The kick to the face and fall down the stairs had left William’s nose clogged with blood. He breathed through his mouth. They only had to get to the arena. They could do this.
The front of the arena was wide open. It showed William the smaller corridor inside, the mass of blue soldiers beyond that. Get the scavengers and Fear’s army together, and surely they’d do the rest.
The scavengers had closed the gap, some front-runners eating away at the distance between them, but they weren’t close enough. Olga on one side, Matilda on the other, William ran into the arena’s foyer and threw his arms wide. “Come on, then, you fucks!”
The blue soldiers turned as one. Frowns of confusion morphed into scowling rage. But none of them charged.
“What are they waiting for?” Matilda said.
A woman appeared in the corridor. She had greasy brown hair, and her two front teeth were missing. She carried a long curved sword. Many of the soldiers behind her held batons.
The scavengers had halted outside the arena. The group at least three to four hundred strong, they stood waiting, many of them panting from the run.
“Well, well,” the woman said, her words wet with a lisp from her lack of front teeth. “This is a pleasant surprise. You went to the effort of delivering yourselves to us.” The woman waved at the pack of scavengers and said, “Thank you.”
One of the group stepped forward and nodded. “You’ll leave us something?”
The blue soldiers had followed their leader into the foyer. They surrounded William, Olga, and Matilda, patting them down for weapons.
The soldier frisking Matilda took it too far, and William lurched in his direction. “What the fuck are you doing?”
Another flash of white light, the soldier punched him square on the nose. William dropped to his knees and held his face in his hands.
A female soldier, about five feet tall, kicked William in the stomach and spat on him. “Now get up, you pathetic fuck.”
Before anyone else could weigh in, William stumbled to his feet, his stomach tied in a knot of nausea. He shook, and blood rained down the back of his throat.
“What?” the woman with the knife said. “You thought you could turn the scavengers against us? They’re the only people we allow to live in our city. They clean up our mess. We have a symbiotic relationship with them. And we know to stay the fuck away from one another.” The pack of scavengers were already rounding the corner back towards their warehouse, but the lead woman spoke in a mock whisper anyway. “They don’t know this yet, but when we get control back of this city, we will drive them away from here like rats from a burning ship. But until then, we’re—” she paused, tapping her chin as if it helped her think “—associates.” Her laugh bubbled from deep within her throat and she shook her head. “I can’t believe you wanted to use them against us. O’well, I suppose we should give you what you wanted, eh? I mean, this was about reuniting you with your friends, right?”
As they led the three of them away, William dropped his attention to the dirty and broken tiles at his feet. What an idiot. It had seemed like a good plan.
Chapter 30
Mad Max.
Max shook his head, the diseased’s call like a mosquito buzzing inside his skull.
There had been five soldiers on the platform with them before, but now, as Val brought William, Olga, and Matilda up to join them, she also brought seven more of her blue-uniformed friends. Max and Olga stared at one another. How the fuck had they both ended up here?
As she’d done before, Val cut the air with her sword, extinguishing the crowd’s excitement. The diseased groaned and yelled in defiance of Fear’s psychotic leader.
Mad Max.
Cyrus stared up from the crowd. His mum and dad. His brothers. William … he did a double take. Not William. William stood behind him, close to Matilda and Artan.
“So,” Val said, “it would seem our prisoners have some friends.” She laughed. “Friends that were stupid enough to think they could use the scavengers as a weapon against us.”
Mad Max.
The plank led away from the platform out over the diseased. A sea of twitching fury. They had but one purpose: to drive this vile plague into clean blood. The dense press of the crowd would make it damn near almost impossible to move when they ended up down there. How on earth would Max protect his friends?
Fury’s soldier had now become part of the collective mess. She stared up through eyes that matched her uniform. Her arms were pinned to her sides from the tight press of bodies. Deprived of reaching towards the platform, she bit at the air like a dog bothered by a fly. Her head snapped one way and then the other.
“Of course,” Val said, “we’re going to leave one of them as a symbol of friendship for the scavengers. A live meal, we might even leave them unharmed.” She tapped her chin, her fingernails broken and dirty. “But which one?”
Many of the crowd shouted. Among the general noise, Max heard, “The short one.” His stomach clamped.
Mad Max.
Until now, Max hadn’t noticed the large pole on one corner of the platform. Too much else to focus on. It had looked like a part of the structure. But it offered nothing to the integrity of their improvised stage, and it had ropes tied around it. What did they use it for?
Milking the crowd, Val used her sword to point to William first. “This one?”
The crowd made some noise, but they’d proved they could do better when they’d cheered for Artan.
Then onto Matilda. “This one?”
Val had heard the calls for the small one. How could she not? Did that reflect the nature of their relationship with the scavengers? They’d leave them someone to
