Lying Beside You (Cyrus Haven #3)(106)

‘Psychiatrists. Psychologists. Therapists. Counsellors. They tried to make me better. Every day I’m still learning.’

‘What have you learned today?’

‘That I can’t have the attic. And buttons are important.’

Rennie looks baffled.

Elias charges at the door. Another plank falls away. At that moment, I drop suddenly, twisting out of Rennie’s grasp. He lunges at me with the knife, but I scamper to the side, bouncing to my feet. He lunges again, but I duck and skip away behind a metal pole.

Rennie curses. He tries again, but it is a big factory and I’m small and I’m quick.

Elias is still charging at the door, moving the pallets and metal and concrete. He puts half his body through the gap and braces his arms against the frame. Red-faced and eyes popping, he bellows and heaves the door further open.

Through a broken window I see a drone rise into view. Hovering. Filming. Rennie notices and changes focus. He crouches to pick up a half-brick, which he hurls at the drone. He misses and reloads, but the drone has already pulled away from the window.

Elias has almost broken through. Rennie yells at him to stay back. He returns to Lilah and Daniela. One has blood running from her nose and the other has vomited down her front. He kneels beside Lilah and puts his knife against her right forearm, slicing through her skin.

‘No!’ I scream.

He turns to Daniela and cuts her left forearm. I drop to my knees between them, using my hands to try to stem the bleeding. Blood is dribbling through my fingers, down their wrists, onto the floor.

Rennie grabs me and hauls me upright, holding his forearm across my throat and the knife against my neck. He pulls me backwards, away from the others, deeper into the shadows.

At the last moment, I glimpse Elias, who has broken through the barricade. His round face is damp with sweat, and he has brick dust in his hair. He bends and picks up a length of lead pipe, which he weighs in his hands. He looks at Lilah and Daniela, who are both unconscious. Then he turns and begins to follow us.

When he passes a pylon, he swings the pipe against it. The clanging sound echoes through the factory. He does it again at the next pylon.

Clang!

And the next one.

Clang!

And the next.

Clang!





75


Cyrus


Evie is screaming. I’m drawn to the sound, climbing as fast as I can, but the stairwell is full of broken wood and concrete and scrap metal. When I reach a partially open fire door, I force my arm through and then my shoulder, my head, the rest of me, scraping my chest against the sharp edges.

Lilah and Daniela are slumped forward in metal chairs with their arms bound behind them and tape across their mouths. Blood is running over their wrists and hands and is pooled beneath their feet.

I yell into my phone. ‘I need paramedics. Bandages. Plasma. Two women. Bleeding out.’

‘Where is Rennie?’ asks Lenny.

‘He’s not here. I think he must have Evie.’

‘Is he armed?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘I can’t send paramedics into danger.’

‘They’re dying,’ I say. ‘I need help now.’

I take off my shirt and begin ripping it apart with my teeth, creating bandages. I see a drone hovering in the window. Sound echoes through the building. Clang! Clang! Clang! It’s coming from a distant part of the factory, perhaps another stairwell or the floor below.

Lenny is yelling at the paramedics to get moving. An armed response team is bringing them inside.

Lilah opens her eyes. I pull away the tape. ‘Daniela first,’ she whispers.

I do as she asks, wrapping torn cloth around Daniela’s forearm and tightening the tourniquet to slow the bleeding. The bandage changes colour immediately. I keep wrapping, but it doesn’t seem to make a difference.

I press my fingers against Daniela’s neck, searching for a pulse. It’s there. Barely. From below, I hear a battering ram breaking down a door and shouts of ‘Clear!’

I take another strip of cloth and repeat the process, wrapping a bandage around Lilah’s forearm, tightening it, and tying it off. I wrap my fingers over the bandages, squeezing as hard as I can, keeping pressure on the wounds. I’m kneeling in a puddle of their blood.

Lilah is still conscious. Mumbling. I can’t understand the words. I lean closer.

‘Evie. Find her.’

The clanging has stopped and the only sound I hear are the boots on the stairs, getting nearer.

I leave my phone on Lilah’s lap. ‘Keep talking. They’re almost here.’

Lenny’s voice. ‘What are you doing? Stay together.’

‘Go,’ whispers Lilah, nodding her head in the direction they went.

I squeeze her shoulder and begin running into the shadows, passing through a forest of metal pylons that hold up the ceiling. Occasionally, one of them is scarred or dented by a recent impact, as though someone has left me a trail to follow.

I reach some sort of boiler or engine room that has machinery rusted into place between the metal stanchions. Old pipes that once carried water or steam are criss-crossing the ceiling.

‘Elias? It’s me,’ I say. ‘Where are you?’

The question bounces back at me from the darkness. I try different names – Rennie and Evie. The answer is the same.