The Fearless (15 page)

We both fall silent, listening, but all I can hear is the thud of my pulse in my ears.

‘Lochie,’ Myo hisses. ‘Come here.’

He starts to growl.

Myo stands up. ‘What is it? Who’s there?’

My heart thudding, I reach for my boots and my knife, which I left inside them. Myo grabs his knife too, and goes over to the door, opening it a little.

I grab the lantern off the hook. Then I hear something – metal scratching against metal, a tiny, secretive sound. It’s coming from down the hall.

‘Is that Danny?’ I whisper. Feet thud on the floor above our heads; first one pair, then another, quicker and lighter. Lochie’s still growling, a deep rumbling in his chest. I hear Danny coming down the stairs. ‘Myo?’ he calls. ‘Is everything OK? I heard the dog—’

There’s a bang, and a flash of light. A gunshot.

Then a shout from Danny as the door’s flung open and whoever’s out there bursts inside.

Lochie goes crazy, baying and trying to lunge past me. I wrap my arms around his neck, wincing as pain shoots through my side. Danny shouts something.

‘Where is it?’ I hear a rough, flat voice say in between Lochie’s barks.

‘Where’s what?’ Danny says.

‘The baby. I know you have one. I heard it crying.’

It’s a Fearless. Maybe even the Fearless who took Cass’s brother and who’s with Mara, the one we’ve been trying to track down. Danny said there was someone hanging around on the road earlier.
Christ
.

Cass must be thinking the same thing, ’cos she whispers, ‘Myo, what if—’

‘Shh!’ I say as Danny tells the Fearless, ‘Get out of my house.’ My mind’s racing. Has Danny got a gun? If this is the Fearless who was with Mara, I need to get to him, find out what he’s done with her – and Cass’s wee brother.

‘Stay here,’ I tell Cass. ‘Hang onto Lochie.’

She puts her arms around his neck. Gripping my knife, I open the door just wide enough to get through. Lochie barks again and yanks out of Cass’s arms and through the door. ‘
Lochie!
’ I yell, running after him. The Fearless man lashes out with the butt of his gun, catching Lochie hard on the side of the head. He yelps and drops to the floor like a sack of rocks.

‘The baby,’ the Fearless says in that droning voice as Cass comes rushing up behind me. Danny isn’t holding anything except a lantern, and no way is my knife gonna stand up to a bullet.
Shit
.

‘We don’t have a baby here,’ Danny says.

Upstairs, Tessie begins to wail.

I look at Cass. Her face is white and strained. ‘That’s him,’ she murmurs. ‘That’s the one who took Jori.’

So where the hell is Mara?
I think. Lochie’s still lying on the floor near the door, not moving. I’m desperate to go to him, but the Fearless is pointing the gun at all of us. Mebbe I could try throwing my knife and knocking it out of his hand. But it’s hard to judge distances properly when I can only see out of one eye. If I missed and hit Lochie I’d never forgive myself.

The Fearless fixes his dull gaze on Danny. ‘The baby. Now.’

Tessie’s still crying. ‘April!’ Danny yells over his shoulder. ‘Don’t come down here!’

The Fearless is still staring at Danny. I glance at Cass again, and nod towards the Fearless. Her eyes widen.
He has a gun
, she mouths.
He’s not looking at us
, I mouth back.

She presses her lips together. Then, very slowly, she puts the lantern down on the floor, out of the way.

‘Give me the baby, and I’ll let you live,’ the Fearless drones at Danny. The stench coming off him is awful and his skin looks grey, tinged with green. The thought of Mara ending up like this living zombie makes me sick to my stomach.

I give Cass a nod.

We charge at the Fearless, slamming into him and sending him staggering backwards, the gun dropping out of his hand and clattering to the floor. He’s way stronger than me, even with the Fearless drug rotting him from the inside out.

‘No . . . you . . . don’t.’ I force his arm back against the wall. He roars, trying to bite my cheek and blasting me with his hot, stinking breath.

‘Jesus, you need to clean your teeth,’ I tell him. I don’t know how much longer we can hold him. ‘Danny,’ I say over my shoulder. ‘Get April and Tessie out of here.
Go
.’

Then someone runs through the door, bending to snatch up the gun and sprinting up the stairs. The figure is moving so fast all I get is a glimpse of blue fabric and long black hair.

Danny gives a shout and chases after them. ‘No!’ I yell. The Fearless yanks his arm free. He punches Cass and she crashes to the floor beside Lochie, her knife spinning out of her hand. I head-butt him as hard as I can. As I stumble back, rubbing my forehead, the Fearless slumps face-first to the floor.

Lochie whines; he’s beginning to come round. I check on him first – no blood, thank Christ – then reach down to help Cass to her feet.

‘Where’s Jori? Is he here?’ she says in a groggy voice. Upstairs, I hear Danny shout, then two bangs – the gun being fired.

I leave Cass leaning against the wall and run up to the bedroom. Danny’s standing by the bed, still holding his lamp, his free hand pressed to his side. He’s breathing hard, and his face is grey. I can’t see April or Tessie anywhere.

Mara is standing in the middle of the room, holding the gun.

‘Mara!’ I say. She turns her head, fixing her silver eyes on me.

‘Mara, it’s me. Put the gun down.’

She doesn’t give any sign that she recognizes me. She turns away again. Her hair is tangled and greasy. Where it parts at the back of her neck, I can see a raw red puncture mark.

‘Oh, Jesus, Mara,’ I moan.

Danny’s eyes go wide. ‘I thought you said you hadn’t found her.’

‘I hadn’t.’ Glancing behind me, I lower my voice, aware that Cass could come up the stairs any minute. ‘She’s one of the Fearless who took Cass’s brother. We were tracking them.’

Danny’s still staring at me. I can tell he doesn’t believe me. Under his fingers, a dark stain is starting to seep through his shirt.

‘
Mara
,’ I hiss as she steps towards the bed. She must be taking the drug again, ’cos her serum sickness is gone. She’d get so bad, nothing could touch it; even the sedatives Gina found in the bunker’s infirmary didn’t help. All we could do was lock her in her room and ignore her screams. Now, her movements are strong and steady again.

How am I gonna get her out of here with Cass around?
I think.

Then I hear a faint cry, coming from the other side of the bed.

Mara smiles.

‘
No!
’ Danny drops the lamp. It shatters and goes out, and for a moment, I can’t see anything.

Mara screeches. I tug off my eyepatch and everything turns to grainy black and white. Danny’s half across the bed, struggling. He’s got a handful of Mara’s hair, holding her head back, and in his other hand – God knows where it came from – is a knife with a long, curved blade.

‘No, leave her!’ I yell, leaping towards them, just as Mara gives another screech and lashes out, smacking Danny in the face and making him fall back across the bed. The knife flies from his hand. Mara bends down and gathers something up in her arms, jumping across the bed with it in two leaps. I try to grab her, and she slams into me hard enough to send me staggering back against the wall, knocking all the air out of my lungs and sending a bolt of pain through my ribs.

As I slide to the floor, groaning and clutching my side, she runs out of the room and she’s gone.

I knew as soon as Myo and I tried to pin the Fearless against the wall that the self-defence training I’d had in the Junior Patrol was useless. Those moves would work on an ordinary person, sure – maybe one of the Magpies, if what Myo said about them was true – but not a Fearless. His strength was terrifying. He looked half-dead, yet power thrummed through his skinny body like an electric current. How Myo managed to hold on to him for so long, never mind knock him out, I have no idea. Thinking about how close I came to being Fearless food makes black spots swim in front of my vision, as if I’ve been punched in the head all over again.

He starts to come round just after Myo runs up the stairs after the second Fearless, and I’m still so groggy from being knocked out myself that it’s instinct rather than reason that makes me snatch up my knife and slam the blade into the back of his neck at the top of his spine. He takes for ever to die, just like the Fearless who tried to swim after us the night of the Invasion. I must have cut through his spinal cord, because he can’t move his arms or legs any more, but he snarls a stream of gibberish at me, his blackened teeth gnashing together as blood wells up around the blade, which has gone in all the way to the hilt. As I back away from him, sick and shaking, my head pounding, Lochie scrabbles to his feet and hurries back into the front room, ears down, back hunched, tail tucked between his legs.

At last, the Fearless lets out a bubbling sigh and goes still.

Someone comes thundering down the stairs – the Fearless girl. She’s got Tessie tucked under one arm like a doll. Before I can do anything, she rushes past me and out of the door.

‘
Hey!
’ I scream. If the girl’s here, Jori must be nearby – he could be just outside the house. I dash out onto the porch, frantically calling my brother’s name again, although it’s too dark to see anything. But there’s no answer. And no sign of the girl.

A few moments later Myo comes running out onto the porch too, clutching his ribs. In the light spilling out of the house I can see his face is flushed, his hair hanging messily across. When he reaches me he stops, his arms falling to his sides.

‘
Shit
.’ He slumps onto the porch steps, burying his face in his hands. His eyepatch is threaded between his fingers.

I stare out into the darkness. My mind is screaming at me to carry on chasing the girl, but I know it’s already too late. Moving that fast, she’ll be long gone.

I close my eyes and see myself slamming the knife into the back of the Fearless’s neck again, feel the blade grating against bone and gristle. A wave of nausea rolls over me and the pain in my head becomes a white-hot needle between my eyes. I lean over the porch railing, retching.

By the time we get back inside and I’ve closed the front door behind me, Myo’s put his eyepatch back on.

‘Where’s Lochie?’ he says.

‘He went back in the front room. Where’s Danny?’

‘Upstairs. I think he’s been shot.’

‘We have to see if he’s OK.’ I pick up the lantern and we run up to the bedroom.

Danny’s doubled over on the bed, his face a mask of pain. As I crouch down beside him, he moves his hand, and I see the palm is slick with blood.

I look round at Myo. ‘Where’s April?’

He turns towards me, and when I see his expression, I understand.

I go round the bed. April’s lying on the floor by the wall, her eyes open, her throat a ragged, bloody mess of tendons and gristle. The girl must have shot her, too. More bile rises in my throat.

‘We need bandages,’ I say, turning away from April with a huge effort and forcing myself to sound calm and practical. ‘And boiling water.’ I’m this close to losing it completely; my hands are shaking; I feel hot and cold all over.

Myo nods. He’s shaking too.

I go back over to Danny. ‘Can you stand up?’ I ask him. I know it’s dangerous to move him but we need to get him out of this room, away from his murdered wife.

Between us, we pull Danny to his feet and walk him over to the door, Myo holding the lamp. ‘Shit,’ Danny whispers. ‘
Shit
.’

‘You’ll be OK,’ Myo says. Danny tries to look round for April, but I gently steer him out onto the landing so he doesn’t see her.

‘Are they all right?’ he says, panic rising in his voice as we help him to the top of the stairs.

‘They’re fine. We’ll see to them in a minute,’ I say. ‘Can you make it downstairs?’

Somehow, we get him down to the front room, where Lochie is standing in a corner, back hunched, quivering all over. Myo lets go of Danny and crouches beside him, murmuring, ‘Are you OK? Did he hurt you?’

‘Help me get Danny onto the couch.’ I’m amazed at how steady my voice sounds. ‘Then we’ll sort Lochie out too.’

‘Where are April and Tessie?’ Danny keeps asking after we’ve eased him onto the couch. ‘Where are they?’ He has a glazed, distant expression, his skin a funny bluish colour. Myo helps me pull up his shirt and jumper. There’s so much blood I can’t see the wound underneath properly.

‘Can you light the stove?’ I ask Myo. ‘We need some warm water.’ I grab a cushion and press it against the wound, trying to stop the bleeding.

With another agonized glance at Lochie, Myo goes into the kitchen.

‘Cold,’ Danny says suddenly. ‘I’m c-cold.’ He’s shivering harder now, his teeth clattering together.

‘I know,’ I say. ‘Myo’s getting the stove going.’

‘Where are Tessie and April?’ He stares at me with terror in his eyes. ‘I need to see them – I need to know if they’re all right.’

He tries to get up, sending the cushion tumbling to the floor. With an effort, I push him back down onto the sofa. ‘You have to stay still,’ I tell him. I pick up the cushion and hold it back in place. Danny mutters, his face twisting.

Myo comes back through. ‘Water’s heating up. How is he?’

‘Delirious.’

‘He’s lost too much blood.’

‘Can’t we stop it?’

‘I don’t know.’ He scrubs a hand through his hair until it’s standing on end. ‘Maybe we should forget about cleaning it and tie that cushion on with something.’

Even though the window is boarded, a pair of faded curtains hangs across them. I rip one down, and Myo cuts a wide strip off it so I can bind the cushion against Danny’s side. As we finish, I hear a whistling sound coming from the kitchen. ‘That’s the kettle,’ Myo says.

As he goes into the kitchen to take it off the stove, Lochie comes over. He doesn’t seem as unsteady on his feet now, but his tail is still tucked between his legs. Glancing at Danny, who’s gone quiet, I gingerly feel the dog’s head for cuts. Although he has a lump above his eye, the skin isn’t broken.