by Rick Wood
He knows.
It was the only certainty she could gain from this. No more deliberating, no more wondering, no more does he doesn’t he…
He knows… Oh, God…
She slowly manoeuvred her own hand to her belt, searching for her own knife. He hadn’t removed it, which was foolish, which told her very clearly that he wasn’t in sound mind: he has no idea what he is doing.
“Dalton,” she said, slowly lifting her blade from its pouch.
He saw it and retracted his. He stood, looked over her again, his glare lingering.
“Get some sleep,” he told her, and walked away, slowly returning to his sleeping place.
She looked over to Boy, a few yards away, asleep.
He was safe. Dalton hadn’t done anything to him.
Thank God…
She made the decision. She had no choice. They had to leave. Get away from him.
For Boy’s sake, if not for hers. They couldn’t risk being around him anymore.
Right now, he was acting on anger and impulse alone – pretty soon, his plans would form some coherence and God knows what he’d do then.
He lay down, his eyes closed, his body still.
She’d wait until she heard him snoring. She’d wait until he was asleep, and she’d take Boy, and they would run, run far away, as far as they could.
She kept her eyes open and waited, not once letting go of her knife.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
She waited.
And waited.
And waited and waited and waited.
The worst part of the waiting were the thoughts. The constant stream of poisonous ideas running through her head, no sign of tiring, no sign of matching the weariness of her mind.
She watched Dalton, watched him close his eyes, waiting, thinking about the thoughts that must have been going through his mind over the past few days.
Had he seen everything on CCTV? Had he seen all her actions, what she had done, to her father and to the Sanctity?
How had he stayed with her after knowing this?
God, he must feel so betrayed. So hurt. Watching her, knowing what she’d done, seeing her happy afterwards.
She hadn’t been happy. She hadn’t been proud of it. She had done what her emotions condemned her to at the time. Everything had accumulated, her thoughts had overwhelmed her, and she’d just…
Killed all of his friends.
She bowed her head and stifled a tear. She didn’t deserve to cry.
He deserved to be angry. Hell, he deserved vengeance.
But it wasn’t Boy’s fault.
God, watching it on CCTV… It must have destroyed him…
They had been falling in love. He’d kissed her, held her hand, saved her life, protected her and Boy.
And now…
He began to snore. A deep croak.
It was time.
She stood. She didn’t go to take any of the food or water, they could find more, they just needed to get out of there, quickly, before Dalton stirred. She had no idea how deeply Dalton was sleeping and if they so much as snapped a twig at the wrong moment it could cost them their lives.
She crept over to the hay where Boy lay asleep.
She shook him. He groaned.
She looked over to Dalton, who hadn’t heard it.
She covered Boy’s mouth and shook him again. His eyes opened, widened, and she quickly put a finger over her lips to tell him to be quiet.
“Shush, Boy, listen,” she whispered, as quietly as she could. “We need to get out of here.”
He stared back at her.
“I’m going to take my hand away, but you can’t make a sound, okay?”
He nodded. She took her hand away.
“No speaking, sound, or anything at all. Okay?”
She took his hand and stood him up.
“What about Dalton?” he asked in full voice, and she quickly covered his mouth again.
“Don’t speak!” she demanded, then looked over at Dalton and back to Boy. “We have to leave him.”
“Wh–”
She covered his mouth more firmly.
“No. Talking. Do you understand?”
He nodded. She took her hand away, slowly, gently.
“He’s not coming with us,” she told him.
His mouth began to open, as if ready to voice an objection, so she added an explanation; the only one she could think of that he would understand.
“Dalton has changed. He’s not who he was. He’s nasty now.”
Boy frowned, as if to say, but I really like Dalton.
“I really like him too.”
I love him.
“But we have to leave him. Or he might hurt us. Okay?”
Boy nodded. Very reluctantly, but he nodded.
She took his hand and guided him forward.
She checked back on Dalton.
He wasn’t there.
He was stood up.
Before the entrance.
With a knife.
And his gun over his shoulder.
“Dalton?” she said, gripping Boy tightly.
He didn’t respond.
Boy began to moan, fretting, staring at the knife in the hand of one of the few people he trusted.
Dalton moved Boy behind her and stood in front of her.
“Where are you going?” Dalton asked.
It had been a while since she’d properly heard his voice, and she’d missed it, but this wasn’t his voice – it was deeper, like he had a cold, like he hadn’t spoken in days and this was the first use.
She wanted to tell him she loved him. That he should stay. That she was sorry. That she wanted to explain.
But say she could explain – what then?
What could she possibly say?
No. There was only one solution to this.
“We’re leaving,” Cia said, then repeated it with more conviction: “We are leaving.”
“No,” Dalton replied. “You’re not.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“Dalton,” Cia said, carefully, slowly, “What are you doing?”
“What am I doing?” he repeated.
She shifted her body ever so slightly to the side, until she was guarding Boy. She kept him behind her, her arms behind her, holding onto him, gripping onto him.
Dalton’s crumbling façade terrified her.
He was shaking. He could barely keep that knife in his hand still. She dreaded to think where the bullets would go if he decided to use his gun. The whites of his eyes were scarred with red, bloody veins, his face was as pale as if he were dead, and his breathing was erratic, ill-timed, in and out in bizarre intervals.
“I’ve been thinking a lot for the past few days,” he said. The shaking of his body had even found its way to his voice. It was mixture of extreme pitches, a quivering wreck.
This was not the Dalton she knew, or that she had loved.
This was someone else.
This was something else.
“Oh yeah,” Cia said, just keeping him talking, keeping her eyes on the knife. “What have you been thinking?”
“About you. Who you are. What you are capable of.”
The exit was behind Dalton. She had to get to it. Had to get to it before Dalton found a way to use his strength and take the action Cia once thought he would never take.
“What am I capable of, Dalton?”
“Stop talking to me like that,” he said, an extra snarl to his voice.
“Like what?”
She edged further forward, closer to Dalton, closer to the exit.
“Like you’re a fucking therapist! Stop talking to me all calm and, and, and fucking lucid, you’re not, you’re not that person!”
“What kind of person am I then?”
“A – a – a killer…”
Keeping her hands fixed around Boy’s wrists, she came within steps of Dalton, keeping her eyes on his knife.
Then she stopped.
At som
e point they were going to have to make a move. Run or barge him or something and just hope for the best.
She felt Boy’s hands on her waist. He was gripping back.
He was scared.
Then Dalton said those words – those words she was terrified of hearing ever since they began this wonderful life together.
“I know.”
So matter-of-fact, so emotionless. The words were like a swipe of his knife, and yet there was so little passion behind them.
“Know what?” she asked.
“Shut the fuck up, Cia, you know exactly what.”
She nodded. Confirmation. Tears accumulated.
“How long have you known?”
“CCTV. The Sanctity.”
Of course.
Dammit.
He’d known all of these past few days. She was right – he had seen it. He had seen what she had done.
He had watched her as she did it.
Watching what she did to her father. To the Sanctity.
“They deserved it, Dalton,” she said.
“What?” he cried, the clearest sign of aggression meeting his body. His whole torso tilted, lurched forward, his shaking arm gripping the knife tighter.
“Do you know what they did to me?” she said.
“What they did to you?”
“Me and my dad, the week it all happened – they let him in, but not me. Do you know why? Because I was mixed-race. They let my dad in, but not me, because of my skin. Do you understand that?”
Dalton just shook. She could see the conflict contorting his mouth, his nose, his eyes.
“Then they tortured Boy,” she continued. “They attached him to a chair, didn’t let him move from it, then did all kinds of things to him. It was inhumane. They took my dad from me, turned him into a person who chose that place before his daughter, then tortured Boy. Don’t you see?”
He twitched. His whole head, then his body. He was shaking like he was freezing cold, yet perspiration soaked his face.
“Then they tied up the creatures, drugged them, in as inhumane way as they could.”
“Those creatures are monsters!”
“No, they are the monsters!” she said. She was shouting now. “How were they any different?”
“So that means everyone deserved to die?”
“It was a crime of passion, Dalton. A moment of weakness, anger clouding my mind. I couldn’t think of anything else. You don’t know what it was like.”
“A crime of passion?” he repeated. “Then I will use the same justification for what I’m going to do to you.”
Dalton stepped closer to her.
“What are you going to do to me?” Cia asked.
“You?” Dalton shook his head. “You come second. First, I’m going to show you what it’s like to see someone you loved be killed. I’m going to do to Boy what you did to me, and I am going to make you watch.”
Cia withdrew her knife and held it by her side.
“Come any closer and I’ll cut you,” she said. Any assertion, calmness or attempt to think clearly had departed the moment Dalton had mentioned harming Boy.
Dalton just laughed. Guffawed, even. Mocking the suggestion that Cia could stand a chance against him.
She swung her knife in a circle to get the most leverage. She hadn’t the strength he had, and she was going to need to put her whole body behind it if she was going to land the knife deep enough into his throat.
But she didn’t land the knife into his throat.
He grabbed her wrist and twisted it until the knife fell from her hand.
With his other hand he grabbed her neck.
She looked at his face, curled up, knotted and twisted into a crooked visage of anger.
She couldn’t breathe.
He was choking her and she couldn’t breathe.
Her grip on Boy loosened and she began to lose the energy to struggle.
Chapter Thirty
Boy’s hands hung onto her waist like she could fly away at any moment.
He didn’t want to look at Dalton.
No, didn’t want to look at him.
Too scary.
His face was strange.
Different.
Don’t want to look…
He rested his forehead against Rosy’s back. Felt tears in his eyes wetting her top.
Stupid tears.
Pathetic tears.
Too old for tears.
I just don’t understand…
That was what the tears were about, after all. Not the fear, not the sight of Dalton’s demented features, not concern for his safety – but incomprehension.
He wished he could understand these things, know why people looked or acted a certain way, but he couldn’t, he couldn’t, he just couldn’t.
And that’s why he wanted to cry.
Because Dalton had taken care of him. Found him a chess set. Played with him. Listened to Boy recite all the names of the different trees. Smiled at him, looked warm and inviting, like he could trust him, always trust him.
Now he was shaking and holding a knife and looking scary and looking angry and why was he so angry?
And why was he being so nasty to Rosy?
Rosy never deserved unkindness.
She was the nicest person in the world.
Her fingers stuck into his wrists and it hurt but it was okay. Even though she was squeezing too tightly and he could feel his muscles move back and forth under the tightness it was fine, it was okay, because she was doing it because she was Rosy.
Rosy always took care of him.
She let go of his wrists with one of her hands.
Why was she doing that?
Please don’t let go of me…
Why was she lifting her arm up?
She took a knife from the back of her belt.
A knife.
She swung her arm and Dalton grabbed it and the knife fell to the floor and Boy just wanted to shut down and shut it all out.
Then Dalton’s hands were on Rosy’s throat.
And she took her other hand off Boy.
She wasn’t touching him at all now.
Why?
He no longer felt protected.
Please, Rosy, please let me know it’s okay.
But it wasn’t okay.
He heard her spluttering, heard her choking, she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t breathe, why couldn’t she breathe, why couldn’t she…
Dalton’s hand was around her neck and he was looking into her with fiery eyes and he looked so mad but he was hurting her he was…
He was…
He was killing her…
He was killing Rosy.
He grabbed hold of her body, tried to yank on her arm to make her pay attention but it was going limp, going limp and empty and her body was shrinking and was she dying?
No…
Rosy…
He wanted to shut down wanted to crawl into a ball into a little tiny little ball where he could be oblivious to everything where Rosy wasn’t being hurt where Dalton didn’t look so scary where the world would shrink and everything would go away.
But he was losing Rosy.
Dalton was hurting her.
Boy saw the knife on the floor.
He picked it up and screamed.
No one hurts Rosy.
He swung it at Dalton but he didn’t swing it well. He didn’t try and aim or anything he just swung, hoping that Rosy would be okay.
As he dropped the knife he saw that he had scraped Dalton’s leg, there was a small line of red with a little bit of blood creeping out.
But it was enough, because he let go of Rosy’s throat and she sucked in air and she was okay.
Rosy was okay.
She grabbed hold of Boy’s hand and dragged him forward, pulling him, and he let her, because her hand was around his and her hand was warm and clammy but that was okay because it just meant that she was alive and they ran.
Boy looked over his shoulder and saw Da
lton coming out of the doors but they were already across the field running and running and running and wow did his legs ache but that was fine he just kept running because Rosy was with him.
Rosy was there.
And that meant he would be safe.
Rosy always looked after him.
Chapter Thirty-One
Cia ran faster than she’d ever run from any Thoral, or Maskete, or Waster.
This was worse than a Waster.
A Waster’s instinct was the same as any animal instinct; feed and mate.
Dalton’s instinct was…
Stop thinking.
She had to concentrate on running. She could over-analyse later.
Boy had just done an incredible thing, but again – she could tell him that when they were free.
She glanced over her shoulder.
Dalton was running after them. Crossing the field from the barn. She couldn’t tell if he was gaining on them or not.
He took his gun from over his shoulder and tried to steady it.
The shelter of trees and bushes was getting closer, but not close enough.
She glanced back again. Dalton was still sprinting, just as they were, and he was aiming his gun as he did.
“Boy, listen,” she said between gasps for air, not realising how much she was panting. “We need to run in zigzags, do you understand what that means?”
He looked back blankly.
“So from one side to the next, no sense to the direction you’re running, okay? Like this.”
She began zigzagging her runs, running from one side to the other, doing so without coherence or order – just sporadically placed steps that gave no clear target for Dalton.
“Follow me, Boy, come on!”
He did the same, and he did it just as she had asked. She was so proud.
The bullets came.
“Ignore the sounds!” Cia shouted, trying to be louder than the gunfire. “Just keep doing this!”
He did, as did she, and she saw the tufts of grass blow up behind their feet, but they were doing enough, creating enough chaos with their disordered direction to make them too difficult to aim at.
They reached the trees and Cia clutched Boy’s hand, guiding him through, jumping over twigs and logs.
She glanced back and saw Dalton return his gun over his shoulder. He entered the trees and hit his shin into a wayward tree trunk, flying onto his front.