Days Like This (13 page)

‘I’m Merrick,’ he said. ‘We have to move quickly.’

Lily was having trouble focussing.

‘This may hurt,’ the boy said, grabbing the tube at the back of Lily’s head. A burning rush of pain radiated across her head and she passed out. When she came around, she was lying on the floor and Merrick was injecting her with something.

‘Don’t worry,’ he said, ‘it’s just an antidote that I nicked from them. It’ll hurt, but should do the job with the paralysis.’ He glanced around and shouted to someone nearby. There were screams and the sounds of scuffles, then a rapid thumping of feet and three more people appeared behind Merrick.

‘How many are we taking?’ one of them said, a girl. Blood trickled from her forehead, tracing a lurid pattern across her face. She tossed away a metal bar and it clanked to the floor.

‘This one,’ Merrick replied. ‘And two others from the resting section. That’s all we can manage.’

‘She’s bleeding heavily.’ The girl leaned towards Lily for a closer look. ‘Is she worth taking?’

‘Have a heart, Sal,’ Merrick said. ‘She’s coming. End of story.’

A loud alarm started up. Lily reached up to cover her ears. Her arms moved as if under water, but at least they moved. Lily looked at her fingers, flexing them. They’d left her bracelet on.

‘It’s okay, er … Lily.’ Merrick twisted his head to read the nametag on her trolley. ‘Everyone has that reaction. Can’t believe they’re alive, can’t believe they can move again. You’ll just have to take it slowly.’ He hoisted her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

Lily didn’t have the neck strength to raise her head, so it was impossible to see where they were going or who was following. Liquid ran down her cheeks into her eyes and mouth and she tasted blood.

‘Halt!’ An amplified voice echoed through the building.

‘Blacktroopers,’ Merrick said.

Lily heard heavy footfalls and furious shouts.

‘Their system must be up and running again,’ Merrick said. ‘Let’s go.’

Using the trolleys to shield them and gripping Lily tightly, Merrick scurried a short way along the wall to where the silent screens were and then ducked down what looked to Lily like a metal-lined passageway with barred doors at one end. Merrick punched a series of numbers into a glowing keypad and the steel doors swung open. The girl called Sal, who was also carrying someone over her shoulder, jostled behind them as Merrick darted into the hot outside air.

They slipped behind one of three bug-like, armoured Blacktrooper vehicles parked against an outside wall. Lily looked up at the building. It was enormous, as she’d suspected. The walls were high and windowless. She couldn’t even see all the way up to the roof.

‘They probably won’t shoot,’ Merrick said to Lily. ‘Not while we have you. They usually don’t like to risk losing someone they’ve cultivated for harvesting.’

He had moved them out of the shelter of the vehicles and was now sprinting across an expanse of concrete. The light and heat reflecting off the ground momentarily blinded Lily and she couldn’t imagine how hard it must be for Merrick, who was bearing her weight as well. She bounced and bumped on Merrick’s shoulders, watching Sal running beside them, carrying a thin boy in a white gown. Then her bracelet began screaming.

‘It’s okay,’ Merrick said, panting. ‘They go off automatically and then stop. This kind only tightens … if they activate it … you’re never quite sure if the bastards will do it … or not!’ He gasped as he ran. Lily was amazed at his stamina. Who were these kids?

They dodged behind another smaller building with trees planted along one side and kept going.

The noise from the bracelet did stop, leaving Lily’s ears ringing. The heat hit the back of her neck and shoulders and the air burned her throat. She shifted her head sideways to see another boy rounding the corner. He also carried someone over his shoulder, a girl.

As Lily watched, the boy stumbled and fell, catapulting his passenger onto the ground. He sprang to his feet and tried to pick her up, but cried out in pain, clutching his left arm. Lily saw that, like Ric, the boy she’d met on her escape over the Wall, this boy also had only one hand.

‘Leave her, Taddy. We don’t have time to stop,’ Sal yelled over her shoulder.

With one last despairing glance at the girl he’d left on the ground, the boy ran, catching them up quickly.

‘I dropped her! Oh shit, oh shit!’

‘Don’t worry, Taddy, we’ll come back,’ Merrick said. Then his legs buckled. Lily couldn’t put her hands out quickly enough and she fell awkwardly with her head twisted to one side.

‘Merrick’s been hit,’ Sal called out to Taddy.

Lily lay spreadeagled on the ground. She looked at the blood that was oozing through Merrick’s sleeve. His eyes were wide and his expression was stunned, but Lily was relieved to see he was still alive.

‘Help me pick him up, Tad!’ Sal said. Still carrying her person, she bent down and scooped up Merrick, flinging him over her other shoulder.

‘Can’t take you too, sorry,’ Taddy said to Lily, his face clenched with pain. ‘I have to help Sal. We’ll try and come back.’

‘Don’t go,’ Lily called desperately as he turned away.

Lily heard the grinding sound of Blacktrooper vehicles starting up, followed by the squeal of tyres. She forced herself up onto her knees and began to crawl in the direction Sal and Taddy had gone. There was a thick clump of bushes at the edge of the cement about twenty metres away. If she could only reach that cover, she might manage to shelter until she had regained some coordination and could make her own way to the Wall.

The white hospital gown kept getting caught under Lily’s knees, slowing her down. Her muscles burned and twitched and agonising tingles coursed up and down her legs. Halfway across the concrete her arms gave way and she toppled forward, grazing her face. With a grunt of impatience, she pushed herself up again and went on. She hadn’t gone far when a foot stamped on her back and she collapsed, lying flat on the hot cement.

‘Don’t move,’ a voice above her boomed. The heel ground into the small of her back, causing Lily to yelp. She looked up and saw a group of three Blacktroopers towering above her. One of them removed his boot from her back, inserted the toe under her stomach and flipped her over like a bug.

‘You think you can get away?’ he growled. ‘Stupid cow. You belong to us now. You’re not going anywhere, and neither are your friends.’

Lily lifted her arm to shade her eyes, but he stamped down on it hard. She gasped with pain.

‘If you’re so keen to get moving, you can crawl back inside,’ the trooper said. ‘Up.’ He kicked her and she flinched away, her reflexes slow ‘I said, get up!’

The other Blacktroopers laughed cruelly. They were like shiny cockroaches, their helmets and visors blacking out the sky, their savage mouths sucking away her oxygen. She struggled to breathe as they bent closer.

Then one of them lurched suddenly forward, flinging his arms out sideways. He sank to his knees. Blood seeped out from under his helmet. Slowly he crumpled to the ground. A second trooper clutched his arm, roaring with fury. There were outraged shouts, and the shriek of metal against metal. The remaining trooper, the one who had stood on her arm, reached for his weapon. There was the sound of rapid gunfire, a sharp cry and then he shuddered and slumped to the ground.

Standing where the trooper had just been was a boy Lily thought she recognised. He held a long thin blade and his eyes looked wild. Before she could speak, something struck her on the head.

Lily woke with the breath knocked from her body. She was sprawled across a boy and a girl in a tangle of arms and legs. The others were gasping for breath, too.

The Wall loomed above them, white and slimy in the heat. Lily looked around at the rubble and devastation. She had no idea how, but they were on the other side.

‘At least you’re finally awake,’ the girl underneath her said. ‘One of those Blacktrooper bastards cracked you over the head big time, but we paid him back.’

‘Yes,’ the boy smiled at Lily, a big, infectious grin. ‘He got you a good one and we had to carry you over the wall. Lucky for you, we broke your fall on this side. You have to get up now, though. We haven’t got much time.’ He shifted her off him and scrambled to his feet.

‘That was hard,’ he said to the girl. ‘Let’s try and make sure the next person we bring over is conscious.’

‘Too right,’ the girl said.

Lily thought she must be dreaming. She remembered the boy was called Kieran. He was the leader of the group that had found her outside Meredith’s house and taken her over the Wall the first time. The girl was Ingie.

Ingie was kneeling to untie a rope from around Lily’s waist. Kieran was adjusting his belt. A knife hung from the belt, along with a blunt-nosed gun and something that looked like a walkie-talkie.

‘Here, put these on,’ Ingie said, handing Lily a pair of hospital slippers with thin soles. ‘Nicked these off one of those old carer bags. You have to walk. We can’t carry you,’ she said.

Lily pulled herself upright with Ingie’s help. She shoved her feet into the too-large slippers. ‘Where did you come from back there?’ Lily asked.

‘Ingie and I were outside the facility, using our jamming device to screw up the centre’s electronic security system.’

He patted the gadget on his belt that looked like an old-fashioned walkie-talkie with an antenna.

‘A whole troop of Blacktroopers came after Merrick’s lot, but Ingie and I were in another location outside the facility and the troopers didn’t know we were there. We doubled back and saw them having a go at you, so we took ’em by surprise and knocked a few out.’

‘Did you use that on the one that attacked me?’ Lily said, pointing to Kieran’s knife.

‘Yes.’

‘Thanks for that,’ Lily said gravely. She realised she was thanking him for killing someone. Even though it was a Blacktrooper, it was still a human being. ‘Did Merrick and the others manage to get away?’ she said.

Ingie shrugged. ‘We’ll know soon enough. For now we just have to keep moving.’

‘Come on.’ Kieran gave Lily a little shove.

‘Look, I really appreciate that you risked your lives to save me, but I’m going back. I think my brother’s in that place. I can’t leave him,’ Lily said.

‘Are you kidding me?’ Ingie said. She shook her head, grinning. ‘You’re either stupidly brave or bravely stupid.’

But Kieran wasn’t laughing. ‘You can’t go back. Look at the state of you. We’re lucky we even got you this far. You won’t make it on your own and we’re not going back. Not yet.’

‘But there’s no way I can leave him there,’ Lily said, stubbornly.

‘We’ll find your brother. But first we have to make sure you’re healthy and safe,’ Kieran said, glancing down at her bracelet. ‘You won’t be much good to your brother dead.’

Lily opened her mouth, but the boy interrupted, ‘No arguments.’

Ingie nodded in agreement and Lily saw they weren’t going to be persuaded.

‘Okay, but do you promise you’ll help me later?’ Lily asked.

Kieran and Ingie said they would.

Lily’s legs wobbled and she clutched Ingie. She knew they were right. She didn’t have the strength to go back on her own now. She started to move forward slowly. The sun was like something solid, pressing down on her.

‘Faster,’ Kieran said. ‘The jamming device we used to stuff up their surveillance systems doesn’t buy much time.’

‘How can you be sure it works?’ Lily said.

‘We’ve used it before. We know it disrupts the signals from their security cameras and radar so they can’t detect intruders. It can also block their cellular communications for up to eight kilometres. The trouble is, the battery doesn’t last.’

Kieran dragged Lily’s arm over his shoulder. ‘Hold on, we’ll help you, but you have to run.’ Kieran was no longer smiling.

‘The further away we get, the safer we’ll be.’ He pointed at Lily’s bracelet.

Dust flew up around her as Lily shuffled and stumbled along in an awkward lurching half-run. She desperately needed water, but she wasn’t going to ask. She didn’t want to be a nuisance. She would push herself. She would keep moving if it killed her. Anyway, the exhilaration of her rescue took away some of the pain. She had escaped. Again! She knew she was one of the lucky ones. Now she could start over. These people would help her. They would answer her questions. They would get her back inside the Wall to find Daniel. Kieran had promised.

Lily was hoping they would also help her rescue Alice. She’d do her best to convince them.

But Kieran was right, first things first. She had to get away properly this time, put as much distance as she could between the troopers and the Wall, and her parents and the draining facility. Just until she had more information and could make a proper plan.

Debris caught at her feet and more than once she fell onto her knees, but Kieran helped her up and she pushed on. They had entered a landscape with broken-down houses and the occasional stunted tree. Lily glanced back. Only the very top of the Wall was visible. She hoped they could slow down a little now that it was almost out of sight, but Kieran and Ingie actually picked up their pace, moving Lily along so rapidly that her feet were going from under her.