The Condemned (26 page)

    
A nice, busy town.

    
She didn’t think too much about what she intended to do once she found one; that was the one part of her plan that worried her the most
,
and the only part of it she really doubted she would be able to see through. She was relying on her survival instinct to kick in and allow her to do things she would never normally have considered doing.

    
Thinking about it wouldn’t help.

    
Shrugging the backpack over her shoulders, ignoring the pain when the strap rubbed sorely against her bite wound, she took one last look back at the cabin. It was almost as if she were hoping to see someone come running out to try
to
stop her. She shook her head, trying to shake away the niggling desire to turn around and go back,
to just
drop the whole thing.

    
She couldn’t understand why this was so hard.

    
She barely knew these people.

    
Amato had been responsible for her imprisonment in the first place, Beriael disliked and resented her for the things she had done to him
,
and Bitsy was essentially a stranger.

But leaving them behind still hurt and she had no idea why.

    
Leci bit down hard on her lower lip, drawing blood but giving her focus, stopping her from becoming too distracted.
The longer she stood here hovering in indecision the more chance it would be discovered that she wasn’t where she was supposed to be and if that happened, if anyone did stop her
,
she would know, would take it as a sign and would return without argument, accepting that she just wasn’t meant to finish her duty to Xavian.

    
Leci climbed up into the saddle and took the reins, setting the horse moving slowly, quietly away. She made a point of looking anywhere other than at the cabin. She glanced up at the moon, almost full and so beautiful, a dazzling silver coin that hung, suspended in a sea of indigo velvet speckled with a hundred twinkling eyes, watching over her.

    
When she was some distance from the others and felt it was safe to make a little noise she k
icked the animal into a canter, but
dared not go any faster for fear that the animal might trip. The moonlight lit the way fairly well but the forest was dense and thick with overgrown roots and fallen branches that all seemed to be reaching out like hungry demons trying to snatch at ankles, wanting to take the horse down and leave Leci crushed beneath it. She shivered; knowing that her mind was playing tricks on her didn’t help to make it any less of a
scary thought, k
nowing that she had a long night ahead of her with only herself for company made it somehow so much worse. She had always thought of solitude as her friend but was slowly coming to realise that when you had nothing to
compare something to you accepted it purely because you didn’t know there was any better option.

Chapter 23

Amato rolled over in his sleep and hit the floor with a bang; the impact woke him up fairly quickly.

     
‘Ow! Fuck!’

    
He sat up on the floor, rubbing his elbow where it had connected with the hardwood floor and scowling bad temperedly. He didn’t like mornings at the best of times but this wasn’t exactly what he would c
all a nice way to be woken up.

    
No, he could definitely think of better things to get him going on a morning; waking up with Leci’s mouth around his nice hard cock seemed like a damn good idea.

Amato groaned and closed his eyes, feeling himself stiffening just thinking about her tongue and lips...

    
Where was she?

    
He opened his eyes and pushed himself to his feet, looking around the cabin. It was still early but there was enough light to see by. The red hue of dawn cast a warm glow over the place, the birds had started their fucking noisy ass chorus
outside,
and he knew
he would
never get back to sleep.

    
It didn’t matter, once he found Leci he knew they could find some interesting ways to pass the time together.

    
Where the hell
was
she?

    
The room was deserted. He was pretty sure the Clones were
still sleeping. Maybe she’d gone outside for a piss or something.

    
Maybe.

    
Amato frowned.

    
Something didn’t feel right
, but
he couldn’t put his finger on what, he just had a sneaking suspicion that his girl had done something silly.

     
‘Leci?’

    
Not too loudly, don’t want to wake the others, no point getting anyone all worried over nothing if all she’d done was go for a walk or something.

    
But he didn’t think that was what she’d done.

    
A heavy feeling in the pit of stomach grew with each second, he felt sick as he ran through the possibilities in his mind.

She
could
have gone out for a walk or some air, maybe she’d woken and couldn’t get back to sleep,
and,
not wanting to disturb him
,
had gone outside to be alone or something.

    
Maybe, but it didn’t feel right.

    
He pictured stealthy Officials tracking them, creeping in during the night and taking her back, taking her back to that place, that waking nightmare, her living hell. It was a bad thought but again, it didn’t seem to fit. If Officials were responsible for her absence he was fairly certain he wouldn’t be alive to have discovered i
t. They would ha
ve killed him
where he lay, the Clones too.

    
He moved quietly to the door of their bedroom, listened with his ear to the wood but heard nothing and so he edged it open a crack, slowly, carefully.
Placing his eye to the opening, h
e could see an arm hanging over the edge of the bed, palm upwards facing the ceiling. His heart
skipped a beat
, he couldn’t see if the arm belonged to someone who was still breathing
,
or if he was looking at a corpse.

    
He pushed the door open further until he could see Bitsy’s face. As he watched her she muttered something in her sleep and turned over, pulling the errant arm back under the blankets and out of sight.

    
Amato breathed a sigh of relief and shut the door.

    
That left one option.

     
‘Fuck.’

    
He ran, pushing the door aside franticly and leaving the cabin. He almost tripped over his own feet but regained his balance as he rounded the corner and saw the horses.

    
No.

    
Horse.

    
Only one of them, stood there alone.

     
‘SHIT!’

    
His yell startled a flock of nearby birds that rose from their roosts indignantly, cawing their chastisement and causing the treetops to shake and quiver as they took to the
sky in search of more peaceful quarters.

    
Amato raced back into the cabin, being quiet was no longer of any importance at all. He flung open the bedroom door. It banged loudly against the wall and bounced
back but he was already across the threshold
and stood at the foot of the bed.

    
Morgan sat bolt upright, the blanket fell from her shoulders as she did, pooling in her lap and leaving her naked from the waist
up. Normally Amato would ha
ve taken the time to appreciate the view but right now he had other things on his mind.

    
Beriael had also sat up fast and was pointing a pistol squarely at him, squinting the sleep from his eyes, he looked confused and half out of it
,
but ready to kill.

     
‘Whoa man, put that thing down it’s me, Amato.’

     
‘Amato? What the fuck?’ Beriael lowered the pistol and tucked it back under his pillow. Bitsy had covered herself and was watching Amato, her face strained with concern. He had a fair idea she was getting some pretty strong vibes from him right now
,
with her creepy mind shit.

     
‘Leci’s gone.’

     
‘Gone?’ She swung her legs out of the side of the bed and stood, wrapping a sheet around herself as a makeshift dress. ‘Gone where?’

     
‘Did she say anything to you Bits? Anything about
leaving?’ He asked urgently.

     
‘No...’ Bitsy frowned; trying to remember anything the other girl may have done or said t
hat might’ve been significant.
She couldn’t and shook her head with a feeling of hopelessness. She felt for Amato, literally. She could feel the angst rolling from him in great, powerful waves that almost knocked her over with their weight.

    
He was hurt and confused, he was afraid and angry. Angry with Alecia, angry with himself, she didn’t know, couldn’t be so specific without delving deeper but he was very, very angry.

     
‘No, nothing. Why would she leave Amato?’

    
Amato shook his head, muttered something below his breath and then punched a wall. Morgan flinched in surprise. Beriael had gotten out of bed and was dressing; he looked up, moved over to his friend.

     
‘Amato, man, what good is hurting yourself gonna do? Come on, calm down. We gotta think this through, figure out where she’d go and then bring her back, breaking your hand ain’t gonna help none is it?’

    
Morgan slipped into her shirt and pants quickly and then moved past the men and out of the room. She headed towards the table and returned with a bottle.

     
‘Here, some of this might help your nerves.’

    
He took the bottle of gin and swigged from it, then
cursed loudly and flung it across the room. The bottle shattered against the wall and Bitsy cried out, raising her hands to shield her face from the flying shards of glass.

     
‘It’s my fault.’

    
Amato left the room, spun back into the main area of the cabin, picking up anything he came across and hurling it in random directions. An ancient
,
framed picture of some long dead dog smashed to pieces in the stove, an apple splattered into mushy ruin when it connected with the wall and a candle disappeared from sight as it flew through the open hole of a window.

    
Morgan followed him, reaching out for him, trying to grab him and stop him, calm him.

     
‘Amato, Amato! Sit down! Come on, this isn’t your fault! Amato!’

    
He wasn’t listening, moved through the cabin destroying anything he c
ame into contact with. He k
icked the small table out of his way, flipped the armchair over
onto its back
and threw one of the wooden chairs out of the open doorway and into the brightening day outside.

    
He stopped his rampage when a gunshot rang out, deafening in such close quarters. Amato and Morgan turned, both of them shocked. Beriael stood holding his pistol aimed towards a window, smoke trailing wispily upwards from the barrel.

     
‘Ok. This ain’t helpin’
,
Amato. You gotta calm down
before you hurt yourself, cos if you do that Leci will really be screwed, won’t she?’

    
Conceding, he ran a hand through his hair and sank down onto the sofa. Morgan sat beside him, placed a comforting hand on his back and rubbed his shoulders soothingly.

     
‘What did you mean this is all your fault?’ She asked when Amato seemed to have settled a little.

    
He shook his head and looked angry again.