The Masked Truth(59)

No, she’s not. She’s just unconscious.

She’s dying and you bloody well know it, and if you pretend otherwise, well, then you’ve got no reason to light a fire under your own arse and get her help.

That’s what he’s doing. Running faster than he’s ever run in his life as he searches for a light, a car, anything.

How can there be nothing?

There is, so just keep going.

He would scream if he thought it would help, if he thought anyone would hear except Gray.

Then there’s a light. Is that really a—?

Yes!

He veers so sharply he stumbles, but he rights himself fast and tears down the side street, and the car—the lovely and wonderful car—turns his way. Comes right for him. He runs into the road, waving his arms and saying, “Stop! Please stop! She’s hurt!”

And the car swerves … to go around him. To steer past the crazy barefoot boy covered in blood.

He throws himself at it. Doesn’t think. Just throws himself onto the bonnet as it slows to get around him. The car screeches to a stop, and he slides off, and there’s pain.

Don’t care about the pain. Really, really don’t.

He lies there, motionless in the street, his eyes cracked open just enough to watch a man get out of the driver’s seat—a chubby middle-aged man. He walks to Max and looks down. He gets out his mobile and then he stops. Pauses and looks around, as if considering whether he should call for help or drive away as fast as he can.

Here, old chap, let me help make up your mind.

Max lunges, grabs the guy by the legs and wrenches. The man goes down, flailing. Max hits him. Doesn’t care where. Doesn’t care how hard. Just cares that he goes back down. Then Max grabs the mobile and limps off as he dials 911.





MAX: PERSPICUITY


Perspicuity: ability to give an account or express an idea clearly.



That’s not something Max had trouble with before the diagnosis. Whatever the jumble in his brain, when he opened his mouth, he was able to formulate his thoughts coherently. It was like standing in the eye of the storm, chaos all around but calm within, when he chose to find it.

Even during the shambolic year post-diagnosis, perspicuity was not a problem, not unless he was attempting to put into words how he felt about his new life, but that was emotion rather than thought or logic, and so it was a very different thing. A messy thing: emotion. Rather like a corner of his room that he allowed to get a little jumbled and soon the disorder was creeping outward, devouring everything, disrupting everything. Like schizophrenia itself. Terribly disorderly, rendering him susceptible to emotion in a way he’d never been before.

And so it is here, as the paramedics tend to Riley—one rushing back and forth to the lorry, the situation clearly critical—and this gormless police officer keeps hammering him with questions, and the words coming from Max’s mouth are not indicative of his usual perspicuity, not at all.

Kidnapping and masks and deaths and injuries, and bloody hell, just go there, help Brienne and whoever can be helped and leave him with Riley. He needs to stay with her.

“Your friend is getting the best medical care,” the constable says, in his laconic way, as if Riley has twisted her ankle and, really, Max is making far too big a deal out of it.

“No, she’s getting paramedic care. The care of those with a fraction as much training as a medical doctor. However, I would still like their opinion on her condition. Just let me—”

“I need the whole story first. Start from the beginning, son.”

“I am not your son.” Max clips his words, allowing his proper accent to slip out. The upper-class toff accent. His mother’s accent, and one he’d learned from the cradle and then worked very hard to lose, because so many others worked hard to learn it.

Contrary as always, Max, old boy.

But now it comes out, that better-than-thou tone.

“Here is what you need to know,” he says. “We were part of a supervised overnight gathering. There was a kidnapping, with no apparent attempt to contact our parents or to extort cash or influence. In the aftermath, eight people were shot, including Riley. Five are dead. Two were still alive when we last saw them. However, given that you seem in no rush to check on them, they may no longer be, and if that costs you your badge, I sincerely hope it is only the beginning of the price you’ll pay for your negligence.”

“We’ve sent a car and called for a second ambulance.”

“Excellent. Then we are done here. I am going to accompany my companion—”

“You’re going to accompany me, back to the police station, where we can settle this.”

“Settle what? I was the victim—”

“You seem very calm for a victim.”

“Two minutes ago you were telling me to calm down, because I was clearly distraught. Now I’ve done as you asked, and you’re faulting me for it?”

“People don’t switch that fast.”

Max glances at Riley being loaded into the ambulance. They have her on an IV. That’s good. But the looks on their faces are not nearly as reassuring.

He starts toward her, completely forgetting the constable.

The officer grabs his arm. “I said people don’t do that, boy. You can’t go from flipping out one second to acting like you’re the freaking king of England the next.”