A chain whipped around the guy’s wrist and he cried out in pain as it suddenly wrenched him half off me. This time, the knife went skittering into the darkness. Carrick stepped out of the shadows, the other end of the chain gripped in his fist. “Right, you fucker,” he growled. He jerked the chain again and the guy was dragged forward towards Carrick’s waiting fists.
“Watch it,” I panted. “He’s tougher than he—”
The guy waited until he had just enough slack in the chain and then ducked under Carrick’s punch and drove his shoulder into his stomach. Carrick folded, the air knocked out of him, and the guy gave him a vicious kick in the head. Fuck! He really had been trained. He took control of the chain, using it to pull Carrick forward so he could hit him right in the face. Carrick staggered and fell to his knees.
Fuck! I got to my feet but hot blood was dripping down my face and I was still winded. And Sean: where was Sean? He should have been on his feet by now, helping us. Unless….
Unless he was hurt much worse than I’d thought.
My stomach twisted. First Sean, then me, now Carrick. This guy was taking us out one by one. I saw him draw back his fist again—
“Oi.” The voice was quiet and utterly calm. It came from the darkness right beside him.
The guy turned just in time to take Aedan’s fist right in the jaw. A real Aedan special, strong enough to lift him right off his feet. He went sailing backwards, dropping the chain, and crashed to the floor.
He was up again in an instant. My jaw dropped: I’d never seen anyone take so much punishment and keep getting back up. But Aedan was marching towards him, unstoppable as a freight train.
“You fucker!” yelled Aedan, and hit him again.
The guy staggered back, on the defensive, now. He tried hitting back, a quick one-two that would have stopped another man cold. But Aedan just knocked the punches aside like they were nothing. For the first time, I saw a tiny hint of fear in the way the guy shuffled back: he’d finally met his match.
Another punch from Aedan doubled him over. The next one caught him under the chin and knocked him back against a wall and now I saw his head turn: he was looking for somewhere to run. But Aedan wasn’t going to let him escape. He roared and hit him again. As he stepped forward into a shaft of moonlight, I saw Aedan’s face for the first time. It was a mask of rage, so twisted up with anger that he barely looked like my brother anymore. “My mom,” he spat, and that big fist connected again. “My dad. My brother.”
A flurry of punches and the guy slumped to the floor. Between the shadows and his hood, I couldn’t see what shape his face was in but it must have been a mess. “Enough,” I called. “Aedan, enough! You’ll kill him!”
Aedan ignored me.
He grabbed the front of the guy’s hooded top and lifted him clear of the ground. “Sylvie!” he spat. “You hurt Sylvie, you fuckers!”
And he drew back his fist for a punch I knew would end the guy.
39
Bradan
I’d followed them from the house all the way to their meeting with the four strangers. I’d sat in that diner, in the booth behind theirs, and strained my ears to pick up every word of their conversation that I could. When I’d told Dad that they were going to break into the printing firm we used, he was very clear on what I had to do: make sure they never bother us again.
But I hadn’t expected this. I’d managed to take one of them by surprise but the one in the suit had been trained. The biker had that damn chain and now my head was ringing and the world was going dark as I was pummeled by the one who hit like a prizefighter. I’d always been taught that Outsiders only cared about themselves. But these four were working together, saving each other from me, like—
A memory from that dark hallway in my mind, the thick glass cracked by the pain I was enduring. Running. Running up a hill on little short legs, laughing. Slipping and tripping but hands hauled me back up. A name—
“Aedan, enough! You’ll kill him!”
The memory dissolved and I was back in the present, being hefted into the air. “Sylvie!” the man spat. “You hurt Sylvie, you fuckers!”
He drew back his fist. I tried to twist aside but my whole body felt slow and numb. Blood was trickling into one eye and I suspected a few ribs were broken. I’m going to die. But at least I’d die bringing Beautiful Order.
Just as the fist started forward, the one in a suit caught it. He had to put his whole weight into holding back the other guy’s arm and even then the fist slowly crept towards my face. “No!” he snapped. “Jesus, Aedan, Sylvie wouldn’t want this!”
The fighter, as I thought of him now, just shook his head and heaved, nearly shaking the other one off. But then the biker put his hand on his shoulder. “He’s right. The fucker deserves it but these people own the police: if someone finds a body—”
The fighter was panting through his teeth. For long seconds, I thought he was going to shake off the others and go ahead and kill me. But then he slowly lowered me to the floor. I let my body go completely limp, even when that meant my head knocked against the wall. I needed them to drop their guard.
“Watch him,” said the one in a suit. “We can get some answers out of him. I’ll go and check on Sean.” And he strode off into the darkness.
“You okay?” the fighter grunted to the biker. There was something in their voices. I hadn’t really picked up on it, at the diner: I’d been too busy memorizing what they said. But there was a strong accent. I wasn’t familiar with it...and yet one for some reason it resonated, deep inside me, as if I was.
The biker grunted. One eye was already swelling shut and he was swaying on his feet. He wasn’t the threat: the fighter was. “You did the right thing,” he muttered. “Kian was right. Sylvie wouldn’t want it.”
The fighter stepped closer to me. “Let’s have a look at him.”
As he reached down to pull back my hood, he was off balance for a second. I reached up, grabbed his wrist with both hands and pulled, dropping down onto my back at the same time. He fell forward, cracking his head on the wall, and I slithered out from under him.
“Shit!” The biker grabbed for me. Missed. And then I was running down the room. “Kian!” the biker yelled.
Three sets of running footsteps behind me. They’d be on me in seconds: I was staggering and weak from the beating I’d taken. The door whose lock I’d picked was in the other direction and so was the window they’d used. But I knew how I could get away: and maybe get them all arrested, to boot.
I ran straight for one of the big, plate-glass windows, wrapped my arms around my head and dove straight through it.
And the room exploded into sound as the burglar alarm went off.
40
Carrick
Everything changed in a heartbeat. The printing works’ alarm was ancient: instead of a shrieking electronic tone, it had an old-fashioned mechanical bell, metal hammering metal hundreds of times a second. We all threw our hands over our ears as it pounded our eardrums. “Jesus!” I shouted.
Kian ran out of the shadows. My stomach lurched when I saw Sean: he was awake, but slumped against Kian’s body, unable to stand on his own. “Is he okay?” I had to squint to see him: my right eye was swollen almost completely closed.
“I don’t know. There’s a lot of blood.” It was the first time I’d ever seen Kian really panicked. “Aedan?”
I turned and helped Aedan to his feet. He was groggy, too: he’d cracked his head against the wall when that cult fucker grabbed him. We were all messed up. I spun and took a step towards the window the guy had jumped through.
“Leave him!” snapped Kian. “He’s long gone. We’ve got to get out of here!”
I looked towards the offices where we thought the files were.
“No! There’s no time!”
But I started walking.
Kian grabbed the back of my leather cut. “Carrick, the police’ll be here in a few minutes. We don’t even know if there’s anything in
there!”
“That guy was here to stop us,” I growled. “There must be something here.”
But Kian wouldn’t let go. “Sean’s hurt! We’ve got to get him out of here!”
I turned to him. Our faces were only inches apart. “It’s the only way to find Bradan!” I yelled.
“We can’t help him if we’re all in jail!”
I looked at the stairs. Looked back at him. “We won’t be,” I said. “Just me. Get him to the car and get out of here.”
And I was off and running towards the stairs at the end of the room. Behind me, I heard Kian curse and start to drag Sean away.
My boots must have made a hell of a racket sprinting up the iron stairs but I could barely hear them: I was closer to the alarm bell, here, and the noise was head-splitting. I burst into the offices and grimaced. The place was lined with filing cabinets. This is what happens when you refuse to use computers.
I picked one at random and started rifling through it. Customers. And all neatly sorted into alphabetical order. Except...I got a sick feeling in my stomach. I had no idea what name I was looking for. The name was what we needed to find out!
There was one hope: each customer file seemed to have a master copy of what the company had printed for them. Somewhere, there’d be a file with that creepy personality test in...but I was going to have to go through every file to find it.
There was a bang from right next to me as a drawer was flung open. I spun around to see Aedan standing there: I hadn’t heard him follow me in, with the alarm clanging in my ears. “Faster with two,” he said without looking up.
I froze for a second, stunned. When I’d ran up to the office, there’d been a kind of grim familiarity to it: on my own, again. I figured I’d get caught but at least I’d get the information we needed. I’d pass it to the others when they visited me in jail, if need be. I knew guys who’d done time. I’d survive.
And now suddenly Aedan was here. I wanted to grab him and shake him: what the hell do you think you’re doing? I rode with the MC: getting caught by the cops, even doing time, was an occupational hazard. But he was doing well, he had Sylvie….
And I have Annabelle. The thought of sitting in a cold cell, cut off from her...suddenly, that didn’t sound so easy. And just as I admitted that, something else crept in: a warm glow. Aedan wasn’t going to desert me, wasn’t going to let me take the rap on my own. I’d had that feeling before, with the MC. But I hadn’t had it from a brother, not for a very long time. The emotion swelled up inside: it was suddenly difficult to breathe.
I grunted and turned back to my filing cabinet, discarding file after file. Nothing. Nothing. And now, off in the distance, I could hear the wail of sirens. Maybe they’re on their way somewhere else. I started the next drawer. Nothing. The sirens were getting louder. Shit!
The door crashed open behind me and I spun around: if I could tackle the cop to the ground, maybe at least Aedan could get by him. I lowered my shoulder, ready to charge—
But it wasn’t a cop. It was Kian. He and I exchanged a look...and then he ran to the filing cabinet next to Aedan’s. We all searched frantically, rooting through drawers, leaving them hanging open when we’d finished. Still nothing. “What about Sean?” I yelled as I finished the first cabinet.
“In the car, down the alley. Cops’ll think he’s just a drunk, sleeping it off.”
I ran to a fresh filing cabinet and pulled open the first drawer. “You should have left,” I muttered. But that feeling I’d had was back, and stronger. It was just like when we were kids again: defending each other, sticking together, one of us down but the family still strong.
I felt a swell of pride. Now we just needed Bradan.
I rifled through the drawer. Nothing. And now the sirens sounded like they were right outside. I could feel the mood in the room change. We knew we were going to get caught, now. We were just hoping we could make it worthwhile. I glanced up just as I pulled open the next drawer. The night had turned red and blue outside the windows. Shit! I looked down.
I feel happy and secure when I know exactly what I’m meant to be doing, I read. I gave a strangled groan of disbelief. Questions. Check boxes. Yep, it was the test. I grabbed the whole file. “Got it!” I yelled.
We all just looked at each other in shock for an instant. Then we bolted for the stairs. The alarm drowned out the sound of the engines but we could see police cars pulling up outside.
I sprinted towards the window the cult guy had jumped through but, just as we arrived, someone shone a flashlight through it from outside. I backpedaled and we ran the other way, back to the window we’d climbed in through. We were halfway there when a cop appeared in it, silhouetted by the lights behind him. Fuck! We were trapped! We hunkered behind one of the huge printing presses, panting and desperate.
“What about him?” asked Kian suddenly.
“Who?” I asked.
“The cult guy. He must have gotten in somehow.” Kian narrowed his eyes, looking towards the far corner of the huge room. “He came from over there.”
We ran into the shadows. Behind us, flashlights lit up the darkness: unless we could find a way out, they were going to find us in seconds. There was a loading dock. The big doors for trucks were padlocked shut. But next to them was a regular, blue-painted door….
I tried the handle and prayed.
The door swung inward, bathing us in cool night air. All of us gave a groan of relief and we raced outside and down the side of the building to the alley. Sean was in the back seat, belted in to keep him upright. I dived in beside him.
Kian jumped into the passenger seat. Aedan got behind the wheel. “Keys!” he yelled.
Shit. I started going through Sean’s pockets. As I leaned across him, my arm brushed warm wetness on the back of the seat. With a sinking feeling in my stomach, I fumbled with the overhead light. The interior suddenly lit up...and I caught my breath. Blood was dripping from the back of Sean’s head, coating the seats. “Fuck!” I spat, and searched faster. My fingers finally closed on hard metal and I pulled out the keys and tossed them to Aedan. “Hospital!”
The engine roared into life and we tore away into the night.
41
Bradan
Dad summoned me as soon as I got back. I walked down the hallway to his study, wishing I’d at least had time to wash the blood off my face. I knew he wouldn’t have sympathy: the wounds were my fault. They were evidence that I’d made a mistake.
Dad wasn’t at his desk, for once. He wasn’t doing anything as lazy as sleeping, even though it was late, but he was sitting in a leather armchair with a glass of cognac. Maybe that’s what he does instead of sleep. There were no women, this time, and that didn’t bode well.
He stared at me. I didn’t have to speak. If I’d been successful, I wouldn’t be all battered. He just sat there glaring, his gaze stripping me down to the bone.
Movies and TV are for the weak, a diversion that stops Outsiders from focusing on the real problems of the world. But occasionally, when I was on a job, I’d have to follow someone into a movie theater, or spy on them when they were at home watching TV, and I’d see what they saw. I could see why it was so addictive. Everyone was so beautiful and the stories were so...satisfying.
In one of those TV shows, there was a boy and a father. And the father disciplined the boy but he was kind to him, too. Even when the boy got a bad mark on a test at school, the father still loved him.
It made me so angry. Partly because it was just another example of how TV and Movies lie to the Outsiders: Dad wasn’t like that at all, his love conditional and never put into words. And partly because it stirred a memory locked behind the glass in my mind. A memory of another father, one who was just like the one on TV.
“How?” asked Dad at last.
He was even angrier than I’d thought. The terror started to unwind inside me. The one thing I’m scared of: disappointing him. I took a deep breath, which hurt my bruised chest. “I underestimated them,
” I said. “One of them was trained, maybe military. Another was a fighter. One had a chain.”
“A chain?!” His voice struck me like a whip. “Did we waste all our time when we taught you how to fight?”
I thought of those endless years, out in the desert. Running until my legs gave way. Grappling and punching and kicking the endless stream of men they sent at me, ending every single day in much worse shape than I was now, until I gradually became stronger. “No,” I said.
He sipped his drink. “Do you have any good news for me? Did you at least stop them getting any information?”
The sick fear inside me spread. I closed my eyes in shame.
“Look at me when I’m talking to you!” Dad roared.
My eyes flew open. He was glaring at me and the disappointment I saw there made my heart feel like it was tearing in two. If I could have gone back in time, at that second, I would have kept throwing punches at that fighter instead of collapsing like a weakling. I would have kept fighting and fighting, even when my arms failed and had no power, until he had to kill me, because even death would be better than this.
What if this is it? What if he says I’m no longer Prime? What if throws me out entirely? I couldn’t imagine life outside Aeternus, in the same way you can’t really imagine death: I just thought of a blank nothingness, unending. I’d done so much to bring Beautiful Order, over the years, but all that counted for nothing. With Dad, you’re always on your last chance.
“I had to escape,” I said. “They’d caught me. I was outnumbered.”
“So you ran?!”
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