by Nikki Owen
‘My baby—’ she says, eyes rolling in her head. ‘It’s her … birthday …’ Blood loops round her ear now, pooling in the well inside it, and she drifts in and out of consciousness.
I pause at the sight of her, my brain stuck, torn between helping and running.
‘Maria?’ Balthus. ‘Are you okay?’
‘She is injured. I should help her.’
‘What? No. No! Is she down?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then go. Go!’
Swallowing, unsure what to do, but knowing Balthus is right, I secure the cell phone, turn, then, throwing one last glance at Dr Andersson’s broken body, I hobble away as fast as I can. But as I drag myself across the room somehow, Dr Andersson crawls up, fast and unexpected, catching me slap at the ankle.
‘Give me … the gun,’ she yells.
She fells me, topples me to the ground, clambering to my chest, fingers finding my throat where they squeeze hard. I choke, gasp for air. My arms stretch out as far as they can, the gun still in my fingers, but it is slipping now, teetering on the tips. My legs flap, nails scratch at her as I try to wrench her off me, but she presses harder, her hands nearly at my fingers now where the gun seesaws, teetering between life and death.
Tears roll down her cheeks. ‘I’m so sorry. I hate doing this.’
I feel myself begin to asphyxiate and it is hard to retain a grip on anything at all, the room swaying, my eyes bulging, about to explode. I look round at the torn articles on the floor, at the images of the friends and family that, without ever telling them, I do love. I thrash, yell, but Dr Andersson just digs in harder, strength coming from somewhere, her blue eyes fixed on mine, the sun shining on us and I feel it, there, its heat, and my mind goes to Papa, to his face and eye creases and his complete and utter acceptance of me for who I am.
I have almost no oxygen reserves left.
‘Ssssh,’ Dr Andersson says to me now. ‘It will all be over soon. Sssh.’
A warmth spreads over me, trickling at first then rushing in as, one after the other, faces swim before me—Balthus, Patricia, Harry, Ramon, Mama. And seeing them, watching the contours on their expressions, the grooves and lines, I start to believe that when I die, I will no longer be lonely and awkward and hunted down, but happy and free and regarded as normal.
‘Maria? Maria, fight her!’
Balthus? His voice swims into my head.
‘Maria,’ he shouts, ‘don’t let them win! Don’t let them win!’
His voice, hearing it—it sparks something within me, something that takes hold of the last flicker of a flame inside me. My fingers wriggle. Slow then picking up speed, I find, from somewhere, a fight, a strength and, instead of letting it slip from my hand, I begin to clutch the gun until my knuckles turn white and my breath grows strong. ‘Prepare. Wait,’ words whisper in my head. ‘Engage.’
I force myself to look straight at Dr Andersson and, gripping the gun as hard as I can, I make myself focus, make myself do what I am alarmed I’ve been trained to do, what I must do to survive.
I twist my torso.
‘No!’ Dr Andersson yells, eyes wide at the sight of the gun. ‘No. No … Her …her name is Briony. She’s three today. Three. I … I can’t let you get away. I can’t let you stop me.’ And then she goes to press down harder on my mouth, squeezing out the air.
And so I grip the gun hard.
And I shoot.
Chapter 10
Undisclosed confinement location—present day
Patricia is singing again. The song drifts in and out of my head as if in a dream, the melody and lyrics soothing, rocking me into a state of peace and calm as I think about the drug in my arm, the hallucinations.
The heat in the room appears to have increased. Sweat now drips from my body and while I know I am clothed, for the first time I begin to think about what I am wearing. Can I rip any of it off to cool me down?
‘Can you see me?’ I ask Patricia. ‘I want you to tell me what I am wearing.’
She stops singing and sighs. ‘Doc, you know I can’t see you. You know, really, that that’s impossible.’
‘It is not impossible.’
‘Yep. It is.’
Unsure what she means, I look to my arm and to the needle, to my body, my clothes. I can see nothing. The weak light that was there before has now gone, leaving a dark, dripping heat in its place, and every movement of my muscles is heavy, thick with fatigue.
We remain for a while as we are. Now and then Patricia will talk about how we may have arrived here, where the Project are, if they are watching us, but each time one of us attempts to conjure any significant recollection of our journey here, our minds come up blank.
Four, perhaps five minutes of silence pass when there is a sudden sound, the first we have heard at higher volume since we awoke in this dank, foul place.
‘Hey, Doc, can you hear that?’
‘Yes.’
It is there in the air—a ticking, a soft put, put.
‘That sounds like the stand thing, you know, the drip they had me hooked up to when I was in the hospital ward at Goldmouth.’
I listen to her words. The drip. The one she was hooked up to after she tried to commit suicide in prison. Put, put. Put, put. She is right. My brain begins to tick, firing now at the possibility of the hope of some kind of answer.
‘How close do you calculate you are to the sound?’ I ask, sitting up, alert.
‘Dunno. I’m not as hot on this maths stuff as you are. Say a metre away, something like that?’
‘No. That cannot be correct. That would mean that you are closer to the sound than I am.’
‘Well, yeah. Of course.’
‘That does not make sense.’
‘Doc, nothing makes sense in here.’
Put, put.
‘There!’ Patricia says. ‘I hear it again.’
The clicking sound hovers in the air now, hanging near us.
‘Doc, do you think, like, it’s got something to do with your arm, that sound?’
‘No. It is not …’ I stop, think. She is right—of course she is right. The needle. A drip. I whip my head to the side. ‘Have you got your bracelet on?’
‘Huh? Yeah, my mam’s one. Why?’
‘Twist your wrist.’
‘Uh, okay.’
‘Are you doing it?’
‘Yes. Hold your horses.’
‘Horses?’
Patricia moves her wrist, and at first nothing happens but then, slowly, a tiny shaft of light appears.
‘There must be some small bit of light. It is now reflecting on your bracelet. Keep moving your wrist.’
The bracelet reflection affords a shred of brightness across my body and I begin to look. At first, nothing appears, only a snapshot of my limbs, my knees, legs, but then, as Patricia’s arm moves some more, it happens. Inch by inch, upwards, light slithering towards my arm.
‘Can you see anything yet, Doc?’
There is a glint where the needle pierces my vein then it fades. ‘Move your arm again.’
‘This is hurting now, Doc.’
As the weak light returns, the glint comes again, stronger this time and, gradually, like clouds parting in the sky, what lies underneath is revealed.
I gasp.
‘What, Doc? What is it?’
I shut my eyes, open them, but it is still there.
‘Huh? What? What can you see?’
Sweat slices my head, confusion, deep-rooted fear. ‘There is a drip.’ I narrow my eyes, desperate to see anything I can. ‘It is … It is hooked up to a metal medical stand.’
‘I told you.’
‘There is a tube and it is … it is linked to the drip bag.’
‘That must contain the drugs.’
‘Yes, and …’ I stop, every muscle in my body freezing rigid.
‘Doc?’
Suddenly, everything makes sense. The put, put sound. Why the hallucinations only come in phases. Why I cannot move my arms.
‘There is a timer,’ I say after a moment.
‘What?’
I look back to the device, to the stand and the drug bag. ‘The drugs are being administered through a controlled, preset timer.’
Salamancan Mountains, Spain.
33 hours and 54 minutes to confinement
Dr Andersson’s body drops sideways, falling on top of me.
I push her off and choke, her body thudding to the floor, arms slapping to the tiles, and for some reason I notice for the first time that her fingernails are painted crimson, hanging now in long, sleek shapes.
I stare at them, cannot pull my eyes away, my hands rubbing at my throat over and over, skin red, sore, every atom in me screaming for oxygen. A moan escapes my lips.
‘Maria?’ Balthus yells. ‘What’s happening?’
I stare at Dr Andersson and her fingernails, and I moan again and again, rocking gently now, back and forth. There is a small round circle one centimetre in diameter in her forehead, a single line of blood trickling from it, same colour as the lacquer.
‘She is dead,’ I say to Balthus.
‘Oh, Jesus.’
A damp circle the size of a dinner plate spreads on Dr Andersson’s jacket. It drips to the tiles, painting them red, and at first, paralysed by the sight, I cannot understand why there is a hole in her head while it is her shirt that oozes. Finally, I drag my eyes away from the growing pool on her chest as, slowly, the reality of what I have done begins to sink in.
‘I shot her twice.’
‘Maria, it’s okay. Maria?’
I drop the gun, crawl over, quick, and without thinking, roll the body over. There is a deep red stain shrouding the dark T-shirt on her chest where the bullet entered, shattering her rib cage.
‘No,’ I say, a whisper at first then louder. ‘No, no, no!’ I shout as my hands grope Dr Andersson’s torso, desperate to stem the blood loss, to close up the gaping hole that has ripped open her skin, bones, heart and head.
‘Maria? Maria, talk to me.’
‘I killed her.’
‘Okay. Okay, I know, I know, but it’s okay.’
I look at her breathless body, at my hands soaked in her blood. ‘No. It is not. Killing is not okay. It was her daughter’s birthday today. Oh my God. Oh my God, oh my God.’
Then, barely realising what or why I am doing it, I find myself slapping Dr Andersson’s face, rattling her shoulders, frantic for her to open her eyes, wake up.
‘Who else has the Project trained?’ I yell at her. ‘Who was Raven? Who was she? Why did you just not refuse to come here? Then you would still be alive! You would still see your daughter! Daughters need their mothers.’ Fat tears fall down my face. ‘They need their mothers.’
‘Maria!’ Balthus yells. ‘Stop!’
But I shake Dr Andersson’s dead body again and again, an anger I don’t understand surging inside me, gripping me tight at the chest, making me pant, making my eyes blur and my head drop. I give her body another shake, her skull flopping to the side, when something falls out of the inside of her jacket.
I halt, pick it up. It is a piece of paper, pink, confidential, A4 in size. Slumping back, I wipe snot from my face and peel open the paper. What I see shocks me to the core.
‘It … it is my family.’
‘What?
I slap the paper to the floor, smoothing it out as what I see sinks in. ‘There is a file containing pictures of you, Mama, Ramon and Patricia.’
‘What? Where was it? With Dr Andersson?’
‘Yes.’ My hands shake.
‘What does it say?’
My eyes scan it all, not believing what I can see, that they would do this, say this—believe this is right. ‘There is one word next to your name and to Patricia’s name,’ I say after a moment.
‘What?’
My eyes swim, head struggles to accept it. But finally, I say it aloud. ‘Locate.’
I drop the paper to the floor as my limbs, back, legs begin to shake uncontrollably. ‘They are looking for you. They know you are both my friends. They realise you know about the Project.’
‘And MI5 want all connections to the Project eliminated.’ He exhales hard and heavy, and when he next speaks, his words are low and slow. ‘Look … Look, Maria,’ Balthus says. ‘I know this is … this is not a good situation. But … but right now, you have to focus. You heard what Dr Andersson said before—she was looking for a file. It could be the same file you remembered in your flashback.’
Slowly, I pick up the paper again, eyes glancing to the blood, to the crimson nail-polished fingers. I open it up, the paper. I open it up and force myself to look at it again. ‘They want to monitor you all.’
‘Okay. Hang on a second. Let’s look at this one step at a time. First off, we have to get you out of there. The Project will trace you any time soon. And if you go now you could find the file, figure out where it is. Maria, that file, its contents, it could stop it all.’
He halts now, his breathing only drifting on the phone line. I think about his words, look again at the images of the people I love. My jaw clenches. ‘You are all in danger because of me.’
‘No,’ Balthus says, immediately. ‘No. This is because of the Project, because of MI5. But you can help. You can do something.’ He pauses. ‘Maria, you can stop it. You find the file, you end the Project, you end MI5’s involvement in it—you end it all.’
I rub my eyes. Is he right? Can I really end it all? Should I? Eliminate. The word swirls around my head, mixing with the image of Raven, with her voice, with her caramel skin and her cries for help. Why can I not remember everything? Where is that file? Papa has died. Harry has died. The thought of it, the agony and confusion and inability through all my life to talk about what has happened to me, to express deep in the pit of my soul how it makes me feel—it drags me in, creates something inside me that I do not fully understand, but will not go. An anger. A deep-rooted belief that what is happening—what has happened—is wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
I whip forward, and, almost disregarding the blood now, disregarding the limp body of a woman that I myself have killed and the horror that creates, the lives beyond hers that I have just changed forever, I tap down Dr Andersson’s chest and arms and legs with my palms until I find what I am looking for: her cell phone.
I stand. I grab the pink confidential paper and, flipping Dr Andersson’s blood-smeared cell phone in my fingers, I rip open the back, unclip the SIM then locate a tiny black device, yank it out and, dropping it to the floor, grab the iron bar from the floor and bring it down hard on the black mechanical piece. Noise splinters the air and the device shatters into tiny pieces.
‘Maria? What’s going on?’
My feet still bare, I kick the shards away. ‘There was a GPS tracker in Dr Andersson’s phone—I just destroyed it.’
‘Won’t that alert MI5?’
‘Yes. I estimate I have approximately eight minutes to vacate the villa. I have her SIM card.’
‘Shit. Shit, shit shit.’
Next I turn, drag myself to the crate, find a box of matches among the mess and, lighting one, put the flame to the pink confidential paper until nothing is left but charred black flakes.
‘Maria, what are you doing? Where are you going now?’
I pick up the two halves of the photograph of Papa and, hobbling across to the only two sets of stacked books that remain upright in the corner, I extract my hidden notebook, relieved it has been untouched and unfound, and shuffle towards the bedroom door. ‘I am going to take the bullet out of my leg.’
Chapter 11
Salamancan Mountains, Spain.
33 hours and 48 minutes to confinement
Pushing open the door, my wound screaming, I jam my hip into the bed, slamming the old wooden frame across the room, and fall to the floor. There, in the centre, is a trap door. I scramble over to it. A wire, transparent, thin and barely visible to the naked eye stretches across the space and, gulping in oxygen, I track
it as slowly and carefully as I can. To my relief, the wire is in its place meaning the latch has not been tampered with.
‘How much time’s remaining before MI5 get there?’ Balthus asks.
‘Seven minutes and forty seconds,’ I say immediately, consulting only the clock that now ticks in my head. I scour my bedroom. The walls in the room are white and bare, there is only one glass by the bed, one pillow, one small set of drawers and one book by Jean-Paul Sartre entitled Nausea.
Moving the book aside, I pull out a rucksack from the trap door under my bed. It is a small, pre-packed, ready to go bag, and, unzipping it, I check the contents. One loaded USB stick with all the encrypted Project data I have found so far, food, water, pay as you go cell phones. I pause, look at it all then, lowering it down carefully, I add in my notebook and the torn picture of Papa and me. The sun peeking in between the muslin curtains that hang from the small window to the left of the bed, I look at the image for two seconds then, shoving it away, haul myself up and stagger to the bathroom.
Scorching heat sears my thigh, walking having worsened the wound. Bending down, I study it. There is blood oozing out, the bullet hole shallow, perhaps five, maybe six millimetres in diameter. I deliberate what to do. If I leave the wound, if I ignore it entirely, then no matter how far I want to run, I will not make it. My eyes glance at the injury one more time. There is only one answer. My original thought was the right one: the bullet has to come out.
‘Maria,’ Balthus says. ‘Time left?’
‘Seven minutes and three seconds.’
Staggering across to the en suite, I slap open the door. My sight is a little blurred, the lower blood pressure from the gunshot wound taking its toll, but I manage to sway into the small, windowless room, scraping against the white enamel bath, a brush of blood painting the edges as I pass. My eyes take in the mirrored cupboard and in it my reflection. The sight shocks me. There are small, sharp lacerations to my neck, and where Dr Andersson attempted to suffocate me, deep purple bruises now sprout in the shape of her small fingers. My blonde spiked hair is matted with sweat, eyes dark and heavy, and when I stare in closer, my cheeks that only one year ago were rounded now look sunken and drained, the muscles clutching onto my bones.