Bite Risk, page 10
I turn very slowly, and there he is.
Pedro, slinking between bushes, nose to the ground, nostrils dilated and drawing air in hard; he’s got the scent of something. Me. He raises his head; the fur on his muzzle is covered in blood. He’s definitely been feeding. Please let it only be a fox.
The main entrance door bangs open behind me. Harold’s voice. ‘Hey! Hey! Over here!’ Oh, no. The old fool’s trying to distract Pedro.
‘Harold, don’t move.’ Out of the corner of my eye, I can see him standing there with a bundle of netting and… a broom? He can’t possibly think he’s going to fight off a Ripper with those.
Dread seeps through my veins. Pedro glances between Harold and me, deciding. His inhuman yellow eyes are flecked with gold. I don’t see even the faintest trace of my friend’s soul, or whatever it is that makes him him. Only a savage hunger and hostility. But there’s something about the way his subtle fur colouring suggests the familiar arch of his brow, and I find myself croaking, ‘Hi, Pedro,’ in case he recognizes me too, even though I know he can’t. ‘Did you forget your headphones, buddy? It’s me, Sel.’
Faint notes float on the air – someone’s playing music in town, and in the midst of my terror my brain helpfully identifies it for me as ‘Moonlight Disco’. They’re playing your favourite song, Pedro.
His lips draw back revealing pointed teeth, and he releases a low, purring growl. I’ve never heard a sound like that from a Ripper before, one that reverberates through every cell in my body and turns my insides liquid. It’s not a warning. It’s a murmur of pleasure, in anticipation of the kill.
‘N-n-nnno!’ I shift the X50 round in an uncontrolled jerk until it points at his chest, but the barrel is bouncing along with my heartbeat and shaking hands. ‘It’s me. Don’t… Pedro, don’t—’ My voice gives up, the words swallowed, my tongue thick and useless in my mouth.
His shoulder muscles twitch, tensing in readiness.
Harold picks that moment to advance with the broom, hobbling forward with a reedy war cry.
My finger, stiff and numb, struggling to find the trigger, presses down. Nothing happens. With a gently dawning, strangely sweet sense of inevitability, I notice that I never actually took the safety off. The blood in my veins slows to a trickle. We’re both going to die.
But in that instant, my hair ruffles as something whizzes over it, and ‘Moonlight Disco’ reaches a peak. A drone. It pauses, hovering just over the Ripper’s head. Pedro’s attention snaps to the movement and sound. His muzzle swivels up, nostrils flaring as though he can smell something special.
Finally my fingers relax enough to slide the safety off, and I refocus on Pedro, quickly wiping water from my eyes with the back of my hand. The drone is making small darting movements, like it’s teasing him, and it’s working – his eyes are following it. I finally let off a dart and, to my elation, it plunges right into the side of Pedro’s neck. It’s only then that I see the gash at the back of his head. The fur is flattened around it, glistening and sticky with dark blood, like it’s been smashed against something hard. He’s badly injured.
The effect of the tranq is supposed to be almost immediate, and it was with my mum, but now it’s as though Pedro doesn’t even feel it. He jumps for the drone and it skirts upwards out of his way, then zooms off into the darkness, with him in pursuit, just as Elena appears, right in his path. They’re clearly both as startled as each other. Pedro hesitates for the tiniest moment, but it’s all the time Elena needs. She swings her tranq up and at him, just as Pedro springs at her. His powerful legs carry him several metres in an instant, but she’s ready for him and sends a volley of darts into his chest – at least three or four hit their mark.
He doesn’t break his stride.
In an instant, he’s on top of her, knocking her to the grass with ease. But then he’s gone, galloping after the drone, leaving Elena winded on the grass in a hit-and-run.
We’re all paralysed in shock and confusion.
He had us and left us alive.
I run to her, but she’s already clambering up.
‘I can’t believe he just…’ I say, almost laughing with relief. ‘How did you do that? That thing with the drone?’ I expect her to show me a remote control or something, but there’s nothing in her hands except the tranq.
Her expression is utterly bewildered as she stares after him into the darkness. ‘That wasn’t me.’
Harold catches up. ‘It wasn’t? Then who—’
Elena shakes her head. ‘Never mind. We can’t lose him. Come on. There’s streets full of kids just down there. I don’t think that drone will entertain him for long.’
Harold throws the bundle of netting to me, pulls a torch from his belt and hands it to Elena. ‘Go. Don’t wait, I’ll catch up.’
It’s easy to follow Pedro’s path through the long grass in the moonlight – his heavy paws have flattened a wide swathe. To our relief, he hasn’t headed into town. The drone has led him to the river – the faint strains of ‘Moonlight Disco’ are coming from a little way upstream. He’s taken a straight line to the bank, and for a horrible moment I think he’s jumped off, straight down the waterfall to certain death. But then the path bends sharply, along the bank on this side of the river. We follow the sound, and the trail of flattened grass. Then the music shuts off abruptly ahead.
Over the thundering of the water, a shout from Elena.
‘Here!’
When I catch her up, her torch is aimed at the sky, and for a moment I wonder if Rippers have suddenly learned to fly. But then, through the illuminated raindrops, I spot him. He’s hanging by one leg from a rope slung in a tree, the remains of broken sticks in the dirt where he’s set the trap off. Pedro is swinging upside down over the river, thrashing wildly and snarling, biting at the air in an attempt to sever the rope, as the river thunders past underneath him.
Relief floods through me. We got him. I silently bestow endless thanks on the person who decided to set up the trap and sent the drone. There’s no sign of it now. But there’s another shout from Elena, who doesn’t look relieved at all. She’s grabbed the net from me and is frantically untangling it.
Then I see why. The branch the rope is looped over is breaking. It’s far too thin to bear the weight of a Ripper, much less one that’s thrashing around, struggling for its life. As I watch, I can almost see the sinews of the branch thinning and tearing apart.
I search around and pick up a long stick with a gnarly knot near the end, and hold it out over the river towards the rope, trying to hook it and pull it towards us, but it’s not long enough.
I strain towards the juddering rope, but it stubbornly jumps around inches away from the stick. Elena finally shakes out the net, wraps part of it round her wrist and flings the rest as far as she can towards Pedro, but he’s on the out-swing and it misses him by a hair’s breadth. I give up on the stick, flinging it to the ground behind me, and help her drag the net back out of the river’s clutches – the current is hard and fast, tugging against us viciously. Elena tries again, waiting for her moment, and this time it catches around Pedro’s forepaws and head. As he swings away again, Elena is yanked forward and I grab at her, my heels skidding ruts into the mud.
I’ve got her, and she’s got him – just. But he’s bucking and twisting in panic, snarling and yelping in outrage.
‘Stay still,’ she screams, though he can’t understand, let alone co-operate.
There’s a crack, sharp and audible even over the water’s rush, and just like that, he plunges into the river, taking the net and half the branch with him. The force pulls Elena over, her head and chest dragged under the surface of the water, leaving me desperately clinging on to the waistband of her jeans, sliding on the mud. Then all at once, the resistance disappears. Pedro and the branch sweep away at speed, leaving Elena holding the broken net.
He’s gone.
I don’t remember Harold helping me drag Elena out of the water, coughing, distraught and shaking with exhaustion. All I see now, whenever I close my eyes, is the bulky shape of Pedro being rolled over and over by the current, downstream to where the riverbed falls away in a hundred-metre vertical drop, and the waterfall snatches him over.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN AUGUST – 14 DAYS TO NEXT CONFINEMENT
I can’t believe this day is happening. Pedro’s memorial. They’re not calling it a funeral, because they’ve nothing to bury. The waterfall, and the rocks at the bottom of it, took that away from us.
Mum waits while I climb the steps up to Elena’s house. We’re walking over there with them.
I give a polite knock on the open door, then head into the house. In the living room, the top of her dad’s head is visible over the back of the sofa, and the black shoulders of his suit. He’s ready, at least. I wasn’t sure if he’d be up to it. He’s got the news on. Floods and hurricanes across the rest of the country again. The presenter is ankle-deep in water, lashed by rain, shouting at the camera about how this is the third straight month of emergency.
‘Good morning,’ I say, and immediately feel like I’ve been crass. It’s not a good morning. He doesn’t respond. I take the stairs quietly up to Elena’s room and raise my hand to knock, but then I hear music coming from Pedro’s door opposite and walk in there instead. For the tiniest of moments, part of me thinks maybe he’ll be in there. He’ll grin at me and say surely I didn’t really think he’d actually gone?
The curtains are shut, making the room gloomy. Elena’s sitting on Pedro’s bed, hunched over his mini Bluetooth speaker, the one that he used to take with him so he could listen to decent quality music when he was out on jobs. It’s playing a song I recognize as one of his favourites, though I can’t remember what it’s called. No lyrics, just a thumping bass and electric guitar soaring over it.
I sit next to her and can’t think of anything to say. Sergeant Hale has already informed them that his ‘investigation’ is over. What a joke. He says there couldn’t have been a drone playing music, and even if there had been, a Ripper wouldn’t follow it like that. His bosses out at HQ have told him so.
He seems to think we’re hiding something. That maybe we’re lying because we were involved in Pedro staying out, and now we feel guilty. According to Hale’s report, Pedro decided to ignore Confinement, for unknown reasons. I watched Hale carefully as he was speaking to us, and I still don’t know if that’s what he really believes because that’s what he’s been told, or if he knows exactly what’s going on. One thing is for certain: Sequest’s fingerprints are all over this.
As the track comes to an end, Elena switches the sound off but carries on holding the speaker, stroking it with her thumb like it’s a little pet. When she turns to me, her eyes are puffy and dull. I go for a hug, to let her cry on my shoulder, but then she surprises me, and holds me off gently. Her voice is steady and clear.
‘Somebody stopped him from coming home. He must have been held somewhere and then let out, or broke out, after he’d Turned at dusk. Did you notice he was wounded? He had a horrible gash on his head, he was bleeding. Someone did that. And we know who they were working for.’ Her jaw tightens, as if the images are floating through her mind. ‘Sequest killed him.’
I hesitate. ‘But… who around here would hurt him? And if they wanted to kill him, why didn’t they just do it when he was still human, instead of letting him Rip out? And who sent the drone? Whoever it was, they saved us.’
She shakes her head. ‘If his human body had been found, there’d be a murder investigation. If he’d gone missing, everyone would have torn up the whole town and the forest looking for him. No. Someone wanted us to see him die. An accident. They wanted it shut down quickly. It was choreographed.’
Realization dawns. The trap over the water that wouldn’t hold his weight. The drone wasn’t sent to rescue us. It was sent to lead him to his death.
‘Whoever was controlling that drone knew exactly what they were doing. They knew how to make him ignore the three juicy living steaks right in front of him.’
‘The music…’ I offer. ‘Pedro’s favourite song?’
‘Yeah, partly. But I don’t think that would be enough. It would have needed some other bait too. A pheromone, maybe – he was sniffing at it. And the way it was moving around above him… Trying to get his prey drive to kick in.’
I think back to the way the drone was darting around. It reminds me of the way I tease Harold’s dog, Eddie, with the ball before I throw it, to get him psyched up enough to fetch.
I shiver. An image of Pedro tumbling over the edge of the waterfall flashes into my head yet again.
Elena gets up, puts the speaker carefully on the desk. She closes her eyes, breathes in deeply. ‘It’s time to go.’
* * *
Funerals and memorials are supposed to help the people who are left behind deal with their grief, surrounded by friends and family. Pedro’s memorial is dignified, sombre, and yet feels to me like a sick joke.
It can’t be real.
After the service in the town square, people drift away, murmuring condolences to Elena and her dad. Lucas accepts them with an expression of such restrained agony that it’s hard to look at him. Elena told me he’s fallen apart. He blames himself for causing a scene at the Howler party. There’s been no more job searching. Not a trace of his previous anger. He’s just… given up. Retreated into himself.
I tell Mum I’m going to hang around in case Elena wants to talk, and she heads home after giving me a long squeeze and telling me to take all the time I need.
‘Howdy, Sel.’ I surface from my misery to find Mayor Warren in front of me. The howdy is at least a subdued one, for him, but it still annoys me. ‘I’m sorry for your loss, too. I know what a good friend Pedro was to you.’
I nod, and swallow hard. I don’t want to hear anything from him right now. I figured I had nothing to lose and went to see him yesterday, after Hale ended the investigation. I started asking why the alerts hadn’t been working that night. He shut me down right there and then. He’d checked, and the alert system was running fine. Not only that, but he’d heard alarming reports about my behaviour recently, and that of Elena and Pedro – that we’d been throwing around ‘wild allegations’ and being lax about security. And just look where it had led.
I should have known it was pointless. He and Hale are pretty tight.
The warning was clear: we must stop causing worry and panic in our community, especially at a time like this.
The thing is, nobody’s worried – that’s the problem.
Now, I watch him walk off, only to be replaced by something worse: Ingrid approaching. I check behind me – Elena is deep in conversation with some other kids and hasn’t noticed my plight. Bernice is hobbling away back to Juniper House on Amy’s arm – she broke her ankle on an unmarked tripwire someone left out in the grounds. At least it wasn’t attached to a stun pop. But it’s meant she’s had to delay her goodwill trip to the northern valleys. I watch them go, ignoring the urge to call them back to protect me from Ingrid.
No, I’ve got to handle this one. I brace myself, plant my feet and wait.
Ingrid stops in front of me, hands shoved deep in her trouser pockets. She’s wearing a smart black suit, and her hair is pulled neatly back into its ponytail. She seems to roll the words she’s going to say around her mouth before she says them.
‘We need to talk. You, me and Elena.’
I laugh bitterly. ‘No, we don’t. Can’t you leave us alone, even now? We know you’ve been spying on us. You and your minions. Where are they, by the way?’
Her mouth opens and then closes again, her face flushing a deeper pink. ‘I’m not friends with Fee and Loretta anymore.’ No denial of the spying, I notice. It occurs to me that Sequest’s spies might well include children, to do their dirty work for them during Confinement nights. Letting my mum out, for example. It would explain a lot. ‘I can’t talk to them. They don’t get it. You know things. I want you to tell me.’
‘Oh, I bet you do. So you can report back, hey?’ I turn away in disgust, but her hand is still on my arm, and she pulls me back round to face her. I glance over at Elena, who’s still not looking this way. I don’t want a fight at her brother’s memorial.
I lower my voice. ‘Go away. Unless you want to make a confession. What did you say to Pedro at the Howler party, Ingrid? Hmm? Did you tell him to go somewhere? And then make sure he couldn’t come back in time?’
Ingrid looks horrified. ‘No! Nothing like that.’ Her gaze sweeps the people around us, briefly. ‘We were arranging to meet up the following day, to… to talk about stuff. Honestly. Trust me.’
It’s such a barefaced lie it almost makes me laugh. ‘Oh, come on. You’re the last person he’d confide in.’
‘Trust you, Ingrid?’ Elena is next to me. I wasn’t aware of her approaching, but I’m guessing she heard the last exchange. She seems exhausted but combative, like her anger is all she has left and it’s looking for something to do. I really hope she’s not going to start an actual fight, because I don’t have a hope of holding her back. ‘I was just having a little chat with Justin,’ she says, crossing her arms. ‘He was telling me how he was at Shady Oaks on the morning of last Confinement, painting the hallway skirting for Harold. He saw you coming out of Dora’s room, stuffing something under your top. And the funny thing was, Dora was in the kitchen at the time. Care to explain? Should we ask Hale to search your room at Juniper? It wouldn’t be the first time you’ve stolen, would it?’
Ingrid’s eyes flick towards Sergeant Hale a few metres away. His face swivels in our direction, mirrored shades revealing nothing. She doesn’t answer.
Elena nods. ‘Thought not. Come on, Sel. Let’s go see Harold. He says he’s got something to show us.’
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
