Dead Lost (Kiera Hudson Series Two (Book 8)) (19 page)

With my arms pumping on either side of me, I lurched to the right. I slammed my hand into the prison wall to keep myself upright as my right stilt seemed to almost buckle beneath me. I glanced down to see that the thin aluminium was now dented halfway down the length of the stilt. Pushing myself off the wall, I raced on, but with my right stilt now fractured, my run had now been reduced to nothing more than a limp. With my face wet with sweat, I pushed on. I had to. Losing the race wasn’t an option for me. Winning got me a ticket out of the prison and I could go in search of Joe. If I lost, I faced another year trapped here. Sucking in lungfuls of air, I pushed on.

Chrissie Hucks drew level with me on my left, and Beau Harris strutted alongside on my right. They had me trapped. We were the only three racers left standing. The others lay on the prison yard nursing cuts and bruises and all kinds of different injuries. Not everyone could master the stilts. Most could master the art of taking a step or two, and some could even circumnavigate the inside of the prison wall if they used it for support like a toddler with a walking frame. But to be able to run at speed, leap, jump, and stay standing while being attacked was a skill that only few really conquered. I was one of them – or I hoped to be. There were only two people in my way, and both of them now raced along on either side of me. I glanced to my right and looked into Beau Harris’ bloodied face. He was grinning at me, his collar-length blond hair snagging in the wind. His teeth were red with blood. I grinned back, pleased with myself that I had temporarily damaged his good looks. Then, glancing to my left, I looked at Chrissie Hucks. Her long, dark hair billowed out behind her like a sheet flapping in the wind. She fixed me with her sharp green eyes and they twinkled with delight as she watched me limp along beside her. She wanted to win as much as I did, perhaps more. Both Beau and Chrissie wanted to win – they wanted to leave the Young Offenders prison together. There was just one race each year and two winners - one male, the other female. It was always the same. They were the rules. I wanted to be the female to win. It was my turn. Joe left last year. He promised he would wait for me on the island. I had to win the race. My racing partner, Richard, had clattered into the prison wall during lap four. On lap five I had glanced down to see him being dragged off the track by two of the prison guards. From my great height I could see that he was holding his arm as if in pain. Gritting my teeth, I dashed on, opening and closing my legs like a giant pair of scissors as I covered the ground, lapping the prison wall. I had to win now – if not for me and Joe, for Richard.

But Beau and Chrissie weren’t going to let that happen. They wanted to leave together, because they were
together
. There was no secret in that. Just like Joe and I, we had been together. But last year I had been too young to race. I had turned eighteen now, so this was my chance to get out of the prison and get to the island where Joe would be waiting for me. The last year had crawled by. Time had almost seemed to stretch out. Each day and night had been an agonising wait. But I had passed the time by practising to run, leap and bound on my stilts. And each day I had got more nimble, stronger and faster. Even when my legs had ached so much they felt as if every muscle was on fire, when I had fallen and torn open my hands on the exercise yard floor and ripped the flesh from my knees, I had still refused to give up. I wouldn’t be beaten. Not then and not now.

“You can’t win,” Chrissie Hucks grinned at me as I limped along beside her.

My right stilt continued to buckle under my weight and I listed to the right. Beau shoved me away from the wall so I couldn’t regain my balance. I lurched to the left and back towards Chrissie. Smiling, she rolled back her fist and swung at me. I buried my chin in my chest and her fist sailed over the top of my head.

She staggered forward, the momentum of her swipe threatening to topple her over. The crowd roared and punched the air with their fists as Chrissie Hucks wobbled dangerously on her stilts. Raising my head, I sprang forward on my remaining good stilt.

“You suck, Hucks!” I hissed, slamming my shoulder into her back.

She let out a high-pitched cry as she buckled forward. I looked back to see her teetering. It was like watching a tower made of bricks
begin to fall. Hucks threw her arms out before her. She was now my target – not Beau. He was an arrogant jerk, but only one male and one female could win the race. If two of the same sex won, the race was forfeited and both lost. Although I didn’t want to go anywhere with Beau, I would need him to still be standing at the end of the race, if I were to leave the prison. Over ten feet tall on her stilts, Hucks continued to stagger forward as she fought to regain her balance. I glanced back over my shoulder to see Governor Banks standing on the finishing line, red flag gripped in his meaty fist. I could limp towards it, but what if Hucks regained her balance? Both she and Beau would surely overtake me before I reached the line. No, I had to make sure she went down. That would mean instant disqualification from the race for her. I could limp across the finish line sometime next week if I wanted to and still be the female winner.

Turning my back on the finishing line and Governor Banks, I hobbled towards
Hucks, my shoulder sloped to the right as I tried to remain upright on my stilts. She teetered forward as if in slow motion and I reached for her. With the flats of my hands, I pushed her in the back. She cried out and tumbled forward. Seeing his partner tipping over, Beau raced forward on his stilts at a frightening speed. It was like he had suddenly appeared out of nowhere as he took Chrissie in his arms and righted her.

“Thanks,” she said, then kissed him gratefully on his blooded mouth.

With her lips now looking as if they had been smeared with blackcurrant jam, she turned to face me.

“Bitch,” she hissed as the crowd exploded in a frenzy of delight. Not only was this a race, but it had now turned into a bloody fight. The other
young offenders chanted like football supporters from the watchtowers that loomed from the four corners of the prison. They waved their arms through the narrow gaps between the window bars of their cells and scampered along the tops of the prison walls. Even the guards now watched, their faces peering up at us from below.

Chrissie Hucks closed the gap between us in one long stride. I turned, wobbled on my broken stilt,
then hobbled away.

“Run, Dark! Run!” the prisoners began to chant in a thunderous chorus.

My heart sped up and even over the roar of the crowd I could hear the sound of Chrissie’s and Beau’s stilts clattering over the cracked surface of the yard. I glanced back just once to see that both were within reaching distance of me. With one small stride of their stilts they could throw me to the ground ten feet below.

“Hey, Tessa!
Tessa!” someone cried out from behind me.

Spinning round, I saw a shaven-haired boy pressed against the bars of his cell. His arm dangled between the bars and in his fist he held a broom handle.

“Take it!” he urged me. “Take it!”

“Thanks,” I panted, snatching it from him. I held it up and could see that one end had been sharpened into a vicious looking point. With my attention fixed on the end of the broom, I lost sight of Beau and Chrissie as they strode towards me. Beau hit me first, his fist connecting with my jaw. My head snapped backwards, and for the briefest of moments the
world went black. The sound of the cheering crowd became muffled as if my head had been shoved beneath the ocean. Sticky hot blood gushed into my mouth from my now split lip. The blood tasted acrid and bitter. I closed my eyes, and quickly opened them again. Beau was striding out behind me as Chrissie raced towards me. Instinctively, I raised my hands, the sharpened broom handle still clenched in my fist. There was an ear-splitting shriek of pain. I looked into Chrissie’s face, her crisp green eyes now clouding over and dull with pain. Her mouth opened and closed like a drowning fish as she gasped for air. Chrissie’s face had gone corpse-grey. She looked down and I followed her stare. The broom handle was protruding from her left thigh, just above the knee. Her grey washed-out prison trousers were turning black as blood seeped from around the broom handle and the gaping hole it had made in her. Blood flowed down the length of the broom and covered my fingers like hot treacle. I let go of the handle. Chrissie grasped her knee with both hands and lurched forward, her long, dark hair swinging in front of her face.

“Finish her, Tessa,” a voice screeched over the baying crowd.

I glanced to my left to see it was the boy who had given me the broom who had spoken. “Do ‘er!” he urged me, looking straight into my eyes. The crazy grin spread across his face made my skin prickle with gooseflesh. “What you waiting for, Dark? Finish ‘er!”

I looked away from the boy and back at Chrissie. She staggered forward and passed me as she headed towards the finish line. It was then I realised that her desire to leave the prison and get to the island was as
great as mine. She was limping just like me now, perhaps slower, so the race was still mine to win. I wobbled forward on my broken stilt and drew along beside her. Even over the chanting crowd, I could hear a rasping sound in the back of her throat as she sucked in lungful’s of air. With both hands pressed around the bloody stump of the broom handle that jutted from her knee, she shuffled onwards. Looking away, I passed her, the finishing line and Governor Banks growing clearer and bigger with each stride I took. The crowd of fellow inmates whipped into a frenzy. With my heart racing, I stumbled on, the finish line in plain sight now. I thought of Joe waiting for me, and swung the damaged stilt strapped to my leg forward. I had become so fixated on the line that I had forgotten about Beau. It wasn’t until I felt his fists shove me hard in the back that I remembered, despite the fact I had overtaken Chrissie and she was no longer a threat to me, Beau was.

Splaying my arms out before me, I staggered forward. The crowd gasped as one as I lost my balance completely and fell forward. The exercise yard raced up to meet me. I clattered into the ground, the flesh from the balls of my hands looking as if they had been rubbed against a cheese grater. My stilts clattered into the ground, the right one shearing in half. I rolled onto my back and looked up into Beau’s face as he towered over me.

“Good effort, Tessa Dark,” he said without smiling. He armed blood from his mouth. “But not good enough.” He turned away, and in two giant steps, he had his arm around Chrissie and was helping her towards the finish line.

Even if I could stand, I was out. I had fallen. It was over for me. With tears of frustration seething at the corners of my eyes, I made fists with my injured hands and cried out – not in pain – in despair. I watched with tears streaming down my cheeks as Beau Harris and Chrissie Hucks crossed the finish line.

With the noise of the crowd cheering like thunder, I was deaf to the sounds of the guards that came running across the yard towards me. Using their arms like shovels, they hooked them through mine and dragged me back across the yard towards my cell. With my broken and twisted stilts still strapped to my legs, I watched Beau stoop down and take the red flag from Governor Bank’s hand. Beau then waved it ceremoniously above his head. The prisoners went wild and started to chant all over again. With his free arm, Beau cradled Chrissie against him. She had her head hung low and the broom handle still stuck out at a peculiar angle from her leg. I looked away, lowering my head with exhaustion as the two guards dragged me back into the prison.

Reaching my cell, they lowered me face-down on the floor.

“You put on one helluva show,” one of them said.

“Maybe next year, Dark,” remarked the other.

They left without closing or locking the cell door. They had stopped doing that years ago. The other inmates, like me, were free to roam about the prison. We just weren’t allowed to leave it. Not because we were deemed by the Governor to be a threat to those living on the other side of the prison walls. It was those living beyond the prison walls who were a threat to us.

I rolled onto my back, and pulling myself up, I winced in pain as I began to untie the straps fastened to my legs. My fingers twitched as blood ran from the cuts and scrapes across the palms of my hands. Gritting my teeth and narrowing my eyes, I unbuckled the leather ties and threw my stilts clear. They skidded beneath my bunk, the soles jutting out. Using my elbows, I hoisted myself up onto my bed. I could still hear the thunderous roar of cheering and applause from the yard. Reaching up, I gingerly took down my headphones that swung from a nail jutting out of the cracked wall. Using my fingers like tweezers, I gently took them down and placed them over my ears. There was no music to drown out the sound of the cheering and whistling from beyond my cell. The only music I could hear were the songs I sung or hummed inside my own head. I hadn’t heard any real music since I was thirteen – since the thunder came and took the music away. It had taken everything away. Closing my eyes, I mentally scrolled through the track list I had created inside the darkness of my mind.

Now, what shall I choose? I wondered to myself. I selected
Diamonds
by
Rihanna
from my mental playlist. Trying to make myself as comfortable as possible, I rested my aching and weary body against the thin mattress and sung the song inside my head. It reminded me of Joe. I had often hummed it to him as we had strolled around the edge of the vast wall that towered high above the prison. Even with stilts, we had never been able to see over it. We had heard the noises on the other side of it though – screeching and groaning. That’s why I would hum sometimes to Joe. It helped muffle out the sound of the Scorchers who often gathered in packs on the other side of the prison walls. I knew that if I let that noise bury itself deep inside my skull, I might never summon the courage to enter the race in the hope of leaving the prison one day.