By foot or on a bicycle were the best ways to travel around Fury. The city was too small for any larger modes of transport, and the streets were too tight to accommodate them. Not that they had any other vehicles. Other than their dogs, they had no tech in Fury. None of the neighbouring communities were willing to trade anything else.
The river Rend ran through the city. A two-hundred-foot bridge stretched across it. Malcolm lived beneath the bridge. He’d always said he liked it there. That he liked the cold winters and damp springs. No point in challenging the lie. What could Reuben do? Offer to let him stay in his tiny house? And what would his mum think? She called his greatest strength his biggest weakness. He was too soft. He gave people too much.
Despite the enormous steel wall surrounding the city, the wind always blew hard along the river, entering through the grates beneath their fortified boundary. It dropped the temperature by a few degrees.
Out of breath from the run, Reuben picked his way down the steep riverbank with cautious steps. He unslung his backpack and removed the sandwich and drink. Malcolm always slept beneath a red blanket and always refused the offer of anything warmer. He took his daily sandwich and water, but insisted he needed nothing else.
“If sir would like to look at the menu,” Reuben said to the red blanket, “I think he might be pleasantly surprised. Today, for the one thousandth, three hundredth, and eighty-seventh day in a row, I present sir with”—he held the wrapped sandwich out on the palm of his hand—“a cheese sandwich and Fury’s finest bottled water.”
Reuben’s chest tightened when his friend didn’t move. “Malcolm?”
Reuben pulled the blanket away to reveal a log.
A deep and booming laugh, it resonated in the tight space beneath the bridge as Malcolm appeared from the other side. His hair a six-inch halo of white, he had a wide grin filled with wonky teeth. Mirth shone in his brilliant blue eyes. The man walked with a stoop from so many years of sleeping rough. It masked his six-foot-plus stature. He pointed at Reuben and laughed again. “Got ya!”
While holding his hammering heart, Reuben rolled his eyes.
“I don’t know whether to laugh about catching you out,” Malcom said, “or to cry because no matter how many times I pull this trick, you fall for it. Do you really think you’re going to find me dead beneath this bridge every morning?”
His face hot with his shame, Reuben shrugged. “You’ve told me not to worry about you, but that doesn’t mean I don’t. Is that such a crime?” He threw the cheese sandwich at his friend. After Malcolm caught it, he threw the bottle of water.
“Come here!” Malcolm hugged Reuben before stepping back and holding him by the tops of his shoulders. “Thank you. As always.”
Reuben shrugged, avoiding eye contact, his face on fire.
“Wait a minute.” Malcom gripped tighter, and Reuben did his best to hide his wince. An old man, older than his years because of his lifestyle, but he still had the strength to crush rocks in his gnarled hands. “Today’s the day, right?”
It pulled Reuben’s attention back to his friend. “I hope so.”
“Nothing’s arrived yet?”
“It’s early. There’s a lot of the day still ahead of us.” Always looking out for other people. His greatest weakness. Trying to make Malcolm feel better about his disappointment.
“That there is. So how do you plan to spend your last day of freedom?”
“Boredom more like. And we don’t know if it is the last day.”
“Someone’s fucked up big time if it isn’t.” Malcom sat down on the riverbank, his long legs folding into triangles, his knobbly knees pointing at the underside of the bridge.
Reuben sat next to him. “Are you sure there’s nothing more I can do for you? Nothing else you need?”
Malcolm’s right cheek bulged with his food. He spoke through a clamped jaw, his beard covered in breadcrumbs. “You do enough.”
“I don’t think I do.”
“You do more than anyone else.”
“That’s hardly a yardstick.”
“Honestly.” Malcolm took another large bite, which he didn’t stow in his cheek this time. His voice muffled, he said, “I appreciate everything you do for me. I don’t need or want anything else.”
The wind hummed beneath the wide bridge. The river churned with its fast current. It filled the silence. Gave them permission to just be.
After a few minutes, Reuben said, “Do you really think it will come today?”
“They’d be mad to not want you,” Malcolm said.
And what did Reuben expect? Malcom didn’t have the answers. He’d say what Reuben needed to hear.
The bell over the shop door tinkled. Reuben had spent the past few hours with Malcolm. Better he killed time with his friend than waiting at home bothering his mum. After he’d filled his basket, Patricia took his items and placed them into his bag. Bread, cheese … “You still feeding Malcolm?”
“If I don’t …” But Reuben left the thought hanging. “Yes.”
Careful not to crush them, Patricia placed the bunch of tulips in last, leaving them poking from the top of his bag. “For your mum?”
Reuben shrugged.
“You’re a good boy.” She smiled, dimples in her round cheeks. Because she ran the shop, she got more food than most.
He lifted his chest. “Eighteen today.”
“Oh, shit!” Patricia clapped a hand to her mouth. Her green eyes widened, her hand muffling her words. “I’m sorry. I don’t usually swear. But … oh my! Today’s the day, right?”
Reuben shifted his stance. He shrugged. “I hope so.” What would he tell all these people if it didn’t happen? How could he come back here tomorrow and make her feel better about his disappointment?
“Waste of time if you ask me.” Ken, although ever present in the shop, rarely spoke. He sat in a chair
