The Fearless (24 page)

She pokes Cy in the side, takes his hand, then reaches for Ben’s.

One of the Fearless notices. ‘Aww, sweet,’ he sneers, his voice muffled-sounding because one side of his face is swollen with an abscess, the skin purple and shiny-looking. Anyone else would be in agony with it, but it seems to hardly bother him.

The arguing has stopped.

‘
Now!
’ I say.

Behind us, I hear gunshots, and Cy cries out, but there’s no time to stop or look back. I’ve forgotten about the eyepatch; as the darkness inside the store swallows us up, I collide with something, sending it crashing to the floor. Gasping, I flip the patch up. The enhanced vision in my right eye isn’t enough to make out any details, but the remains of the store loom in grainy black and white around us, like those infra-red images you used to see on cop shows on TV: upturned racks and shelving, piles of boxes and discarded goods, and bodies. So many bodies. Most of them are nothing but skeletons; they must have been here a while. Are they Fearless victims who didn’t make it, or Fearless who’ve died from the effects of the serum?

‘I can’t see,’ Cass gasps. She’s kicking bones out of the way without even realizing. ‘It’s OK, just hold on,’ I tell her. I wish I knew where we were going, but my memories of the Torturehouse are scattered and jagged. When I try to remember more, my mind locks down. I told Ben about it once, and he said he was the same, and he thought it was some sort of unconscious coping mechanism, our minds’ way of trying to protect themselves. Frustration wells up inside me. The Fearless know this place inside out. Wherever we hide, they’ll find us. We should have tried to get outside. I’ve screwed up. Big time.

Then, up ahead, I see bundles of wire hanging down from the ceiling. I pull Cass towards them. ‘There’s a hole in the ceiling above us,’ I whisper, hearing the shouts of the Fearless coming ever closer. ‘We need to get up there. I’m gonna lift you, OK?’

‘How can you even see?’ she whispers.

I let go of her, then wrap my arms around her waist and lift her up. ‘Put your hands out. Feel for the edge.’

She does as I say, gripping the tiles. ‘Go!’ I say, and she hauls herself up and into the hole. Moments later she reappears, reaching down.

‘Where are you?’ she whispers. I grab her hands and she pulls me up.

We collapse side by side, breathing hard.

A few seconds later, someone runs right underneath where we’re hiding. Even though my heart is racing and it feels as if my lungs are going to burst, I hold my breath. Cass does the same.

More running feet. Shouts from somewhere deeper inside the store. Gunfire.

Silence.

There’s no sign of Gina, Cy or Ben.

Cass is pressed right up against me. I reach for her hand again. She winds her fingers tightly through mine and presses her face against my shoulder.

I close my eyes, breathing in the scent of her hair. Everywhere her body presses against mine feels electric. I close my eyes, half-despairing, half-elated. How am I supposed to fight this? And why do I even want to? If I can feel like this, it means I’m human, I’m
whole
. They didn’t get me. It didn’t work.

I feel Cass lift her head. When I open my eyes, she’s gazing at me, even though I know it’s too dark for her to see me. The electric feeling in my body rises to a roar, all the dials turned up to max.

‘You saved my life,’ she whispers. ‘Thank you.’

I manage a small laugh. ‘I guess we’re even now, eh?’

One corner of her mouth twitches up in a smile. ‘I guess so.’

She hasn’t let go of my hand yet. My heart is thudding so loud I’m surprised she can’t hear it.

I open my mouth to say something. I don’t know what. All I end up doing is taking a gulp of air and closing it again.

Don’t do this
, the small part of my mind that’s still functioning logically tells me.
She’ll find out what you are
. But the rest of my mind isn’t listening.

I close my eyes. Take another deep breath.

And then, before I can lose my nerve, I kiss her.

When Myo’s lips touch mine, I feel a jolt, and then a slow, spreading joy which chases away the dark and horror and stink all around us. For a few moments, I forget that we’re stuck here with no water, no food, no guns and no way out. There’s only us, this moment, now.

When we come up for air, I close my eyes and lean my forehead against his. He kisses me again, a quick brush of his mouth against mine. I want to stay like this for ever, but the awareness of where we are, of the danger we’re in, comes crashing back.

‘Have they gone?’ I whisper.

‘I’m not sure,’ he says. ‘I’ll go and look.’

He disentangles himself and I hear him shuffle towards the hole in the ceiling. I sit up and lean against an air-conditioning pipe, hugging my arms around my knees.

A few moments later, he’s back. ‘I can’t see anyone, but we need to get further inside and hide for a while. They’ll still be looking for us.’

We don’t have room to stand up, so we crawl on our hands and knees through a tangle of pipes and wires. Myo guides me around the holes in the ceiling. The smell of rot and death is stronger than ever.

Eventually, we reach a wall, and can go no further. We draw our knees up and sit back against it, hip to hip, shoulder to shoulder.

I shiver. ‘It’s so cold.’

‘Here.’ Myo puts his arms around me, pulling me closer still. I lean against him, grateful for the warmth. I want him to kiss me again, to prove that what just happened wasn’t a dream or a hallucination, but he doesn’t.

I feel him move, and realize he’s adjusting his eye-patch. I reach out and touch it. ‘What happened to your eye?’

‘It was a Fearless,’ he says. ‘I was attacked.’

‘Is that how you got those scars on your arm, too?’ I say.

I feel him stiffen. ‘No. That was me.’

A silence yawns between us while I try to comprehend what would make him feel so bad that he’d do something like that to himself. ‘Why?’ I say. We’re both talking quietly, careful not to let our voices get picked up by the Fearless’s heightened hearing. I can still hear far-off shouts and crashes.

‘It was when I was a lot younger. Stuff had happened and I couldn’t deal with it. I thought it would help. But Ben made me stop. And he was right to – I mean, what if I’d got an infection or something? There were no hospitals or doctors about any more. It was pretty stupid, really . . .’

‘I’m sorry,’ I say. I wonder if by
stuff
, he means the Invasion. What happened to his family? I realize that apart from his sister, he’s never mentioned them.

We’re quiet for a moment. Then he says, ‘Was that really your dad back in the tunnel?’

A sudden, savage ache starts up in my throat. ‘Yeah. He was attacked by the Fearless the night of the Invasion. My mum made it to Hope with me, but she killed herself a couple of years later.’ I take a shaky breath. ‘She walked into the sea and drowned herself. Captain Denning – that’s the guy with the moustache – was furious. But she’d lost my dad and had a baby and I think it was just too much for her.’

‘Jesus,’ Myo says. ‘That’s awful. I had no idea.’

‘What about your parents?’ I say.

He snorts. ‘They were junkies. We didn’t even live with them when it happened. We were . . .’

He trails off. Inside my head, something goes click. ‘You were caught, weren’t you?’ I say.

He doesn’t answer me.

‘Myo?’

‘Aye,’ he says softly. ‘Not straight away, though. It was about a year afterwards.’

‘Oh, God,’ I say. ‘But you got away. You must have, because you’re still . . .’ I trail off.
Normal
doesn’t even begin to describe what it means to escape being Altered.

‘It was Ben. He rescued us and took us to the bunker.’

‘And is that why you—’ I nod at his arm, even though it’s pitch-black in here.

‘Yeah.’

‘I’m sorry. It must be terrible for you to have to come back.’

‘It’s fine.’ His voice is gruff. ‘I don’t plan on being here any longer than I have to, y’know? We’ll wait until things have calmed down, and then we’ll try and find Ben and the others.’

‘OK.’

We lean back against the wall. ‘Anyway, it’s me who should be saying sorry,’ Myo whispers.

‘What for?’ I whisper back.

‘For trying to leave you at the docks. And being so weird at the farmhouse and the bunker.’ He pauses, takes a deep breath. ‘If we make it out of here alive, I’ll explain everything, I promise.’

‘You’d better,’ I say, grabbing his collar and pulling him towards me. Our kisses are fiercer now, hungry, both of us trying to push away our dark memories, even if it’s only for a moment.

Myo sits up abruptly.

‘What is it?’ I say.

‘Someone’s here,’ he hisses.

‘What, in the ceiling?’

‘No. In the store.’

He falls silent. We listen. At first I don’t hear anything. Then I do: footsteps, passing slowly underneath us.

‘Stay quiet,’ Myo murmurs in my ear.

We listen as the footsteps fade, then circle back again. My heart is thudding. So is Myo’s; I can feel it through his jacket.

‘Myo! Cass! Are you here?’ someone whispers.

‘That’s Gina!’ Myo says.

‘Are you sure?’ I say.

‘Only one way to find out.’ I feel him move.

‘Where are you going?’

‘To see if it’s her.’

‘But what if it isn’t? What if it’s a Fearless, trying to trick you?’

‘Stay here.’ He kisses me one last time, and then he’s gone, the kiss tingling on my lips.

I pull up my trouser leg and take my knife out of my boot.

After a while, I hear someone moving through the roof space towards me. I grip the knife, my muscles tensed.

‘Cass, it’s me,’ Myo says, his voice drifting towards me through the dark. ‘It
is
Gina. Ben’s with her, and he’s hurt. We’re going to try and get him up here.’

‘Can I do anything?’ I say.

‘No, just stay put.’

I wait again, the darkness pulsating around me like something living. ‘Can you make it?’ I hear Gina ask Ben. He gives a soft groan. Then Myo’s beside me again. Moments later, so are the others.

‘Where’s Cy?’ I ask.

‘They got him,’ Gina says.

Horror washes over me. ‘Oh, no.’

‘Oh, no is right,’ Ben says. There’s no mistaking the sarcasm – or the pain – in his voice.

‘What happened?’

‘I got clipped by a bullet,’ he says shortly.

Crap
. I think of our packs, back in the building at the other end of the bridge. We left all the medical supplies inside them. Myo must have read my thoughts, because he says, ‘I can go back, get bandages and stuff—’

‘No chance,’ Ben says. ‘They’ve got Fearless on guard at the top of the escalators. They know we’re still in here somewhere.’

‘How many?’

‘Four. You won’t stand a chance without your gun.’

‘How bad is it?’

‘It didn’t go in. Hurts like hell, though.’

We sit there for hours, rats scampering and chittering around us. Ben and Gina talk in whispers; Myo and I sit without speaking, our fingertips just touching. We don’t move any closer to each other, but the memory of our kisses warms me as we wait for morning. Every time I think about them, my heart skips a beat.

Eventually, I must fall into a doze, because next thing I know, greyish light is stealing through the holes in the roof above us. Looking over at Ben, I see the blood darkening the shredded fabric of his trousers near his left ankle.

‘Let me look,’ Gina says as he tries to draw his leg back and grimaces. Gently, she pulls his trouser leg up. Across Ben’s shin is a furrow where the bullet has grazed across it. It isn’t bleeding, but it looks sore.

‘Are you sure it didn’t go in?’ Myo says.

‘You think I’d still be here if it had?’ Ben snaps.

‘OK, OK, I was only asking.’ Myo holds up his hands.

‘We need to clean the wound,’ Gina says briskly. ‘There’s bits of fabric in it – it’ll get infected.’

‘We can’t go anywhere until those Fearless are gone,’ Ben says through gritted teeth. ‘And even if we do get out, how will we get back in for Cy and – and her brother? Getting in was hard enough. We’ll not do it a second time.’

He’s right – now we’re in, we have to stay. My stomach cramps with fear and hunger.

‘One of us is going to have to see if they can find some water, then,’ Gina says. ‘Though God knows where.’

‘I’ll go,’ Myo says. ‘I can crawl through the roof spaces. Some snow might have come in somewhere.’

‘I’ll come with you,’ I say, and Ben’s eyes narrow, suspicion flickering across his face as he looks from Myo to me and back again.

I square my shoulders, looking straight at him, daring him to say anything.

‘Come on,’ Myo says. ‘We’ll go that way.’

He points to where the daylight breaking through the gaps in the roof is strongest. We crawl side by side, trying to make as little noise as possible. I pray that if the Fearless hear anything, they’ll think it’s rats.

The roof spaces are connected; when I look down through another hole in the ceiling, we’re over a completely different store. Paper and books are scattered everywhere, fat with damp and mould. And under the piles of rotting books . . .

‘Oh, God,’ I say, my hand flying to my mouth. ‘Are those bodies?’

‘They’re everywhere,’ Myo whispers. ‘Maybe people locked themselves in the shops when the Invasion happened because they thought it would be safer. Or else they’re Fearless who’ve died from the effects of the serum.’

‘Ugh.’ I shake my head, trying to chase away the image of what I just saw.

‘Are you sure you want to do this? You can go back to the others if you want. I don’t mind.’

I shake my head. ‘I’m fine.’

He gives me a quick kiss, and we carry on, avoiding the gaps in the ceiling when we can hear voices directly underneath, or see the flickering glow of lamplight.

At last, we come to a place where the roof has caved in, letting in a broad shaft of daylight. A layer of snow coats the rubble. ‘How are we going to get it to Ben?’ I ask.

‘I’ll fill my gloves,’ Myo says. ‘It won’t melt before we get it back – it’s too cold.’ Straightening up into a crouch, he strips them off and begins packing snow into them. I’m still wearing mine, so I do the same.