Rise

by Victoria Powell

  Shots from downstairs. Loud shots. All of their team’s pistols in the foyer were silenced. The guards were coming. Toby pulled the duvet away from the bodies. The wife had been the first to die. Just before her little boy.

  “It’s not him.” Bryant growled and ran back to the corridor.

  Toby staggered back. A kid. Maybe eight or nine years old. Just a kid. The guards chose to be here. The wife chose to be here. That kid didn’t get a say.

  Toby watched the blood spread across the bed. The boy’s eyes were wide. He’d heard his mother die.

  “Toby, come on! The job’s not done yet. We’ve got seconds to find him.” Bryant hissed.

  Bryant pulled Toby back into the corridor. One of the Erikssens was kicking a door, the one next to Adam’s room. Bang. The Erikssen fell back into the corridor, revealing three guards in a surveillance room beyond.

  “Come on!” Tim shouted, charging into the relative cover of Rebekah’s room.

  Toby was last. Tim had the little girl, holding her as a shield against the coming guards. The girl was only five or six. Bryant shot out, taking a guard down by the knee.

  “Hold fire!” Tim shouted, gesturing with the girl.

  More guards were running up the stairs. Toby couldn’t find cover. A guard cocked his weapon. There was one exit. It was going to hurt.

  Toby leapt at the window, smashing it and falling hard onto the grassy bank below. Pain shot across his shoulder, chest, back and up his leg. Shots and screams rippled above him. Hoping to hell his right ankle was Ok, he pulled himself up onto his feet and felt the ground carefully. He had to go.

  20 - The Daughter

  “Alex! Wake up now!”

  It was warm, like a thick duvet covered her from head to toe. A familiar female called to her. Who was it?

  “Come on, Alex.” It was Penny Mitchell. Penny had saved her. Penny was a Larton girl.

  The warmth lifted a little. This was not her bed. This was not the warehouse. The Ackersons were gone. Her Dad was missing. He escaped. She needed to find him. There was someone shaking her shoulders.

  Too bright. Was there something on her arms? They felt so heavy. The shadows formed and Penny’s hair was tickling her face.

  Alex flopped her useless arms up to beat Penny off.

  “Get up!” Penny pulled her into a sitting position. “We gotta go now!”

  Nothing stopped Alex collapsing backwards against the wall. “Where am I?”

  Penny stepped back and reached for a glass of water. “Drink this.”

  Alex shook her head. “Where am I?”

  “We’re still in the hideout. Drink,” Penny insisted.

  The water was foggy, cold against her teeth and gritty on her tongue, reminding her of home. She gasped air as the glass was pulled away.

  “I have to find my Dad.” Alex pulled herself to the edge of the bed.

  Penny took her hands and gently pulled. “No, we have to find a new safe house.”

  “I have to help him!” Alex screeched.

  Penny held her steady at the edge of the bed, studying her carefully. “Alex, listen to me. Tim didn’t come back. The police are on their way. We need to go across town to a base I know near Gateway, near the Saints’ Gate.”

  Alex concentrated on Penny’s face. “We need to go to Gateway? That’s the district west of the police compound. All the children’s homes are there.”

  “Yes,” Penny said impatiently. “Drink some more water.”

  “Why would your base be there? It’s too close to the cops. I’ve never gone there. I don’t even like going to The Reaches because that’s too close,” Alex moaned.

  “Gateway is full of kids. The Reaches is full of people who work for the cops. I know which one I find more dangerous,” Penny said.

  Alex sipped slowly. “Where are we now?”

  Penny paused. “You don’t need to know exactly where, but we’re a good two hour walk away. Probably three hours away at this time of night.”

  “Night?” Alex had lost track of time in the windowless room. “We can’t cross the city during curfew. Nobody knows the streets well enough to map where that many scanners and police routes are.”

  Penny took the empty glass away and filled it from the tap. “We don’t have a choice. I can’t trust any of our hideouts with Tim missing. We need to get to Gateway before the others leave!”

  “It’s too dangerous.” Alex grabbed onto Penny’s arm, steadying herself to stand. “I might know somewhere else.”

  “Where?”

  Alex waited until the dizziness faded. “What’s wrong with me?”

  Penny shrugged. “You’re fine. Where can we go? Can we find your contact and get to the Ackersons?”

  Alex paused, judging her trust for this woman, then shook her head. “It’s too early. They won’t be there.” They might be too far away from the contact location too. “How far away are we from Fleetwood Bridge?”

  Penny opened the door through to the hallway, leading Alex. “About five streets away.”

  Alex smiled. “You got me all the way to the edge of Kettering? I know this neighbourhood. The curfew traps and signals should be passable between here and north side of Fleetwood Bridge.”

  Penny wrapped a scarf around Alex’s head before opening the front door. “Should be?”

  “Shh,” Alex urged. “You’ll need to take us on to Gateway when daylight comes. Fleetwood Bridge is as far as I know.”

  “Keep alert. Watch the streets, the roofs and the windows. If anything moves...”

  They stepped into the street, staying close to the buildings to avoid a beam sweeping across the street.

  Alex pulled Penny into the road at the next junction. “The roads are wet. Watch for electrifications attached to the Tarmac. Last time I came down here the pavements were covered in trap triggers. Don’t touch them,” Alex hissed.

  Penny nodded sceptically. “You really know these streets?”

  “I wish. I haven’t been down here in six weeks. Anything could have changed in six weeks,” Alex mumbled. “But I guess I know them better than you.”

  Towers crowded on all sides. Alex felt like Don Quixote surrounded by silent giants. Pocks of light shone from their windows. The roofs were clear, no sign of snipers.

  “Turn right at the end. We have a ten second gap to cross at the junction,” Alex whispered.

  Penny hesitated. “You’ll lead us across?”

  Alex’s vision blurred in and out, but she stayed quiet. Penny was hard to trust right now. As much as she wanted to wait until hell freezes over before revealing a weakness, the next step on their path needed more strength than she had in her body.

  Alex said, “You’ll have to do it. The beam sweeps three-sixty degrees pivoting around the centre of the crossroads. It changes direction at the south point every third sweep. It takes thirty seconds to complete each sweep. We need to wait until it changes from a clockwise sweep to an anticlockwise sweep and follow the next pass anticlockwise around the circuit.”

  “What? We can’t get across in that time,” Penny whispered back.

  “You’ll need to watch the pass a couple of times.”

  Penny shook her head. “We’ll be out in the open for too long.”

  Alex shrugged. “As long as needed. We can’t take risks.”

  “We’re already taking a risk.”

  “If you go at the wrong time then we will be caught,” Alex growled. “The beam would knock us both out. You bloody well wait and get it right.”

  They approached the junction and waited in the shadows near the turn. Penny gripped tightly to Alex and held her nerve, checking the road for sweepers. She let the first change of direction pass by and felt every second of the clockwise rotations pass. She readied herself.

  “Thirty seconds,” she whispered.

  Alex nodded. “Take us straight over to the far pavement. Then be completely silent until we reach Raverscroft Street to turn left.”

  “Microphon
es on the street?”

  Alex nodded. “Yes, so quiet footfalls.”

  “Ten seconds.”

  Penny tugged her into the street as the wave of heat passed. The beam chased them around its epicentre. Touching the far pavement, Alex gave Penny a nudge and indicated silence with her finger across her lips. Penny copied. Her breath had been coming out in huge panting breaths. They delicately began the walk towards Raverscroft.

  Alex hung back as Penny checked Faulkner Street for cops. Like the other streets, it was empty. Alex felt the ever-present tension humming in her stomach. Where were the cops?

  They turned onto Raverscroft and saw the bridge ahead of them. Alex pulled Penny up short.

  “This street takes a long time to get down. Watch where you walk. Every couple of slabs there’s a trigger slab. Some just have alarms,” Alex shrugged. “We won’t even know we’ve set off a trigger until cops turn up. If we’re lucky?”

  “If we’re lucky?”

  “Look over there at that wall.” She indicated a blank bit of wall at the base of a block of flats. “There’s no window on the ground floor on the left. Looks a bit odd with all the other windows crammed together around it. See how the wall’s been freshly painted and the pavement’s been patched?”

  Penny nodded.

  “There was a bomb. Someone triggered it a couple of months back. Took out the wall of the ground floor flat and killed an old lady living inside.” Alex gestured widely with her hands. “Kaboom.”

  “Got it,” Penny said. “Tread carefully.”

  “Use your eyes.”

  Wandering through a minefield sharpened every nerve in the body. The toes were more sensitive to movement of the earth, the ears heard the piercing noise of bats clicking away in the rafters, the eyes were drawn to the flash of lights reflecting off windows as they passed. Alex’s head cleared of fuzziness, but a persistent headache ploughed over the top of it. The bridge was a haven when Alex finally rested against the wall of its underside, panting from the emotional rollercoaster that had been the last twenty minutes. Penny was right beside her, feeling the same stress and contortion brought on by the night’s events.

  “Why here?” Penny finally asked. “We’re still out in the open. Any cop could come around that corner.”

  Alex shook her head. “We’re not there yet.” She pointed to a door nestled in the wall. “In there.”

  Penny peeled herself off the wall and walked towards the door.

  “Don’t touch it, it’s electrified,” Alex said.

  “What the hell?”

  Alex followed her across to the door. “I’ve got to short circuit the system first. It’s a safe place because the cops don’t check electrified doors.”

  Digging around at the base of a wall, Alex felt the crumbling mortar around the edge of a brick for a familiar feel. She gasped as she found it. Yes, that was the sharp scratch of the copper wiring that worked as the front door key. She pulled it out of the mortar and sucked her fingertip to stem the paper cut bleed.

  Twisting her position on her knees, she fumbled around the door frame, pulling a circuit box from its edge. Short circuiting the system was a task she had seen done on a couple of occasions, but her novice attempts could certainly kill her. All the same, she opened the back of the circuit box and looked in at the memory boards, circuitry and mains power cable.

  Turning her attention back to the copper wire. She pulled the length out and straightened it as much as she could. It was only about three centimetres longer than it needed to be, giving her little space to hold the two ends. She slipped the wire between two little hooks and let the wire fall into a crack. The wire fizzed as it connected two cables.

  “That should be it,” Alex said.

  “Are you sure?” Penny asked.

  Alex shrugged. “We normally wrap the ends in chewing gum to pull the wire out when we leave.”

  Penny could hear a new humming noise coming from the box. “That wire’s not going anywhere.”

  “Not until the electricity is turned off at seven o’clock.” Alex hovered her hand over the door handle. She grabbed it and twisted. The door opened, grinding roughly against the floor. “Come on.” Alex disappeared through the gap.

  Cautiously, Penny slid into the muggy space and pulled the door shut behind them, sealing them in the darkness. Her eyes sought out a slither of light coming from a doorway down a corridor. Alex was heading in that direction. Penny lunged to pull her away from the room, but the late teen had already pushed the door open.

  Penny peered inside. The light was coming from a standing lamp in a corner. Sofas, chairs and tables filled the room, making it look halfway between a lounge and a storage room. Nobody was there.

  Alex scanned the room too, but after a first glance she threw herself down onto the nearest sofa and curled up as if to sleep.

  “Oi, someone could be here. We need to check the other rooms,” Penny insisted.

  Alex curled up tighter on the sofa. “There’s nobody here. Stop stressing out.”

  “We don’t know that.” Penny walked over to the other side of the room and checked behind the furniture. “What if your Dad told the cops where this place is?”

  “Impossible,” Alex said into a cushion. “My Dad doesn’t know about this place.”

  Penny huffed. “You do.”

  “I do because my contact showed me where it is. Jesse was my contact, not my Dad’s.”

  “Did your contact live here?” There was a hint of suspicion in her voice.

  “Yes. And yes, I hoped he would be here now,” Alex said. “I told him to leave if I got captured, but he never did anything he was told to do.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Alex choked down her rough response, hearing betrayal edge Penny’s voice. “You wouldn’t have come if you’d thought he’d be here. I trust him, but I know a lot of people don’t.”

  “Fine, well he could still be here and I need to know now if he is,” Penny snapped.

  “He’s not here,” Alex repeated.

  “How do you know? The lamp was still on.”

  “The lamp is always on.” Alex pulled herself upright. “Jesse is gone. I know he’s gone because he hasn’t left this room in twenty-five years. He’s an isolated xenophobe, but he’s a survivalist. When he found out I got caught he must have left.”

  Penny walked back across to the door. “Why was he your contact if he never left this place?”

  “Because of who his little visitors were. Jesse dealt a lot of drugs and his customers were lucrative for more than just the financial gains. Some of his secrets saved Ackersons lives.”

  Penny looked around the room again. There wasn’t anything to suggest that someone had been living here. No personal items were left behind. She doubted a forensic team could decipher the mysteries of this room.

  “I’m going to check the place out anyway,” Penny said, peeking back out into the hallway.

  Alex groaned. “Wait.” She waved Penny back into the room. “I’ll do it. I’ll do it.”

  “Why?” Penny didn’t hide her suspicions.

  “The only person who will be here is Jesse. If he’s hiding then it would be better if he sees me, right?” Alex pulled herself up to her feet, steadying herself against the arm of the chair.

  The older woman propped herself against the door frame. “And what if it’s not this Jesse bloke? What if it’s a cop?”

  Alex shook the last of the dizziness out of her head. “I’ll give you a heads up when they shoot me.”

  Leaving the stroppy woman on the edge of the living room, Alex stepped into the dark hallway and felt her way across to the kitchen door opposite. It all felt so familiar now. She pushed at the kitchen door revealing the grotty little kitchenette. The smells of rotting milk and overfilled bins were exactly as she remembered. This was one place Alex would never agree to have food at. Nobody was there, so Alex stepped back out into the hallway. Running her fingers over the wall until th
ey rippled across the next wooden doorframe.

  Holding her breath as she entered, Alex pushed the bathroom door open. She clicked on the light, revealing an originally white bathroom suite that was transformed into muted waves of brown and green. The toilet had been clogged long before the last time she visited, so Jesse had started using the bath to dispose of his bodily wastes. It took her less than a second to confirm the room was empty. She pulled the door closed and breathed deeply at the ripe air on the safe side of the door.

  The fourth and final door off the corridor was opposite the bathroom. Alex fought the handle. This room should be filled with boxes, some of which Jesse had set up as a bed at some point. He did not use the room anymore, just sleeping in the living room. Could he have locked the door?

  “Jesse, are you in there?”

  The room beyond the door was silent.

  Alex peeked through the old lock. It was dark inside.

  “Jesse, it’s Alex? Are you there?”

  Nothing.

  He was gone. Alex felt her way back to the living room and basked in the warm glow of the extra lamps Penny had switched on as she rampaged across the room. Six of the dozen or so sofas and chairs were upturned and Penny was poking around in the bottom of a seventh.

  Penny looked up as Alex lifted one back onto its feet.

  “Put it back on its side. I want to check them all for bugs,” Penny said.

  This woman was so irritating. Alex pushed the chair back over and perched on the corner of the upturned arm. “This is so much overkill. I told you, he left when he found out I’d been captured.”

  “I still think anyone with any sense would booby-trap their base. Plus, it’s still possible the police have been by since he left,” Penny said, grunting while she ripped open the base of another chair.

  “You’re so paranoid,” Alex moaned.

  Penny tipped over another chair. “You would be too if you’d been on the run this long.”

  “It’s only been a couple of years since the Larton lot were hit. I’ve been on the run since I was six,” Alex said warily.

  Penny chuckled. “You don’t know the half of it. Our situations are completely different. You were protected by a hundred different people, all feeding you and clothing you and guarding you. They even gave you a bit of an education and taught you how to fight. Imagine living this weekend every day of your life.”