20 Years Later (28 page)

Jay smirked. “No problem, wouldn't wanna say more than I need to him anyway. Laters.”

She watched him swagger off back to his territory and looked down at the tie briefly before stuffing it deep into a pocket and wiping her hands on her trousers.

That evening, Titus and Callum were seated in Miri's front room, enjoying bowls of fresh rabbit stew along with her and Zane. All were quiet, each contained within their own private contemplation of their discussion that afternoon about the loose plan regarding Lyssa. When the loud knock on the door broke the near silence, Miri jumped and went to answer it.

“Miri, is Titus with you?” It was Jay, panting and holding his side where the old burn was.

Titus was there in moments. “Is it the Giant?”

Jay nodded. “Tell them 'unters. I'll meet ya at the edge of my patch this side.”

Titus bolted out of the room after grabbing a rucksack he'd brought with him, Zane running out behind him as Jay took off.

“Zane!” Miri called. “Come back inside!”

Callum put a hand on her shoulder. “I'll make sure they're alright,” he said quietly and calmly.

“Don't let him go with them!” she begged as he moved past her into the doorway.

He simply smiled sadly and kissed her on the cheek. “I'll keep him safe, whatever he chooses to do. Lock the door.”

Zane and Titus first went to Luthor's house. Within moments of the news he, David, and Erin were strapping on an extra layer of armour, plated with dull metal scales that lay flat and flexible over the leather. The three of them spilled out of the house, grabbing their weapons and quivers as they left. Titus and Zane fell into step beside them.

“What are you doing?” Luthor asked, not letting the distraction slow him down.

“Coming with you!” Titus replied as if it were a ridiculous question.

“No,” Luthor said firmly. “You and Zane go home, leave this to us. It may be dangerous.”

Titus ignored him and Zane stayed by his side as they all ran. But when the Bloomsbury Boys' territory came into view with Jay pacing at its edge, Luthor stopped and pulled Titus back.

“Go home,” he insisted, his voice growing louder. “Both of you. I don't want to have to think about you and him when there are others to watch.”

“But you might need me,” Zane said and David laughed.

“He's right!” Erin yelled, making both Luthor and David look at her in surprise.

Titus fought to keep the flash of fear her words caused hidden from his face. His thoughts rapidly played through an imagined conversation where Erin would reveal that Zane could heal, how that information could reach the Red Lady if Luthor believed his daughter. Then a variety of imagined scenarios played out, ranging from Zane being taken into the Red Lady's gang through to the Gardners targeting him for death or forced service. All this happened in but moments, forcing him to re-evaluate his position. Before Erin could take a breath to explain herself, Titus had already run through several possibilities before settling on the only one that could achieve all of his goals.

“No, Luthor's right,” he said quickly, eliciting incredulous looks from Zane and Erin. “You're all much better trained–we'll wait here.”

“Good,” Luthor muttered and then took off again towards Jay, glancing back to make sure that Erin was following him and David.

“I'll … I'll tell you everything I see,” Erin called as she left them, sprinting to catch up with her father.

Zane rounded on Titus. “Why did you say that!” he exclaimed. “I need to go with them–someone might get hurt!”

“Shush,” Titus whispered, pulling him into the shadows at the edge of the street as he watched the Hunters reach Jay and exchange a few words. “We are going … they just don't need to know that. Come on, we can't lose sight of them.”

He pulled Zane down a street that connected to one parallel to the street that Jay was beginning to lead the others down.

Callum followed silently, keeping in the shadows. He was horrified by Titus' actions, certain that his desperation to find Lyssa was clouding his normally logical mind. “Stupid boys,” he muttered beneath his breath.

A half moon high in the sky gave just enough light to avoid obstacles, but not to see much detail very far ahead, Zane's teeth chattering all the while despite the relative warmth of the late summer night.

“Titus,” he whispered. “Has Erin talked to you about the Gardner she killed?”

“Not now, Zane,” Titus whispered back, concentrating on tracking the Hunters and Jay. He needed to focus; the sense of others nearby was easy to lose. Ever since the day the Gardner came to Miri's square he'd been practising how to do this, but it was much harder when those he tried to follow weren't a threat.

When he concentrated, he had a sense of their movement, just as one might have an awareness of another person in the same room, only this was over a street away. Also present was the sense of Zane next to him, and Callum close behind them, but he was paying much more attention to tracking the others. As they weaved through the streets, he realised that his feel for Zane and Erin was much stronger, to the extent that occasionally he would have an intuitive grasp of her emotional state as it fluctuated between excitement, fear, and also pride. He had to force himself not to be distracted by that, or by the palpable fear that radiated from Zane.

At the end of that street Titus stopped and pressed himself flat against the wall of the high building that they had reached, pulling Zane to do the same beside him.

“We're close now,” he whispered to Zane, who nodded back, taking a deep breath to try to control his nerves. “I think the others are climbing up higher,” Titus continued, Zane too nervous to question how his friend might know that.

A minute passed, Zane shaking and Titus tense and alert, straining with all of his senses to determine what was happening. They both jumped when a soft metal clang ricocheted down the street that ran perpendicular to their position.

“It's the Giant,” he whispered to Zane after a moment's concentration, “and they're coming towards us down the road around this corner.”

“I hope the others can see him,” Zane whispered back.

“They can–they're up high,” Titus replied, tuning into Erin's anticipation.

They remained silent for few moments, listening to the muffled sounds of the Giant's metal shoes in the dust that occasionally made contact with something firmer. The footsteps grew steadily louder.

“What are we going to do?” Zane whispered urgently,
fighting the urge to run home immediately.

“Wait until they get a bit closer, then …” Titus reached into his rucksack and pulled out a pocket knife, holding it up to Zane.

Zane frantically shook his head. “No!” he hissed. “We can't get close to them!”

“They won't be expecting it,” Titus whispered back. “And they'll be too scared to risk me puncturing their clothes. No-one else is with them. It'll be fine.”

“Let Luthor or Jay do it,” Zane pleaded, “This is stupid.”

Titus ignored him, flicking out the blade from his knife and readying himself as they could both hear the movement getting closer and now the mechanical wheeze of his breath.

Zane saw the knife and panicked, convinced that Titus hadn't thought this through at all, he was so set on getting Lyssa back. He didn't know whether to try to drag Titus away or just run or even alert the Giant so that Titus wouldn't have the opportunity to endanger them. But he was so paralysed by indecision that before he could decide, the Giant rounded the corner.

“Stop!” Titus yelled, stepping in front of the huge figure as he jabbed the knife out in front of him, having it stop only inches away from the yellow outer shell of the suit.

The Giant stopped so suddenly that he nearly fell forward, and both boys heard a loud gasp from behind the smooth dark faceplate.

“Don't move or do anything unless I tell you, or I'll pierce your suit,” Titus said loudly, keeping his voice steady despite his fear.

The Giant remained still, the only change being that the wheezing breaths increased in speed. Zane was relieved that he didn't seem to have any kind of weapon; he was only holding a small plastic case that looked large enough to carry some papers, or something else flat, but nothing more. He heard Jay swear from somewhere high above them and looked up to see his and David's faces peering over the top lip of the building that he and Titus were standing against.

Zane swallowed hard and looked to Titus for his next move, when the darkness was torn apart by an arc of blue lightning. It slammed into the wall of a building that was only metres from where he stood.

Zane yelled out in terror and Titus started, completely caught by surprise. He'd been so confident that no-one else had been with the Giant, but now he realised that he had been too focused on that one individual to the exclusion of anyone else. He looked in the direction of the lightning source but saw no-one, too shaken to be able to get a sense of where they might be by other means.

He clamped down on the fear broiling inside him, pushed it away from his thoughts. With his free hand, he pulled Zane close to him and took a step closer to the Giant. “They won't risk shooting him,” Titus yelled at Zane. “Calm down!”

Zane trembled and looked wide-eyed all around him, not having the same ability to cut off his emotions as Titus did.

There was movement on the roof above them and the sound of arrows being loosed. “There!” Luthor shouted and then another volley. Their arrows slammed into a figure only made visible by the violent movement as the bolts hit. The person was dressed completely in black, impossible to see until the red-flighted arrows stuck out of him as he crumpled to the ground.

“Guardian down, Guardian down!” the Giant shouted, voice high with panic. “Hex? Hex! Guardian down!”

Titus frowned at the Giant, but then Callum was beside them, pulling Zane's arm towards a doorway in the building.

“In here, now!” he said, “I think more are on the way.”

Titus allowed himself to be steered into the corridor of the abandoned office building once he had gone behind the Giant and ordered him to walk ahead, reminding him of the knife he held to his back.

“Zane, there are candles in my pack,” he said once they were off the street.

Zane rummaged blindly, retrieved one, and followed Titus' direction to the matches held in his shirt pocket. The candle was quickly lit, revealing a dingy corridor with several doorways leading off it. Callum had gone ahead and appeared at the one to the first room on the right.

“In here,” he said, beckoning to them all. “There's no window.”

Zane hurried towards Callum, Titus urging the hostage on ahead to follow him.

“Oh God, oh God.” The Giant wheezed rapidly as he entered the room after Zane, closely followed by Titus. His heavy steps were hesitant as they took in the surroundings, the suit he wore so cumbersome that he had to twist the whole of his upper body simply to be able to look from side to side. The candlelight didn't penetrate the shadows at the edges of the room, but there was enough light to reveal a desk and chair and a dusty floor covered with yellowed pieces of paper. The smooth glass of the faceplate reflected back the candlelight, making it impossible for any of them to make out any features.

“Sit in that chair,” Titus ordered, but the Giant didn't move.

“I can't,” he replied, the voice tremulous and higher in pitch than Zane had expected. “There might be splinters.”

Zane gave his candle to Callum, took another from Titus' pack, lit it, and mustered all the courage he could to approach the massive man. He held it up to the smooth front plate of the helmet and peered at the face shielded within.

“You're a woman!” he exclaimed.

Large dark brown eyes, wide with fear, blinked at the flame and the boy. “Please, keep that candle away from me.”

Zane drew back, still surprised to find that it wasn't someone as big as Luthor housed within the suit. Instead, the woman's pale face suggested a slender build beneath the layers. It was mostly the helmet that added to her height, that and the thick metal soled shoes that left the familiar footprints in the dust of the room.

In the moment he looked at her face, Zane immediately felt guilty. She was clearly terrified; her breathing was rapid and left a little patch of condensation on the glass between her and the world. He couldn't help but imagine how it would feel to be her, and he tried his best to smile reassuringly.

“We don't want to hurt you,” he said gently and then Titus stepped in front of him, taking the candle from his hand
to hold it up to her face again.

“But we will if you don't help us,” Titus said in a flat voice that was somehow more frightening than one modulated by anger.

“I don't have much air. It was only going to be a short trip,” the woman replied shakily.

“Don't waste it then,” Titus replied unsympathetically. “Where's Lyssa?”

The skin above the bridge of her nose wrinkled as she frowned. “Lyssa? Who's that?”

“The one you took from Jay's territory!”

Zane watched a droplet of sweat run down between that furrow on her face. “I don't know anyone called Lyssa. I don't know where that territory is. Please, just let me go back–they'll be sending Guardians out right now. There's no need for there to be any more bloodshed.”

Titus didn't flinch. “One month, three weeks and four days ago, some of your gang took my … took a young woman and killed some of the Boys in Jay's gang. We want her back. If you don't give her back, we'll keep you here until your air runs out.”

Zane fidgeted, not wanting it to come to that at all.

“Please, you have to understand that I don't have clearance to do what you're asking.”