‘Connor, I’m so sorry.’ I put my arm around his shoulders and he gave me a closed-lipped smile.
‘It wasn’t easy for Mum though and I feel bad about leaving her. But at least she’s not walking on eggshells any more, trying to keep the peace, you know?’
I didn’t know. I realised how lucky I was to have my warm, loving family to support me. Connor was on his own.
‘But it’s not all bad, Ellie. If I hadn’t left, I wouldn’t have met you.’
His words gave me goose bumps and I smiled at him. In my eyes, he was amazing, with a strength of character I envied. I had never considered I could ever feel like this about another human being. He smiled back at me and pulled me towards him. We kissed a long deep kiss that spread throughout my body. This relationship was turning me into a new person. Someone who was ready for the world. I could do anything I wanted.
Then, one hazy summer day, everything suddenly changed to break the spell.
Chapter Fourteen
Luckily, Luc and I don’t see a soul on the Ringwood road. We make it safely around the town in daylight, without encountering any riot of any kind. I’m actually starting to feel less worried about the journey. Luc looks tired though.
‘Do you want me to drive?’ I ask, willing him to say no.
He flicks his eyes towards me and then back onto the road. He smiles.
‘That’s okay, Riley. I’ll drive today if you like. Maybe you could take a turn tomorrow?’ I think he can see the apprehension in my eyes and has taken pity on me.
‘Okay then,’ I reply, relieved.
We don’t say much, just odd comments about the scenery. We talked so much back home, planning our trip and how we would track down Chambers. But out here, on the open road, we just speak when necessary. Maybe there’s too much to think about or maybe we’re just tired and a bit spooked by the unfamiliar surroundings.
The road opens up to reveal a great lush green floodplain that must once have been rich summer grazing land, but I can see no sign of cattle or sheep. I suppose the road makes the area too exposed to farm and valuable animals would have to be kept out of site.
‘That’s the River Avon,’ Luc says. ‘This road completely flooded last winter.’
I look around and see beauty I never imagined could exist in real life. Soft, rolling hills frame each side of us in every colour green imaginable. Dense copses of willows and poplars nod their heads along the river and fields. The clear blue sky is fading to white and the sun bleeds red and gold into the uneven horizon. It’s a tranquil rural landscape and it inspires new primitive emotions inside me.
I’ve never been so scared and so exhilarated in all my life. I’m terrified we won’t make it, that something awful I can’t even imagine will befall us. But the gentle splendour of the countryside awes me. I can’t remember ever feeling so uplifted by nature. It’s raw and incredibly freeing.
I suddenly wonder how late it is. ‘Should we find somewhere to stop for the night?’
‘We’ve probably got a couple of hours of daylight left,’ Luc replies. ‘Maybe we should keep going for another hour or so; get a few more miles in.’
‘Yeah I don’t mind. I suppose we should keep going while we can.’
The engine’s steady thrum is lulling me to sleep. We’ve only ever reached a maximum speed of about thirty five miles an hour and that felt fast. But the road’s pitted and scarred surface means we’re now bumping along somewhere between five and twenty miles per hour. Not very good for fuel consumption, but luckily the AV’s got deep tanks.
I’m drifting in that vague place, somewhere between awake and asleep when I hear my name being whispered.
‘Riley, Riley. What’s that?’
I come to with a start and look up. It feels like I’ve dozed for a couple of minutes at most, but when I open my eyes I see that it’s twilight already. I must have been asleep for over an hour. As my eyes focus, I make out a long dark shape in the road up ahead.
‘What’s that?’ I echo stupidly.
‘I don’t know. It looks like a fallen tree, but…’
As we get closer, I see it is indeed a fallen tree. Or a log, to be more precise, lying across the whole width of the road.
‘I don’t like the look of it,’ says Luc, as he brings the AV to a halt, squinting ahead into the fading light.
‘Don’t worry,’ I say. ‘I’m sure we can shift it. We’ve got some rope in the back. We could tie it to the AV and drag it to the side of the road.’ I make to open the door.
‘Stop, Riley!’ shouts Luc, grabbing my arm and making me jump.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Look.’ He points into the hills.
‘What?’ I look and see twinkling lights. ‘What are they?’
‘It could be a raiding party.’
‘What!’
‘I didn’t want to mention it before. I hoped we wouldn’t run into any.’
‘What do we do?’
‘It might be a trap. That log didn’t fly into the middle of the road on its own. Someone wants us to get out and try to move it.’
‘But those lights look like they’re miles away.’
‘Yeah, they are. But whoever put the log there is probably really close by and watching us.’ As he’s speaking, he flicks on the blackout mode to shield us from view.
I look out of my window and see that our ambushers could be hidden anywhere. Darkness is seconds away and there are any number of dense trees and bushes to hide behind. I shiver.
‘We could drive over it,’ Luc ventures, ‘but we might damage the underneath.’
‘I don’t want to break down here.’
‘Me neither. I don’t think we should risk it.’ Luc puts the headlights on full beam. ‘Oh God, look closer, Riley.’
‘Look where?’
‘At the log. It’s got nails or something sticking out all over it.’
I look and sure enough in the gloom I can make out hundreds of evil little spikes along its length, confirming Luc’s theory that this is indeed an ambush. We’re in a tough, virtually impenetrable armoured vehicle but it doesn’t stop an unwelcome fear from inching through my body.
‘Maybe… Could we shoot at it?’ I ask, feeling the tremor in my voice. I don’t really take my suggestion seriously and wait for Luc to tactfully dismiss the idea.
‘Hmm. That’s not a bad idea. If we gun a weak spot near the middle, we might be able to split it in two. It might shift out of the way as we drive into it. What a waste of bullets though – shooting at a tree.’
‘Don’t worry about that.’
‘And the run-on-flats will get us out of here if we get punctured from the spikes.’
‘Can we do it quickly?’ I ask. ‘Cos sitting here is really freaking me out.’
‘Yep,’ Luc agrees. ‘Where‘re the guns? Thank God we brought shed loads of ammo.’ He reaches behind and unclips the gun case, passing me the PK and taking the heavier M60 for himself.
‘Should we both fire at it?’ I say, beginning to panic. ‘Or… I don’t want to get out though. Maybe we should open the roof and stand up.’
Luc turns to me. ‘Look,’ he says softly, realising I’m about to go to pieces. ‘I’m going to shoot at the tree and you’re going to cover me. If you see anything moving, shoot at it. If you hear any shots apart from mine, shoot in that direction.’
I nod, feeling numb.
‘I doubt they’ve got any automatic weapons, but when they see ours they’re gonna start drooling. They’ll want what we’ve got. Here are the binoculars, keep scanning around for trouble.’ He smiles. ‘We’ll do this, okay? It’ll be fine.’
I nod again, mute, and sling the bins around my neck as Luc opens the roof hatch.