by Wood, Rick
She couldn’t quite see him, lying across the shelter they’d created, but she could see enough to know that his eyes were wide open. He was lying stiff, like a board, wooden, glaring above him.
What was he thinking?
What was going on in his mind?
How had this Brooklyn guy’s death affected him so much?
Maybe it wasn’t that.
Maybe Brooklyn’s death wasn’t the cause of all this.
She tried to think. Pushed her mind back into her memories. It was just a day ago, yet it seemed far back in history. At what point had he changed?
It was when they left the CCTV room.
He had stared at her.
He’d looked at the monitor, then looked at her with a look she didn’t recognise.
Had there been something on the monitor?
Something he’d seen the Wasters do as she tried calming Boy down?
What could the Wasters have–
Then a thought occurred.
How did she know he was looking at the Wasters on the monitor? He could have been looking at anything.
He could even have been looking at…
No, of course not. It had been months. CCTV would have been erased by now, surely.
Then again, how would it be, if there was no one there to erase it?
Her actions could well have been one of the last things to have been recorded. Etched into the vast space of the hard drives like a bad tattoo, scarred and itching to be scratched.
But for Dalton to have searched out that footage…
It was unlikely.
But possible.
After all, wouldn’t she want to know what had happened? What had caused it?
Wouldn’t she have wanted to see exactly who was responsible?
She looked over at Dalton. Not just with her eyes; this time, she turned her head. She wanted him to know she was looking at him. She wanted him to turn his head and let his eyes meet hers.
She wanted to look into those eyes. She knew, once she looked into them, she’d be able to tell. She’d be sure – whether he knew the truth or not.
The truth.
Secrets.
Withheld honesty was a deadly burden. It was a snake more poisonous than a Lisker, scratching at her insides, carving its words beneath her skin.
And he could probably see those scars now, could probably see those words.
He could see who she really was.
What she had done.
Then again, why would he still be here?
If he knew, why would he still be following her? Why wouldn’t he have left?
Or worse – why wouldn’t he have killed her? Exacted revenge?
She knew that if anyone hurt Boy, she would destroy them.
After all, she already had, hadn’t she?
The Sanctity fell. She had a lot of resentment, but it was witnessing what they did to Boy that had given her the final push. That had made her…
She was being silly.
She knew that.
She shook her head, shook herself out of it.
He didn’t know. Of course, he didn’t.
He was grieving.
She just needed to be there for him. Show that she wasn’t going anywhere. Show that, no matter how much of a prick he was being, she would not desert him.
This was a horrible world they lived in now.
And they required each other’s support.
Even so, she did not wish to sleep. She did not wish to leave herself vulnerable. She wasn’t sure enough to give up her awareness.
She vowed to stay awake, but eventually tiredness took her, and she fell into a reluctant slumber.
THEN
Chapter Twenty-Five
It took a lot for Dalton to be able to push his way into the segregation unit.
It was supposed to be unvisited. Isolated. So that those being punished could be left alone.
But there was no way that Dalton was letting Brooklyn rot away in a tiny room with a wooden slab for a bed and a pot for his shit – not after what Brooklyn had done for him.
Brooklyn’s actions had been stupid, yes, but still – it was Brooklyn’s interpretation of loyalty, however misguided his actions were.
As he waited for the verdict as to whether he’d be allowed in, he ran through the afternoon’s events once more, helplessly picking apart what he could have done differently; at what point he could have asked Brooklyn to stop, begged him to come around.
But no, Brooklyn had his own misguided stubbornness that no one could change.
“At ease!” the general had said, marching down the corridor.
All the soldiers on floor three had stepped out of their rooms and stood to attention. Now, at the general’s prompt, they separated their legs and placed their hands behind their back. They stood in a row, obediently dormant as General Hark patrolled the space before them, inspecting their beds.
It all felt a little bit…childish. Like they had to have their beds analysed for creases. There were monsters outside the Sanctity, killing people, as they had done the vast amount of the world’s population, and here they were having to stand in silence as some pompous, self-righteous arsehole checked whether they had made their beds in sufficient time.
“Okay,” Hark muttered as he passed one private’s bed.
“Yes, fine,” as he passed another.
He paused beside Dalton.
“What’s this?” Hark demanded.
“What’s what, sir?” Dalton responded with his face stiff and his voice confidently compliant.
“This shit sty you call a bed?”
Dalton glanced over his shoulder. His bedsheets were somehow untucked and his pillow skewwhiff. He must have missed it.
“Did I tell you to look at it?” Hark barked.
Dalton turned and faced ahead again.
“No, sir.”
“So tell me, what the hell is this?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“Do you not know how to make a bed?”
“I do, sir.”
“Then why is it such a fucking mess?”
Dalton hesitated. Allowed himself a sigh he knew would only incense Hark. Hark didn’t want an actual answer, he just wanted to show Dalton up, and Dalton knew he just had to ride it out.
“It’s just a bed, sir.”
“What!” Hark shouted, moving his face so close to Dalton’s he could smell the tuna from last night’s dinner.
“I mean, with all respects, I don’t consider a crooked pillow to be that important,” he said, then made sure to add, “sir.”
Hark retracted a baton and, without warning or cause, swung it at Dalton’s leg. Dalton moaned in agony as he fell to his knee.
“Let’s have it better next morning,” Hark instructed, then moved along to the private next to Dalton: Brooklyn.
Brooklyn’s bed hadn’t been touched at all. It was a mess. Completely unmade.
Which was strange, as Dalton could have sworn he’d seen Brooklyn making his bed that morning.
“Your bed is a state!” Hark observed. “I didn’t see it like that when I came in!”
“I know, I just messed it up while you were badgering Dalton – sir.”
“You what!”
Brooklyn waited a beat and looked around.
“Was that a you what to demonstrate your disbelief, or are you actually deaf – sir?”
“How dare you!”
“With all respect – or not, you know, don’t really care – what you just did to Dalton was really unneeded, and I ain’t being drawn into no battle about my bed when there are people outside being maimed alive – sir.”
Hark went to swing his baton, but Brooklyn caught Hark’s wrist and held it there.
Hark’s eyes widened into fury. Shock adorned his face at the impudence of this miscreant.
“Get out of this room,” Hark had demanded.
Dalton shook himself out of the memory. Stopped thinking about it. H
e’d already replayed the scene many times and nothing had changed, the events still occurred as they had the last time he recalled it.
“Fine,” said the private. “You have five minutes. If Hark catches you, I didn’t let you in.”
“Thanks,” Dalton said, grateful that it was his friend that was on duty.
He made his way through the corridor until he reached a big slab of metal with a tiny square displaying a few bars.
“Brooklyn,” he said, banging the door. “Mate, it’s me.”
There was shuffling, then Brooklyn’s face appeared at the square.
Dalton recoiled at the sight. Brooklyn’s face was covered in the darkest of bruises, blood had dried beneath his nose and one of his eyes was squinting.
“Shit, what did they do to you?” Dalton asked.
This was wrong. That someone could do this to another person…
Then again, whose rules were they living by now?
He immediately desired a way to exact his own revenge, to stick up for Brooklyn like Brooklyn had for him.
But there was no way. Nothing he could do. Not an action he could take that he wouldn’t shy away from.
Brooklyn was a unique kind of warrior, always fighting the impossible battles he chose for himself. He was very different to Dalton in that way – Dalton, who was only in the army to survive.
“It’s fine, you should see the other guy,” Brooklyn joked.
“I’m being serious, mate, this is – this is wrong. It’s barbaric.”
“Barbaric? Woah, you been reading a dictionary or what?”
Dalton went to snigger, then decided not to demean the graveness of the situation.
“We have to do something about this,” Dalton asserted. “Tell someone, or report it, or something, I don’t know.”
“Oh yeah? Let’s see how that works out.”
“But – why? Why did you do this? Why put yourself in this position? You’re going to be in here for days, maybe even weeks, looking like shit.”
“Are you seriously asking me why I did this?”
“Yes, I am!”
Brooklyn’s face turned to a beaten happiness. His smile was weary, but strong too.
“Why did I do it?” He shook his head to convey the ridiculousness of the question. “Isn’t it obvious?”
Dalton shrugged. No, it wasn’t.
“I did you for you, Dalton,” Brooklyn said. “Because you’re my brother. I’ll always have your back.”
NOW
Chapter Twenty-Six
Dalton could feel himself slipping away.
He didn’t know what he was doing.
He’d awoken absently, with little sleep, and now he was continuing to trudge behind Cia, glaring at the back of her head.
Anger had taken over.
Somewhere inside, he was still there, but his voice was small and his will was weak.
This was who he was now.
A quivering wreck.
A man morphed to a boy who did not know what to do.
All that love he had felt for her, all that affection, that caring, that deep unaltering passion – where was it?
It was still there, cuddled up in a small circle with a circumference made of antipathy.
She put her arm around Boy.
She didn’t look back. Didn’t put her arm around him.
Put her arm around her favourite.
She’d killed for Boy. She’d done everything for Boy that Dalton had sworn he would do for her.
He bowed his head. Rubbed his head. Ran his hands through his greasy hair. He was sweaty. Dirty. Filthy. That didn’t help.
He considered shouting ahead that they should find a river to wash, but he didn’t want to speak. Didn’t want to engage, converse, or interact.
Why was he even still there?
If he meandered off now, she wouldn’t notice. She wouldn’t look back and see that he wasn’t there. She wouldn’t grieve his missing. She’d move on.
She wouldn’t move on from Boy.
Her prized possession.
Who did she think she was?
Dalton realised he couldn’t go on like this forever. Just trudging behind them every day, resenting her more, growing in his hostility.
He either had to leave, or…
Or…
Or what?
What else did he have to do?
What could he do to Cia that would possibly show her what she had done to him?
Boy.
Perhaps if she felt that loss, she would feel something close to what he was feeling.
Would she still follow him around if that’s what he did? If he made them even?
Would she still meander behind like he was doing now?
Or would she turn back into that sadistic killer and…
Was she a sadistic killer, though?
Had she even thought it through?
If her father hadn’t been there, if Boy hadn’t been tortured, if…
If.
If.
If.
Shut up.
Ifs never solved anything.
He felt for his knife, tucked into the back of his belt.
He felt for his gun, swung over his shoulder, gently batting against his waist.
She was a sweet girl. A young woman. A fighter.
A carer.
A lover.
A bitch. A psycho. A liar.
Why was he doing this?
Constantly attempting to mentally depict it, to compromise with himself, to convince himself of what he didn’t really think, tell himself she was not like that, but was she was she was she he didn’t know didn’t know what to think what to think what to think she.
Killed.
Everyone.
Not with her hands, but with her actions.
And now she carried on like she didn’t even care.
She had to pay.
She has to.
She ruffled Boy’s hair. Squeezed him tighter. They laughed about something.
Not looking back at him.
Just the two of them.
Two of a kind.
Two of a pack.
A couple against the world.
I can’t go on like this forever…
There was only one way to find his reprieve.
This was the world they lived in now.
Cia had already shown that.
This wasn’t The End.
The End had already been and gone.
This was the ever after.
And now he knew what he must do.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Cia was surprised to find she had survived the previous night.
At first, anyway – until she wondered what exactly it was she was expecting Dalton to do.
She knew he’d never hurt her.
At least, she knew that the Dalton of before would never hurt her.
She didn’t know what the Dalton of now was capable of.
They’d come across what must have been a barn, next to what used to be a farmhouse but was now a burned-out building of collapsed wood. The barn was good enough for the night. Good enough until…
Until what?
Where were they even going?
She waited until Boy was asleep to raise the subject with Dalton. Whilst Boy nestled into a pile of hay, looking both cute and peculiar, she approached Dalton, who sat with his back to them, assembling and reassembling his gun, again and again, moving mechanically.
“Dalton,” Cia said, making sure she didn’t make him jump as she approached him.
He didn’t answer.
“We need to talk.”
She stood over him, and he didn’t look up.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
Still no answer.
“At the moment we are just walking aimlessly. What’s our next place? We’ve been to the Sanctity, now–”
His head abruptly turned around, his eyes peering up at her, glaring, as if the Sanctity was his trigger,
like she had woken the beast inside.
A few days ago this would have startled her.
“What happened, Dalton?” she asked, hoping that if he had seen something on CCTV, now would be the time he spoke up.
He didn’t.
His rigid neck relaxed, his head turned back, and he continued taking apart and reassembling his gun.
Fine.
She waved her hand in the air and left him to it. She found a good spot to sleep and lay there, staring at the ceiling, the broken wooden boards allowing in a few droplets of leftover rain.
The sound of the gun being constantly reassembled became a repetitive soundtrack to the monotony. She almost found a beat in it, a background noise to her anxiety.
In the end it sent her to sleep.
She was going to have to sleep at some point. If she didn’t trust Dalton she needed to make a decision: leave, or stick with him – either way, she was going to have to sleep.
She sunk into a dreamless rest, thinking of nothing, having the kind of sleep most of us would crave.
She drifted and drifted, left this world in favour of nothing, sinking deeper.
Then the sleep abruptly ended.
Her eyes opened wide very suddenly.
And, looking above her, she understood why.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
Dalton’s feet were either side of her chest. His body encased her in shadow, his menacing glare intensified by the darkness.
In his hand he clutched his knife, the blade pointed and ready.
“Dalton?” she said meekly.
He didn’t move, didn’t speak. Just stood there.
But his face… it was no longer empty. Now it was vile. Threatening. Intimidating. Multiple images of contorting agony.
“Dalton, what are you doing?” she tried again.
His blade dropped lower. He aimed it at her as if it were a barrel, and he were about to fire it.
Her whole body shook. Adrenaline ended any thought of rest. She tried to stay cool but no part of her could react, no part of her had any idea what to do.
“Please, Dalton,” she said.
He went to one knee. Knelt over her, moving his blade an inch from her throat, back and forth, back and forth.
“Why are you doing this?”