by Terry Tyler
The boy, Nick, leans forward. "Tell us why you think you might be a good fit for us, Dylan."
For a moment, Dylan wants to shout, I'm not going to justify myself to you, you privileged mummy's boy. You weren't hauled off to Hope Village when you were nine years old; you didn't have the memories of your family jumbled into mush in your head so you don't even know who you are. But if he wants to be here, he must play the game. So he sits back and trots out the story that he, Rocky and Emma agreed upon. The one about escaping from Hope Village because it was ruled by a terrifying gang of vicious thugs. Nothing about Rocky slinging dope for them.
Dylan hates himself. Hates seeing Kendall's kind, sympathetic face taking in Rocky's lies.
When he returns to the holding hut, he notices that Emma has red eyes.
Some time later, all three of them hold their breath as Steve, Kendall and Nick enter.
"We've discussed your interviews, and we're happy to have met all three of you," says Kendall, with such a lovely, warm smile that Dylan allows himself to believe that everything might, just might, work out.
Until Steve leaps in.
"Sorry, Kendall should have given you the bad news first. Fact is, I'm afraid, that we simply don't have the room for three new people. Really only one, though we can manage two at a push. We haven't taken in anyone new for nine months; even then, they arrived in a group of four, and we could only take two. They sorted out between themselves which two would stay; the other two left to try elsewhere."
Rocky says, "But we'd all work really hard―two, three―is there a great deal of difference?"
"'Fraid so," says Steve. "Point being that we've only got one vacant cabin, and it's a single, though it's big enough for two if one doesn't mind sleeping on the couch. As far as supplies go, our food is worked out meticulously, because we have to make sure that every person here has enough calories and nutrients, every single day of their lives. Kendall and I have to be able to guarantee this; many of them donated the money they received from the sales of their houses to the community; they made a commitment."
"Yeah, we owe them," says Nick.
"We do indeed. One extra person means three more meals a day. Twenty-one a week. One thousand, four hundred and fifty-two meals a year; can you even begin to visualise how much food that is? Then there's beverages, snacks, toiletries, meds, water. We're not a homeless refuge, or a charity, and we never want to be in a position where we have to tell the people who've lived and worked hard here for years that they must go without because we took in more people than we could provide for."
"That's okay," says Dylan. "I get it."
Steve moves to stand between his wife and son, putting a hand on each of their shoulders as if to reinforce their unity. "As it is, you're lucky. We had to let someone go, a while back; he was one of the last two people we took in, and it turned out he didn't work well with others; we'd actually decided we could take in one adult and a child. My vote was to take just one of you, Kendall said two, so we gave Nick the casting vote, and he said a child eats almost as much as an adult, so two it is."
"We wouldn't mind the tight squeeze," says Dylan, "or sharing six meals a day between the three of us―"
"But if you're not getting enough to eat you won't be able to work properly and, believe me, the work here is hard. You have insufficient calories, long term, and your body can't cope. You'll get sick, or unable to work. Which puts more strain on us. So I'm sorry, but two is stretching to our absolute limit. If one or two of you decide to take us up on the offer, you'll be on a six-month probation period; we don't ask for references, because experience has taught us that they can lie, but a person's true character shows itself once he or she becomes part of a community."
Kendall walks forward and takes Emma's hands in hers, smiling kindly at her. "You can stay in here while you decide what to do," she says. "There's no hurry; if you want to stay overnight, we'll provide bedding―"
Rocky stands up. "Thanks, that's so kind of you, Kendall, but I think we'll take a wander down the road. There are a couple of houses down the way; we'll get out of your hair."
Emma takes hold of his arm. "Rocky, we can stay here―"
Rocky touches her hand, and smiles at her. "No, sweetheart. Because if we decide that two of us are going to take up Steve and Kendall's kind offer, it'll be hard on the third. Walking out of here and leaving the other two behind would be intense." He shudders. "I've spent my life being shut out of this place and that; I don't think I can face hearing those gates closing behind me."
Dylan cringes. Talk about laying it on thick.
Steve says, "That's an emotive picture you're painting, Rocky. I wish we could take you all in, I really do, but―"
"Can't we?" Kendall turns to him. "Someone else may leave, soon―"
"Mum, we can't," says Nick. "How do you think Alvaro would feel? Nine months ago, he had to say goodbye to two of his group. We can't have one rule for one, one for another. And what about Polly and Jade? They were the only two we took out of a group of six. Polly had to leave her sister."
"It's okay," Rocky says. "We understand. We'll discuss it between us, and either one or two of us will be back here tomorrow."
Though Steve is clearly not keen on her doing so, Kendall makes them up a package of sandwiches to take with them, and the gates of Lake Lodge shut behind them for what Dylan hopes, so much, won't be the last time.
They don't speak until they're walking back down the road, away from the community.
Dylan has never wanted anything in his life more than to go back to Lake Lodge with Emma. Just the two of them, alone at last; safe. Isn't it his turn for some happiness? Rocky's a survivor; he'd find somewhere to hang his hat. Alas, though, Dylan knows exactly who will be left in the house down the road. Emma won't consider leaving Rocky, not for one moment; she adores him. And Rocky―there's no way on earth he's going to give up the chance of Lake Lodge, especially not when it was his idea in the first place.
It's going to be him. He knows it is. They're going to vote, and it'll be two against one; Emma will be sorry, and cry, but that's what's going to happen. They'll leave him the last of the food and water, and then he'll never see Emma again, he'll be left out here where he knows no one and doesn't even know where to start looking for the family he once had.
Rocky strides ahead, hands in pockets; Emma hurries after him as they turn onto the quiet country road. There's nothing about, nobody, just those two old houses in the distance.
"What are we going to do, babe?" she asks. "This is shit, isn't it? Why couldn't they have taken all of us? It's not fair, is it?"
Dylan watches Rocky put his arm around her, kiss her on the cheek. "Life isn't fair, sweetheart. I don't know, maybe they didn't like the look of one of us, so they're hoping we'll make the right decision!" He laughs, and looks back at Dylan. "What do you say we make ourselves comfortable in one of those houses, get on the outside of some of this food, and thrash it out?"
"Yeah. Good idea."
"Don't look so down in the mouth, bro! Whichever one of us draws the short straw, we'll be okay. We're survivors, right?"
But they're not. Rocky may be, but he and Emma aren't.
Dylan says, "We could always try somewhere else. There might be somewhere that could take all three of us."
Rocky is not keen.
"What, and turn down that piece of heaven back there? You've got to be joking!"
In the end the choice will be down to Emma, and whoever she wants to take with her, because of course they're not going to leave her out here on her own. Dylan can tell by his calm, satisfied smile that Rocky is already sure she will choose him; he has warmed up towards her again, now that his future depends on it. He can just picture them, tomorrow night, snuggled up in their cosy log cabin, ready to begin their new life, while he is left to―what?
Perhaps he'll find another Hope Village, and hope they don't take him back to Lennox.
He looks back; already the walls of L
ake Lodge are obscured by trees. He shoves his hands in his pockets against the autumn chill.
They reach the two houses, which are not in bad shape at all, and he slows down, behind Rocky and Emma. One turns out to be empty of all furniture, so they choose the other. At the garden gate, the two of them turn and smile at him, and he sees pity in their eyes.
Rocky, looking like he really does care for him, like he really is his 'bro'.
Emma, with that kind, sweet expression he knows so well.
The kind, sweet expression on the face of the woman he loves.
He smiles back at her―
―and his world explodes.
When he thinks back on it later he sees it in slow motion, but at that precise moment it is so quick that for a moment he doesn't know what has happened at all.
Rocky reaches into the waistband at the back of his jeans, produces a gun, and shoots Emma in the head.
She falls to the ground.
Dead.
"Don't be a cunt all your life, bro―what you going to do, head back to Hope 9 and get whacked by Lennox for helping me? Wander off on your own, out here? Come on―Lake Lodge is the best fucking thing that's happened to either of us, ever. Cutting off your nose to spite your face―what good's that going to do anyone?"
This is after Rocky has taken him by the shoulders, holding him off, and said, "Calm down, bro, calm down. It had to be done."
It is after Dylan has collapsed onto the body of his dear, sweet Emma, weeping hot tears that mingled with the blood on her lovely face, kissing her cold, dead cheeks, then leapt up, hurling his fists at Rocky, howling with pain and screaming, "Why did you have to do that? What did you do it for? Why'd you do that? You fucking arsehole, look what you've done!"
It is after he grabbed the gun that Rocky stole from Lennox's locker along with the rest of the booty that got them to where they are now, and Rocky pointed out that it now bears his fingerprints―and it's still got two bullets in it, so Dylan had better not consider telling anyone what just happened.
"Only joking, mate, only joking! As if―you're my bro, I did this for both of us. Fucking hell, though, I've had a right job keeping the piece hidden from the two of you these past few days."
It is after they have buried her in the back garden of that cold, lonely house, in the dark, cold, lonely night.
"Were you always planning to do this?" Grief and despair render even the formation of words a monumental task.
"Don't be a twat―I didn't know they were only going to take two of us, did I?"
Rocky pats down the earth with one of the shovels they found, then stands back to admire his work. "Did cross my mind, though, I have to admit. Couldn't stand much more of her."
"But I would have let you both go―I'd have gone off on my own―"
"This weren't about you. I didn't want her with me, and she'd never have lasted; you get a bit of a runny nose when you live in an off-grid, you can't just stumble around whining and complaining like she did all the way here. People depend on you to do your bit. And fucking needy―bloody hell. Last night when you were asleep she was near hysterical, crying, begging me never to leave her, and then she started up again when you were having your interview. I would've been saddled with that, or they'd have chucked her out anyway, and then what would she have done? I did her a fucking favour―I did you a favour, 'cause you know it would have been me and her going to live there, don't you? It's survival of the fittest these days, and she was as weak as piss. It's just you and me now, bro. Like it always should have been; I was stupid to let her tag along."
"You didn't let her tag along―you insisted she came! I wanted her to stay back there, with me, where she was safe."
"Yeah, my bad. I got it wrong." He grins. "Never claimed to be perfect, did I?"
"You could have gone to Lake Lodge on your own and left me to take care of her."
Rocky's smile drops, his face deadly serious. Threatening, even. "You're joking. No fucking way. You would've ended up back in a Hope, and before I knew it, Lennox would've found out where I was."
"Well, if you think I'm coming with you, you've got another think coming."
Which is when Rocky tells him not to be a cunt all his life.
"We'll leave it until tomorrow afternoon; I thought it through on the way here. When we get back up the road we'll tell 'em that, after discussing it all night, Emma didn't think she was up to the physical work, so we took her to that drop-in up the road where these two awesome-kind charity workers said they'd give her a lift to a Hope―a nice one, not Hope 9. And no one will ever know any different, unless you tell them, and that I do not advise, mate. Not least of all because nobody will care; the police don't give a shit about some crappy Hope Villager and her pointless life. And take that look off your face, will you? I'm going back to that lovely little off-grid where I'm going to fit right in with all those snobby fuckers―and you're coming with me, if you know what's good for you."
Dylan’s stomach dissolves as Rocky takes out the gun, stroking it. "Please don't kill me."
Rocky laughs. "I wasn't planning to, but, come to think of it, I can just as easy go on my own, and tell them you both decided to trot off back to Hope, can't I?"
"No. I don't want to die." He hates the weakness in his voice, hates the knowledge that he will do what Rocky says, hates his life, but he doesn't want it to end. Not here, not like this.
"Hey, I'm only kidding!" Rocky tucks the gun back into his waistband. "You're my bro, aren't you? You don't kill a brother. I ain't a psycho."
"Have you killed anyone before?"
Rocky slings an arm around his shoulder. "That's for me to know and you to stop thinking about. You're alright. I'm not going to hurt you."
Dylan always fancied that he'd be brave in the face of death, but it's different, so different, when you're in the situation. Dazed with shock and fear; he's just got to get through the rest of this awful day, and then he'll be safe.
Choose his words carefully, and say as little as possible.
He will say anything, as long as Rocky doesn't change his mind about not killing a bro. His life may not be much, he may not mean anything to anyone now that Emma has gone, but he is not going to lose it at the hands of this man, who he hates more than he thought it possible to hate anyone.
That night he has vivid dreams of his life before the Hope Villages. Faces appear to him, faces he thought were lost to his memory forever. One of them is his mother, he is sure of it.
He wonders if, somehow, they are trying to give him comfort; when he wakes he tries to hold on to them, but he can feel them fading away.
Must have been the shock, he decides. Messed with my head.
Kendall seems genuinely pleased to see them but sad and not a little surprised that Emma has chosen to go back to Hope Village.
"I know, I know," says Rocky, "I tried to talk her out of it, but she said, 'go on, lads, I'll make it easy for you; I don't think I'm cut out for farming'." He smiles at Kendall, so appealingly that Dylan wonders if she will fall under his spell, too, then at Dylan, as if they are the best of friends. "She always liked the easy life, didn't she, our Emma?"
They're shown into a warm, well-lit kitchen, where ten or twelve people sit round a table, enjoying a vegetable and pulse stew and hunks of granary bread.
A guy with ginger hair and a posh voice says, "Welcome to Lake Lodge, and, please, dig in―you'll need it, we've got a busy day tomorrow!" He introduces himself as Alastair. "Rocky, you'll be helping me on roof maintenance, and Dylan, I'm afraid you're on cesspit duty―sorry, new boy's initiation; Rocky's turn the day after!"
All this way, to clean up shit. All this way, to lose his Emma, when he only came with them so he could protect her. And he failed. Every time he shuts his eyes he sees her dropping to the ground; every time, he has to stop himself screaming out in pain.
And now he has to sit here and chat with these friendly, smiling poshies, and pretend to be a normal, balanced guy who hasn't j
ust seen the only person he cares about in the whole world get brutally murdered. Rocky has no such qualms; he's chatting away, passing the bread, accepting a glass of dark, flat beer (Alastair: "Bit of a duff batch, this one!"), telling his crappy lies about his crappy life.
Later, Dylan must curl up in a sleeping bag on the two-seater sofa in the tiny living area of the one-person log cabin, with his legs hanging over the edge, and listen to Rocky snoring contentedly from the bedroom. Of course, Rocky called dibs on the bed as soon as they were shown into their new home.
Rocky, who keeps his gun in the inside pocket of his jacket, and never takes his jacket off.
Chapter 25
MC12
Nash Green is disappointed by the brevity of his friends' attention span. Rae's disappearance was hot news at first, but snippets of gossip have floated his way; thanks to Lori, the general consensus of opinion is that she's done a bunk. With Colt.
Which makes him, Nash, look like a hall of fame numb-nuts.
Thanks, Rae.
This also means that his friends are now treating him like any other guy whose girlfriend has bounced. They pat him on the shoulder and say they're sure she'll be found soon, but he knows no one believes it.
He contacts the über-hot Quinn Matheson from Missing Persons in the hope that she might like to get to know him a little better, but she denies his holochat request. He has to make do with her virtual self ('Hi! I'm the query service for Quinn Matheson') smiling brightly and telling him that they're working night and day to bring Rae and Colt safely home.
He doesn't believe this, either.
He thinks Missing Persons have given up on both of them, because they're not important.
He goes to see Ginevra Carlton, and asks her, in a hesitant fashion, if she thinks that Rae and Colt might not have been abducted, after all.
"It's possible."
"D'you think they planned to go off together?"