The Condemned (12 page)

   ‘Where are we?’

   ‘Fallout Shelter. They’ve been around sin-‘

   ‘I know that.’ She interrupted him. ‘I know what this place is, but
where
is it? Where are we?’

   Amato shook his head and looked away.

   ‘Not far enough away yet. But we had to stop and rest. We’re not too far from a couple of small towns and if we can steal some horses we can put some distance between us and them, but that’s gonna have to wait until we’ve all had some sleep.’

   She suddenly realised that she hadn’t seen the Clones since she had come round.

   ‘Where are the others?’

   ‘Outside, keeping watch. I should let them know you’re awake, they wanted to talk to you.’

   ‘No...’ She held out a hand feebly to stop him as he rose,
he frowned at her for a moment but sat back down again. Leci watched the flame of the candle and chewed nervously on her lower lip. She didn’t want to see the Clones, didn’t want to face Beriael’s accusing eyes or his wife’s curiosity.

   Not yet.

   Not just yet.

   ‘I had a nightmare.’ She whispered, her words barely audible, she looked up at him to see if he had heard her. He was leaning back against the wall, sat on the bed, his hands folded behind his neck and he was watching her very carefully.

   He nodded slightly.

   ‘I know you did. You were thrashing about all over the place. I was over at the side of the cot waiting to catch you, half expected you to roll out. Then you screamed and I had to shut you up, we really can’t be bringing attention to ourselves out here.’

   She nodded to show she understood why he had done it and that he didn’t need to explain himself to her.

   ‘I woke up and I was back in the cell. I was sure that this had all been a dream.’

   He said nothing but the gentle look on his face encouraged her to continue.

   ‘I was confused. I thought that maybe it would all happen again or that they’d drugged me. And then two of them came in with a table.’ She hesitated, shivering at the memory.

   The dream hadn’t faded as most of the bad ones and all of the good ones did, it was clear in her mind as though it had really happened.

   She pulled her knees to her chest and rested her chin on them, tugging the blanket up around herself. She kept her gaze on the slowly moving flame in the corner of the room, it soothed her somehow.

   ‘They got me on the table, shackled me down so I couldn’t move and then one of ‘em opened up a drawer and took out a real sharp knife. The other one was laughing at me. I looked up at him an’ he took off his hood...’ Pausing, she tore her attention from the candle to watch his reaction to the revelation that was coming.

   ‘It was you. You were a guard.’

   Amato frowned, leaned forward and brought his hands to his lap, gripping one fist inside the other; his knuckles looked white, strained.

   ‘I was a guard.’

   It didn’t occur to her that he wasn’t phrasing the comment as a question for affirmation, as though he disbelieved her, but that he was confirming the statement to be truth. She merely nodded.

   ‘Yes, and you sai-‘

   ‘No, Leci. I
was
a guard.’

   Alecia found herself nodding very slowly and speaking as
though trying to explain something to a small child. The rational part of her mind refused to accept what he was trying to say to her and she allowed a cloud to fall over her conscious thought.

   He could not possibly be saying what he seemed to be saying, that would turn everything upside down and the way things had been over the last few hours, Leci desperately needed to not have her world capsized again.

   ‘Yes. You
were
a guard, in my dream. I’m awake now, it’s all gone away.’

   She could hear the insistent tone of her voice, it sounded somehow desperate, needy.

   He moved from the bunk, closer to her, crouching slightly, his hands resting lightly on her shoulders and he met her eyes, his gaze, the colour of the sky, unblinking and honest. She wanted to look away but couldn’t and as he repeated himself she felt a fresh well of tears threaten to overspill.

   ‘Alecia. I was a guard. At the prison. I’ve worked there for a long time, since around the time you were brought in. That’s how I knew the way out, it’s how I could lead us to the service door. I know the building, I know the layout.’ His voice was low and even, steady, his tone soft and earnest.

   She desperately searched his face for some sign that he was lying and when she saw none pulled herself from his grasp, didn’t want him touching her. Her breath exploded from her
throat in a sob as she curled herself into the corner, trying to become as small as she physically could whilst keeping a wary eye on him. Amato didn’t move, he let her back away with an expression of sadness that she didn’t feel he had any right to be experiencing.
She
was the one who had been betrayed,
she
was the one with the reason to feel cheated. She couldn’t understand what he was telling her. Was this all part of some game?

   Was this just another one of their experiments? Let her go to see how she’d fare out in the world with her newly controlled powers? With her new understanding of her own capabilities? Why was he
telling
her this? Why was he letting her in on it? Surely whatever they were testing had now been voided; if she knew he was a mole then the whole point of this was irrelevant.

   She felt overcome by a wave of anger tinged with resentment and shame. How could she have been so stupid to think that she could ever possibly get out of there?

   Hadn’t it all seemed too easy? Hadn’t it all just seemed like an endless run of luck, just waiting for it to turn sour but fate had just kept on laying it out for them.

   Seriously Leci, she questioned herself, you thought it was
that
easy?

   He must’ve sensed some change in her demeanour because he stood and backed off slightly, watching her. She could
understand the fear, he had just told her something that pretty much excused any burning she might feel like doing, except she still couldn’t bring herself to do it. Whether he had been working against her or not, he was still the reason she was out of there and she had to know why. He couldn’t answer her questions if he was dead. She glared at him, brushing a strand of dirty hair from her eyes and idly swiping one hand across her face to wipe away the tears that had begun to roll down her cheeks.

   ‘So, who are you really?’

   Her voice was flat, she was struggling to control the anger, keep her emotion in check. If she lost the tentative hold she had right now then she didn’t know what might happen. The more angry she became the more intense the flames and the more irrational her mind the less predictable just what exactly would end up catching alight.

   He paced the small space, never taking his eyes off her.

   ‘Benelli. Amato Benelli. I haven’t lied to you Alecia. Not about anything.’

   Out of principle she wanted to disbelieve him, wanted to think of him as a lying, scheming rat, but she couldn’t. He was telling the truth, she was sure of that. She had become very adept at telling fibs over the years and she knew pretty well how to recognise one.

   ‘And you’re a guard? What is this? Some sort of test to see
how many people I’ll kill on the outside? See if I go blabbing Official’s secrets to anyone who’ll listen? You know that everyone would think I was crazy don’t you? What the hell
is
all of this?’

   Ok, so her line of questioning was sort of... all over the place, but she was confused and afraid, she felt deceived and hurt and somehow abandoned. More than anything else she wanted Xavian to be with her right now, he would put everything to rights and wouldn’t blame her for a thing. He would do just as a big brother was supposed to do, would take care of her. He was the only man in the world she had ever trusted and she felt he was the only one she ever would be able to put her faith in, be able to rely on. Others had done nothing but cause her pain, be it emotional or physical.

   She wanted Xavian so badly.

   Amato stopped pacing and sat back down on the bunk opposite her. He ran a hand through his hair and sighed, shaking his head slightly.

   He was no longer watching her, was now staring down at the concrete between his feet. He still wore the main suit part of the fireproof gear, without the hood and gloves, which he had
disposed
of back at the Clone Enclosure.

   ‘I said
was
. I was a guard. Not anymore. Not for a while. Me being in that cell across from you, it wasn’t a setup, I wasn’t a plant or anything like that. You gotta believe me
that none of this was planned. We were lucky back there and we managed to get out, but it’s no game and I’m not working for them, or with them. I was in that cell because I’d been arrested. I think I was put there with you and the Clone to teach me a lesson, show me what I had coming to me.’

   He paused and looked up at her, trying to determine whether or not he was getting through to her, she said nothing and so he carried on.

   ‘You know, when they took you and him away for your tests... every day... you know what they did?’ He didn’t wait for a response, she couldn’t possibly know and the question didn’t require an answer.

   ‘They made me listen.’ He shook his head in disgust and fell silent, as though gathering the courage to speak of these things, or just giving himself time to absorb the memories that telling her all about it was stirring up.

When he spoke again his voice was thick with emotion and she felt a tugging of sympathy, reminded herself not to, but couldn’t help it.

   ‘They fed the sound into my cell. I heard you crying sometimes, heard you begging them not to make you do it and I heard you screaming when they hurt you, broke my heart, hearing that. I heard the shit you’d give ‘em too, just for the hell of it.’ He grinned at her, apparently amused by this.

   ‘Got one helluva nasty little mouth on you for such a
pretty little girl.’

   Alecia felt herself blushing and countered the reaction by aiming a scowl at him to show she wouldn’t be charmed so easily and she held her tongue, he wanted a response and she chose to punish him with silence. His smile faded and he went back to telling his story.

   ‘Mostly I just heard the Clone. Cursing, yelling, trying to fight them even though he knew it was pointless, then screaming. I think I got his fucking screams etched into my goddamned brain. I hear him when I sleep, I hear him when I’m awake...’

   It was clearly difficult for him to be telling her this, but she refused to allow the stab of sympathy she felt to offer him a free pass.

   She wanted to know these things, hell, she
needed
to know them. It was only fair that she fully understand what was going on and if that meant a little discomfort for everyone else then tough shit.

   ‘You think I don’t hear that too? You think it’s worse for you having to have listened to it? Poor baby. Try being the one who
did
it. Worse still, try being the one who had it done to them, you think you’re worse off than Beriael or me because they made you
listen
?’ She shook her head disgustedly.

   ‘Go on.’

   She maybe sounded harsher than she meant to, but this was a
lot for her to digest and she was having trouble keeping control of herself. She didn’t want to hurt anybody but she had to admit she was fairly tempted right now to just take her frustration out on anyone close enough to be convenient.

   Amato nodded, it was infuriating that he was being so understanding with her when she couldn’t find the same empathy to excuse him, she almost wanted him to be mean to her, hit her, yell at her, something to make her feel that her feelings right now were justified, that she was right to think he was a jerk. Instead he just sat there and spoke calmly to her.

   ‘They kept me there because they wanted me to know that I was next. Beriael was becoming useless to them, they did a shitload of tests on him but it’s only one body type, one man, and they wanted a wider scale to go on. They can destroy the Clones, did you know that?’

   Leci blinked, not sure she’d heard correctly.

   ‘Wait... What? They can be killed and like... not come back?’

   She leaned forwards, her curiosity getting the better of her, pushing aside her anger.

‘Yeah.’ Amato nodded. ‘The technology they put inside of ‘em, it kinda wires itself into their systems, after a while it becomes a part of them, sort of... The muscle and nerves and all the other shit on the inside, it’ll grow around the implant, absorb it. Can’t be taken out but each implant is
controlled externally too.’

   He caught her look of confusion and rephrased.

   ‘They can control it from the outside, sort of like how radios work. They can switch ‘em off.’

   Leci gaped.