Although Olga made slow progress through the unfamiliar streets, she had the tall warehouses in the woodwork district as her target, and most decisions led her closer to them. Hopefully she’d reach the wall before the guards reached her. As a kid, she’d been warned away from woodwork. Something about the place and the levels of violence there. But she wasn’t a kid anymore, and it was the quickest route to the labs.
Another right turn and the one-storey buildings on Olga’s left changed into the tall wall separating tailoring from woodwork. A similar height to the one between laundry and tailoring, it stood about fifteen to twenty feet tall. The whistles far enough away, she slowed her pace and tried to calm her breaths. There had to be an easy way over. Although, none of the houses were close enough for her to leap from.
Several loud peeps behind her, Olga took off again, halting almost instantly when she saw him.
He leaned against the wall as if standing guard at the large hole leading through to woodwork. The boy had several scars she hadn’t seen on him before and several fewer teeth. “What are you doing here?”
Before he responded, Lance tilted his ear to the sky to listen to the whistles. He smiled as he let a long knife slide from his sleeve, catching the handle when about twelve inches of blade had appeared. “I would say the same to you, but I think I’ve already worked that out.”
Olga shook her head and ran past him, flinching when he twitched the blade at her. Despite the bright sun, what she saw of woodwork was shrouded in deep shadow.
“You want me to let you through?”
Olga stopped a few feet away. “If I want to go through, I don’t need to ask for your permission.”
Lance lifted his blade and winked. “Sure you don’t. I wouldn’t advise trying though.”
“So let’s say you let me through … what’s the catch?”
“No catch, you just need to ask nicely. Talk to me like I’m a human being for once. I didn’t even exist to you when we were on national service.”
Olga stepped closer and shuddered as she peered into the gloom of woodwork for a second time. She shook her head. “I’m doing all right on my own. I don’t need your help.”
More whistles, Lance let out a tittering laugh. “Clearly. Well, good luck.”
Screw him. No way would she let him win. No way. Olga ran off. Besides, now she’d seen it, she didn’t want to go into the woodwork district. A place shrouded in secrecy, maybe she didn’t need to find out why. But then the shrill peeps of whistles in front of her ground her to a halt. The houses on her right were pressed so tightly against one another she had no alleyway to duck back into. The whistles grew louder, footsteps closing in.
“Dammit.” Olga turned around and ran back towards Lance, his face alight with glee.
“Come back to ask me nicely?”
But she ignored him, glanced at his blade, then the shadowy entrance to woodwork, and continued back the way she’d come from.
Before Olga reached the alley she’d exited less than a minute ago, more whistles warned her against it. They were coming for her. Her pulse quick, her clothes sticking to her sweat-slick body, she turned to Lance again.
“Sounds to me like they have you surrounded.”
Olga returned to the tall and dirty boy. “Is this a trap?”
“Would you trust me if I said no?”
The whistles closed in from either side.
“I wouldn’t trust you if you said the sky was blue.”
“And therein lies your dilemma.”
Had she not witnessed it, she would have called it an impossibility, but Lance’s already wide grin stretched wider. None of her breaths deep enough to sate her need for air, she lost another gasp when a diseased’s shriek rang out. Closer than any of the others she’d heard that day. Even Lance’s smile faltered.
The guards’ whistles pulled Olga back into the moment. “Please let me through.”
“Wasn’t so hard, was it?”
Lance stood aside, and Olga darted into woodwork, taking off into the shadowy alleyways. Maybe she shouldn’t fear the dark. After all, it would keep her hidden from the guards.
Although she rounded a bend and put Lance out of sight, she hadn’t gone far enough to escape his words. “Tell them Lance sent ya.”
Five or six silhouettes stepped out about thirty feet ahead of her, blocking her path. Olga stopped and turned around to find the same behind. She spoke to herself. “What the hell have you done, Lance? You twisted prick.” The small amount of light in the alley bounced off their blades. Every one of them had a weapon. The walls were too high on either side to climb. The silhouettes closed in to the tittering cackle of Lance’s laughter. “This one’s from me. Enjoy. She’s a feisty one.”
Chapter 10
“This is the only food or water in the entire hut,” William said as he reentered the boys’ room after having searched the place. Hugh and Matilda sat together on the floor, more comfortable with one another since their unspoken reconciliation. Although, William knew Matilda. She’d agreed to move on. Whatever had happened in the hall between Hugh and Sarge stayed in the hall, but he saw her unease from a mile away. Hugh, on the other hand, seemed uncharacteristically oblivious to the unspoken tension.
The diseased outside beat against the door with less enthusiasm. Maybe they were getting tired, or maybe they’d forgotten what they were pursuing now they no longer had sight of them.
William sat down, the bunk beds rattling in the hallway. Some of the water remained in the flask. He lifted it up and shook it. “Probably too late to ask now, but I wonder if this is safe to drink.”
“It is,” Hugh said. “Whenever we did tests on rats and rabbits in the labs, we found the second they were bitten, they were one hundred percent consumed by the virus and then the need to spread it. We never saw any of them concerned with quenching their thirst after the change.”
“But how do you know humans behave the same?” Matilda said.
William shifted in an attempt to find comfort on the hard wooden floor. He straightened his back, alert and ready to stop Matilda if her line of questioning grew too aggressive.
“As William said, it’s a bit late to be worrying about it now. We’ve already drunk enough to turn.”
“Hugh’s right.” William took another sip of water. “It is a bit too late.”
While Matilda sipped from the flask and passed it on to Hugh, William removed his right boot. His foot throbbed harder than ever now he’d finally given it his full attention. First he rolled his sock down from the top, stopping just before the pain became unbearable. A silent countdown in his head, he clenched his jaw and ripped it off the rest of the way, dragging the bandage with it.
“My god!” Hugh pulled his head back. “That looks nasty.”
For Hugh to give him such a strong reaction … William turned away. Did he really want to look now? But like his dad used to say, it was always better to know what you were dealing with than burying your head in the sand and hoping it would resolve itself. Very few problems were fixed without a well-considered plan.
William’s blood-soaked sock had turned the skin on the bottom of his foot pink and wrinkly. The cut stood out as a blast of red in comparison; a deep glistening gash. Fluff and dirt had collected in the ravine of the wound. When Hugh handed William the flask, he double-checked his friend’s intention. “But this is all the water there is.”
“We’ll find more,” Hugh said. “You need to wash it out.”
“Do you two mind?”
Both Matilda and Hugh shook their heads.
As he poured, William dragged air in through his clenched teeth, the cold water sinking a sharp bite into the wound. Most of the fluff gone and the blood flowing freely, he drizzled in a little bit more before passing the flask to Matilda.
Once the water had gone around again, Hugh handed it back to William. “I really don’t need any more now.”
“I’m good too,” Matilda said.
Anothe
r cold splash, William clamped his teeth on his bottom lip and rode out the hot nauseating flush.
“I feel awful about leaving Trent on that roof out there,” Matilda said.
“You shouldn’t feel too bad.” William emptied the rest of the flask over his cut. “He sent those things after us.”
“But how will they get away?”
“I’m more concerned about how we’ll get out of here.”
“We’ll get out of here,” Hugh said. “And when we get into Edin, we can let them know there are people who need help.”
The Hugh in front of him at that moment reminded William of the one he’d first met when they started national service. Kind and intelligent. He nodded. “Hugh’s right, someone will come for them before it’s too late. Besides, our priority is Artan. We can’t risk our lives on a rescue mission when the city have an army of guards and protectors at their disposal. I say we let them take care of it.” Now he’d washed his wound, he ground his teeth against the electric buzz of slipping on the bandage and then his sock. Once he’d tied his boot laces again, he looked up at Hugh. “Didn’t Ranger try to get you with a nail?”
“Yeah, he got me pretty bad.” Nowhere near the level of fuss William had made, Hugh undid the laces on his boot and removed it.
When Hugh finally pulled his sock off, William flinched and looked away. “My god, Hugh. Why didn’t you say something? We’ve used up all the water now.”
His attention on his foot, white ooze seeping from it, the blood a brown soup from where it had mixed with so much dirt and sweat, Hugh said, “I dunno, you looked like you needed it more.”
And maybe he did. No doubt Hugh had the worse wound between the pair of them, but he didn’t seem bothered. The way he shrugged, dragged his sock back on as if he felt nothing, and retied his boot sent a cold wave through William. “How can you tolerate the pain?”
White bands beneath each eye from where his face hung slack, the new Hugh stepped forward again. “I’m numb to most things at the moment.” Then he smiled. His dark eyes, however, didn’t.
“Why are you smiling?” Matilda said.
The lethargic banging continued against the dorm’s front door. “I was just thinking about James.”
“Your brother?”
“Yeah. When I went back after national service, I promised him I’d introduce him to Elizabeth.”
“But Elizabeth’s—”
“Going to love him,” William said. Although he addressed Hugh, he glared at Matilda. Her lips pursed and her face red, he’d seen this a thousand times before. Not one to hold her tongue, he waited for her to speak again so he could interrupt her a second time. After a few seconds, she hadn’t said anything, so he turned back to Hugh. “Tell us about James.”
“He’s just a normal kid, you know? Inquisitive. Bored most of the time. Always up for doing something. I made him train with me a lot before I came to the trials. He’s certainly fitter than he used to be.” While picking at his nails, Hugh said, “I was worried about him. Tailoring’s right next to the woodwork district and the gangs.” He shook, his knuckles turning white as he formed tight fists. “But I made sure the gangs knew who I was and that Lance didn’t feed him to them.”
“What did you do?” Matilda said.
Hugh turned puce and lowered his head.
The facade of trust fell away, and Matilda said, “If you remember that, what do you remember of the last fifteen minutes?”
“We were chased in here, we barricaded the doors, and then someone had a fight with Sarge. Who was it?”
William beat Matilda to it. “It was me. He’d turned.” What good would it do to grill Hugh about it now? How would it help them get out of there?
A hard frown spread wrinkles across Hugh’s forehead. “But why so savage? Wasn’t it enough just to kill him?”
“You’d think!” Matilda said.
Before the conversation could go any further, William cleared his throat. “Let’s move on, yeah? We need to look forward.”
“We need to save Artan,” Matilda said. “I can’t let anything stand in the way of that.”
Despite Hugh’s plodding demeanour when they’d first met him in the dining hall, he’d always had a sharpness to him. One of the smartest people William knew. But now he sat with his jaw slightly loose and his eyes vacant … had they lost their friend for good? He reached out and held Matilda’s hand. “Nothing will stand in the way of us reaching him. We’ll get to him as a team.” He understood her anxiety. Hell, even he didn’t know who Hugh was anymore. “You need to trust me.”
“I do trust you.”
“Good. Now hopefully the diseased will run over to Trent’s cabin. If we give them a bit of time, they’ll forget we’re in here. They can see Trent and the others, so surely they’ll go to them.”
“And if they don’t?” Hugh said.
“Hopefully, they will.” If only William had something better than that. A loose plan and a loose cannon of a friend, he had to put faith in them both. “Besides,” he said with a shrug, “a rest will do us good.”
Matilda met his words with raised eyebrows. Her trust in Hugh hung by a frayed rope. William could almost hear the ping of snapping fibres.
Chapter 11
Two hours earlier
Although Lance remained hidden around the corner, his high-pitched laugh echoed off the high walls. Olga shouldn’t have come here. They avoided the place for a reason; that should have been enough of a deterrent. What an idiot!
As the two groups of boys closed in, their own mirthful rumble drowned out Lance’s manic mirth. Yet, even now, with a very tangible threat ahead of her, when Olga heard another diseased’s cry, she shivered. What was going on out there?
One of the gang members—an older boy by the sound of his deep voice—pulled her back into the moment. “It’s kind of Lance to send us a gift.”
Her throat dry, her heart hammering, Olga gulped.
“We get a bit bored of the girls over here. Fresh meat’s always welcome.”
The collective sound of laughter swelled in the tight space, some of them female. Maybe she’d imagined the diseased’s screams. Olga couldn’t keep her words level when she said, “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
“You don’t need to,” another one of the boys said.
“Whatever ideas you have in your thick heads, you need to forget them now.”
Although different members of the gang replied, the shadows hid their identities, turning them into one multi-tonal mass. A girl this time. “Sounds like a threat.”
“You’d better believe it is, sweetheart,” Olga said.
“And why should we be intimidated by that?”
Another voice cut in. “We like it when they fight back. Gives us a better story afterwards.”
“What makes you sound more heroic?” Olga shook, the tight walls throwing the gasps of her own panic back at her. “Just let me pass, you scumbags.”
Both packs were no more than six feet away when those behind her spoke. “That works in your district, does it? Sounds to me like the men over there could do with keeping their women in check. Maybe, when we’re done with you, you could bring some friends over. We could teach them a thing or two about knowing their place.”
As Olga spun from one group to the other, she grew dizzy. No more than a few feet away, their faces remained hidden in shadow. It was as if their presence repelled the light. “Some heroes you are. You hide in darkness, and it takes ten of you to overpower one girl.”
“It’s not that it takes ten of us to bring you down. More that we all want our turn, even the girls.”
Ragged breaths and her chest tight, Olga shook her head. “This won’t end well for you.”
Any closer and they’d reach out for her. She had to do something. Their faces were still invisible, but their blades glinted as if they had their own source of light.
It didn’t matter how many of them there were, the narrow alley kept
them three abreast. She could take on six of them. No, she couldn’t, but better to go down fighting. Olga turned on the gang behind her, yelled so loud she made her own ears ring, and jumped, kicking off the wall on her right. Propelled towards one of the gang, her boot connected with his face with a loud clop! As she landed, the boy fell into the row behind. A small gap, but they were rattled. She charged, punching another one of them in the face. It stung her fist, but knocked the girl out of the way. The darkness now against them because they couldn’t tell where they ended and she began, she barged through the pack and burst free.
One of the boys grabbed Olga’s rucksack, yanking her back. She hit the hard ground before the boy dragged her towards him.
A quick twist and Olga slipped free of her bag’s straps, jumped up, and ran again, the slam of footsteps chasing her.
Olga rounded the bend to meet Lance’s leering grin. He’d left tailoring and stood in the darkened path, blocking her way. Realisation then swept across his features, his face dropping as he raised his knife.
She could turn tight and continue into woodwork with the boys on her back, or she could face Lance. Olga screamed and charged the lanky boy. His attack came from a mile away. She pulled up short, the blade sweeping across in front of her before crashing into the wall on her left. Two quick punches to Lance’s chin and the lanky boy folded.
After prying Lance’s blade from his tight grip, Olga ran into tailoring and instantly stopped. It now made sense why Lance had left. There were guards on both her left and right. They had their backs to her. The boys closed in from behind. If the guards caught her, she’d get evicted, especially with Lance’s machete in her hand.
Before the guards saw her, Olga ducked back into woodwork. The boys to her right, she turned left and ran deeper into the shadowy district.
The alleys were tighter and darker than any she’d seen. The tall buildings on either side had large wooden screens jutting from their roofs to block out the sun. It gave her just a small bar of light overhead to guide her way.
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