by Ryan Casey
Jack’s mouth was dry. He couldn’t say a word. All he could think of was that they’d had a chance to walk away. A chance to make the difficult, impossible decision and start again.
But they’d walked right into a trap.
A trap that Susan had led them towards.
“Emma,” he said. It was all he could say. “Where is she? What have you done with her?”
Matthew smiled. “I believe Susan and you have met already. She’s good, isn’t she? Really plays the desperate runaway role to a tee. It’s a shame you couldn’t get to know her a whole lot better. I appreciate it’s difficult when you find out someone you thought was your friend is anything but. But don’t worry. It’s not personal. Really.”
Jack looked at Susan and he felt his fists tense. So this was part of her plan all along? Draw them into the woods, right into Matthew’s path?
But that look of guilt on her face.
That look which seemed so real.
And the way she’d led them to that town.
The things she’d said when they’d got here.
You shouldn’t have come here. I’m sorry.
Was all as it seemed?
Or had she wanted him to stay away, just as Candice suspected?
She didn’t say anything, though. She just stood there. Stared at Jack and his people and the animals, like the rest of those people.
She blended in perfectly with them.
She was one of them.
But there was still something getting to Jack. Something troubling him.
“I asked you about Emma,” he said.
Matthew frowned, like he wasn’t sure who Jack was on about, not at first.
And then his eyes widened and he smiled. “Emma. Ah yes. The young girl. Strong kid. Really strong.”
“What’ve you done with her?” Bella shouted. The venom in her voice was biting.
Matthew looked over at her with total disregard. “What’ve I done with her? Well, we saw promise in her. We saw potential in her. But in the end… only the strong make it.”
“You bastard,” Jack said. “If you’ve touched her in any way, I’ll—”
“What? You’ll what? Because right now I’d say the odds are pretty far against you. So what are you going to do, Jack? How are you going to handle this situation?”
There was so much Jack wanted to say. So many ways he wanted to stick up for himself, and for his people.
But in the end he could only take a deep breath and keep his cool.
“I’ll handle it,” he said. “One way or another. I always do.”
Matthew smiled. “I like that. It’s a shame you’re so dead set against us. You could be an asset. Alas, that’s never going to happen, is it?”
“Stop talking shit,” Jack said. “Just tell us what’s happened to Emma. Tell us… tell us what you’ve done with her. Tell us. Right now.”
Matthew looked into Jack’s eyes, that beaming smile on his face once again. “I like Emma. Really, I do. She’s a good kid.”
“Stop screwing around.”
“I’m not. She’s good. She’s tough. But she’s… well. Maybe she’s too tough. And in a way, that’s a problem.”
“If you’ve hurt her…”
“Again, Jack, I’ll save you the embarrassment. If I’ve hurt her, you’ll do nothing. You can’t do a thing. But I, on the other hand, can do something. Something I think you need. A lesson you need to learn.”
He stepped forward to Villain. Patted him, rubbed his head.
“Nice dog.”
“Don’t.”
He looked up at Jack, pistol in hand. He smiled. “Your dog looks tough. Loyal.”
“I said, don’t.”
Matthew took his hand from Villain.
He patted Nymeria, right on her head.
She backed away. Whimpered, just a little.
Villain growled protectively.
“This one, though…”
Matthew turned the gun to Nymeria’s head.
“She’s not strong enough.”
It all happened so quickly.
A deafening echo.
And just like that, Nymeria fell to the ground.
“No!” Jack shouted.
He tried to lunge forward, but there was someone behind him holding him.
And then the next thing he knew there were people around the rest of his people, too.
Holding them.
Stopping them getting away.
That gunshot still echoing through the air.
Matthew stayed crouched by Nymeria’s body. He petted her, rubbed her fur. Villain looked at her, sniffed at her, whimpered just a little.
“It’s a shame,” he said. “Weakness. It’s crippling. Devastating. And it’s a poison.”
“You’re insane,” Jack said, shaking.
“No,” Matthew said. “No, I’m far from insane. I see the problems with the world and I deal with them as pragmatically as I possibly can. Just like I’ll deal with this problem. And just like I dealt with Emma.”
Jack frowned. He felt his world caving in, everything collapsing around him.
“What… what did you…”
And then Matthew lifted something from the stream between them.
Something that filled Jack’s body with fear.
He didn’t realise what it was at first.
But it didn’t take long for it to sink in.
“Emma’s fine now,” Matthew said. “We’ve seen to her. You don’t have to worry about her anymore. Nor anyone else.”
He heard commotion around him. He was vaguely aware of people fighting back. Vaguely aware of his people shouting as they were dragged into the trees.
He was aware of Villain barking as he was dragged off, Mrs Fuzzles hissing as they pulled her away.
But all he could do was crouch there and stare at what Matthew was holding.
That hand.
That little girl’s hand.
Emma’s hand.
Severed.
He looked up at Matthew and saw the smile on his face.
“You don’t have to worry anymore,” he said.
And then Jack felt a crack against the back of his head and everything went black.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
When Jack opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was the severed hand.
He vomited right away. He hadn’t even had a chance to weigh up his surroundings or to figure out who was with him—if anyone. He didn’t even know how long he’d been unconscious.
All he knew was that it was still dark. A little lighter than before perhaps, but still the middle of the night.
And that severed hand still stared back at him.
He thought about the way Matthew lifted it. The way he’d revealed it. There was no doubting who it belonged to. Emma.
He’d captured her.
He’d done God knows what with her.
And in a sense, it was more what Jack didn’t see that haunted him most.
He didn’t know whether she was dead or alive.
But at the very least, she was suffering.
He looked to the side of the severed hand. Saw Nymeria lying there, peaceful, dead. He felt so sad to see her like this. He hadn’t known her for long, but she’d been a timid dog. She’d survived this far, only for an evil bastard to snuff her out, and for what? Just to show how powerful he was? Just to torture Jack even more?
He swallowed a lump in his throat, the taste of vomit clinging to his lips. “I’m sorry, Nymeria. I’m so sorry.”
He patted her.
It already felt like life had left her long ago.
He looked around, then. He was still in the woods, still by that stream. He could feel specks of rain falling all around him; feel their coldness against his skin.
He looked over his shoulder, the desperation building.
Nobody was here.
He was alone.
He stood. Staggered across the stream, over to where Matthew had stood. H
is head ached. When he touched it, he saw blood on his fingers. He needed to stitch it up. Clean it.
But that could wait.
“Hazel!”
His voice echoed around the woods.
There was no response.
He stumbled even further through the trees. He was aimless, directionless. He couldn’t see any sign of life. How long had he been unconscious?
He hoped it wasn’t long.
He couldn’t bear to think his people were so far away from him.
He staggered further through the woods, desperation building. He ended up turning back on himself, heading over the stream once again. He kept on looking either side like there was something hiding there, something he hadn’t seen; something he was missing.
But there was nothing.
He stopped and fell to his knees, right by the side of that hand, and right by Nymeria.
He thought of Hazel. Candice. Bella.
But mostly he thought of Villain.
Villain had been by his side all these years.
And now he’d lost him.
But it could’ve been so much worse.
Villain could’ve been the one who’d taken the bullet.
He could’ve been the one who was shot, right before his eyes.
But that didn’t make it any better or any more comforting.
He had no idea what kind of fate the rest of his people or his dog were facing.
He’d seen what Matthew had done to Nymeria, and he’d seen the condition he’d found Emma’s hand in, and he felt like nothing was off the table.
The rain fell down heavier. Somewhere overhead, in the distance, he heard thunder rumbling. He thought about how they’d celebrate this turn in the weather if they were back at the caravan site. He thought about the way they’d collect water, the way they’d store it as well as they could.
And then he thought further back, to the farm. He thought about Yuri and his people. He wondered whether they were still there, whether they were managing that place.
He thought about all he’d had, and all he’d lost.
And then he tensed his fists and stood again.
He marched off, staggering through the stream once more. He headed into the trees. Rain lashed down heavier now. Thunder rumbled all around him. Every now and then, he saw a flash of lightning as rain drenched him to the bone.
“Hazel! Bella! Candice!”
He shouted their names and all he heard were echoes.
He kept on walking, then his walk picked up to a jog which became a run. He didn’t know if he was heading in the right direction or not. Only that he had to do something, because if he gave up, he was giving up on those he cared about. If he gave up… he was admitting defeat, all over again.
He thought about how he hadn’t wanted to lead again. He thought about how he’d kidded himself that maybe, he could make the right call, just this once.
He thought about where it’d left him, and where he was going to go from here.
He thought about it as his run slowed to a jog, and his jog slowed to a walk, and then he stopped and planted his hands on his knees.
“Villain,” he muttered.
But there was no response.
There was no movement.
Nothing but the thunder.
The lightning.
The rain.
He was alone.
And he had no idea what he was going to do about it.
Chapter Forty
Emma felt dizzy when she opened her eyes.
She was in the darkness again. Only it wasn’t the same darkness as before. She could see things. Lights. Movement. Trees. All kinds of things.
But she couldn’t make sense of them. She couldn’t place them.
All because of that aching sensation, all the way across her right arm.
She didn’t remember how she’d got here. She knew there was something with Matthew. A challenge. A task. A way of proving herself loyal.
But she’d had a lot of dreams. A lot of visions. She didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t, not anymore.
It was when she looked down at her right arm that everything came crashing back.
The stream.
Crouched by Matthew’s side.
Grabbing that sharp rock and swinging it towards his neck.
Only he’d grabbed her hand.
He’d stopped it in thin air.
Then he’d bent it back and…
She didn’t want to think about the rest.
It was too painful to think about.
She tried to move but she was stuck. It felt like the middle of her body was tied to something. She went to open her mouth, but there was something blocking her lips. She wanted to cry. Her hand was gone. He’d taken it from her. It was over. Everything was over.
What good was she when she was missing a hand?
She cried silently as she sat there in this place she didn’t even recognise. She could see people in white moving past her through her tears; flames lit as they ate over barbecues. She figured she knew where this place was. It was Matthew’s camp. Only she wasn’t in a tent anymore. She was outside.
And she was being forced to watch the construction of something.
It was a large wooden construct. It looked like some kind of nest built on top of a wooden structure.
She could see a few people padding it out and she dreaded to think what was going to be inside there.
She looked down at her hand and she cried again.
It had been cut, right at the top. They had done something to her after that. Pressed a hot piece of metal right against it, burned it to stop the bleeding.
That had hurt even more than the cut itself. As had the way they’d thrown some liquid over it, promising it’d disinfect it.
All of it was a hazy blur.
She just felt so lost.
There was only one comfort in all of this, and it was stupid. There was a series Mum and Dad used to watch on telly called Dead Days. She was too young to watch it, but all her friends spoke about it at school, so she tried to catch it whenever she could—without Mum and Dad knowing, of course. There was a girl in that series called Chloe. Something happened to Chloe. She lost a hand. And even though it looked like she wasn’t going to make it after that, she became so strong. She became a ruthless hero.
She was stronger for what she’d lost.
Chloe would always be her hero.
And she felt closer to her now than ever before.
Stupid, she knew. But she was exhausted, and she was trapped, and she was in agony.
She didn’t exactly have a lot to feel good about right now.
She had to take whatever small victories she could.
She heard footsteps approaching from the distance, and then she saw them.
Matthew led the way. Her skin crawled the moment she laid eyes on him. She remembered the way he used to look at her. The way she thought she could get through to him and make him see sense before she betrayed him.
But he was one step ahead.
Had he always been one step ahead?
She watched him enter the camp and then she saw something else.
The people alongside him.
The dog alongside them.
Hope filled her body. Tears poured down her face even more. She tried to kick out, to cry, to fight.
But there was nothing she could do but watch.
Hazel.
Candice.
Bella.
Villain.
All of them were here.
All of them had been captured.
All of them except…
She thought about Jack. Wherever he was out there, she hoped he was okay. She hoped he’d survived. Hoped he’d made it.
Because he was the only one who could lead these people.
She was starting to see him as a leader now more than ever before.
She tried to call out to those people again when she saw someone else.
Th
e woman.
She looked over at Emma with a glimmer of regret in her eyes.
And then she kept on walking, ushering the group to follow.
Emma could only sit there and watch as her friends were captured.
And she could only stay totally still as Matthew took a detour and walked over to her.
He stopped right before her. Crouched down. “How’s the arm?”
She breathed heavily. She wanted to look away, but she kept hateful eye contact with him at all times, holding that look of strength, not wanting to show a glimmer of weakness.
His smile widened. “You are a tough kid. Now we’ll see just how tough you are when we deal with your friends.”
He put a hand on her cheek and wiped away a tear.
“We’ll see just how strong you are in the face of losing everything you care about.”
She couldn’t hold her nerve, then.
She cried out. Kicked out. Behind her gag, she screamed.
All Matthew did was stand there.
All he did was watch.
“Rest, Emma,” he said. “We’ve got a long day ahead tomorrow. I don’t want you burned out for tomorrow night’s festival. There’ll be more than enough burning going on anyway.”
He turned around and walked away as Emma kicked and screamed.
All she could do was watch.
All she could do was cry.
And as Matthew disappeared from sight and she was left on her own again, Emma knew she couldn’t keep pretending to be strong anymore.
Chapter Forty-One
When the sun rose, Jack was no closer to finding his people or his dog, and he had pretty much given up.
The rain had stopped. There was a nice smell to the air; that fresh earthiness that always followed a storm. The air felt a little cooler; the birds were singing louder than they usually did. One might even say it was peaceful.
But there was nothing peaceful about Jack’s predicament.
He was drenched to the bone. His clothes were soggy. He’d spent the night interspersing his time between walking aimlessly and resting on damp ground.
And today was proceeding in much the same way.
Even if he knew it was completely pointless.