‘What? But breaking in there and killing him will arouse even more suspicion.’
Henwood nods. ‘If we kill him now and dispose of the body, before New Dawn get the evidence linking him to Marsh Flu and the Huber Corporation, the problem goes away. Whatever mess we make by killing him will be easier to clean up than if New Dawn find out who Boy 23 really is and where he came from.’
‘This is madness.’
Henwood shakes his head. ‘No. Not killing him would be madness.’ He puts his gun back in its holster and stares out at the rainy street.
‘So, do we do it now?’
He shakes his head. ‘We wait for Huber. He’ll be here soon.’
I nod and then slide the scroll out of my pocket, keeping it away from Henwood’s prying eyes as I send a message.
Jesper
My heart thuds as the keys jangle in the lock. Why is someone coming to my room now? I’ve had my midday provisions – the tray is still on my table.
I pick up the blunt knife from my tray and stand close to the door.
The door opens.
And standing there is Father Liebling.
He squizzes at the knife in my hands, and then he closes the door quickly behind him.
‘Jesper, you must listen to me. I’ve been visited by Mr Blake.’
I gawp back at him. Who’s that?
‘From My Place. He looked after you there. He said you know him as The Voice.’
‘The Voice has spoken to you?’
Father Liebling nods. ‘Yes, Jesper. He’s an old friend of mine. He came to set you free.’
‘Then where is he?’
‘Father Frei wouldn’t let him see you. But he gave me these to pass to you. He said you’ll need them when you escape . . .’
And then he passes me a handful of things. A scroll, just like the one that got broken. I swipe my finger across it to wake it. There are some papers too. A Personalausweis with a name on it that isn’t mine: Kaspar Hauser.
‘You and Carina must get out of here right now.’
I nod, gawping at the things in my hand, thinking about The Voice and how he came to find me, just as he said he would.
‘How do I get out?’
Father Liebling lowers his voice. ‘Take my set of keys. They open all the doors in the home.’ He picks out one key in particular. ‘This one’s for the front door. Go now. You must get away.’
‘But they’ll know you let me go,’ I say. ‘What will happen to you?’
He shrugs. ‘I don’t know. I’ll tell them you overpowered me. By then you’ll be far away. What can they do to me?’
I say nothing to that, but what I’m thinking is they’ll kill him for sure.
Another sound makes me jump – a quiet knocking. Nervously Father Liebling moves towards the door, pulls it open. He ushers Carina in. She has my bag on her back.
‘You have everything, Carina?’
She nods.
‘You both have to get out now.’ Father Liebling hands Carina a piece of paper. ‘Take this,’ he says. ‘The Spirit of Resistance – find them and they’ll help you.’
She glances at the leaflet and then puts it in her pocket.
And for a couple of seconds Carina and I just squizz at each other, not sure what happens next.
‘Go,’ Father Liebling urges. ‘Knock me unconscious and then get out before they find you.’
I squizz around the room for something to hit him with, and all I see is the tray. I pick it up.
‘Do it, Jesper,’ Father Liebling says. ‘It’ll make it easier for me to explain.’
I raise the tray above my head, as though I’m going to strike. But I can’t, can I? I can’t hit him.
‘Give it here,’ Carina says, grabbing it from me. In one movement she slams it against the back of Father Liebling’s head and he slumps to the floor. ‘Let’s go!’
Blake
Huber’s car skids up beside ours. Immediately his door opens and he rushes to our car, opens the back door and gets in. Once in the back seat, he checks the chamber of his gun.
‘This is it,’ he says. ‘We’ve run out of time and options. Now we need to end this.’
Henwood nods. Hesitantly, so do I.
‘Henwood and I will go inside the building and kill him. Blake, I want you to wait here.’
I gulp. ‘Wait out here?’
He nods. ‘You can keep an eye out for New Dawn. And you’ll need to be ready to get us away from here fast. Keep the motor running. Understand?’
I nod.
And that’s it. Immediately Huber and Henwood open their car doors and rush towards the building.
I’m left to panic. Jesper and the girl should have got out of the building by now, but I haven’t seen them and there’s no message either. I take the scroll from my pocket and send another message.
Is there a problem? You need to get out NOW. They’re coming inside.
Jesper
We run from the room, through corridors and downstairs. I carry a panicked feeling with me, like this is some sort of trick, that round the next corner someone will see us and shoot.
In the entrance hall we spot Father Brahms. He sees us right away. We slow down. I squizz over at Carina to see what she’s gonna do. And what she does is she walks calmly, as though this is the most natural thing in the world to be doing, as though nothing’s wrong. So I do the same, walking straight across the entrance hall, towards the door, towards escape and freedom.
‘Carina . . . was machst du?’ calls Father Brahms from behind us.
Carina replies to him in German.
The priest raises an eyebrow and nods.
Whatever Carina said has worked, hasn’t it? He’s letting us go.
I fumble the key into the lock of the front door. It clunks open as the key turns. This is it. We’re free. We’re going back to the forest.
Only at the exact moment I put my hand on the door handle, there’s a noise from the far side of the entrance hall. I turn and see Father Frei come in through another door. He squizzes around and spots us. ‘Haltet sie auf, Vater Brahms!’
Carina
Jesper freezes. His eyes dart from Father Frei to Father Brahms and then to me. His hand stays uselessly on the door handle.
‘Jesper, Carina, stay where you are!’ Father Frei shouts, hurrying across the room.
‘Now!’ I say to Jesper. ‘Let’s go!’
And that seems to jolt him into action. He turns the handle, pulls the door open and we’re outside.
We sprint for our lives, leaving St Jerome’s behind us.
‘Come back!’ Father Frei shouts. ‘Jesper! Carina! Don’t do this.’
We don’t look back but run as fast as we can along the drive. Jesper surges ahead – fast and powerful and strong. But as he reaches the end of the driveway, there’s a BANG and I don’t know where it comes from. A bullet flies through the air, missing him by an inch and thwacking into the wall of the home.
We stop and look around and I see two men running this way, guns held in front of them.
BANG.
Another shot flies through the air, missing us both.
‘Quick,’ I say, pulling Jesper to the right. ‘This way.’
Within a couple of strides he’s overtaken me and he’s pulling me along. We sprint through the grounds of St Jerome’s, the two men following us.
BANG.
Another shot misses us.
This is useless. They’ll kill us. They can’t keep missing. The gun I found bashes about in my skirt pocket, and I wish it was loaded. Right now I would have a reason to use it. I wouldn’t hesitate. And then I spot an opportunity – a low section of wall we could jump. And on the other side of it, bomb sites.
‘That way.’ I point.
We both leap the wall and I pull Jesper across the road and into the shell of a bomb-damaged building. We dodge between piles of rubble, run around crumbling walls, charge through the weeds and trees that have reclaimed the land. Jesper u
rges me along. His legs eat up the ground easily while I have to work like crazy to keep up. A glance over my shoulder confirms that they’ve seen us, that they’re chasing us. And out on the street behind them there’s a black car – the same black car I saw waiting outside the home.
And then, all of a sudden, there’s a BANG that cracks the air as one of the men stops running and aims his gun.
The ground right in front of us explodes in a puff of dust and both Jesper and I dodge out of the way. We stumble, but keep moving.
Jesper
‘This way,’ she says, pulling me along again. I follow, squizzing quickly over my shoulder. It’s the two men from the town hall who are following us, and behind them another man gets out of the car and joins the chase. He lifts his gun and fires.
BANG.
I duck.
But his shot flies miles wide of us. Just another puff of dust.
And if I didn’t know better I’d say he missed on purpose. Only we don’t have time to stop and think. There’s no time for anything except dodging, jumping, scrambling, running for our lives.
We duck inside another ruined house, hurdling broken walls until we come out the other side. And then we run for the next ruined house and then the next and the next. All the time the men are following, but always falling further behind.
By the time we leave the next ruined building, I see they’re a long way back, only just scrabbling out of the last building we were in, climbing over the broken walls and squizzing around to see where we are. They stop and aim their guns. We duck down behind a wall.
BANG.
Another gunshot and another puff of dust.
BANG. BANG.
The bullets thwack into the walls of the house and the stone seems to explode and tiny shards and splinters shower down on us. I reach out for Carina and drag her along and we’re running again.
And even though the distance is getting bigger between us, they’re still there, aren’t they? We have to find a way to lose them.
We come out of the last of the ruins on to a road with buildings that look like they’re still lived in. A wagon rolls slowly along the road, pulled by a horse. Carina stops for a second, searching for our next move.
‘Follow me,’ she says suddenly, starting to run in the same direction as the cart. ‘We’ll lose them in the side streets.’
We run straight across the road, towards the wagon, reaching it and using it to shield us from view. And from there I see the three of them emerge out of the last ruined house we came through, stopping by the side of the road to look for us again. And they must catch sight of our feet underneath the wagon or something, cos at the same time they raise their guns again and shoot.
BANG. BANG.
At first there’s the sound of the carthorse whinnying or squealing or screaming or whatever you call it. And when that noise finishes, the horse’s legs crumple and it falls to the ground. The wagon smashes down on to the road and scrapes along.
‘Jesper, quickly.’ Carina pulls me the first few steps, directing us down a side street.
The three men race across the road towards the wagon, guns raised.
And that’s when I see it. A house with an open door. I pull Carina inside and slam the door shut behind us.
Carina
We wait behind the door saying nothing in the gloom of the hallway. I try to stop myself from panting out loud as I get my breath back. We both listen, ears pressed to the door, and we hear their footsteps on the street outside. Though I can’t see them, it sounds like they’re hurrying on to the road, and then they stop. In my mind’s eye I see them surveying the empty street, wondering how we disappeared.
Then I hear them speaking.
‘Are you sure they came down here?’ says a voice.
‘I think so. I think we’ve lost them,’ comes a second voice.
Beside me, Jesper’s head swivels to look at the door. He has a strange look on his face.
‘Well then, where are they?’ asks a third.
There’s no answer to that question. But from how clearly we could hear them, I know they’re right outside the door of this house. Inside my chest, my heart thumps so hard I’m scared they’ll hear it.
I hear the clack of footsteps once more, walking slowly, getting closer. I imagine them coming up to the door, barging it down and finding us. The footsteps get closer and closer, clacking on the road, every other noise in the world seeming to fade away. I’m sure they know we’re here. I’m sure this door is about to be smashed from its hinges. I put my hand into my pocket and grip the gun.
The footsteps stop. Beside me, Jesper has the same terrified expression as the first time I saw him. His eyes dart between the door and my face.
‘Let’s take a look at the end of the road,’ one of the voices says. ‘If we don’t see them, we’ll go back and get the car. They won’t get far.’
There’s no answer, but almost straight away the footsteps start to move away. My heartbeat slows, and I start to think maybe we’ve done it. Maybe we’re free. I take my hand off the gun.
I turn to look at Jesper.
But I see that he’s looking at something else.
We’re not alone.
Because a man has appeared out of another room and he’s holding a pistol, aiming it at Jesper and me.
We both stand frozen to the spot.
‘Who are you? What are you doing?’
Jesper stares at him, silent, and I wonder whether he understands what the old man’s saying.
‘There’s nothing here to steal,’ the man says, his finger moving over the trigger of the gun. ‘We’re just poor old people.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘We didn’t come here to steal anything. There are men chasing us, men who want to kill us. We saw the open door and hid from them.’
‘Who?’ the man says.
‘The Huber Corporation.’
‘Who’s that?’
‘I don’t know,’ I say.
‘Why are they after you?’
I point at Jesper. ‘They want to kill him. They think he has a new type of Marsh Flu.’
Right away the man covers his mouth and nose with his free hand. He lowers the gun. ‘Has he?’
I shake my head.
The man thinks for a second. He doesn’t take his hand from his face. ‘Get out of here,’ he says, sounding scared and angry at the same time. ‘Go now, before I change my mind and shoot you both.’
I reach for the door handle, looking nervously at the man and the gun which he holds down by his side. I open the door and start to back slowly out of the house, saying, ‘We’re going. Thank you.’
And Jesper follows, staring at the old man and the gun, hoping he’s not going to pull the trigger.
As soon as we’re outside, we look around to check the coast’s clear and then we run, through the streets, through the town and out the other side without slowing down.
Blake
The priest – Father Frei – is wandering the streets near to the car when we reach it. He looks panicky. ‘What on earth has happened?’ he says. ‘Where’s Jesper?’
‘We lost him,’ I say. ‘He’s gone. Him and a girl.’
The priest nods. ‘Carina Meyer.’
‘We need to find them before anyone else does,’ Huber says.
Frei looks suspicious. ‘Who are you? What interest do you have in him?’
‘We know the boy very well,’ Henwood says. ‘We run the institution he grew up in. But he ran away a few days ago. We’ve come to get him back. He isn’t safe out there on his own.’
‘What was he doing in the children’s home?’ Huber says.
‘He was picked up by New Dawn patrols in the forest,’ Father Frei says. ‘They brought him to us.’
‘New Dawn?’ says Henwood. ‘What do they know of the boy?’
‘They’re interested in him,’ Father Frei says, turning pale. ‘Commander Brune had asked us to keep him safe. He would be most angry if he knew the boy h
ad escaped.’
‘Then you shouldn’t tell him,’ Huber says.
Father Frei nods. ‘True. But I need to find him quickly or Commander Brune will discover he’s missing.’
Huber stands and thinks for a moment. ‘Father, it seems we’re both looking for the same thing. Perhaps we should cooperate.’
Father Frei nods. ‘We have to bring Jesper back alive, though.’
Huber smiles. ‘I wouldn’t have it any other way. Do you know where they might be headed?’
Father Frei shrugs. ‘They might make for the forest. It’s where both of them were found. It’s where the girl grew up. I’ll bring Markus. He knows the forest as well as anyone.’
Huber nods. ‘Come with us. Between us we’ll find them.’
Carina
We don’t stop until we’re in the forest on the other side of town. Alone.
My lungs burn and my legs ache and my clothes feel heavy with sweat. But when I look over at Jesper, sitting on a log, he looks as though he’s done nothing more than have a stroll.
‘One of those men who was chasing us was The Voice,’ he says. ‘I recognised his voice when we were waiting in the house.’
‘The Voice?’
He nods.
‘Why was he chasing us then? I thought you said he looked after you. They were shooting at us. That’s hardly looking after you, is it?’
He shakes his head. ‘I watched him. He aimed his gun away from us. He’s trying to help us. He was the one who set us free. He spoke to Father Liebling. He gave him this to help us . . .’
He takes something from his pocket – a little black box which he swipes his finger across. The front of it lights up.
‘What is it?’
‘A scroll,’ he says. ‘It’s like the one I had in My Place. It will show us the way to go.’
He stares at the screen, moving his finger across it. The machine is black and sleek and new – and on the front of it is a display which shows pictures and writing and maps. Whenever he runs his finger over it, the things on the screen move. I’ve never seen anything like it.
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