Bite Risk, page 11
When we arrive at Shady Oaks, Harold is waiting outside for us. We follow him across the lawn, up the gentle slope towards the hedge that marks the property boundary. He’s very slow, and almost turns his ankle a couple of times, reaching out to hold my arm for support. He’s pale and trembling, utterly shaken.
‘I don’t normally go up here,’ he pants. ‘But I couldn’t find the secateurs, so thought maybe someone had put them in the old shed by mistake.’
We pass a small cluster of trees and come to it, up against the hedge. Just on the other side is Warren’s place. The shed is clearly not being used. The door is hanging off by the bottom hinge, and there is a bulge in the side where planks have splintered outwards, as though it’s been hit forcefully from the inside.
I’ve been in the other, newer shed just outside the back door of Shady Oaks before, when Harold asked me to fetch his rose gloves. It’s full of thick cobwebs and cluttered with junk, but it’s made of painted steel and doesn’t let the rain in, unlike this one.
Elena and I step up to it warily, as though whatever caused the carnage might still be in there, even though it’s obviously empty.
Through the doorway, the walls are splattered with dark stains, and there are more stains on the floor. Might be mud. But I think it’s dried blood. Elena reaches out and touches one of the nails. There’s a piece of silvery fur caught on it. It looks very much as though something has fought its way out of here. It wouldn’t take much – the wood is old and thin.
I imagine Pedro, unconscious, bleeding from his head wound, dragged in here and left until dusk. I feel sick.
‘You were right, Elena,’ I say. ‘He was here. Someone shut him in, knowing he would break out when he’d Turned.’
She holds the fur gently between her fingers, biting her lip hard, obviously trying not to cry again. A rebellious tear escapes down her cheek and she quickly wipes it away with her sleeve before stowing the fur in her pocket. Something else to remember him by.
Harold’s voice shakes with indignation. ‘How could they do this? He had his whole life ahead of him. His whole life.’ His voice breaks.
A wave of anger and grief is building in my chest, threatening to overwhelm me.
‘Someone in our community is a killer.’ Harold reaches for my arm again and I let him hold on. He leans against me heavily and I worry he’s going to collapse. I lead him to a nearby bench and then at his suggestion Elena and I search the area for any more clues.
After a while, Elena shouts, ‘Hey! I’ve got something!’
I run over to where she’s crouched by the hedge, reaching under it. When her hand emerges, she’s holding a shiny black rectangular object, covered in dirt but still instantly recognizable by the bullet-hole stickers on the back. Pedro’s phone.
* * *
The battery’s dead, of course. We can barely keep still while we wait for it to charge, back in Harold’s room. Finally it has a few per cent and we try switching it on. For a moment nothing happens, then the logo appears. Never has a start-up process taken so long. But finally, Elena opens his text messages.
There it is. The last one. Tuesday at 12.14 p.m. The one he got at the Howler party. It’s from a number that doesn’t seem to have been in his contacts.
I hold my breath as she clicks on it.
We read the message, and the name at the end of it.
Howdy, Pedro, we need to talk. Can you come straight from the party? Warren
There’s something inevitable about it, but at the same time I’m shocked to the core.
Eventually, I say, ‘Warren? Mayor Warren?’
‘I don’t know any other Warrens, do you?’
None of us do. And the howdy nails it.
Elena’s still scrolling through Pedro’s phone. ‘Okay, but there’s an entry for Mayor Warren in Pedro’s address book, and it’s a different number.’
‘New phone?’
‘Could be.’
I try to imagine Warren as a cold-blooded, calculating killer. Luring Pedro to the shed, knocking him unconscious and shutting him in. Setting up the trap and flying the drone to get him there. The picture isn’t convincing. I once saw Warren get stuck in his own deckchair. He and Hale would be the two finalists in any incompetence contest. But maybe it’s all an act.
Elena is eyeing Harold’s tranq, clipped onto the wall next to her. She touches it lightly with the tip of her finger, and I see an idea start to form. She stands up.
‘Dad called Warren a liar. Let’s find out if that’s true.’
Then she yanks the tranq off the wall and strides out of Shady Oaks with it.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I can barely keep up with Elena. When she sees I’m trying to stop her, she starts to run. People gawk as she speeds past – you’re not allowed to carry tranqs outside of Confinement. Why would you, when there are no Rippers about?
Unless you wanted to kill a human being.
As we reach the path that leads up to the mayor’s house, she swings round and points it at me.
‘Sel, you need to stay back.’
When Ingrid pointed her tranq at me, I was afraid she’d pull the trigger. But now that my best friend is doing it, it’s so much worse. I’ve seen that look on her face before. Nothing’s going to stop her – not even me.
A few people are on their phones, I guess calling the police station, but Elena’s already marched up to the front door and pressed the bell.
When Mayor Warren opens it, she sticks her foot in the gap.
His palms go up right away. ‘Woah, woah, what’s this! Elena!’
‘Why did you text Pedro just before he disappeared?’ she says, the tranq aimed right at his belly.
He hesitates. ‘Young lady, you need to put that down. I know you’re having a hard time right now—’
‘Why?’
He cracks, slightly, and a hiss of desperation leaks out. ‘I didn’t! I don’t know what you’re talking about! Please, Elena! Put that down.’
‘You’re working for Sequest, aren’t you? Why didn’t the alerts work that night? What’s going on?’
He’s sweating now, his forehead shimmering. ‘You’re grieving, Elena. You’re not thinking straight.’
She tilts her head to one side, considering. ‘Yeah, you could be right. If only there was something that could calm me down. Some kind of sedation, maybe…’ She holds out the tranq in front of her as though measuring its size. ‘Worth a go, huh?’
She reverses the tranq, pointing it at herself, her arm only just long enough to reach. As I cry out, and the mayor lunges forward to grab her, it’s too late.
There’s the mundane click of the trigger, and the thunk of a Ripper tranquillizer dart in her thigh.
* * *
We’re in one of the treatment rooms at the Wellness Centre. I watch Nurse Pete check Elena’s drip and then take her oxygen level and pulse.
‘You are one lucky duck,’ Pete tells her, ‘to get a faulty dart.’
‘Luck had nothing to do with it,’ she tells him, fiddling with the strip of tape holding the needle in her hand.
He taps it away. ‘Leave that alone, it’s just in case you need any drugs. But your vital signs are looking good. You gave us a bit of a worry!’
That’s putting it mildly. She should be dead several times over.
‘Now, I think we can probably let you go home, but Doctor Travis just needs to sign off.’
I wait until the door closes behind him before losing my rag.
‘What were you thinking?’ I seethe. ‘I thought you were going to… and then I thought you’d… I practically had a heart attack.’
‘I knew they were duds, Sel.’
‘But… how’s that possible?’
‘We just pick up random tranqs from Sequest each month, right? When we drop off the old ones. We choose the box ourselves off the shelf before they sign it out. So that means that this month, they’re all duds. That’s how they made sure no one could stop Pedro.’
I consider. ‘I suppose.’
‘See? I knew there was no danger.’
‘You didn’t know. You thought. That is not the same thing. And you didn’t think to tell me this plan before you shot yourself in front of me?’
She has the grace to look slightly sheepish. ‘It only just occurred to me in Harold’s room. Sorry about that. But don’t you see? Now they’ve had to admit there was at least one faulty dart. Even if they try to say it was only that one, it’s enough to knock people’s confidence in the system. We need more people asking questions, and that will happen now.’
I don’t know about that. Most of the chatter outside while I was waiting was about how Elena must be mad with grief.
‘You really scared Warren. I swear he peed himself.’
‘Of course he was scared – because he knew I was about to expose his lies about the tranqs.’
‘Or because he didn’t know the tranq was a dud.’
She makes a dismissive noise. ‘Pah. He knew all right.’
The door crashes open and Doctor Travis comes in with a face like a slapped buttock, followed by Nurse Pete.
She lifts Elena’s wrist and listens to her pulse. ‘Huh,’ she says, grudgingly. ‘Normal.’
‘Well,’ Pete says brightly, ‘that’s good news, isn’t it?’
Doctor Travis narrows her eyes at Elena. ‘There’s no trace of tranquillizer in your system whatsoever. I don’t know what you were playing at, but you can leave. You’re fine.’
She doesn’t add ‘unfortunately’ but her tone says it. I guess she’s annoyed she can’t pump Elena full of drugs or slice her open.
‘Excellent!’ Pete beams. ‘Thank goodness for that. And how are you feeling, Sel?’
Elena turns to me in surprise. ‘Why, what’s wrong with Sel?’
Apparently I fainted out at the mayor’s place. They had to carry me here. ‘Nothing,’ I say quickly. ‘I feel great.’
Pete lays a hand on my shoulder. ‘Just a touch of a panic attack, I think. Some relaxation techniques would be beneficial for you, Sel. Breathing exercises.’
I nod in thanks, but honestly my breathing is fine. It’s the constant threat of death that’s the problem.
CHAPTER TWENTY AUGUST – CONFINEMENT NIGHT
I never used to dread Confinements. It’s always been my favourite night, even though I feel under the weather. And this weather’s a doozy. My limbs are leaden, my stomach is roiling, there’s a buzzing in my head like a persistent fly. I wish I could wear Pedro’s headphones, but they’re gone, along with him. Maybe it’s just the infrasound that’s giving me intense vibes of approaching doom.
Or it could be that I’ve been talked into doing something even more stupid than shooting myself with a tranq.
In some ways Elena’s bizarre stunt was a triumph. It was a scandal – people were asking how many faulty darts there might be. Could they trust Sequest to keep them safe? We started to hope that it would set off a cascade of investigations that would give us our answers. Then Sequest did something we didn’t expect; they apologized.
Apparently, mistakes were made by an employee at HQ in Hastaville, and that person has been fired. New, unbreakable systems have been put in place. A new batch was sent out; a fully checked set of darts arrived at Sequest on the drone, and everyone collected their allocation.
All done.
Simple as that. Unbelievably, it’s dying down. When Elena tried to show people the text on Pedro’s phone, it was gone. Of course.
Mum thinks Elena is just struggling with her grief. I haven’t tried to persuade her again – maybe it’s for the best that she believes Sequest, for now. I don’t want to put her in danger. With every day that passes, I’m more convinced that Harold is right about the lengths they will go to, to keep their secrets.
And Elena? She’s grounded, for this and every Confinement for the foreseeable future, and they’ve taken her tranq away. To add insult to injury, her next-door neighbour Asim has been told to take over Caretaking her dad. Lucas is quiet as a mouse anyway, these days.
It’s been decided that maybe it’s best if I don’t have access to tranqs right now, either. Guilt by association. And it probably doesn’t help that everyone still thinks I messed up with Mum’s cage lock. Our reputation in this town is at rock bottom.
But I’m not grounded, which is why I’m out right now. Of course, Elena wanted to come with me, grounding or no grounding. What persuaded her not to in the end was realizing even the other kids think she’s a danger to herself and others. For once, they might actually rat her out.
That means tonight’s job is all mine. We haven’t told Harold our plans, being pretty sure he won’t approve. We promised him we’d lie low for a while. Not give Sequest any more reasons to pay attention to us. He actually begged us. I think he might be regretting he ever encouraged us in the first place.
The thing is, Elena reckons if Mayor Warren is up to his neck in it with Sequest, then there’ll probably be evidence in his house. Documents. If we could get those, we’d be in a much stronger position. There’s only one night we can do that – when he’s locked up.
Of course, there’s a slight chance I’ll get more than I’m bargaining for.
Someone was flying that bait drone. It would be difficult to control it from Sequest HQ in Hastaville, which is quite far away, but it’s in the same time zone as us, so everyone there would have been Turned, too, unless they hired an Immutable to do it. Or a kid. No, it’s much more likely to have been someone nearby. We’ve all been assuming that Mayor Warren is just your average guy, not Immutable like Harold. His assigned Caretaker is a kid that lives nearby, Yoona, but she tells us she’s never actually seen him Turn. No one has.
Just how much of a liar is he?
As I stroll through Tremorglade to Warren’s house in the dark, trying to look casual, I’m desperately hoping there’s a caged beast in there that wants to rip me apart, because the alternative is even worse.
* * *
It’s nearly midnight as the white walls of the mayor’s house appear. Dim lights mark the pathway up to the front door. I glance round, in case any late-to-bed kids are watching, and lift my face up to the sky, watching for any tell-tale red lights above, straining my ears for the distinctive buzz of propellers. If they’ve got drones for playing music and baiting Rippers, they’ve almost certainly got drones that can watch me. All is silent. The full moon bathes everything in a ghostly glow.
I shake my head to dislodge the doldrums, to no effect. The gnawing sense of dread isn’t going to shift, either. Now I know what’s causing it, I feel like I should be able to dismiss it, but I can’t. My body is overruling my brain.
A howl pierces the night, instantly joined by others. Midnight. The cacophony surrounds me, and I can’t tell if there’s one coming from the house in front of me too. They go at it for a full minute. I’ve heard it plenty of times before, of course, but it never fails to send a chill down my spine: mournful, despairing, agonizing, beautiful.
It trails away gradually, and the gentler noises of the night return.
Stepping over the explosive bunting, I make my way up the gravel path. The stones crunch under my shoes, and I slow, treading more lightly. Bypassing the front door, I head around the side, where we’ve noticed there’s a bathroom window that never seems to be quite shut.
Up close, it’s above my head, and smaller than I thought. I can probably just about get through, but it’s not going to be fun. Music is playing inside.
With a final check around, I find the crack at the bottom of the window and pull up. It sticks, then suddenly gives, sliding wide open. The music immediately pours out – ‘Eternal Melons’ by Fruit Basket. It’s either incredibly loud or playing really close to the window. Lifting my chin, I peek through. The moonlight is on this side of the house, and I can clearly see the white bathroom tiles and a bath with a shower curtain drawn across. Underneath the window, a toilet. After a moment’s thought, I take off my trainers and hide them behind a plant pot further along the wall.
It takes me a couple of attempts to hop up high enough to get my elbows onto the sill, my feet scrabbling at the whitewashed brick. Painfully, I shift my chest through the opening, and stop to listen.
‘Eternal Melons’ is still blasting out, but not from the bathroom – from further inside. He must have it turned right up.
Halfway through, at the point of no return, I realize it would have been better to go feet first, although I’m not sure how I’d have managed that. My shorts pocket catches on the window latch and I spend an awkward few seconds trying to unhook it. When it releases, I slip, and have to brace my shins against the window frame in order not to slide head first into the open toilet bowl.
My hands grip the edge of the bowl as I slowly bring my feet through the window, effectively doing a handstand on it. At this point, it becomes clear that I should have thought this through more. I’ve never been any good at gymnastics, and as my toes come over the sill, I lose control and let go of the toilet seat in order to avoid doing a back-breaking somersault onto the bathroom floor. My cheek scrapes against the sticky porcelain and my hand hits the tiles with a sickening jolt that sends agony from my wrist through my entire body. For a moment I lie curled on the floor, nauseous with shock. When I tentatively move my arm, waves of pain radiate through it. I think it’s broken.
The temptation to lie here on the floor until morning is so great that I close my eyes and imagine that it won’t matter. He’ll find me when he comes for his morning wee and I’ll come up with a totally plausible explanation and he’ll find it perfectly reasonable and not bother mentioning it to Mum and everything will be fine.
A noise from just beyond the bathroom door makes me scramble to sit up, and then crouch, the adrenaline releasing me from thoughts of my wrist, for now. I might have imagined it. The music is loud enough that it’s hard to tell – the relentless drumbeat and soaring vocals obscuring everything – but this sound is on a different register, somehow, off the beat of the music. A thud that doesn’t belong.
