Them or Us

here on the wall, and I try not to look at them. I feel like their eyes are following me as I walk around what’s left of their home.
    The only things I keep up here are a few weapons. A pistol, a handful of bullets, and a grenade, all hidden in the dried-up water tank. The grenade’s a souvenir. It came from the final battle in my hometown. Julia gave it to me before I—
    What was that?
    Shit. A car.
    I run to the front bedroom window and look down. I can hear it but I can’t see it. I strain to see and then pull my head back as it screeches around the corner at the end of the road. It overshoots the house; then the driver slams on the brakes and reverses back, wheels skidding on the icy road. Fuck, it’s Hinchcliffe. What’s he doing here? This is bad news. He must be extremely pissed off to have dragged himself out of the courthouse and come here. I stand to the side of the window and press myself back against the wall, trying to work out how I’m going to get out without him seeing me. I lean forward slightly and look out again. Rufus gets out of the car but tries to hang back, cowering away. Hinchcliffe grabs him, then marches up the drive, dragging him behind. He kicks the front door, then yells through the mail slot.
    “Open up, McCoyne. Open this fucking door right now!”
    What do I do? I press myself back against the wall again, too scared to go down but also too scared not to. I could try the attic, but I don’t know if there’s a ladder to get up, and even if there is, I’d be backing myself into a corner with no way out. Downstairs I hear the door begin to splinter and crack as Hinchcliffe boots it again and again. What the hell did Rufus say to him? I told him to stand up for himself when he came around here earlier, and is that what he’s done? Or has he betrayed me so that Hinchcliffe would go easy on him? My fear suddenly increases massively—Christ, what if he had me followed earlier? What if he knows about Peter Sutton and the Unchanged? Worse still, what if I was wrong about Sutton? What if he’s double-crossed me and told Hinchcliffe I’m the one harboring Unchanged to get himself off the hook?
    “Open this fucking door, McCoyne!” Hinchcliffe yells again, and I know my best option is to get out through the back of the house. I’ll go down and slip out, then come back later as I’d planned and fetch my stuff. I check around the edge of the window frame again. There’s only Hinchcliffe and Rufus here, no other fighters. I could hide in any one of the hundreds of other empty houses around this estate and they’d be none the wiser.
    On the street below, poor old Rufus tries to make a run for it. Hinchcliffe knows what he’s up to and he’s having none of it. He turns on him in a heartbeat and kicks his legs out from under him. Rufus crashes down on his back on the driveway with a heavy thump and a horrible yelp of pain. Hinchcliffe kicks him in the kidney, screaming at him that he’s not going anywhere until they’ve found me, then takes another run at the door.
    Got to move fast.
    I start to run through the house, but I’m not even halfway down the stairs when the door flies open, finally giving way under the force of Hinchcliffe’s boot. I try to turn back but trip and land on my backside on the bottom step as splinters of broken wood and shards of glass go flying in all directions around me.
    “McCoyne,” he yells when he sees me. “Where the fuck have you been?”
    “Upstairs. I was asleep,” I tell him, trying to lie my way out of trouble. “I’m sick, Hinchcliffe. I didn’t know you were here.”
    I can’t tell whether or not he believes me. He turns and grabs hold of Rufus, then hauls him into the house. Rufus stands and stares at me with a petrified expression on his face. He’s been badly beaten. His right eye is swollen shut, and there’s blood running down his chin. At least he’s managing to hold my gaze. That’s a good sign, I hope. I don’t think he’d be able to look at me if he’d told Hinchcliffe what I said earlier. Poor bastard’s no good at handling situations like this.
    “Where have you been?” Hinchcliffe asks again.
    “I already told you, asleep upstairs.”
    “No, earlier. I sent Rufus to find you and you weren’t here.”
    “When?” I ask, deliberately acting dumb, hoping he’ll give me some details to help flesh out my story. “I’m not well. I had a few drinks and I took some stuff to help me sleep…”
    Hinchcliffe