Them or Us

have told you I didn’t have anything I needed you to do for a couple of days, but I didn’t say you could go away on a fucking vacation.”
    “I didn’t go on vacation, I just—”
    He holds up his hand (and my wrench) again to silence me. Arrogant bastard.
    “In future you’ll be here exactly when I want you to be. Understand?”
    “Have I ever not been? Have I ever—”
    “I need to know who I can trust, Danny.”
    “You can trust me. You know you can.”
    “You let me down today. Llewellyn could have been on his way by now. If you’d been there he could have followed the damn plane out of town. Now we’ve given them a head start and they could be anywhere.”
    “They’re flying, Hinchcliffe. They could be anywhere anyway.”
    He takes another couple of steps closer, and I freeze. Keep your fucking mouth shut, you idiot , I scream to myself.
    “When you get back with Llewellyn,” he seethes, “you’re going to collect all your shit from this house and find somewhere to stay in the middle of town, closer to the courthouse.”
    “But—”
    “I’m not asking, I’m telling.”
    “What difference does it make?” I protest, desperate not to give up my privacy, remembering too late that I’m not planning on hanging around. Hinchcliffe moves closer still, and I immediately shut up, regretting my outburst. Then, with a grunt of sudden, unexpected anger, he spins around and smashes the wrench into Rufus’s face. Rufus immediately drops to the ground, and I stare at him, stunned. He lies on his back, arms and legs still moving, face covered with blood, whimpering through broken teeth. Hinchcliffe leans down and smacks him in the head again, finishing him off. He stands up, one foot either side of the now motionless body, and thrusts the bloody wrench at me.
    “Don’t ever give me any reason not to trust you again.”
    “I won’t…”
    “I don’t know where the fuck you were today, but from now on you do exactly what you’re told. You don’t ask questions, you just do what I tell you. Understand?”
    “I understand,” I say quietly, looking down at the battered body of my friend.
    “Get the stuff you need together. We’re heading back into town. And don’t ever fuck with me again, Danny, because you will regret it.”

 
    29
    I’M IN THE BACK of an armor-plated van with Llewellyn and three other fighters, scared shitless. This is my worst nightmare. Llewellyn’s never trusted me, and he’s been waiting for a chance to get me away from Lowestoft on my own. There’s something different about the way he’s acting toward me today, and the longer this journey lasts, the more convinced I am that he’s probably the one who persuaded Hinchcliffe I should be part of this pointless expedition so he could get rid of me. Fucker’s going to kill me and concoct some bullshit story to explain to Hinchcliffe why his prize pet is dead.
    The four members of my armed guard talk to each other in secretive whispers, deliberately excluding me. I’m used to it. I’ve felt like an outsider for as long as I’ve been in Lowestoft. No matter how I look at it, I seem to have a foot in neither camp. I’m neither fighter nor underclass; not like the rest of them, but not Unchanged either, just an unwanted, mixed-breed outcast. Today my paranoia has been ramped up by several hundred percent. Whatever the intentions of these men are, I won’t know for sure what they’re planning until they make their move. I have to try to stay one step ahead of the game, like I learned to do with the Unchanged. I have to hope that, wherever we end up, I’ll be able to find a way of giving them the slip and getting away. What I’ll do after I’ve broken cover is anyone’s guess. I don’t suppose it matters anymore. I’m not eating, hardly drinking … I’ll just find a rock to crawl under and sit it out. I can’t waste any more time thinking about it. I might not have any time left.
    Llewellyn sits up front next to the driver, Ben Healey. In the back with me are two other men, handpicked for their aggression and strength: Chandra—the disfigured guard I saw outside Hinchcliffe’s hotel breeding center—and Swales, a cocky and aggressive young bastard I’ve had little to do with until today.
    We’re in radio contact with Hinchcliffe, but communications with Lowestoft have been brief and infrequent. I’m not going to risk saying anything, but they surely must realize we’re never going to find that plane