by C. G. Hatton
I took the field glasses and adjusted the field of vision, scanning round until I saw the ship. The UM ground troops were surrounding it but holding off. I almost held my breath, half expecting what had happened to the Earth troops to happen again. It made me feel cold just thinking about it.
“They can’t get in,” Peanut said. “They dump all that ordnance on it and they still can’t get in.”
I sat back. “Dayton’s probably out there, trying to make some kind of deal with them.”
Peanut took back the glasses and yawned. “Dayton doesn’t give a shit about this place,” he said. “I thought you knew that.”
I opened my mouth to reply but Peanut swore softly and swung the glasses down towards the street. We had incoming.
Chapter 16
I followed the direction he was looking and could just about make out four or five figures, a couple of adults with three kids, all with rifles.
“That’s Calum,” Peanut said. He jumped down off the window ledge. “Come on. Can you make it across the rooftops?”
It’s incredible what adrenaline can do for you. We clattered up the stairs, hearing shouts below us, Calum yelling my name in amongst a string of obscenities. There were other voices. More shouting.
“Who else is here?” I managed to say, not realising how out of breath I was until I tried to talk.
“Don’t worry about them,” Peanut said over his shoulder. “Dayton just wants you.”
We made it to the landing, one level off the roof, footsteps thundering up behind us, and he grabbed my shoulder and pulled me aside, backing through a doorway and pushing me into a corner, holding his finger to his lips, eyes piercing into mine.
I got the message and held still, trying to breathe, trying to keep it quiet, and struggling not to slump down in a heap.
He gestured, beckoning, and I handed over one of the crutches, guessing what he was getting at, and I stood there, twirling the other into a two-handed grip as if it was a staff, as if I had any chance of hitting anyone with it balancing on one leg.
We waited there, hiding.
We could hear Calum still swearing as he ran up and past us, going on up to the roof, the others following him.
My heart was thumping so hard it felt like they’d be able to hear it a mile away.
Peanut glanced at me, then the door, then the floor. I could almost hear his brain trying to work out if they’d all gone past. I shook my head. There was still one to go.
We couldn’t hear him.
We watched as the door pushed open, slowly, a gun barrel appearing, the beam from the flashlight taped to it scanning round the room.
Peanut was bracing himself for a fight. I was just trying not to fall over. If this guy took two steps into the room and turned around, he’d see us.
He didn’t. He backed out and moved off up the stairs, almost without a sound, leaving us in total darkness again.
I carefully lowered the crutch to the ground and leaned on it, taking the pressure off my knee. Peanut was shaking his head, cursing silently under his breath. He handed me the other, his finger on his lips again, and headed across the room.
I limped after him to the balcony and stared out at the gaping abyss of darkness between the buildings as if it had stretched by half a mile overnight.
It was an easy jump. Should have been a cinch. And I knew I couldn’t make it. Not as I was.
I looked at Peanut and he knew it.
“Climb down?” he mouthed.
I peered over the edge. I’d done it a hundred times before. It was the first time I can ever remember being wary of doing something and I hated it. I hated that feeling of incapacitating anxiety that clutched at the pit of my stomach. I drew on every reason I’d ever had to never be afraid of anything ever again and shook it off. Sucked it up and fed off it instead.
I shook my head and mouthed back, “Up.”
He looked at me like I was insane as I ditched the crutches and hoisted myself up onto the railings. I could only take my weight on one leg and the weakness in my stomach muscles was pulling me sideways but my arms were fine and there was nothing wrong with my right leg. I climbed up to the next ledge and sat waiting for him. There was an overhang so even if they looked down from the roof, they wouldn’t see us.
We could hear them up there. We sat tight and waited while they searched, watching the thin arcs of light dance over the neighbouring buildings as they cast their searchlights around trying to spot us. They didn’t waste much time before they started to yell to each other to get back down.
We waited until it was all quiet then climbed up. My arms were screaming at me by the time we crawled out onto the roof. Peanut helped me up, we turned and froze.
The figure standing there had his rifle up and pointing at us. He’d turned the flashlight off so it was just us and him, all standing there in the shadows. There was something familiar about him.
We must have stood there like that for an age then he lowered the gun and took a step forward.
“If you really are working for them, Luka,” he said, voice low, “then go, get inside their walls and stay there, because next time, I might not be able to let you go.”
I should have kept my mouth shut but you know what I’m like. I blurted out, “Benjie, why the hell do you even think that?” I was standing there, still wearing the clothes Charlie had given me in the garrison, wearing their colours, their insignia on the sleeve. It was stupid to even try to protest but that’s hindsight for you. Idiots like Calum hated me because I was good at stuff. I think I was hoping that Benjie was different.
He brought the rifle up again. “It doesn’t matter what I think.”
I thought he was going to pull the trigger but he dropped the stance and turned. Walked away without another word.
I felt Peanut shiver.
“Are the kids still with Calum?” I said quietly.
“Shit,” he whispered. “Yes, they are. I took the bolt off that damn cupboard door.”
I didn’t know what to say.
Peanut shook his head. “We need to get the kids away from them.”
I felt sick beyond the tiredness and injuries. “Peanut,” I said. “I’m not… I’ve never…”
He cut me off. “Don’t.” He looked me in the eye for a long moment as if he was going to say something profound. He didn’t. “Stay here,” he said instead. “Right here,” and banged his hand against the vent making me jump. “I’ll check they’ve gone.”
I guessed it wasn’t going well when he didn’t reappear. I couldn’t hear anything from the building below. Gunfire and shouts were echoing through the city, sounds of combat drifting in from the desert. I was starting to chill down. My clothes were sticking to me. I should have changed, showered, eaten, tried to rescue Latia, kissed Maisie again… It’s stupid what runs through your head when you’re hurting and trapped on top of a building by people you used to think were on your side.
I slunk further and further back into the dark as I waited. If they ran back up to the roof, there was nowhere to go. Whenever I broke into the garrison, I always had a get out planned, wherever I was. There on the roof? Nada.
I think I jerked awake when I heard the noise at the edge. I wasn’t asleep on my feet but I wasn’t far from it. I had to work to slow my breathing, keep quiet, squeeze deeper into the scant cover I had.
I knew who it was as soon as I saw her climb up and roll into a crouch, and I started to shiver.
She looked around, looked right towards me without seeing me and started to turn away.
“Wait, Maisie, wait,” I hissed and limped out, wary still and looking around but if I couldn’t trust Maisie, I really was screwed.
She ran to me and grabbed me in a hug, dragged me back into cover and pressed a finger to my lips with a shush. “You can’t stay here,” she whispered. “They’re going to search the whole block. Dayton has this whole area back under his control. We need to go across the rooftops.” She stared at me, not wanti
ng to ask if I could make it.
“I’m good,” I whispered back, shivering uncontrollably and giving her a grin to show I meant it. “Where’s Peanut?”
She glared at me with sparks in her eyes. “I don’t know. Dayton’s guys are everywhere. They’re going for the mines. Everyone’s saying UM turning up gives us everything we need. They’re going for it, Luka. This is it. They’re going to take back the colony.”
She shushed me again when I tried to argue and said again that we had to go. I let her lead me across the roof, feeling her fingernails digging into my skin as she gripped my arm.
I had to bite my lip to divert the pain from my knee, pins of red heat stabbing into it with each faltering step. She caught me when I stumbled and took me right to the edge. “Can you climb down?” she whispered.
I shook my head. “Need to jump from here.” I wanted to unstrap the brace from my knee, but I knew it wouldn’t hold without it.
“What’s wrong?”
“I can’t move with this on.”
I bent to undo the catch.
She caught hold of my hand to stop me. “No. You can.”
They could have appeared at any minute but it felt like we had all the time in the world and, standing there with her on that rooftop, it felt like the whole world was ours and we were the only people in it. She stood there, holding my arm and looking right into my soul. I took hold of her and held her tight, holding the back of her neck, kissing her and not caring if she was going to kiss me back or not. She did. There was no hesitation.
We stayed like that, together for what felt like forever then I pulled away and whispered in her ear, “You go first. I might need you to catch me.”
She laughed, staring me in the eye before turning and running for the edge.
I watched her land and roll to her feet on the other side. I sucked in a breath, got my balance and ran.
Have you ever experienced pain so bad that all you can do is parcel it up and move away from it? Laugh at it like it’s not yours so you can float above it and ignore it.
Every step was agonising. I jumped off my right leg, pushed off and knew straight away it wasn’t enough. It was a jump I’d made loads of times, no big deal, and I blew it.
I fell.
It was astonishingly quiet. I twisted and reached out, bumping my hand against anything it could reach. I hit a ledge and tumbled, trying to grab something, scraping my hand across a railing before I managed to hold on. My arm locked, I hit the wall and I bounced back, hanging there, full weight on one tenuous grip, three straining fingers between me and a fifty foot fall to the ground.
I had to swing to get my other hand up there before I could climb and scramble my way up onto the balcony, hauling myself up and crawling past broken plant pots to sprawl on my back, laughing or crying, it could have been either.
Maisie dropped down beside me and thumped me in the arm. “You shit,” she hissed. “You did that on purpose.”
I curled up, fending her off with a grumble. “I think I broke my arm.”
She looked horrified, concerned and outraged in fast succession as I couldn’t help laughing. She thumped me again and pulled me up.
“Hey,” I muttered as she took off, dragging me after her, “I can’t walk that fast.”
“Suck it up, Luka,” she muttered back at me. “There’s three more jumps you’re gonna have to make.”
Chapter 17
We made it past Dayton’s guys before she let me stop. I was leaning heavier and heavier on her, couldn’t bear to put even the tiniest amount of weight on my knee. We staggered into one of the abandoned stores and she let me sink down in a corner.
“We can’t stay here,” she said, pulling a pack off her back and rummaging. I thought she might have food but she just got out a bottle of water and a popper sheet of pills. She handed them over. “Take some of these.”
I didn’t ask what they were. Anything was welcome. I downed a couple and sat back. “There’s a place on Seventh I could go. You need to get back.”
She looked at me like I was insane. “I’m not going back and you can’t stay anywhere. I’m taking you to Charlie. He said he’d get you out of here. He said that, didn’t he?”
I kept quiet. He had said that but they were on high alert. They had the resistance kicking off and UM on their doorstep. The security status must have gone through the roof. Charlie wouldn’t have time to worry about a stray kid who’d been stupid enough to get himself kicked out of his little gang, who was stupid enough not to stay put when told to.
Anyway, I wouldn’t go anywhere without Latia.
I didn’t say anything but Maisie was smart enough to figure out what I was thinking.
I scuffed my right foot through the dust, left leg stretched out, the knee throbbing and swollen. The rest of me was just tired. I didn’t know how I was going to move again.
“We need to get the kids away from Calum,” I said instead.
“I know. If not Charlie, then where?”
“Seventh. I used to go to this place there when I was bunking out of that shit school. No one uses it.”
She didn’t look happy but she leaned in, gave me a kiss on the cheek and dragged me to my feet.
“We’ll get out of here,” she said. “All of us.”
The sky was starting to brighten by the time we got there. It was an old bar that had been hit by a stray shell eight years ago. Like most of this part of the city, no one had been interested in repairing it and it had been abandoned.
She left me there. Just a hug that time. I watched her go from the doorway.
I didn’t feel safe enough to sleep but I could hardly keep my eyes open. I made it up to the top floor where the roof had caved in and sat in amongst the rubble, watching the school across the street and the outpost guarding the junction at the end of the road. There was a guard on duty up there but no one else around. Dayton’s crowd wouldn’t come anywhere near this part of town. Not openly. Some of them lived out in the city, drank in the bars, met in the cafes and bakeries. I’d heard them talking about their lives. As if the tunnels and the resistance was just a job they went to afterhours. But they wouldn’t come after me out here in force. Not in daylight.
I sat there watching as the sun rose and the city woke up and hurried about its business. Life goes on, even in a war zone. The place I was in wasn’t that bad. I reckoned if Dayton did try to get to me there, I could make a break for the outpost. They might take me in. Or even the school.
I had no idea what Maisie was planning to get the kids away from Calum. Just the little ones, we’d agreed. Only the ones we knew for sure wouldn’t side with him. The ones he could use against me like he had Freddie.
It was tough waiting. I should have been down there with them but she was right, I was no good to anyone if I was dead.
I started planning how I could get Latia out, working out scenarios and what ifs, then I got the cards out and practised shuffling the deck, messing about. Once it got to midday, I started to get worried and worked my way back down to ground level to stand just inside the doorway, watching. I reckoned something was up when the troops at the outpost came out and started to patrol, warning people off the streets. It wasn’t often they threw out curfew orders in the middle of the day but it wasn’t unheard of. The school hadn’t even opened. I’d lost track of what day it was so I had no idea if it was even supposed to. It had crossed my mind that there would be food in there, but I didn’t want to disappear in case I missed Maisie. I kept thinking she’d turn up any minute.
When she did, she was running. She had a bunch of the little ones with her, one of them balanced on her hip, my crutches in her other hand. A fairly stiff wind was blowing in from the desert and the kids were struggling in the heat and dust. I couldn’t see any of Dayton’s guys behind them, a couple of city folk scurrying up the road but no one with guns out, no one obviously chasing them. I limped out to meet her, let one of the youngsters clamber up onto my back and struggled al
ong beside her, taking the crutches as she held them out to me.
“What’s going on?”
She was herding the kids as fast as they’d go. “Dayton’s attacking the mine. I’m going back for Latia. You need to get everyone inside.” She handed me the one she was carrying.
With the crutches, I could hardly handle one, never mind two. They clung on, their little hands around my neck. I slowed. “Wait. Let me come with you.”
“You can’t,” she said. “Calum’s out looking for you. He’ll…”
She was cut off as the ground shook with the force of a massive explosion. Another, even bigger, followed. The kids starting screaming. I looked around. A dust cloud was billowing up into the sky, way out in the desert, opposite direction to the crashed ship, but the shockwave had rippled through the ground under our feet.
Maisie glanced round at me.
“Oh shit,” I said.
She looked horrified. “The processing plant?”
“It must have been.”
We stood there out on the street, wide open, soldiers from the outpost starting to turn and look at us.
“We should get inside,” I muttered.
We’d taken two steps then the warning siren started to wail. My stomach turned to ice. It felt like time stood still. Maisie looked at me. We’d both heard that siren before.
We started to move.
“Where do we go?” she yelled. “The school?”
I was trying to keep up, not going fast enough. The last time the gas warning had sounded, we’d been with Latia and she’d taken us all to the shelter on her block, calmly telling us it had happened before and it would happen again, and it was nothing to be afraid of, they used such dangerous chemicals to process our ores, why else did we think they’d build such lovely shelters? I’d always thought they were for the air raids. We’d huddled there in the dark, listening to her stories and eating the candy from ration packs while we waited for the all clear.