The Radical (Unity Vol.1) (32 page)

A
fter pounding the pavements for what felt like miles, we felt sure we were in Queens somewhere. We just didn’t know for sure because we had traversed the ruined suburbs for so long, that everything looked the same. Every house was a filthy brown color, every corner had a 24/7 on it, and every takeaway stank of foul, greasy food. Our bodies had only the energy to run, not to think anymore, and we had no idea where we had ended up. We had twisted and turned down dozens and dozens of backstreets, not really knowing where we were going, only that we needed to avoid being seen. I was developing a stitch and motioned for us to stop behind a shabby food outlet. I held my hands on my knees and caught my breath, working out the pain at the same time. Ryken tried to regain his strength too, but the pair of us were done for. It was starting to get dark and we needed to rest somewhere.

He attempted
humor, sniggering, ‘Two million and we can’t even afford a bed for the night!’

‘I know, right? This world is fucked. I can’t even spend my money without someone know
ing where I am or what I’m doin’.’

The strains of the day we
re starting to catch up with me and inside I was beginning to despair. I needed some comfort and he knew without me even having to say. He took me in his arms, holding my head against his chest, stroking my hair. I didn’t even have the energy to put my arms around him, limply falling against his body.

‘I wish I
could take this all away, but I can’t,’ he told me.

Wearily I
admitted, ‘I know… this feels like an impossible situation.’

T
here was nowhere to go, nobody who could help, no way of getting out of the situation without having to fight for our lives yet again. We were thirsty, hungry, tired and aching all over. Ryken still suffered from the previous day’s encounter with the emissaries and was running on empty. He looked like he might happily crawl into a hole and never come out.

He shook my arm and pointed across the street. We watched a man bound
out of his hydro-car, a Peugeot 9008, leaving it running as he dashed into a Mexican takeaway.

‘Qui
ck, we’re getting out of here.’

Ryken pulled me
with him in the direction of the vehicle and I cottoned on to his plan. We quickly got in and slammed the doors shut. Inside it stank of body odor and cigars but as our escape route – it was priceless.

Ryke
n sped off and we heard the hollering of the vehicle’s owner echo behind us as we shot off into the darkness of the ensuing blackout. I let my head fall back against the headrest. I was exhausted and just needed to be away from it all.

Ryken

I relied on my instincts alone in a bid to drive east and kept going until we reached the Long Island Expressway. I kept to a steady 60 to conserve power and avoid getting noticed. Seraph fell asleep in the passenger seat, but I continued on, hoping to find somewhere to stop for us to rest.

I pulled off the
Freeway when the fuel gauge beeped with a warning, and I just drove, without any thought of where we might go next. We hit Blue Point, an abandoned seaside type place. I drove through hoping to spot somewhere we could rest, not at all certain that anywhere would provide any decent kind of shelter. The landscape was barren and unforgiving, covered in darkness. There were loads of houses lining the beaches that looked ruined, battered by the rising waters. The fuel level was running ever lower, however, and I knew we would soon run out. I made a decision to pull into a white wooden beach house that looked totally abandoned.

I pulled up the gravel driveway
and the engine gave out as soon as we reached the house.
I couldn’t have timed that any better
. Seraph was still asleep, resting her head against the window, exhausted from the day’s toil and our all-night lovemaking. I thought back to that and smiled, recalling how soft and gentle she could be. Also, how wild she could get too. She was totally different to the person people thought of her as.

I
got out of the car and went to the passenger side, unbuckled her seatbelt and pulled her body out of the vehicle. She stirred and tightened her arms around my neck, hiding her face in my shoulder.

I
reached a door of the property and kicked it in. It was flimsy at best. We walked into a kitchen to survey the scene. There were broken pots and pans thrown around, twigs, stones and bits of hay spread on the tiled floor, plus the smell of a house unlived in for decades. I saw a lounge off the kitchen and walked through, placing Seraph on a dusty couch covered in rubbish. I saw no better option at that moment and needed to have a look around.              

There were tins of food in the cupboards
but they were well out of date and the taps didn’t produce any water. I gripped a banister to pull my weary body upstairs and found several bedrooms, but none of them looked as though they would be any good for sleeping in. Some had plumes of fungi growing from the ceiling and black mould everywhere. The stink almost made me puke. I went back out to the vehicle, popping the trunk to see what might be hiding in there. I discovered bottles of beer, boxes of cigars, a tartan blanket and a bag full of dried snacks. I took them all inside and saw Seraph sat up on the couch, wondering where I had got to.

‘Where are we?’

‘Somewhere on Long Island. The car died just as I pulled up the drive. Here, I found these in the boot.’

I
handed her a beer and a packet of chips. She snapped the lid off and drank almost the entire bottle, before tucking into the snacks. I didn’t normally drink but knew beer was the most sanitary thing we had right then.

We
didn’t speak for several minutes while we munched and drank. The bleakness of our situation was apparent. We couldn’t travel, or go back to our apartments, and returning within even a yard of the city would be dangerous. It felt like we were alone without a single resource in the world.

We
were both on our second bottles when she broke the silence.

‘Ryken, you’re holding out on
me. I can feel it and see it in your eyes. Why weren’t the samples there if Eve told us they would be?’

I knew this was coming and yet had hoped she wouldn’t press me
.

‘They really weren’t there, I searched that place high and low.’

I was sitting on a coffee table positioned right in front of the couch she occupied. I avoided her gaze, looking down at the floor, when I said, ‘Eve may have believed the samples were there, but they have obviously been moved. Most likely Officium is scared enough to have made the decision to move them elsewhere. You know it’s not unheard of for viral teams to just up and leave one lab for another, they do it all the time, at a moment’s notice.’

She disbelieved me, I knew. She moved closer and lifted my
chin with her index finger, looking me in the eye.

‘Ryken, tell me. I trust you, please trust me.’

My lip twisted as I fought the urge to speak. I was fighting a desperate internal battle to tell her the truth, but knew I needed to protect her, knew there were much larger things at stake. I kept looking her in the eye. I wouldn’t budge on this, she knew. What she didn’t know was that it was entirely for her safety.

‘Fine, that’s
just fine,’ she growled, standing up to walk away, before opening a door to go outside.

She stood on the decking at the front of the house and
looked out. I watched the wind rush through her beautiful hair, an auburn swirl amassing behind her. I knew she felt exactly the same as me. My heart hurt with a mixture of despair, new love and emptiness.

I had watched her this past week and had seen something crush
ing her fiery spirit under its heavy, irrefutable weight. She was trying to be so strong but I could see the need in her eyes. It was a desire I felt too. Neither of us wanted to be alone anymore.

I
t was obvious that Eve would never have led us into danger to complete a fruitless task. Seraph wouldn’t and couldn’t believe it. Her intuitions were always right. Yet, I held back what I knew because it could spell my lover’s complete self-destruction otherwise.

The reality was that we
could never really be together unless this situation resolved itself properly. We needed that evidence. So many factors relied on getting that proof and the enormity of its importance was hurting us both. The one thing she had spent years trying to get, and the one thing she could never obtain. I wondered how she hadn’t gone insane.

I heard her gasping against the wind with tears and beckoned
her back in with a hand on hers. ‘It’s cold, please come inside.’

I led her back to the couch and pulled her into my
arms. ‘If you trust me Seraph, then you will let me keep my silence for now. If you love me, you’ll just stay here with me tonight, and we’ll make our plans in the morning.’

She turned to look at me
with several emotions crossing her face. I knew she just didn’t have the energy to fight anymore. She fought back sobs and breathed heavily, ‘I trust you with my life.’

I pulled her into my chest and held my
arms around her. I hoped she might hear my heart whispering a reassuring chant to calm her nerves. There was so much I was unable to say, so much I couldn’t say, and other words I could barely let myself think for fear my heart might actually shatter. I loved this woman more than life.

‘I would die for you, Seraphina.’

Seraph

Seven
the next morning. I woke with a mouth that felt like sandpaper and tried to suck some spit forward to bring my tongue back to life. I suddenly remembered where I was and opened my eyes to survey the decaying house. I was still covered by the blanket that Ryken had tucked around me the night before as I had cried myself to sleep in his arms.

A
terrible feeling overwhelmed me. The blanket was still around me, he wasn’t. I shot up to look around and couldn’t see him anywhere.

‘R
yken, Ryken, where are you?’

There was no response. I
jumped off the couch, ran around the house, and couldn’t find him anywhere. I looked outside and saw the car was still there so I ran out with the vain hope of finding him loitering nearby, but he wasn’t. I started shouting his name over and over again. He was nowhere to be seen. I screamed while burning tears streaked my cheeks, but there was no reply. I looked out at the grey waters and spun around surveying the barren landscape. He had gone.

I fell to my knees and yelled at the top of my lungs. Hot, salty t
ears continued to burn my face. I pulled my hands into tight fists in fits of anger and despair. I had feared this would happen.

After gathering myself, I
got up and went back inside, hoping he might have left a note or something. There was nothing. I didn’t know when he might have left so couldn’t figure out how far he would have gone.

I went outside again, wracking my
brain for options, and wondered whether I might find anything in the garage. I searched like a lunatic, snapping cupboards open and shut, but there was nothing. No vehicles, no fuel, nothing. There was only one thing I could do.