by Rick Wood
Cia stepped out, still clutching Boy with one hand, reaching out to Cathryn with the other.
Then Cia saw him.
Her eyes locked on his.
And her whole world came shattering down.
Chapter Forty-Three
Those screams were too…
Manly.
Too grown up.
Dalton flung the cover back – and there, staring up at him, were the wide eyes of a middle-aged man. Throat covered in blood. Eyes empty of life. An unknown corpse – a body that meant nothing to Dalton.
“Damnit!” Dalton cried out.
He turned around, not knowing why – just feeling a stare, feeling something watching him.
A little girl.
Maybe this guy’s daughter.
Staring at him.
Just staring.
She didn’t cry. Didn’t scream. Didn’t run, advance, fight, make a sound – just stared at Dalton.
That was, until she saw Daddy.
Not moving. Covered in blood, just like her mummy, just like her brother…
She screamed.
Dalton went to move, then saw something that rendered him immobile.
From behind the girl, he saw her.
Clutching onto Boy.
Wearing pyjamas. Fancy silk pyjamas.
He wasn’t sure why, but this enraged him more.
He had been outside, fighting his fatigue, fending against the weather – and she was in here, warm, tucked up beneath a duvet, wearing pyjamas.
His lip curled into a snarl.
His snarl grew into a growl.
And his growl grew into a spurt of energy that powered his charge forward.
The little girl turned and ran.
“Cathryn!” Cia cried, but she was too late – the girl left the flat and the quick patter of her steps disappeared down the corridor.
Cia made her choice between fight and flight quickly and instinctively, taking her knife from the side pocket of her bag and holding it out to Dalton.
He didn’t care.
He grabbed her throat in his giant paw and squeezed, relishing the sight of her face turning red, the spluttering of her chokes, the panic in her eyes.
“Don’t worry,” he told her. “I’m not going to kill you until you’ve seen me tear your precious Boy apart…”
Dalton’s threat turned her panicked splutters into anger-powered resilience. She threw her arm downwards, sticking her knife into the chunky flesh of his thigh.
He cried out and momentarily loosened his grip, thus allowing Cia to escape it. She took her knife from his thigh, grabbed Boy and ran.
It was okay. His cry was just instinct. It was barely a graze.
She hadn’t hit anything important. She couldn’t. She didn’t have the strength.
He pushed himself up and ran, battering into the wall of the bedroom, to the door frame, to the corridor where he fell to his knees.
Get a grip.
He needed to wake up, break his funk, get some resemblance of sense.
They turned to the stairs.
He charged after them, bashing into one wall to another, and ran to the stairs.
He tried to leap down four at a time, but his heel slipped, and he skidded down the steps. He took to his feet and carried on running downwards, head first, in a constant state of falling, barging into the railing, grabbing it with his sweaty palm, the only thing that kept him steady.
They were a few flights down.
That was fine.
He’d get them.
He knew he would.
Chapter Forty-Four
Cia left the safety of the flat block; their home that could have been.
Realistically, it was never going to work. They were never going to be able to make a life there.
Things like that didn’t exist anymore.
Running water.
Duvets.
Pyjamas.
She felt ridiculous for even entertaining the notion.
They were doomed to face the outdoors forever, to embrace the horrendous weather and constant threat of monsters.
As if to confirm this, she heard a deep Thoral growl shake the distance as she emerged from the block.
She let go of Boy and sprinted, knowing he would do the same. She kept a few paces ahead of him, hoping that would encourage him to keep up.
Dalton gained on them with ease.
She aimed for the clearing, but they didn’t make it there in time.
She had no choice.
He dove onto her legs, taking her to the floor – but she was prepared. She turned and mounted him, holding her knife above in the air.
She looked down at his face, and it almost destroyed her; a brief, drawn-out second where she saw what he had become.
Pale. Bags under eyes. Helplessly perspiring. Shaking – trembling, almost.
Had she done this to him?
Quelling the thought, she reminded herself that he was a threat, and she needed to eliminate that threat.
She took the knife in one hand, grabbed his head with the other, and exposed his neck.
Boy waited a few steps behind her. Watching.
She was never more aware of him watching than she was at that moment.
She didn’t want to do this in front of him. This wasn’t like killing a monster. This was a human, even if there was little human left in him.
Would this change the way Boy saw her?
Would he be scared of her?
Would this make her a different person – at least, through his eyes?
She’d killed before. To get back to him, to save him; she’d killed.
But never while he stared at her.
She couldn’t think any longer. She had to act, then deal with it later.
She swung her knife down to Dalton’s throat.
It stopped less than an inch from his Adam’s apple.
And there, it hovered.
Poised.
Shaking.
Just a push, a bit of muscle, a little prod, and it would be in.
But she couldn’t do that push, that bit of muscle, that prod.
She couldn’t.
Everything Dalton was came lurching up like a mouthful of sick. Not just the person he’d been, but the idea of him – the notion that she could fall in love and be happy in a world designed for them to perish.
Pushing that knife another inch would end that completely. Would destroy any idea of the life they had tried to create.
She knew there was nothing of that life left, that sparing him would not allow anything to go back to how it was.
But she couldn’t.
She just…couldn’t.
She bowed her head. So disappointed with herself.
I can’t…
She moved her knife away from his throat.
He laughed.
“You can’t do it… You coward, you can’t do it…”
He was right.
She’d had the opportunity to end this threat, to cease his chasing – but she couldn’t let her arm move that extra inch his death would require.
His laugh turned to a cackle, which turned to hysteria.
Fine, she couldn’t kill him.
But she could still run.
She leapt to her feet, grabbed Boy’s hand and took him as far away as she could manage.
It didn’t take long before she could feel Dalton gaining on them once more.
Chapter Forty-Five
The upper hand was surely with him now.
She couldn’t do it.
She could destroy a Sanctity of thousands, but just him, this one individual person – she couldn’t.
She was still clinging onto something.
He laughed as he ran, knowing she could hear him.
He didn’t need to run fast to keep pace.
He hung slightly behind, to taunt her, to know there was no chance of escaping.
He was faster. Better.
And he was going to
do what she couldn’t.
No, actually, he wasn’t.
I’m going to do far worse.
Chapter Forty-Six
She recognised the footsteps, chasing, running. The same heavy stomps she’d heard any time running had been involved in the past few months.
She wiped her eyes.
No time for tears now.
Then she realised, she wasn’t upset. She was angry. Fuming. Raging at herself.
Why hadn’t she killed him?
She’d had her knife by his throat. Ready to end this. End the threat to her and to Boy.
And he’d laughed at her.
The bastard had laughed.
Mocked her for not having the gumption to kill a man she thought she loved.
She hated herself. She was such a fool. Such an idiot.
All she had to do was push the knife another inch.
He had no way to stop her. And all she’d have to do was push that knife.
An inch, that was it.
Just an inch…
It would have done it…
He was gaining on them. She looked over her shoulder. He was almost in reach.
She grabbed hold of Boy’s arm and pushed them further, sprinted harder, put more energy into their limited supply.
And to think, an hour ago she was in a bed. Thinking that was how life could be. Thinking that there was a way for them to move forward in life without all the running and chasing and…
God, stop it.
Stop it!
This wasn’t a time for overthinking or over-analysis.
A clearing in the trees was coming closer. She didn’t recognise it. She hadn’t been to this part of the forest before.
A stream of wind hit her.
It was a cliff edge.
She pulled a loose log down and watched as it tripped Dalton. This gave her a few seconds.
They reached the cliff edge and came to a stop.
She looked below.
A devastating drop.
Then water.
The best luck of an unlucky situation. They could fall and survive. They could dive and splash and fall deeper, then she could open her eyes and swim Boy back to shore.
She looked over her shoulder.
Dalton emerged, slowing to a walk.
Approaching.
Knowing she had nowhere else to go.
“We’re going to have to jump,” she told Boy.
He shook his head with as much vigour as his weary body would allow.
“I know,” Cia said. “I know, Boy. I know it’s tough. But this is the only way.”
She glanced back over her shoulder.
“Dalton is going to hurt us,” she told him. “But if we jump into the river, we’ll be fine.”
“I can’t swim…”
“That’s okay, Boy, I swear, that’s okay. I’ll find you. The moment we hit the water, I’ll find you. I won’t let you drown, I promise. I would never let you drown.”
She looked back at Dalton. He was grinning lecherously. So happy with himself.
“When I get to one,” she told him. “Three.”
She looked down and her legs felt weak.
But she hid it.
Couldn’t let Boy see.
She had to show him nothing but strength.
“Two.”
She gripped his arm. Even if he didn’t jump, if he was too scared, too unable – she was going to make him. She would be grabbing hold of him, making sure she took him with her.
She put a second hand on his arm to make sure.
“One.”
She leapt.
Boy went with her.
But she didn’t fall. She found herself hanging. Dangling over the edge, clinging onto Boy’s arm, who was somehow still on land.
Behind Boy was Dalton, holding on to his leg.
“Let him go!” she screamed.
Dalton lifted his knife and reached it downwards. He didn’t care if he fell, didn’t care what he did or what happened to him – all he seemed to care about was keeping Boy from her.
“Please!” she begged.
It was no good.
Dalton lifted the knife and swung it downwards at Cia’s arm.
Cia kept her grip on Boy, which allowed the knife to dig into her forearm.
Her grip loosened.
And she let go.
And she fell.
Watching Dalton and Boy disappear into tiny figures.
She screamed, bellowed, lit her lungs on fire with her anguish.
She fell into the water, far, far below the cliff edge, and far, far below Boy.
She kept sinking under.
Alone.
Without him.
Completely without him.
THEN
Chapter Forty-Seven
Jacey wasn’t the same kind of company as Brooklyn. In fact, she was startlingly quiet. Dalton was ashamed to admit to himself that, without Brooklyn’s constant, arrogant boasting, he found himself feeling quite unsettled.
But he’d needed a break.
Brooklyn was loyal and strong, but he was also foolish and stubborn. He was set in his beliefs, of which he was aggressively passionate about, and sometimes it could get a bit much.
But he wished Jacey would talk.
He watched her walk a few paces ahead, gun in her hand, looking around, sticking to the perimeter like there was a line she was following. Being vigilant in a way Brooklyn never was. Her shaved head and baggy combat trousers epitomised the image of the army, but it was an image Dalton had always found himself uncomfortable with.
He wasn’t the laddish bloke a lot of his friends were.
Which was another thing that made his friendship with Brooklyn all the more bizarre.
“Who do you normally pair with?” Dalton asked, not really caring but wanting to end the silence.
“What?” she asked, turning around.
“I said, who do you normally pair with?”
“Oh. Mikey, sometimes. Luke. Occasionally Swade.”
“Oh.” Dalton nodded. He had no idea who any of these people were.
“What about you?”
“Normally Brooklyn. There’s only one time I been out without him before, and that was when he was in seg.”
“Brooklyn, huh?”
Her reaction made him regret bringing Brooklyn up. It was the same reaction people always seemed to give to the mention of his name.
“He’s not the dick you all think he is.”
“I’m sure he’s not. I just ain’t seen a side of him that isn’t a dick as yet.”
Dalton huffed.
Should he bother getting into this discussion?
How did it always end?
With him running out of argument and the other party always convinced that they’d persuaded Dalton of Brooklyn’s idiocy.
“He likes to create an image,” Dalton said, reluctantly being drawn in. “He likes to show off. Make everyone think he’s a big man. But he’s not. Not really.”
“What’s he really like then?” she asked, looking around at all times, gun ready for anything. So unlike what he was used to.
“He’s loyal.”
“Loyal? That it?”
“Funny.”
“Nah, he just thinks he’s funny.”
“And he’s…”
What?
What was he?
What else could he say that was good?
“He would always have your back in a scrap. I guarantee, one of those creatures attacked while he was with me, he’d put himself between me and it.”
Jacey forced a smile.
“Sure you’re not seeing him how you want to see him?”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I just mean… I don’t know anyone else who would say this.”
“You just don’t know anyone else who’s his friend.”
“Doesn’t that say something as well?”
Dalton sighed. Just as he’d expected,
he’d been cornered into a debate he couldn’t find his way out of. The same arguments, the same response, and him with a lack of things to say.
Maybe Brooklyn was a dick.
Maybe they were all right.
Or maybe he was right, and they just didn’t know him.
Or maybe no one was right. Maybe they just believed what they believed, as did Brooklyn.
“Look,” Jacey said, sensing his discomfort. “I’m glad you got a friend in him. In this world, we need all the friends we can get. And if you’ve got someone who would lay down and die for you, then, hey, who am I to argue with that?”
They paused a moment. Looking at each other. Somehow, she made him feel a lot better.
“Thanks,” he said.
“No problem, after all–”
She stopped talking. Her eyebrows narrowed. She looked perplexed, like she spotted something.
“What is it?” Dalton asked, trying to peer at what she’d seen.
“What the hell is that?”
She rushed through the leaves, between the trees, and Dalton followed.
Eventually, she came to a foot.
A child’s foot. Small. Unintentionally exposed.
“What is this?” she asked.
Dalton felt sick.
He feared the worst, then grew angry with himself for doing so.
Jacey kicked a bunch of leaves, revealing the body that the foot was attached to.
She kicked all the leaves off.
A young boy stared back at them, no life behind his face. A dead, pale corpse left hidden beneath the leaves.
“Why would one of the creatures hide a kid’s body beneath the leaves?” Jacey mused, crouching beside the body, searching it.
Dalton went to answer, but didn’t.
Because he knew a creature wouldn’t hide the body beneath leaves.
Only a person would do that.
She lifted the boy’s body, turning it onto its side, to reveal a thin slice across the back of the boy’s neck.
Across the back of David’s neck.
“This was done by a knife,” Jacey said, growing confused.
“Are you sure?” Dalton asked.
Of course she was sure.
He just didn’t want her to be sure.
After all, anyone could have done this.
Any survivor could have traipsed by, happily going about their business, and…