Monica freed the woman who’d helped Max and the rest of her cellmates. Six of them flooded from the cell; desperate to be free, they ran after all the other inmates. Although they moved with intent, how could any of them know where they were going? Especially with the exit in the other direction.
But not all of the inmates had moved on. No more than five and a half feet tall, her black hair hung in matted chunks, so greasy it stuck to her face. Sores dotted her skin along her arms and on her cheek. Many of her teeth missing, her top lip rose in a snarl and her mouth fell open. She worked her jaw, hissing and growling.
“What the hell is she doing?” Gracie said.
“I dunno.”
“I told you not to open the door!” the woman said, her right shoulder raised several inches higher than the left.
Where Monica had moved on, she now came back into view. Standing beside the woman, she looked from her, into the cell, and back to her again. A confused scowl, Monica clearly hadn’t seen them yet. Tightening his grip on the knife, Max nodded. He’d be ready for her. She’d regret stepping into this cell.
The woman with the matted black hair shook. She screamed so loud, not even the deep tone drowned her out. “I said it, didn’t I? I said you shouldn’t open the door. You shouldn’t open it.”
Max shook his head. As much as he’d fight Monica should he need to, he’d rather not. He whispered, “I didn’t.” He tightened his grip on the knife. “I didn’t. Now please move on. Go.”
The woman screamed and ran straight for them.
Max kicked off from the back wall to propel himself forwards.
The woman had a shorter distance to travel. She reached the cell door and slammed it shut, Max reaching out a moment too late.
Crack! The bolt locked on the other side.
The press of people closing in on the cell dulled the glow of the bulbs in the corridor. The screams close by had mostly died down, the chaos easing.
The woman with the greasy hair and the sores cried freely. “I-I-I …” She stuttered like she had hypothermia. “I-I told you. I t-told you on more th-than one o-o-o-occasion.” Suddenly her words quickened and ran away from her, each one blurring into the next. “I said don’t open the door and you opened it. You opened it. Why would you do that?”
“I didn’t!” Max kicked the locked door, a loud bang shaking the thick wooden barrier in its frame. “Monica did.”
One wide eye, the other one hidden behind her lank black hair, the woman peered into the cell, her ragged breaths carrying an underlying snort. “And now look where it’s gotten you. You should have left it locked.”
“Yeargh!” Max lunged forward with his knife hand, shoving it through the bars at the woman. But the woman ducked and a sharp sting ran through Max’s wrist, delivered by a chopping hand.
The blow forced his grip loose and he dropped the knife. He withdrew his hand before they could attack him again.
The madwoman’s face gave way to the only slightly more sane Monica. Her pointed nose and large yellow teeth. She grinned, her words interspersed with giggles. “Looks like you just gave up what little advantage you had, Max. Now that wasn’t very smart, was it?”
His legs weak, Max stumbled away from the cell door. Several wobbly steps, the back of his knees caught the wooden bunk, and he fell into a sitting position, a deep sting buzzing thought the burns on the insides of his thighs. He leaned the back of his head against the damp wall. Gracie looked at him, but he refused to look back. Coming into this cell had well and truly screwed them over. And now they were both going to pay the price. His eyes closed as he tried to shut out everything else; Max couldn’t shut out the cackling titter of Monica. She’d won and she damn well knew it.
Chapter 33
“You say nothing’s changed,” William said as he ran after Olga, shouting to be heard over the chaos of the freed inmates and the loud barp, “and sure, we do need to still get Max, Hawk, and Dianna, but the state of this place is very different to what we were expecting. Surely we should at least take a moment to think this through?”
If Olga heard him, she didn’t show it, charging up the ramp leading to the ground floor before she joined the chaos tearing through the old building. She turned left and vanished from sight. Were it not for the crack of a lock being freed, they would have lost her immediately. She’d unlocked the first cell she came to, three women charging out as she ran in and shouted, “Max!”
William blocked her from leaving the cell, Artan at his side. She raised her sword, the tip hovering in front of his face. “Come on, Olga. Think for a minute.”
Olga’s jaw jutted out and she raised her top lip in a snarl. The tip of her sword remained close to his throat, but she’d lowered it a little. “I will go through you both.”
She wouldn’t, and they both knew it. William stepped forward and she moved back a pace. “What’s gotten into you?” he said. “We all want the same thing here, but you need to hear us out.”
“Something isn’t right.” She shook her head. “Max has been in here too long. I’ve been worried about him. From the state of this place, I’d say I have good reason to be concerned.”
The shrill cry of a screaming woman ran past.
Artan lifted Olga’s free hand in both of his. “Like William said, we all want the same thing. Now I might be wrong, but it doesn’t seem like there are many men in this place.”
The crowds contained women and children.
“I get that you think the crowd will hide us,” Artan continued, “but they won’t. They’ll hide you. We need to at least wear a disguise of some sort if we’re to move through here.”
“Who are you hiding from?”
“I don’t know,” Artan said. “But I don’t want to stand out to these people. Surely it pays to be cautious. You said yourself you think something’s wrong. There has to be a reason why Max has been in here as long as he has.”
Her chest rising and falling, Olga’s upper body slowly unwound and she lowered her sword. “I’m sorry.” A glance at William, she offered him the same. “Sorry.”
“We’re all keen to get Max and the others out, but I’m speaking from experience when I say we need to be cautious. My haste to get to you and Matilda nearly got Cyrus killed.”
A yelling woman entered the room. Her hair like a bird’s nest, her eyes wide, her skin streaked with dirt. William stepped back into a dark corner and dragged Artan with him. Leaning against the cold stone wall, they waited.
But instead of leaving the cell again, the woman stepped closer, her movements erratic. She screamed again, her panic animalistic.
When the woman opened her mouth for a third time, Olga lunged forwards and punched her square on the chin. The echo of the contact snapped William’s shoulders tight, but it did the job. The woman’s legs turned bandy and she crumpled. The inmates in the corridor were none the wiser.
“That’s one way of doing it,” William said, stepping forwards with Artan to drag the woman into the shadows.
William and Artan walked away from the downed woman, keeping their heads low as they stepped into the corridor. The rip of tearing fabric called to them from the cell.
Olga pulled William and Artan back and handed them both a strip of the woman’s top. It left the woman naked from the waist up, her sagging breasts exposed on her skinny form.
“What’s this for?” Artan said, raising his hand so he didn’t have to look at the unconscious woman.
Olga snapped a sharp shrug, her words clipped with her impatience. “Make a headscarf out of it.”
Had William had a better suggestion, he might have offered it. And when Artan said nothing either, he shrugged and pulled the woman’s dirty top over his head, tying it around his chin. “You don’t think our frames and broad shoulders give us away?”
Olga snorted a laugh. “I think your perception of how you look doesn’t match up with the reality.” She shook her head. “With what’s going on in this place, I don’t think you need the best disguise to
be invisible.”
“Mama?” A boy looked into the room. Seven or eight years old, he peered at William, Artan, and Olga as if trying to ascertain if any of them were his mum. Maybe the disguises worked and maybe they didn’t; either way, the boy pulled back into the corridor and ran with the rest of the crowd, his call disappearing into the madness. “Mama. Mama.”
“See,” Olga said.
“You think that’s evidence we’re invisible?” William said.
“It passed the test.”
“At least we didn’t have to knock him out too,” Artan said. “I think Olga’s right. It’s dark enough and crazy enough for us to be invisible with these scarves on. Let’s find Max and the others and get out of here.”
Chapter 34
Barp! The tone continued to call through the corridors, cutting through even the shrill chaos of the directionless prisoners. Although now William had gotten amongst it, he saw madness in far fewer people than he’d expected. The minority were the most vocal. Many of the inmates were frightened and desperate. They were clearly driven by a justified need to get out of there. “Do you think any of them have found a way out yet?” he said.
Artan said, “It doesn’t look like it.”
The boys tried to keep up with Olga. Smaller and faster than them, she moved through the pack like a rat. She charged into another cell and came back out before the boys reached her. She set off along the packed corridor again.
Crack! Olga unlocked the next cell, releasing another stream of prisoners.
“Olga!” William grabbed her shoulder. “Can you please slow down?”
“Would you slow down if this was Matilda?” Tears stood in her eyes. “Look at this place, William. Wherever Max is, we need to get to him and help him.”
Crack!
One of the women from the next cell charged Olga, punching her as she came out. It knocked Olga down, William and Artan shielding her to prevent her getting trampled.
Olga jumped back to her feet, and William caught her around the waist before she could chase after the woman who’d knocked her down. She shook and twisted in his grip, but soon relaxed when he said, “The woman’s already gone. She probably just got spooked. Remember, we’re here to look for Max.”
Olga threw her arms in the air, her sword desperately close to blinding a passer-by. “How the hell are we supposed to find him in a place like this?”
“Not by fighting the inmates. Don’t you think they’ve had a hard enough time already?” William took Olga’s hand and led her on, rounding the next bend.
Where every cell had a single door, one up ahead had two. They were wide open, the bright light inside the room spilling out into the corridor. Olga took off towards it.
William and Artan fought to get through the crowd, weaving through the bodies and catching up to Olga, who’d halted outside the cell. Her arms hung limp at her sides. As large as the gym in the national service area, the room must have been a dining room, or recreation area for the inmates. Max sat in a chair in the centre.
William reached out to catch Olga’s shoulder, but gripped air as she burst into the room. He charged after her, Artan behind.
Six feet into the large space and the double doors slammed shut behind them.
A small ratty woman stepped away from the back wall, a knife to the throat of a young ginger woman who had her hair tied in a thick plait. The ratty woman had a shrill laugh that carried over the loud tone. “You really thought you could run around this place without me finding out?” Fifteen to twenty women were lined along the back wall. They stepped forward with the woman holding the knife. “You have two young men with you. They stand out like a sore thumb in a place like this.”
Olga turned to Max while pointing at the ginger captive. “Who the fuck is that?”
“She’s a friend, Olga. She’s been trying to help me get out of here.”
Olga shook her head, her voice growing louder, her fury bubbling over. “She might be your friend, but she’s definitely not mine.”
“Please, Olga.” Max pressed his hands together as if in prayer. “She’s put her neck on the line to try to help me.”
“She clearly didn’t do a very good job. I would have done better.”
The ratty woman shouted to be heard. “Whatever’s going on with you two needs to stop now. You need to drop your weapons and put your hands behind your backs before I cut Gracie’s throat.”
“I don’t give a shit what you do to Gracie,” Olga said.
The woman drew a deep breath in through her large nose. “Take a look around, sweetie. You’re outnumbered. There’s only one winner here, whether Gracie lives or not. Maybe you should care about that? I’m just trying to make you feel a bit better by pretending you have a choice.”
William took the lead, Jezebel hitting the stone floor with a clang.
The clatter of Artan’s knives followed.
One of the women who’d hidden against the wall came forwards and took the weapons away. For a second, William thought Olga might lunge at her, but she held her ground. “Fuck it,” she finally said, throwing Matilda’s sword down and holding her hands out in front of her.
Three women with ropes came forwards and bound their wrists.
Chapter 35
William stood alongside Max, Olga, Artan, and Gracie. They’d been lined up along the far wall in the brightly lit room, their wrists tied behind their backs. So tired from the day, William leaned his head against the cold stones.
The ratty woman, Monica, paced up and down in front of them. She took small and sharp steps, her heels clicking against the stone floor. Her hair shook with her stamping feet. “So”—she massaged her temples as if warding off a headache—“let me get this straight. You’ve swanned in here”—her voice grew louder, her rage running away with her—“rubbing it in our faces about how easy it’s been for you to enter the asylum, and you bring young men with you. Some of the inmates in this place might have been driven insane by Grandfather Jacks’ cruelty, but we’re not all mad. You think we can’t tell the difference between men and women?”
They’d locked the double doors. It did little to shut out the barp, but at least it muted the chaos in the hallways.
Her eyes wide, her yellow-toothed overbite clamped down on her bottom lip, Monica’s voice wavered. “Know you’re all on very thin ice. I’m about out of patience.” Her nostrils flared and she now levelled the knife she’d previously held to Gracie’s throat on Max. “You came here for Max, and you’ve already shown me how little Gracie means to you. That information will be valuable for when I’m choosing who to hurt.”
They’d lined Olga and Gracie up side by side. From where William stood, he’d not yet seen either girl look at the other.
“So here’s what I’m going to do. Seeing as none of you will tell me how you got here, I’m going to try the front door one final time. But this is your last chance. Once I leave here, the talking’s over. If you don’t give me answers now, I will be back to rain down hell on you. And I’ll start with Max here.”
They could tell her about the tunnel. With Matilda and Cyrus on the roof of the palace, they wouldn’t be that easy to find. But what then? What happened to them when they gave up their only valuable piece of information?
Olga answered William’s question for him. “Like Max said, if we tell you how to get out of here, what use are we to you then? Why would you keep us alive?”
“There’s more than one of you.”
Olga shook her head and spat on the floor at Monica’s feet. “You will never divide us.”
“You say that now.” A nasty twist took over Monica’s face. “I’ve been through or witnessed every torture technique Grandfather Jacks has used in the years I’ve been here. I’ve seen more women broken than you’ve seen sunrises. You think I don’t know how to get the information I need?” She shrugged. “Maybe you’re right, but that won’t stop me from trying. This is your last chance. How do we get out of here?”
&n
bsp; As they’d done the last fifteen times she’d asked, Max’s bloody nose evidence of how they held out on Monica, the group remained silent.
“Fine,” Monica said, turning her back on them. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Monica left the room, leaving just three armed guards behind. William should have done what Cyrus had done when they were in the wild meadow and the nomads tied them up. It might have broken a finger to jam it into the rope’s knot, but he could have stopped them tying his bonds completely if he’d thought about it. What an idiot.
“He’s all right,” Olga said.
William leaned away from the wall to get a better look at Max and Olga. What the hell were they talking about?
“You would say that.” Max sniffed some of the blood back into his nose.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Don’t you remember kissing him?”
“Look, you two,” Gracie said, “why don’t—”
“Did I ask you for your fucking opinion?” Olga said. The whipcrack of her voice echoed in the large room. “I know you’re trying to move in on my man—”
“I thought your man was Hawk!” Max’s voice had grown louder too, amplified by the large space.
“Hey!” one of the three women on the door said, slamming the base of her spear against the stone floor with a snap! “Why don’t you two shut up?”
“I only kissed Hawk because you were being a prick,” Olga said. “If you learned how to communicate, none of this would have happened.”
“So you’re taking no responsibility for your lips touching his? It was a complete accident over which you had no control?”
“Don’t be a dick, Max.”
“And what am I supposed to do anyway?”
“Hey!” the guard said again.
“It’s not like we could have had a normal relationship.”
“You’re saying I’m not normal?” Olga said.
In that moment, everything changed and William finally saw this for what it was. Three armed guards against five bound prisoners should have been manageable, but the guard with the spear had broken away from the other two, who remained by the double doors. Five against one.
Beyond These Walls (Book 7): The Asylum Page 14