Defender

by G X Todd

  He accelerated quickly away, choosing to keep to the road this time rather than chance going cross-country and his front wheel dropping into a critter’s burrow, sending him flying over the handlebars. A dirt track angled off to his right, leading up to the structure, and he took it. He tucked his head down and covered the distance at high speed, dust kicking up behind his back tyre, a quiet thrill tingling through him at the bike’s powerful torque.

  The barn was a two-storey, wood-constructed outbuilding. It was in some disrepair. Before he was halfway down the dirt track Pilgrim could see the night sky straight through the roof where parts of it had caved in. There was a fenced-off corral built alongside the barn’s eastern wall, most of the fence’s struts nearest the dirt track lying felled on the ground like battle-worn soldiers.

  The outbuilding appeared empty and abandoned, but even as Pilgrim made the observation Voice was finishing his thoughts for him.

  But appearances can be deceiving, can’t they?

  CHAPTER 13

  ‘What do you think he’s doing?’ Lacey asked quietly, watching the motorcycle’s brake flame brighter, a toked-on cigarette glowing in the dark. The Boy Scout pulled to a stop outside the barn, and the red light dimmed to a burning ember.

  ‘Checking to see if anyone’s inside.’

  They spoke in hushed tones, in reverence to the night and the deep, dark emptiness of the desert on all sides. Lacey was scared, although she’d never admit to it out loud. Her hands wouldn’t stop trembling. She sneaked a peek at Alex’s hands: the woman’s fingers were looped loosely around the steering wheel. Lacey couldn’t detect any trembling in them at all.

  Sighing, she double-checked her door was locked then crossed her arms over her chest, tucking her fists into her armpits. She leaned forward in her seat and watched the Boy Scout’s shadow detach from the bike and slip away. ‘We’re staying here, then?’ she wondered out loud.

  ‘Looks like it. There are a few hours left before sunrise, and we need to rest.’

  The soft interior glow from the instrument panel lent Alex’s face a faint greenish tinge, darkening the smudges of her bruises and opening up canyons around her eye sockets.

  Alex’s eyes shifted to her, and a small smile softened the sunken pits of her eyes. ‘Don’t worry, we can always stay in the car. The Mysterious One can sleep on the floor. This is a girls-only zone. No boys allowed.’

  Lacey smiled quickly and went back to staring out the window. The Boy Scout was gone, shadow and all. The motorbike stood alone, its headlight projecting a large white circle on to the barn doors.

  ‘Alex, why were you at the motel?’

  In the heavy silence that followed, Lacey wished she could drag the words back into her mouth and swallow them. When would she learn that silence wasn’t a bad thing, that it had its place, and for good reason?

  Just as Lacey was about to change the subject, Alex said, ‘It was my sister. She wanted to stop there.’

  Lacey’s head swivelled fast, her eyes widening in shock. ‘That . . . that was your sister back there?’

  The woman didn’t say anything, only stared out through the windshield.

  What if it had been Karey lying on that bed? How would Lacey feel? Distraught, lost, angry, helpless, broken, inconsolable, raging at the world. So many things, all jumbled up and locked together by one overriding emotion: devastation. She would be devastated, and she wouldn’t want to talk about it to a stranger. ‘I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have . . . I mean, it’s none of my business.’

  Alex took a deep breath. ‘It’s OK. I should talk about her. She deserves that much. I can’t pretend like it didn’t happen.’ She glanced at Lacey, a quick glance that wouldn’t quite meet her eyes. ‘I was adopted; Sammy came along naturally a couple of years later. Not that the semantics of it make any difference. She’s still my sister.’ Alex looked into her lap, the curtain of her hair falling to hide her face. ‘I’ve always looked after her, ever since I was old enough to talk. She wasn’t an easy person to be around. She had . . . problems. They weren’t her fault, but she could be difficult, hurtful. As soon as I could, I left for college; I needed to get away – my way of escaping, I guess. Left her to our parents, but they couldn’t cope. Seemed like I was the only one she’d listen to. They begged me to come home, but I wouldn’t. I liked my life, liked myself more when I wasn’t around her. She was such hard work.’ She started to cry.

  Lacey reached over and touched the back of her hand. ‘I’m sorry. You don’t have to explain anything to me.’

  ‘It was a relief. When all this happened.’ Alex gestured to her injured face and, when she turned to her, Lacey could barely bring herself to look into the woman’s eyes. The bleakness there was unending. ‘Can you believe that? I was relieved. That’s what a God-awful sister I am. I was glad I didn’t have to find food any more or a safe place to stay, or make all the goddamned decisions. I just wanted it to be over. I didn’t want anyone to hurt her. Never hurt her. But I was relieved when they took her away from me and I didn’t have to look after her any more.’ She covered her face with her hands, and the sounds that came out of her were so broken Lacey had to bite her lip.

  ‘But you did look after her, Alex. All this time.’

  ‘And see what it got her.’ Alex’s laugh was harsh, her words muffled behind her hands.

  ‘It wasn’t your fault. They were bad people. You didn’t know they’d be there. You’re lucky you’re not dead, too.’

  ‘Well, they screwed that part up. They were supposed to kill me. They promised me they would.’

  ‘No, Alex. Don’t say it like that. Your sister wouldn’t want that, not ever. She’d want you here, safe with me.’

  Alex roughly brushed the dampness from her cheeks. She inhaled deeply, her breath hitching on the way in.

  ‘That’s where I’m going,’ Lacey told her, ‘to find my sister. She’s all I have left now.’

  Alex slowly let out her breath and dropped her hands heavily to her lap. She glanced at Lacey and smiled so sadly it brought a spiky lump to Lacey’s throat. ‘You’re a better sister than I am.’

  Lacey tried to keep the tremor from her voice but wasn’t entirely successful. ‘No, I’m not. At least you were with Sammy this whole time. I haven’t seen Karey for over eight years.’

  It was Alex’s turn to reach over. ‘Oh, honey.’ She squeezed her arm.

  ‘We were really close when I was a kid,’ Lacey said, the warm, enclosed space of the car feeling intimate and confessional. ‘Karey’s twelve years older than me, but she never minded having me around. We lost our mom when I was three, and Dad was never around much, so it was just me, Karey and Grams. I think Karey felt we had to look after each other. But she hated where we lived, out in the middle of nowhere. It wasn’t very sophisticated. We were never in the midst of things, you know? Not like she wanted. She wanted to be this high-flying business exec in the city. I never understood that – why would you want to live somewhere so noisy and crowded, somewhere you couldn’t even see the stars properly when you looked up? I sure didn’t. But she hooked up with this older guy called David at university – he was nice, kind of stuffy and serious, and I really didn’t see what they had in common ’cause my sister was always laughing, this great big loud laugh that rumbled up from her belly, and David would give this little smile, and when he laughed he made this weird, breathy sound through his nose, and they just didn’t seem to match, you know?

  ‘Anyway, she hooked up with David, got married on her nineteenth birthday, packed up, and left. Just like that. It kind of hurt, her leaving. I thought we were a team, that she wouldn’t go anywhere without me. But I knew deep down she wasn’t trying to hurt me, she just couldn’t stay. I think she’d have gone nuts if she had. She was too big for that house. She needed to “fly the coop” as my grammy used to say.

  ‘She moved pretty far away, too, but I’d go over and stay with her sometimes. We’d have slumber parties and all that fun stuff: paint ea
ch other’s nails, braid our hair. She told me she wanted a baby but that wasn’t happening as fast as she wanted it to, and each time I saw Karey after that her laugh didn’t sound the same – it didn’t rumble up any more but just kind of hung around her mouth and died. All her energy that used to fill up Grammy’s house when she was there drained away.’ Lacey paused in her telling because her chest hurt, right in the centre. She tugged her sleeve over her fist and wiped her eyes. ‘My sleepovers pretty much stopped after that.’

  Alex’s hand had come to rest on her shoulder, but now it lifted and Lacey felt a strand of her hair gently tugged then tucked behind her ear. There were fresh tears on the woman’s cheeks.

  ‘We’d best quit or else we’ll be two blubbering messes by the time the Mysterious One comes back out,’ Alex said. ‘He’ll wonder what the heck we’ve been doing in here.’

  ‘Yeah. Sob fest.’ Lacey sniffed and offered the sleeve she had wiped her eyes with to Alex. ‘I really am so sorry, Alex. About your sister.’

  Alex wouldn’t meet her eyes. She shook her head at the proffered sleeve. ‘Me, too. Thank you.’

  Lacey poked her hand back through her cuff and took Alex’s hand, keeping hold of it as she returned her attention to the barn. The Boy Scout hadn’t reappeared.

  ‘He’s been in there a while,’ Lacey said.

  ‘Not long. Just a few minutes.’

  ‘What if he doesn’t come out?’

  Alex gave her fingers a reassuring squeeze. ‘He will.’

  ‘But what if he doesn’t?’

  ‘You said you only met him this afternoon?’

  Lacey nodded, her eyes glued to the barn, unaware of when she’d raised her free hand to chew on her thumbnail.

  Alex said gently, ‘So, for all the previous years you didn’t know him, he managed to take care of himself without any help from us, right?’

  Lacey sent her a pointed look over her hand. ‘I get what you’re saying. It’s just . . .’ She went back to her surveillance of the barn. ‘He saved me back there. He didn’t have to. Could’ve just worked his way loose and left. He had the opportunity to – a perfect one, too – they were busy with me, wouldn’t have had any idea he’d got out. But he didn’t. He came back.’

  She remembered the way he’d entered the room, his energy like a gathering storm, silent and deadly. He hadn’t hesitated at all. It was like watching a snake strike, one animal taking out another, no feeling, no remorse. His expression hadn’t altered when he’d brought the clippers down into the big guy’s throat and cut him wide open. It made her feel sick, thinking about how the blood had gushed out.

  ‘He didn’t owe me anything,’ Lacey murmured. ‘Not a single thing.’

  ‘And now you feel like you owe him?’

  Lacey shook her head. ‘No. He surprised me is all. I really thought he would’ve left.’

  ‘And why do you think he didn’t?’

  Lacey puffed out a breath. ‘I have no clue,’ she admitted.

  ‘People don’t do things for no reason, Lacey.’

  Lacey glanced sharply at her, but Alex’s words had been gentle. ‘He’s a good guy. Even if he does act like a dick sometimes.’

  ‘You barely know him.’

  ‘I barely know you, but that doesn’t mean I’m wrong. I know I’m young and naïve, but I’m not an idiot, Alex. I wouldn’t be sitting in this car if I thought he planned on skinning us and wearing us as a party dress.’

  Alex squeezed her hand, and for a second Lacey wanted to snatch it away from her. ‘You’re right,’ Alex said. ‘I’m sorry. I’m just jittery. It’s . . . it’s so hard to trust anyone any more.’

  ‘You can trust me.’

  Alex’s grip tightened on her hand again, and didn’t let up, as if Lacey were the only thing she had to hang on to. Lacey was suddenly glad she hadn’t snatched her hand away in a fit of temper.

  They both stared out through the windshield. Nothing stirred out there, not even the wind.

  ‘He saved us both today, Alex,’ Lacey said quietly, still feeling the need to defend him. ‘That has to mean something.’

  Lacey heard her companion take a long, deep breath. ‘Yeah. I wonder what he does on his days off.’

  Lacey smiled a little. ‘Who knows? He must’ve left his cape at home.’

  ‘Hm, along with his Lycra pants.’

  Lacey snorted, and then they were both laughing, and it felt good to laugh. It eased the thread of tension that had invaded the car, eased something inside Lacey, too, her chest loosening enough for her take her first deep inhalation since leaving the motel. They sat in the warm car together, a quiet giggle breaking out every now and then, their hands still clasped, and waited for the Boy Scout to come back for them.

  CHAPTER 14

  Pilgrim jammed on the brakes and skidded to a stop in front of the barn’s huge double doors, leaving the bike idling while he ran around the building’s corner and jogged along its side. If anyone was inside the barn, they would surely be attracted to the noise of the engine puttering away and not hear him skirting around to the back. He pulled his handgun free and was holding it in both hands as he reached a single door at the south-west corner. It was held shut by a slab of rock that had been propped up against it. Pilgrim placed the bottom of his boot against the slab and pushed, tipping it over. The door creaked open a half-foot, beyond which he could see nothing but blackness.

  Hope there aren’t any rattlers in there.

  ‘Yeah, thanks for that.’

  You’re welcome.

  He hunkered down, his back to the wall, and cautiously poked his head through the gap, peering inside. The large, crooked hole in the barn’s roof opened the space up to the moon, spotlighting the area like a stage. Other than the four stalls opposite, which he could see were empty, the rest of the building was a basic timber frame – a skeleton of wooden bones. There was no second floor, the walls going straight up into the cavernous roof space and out into the star-studded sky. There were heaps of brittle wood littering the ground where the roof’s beams had landed.

  He pushed the door the rest of the way open and entered the barn. He skirted around the brightest part of the moon’s spotlight, keeping to the edges of gloom, his shoulder brushing up against the barn’s wall, and went to the double doors. They hadn’t been opened for a while – he had to get his weight behind his shoulder before they budged. He soon had them both open and was about to climb back on his bike when he heard a car approaching. He looked up to find the girls already on their way over, turning on to the dirt track.

  ‘I told them to stay put,’ he muttered.

  They’re women. They do what they want.

  ‘Well, they’ll have to break that habit.’

  You’re outnumbered now, two to one.

  ‘I notice you keep yourself out of these equations when it suits you.’

  Yup. You’ve got to pick your battles in life, my friend. And it’s not like I can do you much good anyhow. They’d only think you were crazy and dangerous.

  ‘I could live with being crazy if they did what I told them.’

  Pilgrim had pushed his bike out of the way by the time they reached him. He waited for the woman to pull up beside him and hunkered down to speak to her through the window.

  ‘Might want to back her up so you can drive straight out.’

  She nodded and swung the car around.

  What happened to chewing them out for disobeying you?

  Pilgrim stood well back as the car’s reversing lights blinked on.

  ‘I’m picking my battles,’ he said.

  Once the car was safely inside, Pilgrim rolled his bike in after it. As the girl and woman climbed out, each chattering away already, he scooted outside and around the back of the barn to prop the door closed with the stone again. It would serve well to keep animals out.

  As he walked back around to the front, Voice spoke up again.

  You need to be careful in front of Alex. You’re not used to being aro
und people. If she realises you hear me, she might not react well.

  Pilgrim slowed to a stop, rubbing the back of his head, fingers kneading into the spot behind his right ear. It felt solid, whole, perfectly normal.

  Appearances definitely could be deceiving.

  The girls were hard at work pulling the big barn doors shut when he came around the corner. He helped them, grasping the edge of a door and tugging. He let his gaze study the empty road and landscape one last time, searching for movement in the dark or the lights of cars or flashlights shining, but saw nothing. He gave a final yank and pulled the door completely shut, closing them in.

  It didn’t take long to get set up. They sat in front of the car, a small campfire burning in the centre of their little circle. There was plenty of dry firewood strewn around to keep it going.

  The girl had passed out some chicken from one of her meat packages, along with a few slices from a tiny, underdeveloped cucumber, and they all took turns drinking from a flask of lemonade. It was one of the finest meals Pilgrim could remember having.

  ‘I wish we had enough water to wash up.’ The girl held her greasy hands far away from her body, as if scared of contamination.

  ‘Lick your fingers,’ Pilgrim said.

  ‘I don’t see you licking yours.’

  He made a show of wiping his hands on his jeans.

  She wrinkled her nose. ‘That’s disgusting.’

  ‘Boy Scout training. Use whatever’s at hand.’

  Even in the orange glow of the firelight he could see the curiosity in her eyes.

  ‘How much training you got?’ she asked.

  ‘’Bout as many years of it as you’ve been alive.’

  The woman joined the conversation. ‘You have any other useful advice?’

  The firelight danced in her eyes, making the whites look reddish. Her skin appeared dusky, too, the bandages very pale next to it. She sat with her arms looped around her knees, shifting every few minutes, no doubt searching for a position in which to ease her aches and pains.