were melting.
The tears on her face impossibly warm.
Keep going. You can do this. Keep…
She looked around.
Saw Grace on the floor.
On her knees.
Panting.
Hyperventilating.
She wanted to keep going. Wanted to leave her here. Wanted to take this opportunity and get out of here.
But she felt that guilt and that pity again.
No.
Be the better person.
You owe her that much.
She walked back down the corridor.
Out of the most stifling heat, but still not much better. The very clothes on her back burning her.
She grabbed Grace. Grabbed her shoulders as she limped along.
“Come on,” Aoife said.
“I can’t do this.”
“You have to do this, Grace. You have to do this.”
Grace looked up at her, then. Bloodshot eyes filled with tears.
“I can’t go through it again. I can’t go through it again…”
Aoife looked around.
Head spinning.
Heart racing.
Then she tightened her hands around Grace’s body.
“You won’t have to. Because we’re going to get out of this.”
She pulled her to her feet with all her strength.
Turned around.
Saw flames ahead, even more than before.
Saw them above.
Saw them all around.
And felt the burning growing hotter and hotter and hotter.
And as much as she wanted to believe there was a way out, as much as she wanted to believe she just had to keep on going… Aoife saw reality
staring her right in the face, now.
They were trapped.
They were trapped, and they were dying here.
They were burning to death here.
And there was no way out.
Chapter Fifty-Two
It all happened so fast.
The stifling heat, closing in, getting more and more intense.
The smoke filling Aoife’s lungs.
And that horrible, horrible sense of inevitability that this wasn’t going to get better.
It was going to get worse.
Much, much worse.
She thought of what Max went through.
She thought of what Grace went through.
She thought about it all, and she found herself doing something she never expected.
Something she didn’t even realise she was doing until she truly focused.
Her hand.
Holding Grace’s hand.
Tight.
No way forward.
No way back.
Trapped now.
She went to take a deep breath of that air that felt like it would burn her lungs from the inside when something happened.
A shift.
A shift beneath her feet.
And then falling.
Falling down below.
Falling and then—
Smack.
Against the floor below.
Above, she could see the flames. She could see debris tumbling down all around her. And her body and head ached like mad from the collision with the floor.
But that coolness to the air like stepping in a cold shower.
That coolness and that sudden relief.
Aoife turned over. Her leg and her body aching like mad.
But she’d fallen through to the floor below.
Both had fallen through to the floor below.
But there wasn’t much time left.
Soon, the whole building would be on fire.
She turned over and saw Grace lying there. Staring up at the flames above. Traumatised, fixated eyes.
“Come on,” Aoife said. “Won’t get a better chance than this. We’ve got to get out of here. Now.”
Grace looked around at her.
Then back up at the flames.
Looked right up at them in that way she’d looked up at Aoife, standing above her, six months ago.
“Come on, Grace. It’s time. We’ve got to go.”