Читать книгу Thrive - Mary Borsellino - Страница 8

For the rest of her life, no matter how often she's read it or where she is at the time, The Day of the Triffids always takes her back to that little cement room, to the changing shape of the square of light on the floor as the sun moves across the sky outside the window.

The fear and boredom of her own captive life falls away as she follows Josella and Bill on their desperate escape from apocalyptic London, out into the countryside. She's afraid when they are, she cries when they cry, she hears the plaintive notes of a song across the darkened ruins right along with them.

When it seems for a while that maybe they can build a new life on the farm they've filled with other misfits they've found along the way, protect its perimeter from danger and be happy, Olivia's heart sings for them.

When, at the very end, they have to run away again because the greedy tyrants they've fled in London have found them once more, Olivia's heart is so full of so many different things that it's going to explode for sure.

As soon as Hannah opens the door that night, Olivia's on her feet, meeting Hannah and taking the tray from her excitedly.

'I read Day of the Triffids. It was amazing.'

'Am I allowed to say "I told you so"?' Hannah asks, following her deeper into the room. 'Because I did.'

'You didn't tell me anything. You threatened to withhold my food,' Olivia corrects her without malice. It's hard to be angry at Hannah for giving Olivia something so precious. She sits and begins to eat.

'Semantics.' Hannah brushes away the accusation with a wave. 'If you liked that, I think I put my copy of The Midw—'

Bang!

The end of her sentence is drowned out by a nearby door being kicked open; and then, much louder — so shatteringly loud that Olivia can feel it in every tooth and bone in her body — the sound of a gunshot.

She's on her feet before her brain has registered that she's going to move. Hannah's frozen on the spot but remembers how to move at the same moment Olivia does. They draw closer to one another by instinct, their movements matched as they both start in fright at the noise of a second gunshot rapidly followed by a third.

There are seconds — less than seconds — of time, but it's enough for Olivia to act. She grabs one of the long ears of Hannah's red rabbit mask and pulls up, wrenching the whole thing away from the other girl's face in one sharp motion that sends it flying into the corner of the room, among the pile of stuff from Olivia's schoolbag.

Hannah's hair is cropped short; not as short as Olivia's own hacked-off locks but nearly so. She's younger than Olivia had guessed. They might be the same age. Hannah looks even more frightened than Olivia feels.

Olivia grabs Hannah in a hug and clings on, pressing Hannah's face down against her own shoulder as the door bangs open.

The guy standing there is so broad and tall that he fills the whole space of the doorframe, barring any chance of freedom as effectively as the door had.

'She was here when I got here,' Olivia says, clinging tight to Hannah, praying that Hannah will go along with this flimsy excuse for a plan. 'She doesn't speak. I don't know how long she's been a hostage here.'

The gun in his hands is huge. Horrifying. Olivia knows with a sick rush of cold through her limbs that she'll see that gun in her nightmares for the rest of her life.

He gives Hannah the barest of glances, his concentration on Olivia. 'Your father sent us,' he tells her. 'Come on.'

They follow him out the door, Hannah clutching as tightly to Olivia's hand as Olivia is to hers. Two dirty, frightened girls, led together through the remains of a masker hideout.

In the main room, the other three kidnappers are lying where they fell. One, the fox, has a bullet hole through the forehead of his mask, and the blood looks almost fake, too red, where it's pooled under him. The mouse and the cat were trying to get away when they died and so their wounds are on their backs, their bodies face-down on the concrete floor.

Hannah chokes on a sob. Olivia squeezes her hand tighter.

Two other men, broad and tall as the first, are checking each room with their guns at the ready. As she follows the first man through the space, towards the entrance, Olivia clears her throat and addresses all three of them.

'That's all. It was only three: mouse, cat, and fox.' She hopes it'll be a long, long time before anyone discovers that there was a red rabbit as well.

It doesn't surprise her when they all ignore her.

Outside, the air is colder than it was in the building but there are no smells of gunpowder, shit or blood, so Olivia takes a deep breath despite the chill.

'Here.' The man points to a van. The symmetry of her arrival to this place and her departure strikes Olivia as weirdly funny. She wants to laugh out loud, or maybe cry.

Olivia climbs in, pulling Hannah after her before anyone can say otherwise. It would be much too dangerous for Hannah to run now; perhaps an opportune moment will present itself later.

The man climbs into the driver's seat.

'What about the others?' Olivia asks. There are tears on Hannah's face now, and her hand is trembling hard in Olivia's grasp. Strangely, Olivia's own fear has melted away. Every nerve in her body is thrumming, so much so that she's lightheaded, but she isn't scared. Saving Hannah is all that matters for now. There'll be time to feel scared later.

'They'll meet me later, after they've checked for others,' the man tells her. Olivia holds back from telling him again that there were only three.

Instead, she asks, 'Are we going straight to my home, or to a hospital first?'

'Hospital. It's regulation.'

Inside she almost wilts with relief, but outside all she does is nod and squeeze Hannah's hand.

'What's your name, hon?' the man asks Hannah now, looking at them both in his rear-view mirror. Hannah shakes her head, gulping on her sobs.

'We can ask the police if they recognise her when we're at the hospital,' Olivia says. She's sure Hannah can get away before that happens, and even if they get a picture of her then, well, she's a masker, right? Hopefully that means they don't have any pictures of her real face on file as connected to any crimes.

The man's telephone rings, the shrill beeps making both girls start in surprise. The streetlights are painting moving stripes of light over them as they drive past each one.

The man says 'mm', 'mhm' and 'yeah' a few times, then hangs up. He meets Olivia's eyes in the mirror again before addressing her.

'That was your dad. The hospital we were meeting at just got locked down with some infection thing. Your parents got the staff to let them out of the ER, but we can't meet them there now, obviously. We're going to St Bridget's over the hill instead. It's about 45 minutes away, so try to get some sleep if you want.'

'There aren't any closer hospitals?' Olivia asks. She's not very surprised that her dad didn't ask to talk to her, even after she'd been kidnapped and then violently rescued. His brain doesn't work like that.

'None worth going to,' the man answers her.

Forty-five minutes is a long time to sit in silent fear, but Olivia's almost used to it after so long spent in the room. She's learned how to retreat into her head, where time doesn't matter in the same way. As skills go, she thinks it's probably more creepy than useful, but it does mean that right now she's not as likely to throw up from fear as she might've done before everything started.

Instead, she spends the time trying to come up with a way for Hannah to get away, but Olivia's life experiences offer no toehold from which to mount a daring criminal escape.

After about twenty minutes, Hannah stirs, sitting up straighter. Her voice, when she speaks, is a rasping whisper.

'May I use your phone?' she asks the man.

He passes it into the back seat. Hannah enters a number with unsteady hands and then brings the phone to her ear. Olivia can't hear a dial tone or the purr of ringing, but after a few seconds, Hannah speaks rapidly.

'Hi Annie. It's Lissa. I know, sweetheart, I know. I've missed you so much too, my little red riding hood. Can you put Mama on?'

Hannah's voice is croaky and quiet, and after exactly three quick, shallow breaths of silence she speaks again. 'Mama. Mama, it's Lissa. I'm on my way to St Bridget's. I'm safe. Please come get me. I've missed you so much.'

Without waiting for any reply, she ends the call and passes the phone back through between the front seats.

'My mother will collect me,' she whispers to the man. Olivia does her best to hide her confusion and surprise, because she thinks Hannah said she didn't have parents. This must be someone else she knows, someone willing to help with an alibi at a moment's notice. Olivia wonders what Hannah has promised in exchange for the favour, or if the mystery person already owed Hannah for something in the past.

'She'll give you money,' Hannah goes on. 'Not so much as the ransom was. She doesn't have that. But some.' Her inflections and manner are totally different to those of the Hannah that Olivia's started to know, but that doesn't mean much of anything.

It's not like Olivia has any idea about Hannah's life or where she'll go or what she'll do now. And there's never going to be a chance to ask.

'You don't have to pay me, sweetheart,' the man tells Hannah. 'We've already been compensated for our trouble. You were in the right place at the right time. It's your lucky day.'

'She'll still pay you,' Hannah insists. Olivia squeezes her hand again, hoping it'll convey to Hannah how smart Olivia thinks her words are. Giving the men some money will make them like her, give them a reason not to question anything she or her "mother" tell them.

It seems to Olivia that this whole emergency plan is going to leave Hannah deeply indebted to whoever is coming to her rescue, but that can't be helped. Better to be indebted and alive than cold and bloodied on a cement floor like the others.

Olivia wonders if they, like Hannah, were younger than she guessed. Mouse, cat, fox. Maybe they were the same age as her.