‘His p-, pulse is strong,’ he said, a look of amazement radiating from his face. ‘I think he’s g-, gon’ be okay.’ He lifted up Jun’s shirt, and gasped when he saw that the bullet wound had closed up.
‘We need to get out of here,’ Chloe said, her voice cracking under the weight of a chaotic jumble of emotions. ‘We need to get away from this, this craziness. I can’t deal with this, I literally can’t deal. I mean, I love animals, I really do … but this, this, this werewolf stuff, with, with guns and people trying to kill us, and—’
‘You kids ain’t goin’ nowhere,’ the woman grunted flatly, straddling the gorilla’s back and digging in his shrapnel wounds with a pair of tweezers. ‘Y’all just stepped in front of a speedin’ bus. I’m sorry to break it to y’all, but your lives are over.’
‘What do you mean?’ Paola whimpered, cringing with terror. ‘Are you gon’ … gon’ kill us?’
‘Jesus H. fuckin’ Christ,’ the woman muttered, adding a melodramatic eye roll for effect. ‘How fuckin’ dumb are you kids? Why the hell would my friend half kill himself to save your lil’ buddy if we were just gon’ kill all y’all later? Shit, haven’t you worked out that we’re the good guys? No, dumbass, we ain’t gon’ kill any a’ you. But your lives are over, finished. I’ll do what I can to get y’all new identities, maybe smuggle y’all out a’ the country—’
‘What?!’ Chloe gasped, rage rising like an abrupt gust of storm wind within her. ‘New identities?! Smuggle us across the border?! We literally didn’t do anything! We’re not criminals!’
The woman laughed humourlessly and shook her head as she carefully extracted a twisted shard of steel from the gorilla’s back.
‘Y’all saw something y’all weren’t supposed to see,’ she said. ‘This man – this gorilla – he wouldn’t have brought y’all along on this ride if your lives weren’t in serious danger. I dunno what you saw—’
‘We s-, saw that tiger change into a m-, man,’ Daekwon interrupted. ‘Um no, m-, man into tiger … you know what I mean. An’ another m-, m-, man changed into a rhino, an’ they fought, an’ these g-, guys like the SWAT team or some shit, they was w-, w-, watchin’ … an’ they s-, saw us an’ tried to kill us.’
‘Like I said,’ the woman said, ‘y’all saw somethin’ y’all weren’t supposed to see. An’ now they want you dead for that. We’ll do what we can to help y’all, but we can’t make no promises.’
‘Who wants us dead?’ Chloe asked.
‘Them S-, SWAT guys, girl,’ Daekwon said, his shoulders slumping. ‘One a’ them did try to k-, kill us in P-, Paola’s apartment.’
‘The Huntsmen,’ the woman said. ‘I don’t know if any of y’all have heard of the Huntsmen Corporation, but—’
‘Oh my God, the Huntsmen Corporation?!’ Chloe gasped. ‘Are you fucking serious?! That’s who those armed men were?! I mean, I’d heard that they had a paramilitary wing, even a private army, but I always thought those were rumours or conspiracy theories.’
‘Girl,’ the woman said as she extracted another sliver of jagged steel from the gorilla’s back, ‘the Huntsmen Corporation has the biggest private army on the planet. By far. And they don’t only fight wid’ guns an’ missiles an’ attack choppers. Use my phone, open whatever news site you want, or YouTube. Have a look at breaking news … an’ don’t be too surprised when you see your faces there.’ With her free hand she reached into her pocket, pulled out a phone and tossed it to Chloe, who caught it with surprised but nimble fingers.
With a few frantic swipes across the phone screen Chloe brought up the CNN homepage.
‘Oh my God,’ she murmured, her eyes locked on the screen. ‘Oh my fucking God, oh my God…’
‘Wh-, what does it say?’ Daekwon asked, shuffling in closer.
‘Just, just listen. I can’t, I literallycan’t believe what I’m reading. “Ecoterrorists carry out biggest terrorist attack in America since 9/11. Four American high school students, who have been linked by authorities to an international ecoterrorist organisation, have assisted a group of foreign terrorists in carrying out the biggest terror attack on American soil since the September 11th attacks of 2001.” Guys, they’ve got our Facebook and Instagram pictures on the page and everything. It’s … it’s us, it’s fucking us!’
‘B-, b-, but we ain’t no goddamned t-, t-, terrorists!’ Daekwon spluttered. ‘We didn’t do nothin’!’
‘How can they say that?!’ Paola gasped. ‘We didn’t do anything!’
‘Shit guys,’ Chloe murmured, mesmerised by the horror-inducing words splayed across the screen. ‘It gets worse, way fucking worse, listen: “The ecoterrorists, aided by the high school students, detonated a bomb in downtown New York City that has resulted in the confirmed deaths of at least five American military personnel, with the number of wounded civilians, police officers and military personnel currently at twelve and counting. The FBI has also revealed that the students, operating under the guise of a high school environmentalist club, had been planning on carrying out a mass shooting at their school, New York City’s Eisenhower High. CNN has received a number of screen shots taken from the students’ private social media messages, in which they meticulously plan out the details of the massacre. The students’ homes were raided, and illegal firearms and chemicals used in the manufacturing of explosives were seized. The students and their terrorist allies are currently at large in the city, and both the New York City Police Department and the federal government have launched a massive manhunt to apprehend them. The terrorists and students are armed and should be considered extremely dangerous. Anyone who sees them should contact authorities immediately.” Oh my God oh my God oh my God, I literally can’t even fucking breathe right now, I can’t even think … this is so fucked up, this is beyond fucked
