Fractured A Slated Novel

Chapter FORTY TWO



* * *





At Katran’s hide, where bikes were hidden the first time I came this way, the tarp is lower than I hoped. I pull it back to be sure, and sigh: no bikes here today. They must all be at the house: I’ll have to walk. Fast.

The air is damp and heavy, still, wet. The sky is darkening. And I fancy muffled sounds, someone or something hidden inside it. Imagination on overtime, I keep turning, sure I’ve heard a distant twig snap or something in the trees. But if I double back, silent and careful, nothing is there.

As I walk, I consider the weak point of the plan: who is guarding Dr Lysander? If Katran has things straight with the 4 pm attacks, everyone who can be should be deployed; it may be just one guard outside her locked door. How do I get them out of the house and distracted enough to free Dr Lysander? I have no illusions on an all-out battle: the only way I could really hurt anyone is in self-defence. Like with Wayne. I wince inside: I can’t feel sorry, exactly, that he is dead. It may have been at Nico’s hands, but it is still another death that is my fault.

Focus.

If Nico is at the house, I’m in real trouble. He shouldn’t be; he should be coordinating the attacks.

Unless he is the one to kill Dr Lysander at 4 pm.

You could always back out, run away. Hide.

No. It is time I faced up to the trouble I’ve caused. I hurry up the path, half walking, half running. One eye on my watch: 3:15 now, and I go faster, examining and rejecting plans on the way. There are too many unknowns.

I reach the place the bikes are stashed near the house: nearly there. Again overcome by a feeling of being watched, so strong, I stop, hold my breath and listen, but can hear nothing. The only movement is a red kite circling overhead, eye on some prey far below. Fear and imagination: that is all.

Silent, I slip through trees around the house, under cover, out of sight. No cars: Nico isn’t here! The relief is so strong I sag against a tree. As much as I try to keep up the pretence that I could stand up to him, could I? Really? Apart from the usual hold he has on everyone, there is another on me, until recently buried so far down I didn’t know it. He is my terror. The black stuff of nightmares.

There is a movement at the door: I scrunch down. A dark-haired figure steps out, chucks the remains of a cup out on the ground and goes back inside: Tori. She is the guard? And perhaps executioner as well.

Otherwise the house still looks abandoned, empty. My eyes can search out the little details that say otherwise only because they know where to look. I see and avoid the tiny tripwire that encircles it, hidden in the undergrowth: a warning system for those inside.

Yet – something still feels wrong.

A silence, not from the house, but around me, as if the trees hold their breath. Birds are silent. The wind itself, and—

I retrace my steps. There is a slight crack, left. I spin around, foot up for a looping kick, but pull it back at the last second.

‘Cam? What the hell are you doing here?’ I say, in a fierce whisper, and pull him back into the trees.

He grins. ‘I couldn’t let you go without making sure you were all right. What’s going on?’

‘Don’t look so pleased with yourself. This isn’t a game!’ And I am angry: at myself for taking the easy way, letting him drive me; at him, for following; at myself, for not catching him at it sooner.

He pulls the smile away but it stays in his eyes. ‘Sorry, Miss.’

‘Go back the way you came, and do it now.’

‘No way. I’m not leaving. You might as well let me help you. What is it? You said you were helping a friend, yet if it is your friend in there, you are very careful to circle their house, check it out, be quiet. Shall I go knock on the door and see if they’re in?’ He takes one step forwards and I grab his shoulder, pull him back again.

‘You’re really not going to leave quietly, are you?’

‘No,’ he says, and this time there is a serious determination in his eyes, one that was there all along behind the jokes.

‘Cam, you don’t know what you’re getting into.’

‘So tell me.’

I sigh, pull him further back into the trees. Trapped.

‘It’s like this. There is someone locked in the house, and I want to bust them out.’

‘A jailbreak. Good, I like it.’

‘I’m hoping there is only one guard.’

‘Right.’ He drops into a crouch, fists up. ‘Want me to take him out for you?’

I roll my eyes. ‘It’s a her, and shut up and let me think.’

He stays quiet. I need to distract Tori thoroughly. A fight is one way, but there is another: Ben. I sigh inside. All these points of guilt that need dealing with in this effort to do what is right. I have to tell her Ben is still alive. That should be enough to get her attention away from her guard duties.

‘Okay. How about this,’ I say. ‘I’ll go in, get her to come out for a talk. I’ll walk her around the side of the house. You slip in the house, unlock the door and get the prisoner out.’ I explain to him the layout inside, where the key is in Nico’s desk drawer. Hoping that Tori doesn’t grab it when she comes out.

‘Yep, got it,’ he says. ‘No problemo.’

I shake my head. There could be all sorts of problems.

I get Cam to hide around the side of the house, away from the door so Tori won’t see him when we come out. ‘I’ll go back around so I come out of the trees at the right place, in case she watches the paths. So give it a few minutes.’

As I cut back through the woods, careful still not to make a sound, something niggles inside. This still feels so wrong. He shouldn’t be here, but it is more than that. How is he here?

I stop in my tracks, and consider the doubt twisting inside. I’d been so busy being angry, and trying to work out how to get him to go, and then what to do when he wouldn’t, that I didn’t focus on the one crucial thing.

How did he follow me? He would have been well behind. He drove far enough back up the road I couldn’t hear his car any more, then would have had to double back on the road, and into the woods. How did he know which way to go? I was going at speed – how did he even keep up?

I cross my arms when it hits me. Either he is a master at following and running silently, or, far more likely, he hung back because somehow there is a tracker on me. I don’t understand this; it doesn’t fit. Cam?

I slip back to his position, quiet and careful. Maybe he was just lucky, went the right way and stumbled onto the bike path. Once you get far enough in, it is marked enough to follow without too much difficulty.

Not likely.

He is still where I left him, waiting, as instructed. I creep closer. His back is to me; he is leaning over, doing something with his hands. There is a faint metallic click. He turns slightly and I see the gun in his hand, the deadly expression on his face.

Cam? With a gun?

The shock is so great I get stupid, shift back on my feet. He turns to the noise, sees me and there is no choice now but attack. I spin a kick at his wrist. The gun flies through the air.

‘Who are you?’ I manage to spit out.

No answer. But now there is a knife in his hand. He dives, feints to one side. I roll, but not fast enough; there is pressure, a cut, into my shoulder. And I remember the gun strapped to my arm, fumble to get it out, but he dives again and there is another slash of heat at my side, a deeper one. The hell with diversion; I need help. I stumble back into the hidden tripwire and collapse.

Cam walks up and smiles, but it isn’t in his eyes, and this isn’t the Cam I thought I knew.

‘Who are you? What are you?’ I whisper again, pressing my hands to my side, and there is red and sticky wet on my fingers. The world spins. His image splits into four or five Cams, suddenly ugly, changed.

Facing me, he is turned away from the house. He doesn’t see Tori appear round the side of it, or the gun in her hand. Indecision on her face, bad shot that she is. She creeps close and hits him with it, hard, in the back of his head.

There is a sickening thud. He turns then tumbles face down to the ground.

She walks round and kicks him over, but he stays still. ‘Who is this?’ She turns to me, finally notices I’m bleeding, not moving. Rushes over.

Some part of my mind notes that Nico would be so unimpressed with her. Not checking for other attackers, or covering Cam in case he can get up, or anything.

I groan, the beginnings of a plan forming. ‘I’m dying,’ I whisper, though I doubt it. Messy, but superficial cuts; blood is doing its usual thing and almost making me pass out, but not from the wounds. But Tori doesn’t know that.

Freaked, she looks. No illusions I’m her favourite person, but she knows Nico wants me, for whatever reason.

‘Tori,’ I whisper. ‘Doctor, I need a doctor now, it’s the only way…’ My voice trails away, and my eyes close. I slump back in the best imitation of unconsciousness I can muster, then peek between my lashes. To her credit, she gives Cam an experimental kick to check he is neutralised before running back into the house.

I breathe in, out; in, out; forcing myself to ignore the red seeping from my shoulder, at my side. Testing my limbs, but just a little movement and everything spins sickeningly. Not good enough. I curse inside.

A moment later, Dr Lysander appears in the door. She runs over to me, Tori behind her, gun trained on her back.

She crouches down, checking, pulling at my clothes. Dr Lysander must realise I shouldn’t be unconscious just from this. She is between Tori and me, blocking Tori’s view. I open my eyes and wink. Her eyes widen.

‘I need a tourniquet, now,’ she says. ‘Get me a first aid kit!’

Tori hesitates.

‘Go! Get it, or she’ll die.’

Tori scampers into the house. I sit up. ‘Run,’ I say, and point. ‘Straight through there is a path; go left when it branches.’

‘Not without you.’

‘Go! Do it. I can’t; I’m half blood-tranced.’

‘No.’ She pulls me to my feet. My legs wobble underneath, but she puts a determined arm around my waist, and we start to hobble into the woods.

Then Tori bursts out of the house. Drops the first aid kit and dives for her gun.

But before she can reach it there is a loud bang, and wood splinters over our heads. ‘The next one won’t be in a tree,’ a voice says. A voice that makes me tremble.

We stop. Turn around.

And there is Nico, gun pointed at my head. ‘Now. Would somebody like to tell me what the hell is going on here?’