‘It’s okay,’ Merrick said, panting. ‘They go off automatically and then stop. This kind only tightens … if they activate it … you’re never quite sure if the bastards will do it … or not!’ He gasped as he ran. Lily was amazed at his stamina. Who were these kids?
They dodged behind another smaller building with trees planted along one side and kept going.
The noise from the bracelet did stop, leaving Lily’s ears ringing. The heat hit the back of her neck and shoulders and the air burned her throat. She shifted her head sideways to see another boy rounding the corner. He also carried someone over his shoulder, a girl.
As Lily watched, the boy stumbled and fell, catapulting his passenger onto the ground. He sprang to his feet and tried to pick her up, but cried out in pain, clutching his left arm. Lily saw that, like Ric, the boy she’d met on her escape over the Wall, this boy also had only one hand.
‘Leave her, Taddy. We don’t have time to stop,’ Sal yelled over her shoulder.
With one last despairing glance at the girl he’d left on the ground, the boy ran, catching them up quickly.
‘I dropped her! Oh shit, oh shit!’
‘Don’t worry, Taddy, we’ll come back,’ Merrick said. Then his legs buckled. Lily couldn’t put her hands out quickly enough and she fell awkwardly with her head twisted to one side.
‘Merrick’s been hit,’ Sal called out to Taddy.
Lily lay spreadeagled on the ground. She looked at the blood that was oozing through Merrick’s sleeve. His eyes were wide and his expression was stunned, but Lily was relieved to see he was still alive.
‘Help me pick him up, Tad!’ Sal said. Still carrying her person, she bent down and scooped up Merrick, flinging him over her other shoulder.
‘Can’t take you too, sorry,’ Taddy said to Lily, his face clenched with pain. ‘I have to help Sal. We’ll try and come back.’
‘Don’t go,’ Lily called desperately as he turned away.
Lily heard the grinding sound of Blacktrooper vehicles starting up, followed by the squeal of tyres. She forced herself up onto her knees and began to crawl in the direction Sal and Taddy had gone. There was a thick clump of bushes at the edge of the cement about twenty metres away. If she could only reach that cover, she might manage to shelter until she had regained some coordination and could make her own way to the Wall.
The white hospital gown kept getting caught under Lily’s knees, slowing her down. Her muscles burned and twitched and agonising tingles coursed up and down her legs. Halfway across the concrete her arms gave way and she toppled forward, grazing her face. With a grunt of impatience, she pushed herself up again and went on. She hadn’t gone far when a foot stamped on her back and she collapsed, lying flat on the hot cement.
‘Don’t move,’ a voice above her boomed. The heel ground into the small of her back, causing Lily to yelp. She looked up and saw a group of three Blacktroopers towering above her. One of them removed his boot from her back, inserted the toe under her stomach and flipped her over like a bug.
‘You think you can get away?’ he growled. ‘Stupid cow. You belong to us now. You’re not going anywhere, and neither are your friends.’
Lily lifted her arm to shade her eyes, but he stamped down on it hard. She gasped with pain.
‘If you’re so keen to get moving, you can crawl back inside,’ the trooper said. ‘Up.’ He kicked her and she flinched away, her reflexes slow ‘I said, get up!’
The other Blacktroopers laughed cruelly. They were like shiny cockroaches, their helmets and visors blacking out the sky, their savage mouths sucking away her oxygen. She struggled to breathe as they bent closer.
Then one of them lurched suddenly forward, flinging his arms out sideways. He sank to his knees. Blood seeped out from under his helmet. Slowly he crumpled to the ground. A second trooper clutched his arm, roaring with fury. There were outraged shouts, and the shriek of metal against metal. The remaining trooper, the one who had stood on her arm, reached for his weapon. There was the sound of rapid gunfire, a sharp cry and then he shuddered and slumped to the ground.
Standing where the trooper had just been was a boy Lily thought she recognised. He held a long thin blade and his eyes looked wild. Before she could speak, something struck her on the head.
Lily woke with the breath knocked from her body. She was sprawled across a boy and a girl in a tangle of arms and legs. The others were gasping for breath, too.
The Wall loomed above them, white and slimy in the heat. Lily looked around at the rubble and devastation. She had no idea how, but they were on the other side.
‘At least you’re finally awake,’ the girl underneath her said. ‘One of those Blacktrooper bastards cracked you over the head big time, but we paid him back.’
‘Yes,’ the boy smiled at Lily, a big, infectious grin. ‘He got you a good one and we had to carry you over the wall. Lucky for you, we broke your fall on this side. You have to get up now, though. We haven’t got much time.’ He shifted her off him and scrambled to his feet.
‘That was hard,’ he said to the girl. ‘Let’s try and make sure the next person we bring over is conscious.’
‘Too right,’ the girl said.
Lily thought she must be dreaming. She remembered the boy was called Kieran. He was the leader of the group that had found her outside Meredith’s house and taken her over the Wall the first time. The girl was Ingie.
Ingie was kneeling to untie a rope from around Lily’s waist. Kieran was adjusting his belt. A knife hung from the belt, along with a blunt-nosed gun and something that looked like a walkie-talkie.
‘Here, put these on,’ Ingie said, handing Lily a pair of hospital slippers with thin soles. ‘Nicked these off one of those old carer bags. You have to walk. We can’t carry you,’ she said.
Lily pulled herself upright with Ingie’s help. She shoved her feet into the too-large slippers. ‘Where did you come from back there?’ Lily asked.
‘Ingie and I were outside the facility, using our jamming device to screw up the centre’s electronic security system.’
He patted the gadget on his belt that looked like an old-fashioned walkie-talkie with an antenna.
‘A whole troop of Blacktroopers came after Merrick’s lot, but Ingie and I were in another location outside the facility and the troopers didn’t know we were there. We doubled back and saw them having a go at you, so we took ’em by surprise and knocked a few out.’
‘Did you use that on the one that attacked me?’ Lily said, pointing to Kieran’s knife.
‘Yes.’
‘Thanks for that,’ Lily said gravely. She realised she was thanking him for killing someone. Even though it was a Blacktrooper, it was still a human being. ‘Did Merrick and the others manage to get away?’ she said.
Ingie shrugged. ‘We’ll know soon enough. For now we just have to keep moving.’
‘Come on.’ Kieran gave Lily a little shove.
‘Look, I really appreciate that you risked your lives to save me, but I’m going back. I think my brother’s in that place. I can’t leave him,’ Lily said.
‘Are you kidding me?’ Ingie said. She shook her head, grinning. ‘You’re either stupidly brave or bravely stupid.’
But Kieran wasn’t laughing. ‘You can’t go back. Look at the state of you. We’re lucky we even got you this far. You won’t make it on your own and we’re not going back. Not yet.’
‘But there’s no way I can leave him there,’ Lily said, stubbornly.
‘We’ll find your brother. But first we have to make sure you’re healthy and safe,’ Kieran said, glancing down at her bracelet. ‘You won’t be much good to your brother dead.’
Lily opened her mouth, but the boy interrupted, ‘No arguments.’
Ingie nodded in agreement and Lily saw they weren’t going to be persuaded.
‘Okay, but do you promise you’ll help me later?’ Lily asked.
Kieran and Ingie said they would.
Lily’s legs wob
bled and she clutched Ingie. She knew they were right. She didn’t have the strength to go back on her own now. She started to move forward slowly. The sun was like something solid, pressing down on her.
‘Faster,’ Kieran said. ‘The jamming device we used to stuff up their surveillance systems doesn’t buy much time.’
‘How can you be sure it works?’ Lily said.
‘We’ve used it before. We know it disrupts the signals from their security cameras and radar so they can’t detect intruders. It can also block their cellular communications for up to eight kilometres. The trouble is, the battery doesn’t last.’
Kieran dragged Lily’s arm over his shoulder. ‘Hold on, we’ll help you, but you have to run.’ Kieran was no longer smiling.
‘The further away we get, the safer we’ll be.’ He pointed at Lily’s bracelet.
Dust flew up around her as Lily shuffled and stumbled along in an awkward lurching half-run. She desperately needed water, but she wasn’t going to ask. She didn’t want to be a nuisance. She would push herself. She would keep moving if it killed her. Anyway, the exhilaration of her rescue took away some of the pain. She had escaped. Again! She knew she was one of the lucky ones. Now she could start over. These people would help her. They would answer her questions. They would get her back inside the Wall to find Daniel. Kieran had promised.
Lily was hoping they would also help her rescue Alice. She’d do her best to convince them.
But Kieran was right, first things first. She had to get away properly this time, put as much distance as she could between the troopers and the Wall, and her parents and the draining facility. Just until she had more information and could make a proper plan.
Debris caught at her feet and more than once she fell onto her knees, but Kieran helped her up and she pushed on. They had entered a landscape with broken-down houses and the occasional stunted tree. Lily glanced back. Only the very top of the Wall was visible. She hoped they could slow down a little now that it was almost out of sight, but Kieran and Ingie actually picked up their pace, moving Lily along so rapidly that her feet were going from under her.
‘Here,’ Ingie said, at last.
‘No, it’s further,’ Kieran said, looking around distractedly. ‘Wait, you’re right. Okay. Are we sure no one’s trailing us?’
Ingie and Kieran checked behind them and then, satisfied, began to scrabble at a pile of brick and metal scraps. Lily looked on in confusion. The rubble had been piled haphazardly against the side of what looked like a broken-down shed. An edge of it’s rusted tin roof flapped in the hot wind. Thick red dust caked the outside walls and there were no windows. Within minutes, Kieran and Ingie had opened a small hole in the rubble.
‘Get in. Come on,’ Kieran said, pushing Lily through the jagged opening. He followed, and then Ingie, who immediately grabbed at scattered bricks and rubble, jamming the bits in to seal the hole behind them. They stood in near darkness with only the sound of the partially dislodged roof tapping in the wind. There was nothing inside except rubble and rubbish.
‘Sit.’ Kieran said, giving Lily a shove. She felt herself starting to panic as Kieran pushed her right down on her back on the floor and held her there. Ingie handed him an odd, long-handled implement. Someone had gone to the trouble of crudely flattening it’s ends and covering them with some kind of material.
Lily tried to twist away, but Kieran restrained her, sharply increasing the pressure to her shoulders. An image of him holding a bloodied knife came into Lily’s head.
‘What are you doing?’ she demanded.
‘Stay still and don’t move,’ Ingie said. She held out the implement to Kieran.
‘You do it,’ she said.
Hastily, Kieran positioned the implement on the floor next to Lily. He pulled her bracelet arm roughly away from her body, hooked the head of the tool under her bracelet and stepped back.
‘No!’ Lily screamed.
Ingie moved away and flattened herself against the wall of the shed.
‘Don’t move, cover your eyes and turn your head away,’ Kieran said. ‘Lean back as far as you can go. Just trust us, Lily. Don’t move!’ Kieran turned sideways.
Lily covered her eyes, but not completely. She needed to see what they were doing. Holding a hand over his eyes, Kieran lifted a foot and stamped as hard as he could on the flat lever end of the implement. The other end, some kind of metal cutter, bit down into the bracelet. There was a shocking flash of light that knocked Lily halfway across the floor of the shed. Shapes floated in front of her eyes and it was a second or two before she became aware of an intense pain in her hand. She tried to look at it, but her vision was still blurry, like she was looking through flaming gauze.
‘I can’t see,’ she gasped.
‘You shouldn’t have looked,’ Kieran said. ‘I told you not to,’ he muttered, shaking his head.
‘Yeah, but give her a break,’ Ingie said. ‘it’s hard when you have no idea what’s happening to you.’
‘The blindness is only temporary,’ Kieran said, more gently. ‘At least the bracelet’s off now.’
‘Yup, can’t hurt you anymore,’ Ingie said.
Lily felt something cool pressed to her eyes. ‘Hold onto this, give yourself time,’ Kieran said. He reached behind him. ‘And have some water.’
Lily drained the water from the bottle he gave her and pressed the moist cloth against her eyes. The inside of her eyelids shone back. She couldn’t escape the terrible glare.
Lily removed the cloth after a few minutes and squinted down at her arm. She lifted her hand up close to her eyes and saw that it was covered with blood.
‘Lie down and put the cloth back over your eyes,’ Kieran said. ‘Sorry about that. We had to get the bracelet off quickly. There was no time for discussion.’
‘What happened?’ Her voice trembled and she pulled the cloth away again.
‘You looked when you shouldn’t have. When we cut the bracelets, they explode. You can’t stop it, you just have to try and limit the damage. If you tried to do it yourself, it’s most likely you’d be blinded and probably electrocuted as well.’
Lily’s eyes were starting to return to normal.
‘Thank you,’ Lily said, looking at Kieran.
Kieran gave her a half-smile. He had beautiful eyes. Lily suddenly wanted him to smile at her again, properly.
‘What is this place?’ Lily said.
‘It’s a storage shed. We keep the cutter here for people like you. We have to stash it near the Wall because the bracelets have to come off as soon as we get over. Sometimes we’re not quick enough,’ he said.
Lily shuddered. ‘Thank you for helping me,’ she said.
Kieran pulled a small tin first-aid kit from behind a pile of rubble and quickly cleaned and bandaged her wrist.
When he’d finished Ingie flipped the box closed, jammed it and the cutter into the corner and piled the planks over them.
‘Why didn’t they activate the bracelet?’ Lily said.
Kieran shrugged. ‘Who knows? They’re totally unpredictable. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t. Maybe they’re going to try and track you. They probably would have activated it otherwise. They can do it from any distance.’ Kieran spoke matter-of-factly.
‘It would have tightened and cut off your hand,’ he said. ‘We often can’t get people back here in time after that happens. They bleed to death. If they’re lucky they lose only their hand.’ He shrugged. ‘it’s pretty grim.’
‘Like that boy, Taddy?’ Lily said.
‘Taddy was lucky he only lost a hand,’ Ingie said. ‘I’m not sure how lucky you are, though. If they didn’t activate the bracelet, maybe it’s because they want you back for more draining. That’s the only explanation I can think of. Still, there’s no point worrying about it now. We have to get going, pronto.’
‘Where to?’ Lily said.
‘A safe place,’ Kieran said shortly. ‘Don’t talk, walk.’
They hustled Lily outsid
e again, shored up the hole and set off.
TEN
The world beyond the Wall was dusty brown, a land in deepest drought. Bushes with thorny leaves bent under the weight of the heat. Dead eucalypts dotted the landscape.
Lily thought they’d been walking for more than an hour, maybe two, when they left the rubble zone and started threading their way through smashed-up houses. As far as she could see, no one was following.
Eventually, they reached an area where most of the houses were whole, but still vacant. Lily wondered where all the people had gone.
The air was like someone had blowtorched it. Lily had no hat and the white facility gown gave her no real protection from the relentless sun. The back of her head stung and her skin itched where the blood had dried. Her wrist was bleeding through the bandage. It took all her willpower to stay upright.
She reminded herself that Kieran and Ingie were putting themselves at risk to help her, so the least she could do was keep quiet and keep going. She lost all track of time, and the sun seemed to intensify rather than wane as the day wore on. Lily’s legs threatened to give way and getting air into her straining lungs was a major achievement. Kieran and Ingie’s breathing was also laboured. The stench of sweat filled the air.
They were silent, apart from the occasional word of encouragement. Kieran and Ingie looked behind them constantly. Lily wanted to believe that this time she had escaped for good. Now she had to find Daniel and Alice. She kept this thought in her head, repeating it as she put one bleeding foot in front of the next. Kieran and Ingie were red and filthy. Lily could only imagine what she looked like.
They stopped occasionally, sheltering briefly in broken-down buildings or gullies, before summoning the energy to continue.
‘How long have we been walking?’ Lily asked.
‘Probably about three or four hours,’ Ingie said.
Days Like This Page 10