“A what?” William said.
“It’s a device that allows them to see into the tower from their community.”
“What the …?”
Olga shrugged. “I know. Anyway, she said she watches it, and when we’re all waiting, she’ll come and get us.”
“And if we don’t all make it out?” William said. Even suggesting it elicited a hard glare from Matilda.
“She said we should hold up four fingers on our right hand. That’ll tell her we’re ready to get out of here.”
“So what do we do?” Matilda said.
“What else can we do?” Olga said.
“We should find the others. They might need our help.”
“And if we don’t find them?” Olga said.
“We come back here. They know where they need to get to. At least looking for them will give us something to do.”
Olga pointed up the street. “Going to war with those armies will give us something to do; that doesn’t mean we should do it.”
“You’d rather sit around here waiting for them to turn up? The way I see it,” Matilda said, “very little’s changed with our plan. We need to get to that tower as a group and then head to Gracie’s community. We only do something different if we have good reason. So we’re agreed? We find the others?”
William shrugged. “Yeah.”
Olga looked from William to Matilda. “I suppose it’s better than doing nothing. But I think we should stay close to the tower so we don’t miss them. They might find their way here without our help.”
Chapter 22
Max panted as he ran. A new day had begun, and none of them had rested. And now this. Three dogs and five soldiers on their tail. The dogs drove them on with their searing heat. If they got any closer, they’d fuse his shirt to his back. The diseased he could deal with, even if Hawk had been an idiot charging into a fight with them, but he didn’t have an immunity to fire. Or to being battered with a metal club by Fury’s army.
His hands were slick with diseased blood, his right palm stinging with cuts from the rock he’d used to bludgeon them. They’d charged only a handful of the creatures, but as soon as they’d engaged them in battle, more arrived. By the time they’d finished, over one hundred rancid bodies lay scattered on the ground, their vinegar tang palpable in the air. Every creature Max took down stared at him through familiar eyes and hissed his name. Mad Max. He saw Cyrus too many times to count.
And then the dogs and soldiers arrived. Not as fast as Artan, Max ran with Hawk beside him while Matilda’s brother led their retreat.
Like when they’d followed Gracie, Artan ducked into buildings, jumped walls, and dived through old windows. Shattered glass, debris, and dust kicked up at their feet. From one building to the next, they weaved through a life long forgotten.
Many of the larger window frames had low walls. It made the boys’ path easy, for now. For both them and the five soldiers with their dogs.
Max yelled, “We need a better solution than this, Artan.”
“What do you think I’m looking for?” Artan turned right when he jumped out of the next shop.
The army and dogs had only been on their tail for a few minutes. The next few minutes mattered even more. They passed another fire escape on their right. “What are you waiting for?” Max said.
“A space we can defend.”
Another whomp of igniting flames. Max ruffled his nose at the acrid reek of his own singed hair. Their lead had halved from thirty to fifteen feet. If Artan didn’t decide where to go soon, then he would.
After a quick double take, Artan turned left into an alley. Max and Hawk followed.
A flight of stairs in front of them. But unlike the fire escapes, this flight led in one straight line to a steel door on the first floor of a building. Otherwise it would have been a dead end. Artan leaped mid-climb and landed two-footed on the other side of the missing stairs.
At least the day had broken. They would have had no chance in the dark. Max leaped across the six-foot gap next. He landed on the other side, his right foot buckling beneath him. His leg folded, he slammed down on his knee, and he fell forward.
Hawk directly behind him, the hunter leaped, tripped, and belly-flopped on Max’s back. The weight of his stocky frame forced Max into the stairs and drove the wind from him. Hawk climbed over him as the clack-clack of the first dog began its ascent.
While Hawk scrambled clear, the dog leaped. Max pulled his legs away from the edge. Just a few feet between him and the dog’s glowing red eyes. It snapped its jaw with a crack! A token effort, the metallic beast twisted in mid-air as it plummeted to the ground with a clang!
The other two dogs learned fast. They waited at the bottom of the stairs.
Stumbling after his friends, Max met them at the steel door. The door without a handle.
Hawk kicked it. The force of his attack, combined with the door’s refusal to budge, sent him stumbling back. He threw his arms up. “It’s been welded shut.”
“How—” Max caught his breath “—are we supposed to get through?”
Until that moment, Artan had been the one with all the ideas. He shrugged.
“What the fuck, Hawk?” Max said.
“What? I didn’t lead us here.”
“Why did you charge those diseased? Why be a hero?”
“I was trying to help.”
“By doing what? What did you achieve? You think you can kill every diseased on the planet?”
“There were only a few of them. I thought I’d get to them before they got to us.”
“We could have gone the other way. We didn’t have to fight them. Had
