‘Are you disobeying me?’ the warden growled, his rancid breath on my face. ‘Did you not hear what I ordered you to do? Kill him, now.’
Even before his last word was spoken I felt something slap me across the cheek. Stars exploded in my vision and I staggered back across the room. The blow hadn’t been hard so much as shocking, and I could feel the anger clawing up from my stomach. My pulse accelerated, the room growing darker as the nectar laced every vein and artery.
I swung round to the warden, my teeth clenched as tightly as my fists. He slapped me again, his hand moving so fast I didn’t even see it, and this time the anger flared like a fireball inside my head.
‘That’s better,’ the warden said. ‘Feel that power, that anger. You are a Soldier of Furnace, and I your commandant. You will do as I say.’
The nectar began to flood my mind, erasing everything but the hatred, the rage. I looked down at the kid, so small and weak. He was just like Ozzie, cowering for his life – a life that belonged to me, that was mine to spare or take as I wished.
Only he wasn’t cowering. He wasn’t weak. He was still glaring up at me, his eyes so bright that it was I who broke contact with them. I glanced at the blacksuits, their smiles wavering along with my will. They could finish off this kid with a single blow, and so could I. What the hell was wrong with me?
I turned to the warden for support. I could feel the panic surging through the anger, swimming up my throat like bile. His hand flashed, a solid punch that rocked me back. He followed it with two more slaps, one across each cheek. I roared in pain, a sound that seemed to come from every fibre in my body, and held up my fists to defend myself.
‘This is pathetic,’ the warden was screaming, specks of phlegm exploding from the corners of his mouth. ‘Are you so stupid that you don’t remember him trying to kill you, pushing a pillow over your face? The nectar has rejected him, it does not work on him. He can never be one of us. He must die!’
The warden slapped me again, and again, a flurry of strikes that made my blood boil. Then he took my arm and swung me round, pushing me towards the kid.
‘Now do it, or I swear I’ll kill you both myself and throw your corpses into the incinerator.’
I lifted my hand, feeling my muscles swell against my suit with such force that I thought I heard the fabric tear. The nectar thrashed inside me, desperate for blood, for vengeance, and before I knew what I was doing I had grabbed the tattered overalls around the boy’s chest. His body was brittle against my skin, nothing but parchment and dust. How could he die when he wasn’t properly alive?
I let one hand snake up to his throat, my huge, scarred fingers engulfing the twig of bone that served as his neck. One squeeze, one snap, is all it would take.
‘That’s it,’ came the warden’s voice from behind me. ‘Do it.’
‘You’ll feel better when it’s over,’ added one of the blacksuits. ‘Don’t think about it, just one hard twist and you’re done.’
I tightened my grip, the sting of the warden’s slaps like a branding iron on my face, fuelling the anger that stewed within. And still the kid didn’t look away, his eyes so fierce that they seemed to burn right through me.
‘You may as well just kill me,’ the boy said. The boy called Zee. ‘Because if you don’t then they will. And I’d rather it was you, Alex, even though you’re not you any more. After everything we’ve been through, I’d rather you killed me than them bastards.’
‘Shut up,’ I growled, feeling the pain like a blade across the surface of my brain. It opened up a hole in the darkness, letting out a memory that was so bright, so vibrant, that it took my breath away – me and Zee sitting on a bunk packed with gas-filled rubber gloves, laughing. It was there for an instant and then it vanished, plunging me back into the night.
‘Do it now,’ said the warden, his impatience like a fuse burning down to its last millimetre, ready to blow.
‘Yeah, just do it,’ Zee said. ‘I don’t want to be here any more. There is no way out except this way. You did it for Donovan, now do it for me, Alex. Do it for me. Let me go home.’
He thrust his head forward, pressing his throat against my hand, his eyes never leaving mine. I could feel his pulse against my palm, soft and fast like a bird’s.
‘Let me go home.’
Home. I didn’t even know what the word meant, but again the knife drew across my mind, freeing the memories imprisoned within. I saw the pair of us jumping into a river, saw us climbing a chimney, saw the glint of sunlight above us. And suddenly there were words in my head, words that I knew had nothing to do with the warden.
‘All for one,’ I spoke them aloud, my voice little more than a whisper. Something in Zee’s face seemed to change, his eyes widening.
‘And let’s get the hell out of here, Alex,’ he mouthed, so quietly that even I couldn’t hear him. But I knew what he meant. I remembered us saying it before. Gradually the nectar was ebbing away, sluiced from my mind to reveal the memories beneath. Donovan, Monty, my mum and dad and …
‘My name,’ I said, loosening the grip around Zee’s throat. ‘I remember my name.’
‘You have no name,’ the warden shrieked, his voice deafening in the small room. He spun me round and this time it was his hand around my throat, his grip like a vice. ‘You never had one. You didn’t exist until I made you. You belong to me!’
He raised his other hand as if to slap me, but before he could I snapped up my arm and caught his wrist. I looked him in the eye, and this time all I saw were two watery pupils which blinked at me in shock.
‘My name is Alex Sawyer,’ I hissed.
The warden opened his mouth but before anything could come out of it my fist connected with his nose. I let go of him and he staggered back, blood the colour of tar spraying from between the fingers he held up to his face. I followed with an uppercut to his stomach, sending him crashing down onto the stone.
The blacksuits were on me before I could turn round, a giant hand on the back of my head slamming me into the wall. I felt something inside my face crack but I’d been in this situation before and I knew how to handle the pain. The nectar pumped back into my heart, into my head, only this time it was on my side, the anger giving me strength.
Bracing my hands against the stone I pushed back as hard as I could. The guards were caught off balance, stumbling across the room. I turned in time to see Zee stick out a foot, sending one of the suits somersaulting into the far corner.
The other swung his head round to see what had happened, and when he looked back at me all he saw was my elbow. It caught him in the throat with a blow so solid I could feel the tremors travel through my spine, but it worked. He dropped to his knees, gasping for breaths that wouldn’t come.
I leapt across the room in a single stride, landing on the other suit’s chest as he tried to get up. His silver eyes became as wide as goblets, unable to believe what they were seeing, then they faded to a dull grey as I snapped his head round.
‘You were right,’ I said, getting to my feet. ‘One hard twist.’
‘Oh Jesus, oh Jesus, oh Jesus,’ I heard Zee’s chant and remembered that he was there, running to his chair and unfastening the straps that held him. He staggered to his feet, never taking his eyes off me. ‘Oh Jesus, Alex. What have they done to you?’
I looked at the dead blacksuit in the corner, then at the dying one by my feet, and finally at the warden who was leaving a trail of dark blood behind him as he crawled towards the open door. Then I looked at my hands, stained red.
‘They’ve given me what I need,’ I said, grinning. ‘They’ve given us what we need to get out of here.’
Even past the bruises and the blood I could see Zee’s smile blossom. He ran forward and wrapped his arms around me, his head now only reaching my chest. Then he sprung back, shaking his hands like they’d been stung.
‘Man, you’re burning up,’ he said.
‘Yeah,’ I replied. I was about to add more when I saw the warden pull
something from his jacket. Too late I noticed the square box he was holding with a panic button at its centre. He turned and glared up at me, his face curling into a sneer. Then he pressed down with his thumb and a siren blasted into the room.
‘Lockdown!’ said Zee, the deafening klaxon turning his shout to a whisper. ‘What do we do?’
I looked once again at the carnage inside the room, then grabbed Zee’s arm and dragged him towards the door.
‘We run.’
A DISTRACTION
We flew from the room, Zee kicking out at the warden’s head as we passed like he was taking a penalty. There was a jarring crack and the warden’s body flailed into the wall, more of that thick, black blood spurting from his lips.
‘Don’t you dare get up,’ Zee screamed, his face twisted into an expression of pure hatred. We didn’t hang around long enough to see if the warden would take our advice, swinging left into the corridor beyond and bolting towards the door.
‘Where are we going?’ Zee yelled over the siren. I stopped at the end of the passageway, twisting the handle and opening the door a fraction. My mind was a mess, my thoughts smashing against each other like boats in a hurricane, the nectar a storm cloud that threatened to plunge everything into darkness.
‘I have no idea,’ I said. ‘But we have to get out of here.’
And we did. Because when reinforcements arrived there would be no more tests, no more questions, no more torture. The warden would have us killed on the spot.
The room ahead was just as it had been when I’d walked through it minutes ago, the only sign of life the monsters in cages. The wheezer that had been cleaning its gloves was now standing, its black eyes watching us suspiciously through the crack in the door. I took a deep, ragged breath and straightened myself out, grabbing Zee roughly by the collar and dragging him into the ward.
‘What are you doing?’ he said, his tiny hands prising at my fingers and the whites of his eyes showing. He looked afraid and I didn’t blame him. He’d just seen me kill two blacksuits with my bare hands and he had no idea what I was capable of. Right then neither did I; the nectar was causing too much confusion.
‘Just trust me,’ I growled, the words more a vibration than a sound. I marched forward with as much confidence as I could muster, heading right for the wheezer. It cocked its head, its bubbling breath audible even over the alarm, but all it saw was a prisoner being escorted by a blacksuit and it quickly lost interest.
As soon as its head was turned I let go of Zee and charged. The chair it had been sitting on was in between me and it and I picked it up as I ran, swinging it like a baseball bat. It stuck the wheezer in its back, sinking into the porridge of flesh beneath the coat with a sound like feet being pulled from mud. The creature tumbled across the room, crashing into a cage and lying still.
‘Good shot,’ said Zee, but I could barely hear him because the noise in the room erupted. The creatures in the cages were screaming and barking and growling like it was feeding time, the sound of screeching metal letting me know that some of the bars weren’t going to hold.
‘Come on,’ I said, sprinting down the ward towards the far door. If we could just get out of here then we might be able to hide somewhere until the coast was clear.
But before we had made it halfway the door swung open to reveal six hulking shapes packed into the corridor. A dozen blazing silver eyes swung round the room before focusing on me. Maybe if I’d kept my cool, if I’d acted like one of them, they might have run right past me. But something in my hunched, defensive stance gave me away.
‘Get him,’ one of the blacksuits bellowed, raising his shotgun and letting off a round before he had even entered the room. I heard the pellets tear through the air, ricocheting off the stone, and dived for cover behind a cage. Zee threw himself to the ground next to me as the space we were standing in was torn to shreds by shotgun fire.
What now? I screamed at myself. I could feel the anger swelling up inside me again, feel the nectar urging me to fight. I’d beaten two blacksuits, but six or more, armed with guns? It wasn’t going to happen.
Something to my side bellowed, the roar dwarfing even the siren. I ducked instinctively, peering through my raised hands to see that we were right next to Gary’s cage. Even in the time since I’d last seen him he had grown bigger, and when he rammed his deformed fists against the barred door I saw one of the hinges fly clean off. He lashed out again, leaving knuckle-shaped indents in the metal. I could hear the thump of the blacksuits’ shoes, approaching cautiously, the pump of their guns.
Talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Zee’s fingers dug into my arm and I turned to see him watching with open-mouthed astonishment.
‘That’s … oh Jesus, Alex, that’s Gary,’ he said. I nodded, risking a peek round the side of the cage to see that the first wave of guards had been joined by several more. I barely got my head back in time before the air exploded into smoke and sparks.
‘We’re screwed,’ I said, blinking the fire from my eyes. ‘So screwed.’
Gary was winning his battle with the cage, using his trunk-like legs to pound one of the bolts from its casing. The door rattled alarmingly, his face behind the bars a mask of absolute rage. I saw the nectar still pumping into him from the IV bags, knew that the only thing going through his head was murder. If he got loose then he’d kill all of us, Zee and me and the blacksuits, without breaking a sweat.
Suddenly I knew what to do.
‘Get ready to run,’ I said to Zee. ‘Head round to the far side of the room, behind those cages. Get to the door.’
‘What are you going to do?’ he asked, shaking his head as if he already knew.
‘Something really, really stupid,’ I replied. ‘Now go!’
He didn’t hesitate, staying low as he ran close to the walls, keeping the cages between him and the guards for cover. I went to move and found that I couldn’t, fear rooting me to the spot. Then, with a choked cry of defiance, I threw myself towards Gary’s cage.
The creature inside reacted like lightning, angling its gnarled hand down and raking razored claws across my chest. I ignored the pain, reaching out and grabbing hold of the last bolt that secured his cage. I barely had time to slide it open and push myself away before Gary punched the door, snapping the remaining hinge and sending it spinning across the room.
The blacksuits were already firing at me, buckshot like a branding iron as it burned through my flesh. One blast struck me in the leg and I collapsed. It probably saved my life.
Gary burst from his cell like a rhino, unleashing another roar that shook the very stone on which I lay. One vast foot smashed down inches from my head, but before he could start on me I heard the blacksuits firing their weapons, felt the patter of hot blood on my skin as the beast above me was hit. And then he was gone, powering across the room towards his attackers.
‘Alex!’ Zee’s urgent cry forced me up, the agony of my shredded leg already fading as the nectar did its job. I ran directly across the room towards him, looking briefly to my side as I did.
It was a massacre. The creature that had once been Gary was tearing into the blacksuits like a kid playing with dolls. They didn’t stand a chance, their weapons skidding across the floor, their punches useless against Gary’s raw fury. In the space of a second or two the scene was masked by smoke and a mist of blood.
‘Are you crazy?’ demanded Zee. ‘The old Gary was bad enough, but –’
He didn’t get a chance to finish. Something flew over our heads, a black-clad lump that rained blood. I grabbed Zee’s arm again and ran, ducking round the back of the cages. Every now and again there would be a flash of red through the bars as Gary continued his work, but I focused on the path ahead, looping round the side of the room towards the far wall.
We didn’t stop when we saw the door, hurtling through it without looking back. There was another terrifying scream, but whether it was directed at us or at one of the suits we didn’t know a
nd it was soon lost as we slammed the door shut behind us. I grabbed the lock and twisted it, using all my strength to bend the metal round. It would take some effort to open it from the other side but I was pretty sure Gary wouldn’t have any trouble.
The corridor was so quiet after the hell we’d just been through that I thought I’d gone deaf. Then the siren broke through the frantic pumping of blood in my ears and I remembered we were a long way from safety. Staggering from the door I set off down the passageway, Zee by my side. We passed one of the storerooms and he pointed inside.
‘What about in there?’ he asked.
I peered in through the door, my eyes dissecting the darkness to reveal a grainy black and white room that was empty, and far too small to conceal ourselves in.
‘It’s not big enough,’ I said. ‘They’ll find us in seconds. Come on.’
I set off again before Zee could ask the question I saw in his expression.
‘I can see in the dark,’ I explained. ‘All the blacksuits can. It’s why our eyes are silver.’
‘You’re not a blacksuit,’ Zee said over the alarm. I felt his hands on my sleeve, pulling me to a halt, and turned to face him. ‘You’re not a blacksuit,’ he went on. ‘You said our eyes. But you’re not one of them, Alex, you’re one of us.’
I nodded, smiling. But I don’t know whether I believed him. I mean I looked like a blacksuit, I had the nectar in me. How long would it let me remember my old life before the darkness started to creep back in?
The sound of cages crashing to the floor behind us broke through the moment, spurring us on. Only one of the storerooms along the corridor was big enough to hide in, but even that wouldn’t conceal us for long. There was only one thing for it: we had to go through the infirmary, then out into the network of caves that circled the prison. Surely we could find a safe place there.
We reached the end of the passageway and Zee started to open the door. I heard the music first, a different song but the same haunting tone scratched out from the gramophone. As soon as the door was open, though, the woman’s voice was drowned out by the bone-dry squeals of the wheezers. I looked inside to see that most were still in their stalls, although some lurched across the middle of the ward as if trying to find the source of the siren.
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