by Ryan Casey
Harvey smiled. Tapped his rifle against his palm. “I helped build that place. So I know its weaknesses.”
Mike frowned. But it was Nina who spoke first.
“What exactly are you planning?” she asked.
Harvey’s smile widened. “I’m going to go back there. And then I’m going to bring that shitting hellhole down.”
Mike shook his head. “But there’s innocent people there.”
“Innocent people with the wool over their eyes.”
“Is that so bad, really?”
“Is it so bad? To believe you’re being taken to some new world? Some hopeful world? To lose every damned thing? Yeah. Yeah, it’s bad. I’ll bring the people in charge of that place crashing down. I’ll bring the people who lied to me to justice. Richard. The guards. Specifically, this prick called Aiden. The bastard who kicked me into the mud and left me for dead. Who looked me in the eye and told me never to go back there. I’ll finish him for what he did.”
Mike looked at Nina. Nina looked back at him. And for the first time, he felt like he saw a path opening up ahead of him. A path with an end goal.
Just not the end goal that he’d expected.
“So the question is,” Harvey said, “are you with us?”
Mike took a deep breath. Looked around. Looked at the broken down cars; looked at the boarded up buildings. And he felt that choice, deep down.
He just wanted to save his friends.
Save the people—and the dog—he loved.
But at the same time… he heard what Harvey was saying.
He heard it, and he was right.
He looked at Nina again. Nina shrugged. “I guess we’re deep enough into the hornet’s nest that we might as well risk ourselves getting stung some more, right?”
Mike looked at Harvey’s two companions. And then he looked around, right at Harvey.
“Can I trust you?” Mike asked.
And then Harvey smiled, and he offered his hand again.
“You’d be a fool to trust anyone.”
Mike looked at his hand.
He wanted to hold back.
He wanted to resist.
But in the end, he took it, and he shook.
“I’m not sure that’s entirely true anymore,” he said.
Harvey tilted his head to one side, nodded. “Whatever. It doesn’t change the question. Have you got my back?”
Mike gulped. Looked around, once again.
Then he nodded.
“I’m with you,” he said.
Harvey smiled. “Good. Then let’s go make those bastards pay for the lies they’ve been pushing. Let’s bring their new world crashing right down.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Kelsie wasn’t sure how long they’d been walking, only she noticed two things.
First, it was dark. Night seemed like it had crept up on them from nowhere.
And something else.
She was feeling a lot better already.
She still wasn’t great. Her legs were weak. Every muscle ached. And her head… it was splitting with pain.
But the nausea had stopped. The vomiting had stopped. So that had to count for something. Maybe she wasn’t as ill as she’d thought. Maybe it wasn’t to do with her diabetes after all.
It even made her wonder whether she wanted to even go back to the extraction point at all. Whether she wanted to trust Aiden to go back there, to keep her under wraps… and to go in there and get the medication she needed.
But then if he didn’t, there was a real chance she could just relapse into the way she’d been feeling so recently.
She didn’t want to jump too far ahead. Not just yet. She had to be careful.
She looked up at Aiden. He’d carried her some of the way, which was a weird experience, in all truth. She was still reluctant to believe in him. She was still reluctant to trust him. Because at the end of the day, it wasn’t long ago that he’d been hunting her down.
And it had only been a spur of the moment thing. A spur of the moment decision. In another moment, he could’ve made a different choice. He could’ve killed her.
What was to stop him changing his mind as soon as they got back to the extraction point?
He looked down at her. Scanned her, head to toe. “How you feeling?”
Kelsie looked away. To be honest, she was feeling a little tired. She wouldn’t mind a sleep. But she didn’t want to say. She didn’t want to show any kind of weakness. “Fine,” she said.
Aiden sounded like he wanted to say something else. Like he wanted to continue. But in the end, he just sighed, and looked back ahead. “Shouldn’t be too much further, now,” he said. “We’ll find somewhere you can lay low while I go in there. And then… and then I—I guess I come up with some story. Pretend you took my gun, shot Dom, escaped somehow.”
“How’s that going to work?” Kelsie asked.
Aiden frowned. It was still like he hadn’t totally thought any of this through. Like he was still caught up in the panic of what he’d done. “How so?”
Kelsie felt weird explaining the flaws in a grown-up’s plan to them. “You’re going to be going back inside the extraction point. Somebody’s going to see you. How are you going to just pretend something happened after you’ve gone back there? What are you going to tell them?”
Aiden looked stumped. Again, it was as if he’d been caught off guard. Like he was still trying to get his head around what to do; around the next step.
“I guess I… I guess I don’t really have a choice,” Aiden said.
He looked at Kelsie again. Looked at her with fear. And Kelsie could tell what he was thinking, in a morbid way. She could tell exactly what was going through his mind.
There was still time to kill her.
Time to prove to the extraction point that he was on their side, still.
And she’d have to stay on guard at all times as long as that was a possibility.
But then he said something she hadn’t at all been expecting.
“Guess it’s just you and me from here on then. I’ll get what we need. And then… and then I suppose I’ll get out of there, and we’ll move on.”
Kelsie stopped. Part of her was surprised he’d come to such a decision. But another part of her wanted more. “I can’t leave them,” Kelsie said.
Aiden frowned. “Now’s not the time to be playing around with who you do and don’t want to save. It’s not as easy as just telling them and setting them free.”
“Alison. Gina. Arya. And—and Tom and Siobhan. Just them. If you can get those out… if you can save them… we can go.”
Aiden rubbed the back of his head. He looked like he was regretting this more by the second. “You don’t get to dictate terms here, Kelsie.”
“Then I’ll—I’ll just have to try and save them myself.”
“It’s not safe for you in there.”
“It’s not safe for them in there,” she said. She didn’t feel confident saying any of this, and she didn’t feel anything other than a scared little girl. But she stood her ground because in her mind she asked herself what Mike would do, what he’d want her to do, and that made her feel a little better, a little safer, a little stronger. “I’m not changing my mind. It’s… it’s the only way.”
She looked at the ring on her finger. The ring that Mike had given her. The one that used to belong to Holly. Every time she looked at it, she felt more comfortable. She felt more at ease. She felt like someone was there with her, watching over her.
And then she looked up at Aiden, and she saw his face had softened somewhat.
“I’ll do what I can,” he said. “But I can’t make any promises. This is dangerous enough as it is, Kelsie. And there’s no way I can pretend I—”
He stopped.
Stopped, right away.
Because he heard something.
And then moments later, Kelsie heard it too.
Footsteps.
Footsteps and voices.
Ai
den looked around, up ahead. “Shit,” he said.
“What?”
“It’s them. Marco. Adrienne.”
“Who are—”
“You need to hide, Kelsie.”
“But—”
“Kelsie, you need to hide. Now.”
Kelsie ran to her right. She looked at the trees. That was all she had in the time she had.
So she stepped behind one of them.
Hid behind it.
Held her breath.
She could hear things, then. The footsteps getting closer.
She peeked around the side of the tree.
And then she saw them.
Two people. Rifles in hand.
Dressed just like Aiden.
“Shit,” Adrienne said. “Where the hell have you been?”
“We thought you were dead, chief,” Marco said.
Aiden looked between them. Opened and closed his mouth like he was still trying to figure out what to say next. “Yeah,” he said. “I…”
“Where’s Dom?” Adrienne asked.
Aiden looked over his shoulder. For just a second, his eyes met with Kelsie’s.
And then he looked back at Marco and Adrienne. “He—he didn’t make it.”
Marco frowned. “The hell? What… what happened?”
“The girl,” Aiden said. “There was… there was a struggle. Something—something happened. I put her down, though. I made sure she died for what she did.”
“So she’s dead?” Adrienne asked.
Aiden nodded. “She’s dead. I was trying to get back here. Trying to—”
“Then who were you talking with just then?”
Her stomach sank. Her heart started to race. Her mouth went dry.
Because she could sense the uncertainty now. She could sense the insecurity.
“What’s going on, Aiden?” Adrienne asked.
“I think I know exactly what’s going on,” Marco said.
It took Kelsie a few seconds. She hadn’t been looking at Marco, so she hadn’t seen where he was looking. Not right away.
But then she looked at him, and she saw.
He was looking right in her direction.
He was looking right at her.
Right into her eyes.
“Well, well, Aiden,” Marco said, as Adrienne looked around too, saw where he was looking. “Looks like we’ve got a bit of a problem on our hands now, doesn’t it?”
Chapter Thirty
It was dark, and Mike was ready for a rest.
But he wasn’t going to rest until he got to this extraction point.
He wasn’t going to rest until he found Kelsie and the rest of his people.
And at least now he had more than just Nina to get him by.
He looked around. Looked at Harvey, and at his friends, Callum and Ulrich. Harvey was one of those guys who seemed constantly content. A smirk on his face at all times. Did Mike trust him? Not a chance. It would take a lot for him to just blindly trust someone he didn’t really know.
Especially a man with a rifle in his hands.
But all he had to go on was the fact that his motive seemed similar to Mike’s.
All he had to go on was that he was heading in the same direction as Mike.
He looked ahead, into the woods. They were so silent. Every now and then though, he swore he heard things. Voices. Whispers. Shuffling that made him look around, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end.
He knew how at risk he was. How in danger he was. He was heading into uncharted territory, after all. And things had escalated now that Harvey’s end-goal was very much to destroy the order of that place from within.
He just hoped his friends were out of the firing line by that stage.
If they’d even made it there at all.
That’s what was bugging Mike, now. That’s what was getting to him. The worry that perhaps they hadn’t made it there. That perhaps he was going to get to this place only to find they weren’t there. What would this journey be worth, then? What would any of it be worth, after all?
“Where is it you’ve come from, anyway?” Harvey asked.
Mike looked at Nina, and Nina looked back at him. Nina had barely said a word to Harvey and his people, in all truth. Clearly had trust issues much like the ones Mike had. And he could understand why. The hospital, it was a well-guarded place. A well-kept secret. A secret that Vincent seemed eager to keep under wraps.
And it wasn’t his place to tell these people the truth. It wasn’t his place to tell them anything. He’d barely spent any time there. So the ball was in Nina’s court.
“Well?” Harvey asked.
“Where we come from doesn’t matter really, does it?” she said.
Harvey sighed. “Only trying to make conversation. The road’s a long and lonely one if we’ve nothing to keep us occupied along the way.”
“Then you need to work on your attention span,” Nina said. “Get your head down. Keep going. We aren’t too far away. Not much further to go.”
Harvey dropped back a little. And when Mike looked around, he saw that he was beside him. “What’s your deal, anyway?”
Mike wanted to respect Nina’s silence. But at the same time, he didn’t want to freeze Harvey out in a way that might backfire. “Let’s just say I’ve fought hard to be where I am. And I’m not going to just give up now.”
“Hell, we’ve all fought hard,” Harvey said. “We’ve all been through shit. We’ve all lost shit. We’ve all lost our goddamned minds, while we’re at it. But hey. It’s all about riding the waves, isn’t it? It’s all about learning to surf. Because if you don’t… you just get washed away.”
Mike looked at Harvey. Something in his eyes. Like that smirk was trying to mask something. A pain.
And in his eyes, Mike sensed a familiar emotion. Like he was masking a burning vengeance as well as he could.
A dangerous vengeance.
“How about you?” Mike asked.
Harvey took in a deep breath and shrugged. “Spent a lot of time on the road before finding the extraction point. Ended up winding up in some… well. Less than savoury groups. Did some things I didn’t like. But I found my way out. That’s the difference, right? I found my way out.”
“What if you’re not able to… to do what you want to do? If you’re not able to hold this Aiden to account for what he did?”
Harvey smiled. “Then I still get the satisfaction of destroying that place from within. It’s not a consolation. Not really. But it’s something.”
Mike nodded. He understood how it was. “Just don’t expect vengeance to really bring you peace.”
“Sounds like you’re speaking from experience.”
Mike stared into space. “More than you bel…”
He stopped, then.
A stabbing pain. Right where the knife had pierced his stomach so recently, in the grand scheme of things.
“You okay?” Harvey asked.
Mike took a few deep breaths. Nodded. “Sure. I just—”
And then another pain. Even sharper this time, even more debilitating.
He wanted to stay on his feet. He wanted to keep pressing on.
But he buckled under the weight of the pain and fell to his knees.
Nina turned around. Concern on her face. “Mike?”
He took in another deep breath. Went to stand, but his head was dizzy. “I’m okay,” he said. “I’m…”
But he wobbled forward again and fell face first into the mud.
Something hit him, then. Something else. A sickness. A nausea totally crippling him; crippling him to the point he wasn’t sure he’d be able to move.
Harvey looked at him, down at his stomach where he’d been stabbed. “What the hell happened to him?”
Nina checked the wound, pulling back his shirt. “He was stabbed.”
“Stabbed? And now he’s out here? What the hell?”
“Trust me,” Nina said. “Tried to tell him he was an idiot, but he wa
sn’t hearing any of it. Mike? Are you okay?”
Mike lay back on the ground. His heart felt like it was beating noticeably slower, but harder at the same time. A sickness in his throat. A nausea. And a tingling, all the way through his body.
“He’s probably just having a delayed reaction,” Harvey said. “Body reacting to the shock of it all, especially if it was so recent.”
Nina nodded. But when Mike looked down, he saw his bandage was a little bloody. Like his stitches had been leaking. “We could really do with getting somewhere we can see to this. Fast.”
“Oh, sure,” Harvey said. “I’ll just give 999 a ring. See what they have to say about…”
He stopped.
He stopped because he’d seen something.
Something in the distance.
“That’s him,” he said. “That’s—that’s Aiden.”
Mike didn’t understand. Not at first.
But he found himself lifting his head.
Found himself looking off into the distance.
He didn’t see.
Didn’t know what Harvey was talking about.
And then he saw.
There were three people.
No.
Wait.
Four people.
Three older people, armed.
And then a girl.
His heart started to pick up, now. He went to stand, fighting through the nausea, fighting through the pain.
And then he got to his shaky feet.
“That’s her,” he said. “That’s—that’s Kelsie.”
Harvey lifted his rifle. Gripped it tight in his quivering hand. “And that’s the bastard who kicked me out of the helicopter,” he said.
He looked at Mike. Rifle in hand.
And then he turned back to the people and started to creep towards them.
“Harvey?” Nina said.
“We’ve got this.”
“But—”
“We’ve got this,” he said. “It’s time to save your girl. And it’s time to make that bastard pay for what he did to me.”
Chapter Thirty-One
When Alison opened her eyes, she had no idea where she was, and no idea how she’d ended up here.
It was dark. She couldn’t tell whether it was night or whether her eyes were just covered. Her mind still felt somewhat caught up in a dreamlike state. Wandering from memory to memory, from place to place.