Them or Us

voice sound directionless, and it’s impossible to see much in the gloom. I look around me and see nothing and no one, but then the thump of heavily booted feet thundering down the steps after me makes me look up. Shit, it’s Healey, Llewellyn’s driver. I try to make a run for it, but he’s faster than me and he anticipates my movements. He stretches out his long, muscular arm and grabs my backpack. I try to slip out of it, figuring I’ll be faster without it anyway, but he yanks me back before I can get my arms out of the straps and I fall backward, my head cracking against the marble steps.
    “Llewellyn!” Healey shouts, his booming voice filling the whole building. “Get up here!”
    He starts dragging me back up. His strength is immense, and he pulls me up the stairs like I’m a rag doll. I kick my legs and try to grab hold of the handrail, but everything’s happening too fast, and I can barely get back up onto my feet. Llewellyn pounds up the stairs toward me, emerging from the darkness like a wild animal charging, face full of fury and rage.
    “Who was on guard?” he yells as he thunders past me, grabbing one of my bag straps and helping Healey haul me up.
    “Swales,” Healey immediately answers, not about to take any of the flack.
    We reach the top of the stairs, and I finally get my feet back down and stand up straight. Llewellyn lets go, but Healey keeps hold of me and throws me back toward my cell. Swales lumbers towards us, a panicked expression on his still half-asleep face.
    “Sorry, Llewellyn,” he says, “I couldn’t help it. I didn’t mean to—”
    Llewellyn doesn’t let him finish his sentence. He punches him in the mouth—a short, sharp, stinging jab—and then, when he hits the deck, starts repeatedly kicking him in the belly, sending him sliding farther back across the floor each time his boot makes contact.
    “You useless fucker,” he screams at him as the pounding continues. “They’ll have our balls if he gets away.”
    Healey pushes me back into the office again and slams the door shut. I try to open it, but he’s holding it from the other side. I can hear Llewellyn yelling orders, but his words are drowned out by the noise of someone dragging furniture across the landing to block me in. When the noise finally stops I can hear him again.
    “Go get Ankin. He needs to talk to this freak and put the little bastard straight.”

 
    34
    TRAPPED. I’VE BEEN OVER every inch of this damn room, and there’s no way out other than the door I came in through and the window, which is bolted shut. Desperate, I grab the heaviest thing I can find—a fire extinguisher—and throw it at the glass. It shatters, filling the room with noise and allowing the bitter wind to gust in, immediately sending the already low temperature plummeting farther. I knock out the last shards of glass and lean out, but it’s too big a fall; a sheer drop onto concrete, not even any drainpipes, gutters, or ledges to use to help me climb down.
    More voices. Fast-approaching footsteps.
    I grip my knife tight and stand ready to fight. The office door is yanked open and Chris Ankin storms in. He’s carrying a bright lamp that burns my eyes, and I catch a glimpse of Llewellyn and several others outside before the door’s slammed shut again. The harsh illumination makes Ankin’s weathered face look severe and intense. He’s much older than me and physically smaller, but the sheer force of his angry entrance makes me cower back until I can’t get any farther away.
    “Put that knife down, you useless fucker,” he spits at me. No more smooth talk. He puts the lamp down on the edge of a desk, then leans on his walking stick and glares across the room at me, breathing hard. “I don’t think you quite understand,” he says, pointing accusingly. “I might not have made myself completely clear earlier. Whether you like it or not, one way or another you’re going back to Lowestoft to deliver my message to Hinchcliffe.”
    All the vote-winning pretense has been dropped now, and for the first time I’m seeing the real Ankin. I’ve never been good at dealing with people in positions of authority, and I feel as anxious now as I do when I’m with Hinchcliffe—but there’s an important difference here that I’m quick to remember: Ankin has no hold over me. He needs me more than I need him.
    “Why should I help you? What are you going to do if I don’t do what you say? Kill me?”
    He moves toward me