“The Warden?” Edward frowned. “What’s all this about?”
“Hang on,” Cathy said, twisting a lock of hair between her fingers, tugging at it. “When they took that wounded man to the clinic… they wanted me to heal him… they were talking about Alice, something about a sign… a symbol. They were after her.” She looked up at them. “The Warden ordered his men to go and get her.”
“Seems like they succeeded,” Neeson concluded grimly.
“We’ll think about the children later,” Edward whispered. His eyes told her it was time to get on with the business at hand. He slipped his fingers inside his pocket, as Lucy and Neeson tried to cover him, moving closer.
The guard’s booming voice shook them. “Away from the bars!” he shouted at the three prisoners.
Damn, Lucy thought. This was going to be tricky. She needed to be close to Edward for the exchange to take place.
Turning to the guard, Edward said, “I just want to say good-bye to my wife, guard.” The way he said guard, it sounded like a swear word. “Am I allowed to do that, or not?”
The guard walked up to them, studied their expressions. In the end, he nodded coldly. “Come on then, get it over with.”
Edward leaned towards Lucy. Before their lips met, she caught a glimpse of Cathy. For once, thought Lucy, I’m the one feeling guilty, here.
She also noticed her ex-husband’s hand draw out a small piece of paper, which had been folded over and over again. He held it in his palm, doing his best to hide it from the guard, who was still staring at them.
Their lips met, and Lucy felt nothing, other than a degree of affection. Mostly though, she felt fear. Fear that something would go wrong, that perhaps–
She dropped the note. Or maybe it was Edward, she couldn’t tell. She’d felt it brush against her fingers, but just before she could grab it, it had dropped to the ground. Suddenly, she was staring into her ex-husband’s wide, nervous eyes, less than an inch from her own.
“What the hell are you staring at, you filthy pervert?” Neeson’s voice was loud, threatening.
The guard snapped towards him, but before he could say anything Neeson continued. “Give them some privacy, will you? What is it? Can’t get any on your own, so you have to spy on others?” He added a chuckle that was so full of mockery and loathing, Lucy almost felt sorry for the guard. Almost. Instead, she quickly crouched down and picked up the note. Within an instant, it was safe inside her bra.
The guard was staring at Neeson, his face a deep shade of red, hands shaking. He was furious, but most of all he seemed embarrassed. Giggles and hushed laughter came from the other cells.
“Shut up! All of you!” he shouted. Then, turning towards Lucy, “You finished?”
Lucy nodded quietly.
“Well, get out then! Now!”
She did as she was told. They exchanged brief glances, Lucy’s lips parting in a secret smile when she met Neeson’s (Thank you for the diversion), and she left.
Later, sitting over the worn sofa while her son slept upstairs, Lucy was staring at the note, studying it for the hundredth time.
Lines, dots, hurried notes that depicted a clandestine route through the streets of Bately and beyond. At the end of that route lay a large ’X’.
There, somewhere outside of town, and beneath those two crossed lines, was the explosive.
The one she’d have to retrieve.
Chapter 7
Three Steps
The sky gradually veered from pitch black to pale grey. It brought scarce light and little hope. Paul observed it through damp eyes, hands gripped firmly around the steering wheel. He was going fast, a lot faster than he was comfortable with. But there was no time.
He flicked a glance at the rear-view mirror, and saw the motionless bundle of Adrian’s body lying on the back seat. He stepped on the accelerator as if it could go any further.
They were close, now. But every inch seemed to stretch out into a mile of slippery, uneven road. Somewhere at the end of that dirt track lay Bately, the Warden and maybe, just maybe, someone who could save Adrian.
“Please, Lord, please,” he whispered for the millionth time. There he was—a former priest, turning to his God in troubling times. He looked towards the skies again. As a child, that was where he believed God lived. In his infant’s mind, that god-beyond-the-clouds bore a striking resemblance to Father Christmas. In a way, he missed that simplistic view of things. Now, it was all so complicated.
The dim light of the morning was beginning to reveal leafless trees and thorny shrubs scattered across the bleak scenery.
“It’ll be okay, Adrian. It’s going to be okay,” he said to himself as much as to the boy.
He’d stopped once, very briefly, to check Ady’s pulse. Something evil inside his mind had convinced him that the child had stopped breathing, that this race against time was pointless. Paul had pressed two trembling fingers against his delicate wrist. And there it was—a faint, but definitely present, heartbeat. The simple rhythm that signalled life.
As he drove, his mind began to drift. He thought of Ana, of the trouble she’d be in if the Pack realised she’d given the truck to Paul. He also considered that man, the prisoner, and his story about a boat setting sail for the Southern League. Was he telling the truth? Would that boat really take them–
Headlights.
There was a car of some sort, sitting still in the middle of the road ahead.
Paul squinted, trying to spot the driver, but the lights were blinding him. He waved an arm outside of the window. “Move!” he cried. “Out of the way!”
But the car didn’t budge. Someone was stirring in the shadows by its side. Men in dark uniforms. They were busy, up to something, but it was too dark to make out what they were doing.
He began to slow down, preparing himself to face the Warden’s men, beg them to take Ady to a doctor.
But his thoughts were interrupted when they opened fire.
* * *
There were brief bursts of light ahead, and the truck’s windshield exploded. Paul was showered with a glittering wave of shattered glass.
If there was pain, Paul was too shocked to notice. He instinctively brought an arm to his head, protecting his face, while his right slipped off the steering wheel. The engine roared as his feet struck both the clutch and the accelerator. He felt the truck swerve to the right, the noises too loud, the movements too abrupt. Then, they hit something, and the engine turned quiet. There was a sudden silence, broken only by Paul’s raspy breathing, his heart thumping in his ears.
Adrian.
He frantically reached for the door handle, but his fingers kept slipping. The world was a blur.
“I’m coming, I’m coming!” he shouted desperately, as if the silent Adrian had been beckoning him.
“No you’re not,” a cold voice said.
Paul looked up and saw two people peering into the car. They had weapons, and they were pointing them at him.
“Don’t move an inch, ’wraith.”
’Wraith? Paul was confused, and for a second he actually turned to his side, as if a ’wraith had suddenly materialised next to him.
“On a special mission from the Pack, are we?” the other person said. It was a woman.
Paul raised his hands in the air, “No, no. You don’t understand. I’m not a ’wraith.” He sighed with frustration, and waved a hand in front of bandaged eye, his tortured skin. “It’s just…”
The woman waggled the muzzle of her gun, inquisitively. “You’re not a ’wraith?” she asked, her tone sceptical. “You’re not coming from the Pack?”
“Yes,” Paul had to stop himself from screaming. “I’m coming from the Pack, yes, but–”
“Good enough for me,” she said, beginning to squeeze the trigger of her weapon.
“Hang on a second, Sue,” the other man said. He was bending forward, hands cupped against the rear window, peering inside the truck. “There’s someone else in there.”
&nbs
p; “Please, please let me out, it’s–” Paul began.
“Shut up!” the woman shouted, shoving the gun in his face. Then, turning towards her comrade, “Who is it?”
“Not sure… can’t see too well. Hang on, let me open up.”
“Probably just more ’wraith vermin. We’re better off shooting them both.”
Paul swallowed, desperate to explain. But there was little he could do with a gun pointed at his forehead.
The rear door opened with a creak. “Looks like a kid. Think he’s dead,” came the man’s muffled voice.
“HE’S NOT!” Paul cried, making himself jump. “Adrian is alive! He needs help and–”
“Okay. I’ve had it,” the woman said. She took a step back, aimed her gun. “Farewell, ’wraith.”
The man suddenly pushed her away, and she tripped, falling to the ground.
“Are you fucking crazy?” she shouted, but the other soldier ignored her. He was staring at Paul, eyes white and wide.
“What did you say the kid’s name is?”
“Adrian,” Paul muttered, confused. What was going on, why had this man turned on his comrade? He watched as the soldier frowned, as if trying to remember something. He turned to the woman called Sue and helped her back up. They muttered something Paul couldn’t make out, and Sue took a few steps back, her shoulders towards them. She drew out a radio transceiver, and spoke into it in a low voice. When the reply came in, she turned, nodded and said, “It’s him. Top priority.”
Suddenly, Paul was being dragged out of the truck and thrown into their vehicle, a large SUV. They locked him inside, and he watched speechless as they returned to the truck and removed Adrian from it with a care he would never had thought them capable of.
They delicately positioned Adrian in the SUV, before mounting in themselves.
“He’s still alive,” the man said, turning the key in the ignition. The engine roared. What he said next made Paul want to laugh and cry at the same time.
“Quick, let’s get him to a doctor. He must live.”
* * *
Paul sat on a folding chair outside the medical tent.
It was one of many, each with its own purpose—some appeared to be sleeping facilities, others housed supplies, radio stations and a lot more. It was busy, people coming and going, not so much as looking at him. Everywhere was the noise of orders being imparted, boots trampling through the mud, generators humming. It was like being on the outskirts of a war zone. To some extent, Paul thought, that was precisely right.
Somewhere inside the tent before him, a team of doctors was busy trying to save Adrian. This was surprising, to Paul. Why were the Warden’s men so intent on saving the young boy’s life? Had he misjudged them?
It didn’t really matter. Nothing did. Not the war the Pack wanted to wage against the soldiers in black, not the boat and its unlikely destination. Not even his blind eye or his mangled skin. Now, all that mattered was Adrian.
He sighed and turned towards Castle Street. Bately had changed. The last time he’d been here was right after the invasion and the bloody battle that had brought the Warden and his people into the peaceful town. That night, Bately had been a wasteland of smoke and blood and death. Now, there was a sullen orderliness to the place, the grim harmony brought by the Warden’s rule.
Paul’s eye drifted towards the ruins of the church, the only element of clutter in the otherwise neat surroundings. He felt a pang as he pictured Claudio, his last moments. But he had to shift the thought aside. This wasn’t the time for mourning the lost.
The tent’s entrance fluttered, and someone walked out of it. Paul craned his neck, trying to catch a glimpse of Adrian.
“How is he?” Paul asked, but the man ignored him and walked on. He turned back towards the tent, and fixed his gaze upon it, focussing all his hopes and prayers on the little body that lay somewhere inside it.
His eyelids were heavy, and his chin began to slowly slip towards his chest.
I must stay awake, he told himself. I must…
He fell asleep and dreamt of Claudio. They were sitting on the seafront, just south of Bately. A storm was gathering in the distance, but the sky was blue and clear above them. Both men knew the storm was coming, and there as a strange sense of urgency to their words.
“Three steps, Pablo, that’s all it takes,” Claudio said, eyeing the black, whirling skies.
Paul raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
“Three steps in the wrong direction, and we lose our way.”
Paul shook his head slightly, failing to understand.
The older priest sighed. “Take us, for example—we’re men of the Catholic Church. Men of God. I firmly believe that all it takes for us to wander off our path of righteousness – whatever that is – is three steps… steps we take on our own, although they are often a reaction. Something nasty happens, call it temptation by the Devil if you like, and we veer off path. We forget ourselves, who we hoped we’d become. We become… something else. And that something else is not good.” Claudio stared deep into the younger priest’s eyes. “Do you understand?”
Paul thought of his own personal trials and challenges. He’d maintained his faith through the apocalypse of the three meteorites, and through thousands of doubts and tribulations before and since.
Then, you tried to murder a man. In the dream, he felt a shiver raise the hair on the back of his head. Yes, the soldier in the field, the day they’d ventured out to Ashford.
And one day, you did murder a man. That monster, the one who had locked the children up. You ignored your faith, your religion’s precepts, and deprived that man of his life. Try as he might, he couldn’t get himself to feel guilt for that.
Those were two steps off his personal track, he thought.
Claudio had been observing him closely. “You’ve been through two,” he said to him, reading Paul’s thoughts. “I think it shows,” he added, with a nod towards his new, ’wraith-like appearance.
Paul raised a hand, began to protest, but Claudio waved him down. “I’m not judging, young Pablo. The Lord knows how far I’ve drifted from my own path. I’m sure He, in all His infinite knowledge, also knows I feel entirely justified.” Claudio stretched his aged fingers towards the advancing storm. It looked both terrifying and beautiful. “There’s nothing fair about all this, my friend. Whether or not you are justified doesn’t really matter. You lost your personal compass, you betrayed your path.”
“What if that path was a bad one, to begin with?” Paul said this in a low voice, ashamed of calling his church bad.
Claudio chuckled forgivingly. “Again, there’s nothing fair about this Pablo—your path might have been a bad one maybe… but it was yours.”
They sat in silence for a while, the wind from the storm sending waves through their clothes.
The last step is Adrian, Paul thought. The moment he was shot. But I haven’t taken the step yet, my foot is hovering in the air. I might still go back. But only if he survives.
Before the storm was upon them, Claudio laid a hand on his arm. It was a warm, affectionate gesture. He heard the old man’s voice, and the world gradually plunged into darkness.
“Wake up now, Pablo. You are wanted.”
* * *
A hand was shaking his shoulder, and Paul was suddenly awake again, expecting a doctor to be standing there. Hopefully telling him that Adrian was going to be okay.
But it wasn’t a doctor. One of the Warden’s soldiers was standing before him. Once he was assured that Paul was fully awake, he said, “You’re the one who brought the boy here, aren’t you?”
Paul nodded.
“Come with me. The Warden has summoned you.”
Chapter 8
Ana
Ana pressed the palms of her hands hard against her ears, trying to drown out the howls, the desperate cries of pain.
She sat a handful of yards from the tent where Mojito had called for her. The one in which they were torturing the
prisoner. Mojito and a couple of the new arrivals were still in there, inflicting pain on the wretched man.
It was her duty, Mojito had argued, to attend interrogations. But when it became clear that this wasn’t an interrogation, just plain torture, she’d had to leave. Mojito gave her a dirty look as she slipped out of the tent, but she didn’t care. There was no way she was going to stay and witness that hell.
Ana locked her head between her knees, squeezing her eyes shut, trying to forget what she had seen—the blood, the bruises, the torn-out teeth.
I can’t do this.
No, she couldn’t. This was not what she had signed up for. Being part of the Pack was a way to protect their own, make the ’wraith voice heard, face the end of the world with brothers and sisters who knew the suffering of the Affliction. This, whatever was now going on in the tent nearby, was something else entirely.
Jake, the former Alpha ’Wraith, had been ruthless, yes. Violent too. But, as far as she could remember, there had never been torture of innocents, not inside their Pack.
“PLEAAASSEEEE, I’M NOT ONE OF THEM, I–”
The cries were so loud that they slipped through Ana’s fingers and into her ears.
Mojito was trying to get the prisoner to confess, to admit that he was a spy for the soldiers in black. Ana was no expert in interrogation, but it had been clear to her within the first five minutes that he had nothing to do with the Warden’s men. But Mojito wasn’t satisfied.
Or maybe, she thought, it’s not that. Maybe he just enjoys inflicting pain. The thought made her shudder.
An uneasy silence had permeated the Pack. No one here was used to this sort of thing. Except perhaps those who had been part of the raids and expeditions in the past. But they were all dead in some ditch in Bately, now.
A movement caught her eye, and she saw Dimwit make his way across the scattered tents and bungalows and caravans that comprised the Pack’s home. He was walking fast, a scowl on his face. He was scared, Ana thought. He’d been happy to witness the arrival of Mojito and his people, as they all had. There was a renewed sense of belonging, of being part of something great and powerful—the Greater Pack. But these horrid sounds echoing through the night were changing all that.
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