Not only had Flynn’s and Rose’s wrists been bound, but they’d been anchored to a large metal ring in the middle of the birdcage. The angle Flynn had to sit at—hunched over and leaning forwards—set his shoulders on fire with a deep ache. Although he rolled them to try to ease his pain, it had little effect other than sending the birdcage swinging.
Some of the royal complex’s early risers woke with the sun. Some completely ignored Flynn and Rose, while others stopped beneath the cage and stared up at them. No one spoke to them. And why would they? The wrong question at the wrong time in this place and the consequences were severe.
The first hunter Flynn saw came over to the cage and stood beneath it. It seemed to make the other people braver, many of them joining him in looking up at the pair.
About fifteen people had gathered by the time the hunter did something. After looking on the ground, he bent down and picked up an object. So tired from his sleepless night, Flynn didn’t react as he watched the hunter’s rock spin through the air at him. It cracked him straight on the forehead, sending a flash of white light through his vision. A hot line of blood ran into Flynn’s right eye from the wound and he rubbed his head on his shoulder to try to stem the flow.
“You horrible fucker,” the hunter called up at Flynn.
The hunter’s actions gave the others permission, and in a few short seconds, the people below all launched rocks at the pair.
Flynn lowered his head as pain dashed his body. Each time a rock hit, the sharp sting of it felt all the worse for the surprise of where it crashed into him. His shoulder blades, his spine, the back of his head … Insults flew up at the pair with the rocks.
“Cunt,” “Faggot,” “Traitors,” “Arseholes …”
Chapter Sixty-Five
The stoning lasted for about five minutes before the hunter called out, “Enough!”
The people stopped and Flynn opened one eye to look down to be sure they weren’t tricking him. When he looked at Rose, he saw cuts and marks on her head and face. He balled his fists, clenched his jaw, and continued to rub his wrists together. They’d fucking pay. The lot of them would pay.
The hunter pointed up at the pair and said, “The Queen has plans for these lovebirds, so we can’t be too harsh.” The crowd around him were animated with their excitement. Their eyes as wide as their grins, they stared bloodlust up at Flynn and Rose.
“I can see you want to kill these two,” the hunter said. “Believe me, they deserve it, but we need to wait. Whatever we can think to do to them, I’m sure the Queen has something much worse planned.”
Of course the Queen had plans for them, but to hear it said out loud sent a nauseating flip through Flynn’s guts. He rubbed his wrists together quicker than before.
When the hunter and the people had walked away, Flynn looked at Rose. The same beauty he’d seen in her clean skin, her long blonde hair, and her brown eyes remained. Despite the welts and lumps from the stoning, her spirit shone through as bright as ever. She didn’t look anywhere near as scared as he felt. “Why did you save me at the end of the games?”
Rose dropped her attention to the ring they were both bound to, her face flushing red. “You seemed like a good person. You seemed worth saving.”
“But you could have saved yourself.”
“I know. And maybe I would if we were to do it all again. I suppose at the time, I couldn’t willingly sell you out. I couldn’t be that ruthless.”
Would Flynn have been that ruthless?
“But it’s paid off, hasn’t it?” Rose said.
Flynn looked down at the rope around his wrists, the sandy-coloured cord stained red with his blood. He blinked against the sweat and blood running into his eyes before he looked back up at Rose. “Um, no. I don’t think it has paid off.”
“You came to rescue me. We’re in this together now. We’ll work something out.”
She’d been kind enough to save him, so Flynn didn’t say anything, but they were fucked. No matter which way he looked at it, they were well and truly fucked. And the look in Rose’s eyes told him she believed that too, even if she couldn’t voice it.
Flynn’s entire body buzzed like an open wound, although no part of it hurt more than his wrists. Even still, he continued to rub them together, each movement ever so slightly loosening the rope’s tension.
Chapter Sixty-Six
Flynn now wore gloves of blood. They glistened in the sun, slick and red. Yet he continued to twist and turn them, gaining a little more slack out of the ropes with each passing hour. If it came to it, he’d rather lose a hand escaping than have that cunt Mistress cut his cock off.
The pain from the stoning still throbbed through Flynn, and as the day heated up, sweat turned his entire form damp. The saline trickle found every open wound on his body, lighting him up with an electric buzz.
Fuck knew how long had passed since they were stoned. The sun had risen higher in the sky. A lot more people had woken up, walked past the cage, and stared up at them. No one had spoken to them. No doubt they’d decide to stone them again at some point.
A clenched jaw against his pain and Flynn continued to work his wrists. The movement of his hands continued to send the cage swinging. So when he saw the Queen approach, he stopped still.
“Well, well, well,” the Queen said, three royal blue guards on either side of her. “Two little lovebirds. Caged, as lovebirds should be. You know, apparently lovebirds fall in love for life. If they’re separated, it breaks the other one’s heart.”
Neither Flynn nor Rose responded as the Queen evaluated them with her cold glare. “I have plans for the both of you. I expect one of you will end up heartbroken.” She smiled. “But we have a little time yet, so don’t worry.”
Flynn did his best to keep his eyes from his burning wrists. Because the bottom of the cage was made from solid wood, they’d have to lower it to see what he’d been trying to do.
“But before anything else happens,” the Queen said, “we have a community to raid. Isn’t that right, Flynn?”
Still silent, Flynn looked down at the Queen and the ravenous faces of her guards. Hungry for his utter destruction, they looked ready to pounce.
“Home, is that what it’s called?”
The word sent a chill through Flynn. Sure, he’d walked away from the place, washed his hands of it even, but only because of a select few people. Many of Home’s residents hadn’t done anything to him. He’d devoted over a decade of his life to ensuring the well-being of the place; he’d like it to continue to thrive.
And how did she know about Home? He’d told her he came from Biggin Hill, from the shipping containers. Flynn searched the crowd of spectators below, which had doubled since the Queen arrived. A sharp sting sat in his eyes from the sweat and blood that had trickled into them over the past few hours. Maybe someone from Home now lived in the royal complex. How else would she know?
“I won’t keep you any longer,” the Queen said, “but I promise you, even from here, you’ll be able to watch your old community burn. If you survive that long without food and water, that is. I still haven’t decided on exactly when we’ll take the place down.”
Such a dry mouth it felt like his throat would crack, Flynn watched the Queen saunter off as she said, “Ta-ta.”
Chapter Sixty-Seven
It must have been lunchtime, because as soon as the Queen left Flynn and Rose, she headed for the barn.
Over the course of the next five minutes or so, Flynn watched all the people from the community file into the large building. All the while, he twisted his wrists, rested a little to let the pain ease, and twisted again. A pool of blood had formed on the base of the cage from where it dripped off his fingers like melting wax.
“I’m worried about you,” Rose said.
Flynn looked at her to see she had her attention on his wrists. A shrug of his shoulders and he continued to twist his hands. “Anything’s got to be better than waiting up here for that bitch to decide when sh
e’s going to start toying with us.”
The bright glare bounced off Rose’s sweating face. Hotter than it had been in weeks, Flynn almost heard the sizzle of her skin from the sun’s burn.
“So you come from the next community she wants to take down?”
“I did.”
“Why did you leave?”
Flynn wanted to yell out at the pain in his wrists as he twisted them again, but he clenched his jaw, drew heavy breaths, and said, “They were cunts.”
When Rose didn’t reply, Flynn looked up at her. “I’m sorry,” he said. “They were arseholes though.”
Rose shrugged; this world had clearly shown her much worse than the word cunt. “What did they do?”
“I arrived there about a decade ago with a woman who raised me. She was like a mother to me. I was only six when my parents died. Were it not for her, I’d be dead too, a million times over.”
“What happened to her?”
“She was murdered. By the people of Home.”
Near silence hung between them, the creaking of the tree’s branch the only sound as they rocked in the wind.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Rose finally said as she reached out two of her fingers on her right hand and stroked Flynn’s. If their bonds would have allowed more contact, Flynn felt sure she would have given it to him at that moment; and he would have welcomed it.
As he looked down at her affection, some of Flynn’s rage left him and a lump rose in his throat. “She was the one who helped set the disease loose on the world.”
“What?”
“Someone used her because she had access to the tower where they were making the disease. She compromised the security of the place so they could get in. They convinced her they would put a stop to the experiments. She thought she was helping. But the people of Home didn’t want to hear that. They only cared that she’d helped set the plague loose.” As much as Flynn wanted to tell Rose he’d been the one who had spoken out about Vicky setting the virus loose, he didn’t. That confession would go to the grave with him.
A kindness Flynn hadn’t seen since Serj died stared at him from Rose’s soft face. “I only found out a week or two back about them killing her, even though they did it ten years ago. She managed to persuade them to let her write me a letter to say she’d left. I was sixteen at the time and she knew if I found out about her being killed, I’d go off on my own. I wouldn’t have lasted two minutes.”
“So she’d rather you thought she left you than know the truth?”
“So I’d stay, yeah.”
“Wow. It sounds like she saved your life, even if she couldn’t save her own.”
For the next few seconds, Flynn worked the bonds harder than before, rubbing and rubbing and rubbing, grinding his jaw against the pain of it. “A man named Serj looked after me once Vicky had gone. He knew the truth of it all, but he didn’t tell me until just recently. He promised her he wouldn’t.”
“What made him break his promise?”
“He died.”
“Fuck!”
“He wanted me to know Vicky didn’t abandon me. A decade on and I was still so angry with her. I think he wanted to help me get over it. The thing is the people who killed her run Home. I couldn’t stay there. Especially as I’d just split up with my girlfriend.”
“Fucking hell,” Rose said. “That’s rough.”
Flynn nodded. “Yeah, but everyone’s had it hard, haven’t they? That’s what life is now.”
“I suppose.”
“And what about you? I’ll be honest, you sounded fucking mental when you said everything’s worked out because we’re together.” A shock of pain ran up both of Flynn’s wrists when he twisted them again and he pulled a breath in through his clenched teeth.
“I was born to a heroin-addicted mother and came out of the womb with a habit,” Rose said. “I was just two when the disease broke out. My mum hadn’t gotten clean yet. Within five minutes of the disease spreading, my dad had turned into one of those things. He left a junkie and her kid all alone, not that he would have been any help anyway. He was better to us as a creature. At least it gave us the impetus to leave him.”
Flynn let her continue.
“We lived in a basement for about six years. The only daylight I saw came through the crack in a wooden door. I would press my face against it for hours on end just so I could imagine what it would be like to live outside. We started with twelve of us down there. By the time we left, just Mum and I remained.”
A cheer came from the dining hall and Flynn flinched, spinning around to look over at the barn. No one came out. He continued to wring his wrists. They had to get out of there before the Queen decided they were done.
“There were still diseased about, as you know,” Rose said. “But far fewer than before. The communities that remained knew how to survive. A community took us in. And things were great for the longest time. But my community—as good as they were at being self-sufficient—weren’t fighters. When there were no more diseased to fight, people started hunting people. About a year ago, our community was overrun. They killed all the men in the place and ate them”—Rose looked at the ground and spoke in a quieter voice—“in front of us. They took the women away with them.”
Several deep breaths and Rose looked out over the royal complex. Her deep brown eyes glazed as she stared over the farmland and the high fence. “Before they could do anything to me or Mum, Mum attacked them and told me to run. I did. I ran and I didn’t look back.”
“So why are you still so hopeful we’ll be okay? Especially with all the fucked-up shit you’ve witnessed.”
“Because I’m still alive. We’re still alive. In spite of everything, we’re still here. I miss my mum every single day, but I’m not dead yet. I’ve had impossible situations and walked away from them, so why can’t we do it again?”
Maybe she had a point. Another cheer came from the barn and Flynn doubled his efforts, grimacing through the pain in his wrists as he continued to twist and turn them. Maybe she had a point.
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Flynn did his best to hide away from the next stoning. He pulled his shoulders up and arched his back towards the people below. But the rocks came at him from every direction, and with his hands tied to the floor of the cage, he could only do so much to protect himself.
Although a lot of the projectiles hit him, many more didn’t. They clattered into the bars of the cage and the base of it. The insults came as freely as the missiles.
“Scumbags.”
“Fuckers.”
“Traitors.”
“Rats.”
Every ten seconds or so, one of the rocks crashed into Flynn’s head. It spun his entire world and it felt like the next one would knock him out.
Impossible for Flynn to tell because of his restricted movement, but it felt like cuts had opened up all over his body.
“Okay!” the Queen called and the stoning stopped. “It’s dinnertime; let’s leave them for a while.”
Although Flynn listened to her cruel voice, he didn’t look down at her. No way would he give the bitch the satisfaction of seeing him in pain. No fucking way.
“We’ll come back tomorrow,” the Queen said. “We need to be careful we don’t kill them. We don’t want to give them that relief too early.” The people around the Queen laughed.
Flynn remained hunched over and listened to everyone walk away. When he sensed that most, if not all, of the people had entered the barn, he looked up at Rose. “Are you okay?”
Blood ran down her face from a deep gash on her forehead. She winced and nodded. “Yeah, I think so. A bit sore, but I don’t think anything’s broken.”
“This can’t go on,” Flynn said. “We won’t last many more stonings.” He looked over at the barn. The doors were closed, but Mistress stood on the outside. It looked like everyone else had gone in. “I wonder what she’s doing?” he said.
Rose looked over too but didn’t respond.
The ropes around Flynn’s wrists had more give now than ever, his hands slick with blood and sweat. The deep cuts he’d burned into them were on fire like red ants crawled beneath his skin. A look at Rose and he said, “I think this will be our best opportunity.”
Flynn clenched his jaw and pulled against his bonds. Damn near blinding pain sent bright flashes through his vision. It felt like shaving the skin from his hands as he tugged again, harder than before. But he had to be brave. They had to get out of there.
Sweat ran into Flynn’s sore eyes, but he continued to pull and pull against his bonds. He shook as he held onto his need to cry out and his hands slipped up a little way, then a little way more, then … Suddenly he pulled himself free.
Flynn lifted his hands and looked at the cuts to his skin. Blood ran down his forearms and two bangle-like flaps had lifted away around his wrists. They ran so deep he’d probably see the bone if he tried. He didn’t want to try.
What little feeling Flynn had left in his hands enabled him to pull on Rose’s ropes, clumsy as he shook and bled over them.
After a minute or two, he’d worked the rope free.
Rose pulled her hands out, wrapped Flynn in a tight hug, kissed him on the cheek, and quickly put her hands back to the base of the cage. They couldn’t risk Mistress seeing them.
Chapter Sixty-Nine
Much more subtle in her movements the second time, Rose lifted both of Flynn’s hands. His heart rate sped, and he did his best to hold onto his quickened breaths.
Gently, as if lifting an injured butterfly, she frowned like his wounds were her own. “I’m so sorry you’ve had to do this to yourself.”
Rose then lifted the bottom of her shirt up to her mouth. Not the first time Flynn had seen her pert breasts, and maybe he shouldn’t have looked. For the briefest moment he forgot his pain.
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