Matilda’s eyes narrowed as she watched him. “The job must take its toll. Maybe it’s the only way to cope. The amount of people he’s known and lost, I’d imagine it would send him nuts if he bottled it all up. Come on.” She tugged on Spike’s shirt. “Let’s get out of here before someone finds us.”
The curiosity of an emotional Sarge kept Spike static. But when Matilda set off again, he ran after her.
Faster than him—always faster than him—Spike pushed his tired body to keep up with her, the uneven ground making his feet roll as they closed down on the gym.
Matilda vanished around the side of the larger building. A few seconds later, Spike followed her.
A ladder of wooden rungs ran up the back wall. By the time Spike got to them, Matilda had already climbed several feet up. They led all the way to the pitched roof at least fifteen feet above them. As he watched her climb, his focus more on her athletic form than anything else, he finally said, “What are you doing?”
Matilda didn’t even look back when she reached the roof and climbed onto it.
His hands still sore from his day’s work, his muscles tired, Spike shook his head before beginning his ascent.
The rungs were surprisingly easy to climb, a slight lip on the top of each one giving Spike something to hold onto. His sure grip helped him combat the stronger winds higher up.
At the top, Spike crawled over to Matilda.
Matilda grabbed Spike’s face with both her hands and kissed him, breathing in through her nose as if she drank him in. When she pulled away, her brown eyes sparkled. “I’ve been waiting to do that.”
“You brought me up here so we could kiss?”
“Is that not a good reason?”
“It’s a great reason.”
They kissed again, her taste as sweet as it had been on the factory roof.
Although Matilda had her hair tied up in the hummingbird clip, the wind found the loose strands and tossed them. They weren’t quite as high up as the wall, but Spike still had the best view he’d seen of the ruined city so far. He laughed as he looked at it.
“What?”
“Only you would want to climb up somewhere like this.”
“It’s been driving me nuts. I saw the rungs on the back wall a few weeks ago and have wanted to climb it ever since.”
“Like the barn roof when you were eight?”
“Do you always have to remind me?”
“It took me nearly an hour to find a ladder to get you down.”
“I know. I was the one who was stuck, remember?”
Spike laughed, watching the strands of her brown hair again. “I’m pleased you’re still wearing the clip.” He showed her his skull ring.
“Of course. I’ve only taken it off to clean it.” She then took his hand and traced a heart on his palm.
“When I saw you didn’t have it on, I thought you’d given up on me.”
“I gave up on hope. But I only took it off during training to clean it.” Before he could say anything else, Matilda smiled. “So … Hugh and Liz?”
“Sweet, isn’t it?”
“Are they a thing?”
“I guess so. They seem closer than before, and she touches him every chance she gets, but he hasn’t said anything to me.”
“Well, I hope they are. They suit each other.”
The weight of what Spike said next tugged on his heart. “But they’re from different districts and neither are protector material.”
“I’m sure they’re aware of that. They’ll work it out. They’re smart.”
“That’s very pragmatic of you.”
“I’m trying.”
“How do you think Artan’s getting on?”
Matilda turned away from him, her eyes glazing.
A minute or so passed before Spike said, “So that was weird earlier.”
She turned back. “What part?”
“Not team Phoenix; that was horrific. It doesn’t matter how many times they told us people will die, I didn’t expect it to happen so soon.”
“And for so many of them to go.”
“Right. No, I mean the bit where Lance questioned Sarge.”
“I hate to say it, but for a dullard, he asked some astute questions. If the diseased only last a few months, where are the new ones coming from? Surely they should have died out by now. It’s not like the few we evict every week can account for how many there are.”
Spike thought about Mr. P and his lover.
Matilda sighed. “But maybe we don’t need to know. Maybe it’s for our own good.”
As Spike thought about her words, he looked out at the ruined city again. Higher up than before, he studied the collapsed sprawl. The metal skeletons of old tower blocks, rubble everywhere … bridges broken off and with what looked like thick metal fibres poking from them … the ruins on the top of the hill … “I bet some of the answers are in there.”
“And you want to go and look?”
The devastated mess of broken buildings sent a shudder through him. “Doesn’t look like the friendliest place, does it?”
“No.”
“What do you think used to be on top of that hill?”
“I dunno, but it’s the first place I’d go. It looks like it used to be important to the city.”
He winked at her. “And it’s a chance to climb something.”
The creaking of large hinges pulled Spike and Matilda’s attention to the gates separating the national service area from the rest of Edin. A guard had opened them to let a horse and cart inside. “No idiot test today, then?” Spike said.
“Even that seems like a long time ago now. So much has happened.”
The driver flicked the reins to lead his horses on and passed beneath them. He carried barrels of bricks and water. “It makes my back hurt just looking at that lot.”
“Hard graft, isn’t it?”
Spike studied the half-built wall outside the gates. “When I first saw it, I thought we might be the ones to see it completed.”
“No chance. Maybe the next lot.”
At first, Spike looked nowhere in particular, but his gaze soon fell on the arena in the training area. “The ring seems so much smaller from up here.” Before Matilda replied, he saw a small wooden building he hadn’t seen from the ground. “What’s that?”
“Another dorm?”
“For the cadets on the trials?”
The door opened and someone walked out. A girl—not much older than Spike and Matilda—she stretched as if warming up for exercise. “I’d guess so,” Matilda said.
When the girl looked their way, both Spike and Matilda fell flat against the wooden roof.
A second of silence, Spike laughed. “That must have looked weird if she just saw us.”
“I know, right? Hopefully she’s written it off as her imagination. The stress of the trials is already sending her nutty.”
Spike’s heart beat faster from fear of rejection, but when he reached an arm up and shifted closer to Matilda, he relaxed to feel her pull in next to him.
“You know that means you’re going to have to live with Ranger for five months, right?”
“I hadn’t thought about that. Even though he’s losing the plot, he’s guaranteed to be in the trials at the end of this.”
“Yep.”
“I’ll beat him. Although, after my run-in with Magma today …”
“You had a run-in with him?”
“Well, a silent one.”
“Sounds ferocious.”
“It’s serious.”
“Sorry. Go ahead.”
“When he came back from his day, I watched him looking at team Bigfoot for Ranger. He then looked at me, catching me watching him.”
“That’s a lot of watching.”
“It was the way he looked at me.”
“You could be imagining it.”
“Maybe.”
It helped when Matilda turned to Spike and kissed his cheek. She led a line of them down the side of his face to
his mouth.
They lay back again, any fatigue Spike felt driven away by his filled heart. “Whatever it takes, I’ll do it.”
“Including letting me fight my own battles?”
Spike sat up, checking to see the cadet in the training area had gone before he turned to Matilda. “What do you mean?”
“If I get in trouble, I want you to leave me. You saw how quickly Phoenix fell today. Freddie and Ya were idiots trying to take the diseased on. I need to know you’ll let me fight on my own. That you won’t rush in first and think later.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because Artan needs at least one of us. I hope both of us return, but I don’t want you risking your life trying to save mine. I can look after myself. Hell, I can probably do it better than you anyway, so I’m sure it won’t be a problem, but I need you to let me fight on my own. If my back’s against a wall, I don’t need to be worrying about Artan’s safety. If you’re still alive, I know he’ll be okay.”
Steel sat in her usually soft gaze.
“Look, Spike, I saw you look over at me earlier when the diseased took down Phoenix. I saw how close you were to abandoning your team. I need you to promise me you’ll hold your ground.”
“You sound like the leaders.”
“They know what they’re talking about.”
Spike watched the training area again, feeling Matilda’s attention pressing into the side of his face. “But what if I think it’s the right thing to do? What if I see how I can help?”
“There’s a reason the team leaders tell us to hold our ground. They’re experienced in this.”
“They don’t always know best.”
“I’m asking you to hold your ground. To make sure one of us is guaranteed to get back to Artan.”
A few seconds passed before Spike said, “Is that why you brought me up here?”
“I wanted to see you. I wanted to kiss you; that’s okay, isn’t it?”
Spike folded his arms. “Okay, fine.”
“You promise?”
“Yep.”
“Say it, then.”
“It.”
“Say I promise I won’t risk my life to save yours.”
It made him feel physically sick. “I promise I won’t risk my life to save yours.”
Matilda leaned close and kissed his cheek again. “I love you, Spike Johnson.” She then shifted away from him.
After he’d watched her climb backwards off the roof, Spike fell flat and stared up at the grey sky. Had he just made a promise he couldn’t keep?
Chapter 8
Although the rest of team Minotaur had gotten their breakfast already, Spike waited at the table, claiming he felt sick and needed a moment to wake up.
When Matilda walked in, he got to his feet, Olga raising her eyebrows at him. “Lovesick, right?”
Spike weaved through the dining hall and slipped into the queue behind Matilda. She smiled at him, but her olive skin looked pale, her face drawn. “Are you okay?”
“I pulled the morning shift on the gate.”
“Urgh, grim.”
“I know, right?”
“We haven’t done ours yet.”
“Nothing happens, you just have to stand by the gates so the guards can take the night off. Try to avoid the four a.m. shift if you can.”
“Four a.m.? I didn’t even know such a time existed.”
“You do an hour and a half and then can’t sleep afterwards because the second you close your eyes, you know someone will wake you up. I’d rather have done a stint in the middle of the night. At least I could have gone back to bed.” She yawned and shrugged. “Even talking about it makes me tired.”
Spike caught her yawn and clenched his jaw to suppress it, his eyes watering.
The next to the hatch, Matilda smiled at the cook on the other side, held her plate out, and watched as the cook put a chunk of rough bread on it. She garnished it with a dollop of jam. A menu didn’t exist in this place. You got what you were given, and you ate it or went hungry.
While receiving the same breakfast as Matilda, Spike said, “It’s been a few days since we’ve caught up; wanna check out the gym roof later?”
Paler than usual, Matilda’s eyebrows pinched and rose in the middle. “I’m so sorry. It’s not that I don’t want to. I really enjoyed our last trip up there, but I need to get some rest.”
The reply hit Spike square in the chest. He nodded. “I suppose that’s the good thing about getting the Saturday night shift on the gates, you get the next day off.”
“I’m sorry,” Matilda said again. “This first week has been savage. Add guard duty to it and all I want to do is sleep.”
“No, it’s fine. I’m exhausted too. It’s been a long week.”
Just before she walked off, Matilda traced the shape of a heart on his forearm.
While watching her, Spike let out a heavy sigh. Maybe he should take her lead. Rest wouldn’t be a bad use of his day. Only the first week of national service—they had a long way to go. The more rest he got, the better his chances of survival. And he couldn’t deny that to Matilda. Especially as he’d promised he wouldn’t help her if she got in trouble.
A warmer and brighter day than the week that had preceded it, the strong sun shone in through the large dining hall windows, heating the space up and dazzling Spike as he headed back to his team’s table. The floors were still damp from where they’d been mopped before breakfast, and because they hadn’t been in there long, the air smelled of moist wood rather than sweating bodies or food.
Spike slid his plate onto the table as he sat down. Some of his teammates had finished their breakfast, but they all remained. Hugh and Elizabeth sat closer to one another with every passing day. A slight smile at them, he then rolled some of the aches from his shoulders. He opened and closed his hands several times, his palms and fingers flecked with cuts. “If this is just one week, I dread to think what my hands will look like in five months.”
More cadets entered the hall, their feet dragging over the wooden floor, their shoulders slumped. Matilda had been right to schedule rest today. They all needed it. “I’m so glad they give us Sundays off. I’m not sure I’d cope if we had to work straight through for five months.”
Olga’s cheek bulged from where she moved her mouthful aside to speak. “Hopefully we’ll get the extra day off at the end of this month too. Our kill count’s good, isn’t it?”
“As good as anyone’s.”
“I’d do anything for an extra day off,” Olga said.
Max winked at her. “What I’d give right now to have the power to give days off.”
Spike laughed when he saw Olga’s cheeks redden as she dropped her focus to the table. “I’m not sure I’ve seen you blush before.”
She looked back up and spoke through clenched teeth. “Tell anyone and I’ll cut your throat.”
The smile still on his face, Spike caught Matilda’s eye. She smiled back. In just five months, this would all be over. In less than a year, he’d be living the life of his dreams.
Heidi pushed her plate away and rested her elbows on the table. “I’m just grateful to get through our first week.”
Maybe emboldened by having Elizabeth by his side, Hugh looked across the dining hall at Ranger. “I’m sure you’re not the only one.”
It seemed impossible that the short and stocky cadet could have heard him over the noise, but the second Hugh said it, Ranger looked up, deep bags beneath his eyes. Spike had thought Matilda looked tired until he’d seen him. A hard twist to his features, he damn near spat the words across the hall, the room quieting down at the outburst. “What are you looking at?”
When Hugh didn’t reply, Ranger stood up. Juggernaut immediately called down at him from the top table, “Sit down, Ranger.”
The quiet dropped to silence, all eyes turning on Magma’s son. He shook his head and pointed at Hugh. “I think this wise arse has something he wants to say to me. Do you have something to sa
y, boy? Do you want to call me out for what happened the other day? Do you want to mock me for running back to the gates? You’ve no idea what I’ve seen. You don’t know what it’s like down there.”
“Spike does,” Olga said, but Ranger ignored her, keeping his attention on Hugh.
Spike watched Hugh’s face redden. He then looked at Bleach. Although his team leader had told him to hold back when it came to fighting the diseased, he hadn’t said anything about sticking up for teammates when it came to other cadets. He said, “Leave it out, Ranger.”
“I wasn’t talking to you!”
“I don’t care. I’m talking to you.”
Bleach’s expression remained unchanged. Spike took it as his approval.
The boys glared at one another while Juggernaut said, “Ranger! Sit down!”
But Ranger ignored him and pointed at Hugh again. “He said something about me, and I want to know what it was.”
Lance stood up next to his friend as a show of solidarity.
“Lance,” Juggernaut said. “Behave!”
Lance sat back down again.
When Spike saw Ranger reach for his butter knife, his entire body tensed. Not the sharpest weapon, but it would do enough damage.
Suddenly Ranger burst to life, roaring as he jumped on his table. He ran over the tops of the three separating them. Fortunately, he dropped the knife in his haste, but he continued to charge. The slam of his boots hit the wooden tops. Plates smashed when he knocked them to the floor.
Spike sat between Ranger and Hugh, so when Magma’s son leapt, he jumped to his feet and blocked him, shoving him with both hands.
Ranger fell backwards, his shoulder hitting a bench on his way to the floor.
As Spike positioned himself in front of Hugh—his fists raised—he heard the sound of scraping chairs on the main stage. The thunder of the leaders’ footsteps beat a stampede towards them. He noticed Lance descending on them too.
But the team leaders weren’t quick enough to stop Ranger getting to his feet and lunging at Spike.
White light flashed through Spike’s vision from Ranger’s blow. His ears rang and his world tilted. The boy might be a coward, but he hit like a bull.
Before Spike got his bearings, Max and Olga leaped on Ranger, pulling his arms and dragging him down again.
Beyond These Walls (Book 2): National Service Page 5