by Nikki Owen
I clamber back over the seat and slam myself down, immediately checking that my rucksack and notebook and belongings are safe.
‘Stop the car,’ I say.
‘Roger that.’
‘Who is Roger?’
This time he slams on the brakes and we come to an abrupt halt, our bodies flying forwards then smashing back.
‘Jesus, that was close,’ Chris says, exhaling hard and heavy. He wipes his forehead. ‘I mean, fuck. I could see right over the edge and, God my arm is killing me and—’ I undo my seatbelt ‘—the road was like, there one minute, gone the next. Shit, is that van we saw anywhere near? I mean—’
I climb onto Chris
‘Hey! What the fuck are you doing?’
I straddle him and, ripping off his sleeve, check his wound. ‘I am a doctor. You have been shot. I can help you.’
He mutters something, but my focus is fixed on his arm. I expect, from his reaction, from his previous cries of pain, to see a deep, serious wound, but it is simply grazed, the outer skin layer peppered with glass shrapnel with no bullet entry at all. I let my shoulders relax a little and exhale. ‘You’ve not been shot. Your outer epidermis is grazed.’
‘Huh?’ He looks to his arm.
I immediately drop to the floor, search for the bullet, finding it lodged in the footwell by Chris’s trainer.
‘Hey!’ he says.
I pick up the bullet and, clambering back over him, drag out my notebook and check my data. I locate the make of the bullet in three seconds, holding it in the air into the fading sunshine as I understand completely what I am looking at: it is Project ammunition. I have used it before, I just do not know when or where.
Chris leans over. ‘Hey—your drawing is the same as the bullet. How the fuck is that possible?’
I slap my notebook shut and, pocketing the bullet, I slip over a protesting Chris, open his car door and jump to the ground. I am immediately hit by the heavy, rain-threatened air. It is warm on my skin, a soothing silk after the rough chaos, the wet, pungent aroma of vegetation from the mountains hitting my nose, calming me, for some reason, and, even though I know I shouldn’t, that we could be followed again, I allow my body a rest for three seconds against the bonnet of the dusty car as I close my eyes, images of the Project, of Dr Andersson and my ransacked villa with SIM cards and iron bars whipping through my mind. In the distance, in the earthly, majestic presence of the Montserrat mountain, wild goats snort and mew, bats click and squeal, geckos squawk and claw. Life, carrying on, oblivious.
I reach into the car and start to pull Chris out. ‘I will drive.’
‘Hey! Maria, what are you doing?’
I pause. This is the first time he has used my name since we met. ‘I am helping you. You are injured. I will drive.’
‘Yeah, but, you don’t have to drag me.
I can get myself out.’ I step back, uncertain at what to do. He is injured, he can’t drive, I can. It is logical, simple, so why did he push me away?
‘You are hurt,’ I say after a moment. ‘I am … I am trying to help.’
He blows out air. ‘Yeah, well,’ he says, dusting himself down, ‘dragging me out of the damn car without actually saying a word to me isn’t my idea of helping. You’re supposed to ask first.’
‘Oh.’ I remain very still, unsure what to do. Think. Patricia told me, in prison, that people like to hear the word please. Could that work now? I make myself look at Chris. ‘Christopher—’ I pause. ‘Chris. Please would you vacate the driver’s seat so I can drive? I would be a better driver than you at this current moment given your minor injury and mild shock from our near death fall. Plus, I am faster.’
At first, I do not believe he will move, so solid is his body in the seat. But then he does the Goofy stare and smile combination again, frowns and tuts, muttering, ‘For fuck sake,’ under his breath, and he jumps down from the car.
I slip into the driver’s seat as Chris takes the opposite side, go to switch on the ignition then pause, the keys left dangling mid-air. ‘I have trouble conversing with people.’
He looks at me. ‘You don’t say.’ His hair slips into his eyes and I can feel the gentle warmth of him, hear the one-two rhythm of his breath.
‘So,’ he says after a moment, ‘it’s just, you know, a shrapnel wound in my shoulder?’
‘Correct. The wound requires cleaning, but it is not serious.’
‘And you can drive fast?’
‘Of course.’
‘Good.’ He slips on his seatbelt. ‘Because I think the van that was following us is back.’
I jerk my eyes to the mirror. There is a black vehicle approaching at reasonable speed on the horizon. Slamming my foot flat on the gas pedal, I spin the car round and pull away fast.
The deep serrated mountain range around us remains unmoved, watching.
Chapter 18
Undisclosed confinement location—present day
When I awake, all I see is darkness.
Slowly, the room sways into focus and as I blink, the bulb above my head swings from the ceiling. I smack my lips together and feel a dry, crumbling sediment around the edges of them, saliva crackled from the effects of the drugs. At first woozy, I forget where I am and then, coming to a little, remember my situation and sit up with a start.
‘Ramon?’
‘You were out for a while.’
I squint to see my brother, the light above casting a pale, sallow glow on his skin. He is sitting on a crate one and a half metres in front of me. His legs are crossed and his arms are folded, and by his side sits a navy blue box with gold edging that, when the yellow stream passes over it, glows in the dark. I look behind him. The steps to the exit stretch out in the shadows.
‘Untie me,’ I croak.
He bends in then crouches forward. I immediately recoil.
‘Hey, hey, it’s okay, it’s okay.’ He holds up a hand, in it a plastic bottle. ‘I just have some water.’
I stay lodged backwards as gradually my sight drifts downwards. In his hand I can just see the outline of a clear plastic bottle and cup. He takes the cup, unscrews the bottle cap and, tipping his head to the left, pours some liquid and raises it to my lips. ‘Drink—you’ll feel better.’
I let Ramon put the cup to my lips and I sip. The liquid is cooling and I begin to gulp it down, water dribbling out of the corners of my mouth, down past my chin and onto my chest as the coolness of it all calms me where the drugs have raised my temperature.
The cup drained, Ramon moves back, drags the crate nearer to where I am and, reaching to his side, switches on a torch. A shaft of bright, white light instantly beams into the room, but my eyes are unused to it and I blink over and over, desperate to lift my hand to shield my eyes.
‘Do you feel better now?’
‘The light is too much for me,’ I manage to say.
‘Oh, of course. I forgot—sorry.’
He angles the torch to the left, uncrosses his legs and shifts in his seat. The rope on my wrists digs into me and there is a sickness in my stomach as the stench of mould takes hold.
‘You were talking in your sleep,’ he says.
‘I was not asleep. I was being drugged.’
He goes quiet. After a while, he says, ‘Do you remember how you used to run to me when you had a bad dream?’
‘Yes.’
‘Papa used to help you.’
‘Ramon,’ I say, ‘have the Project said they will hurt you if you don’t sit with me like this? Have they said they will hurt you if you take the needle out of my arm?’
‘What?’ He drops his foot to the floor.
‘The Project hurt people. They could hurt you. They could hurt Mama.’
‘M, I don’t know what you are talking about, but stop. No one is going to hurt Mama.’ He leans forward. ‘Especially not you. Not if I have anything to do with it.’
There’s a ripple of confusion and something else: fear. ‘What do you mean?’
He shakes
his head. ‘Drop it.’
‘Drop what?’
‘This. Here.’ He exhales. ‘All of it. Just stop.’
‘Stop what?’
‘All of it!’ His voice ricochets in my head as Ramon rounds on me now and gets so close to my face that I can barely intake a breath without breathing in his own exhaled carbon dioxide.
‘I love you, M, I do, but Jesus!’ He steps back now and I gasp out a breath, gulping hard as my chest feels as if it will burst from the pressure, but before I can really inhale again. Ramon is back, tears streaking down his face.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘M, I didn’t mean to shout, it’s just that …’ He trails off. ‘I am so worried about you. This—’ he gestures to the room ‘—this is the only answer.’
‘This …’ I pause, my throat scratchy, the fear in my gut one ball of lead now. ‘This is not the answer, Ramon. They are lying to you. The Project lie. They—’
‘Ssshh. Do you know this song?’ And then, out of the blue, he begins to sing. ‘At the gate of heaven little shoes they are selling …’
A crackle of worry prickles all over me now as I realise what my brother is singing: it is the lullaby Papa used to sing to me when he was alive, the same lullaby I used to hear in my nightmares when I would wake up in a sweat after dreaming about the Project.
‘For the little bare-footed angels there dwelling …’
My pulse starts to hammer into me and I raise my head and see my brother has closed his eyes, one hand rested on his chest, the other on the blue box beside him.
‘Slumber my baby, slumber my baby, slumber my baby, arru, arru.’
He ceases singing and keeps his eyes shut. I am shaking. I dart my eyes around the room, seeing the door bolted and shut with a small metal touch-pad box, and feel my entire body ripple and crack as I watch my brother hum now into the black air a song that, aside from me, only Papa and Black Eyes knew.
‘How do you know that song?’ I say, forcing the words out from my brain to my mouth.
But he does not answer, instead hums into the air.
‘Ramon, how do you know that song?’
He holds up one hand, palm side out and, opening his eyes so the liquid brown of them flashes in the white light of the torch that beams up in front of him, he ceases humming and places one hand on the box beside him and opens the lid.
‘I know it from your journal.’
Montserrat mountain road, nr. Barcelona.
25 hours and 33 minutes to confinement
I concentrate on the road. It is long, winding and, to the side trees stoop, buckled by the edge, half-crumbled buildings lying unwanted and forgotten in the dirt. Three minutes and thirteen seconds have passed and the van is still there, cruising at a normal pace behind us.
‘Do you think they are actually following us?’ Chris says.
I look, check. ‘I cannot say with certainty.’
‘So, let me get this right, this Project has been around for years and you only found out about it with Balthus when you were in prison?’
Chris has been questioning me about the Project and I have found myself telling him some of what I know. I do not know why, exactly. Perhaps, despite myself, I trust him. Knowing Balthus recommends him, for me, is an essential reassurance, but it is more than that—I like him, this Chris, and it makes me feel as if I can talk to him, that feeling, that odd emotion of what? Of pleasure? Happiness? It’s not something I am used to.
Chris falls quiet and clutches his shoulder and, when he loosens his grip, blood oozes between his fingers. I reach over, press his hand into the wound then glance into the rear mirror. The van is further in the distance now, moving at the same pace as we do, and no more. I calculate the time ratio in my head: the vehicle has slowed down.
‘It would be optimum to create a diversion now,’ I say, eyes still on the rear road.
‘Really?’ Chris turns, looks out the back mirror. ‘They are still following, but shouldn’t we just keep driving?’
‘Negative. It is too risky.’
Ahead, there is a sign for a town two kilometres to the east. ‘That place,’ I say, pointing. ‘Is it in the direction we need to go?’
Chris creaks forward. ‘Yes. I think so.’
‘You either know or you do not know.’
‘All right. Jesus.’ A pause. ‘Yes, it’s in the direction we need to go.’
I shoot one more glance to the rear then, flipping the car round, screech off towards the town. Chris’s phone bleeps.
‘Text,’ he says, ‘from Balthus. He’s there now, waiting for us.’
Two minutes later, I park the car down a dark lane and peer out of the window. The town is quiet and in the distance is a solitary branch breezing through a deserted alleyway. A warren of small dust roads, has allowed me to drive and backtrack on myself so that, when I check, the black van is nowhere to be seen. I pull on the handbrake and scan the area, instinctively calculating in my head ratios and trajectories and routes of easy escape, but the place is empty. There are no people in view, instead just sand-coloured, shuttered buildings, baskets of scorched beige grass rolling in the breeze, crumpled empty Coke cans and, upon first count, sixty-seven discarded cigarette butts. There is one by the front of the car and on it I can see an imprint of red lipstick around the circumference, and I find myself wondering who would have smoked it, where they were headed. I imagine a party, perhaps, with friends, all of them laughing as they swayed, arms interlocked along the road, happy, chatting, years of friendship behind and ahead of them. I’ve seen people do this. From afar.
I unbuckle my belt and kick open the door. ‘We need to go.’
‘Where?’
I walk seven paces and analyse the area. Neon lights blink on a building seventy metres ahead, and I have to shield my eyes as my brain registers and logs every single bright flash. I point to it. ‘What is that?’
Chris, clutching his arm, walks over. ‘Hey? Oh, some sort of inn or club, I guess.’
My hand stays propped on my brow. ‘If we head towards this club place, it could provide essential cover. It could help us slip out to another exit so we can locate another car perhaps, but there is a problem.’
‘What?’
‘Do you have any headphones in your car?’
‘What?’
‘Headphones. They are items placed in or over the ears, often used to listen to—’
‘No, no, I know what they are, just wondering why you need them.’
I look over to the neon lights, to the club, glance to the lipstick-smeared cigarette butt. ‘I have trouble with very loud noises, especially when they happen all at once,’ I say after a moment.
Chris smiles and it reaches his eyes, the smile, creases fanning, but it isn’t the goofy smile. This one is different, more downturned. ‘I have some headphones in the trunk,’ he says and goes to the car.
I watch him for a second and then my sight locks back onto the lipstick stain on the road.
‘Oh, shit.’
My head snaps up, expecting Chris’s swearing to indicate his wound to be worse, but instead he is staring down the road into the distance. I follow his eye line.
The van. It is back.
‘We have to go,’ I say. ‘Now.’
This time, Chris does not protest. He jumps out of the car, throws me my rucksack and the headphones, and we start to run.
A gunshot sounds. Then another, the sound hammering a hole in my head.
‘This way,’ I yell, pointing to the neon lights, both of us ducking.
One more gunshot cracks into the air. This time it flies past my head, clipping my ear and pain stings my skin, blood trickling down my neck.
‘You okay?’ Chris asks, but I do not reply. We negotiate a warren of rubbish bins, their height giving us good cover, and we reach the neon sign in under twenty seconds, stopping, panting for breath. A rat the size of my fist scurries past my feet.
I press my fingers to my ear and feel warm, sticky blood, but
no bullet, just a nicked surface wound. Another shot shatters the air.
‘What do we do?’ Chris yells.
I look at the flashing neon sign, at the scrawled black paint of the club façade, a faint hum of music pumping from inside. It’s going to be too loud for me, almost impossible, but it will provide cover, will scramble the trail of anyone following us. I grip the headphones tight and slide them into my ears.
‘We are going inside.’
As we move, the rat halts, stands on its hind legs then, slapping all fours to the ground, it runs away beneath the bowels of the building.
Chapter 19
Montserrat mountain village, nr. Barcelona.
25 hours and 28 minutes to confinement
The club, once we are inside, is heaving with a sea of people and it does not stop moving. The heat from the bodies is high and I sweat and stand near the entrance door and find that my feet won’t work. The ear buds are rammed into my ears, but even then the music, the deep rhythm of it penetrates my drums and every time the beat bass hits, it vibrates through the floor and shakes in my legs and bones.
My breathing becomes short. I try to focus, to fix my concentration on something, anything—my hands, the sensation of the buds in my ears—but I can feel myself slipping away, zoning out to deal with the chaos in my mind.
‘Whoa,’ Chris says, ‘cool. They’re playing Nirvana, Lithium.’ He stops. ‘Hey? Hey, are you okay?’
But I cannot answer. Lights are flashing now in all different primary colours of blue, green and red, creating secondary beams of orange, purple, yellow and pink. There is intense flashing of neon lights and I instantly zone out, incapable now of making myself focus on anything, and Chris, when I watch him, is speaking and I try to concentrate on what he is saying but my whole body and my entire head feel infiltrated and assaulted by the noise and the people and the bassline music so much that I struggle to determine the different sounds Chris’s words make.
‘Pull me away,’ I shout to him.
He cups a hand to his ear. ‘What?’
‘I said pull me away. Pull me to the other side of this club, now.’ I swallow. ‘Please.’