'What do you mean?'
'I used to drift through life accepting everything that came my way. Didn't get too excited because that was the way it was. It was just… nice. You know that tingly feeling you get in the pit of the stomach? I get that all the time these days. Sometimes just looking at shit, like the way the sun hits the fields. Like the smell of really good food. Or woodsmoke? Have you noticed how good that smells? I get excited when we all have a good conversation, you know how it is when the ideas are bouncing around and I'm bitching like hell and people are batting it back at me. The world's falling apart and people are dying out there, and I'm sitting thinking these are the best days of my life. What does that say about me?'
'It's not just you.'
'What?'
'I feel it too. I think we all do. What does it say? Something about the way life should be lived, I guess.'
'Urrp. Heaviness alarm. Why can't you just say it means I'm fucked in the head and leave it at that?'
'Because you're not.' He felt a sudden wave of affection for her. 'You don't do yourself any favours, you know. Why do you keep acting out this, shall we say, difficult persona?'
'It's a natural selection process. I know anybody who fights their way through that crap has got to be all right. Anybody who gets turned away by it isn't worth the time or effort.'
'There are easier ways-'
'No, there aren't. You can't trust anybody at face value. They might be smiling and pleasant and say nice things, but what's going on inside? It's a life lesson, idiot-brain. I'd have thought you would have learned that by now. This is the only way I can work out who's all right.'
The thought stayed with him as he floated in the warm peace of the room. The complexities of her character intrigued him, but there was something deep in her words that kept nagging at him, hinting at something important. He wrestled with it for a while, but it was stubbornly resistant and before he knew it he was drifting off into sleep.
Veitch relaxed once the sound of Church and Laura's love-making faded, but it had obviously left him with a surfeit of irritation. He prowled the room like an animal, stripped to the waist, the brilliant colours of his tattoos rippling with the movement of his muscles.
'Will you sit down! You're making me feel uncomfortable,' Tom snapped.
Veitch glared at him, said nothing at first. He slumped in the chair and removed the crossbow from the harness hanging on the end of the bed. From a little leather bag he took an oily rag and proceeded to carry out his nightly ritual of cleaning the weapon and ensuring it was in full working order. The routine seemed to give him some comfort.
'Your skills as a fighter seem to be coming on apace,' Tom noted. 'Do you think you're up to it?'
Veitch grunted, but didn't rise to the obvious bait. 'You're supposed to be the hero of a country-or so the stories say. Why don't you do something fucking heroic?'
Now it was Tom's turn to grow cold. 'You don't believe stories. They're there to make heroes so weak people have something to look up to. Try the real world some time. You'll see people making difficult choices, compromises, trying to do the best they can, despite everything.'
'So you're not a hero? You've got a rep based on a pack of lies.'
'Don't stick your ignorance on a flag. You'll regret it. Believe me.'
'You're dead weight, if you ask me.'
Tom took out the tin in which he kept his drugs and began to roll himself a joint. 'You have too much anger.'
'Life makes me angry.'
'You make yourself angry.'
Veitch focused on the crossbow.
'You wish you were something else,' Tom continued. 'You're angry with yourself that you're not.'
'You sound like a fucking social worker.'
Tom lit the joint and inhaled. 'You know that old story about the scorpion being given a ride across a rushing river by some other animal… I can't remember which one now.'
'Yeah, I know it. The scorpion promises not to sting, but halfway across he does because he can't help himself so they both die.'
'People always reel out these trite little stories as if they're supposed to be some great, unshakeable wisdom. There is no great, unshakeable wisdom, not that anyone on this planet can see, anyway. Everything is open to debate. That story was supposed to show people are prisoners of their nature. It's a sad story really. It says there is no hope for redemption. You will keep repeating your mistakes until you die. Don't you think that's sad?'
Veitch said nothing.
'I happen to believe people can change. That they can grow wise with the years, slough off the skin they were presented with as children. If they really want to.'
Veitch continued working on the crossbow as if he hadn't heard Tom at all. The room slowly filled with the fragrant hash smoke. When he did finally speak, Veitch's voice was miraculously drained of all the rage that had fractured it before. 'I think that Laura tart is the one who's trying to sell us down the river.'
'Why do you say that?'
'It's obvious, innit?' A pause. 'Don't you reckon?'
'I don't know. I think it might be you.'
Veitch looked up in shock. 'What are you talking about?'
Tom shrugged. 'Just an instinct.'
Veitch searched his face for a moment to see if it was another wind-up, but as usual couldn't tell a thing from Tom's impassive features. 'Listen, I'm doing the right thing here.' His voice trembled again from the repressed emotion. 'I know everybody thinks it must be me because I never played it straight before. These people mean more to me than anything. What we're doing… for the country, you know… for everybody… I'd give up my life for that.' His stare challenged Tom to argue.
'I stand corrected,' Tom replied in such a way that Veitch couldn't tell whether he meant it or not. 'But it's not wise to go pointing the finger without evidence.'
'Aren't you worried about the fact that one of us might be fucking everybody up?'
'I'm aware of it, certainly. But you can't take everything the dead say at face value. You've seen evidence of that. Be patient. As long as we remain on our guard then we will be better placed to protect ourselves. But a constant and high level of suspicion for those we are relying on is not helpful.'
'Is this some kind of pep talk?'
'See it how you want.'
Veitch finished the crossbow and returned it to the harness. 'I'll take your advice. Fair enough?'
Pain, terrible pain. Torture instruments that flared in the dark with the glow of heat. The animal stink, and those voices that were not voices, like the jungle at twilight. And Ruth thinking, I can't take any more hurt. It would be easier to be dead.
But they wouldn't relent. Another cruel blade, another corkscrew attachment, and hammers. Tears burning her eyes, throat constricting so tightly there was no air for her lungs. And then the scream, raw and bloody.
The scream.
'It is okay. You are having a bad dream.'
Thrashing wildly, still screaming, still torn between the hell of the torture chamber and the darkness of the room. And then, gradually, reality intruding, Shavi's face forming out of the pale shape that appeared before her eyes.
'It is okay,' he repeated. Gently, he pulled her towards him. Her tense muscles slowly relented and she laid her head against his chest, her mind spinning, her heart thundering, the tears still rolling down her cheek.
'I'll never forget,' she whispered. 'Never.'
It might have been Ruth's scream that woke them all, but within minutes in their separate rooms they all became aware of something going on in the street beneath their windows. At first it was hard to see anything in the deep dark, but they could pick out movement swirling up and down the street in shallow gusts. It took a second or two to realise what they were seeing until Max's description came back to them: like sheets blowing in the wind.
