by Ryan Casey
Not again.
Not again.
She stopped. She stopped right opposite the guard, and she looked right into his eyes.
“What do you want me to do now?” she asked.
The guard scanned her body, head to toe. Like he was enjoying studying her. Enjoying checking her out.
“I guess we’ll have to come to some sort of arrangement if we want to keep this between us—”
She didn’t hear him out.
She didn’t listen to what he had to say.
She just pulled back that spanner and cracked it across the side of the guard’s face.
She saw the blood right away. Heard the crunch of teeth splitting under the force. And then she saw the way he fell down, the way he clutched his disfigured cheek.
She pulled the rifle from his weakened hands and pointed it right at him.
“Now I’ll tell you how things are going to go,” Alison said. “Now I’ll tell you how we’re going to do things. Understand?”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Mike watched Harvey pull the trigger.
But something happened.
The rifle didn’t fire.
Nothing erupted from it.
No bullet came out of it.
Mike saw the surprise on Harvey’s face as he leaned over Aiden. He saw the way he looked up at Mike, like he knew what was coming next.
And Mike found himself caught up in a moment where he had to make a decision.
Where he had to make a choice.
Trust Harvey.
Or trust Aiden.
Trust the person Kelsie was telling him to trust.
“Mike,” Harvey started. “You have to see my argument. You have—you have to see where I’m coming from.”
Mike walked towards Harvey, towards Aiden, slow in his movements. He could see the look of uncertainty on Callum and Ulrich’s faces. The way they had their rifles pointed at Mike now, too.
The uncertainty in their eyes.
The fear in their eyes.
He stopped. Stopped right by the pair of them. And he could see from the look in Harvey’s eyes that he was in a dark place. A place where only vengeance would satisfy him.
A place that was going to run them all into the ground.
“You have to trust me,” Harvey said. “These—these people. They aren’t to be trusted. They aren’t—”
Mike didn’t hesitate.
He lifted his knife and rammed it through Harvey’s throat.
Harvey clutched his neck, then wobbled to the ground.
Then, as he was falling, he grabbed Harvey’s rifle from his hand.
Took a deep breath.
Then put a bullet through his skull before he had the chance to do anything; before he had the chance to suffer anymore.
He watched him fall to the ground. Saw the surprise on the faces of those around him; on the faces of Callum and Ulrich.
He turned to them.
Pointed the rifle at them. “Don’t,” he said.
But it was too late.
He saw it.
That momentary flicker where they lifted their rifles.
Went to point them at Mike.
So he shot Ulrich through the chest.
And then he shot Callum in his side.
But the bullet didn’t hit Callum cleanly. He fell to his knees, but he was still able to point that rifle. He was still able to direct that gun.
And he was pointing it at Mike.
Finger tickling the trigger.
Bracing to fire.
Mike went to pull the trigger before it was too late.
But he didn’t have to.
Nina cracked him over the skull and knocked him out, right away.
Silence followed. Silence other than the wings of resting birds in the trees above, unsettled by the commotion.
And then the sound of Aiden grunting with pain.
Nina looked at Mike. Wide-eyed. “I hope you know what the hell you’re playing at.”
Mike looked around at Kelsie. He saw her by Aiden’s side. And he could tell from the way he was looking at her that he cared about her. That they’d made some kind of bond, regardless of who this guy was, regardless of what he represented.
“I trust Kelsie,” Mike said. “She’s a good judge of character. If she says this guy’s going to help my people… I have good reason to believe her.”
“I hope you’re right,” Nina said.
Mike walked over to Kelsie and Aiden. He walked past the bodies on the ground. And he felt bad about them. Bad about what he’d done to them. Bad about what he’d had to do. He had no doubt Harvey and his people had good intentions at the end of the day. They’d wanted to stop this extraction point from its evils.
But at the same time… he’d seen how quickly Harvey had turned a gun on him. And that worried him. Because it showed Mike that he valued himself over others. It showed him that he was willing to go to any length to reach his end goal.
And sure. It could be argued that Mike wasn’t too different.
But he wasn’t going to let his people become anything less than a priority in any of this.
He checked their guns for spare ammo.
And that was when it hit him.
“Mike?” Nina said.
“The rifles,” Mike said. “Callum and Ulrich’s rifles. They’re… they’re empty.”
He checked Harvey’s rifle then as the tension and the dread built up.
And that’s when he saw Harvey was out now, too.
The last of his bullets, used on him. Used on his people.
“It was all for show,” Mike said. “I… I killed them. And it was all for show.”
He felt a hand on his shoulder. Felt it squeeze him.
When he looked up, he saw Nina half-smiling.
“You did what you had to do in the moment. The only thing you could do.”
Mike took a deep breath, then he nodded.
He had to believe Nina was right. He had to keep telling himself that.
He reached Aiden’s side, and he saw the bullet wound.
It was superficial. Not as serious as he’d feared. The bleeding wasn’t too bad. More of a graze against his skin than a solid hole. But it still wasn’t ideal. “We’re going to have to get you cleaned up and stitched up.”
“Back—back at the extraction point,” Aiden said. “There’s… If you let me get back there, there’s things there. Things I can use. Things I can… things I can use to stitch myself up.”
“Do you think you’re going to be able to make it back there?” Mike asked.
Aiden sat up. Covered the wound with his hand. “As long as I get it covered, I think I can make it. I think I can do this.”
“And you’re sure you can do this without any questions being asked?”
Aiden took a deep breath. “I’m starting to think that maybe… maybe getting questions asked could be our best shot.”
Mike frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I figure if I go back there and… and make out I’ve been attacked. Make out there’s someone out there coming for our home, I can cause a distraction. Enough of a distraction to get your friends and your dog out of that place. But there’s just one problem.”
Mike didn’t like the way he said those last words. “What’s that?”
Aiden stared at him like he still wasn’t sure why he was confiding with him. “If I let them know there’s someone out there nearby… they’re going to come for you. For all of you. There’s a chance they’ll catch up with you. And I’m not sure I can guarantee your safety. I’m not sure I can promise you won’t be hunted down.”
Mike weighed up the pros and cons. He looked at Nina. Looked at Kelsie. And he thought about the alternatives. “If it’s the only way…” Mike said.
“The best-case scenario is that I get back there and get inside and out again without anyone even knowing I’ve been there. That’s what I’ll try to do. That’s what I’ll work towards.”
“But I can’t promise it’s a likely scenario.”
Mike nodded. He weighed up his options once again. And at the end of the day, he only saw one choice.
“I don’t know why you’ve changed your allegiances,” he said. “I don’t trust you. And I promise if I so much as suspect you’re up to something, you’re a dead man. But Kelsie here trusts you. She owes her life to you. So I owe you a chance. I just hope to God you don’t screw it up. For your sake.”
And then he did something that went against every instinct inside him.
He held out a hand.
Aiden looked at his hand. He looked at it there in front of him. And he looked like he was having a debate himself.
And then he cleared his throat, and he took Mike’s hand.
“I’ll do everything I can to get your people out of that place,” he said. “I’ll do everything I can to save your people.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Aiden led the group, and he found himself caught in two minds like never before.
The night was giving way to morning. Soon, the darkness would lift, and bright blue sky would follow. He could just feel it. It was one of those days. One of those beautiful days.
And to the people inside the extraction point, it would just seem like normal. It would just seem like another day in paradise.
But Aiden knew things were never going to be the same again.
He looked back. Looked at Mike. At Kelsie. At Nina. And he felt bad. For Kelsie in particular. Because he’d seen something in her. He’d come so far with her. He’d done so much for her in such a short time knowing her.
And he’d do his best to make sure she stayed out of the crossfire.
He’d do everything he could to make sure she got out of this mess alive.
As for the other two…
He couldn’t make the same promise.
Far from it.
He’d seen life on the outside. Life in the wilderness. He’d seen how tough and difficult it was. And he had tried to kid himself that he could survive outside. He’d tried to lie to himself that he could adapt to that way of life all over again.
But that’s exactly what it was. A lie. A lie he was telling himself because he was in a… well. A moral quandary let’s say.
But he was waking up from it.
He was waking up from it, and he was seeing the truth.
He needed to be in the extraction point because that was where he belonged.
And sure. There were… issues. Issues with the extracting of people. Issues with building false hope for a future that didn’t exist.
But that could be worked through.
After all, as Richard said, it was only a minority of people who got ditched from the extraction point.
And Kelsie was going to be one of the only ones left alive to tell the tale.
And he’d make damn sure she stayed far, far away once he’d made his final move.
Because if she didn’t… she was in trouble. Big trouble.
Trouble that he really didn’t want her to find herself in.
He glanced at Nina. He vaguely recognised her from her time at the extraction point. He just had to be thankful that he wasn’t the one to kick her off the helicopter. That he wasn’t the one to end her hope, once and for all.
If he had, he knew things could be very different right now.
“How much further?” Mike asked.
Aiden felt a lump of guilt building inside. Because he knew this guy didn’t trust him. And rightly so. It was unwise to trust anybody in this world.
But at the same time… he saw just how much this man cared about Kelsie, too, and the lengths he was willing to go to rescue his people.
But one thing was for certain.
His people were trapped.
They weren’t getting out of the mess they were in.
They were going to stay in that extraction point. And if they tried to leave… they weren’t going to find much in the way of luck.
“Not much further,” Aiden said, as he saw the first glimpse of the extraction point in the distance. “Not much further at all.”
It was time for the final stretch.
It was time for the final part of the plan.
It was time for everything to change.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Alison held the rifle to the guard’s head. “Here’s what we’re going to do.”
The guard looked up at her. His eye was completely busted. The left side of his face looked like it was on the verge of caving in. But remarkably, he was still alive. He was still very much conscious.
Blood trickling down his chin.
“You’re going to help me and my friend get to my dog, first,” Alison said. “And then you’re going to help us out of this place.”
The guard shook his head, which seemed to cause him more pain than Alison was expecting. “Can’t do that,” he blubbered.
Alison rammed the rifle right into the guard’s face. She did it so hard that it made him call out again. “Quit your whining,” she said. “And don’t you dare tell me you can’t help us out of this place. That’s not an option you have. That’s not a choice, here.”
“I’m—I’m telling you the truth,” he said, although every word was clearly growing progressively difficult now. “Guards on watch at all times. And looking… looking like this. I can’t do anything. Someone will know. Someone will know something’s wrong.”
Alison sighed. She lowered the rifle. “So what you’re telling me is you’re pointless to me right now?”
The guard’s eyes widened. “Please. I have family. I have people I care about. Children.”
“And what about the children you’re pretending to extract from this place? What about them, hmm? I’m supposed to just ignore that? I’m supposed to just forget it?”
“It’s not what—it’s not what you think,” he said.
“What’s not what I think? Because it sounds pretty clear to me.”
“Albion was a place,” he said.
Alison frowned, then. Because that news. It took her by surprise. “What… what do you mean it was a place? It’s an illusion. It’s a lie.”
“Maybe now, that’s what it is. But it never used to be. There was a—a place. A place where we took people. In the early days. But then something happened. Something happened at that place. We went there one day and—and the power was gone. People had fallen. There were—there were traces of foreign military. And we knew right then we couldn’t go back there. We knew we couldn’t risk taking people there. Not after that.”
“Bullshit.”
“It’s true,” the man said. “We tried to push further out, too. Try and explore what was happening. Lost a helicopter in the process. We don’t know what’s going on out there, but one thing’s for certain. There’s a hell of a lot we still don’t understand. There’s more we don’t understand than we do. That’s just how it is.”
Alison pondered the man’s words. He sounded… genuine. As much as she didn’t want to believe him. “So you couldn’t just tell people the truth here? Instead, you had to concoct some kind of false story to keep people working for you? To keep people trusting you?”
“We saw… we saw how easily places could fall when there was no respect. When there was no real order. We didn’t want that. So Richard made a choice. But it—it wasn’t supposed to be permanent. It never was supposed to be permanent. Rome wasn’t built in a day. Right?”
Alison considered the guard’s words. She wondered how much truth there was to them. She wondered whether she could trust herself to believe him.
But at the end of the day… his story added up.
His explanation added up.
She didn’t have to agree with him to see there was something to what he was saying.
“I can’t help you,” the man said. “But I can… I can tell you one thing. Richard. He wasn’t going to kill you. He was going to take you far, far awa
y from here. Far enough that you wouldn’t know how to get back. But you’d be alive. And if… if you give me a chance, I’ll let this go. I’ll say… I don’t know what I’ll say. But I’ll say this didn’t happen. And then I’ll make sure you leave this place together. I’ll make sure your dog’s with you, too.”
Alison looked at Gina, still strapped there. Then she looked back at the guard. “How do I know I can trust you?”
“You don’t,” he said. “But right now, I’m all you’ve got.”
Alison looked around. Looked at the bloodied spanner on the floor. She looked at the rifle in her hand. And she looked at this guard crouching opposite her.
She knew he was right.
“Please,” he said. “Just—just give me a chance,” he said. “We’re not evil. We’re on the same side, at the end of the day. Let us do what we’re doing. It’s temporary. It’s not forever. It’s not the way it’s always going to be.”
And Alison didn’t want to accept.
She didn’t want to believe.
She didn’t want to trust.
But she found herself weighing up the options, and ultimately, she could only see one outcome.
“Give me a chance to help you,” he said. “Give me a chance to help you let this go. You don’t have to die here. You can still live.”
Alison lowered the rifle.
She went to speak.
But then she heard footsteps at the door.
She saw a figure.
Three figures.
And then she heard a voice.
“I think it’s a little late for that now, Andy,” Richard said, looking right at Alison. “Don’t you?”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Mike wasn’t sure how long he and his people had been waiting for Aiden before he started to grow uncertain.
The sun had risen. The trees had given way to a view of the extraction point. On first glance, Mike had to admit it looked impressive. Tall walls clearly constructed with care. People inside. A community quite unlike any Mike had seen before.
And helicopters. Helicopters sitting in the distance, just waiting to depart.
He listened to the slight murmur of life. It wasn’t noisy, but just enough for him to know that something was happening there; that the place was occupied, lived in.