The third man had circled around and stood facing Liam, ready and waiting, halfway between himself and Racquel. Racquel still seemed groggy from Liam’s blow, and she was on her knees with one hand raised to her head. Liam bared his teeth at him slowly, his knife hand rising outwards of his side. It seemed to convince the man of something because he turned suddenly and ran in the other direction.
Liam sighed in relief and stepped in his wake before horror dawned on him and his foot paused in mid-air. The man’s right hand came down and viciously grabbed the top of Racquel’s head. Tightening onto a clump of hair, he dragged her upwards, his knife coming around to the side of her throat. Liam felt himself go white.
Time seemed to freeze for a long moment.
He had thin, sandy-coloured hair and pale, pockmarked skin, unusually pale for a native of Teruel. Thin strands of hair grew over his ears and his fringe splayed over his forehead. He had a narrow, bony face, weasel-looking and cruel. He was taller than Liam but not much, thin but wiry.
Racquel looked confused and disorientated, unable to mount much resistance. Her sleek black hair dishevelled and sprawled over her shoulders and across her face. Why did I hit her so hard!
Liam watched silently as he lifted his knife across her neck, bringing his arm over, ready to slit back across, as the blade slowly turned towards flesh. His head seemed like an overblown melon as he waited, wavering slightly, desperately lost. Silence resounded within Liam’s head as the mad screaming and flailing of the man behind him continued and whispers traversed the street from onlookers.
The man’s eyes lifted to Liam’s and he smiled crookedly. Don’t do it. Please don’t do it. His heart was bursting in his chest, his knife arm had fallen down limply to his side. He dared not move an inch.
“I’ve got your bitch now!” the man spat. Liam kept his gaze, staring deep into his eyes. Racquel was moaning in his grip, still groggy. Her eyes seemed to flare open suddenly as though she had come awake. She began to struggle, her arms flashed up for the hilt of the knife. Liam’s eyes widened in panic. The man swung her from side to side, pulling her head through the roots of her hair.
But Racquel was panicking. She started to scream. Her struggles became more agitated.
“Stop struggling, you bitch, or I’ll cut your throat!” The knife pressed against her jugular, drawing a drop of blood that formed on the tip of the blade and started to roll downwards towards the hilt. She cried out in pain and pulled at the knife arm with renewed vigour.
“Racquel!” Liam screamed at her at the top of his lungs. She stopped struggling suddenly and looked around, finding him with her gaze. Liam raised his hands and faced them downwards, signalling for her to calm down. “Just … just be still, okay?”
They were ten yards away from him. Her eyes were wide with panic, she still seemed confused. Why did I hit her so fucking hard! The man backed away, dragging Racquel after him.
“That’s a good girl.” His voice was hoarse and crackling. “Just like that, nice and easy.”
“Stop!” said Liam, stepping after them.
“You stay right there! Or I’ll slit your girlfriend’s throat right here now.”
“No, let her go!”
The man laughed loudly. “Why the fuck would I do that?”
“Because if you don’t, you’re a dead man.”
He laughed again, a forced bark. “You come near me and this bitch gets it. My boys willa heard of this scrap and they’ll be over in no time, so you better skedaddle on out of here. I’ll give this whore a good home for ye.”
“I know they’re comin’. You’re not leavin’ here with her, and you’re runnin’ out of time.”
“The second I let her go, you’re after me. Stay where you are!” The knife pressed ever harder against her throat, a second drop of blood forming on the blade. Racquel was pulling her neck from the blade as hard as she could but had no more slack to play with. Her eyes were wide, her hands, pressed against her sides, grasped at her dress, grabbing and squeezing fistfuls.
“You don’t realise, do ye!” Liam shouted at him. “You harm her! You kill her! And yer fucked!” He couldn’t allow him to take her away, but the risk, the chance, was terrifying to him. But he knew that the fear of forcing the issue was wrong, as fear was always wrong. His voice shook with the strain, breaking, becoming as high-pitched as when he was a boy. “Yer not leaving with her! You leave her here, you leave her here and ye can live!”
She was lost forever if he took her, and he was dead, as good as dead, without her by his side, there was no point, there was nothing for him. He couldn’t allow him to do it. He started to pick up the pace, closing in on him.
“Stay there, you fuckin’ shit!” Liam’s heart pounded terribly, echoing through his brain, counting out his paces for him as he moved forwards, his hands shaking. He had a sudden brainwave and he screamed it out in his panic.
“Cut her, cut her so that I’ll have to stay here with her. Cut her in the leg, I wouldn’t leave her here to bleed; I wouldn’t leave her to the gang!” The man slowed as he considered, then a certain light seemed to show on his face.
“I know a bad cut!” Liam screamed out in sudden panic, as what he said sent alarm bells ringing through his brain. He met the man’s eyes. “Cut her bad and I’ll know. I know! And I’ll come after you first, I’ll kill you before I go back to her!” The man’s eyes widened. Liam had read him right. He had been about to fatally wound her. “I’ll know! I’m not lyin’! Her leg! And not too deep!”
There were spectators all around the street, gathering, watching the scene before them. The man glanced around. Liam knew him, knew his type. He was embarrassed. He didn’t want to be seen to be scared of a boy, to be taking orders from a boy. But his friends were dead and he knew, too, that he could well be joining them soon.
“Look at me!” Liam said to him, his gaze stony. “Do it now, or I swear to Lev, you won’t die well.” His voice was no louder than it had to be for the man to hear.
Suddenly, he dropped low and cut his blade across the back of Racquel’s thigh. Racquel dropped to the floor screaming and Liam ran towards her. The man backed away quickly a few steps, his knife held out before him, his eyes on Liam to see if he would keep his word. Liam dropped down beside Racquel and looked up at the man, his eyes burning. The man turned and ran.
Liam took the knife hastily to the lower part of his tunic, cutting a strip from it roughly, sawing across, staining it with the blood on his hands. Once it was long enough, he tore it free. He bent down and looked at her thigh. The cut was deep, she would probably never walk right again. But it wasn’t fatal, or it shouldn’t be. Liam prayed that it wouldn’t. He wrapped the strip of cloth around it quickly, tying it tightly, ignoring Racquel’s cries of pain.
He looked up into her face and saw the confusion there, the hurt, the pain and something else, something he hadn’t seen before. Distrust? Her jaw was swollen shut.
“We have to go, you hear me?” Liam looked around, “Everyone … there’s too many people, everyone saw, everyone knows now. The gang knows. He’s gone,” he looked up in the direction of the escaped man. “He’s gone and he’ll tell the gang. They’ll be back. With more. We have to go now!” He grabbed her shoulders and looked into her eyes. “You hear me? We have to go. You okay? Can you walk?” He stood up from her and tried to raise her to her feet. “We need to get back to the house. Come on, it’s not far now. We get our stuff, then we go. Someplace new.” She got up onto her feet and he put his shoulders underneath her arm and pulled her along after him.
Liam looked about at everyone on the street, watching them. Too many eyes. What to do? How to get rid of them? He put his head down and tried to increase their pace, half dragging and half carrying Racquel after him.
To Liam’s relief, no one followed them back to the house. Their alleyway was empty as they crawled through the entrance, Liam going first so that he could help Racquel through after him. The pain was clear in Racquel’s face
as she dragged her damaged leg behind her, trying to keep the knee from scraping on the rough rubble of the entrance. The makeshift bandage around her thigh was stained red.
Liam looked about their small space. The pang of sadness he felt at the thought of leaving it was crushed quickly by his panic to escape. They had blankets spread out over the floor, some spare clothing, a couple of bowls and spoons for eating with, some bread, wrapped tightly in cloth against invading rodents and a pair of sandals that Racquel had insisted they buy for him, which he never wore. It wasn’t much. Liam made the easy decision to take it all.
“Stay in here until I get back, okay? Don’t go anywhere, I won’t be long, we need to leave straight away then so be ready. Grab everything here. Wrap it in a blanket and tie it off. I … I have to go.” He needed to get the money he had hidden. Get it and be gone, while he had the chance. He looked down at Racquel. She was sitting awkwardly against brick and wood, her leg spread before her, the knee slightly bent. Her jaw was swollen and bruised, her face and neck dirt-smeared along with her dress and legs. She looked back up at him, her eyes questioning, accusing. “I’m sorry,” he said, though he didn’t know why.
“Where are you …?”
“I’ll be back in half an hour, okay? Stay here. I’ll come to get you.” He ducked back out of the house; Racquel’s confused expression like an afterimage on his vision. There was no time to explain to her. They needed to leave quickly.
He raced through the slums, running with all of his might. The cache was at the corner of a secluded street. There had been a small cellar basement underneath an old brick building. It was closer to the city’s outer wall and was one of the older buildings in the District. The cellar had collapsed at some time in the past, though the building above had been repaired and was still in use. Liam had stumbled upon the entrance to the cellar months before.
It was located at the side wall of the building. There were three steps leading below the ground floor that were filled up with loose, collapsed stone. It was strangely located as there was no side entrance; however, this was ideal for Liam’s purposes. Liam had rooted through the debris and stone and found a miniature cavern of sorts hidden away beneath the rubble. Ever since, he had been depositing his treasure within it and covering it up carefully with stone afterwards. He had never liked leaving the money out of sight but he didn’t know of anywhere better to keep it.
He fell to his knees beside the cellar entrance, panting and out of breath. He looked to either side. There was a man lounging in a doorway across the street, directly opposite the alleyway Liam was in. It doesn’t matter, I’m not coming back here. He quickly cleared away the stone. Within were two bags, one filled with silver and bronze jewellery, the other coins of the same metal. He dropped the jewellery into one pocket and the purse of coin into the other and turned to leave.
He was struck by a thought as he stepped away. How had they known what street to wait for him? Why were they there? They had men on both sides and one in the middle, there was no chance of escape. He had never worked on that street, either on his own or with Racquel. What reason would they have had to be there, waiting for him especially?
It was the main road back from the fish market. He thought of a variety of places that they might have been that day. The route to them all was through that street and the way back.
There was only one explanation, and it struck new terror in him. They knew where he lived. Racquel! Cold sweat broke out on his forehead. He launched himself forward, forcing and stretching every muscle to its limit. His lungs pumped, his knees rose and fell, careless of the valuables in his pockets. A summer heat was in the air, the sun relentlessly emitted its hot light, uncaring of who it fell on. Sweat poured from his skin, his toes grasped at the dirt and grit beneath his feet.
How could he be so stupid? He didn’t need to come for this coin. He could have come back another time. There was no reason why he had to get it now. Racquel was back there alone. They would be back. They would be there before him. Who knew how many they would have with them this time? Too many, far too many for Liam to deal with. What would they do with her? Could he give them something for her life, her freedom? Perhaps they couldn’t get into the building yet, the entrance was small, perhaps she would be safe within it for a time. He just had to find a way to get her out. Maybe they weren’t there yet, he might make it in time.
He was out of breath as he turned the last corner onto his street. The smoke had been billowing up above the buildings before he reached that far, but he hadn’t wanted to see it, hadn’t wanted to think about it. Instead he kept running and barrelled around the corner. The flames became unmistakable as he neared his building, his knees started to buckle underneath him. He kept running, running, running as though it would help, as though there was something he could do, as though he could escape, deny the truth, change what was, change what was to be, alter the horrible course of his destiny, rescue her, refuse to believe, refuse to accept, change history. There must be a way of going back, of correcting his errors, of making new decisions. Why had everything he had ever done seemed to be wrong, why did he keep getting it wrong, keep making such awful errors and misjudgements? Calum was dead because of his mistakes, Racquel’s aunt was dead and she made homeless because of his carelessness, his self-obsession, his blindness to all around him. Now she was there, burning within those flames. She couldn’t be!
“Noooooo!” he cried out. “Noooooo!” he screamed. “Nooooo!” he shouted with all of his strength, all of his lungs, again trying to roar it out of existence, roar away the horrible truth, deny it, change it with the force of his roar, with the energy and the will behind it.
The six men were spaced out along the street. They were heavily armed and instantly recognisable as gang members. He ran through them, towards the flames, but he could see instantly the entrance was no longer there. There was no way in or out. The timbers were aflame and collapsing, crackling and thumping as they warped, split and caved in on top of one another. Their home was no more, it was an inferno. A cry burped from his lips with a piece of spittle. His chest seemed to jerk outwards and back in, his head felt loose on his neck as though it were not supported by bone at all. There were two men behind him, two in front of his building and two standing side by side just further up the street.
“’Tis nice and warm in there.” The words drifted through him as he ran, their meaning clear in his head as he stared at the flames. Racquel was dead. She was dead. It couldn’t be the case. It had to be something different.
One man wore a heavy broadsword at his waist, another had two vicious-looking hand axes strapped to his sides. They were details that Liam didn’t take in. He fell to his knees, scraping across the floor as his body hurtled to a stop. His limbs and torso felt limp but his head continued to gaze upwards at the towering inferno as it reached for the sky; keeping his body from flopping forwards, weak as it was. His lungs exhaled; a long, broken, high-pitched sound. Sweat poured from his forehead, from all over. The heat of the fire, like a furnace, like a baker’s oven, making a room unbearable on a hot day, was immense, searing his skin.
The clear, clean blue was ruined. The simple beauty that was above; painted red, orange, black, billowing upwards. The simple beauty that was below, changed to dust, smut, dirt, staining black. He felt his legs go, and his body, turning to jelly underneath him. His heart still raced from the run.
The sun on the horizon had turned the skyline a suitable red. His red eyes kept the flames’ gaze, burning high, consuming the building, licking it up into the sky, transforming it into that black smoke as things disintegrated to dust underneath, the colour of destruction, of change, of loss.
Was Racquel up there? Floating away into the sky but not surrounded in blue, surrounded in that hellish black, dirty, mucky mist. Why? Why? Why? Had she burned? Had her flesh grown red? Had she screamed as it peeled back from her bones, as she cooked, as she blackened? What pain did she suffer? Why was she deserving of such a
fate? Daygo’s fire. Daygo’s fire. Hate. Hate, suffering, destruction, pain. He would be those things now. He could bring Daygo’s fire. Daygo’s fury. He was such, he was nothing else, everything else was denial. A list, a long list of deaths. It would grow ever larger, but the names on that list would change, from the innocent to those most deserving. They would die, they would be torn apart.
The sweat went cold on his body, an icy hand clasped over his mind, freezing misty tendrils descended downwards, coalescing and reaching, like frozen arrows, to the soles of his feet.
“Racquel.” The word escaped from his lips like the whisper of a wind, unnoticed, unknown. The six men circled around him, their faces blackened by the soot and the smoke. His eyes found one in particular. A sandy-haired man with weasel features. The man smiled back at him with vicious intention.
“Did you like that bitch, boy?” Liam looked at him, strangely empty. His stare was slow. Everything had collapsed within him, as though all substance had been scooped out by a giant spoon.
“What?” his voice was cracked, broken. The man laughed, looking about at his companions.
“Your bitch is as dead as you!” he repeated. Liam stared at him dully for a long moment. Then, slowly, his vision seemed to narrow, honing in on the man, as everything else around him went to fog. He could feel a slow shake through him. The air was dry, the smell of smoke strong, he could feel it so clearly as it passed through the hairs of his nostrils. The thumping of his heart, the panting of his breath, seemed to amplify within his ears, all other sounds receding, until all he could hear was coming from within. His touch turned inwards, away from the cloth of his tunic, away from the weight of the pouch and the dust underfoot. The souls of his feet tingled, the sensation ran up through him like a million pinpricks. The pumping of his heart seemed so large, so strong, he could feel the blood push outwards from it in great bursts, he could feel the race of it, up through the back of his neck to his head, down to his feet, out to his arms, surrounding his lungs in great waves. It slowed, then raced again, every time with new urgency, as his heart urged it on and on, never ending, never giving up, no matter how many times it was asked to pump, no matter how many beats, with no end in sight, no end goal, no ultimate purpose, it beat, it pumped, it continued on, it moved, it squeezed tightly, painfully, and he gasped, it released, and he missed the vitality of it, the urgency, the strength, it squeezed again. Life was movement. It continued, it existed. He could sense it, all around him. There was a connection, a commonality that existed in all things, the soil beneath his feet, the skin on his hands, his flesh and bone, the flames, the smoke, the air itself. It seemed most obvious there, in the air, open to him, calling out, as though it had nothing to hold it back, as though it was open, free to all, sharing its essence, free from solid form.
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