Read The Three Most Wanted Online
Authors: Corinna Turner
The Three Most Wanted
PRAISE FOR I AM MARGARET
Great style—very good characters and pace.
Definitely a book worth reading, like The Hunger Games.
EOIN COLFER
An intelligent, well-written and enjoyable debut from
a young writer with a bright future.
STEWART ROSS
This book invaded my dreams.
SR MARY CATHERINE BLOOM OP
***+***
THE
THREE MOST WANTED
CORINNA TURNER
US Edition
Copyright 2014 Corinna Turner
ISBN: 978-1-910806-09-8 (ebook)
Also available as a Paperback
(ISBN: 978-1-910806-08-1)
***+***
US Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favourite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
***+***
Chapter 3 – Prime Real Estate for Happy Campers
Chapter 6 – Weird Chatty Brits
Chapter 7 – Strange and Wonderful
Chapter 8 – Cold but Satisfied
Chapter 9 – A Distinct Lack of Buttered Parsnips
Chapter 10 – Never Look a Gift Deer in the Mouth
Chapter 11 – Stabbing a Melon with a Needle
Chapter 12 – Rabbits in the Headlights
Chapter 13 – The Major’s Confession
Chapter 15 – A Deal with the Devil
Chapter 16 – Friends in High Places
Chapter 19 – Dead Men Tell No Tales
Chapter 21 – Crossing the White Line
Chapter 22 – Indefinite Leave to Remain
***+***
I will lead the blind by a road they do not know,
by paths they have not known I will guide them.
Isaiah 42:16a
***+***
NOT REALLY HERE
We were free—and comparatively safe.
For now.
Mist hung thickly over the trees. No helicopters would be flying today.
Thank you, Lord
. No one was looking for us here, anyway—they thought we were off with the Resistance...
“Is the weather going to hold?”
“Forecast’s mist for the next week.” Bane climbed carefully over a fallen bough. “We had our month’s sun the day before yesterday.”
The latest painkillers were beginning to work. I hung there contentedly in Bane’s arms.
Bane
. Bane was here. I was with Bane. Free. Nothing else really mattered right now...
Swing. Swing. Swing
...
...The misty forest just the same. Everything the same, except it was Father Mark carrying me. The pain was getting back up to full strength, but the thought of what he’d risked...
for me
...
“You shouldn’t have gone in there, y’know,” I mumbled.
“Oh, hush,” said the young priest, a smile softening his hatchet-face. “I can go where I like.” His eyes raked briefly over me. “Want some more pills?”
“Is it safe?”
His attention returned to the path ahead. “Not ideal. But I wouldn’t get too excited.”
“Okay, then.” I couldn’t think straight. “Where’s Bane?” Failing to keep panic from my voice...
“At the front. We need someone who knows what they’re doing at the front and his arms needed a rest.”
“Right. Of course.” I clamped my lips together.
I will not scream for Bane. I’m okay here with Father Mark
.
“We’re stopping, people, pass it on,” called Father Mark. Soon I was swallowing pills. Again. Bane came loping back along the long line of (former!) reAssignees. He brushed hair from my face and kissed me tenderly. “Okay with Father Mark for a bit?”
“’Course,” I lied. “Fine.”
“I’ll just leave you to confess, then.” He kissed me once more and hurried back to the front.
“Could I confess?” I murmured, speaking to Father Mark in Latin out of habit.
Father Mark rolled his eyes. “Have you committed a mortal sin since your last confession?” He also used Latin—but spoke quietly. Some of the others had probably guessed by now that Father Mark was a priest and that we were Believers, but no need to be reckless.
“No...”
“Then go to sleep.”
I tried to think of a reply...
...My cheek rested on a familiar chest—my insides plummeted sickly—I’d dreamt it all, I was still back at the Facility... But... why was I being carried? I struggled to lift my aching, pounding head...
“Jon...?”
“Hello, Sleeping Beauty. How d’you feel?”
Everything echoed in my ears. The sun was rising above the trees, a brighter patch in the mist. I’d no memory of night. I squinted against the cruel light, focusing on the flat dirt track along which my companions were moving. Oh. Not a dream. Bane and Father Mark both exhausted? Or Jon taking advantage of this flat track to do his share? He never let his blindness stop him from pulling his weight if he could help it.
Sarah walked beside Jon, raising a hand and touching his arm when he veered slightly to the left. “Hi, Margy. You feel better?” Proud in her little job as Jon-aimer.
“I’m fine...” I tried for a reassuring smile and Sarah stared worriedly at me. But getting words out was like lifting lead to my lips.
“It’s too early for more pills, Margo,” Jon told me after a while. Had I mumbled something? He looked worried.
“M’fine,” I muttered. Another lie. Major Everington was walking alongside with his empty eye sockets turned towards me, blood trickling down his calm face like tears. He held out a hand, palm cupped as though to receive something.
Eyes…?
I shuddered.
“I do think it’s very decent of you.” I could hear his well-bred voice. “But if you’re not going to need them anymore...”
“Go away!
You’re not really here
...”
“Am I not?” He raised an eyebrow, making one empty socket gape horribly. I shut my eyes tight.
“Sarah
is
here, Margy. I
is
...”
“It’s okay, Sarah.” Jon’s voice. “I don’t think she’s talking to you.”
“Then who Margy talking to?”
“Someone who’s not there.”
“A
ghost?”
I whimpered.
Not a ghost, please, Lord?
“No, no, not a ghost, Sarah. She’s running a temperature, that’s all. It makes people... see things.”
I dragged an eyelid up and risked a peep. The Major was gone.
For now
... I sunk slowly back into a daze of heat and pain...
...Kept hoping my head would clear, but it just seemed to get worse. People were talking, but I could hardly concentrate on what they were saying.
“She needs more pills.”
Bane’s voice. Anguished. I dragged my eyelids up and tried to focus on his face.
“It’s too soon.” Father Mark. Very firm.
“But...”
“No. Taking that many pills too often would really be pushing it.”
“We’ve got to do
something
about the fever. Can you put more solution on?”
“No. Every time we unwrap those wounds to add more antiseptic, we also get more bugs in there. Tonight, maybe.”
“Well, what can we do?”
“For now, nothing. Give her more pills in an hour.”
“Can’t you do
anything
else?”
“I’m a priest, not a doctor.”
“Much use that is! There’s got to be something!”
Father Mark opened his mouth, exasperated—paused. “Well, now that you mention it…”
He fished out a case from around his neck, taking out a familiar proCamera—or something that
looked
like a proCamera. He opened the battery compartment and slid out a little battery-shaped vial full of golden liquid. “I can give her the Sacrament of the Sick. It might make her feel better.”
He held out the vial towards me and Bane batted it away.
“Isn’t that for dying people?”
“No. It’s for
sick
people, as the name might suggest.”
“Seriously, Bane, it might make her feel better,” put in Jon.
Father Mark turned to me. “Margaret?”
Perhaps it was worth speaking. “Yes, please...” Certainly felt sick enough...
Vaguely aware of Father Mark sliding a second ‘battery’ out and shaking a few drops of Holy Water over all of us... Jon crossed himself but my hand went all over the place—Bane put his hand around it and moved it for me....
“Penitential rite
,” Father Mark was trying to catch my eye again.
“Do you confess your sin?”
“Umhmm...”
...Father Mark’s cool hands rested on my pounding head as he prayed over me... then his thumb was running lightly over my forehead, damp with holy oil, marking a cross beside the bandage-covered one Major Everington had cut into my flesh.
“Through this holy anointing may the Lord in His love and mercy help you with the grace of the Holy Spirit...”
“Amen,” Jon said and Bane mouthed. Father Mark took my hands gently, one at a time, to anoint my palms—finished by reaching out to silently anoint my eyelids—I closed them helpfully, giving wordless thanks that they’d rescued me when they had.
...Father Mark was tracing a cross over us and putting the vial away. The disguised Mass kit disappeared back inside his shirt. “All done.”
“I’m sure she feels a lot better,” said Bane, rather sarcastically.
But I did. Not any more
with it
, but a whole lot calmer. Like I’d had a spiritual infusion.
“Except I bet you do, knowing you...” Bane pressed a gentle kiss onto my cheek and picked me up again.
***+***