By now, sweat was pumping from his forehead and he felt faint. How long had it been? The bag on his back weighed a ton.
“Give us your bike, grandad.”
At first it was background noise. Then he realised they were talking to him.
“Me?” He snapped his head around. “I’m forty-five.”
Now that he looked at them properly, he understood why they’d said that. They couldn’t have been more than sixteen. They were rough looking kids—and not just because the power was out. He knew the kind—they were always hanging around the shop intimidating customers and giving the staff a hard time. They were just like the boys he’d met the day before—full of bravado and aggression.
“So?”
He ignored them and tried to focus on pedalling as fast as he could. His hands were pumping sweat and his heart was racing. He gritted his teeth. They were keeping pace with him despite him working harder than he’d ever worked.
“What’s in the bag?”
He stared straight ahead. He was no closer to the others despite all his efforts. Now sweat was dripping in his eyes and making them sting. His knees ached.
“I said what’s in the bag?”
He wondered if it’d be faster to just get off and push the bike.
Maybe I should just give it to the little bastards.
No. He wasn’t about to give them everything he had, no matter how much it was weighing him down. Where did it end? When would he stop looking like an easy target to these little brats?
“Nothing.”
“Looks heavy.”
The ridiculous thing was the whole gang was keeping pace with him on the footpath. He had nowhere to go, not unless the road miraculously started to slope downhill—which he could see wasn’t going to happen anytime soon. The only other way he could breeze out of there was if he got a sudden burst of strength. And that wasn’t going to happen either. Not when he was close to passing out from the effort.
“Well it’s not, alright? I’m just old and fat.” He said it wearily and he regretted it as soon as the words were out of his mouth. He’d intended to make his bag sound uninviting. All he’d done was make himself even more vulnerable in their eyes.
He could see it in their faces.
None of them spoke, but something must have passed between them because they were leaving the footpath and moving into the road.
No.
He pedalled harder, fearing he was going to faint at any moment. There were lots of people around, but they were all dead-eyed and weary. Those kids could tear him limb from limb and no-one would bat an eyelid. They had their own shit to deal with.
Terry’s heart accelerated to the point where it wasn’t beating anymore, it was fluttering. The feelings of shame and terror he’d felt the day before came rushing back to him and his mind went blank.
A fresh burst of adrenaline shot through his body.
The gun.
Everything changed in that moment.
He wasn’t afraid anymore.
He was in charge.
He pulled the brakes and eased himself onto the ground, thankful for the first time since he set eyes on it that the bike was a woman’s model with a lower bar. His legs were shaking. He turned around and grimaced. The first two boys were only a few feet away from him. The boys at the back started to fan out and surround him.
Terry’s hands began to shake as he looked at their faces. Their eyes were filled with such anger and hostility.
No, he told himself. There’s nothing to be afraid of. Not when you’re armed.
One of the boys reached into his pocket and Terry’s eyes widened as he realised his mistake. He’d assumed they weren’t armed because they hadn’t come at him waving knives around.
He pulled the gun from his pocket and waved it around. “Get away from me,” he snapped, spinning around. They were surrounding him and he was exhausted as it was. He was going to fall over if he kept trying to watch them all.
Whatever flashed across their young faces, it wasn’t fear.
“I said get back!” Terry screamed. “Or I’ll pick you off one by one.”
The look of scepticism in the leader’s face was what pushed him over the edge. He took aim at the kid’s chest, seething with rage at them and at his neighbours. They could have waited for him—would that have been too much to ask for?
He stared at his hands in a daze. The gun kicked up like it was lighter than air. He hadn’t expected his grip to loosen quite so much. It was only a light thing, but it almost toppled him off balance as he stood there stunned and deafened by the blast. He hadn’t consciously pulled the trigger, he’d just been so…
He opened his mouth to say something, but no words came out. He stumbled forwards.
“What the fuck have you done!” someone roared.
26. Clive
Clive froze. There was no split second’s delay while his brain worked out what he had just heard. He knew that sound. He also knew it had come from far enough away that it wasn’t an immediate threat, but close enough to potentially be a source of alarm.
He looked around him, first accounting for everyone in his group. Between watching for danger and keeping an eye on Olivia, there’d been no spare capacity in his mind to worry about anyone else. He groaned when he only counted two instead of three.
He knew what he’d see even before he turned to look behind him.
“Terry.”
Annie had stopped her bike and was staring, horrorstruck, at the scene behind them. Clive shook his head. It was hardly surprising. Terry was alone, though it appeared a gang of youths was fleeing from him. Except for one crumpled figure at Terry’s feet.
“No,” Annie hissed in a strangled voice. “No…”
“Annie!” There was no time to stand around and come to terms with it.
When she didn’t respond, he moved over to her and shook her shoulder. “Annie. Listen to me.” She finally looked up at him. “Stay with Olivia. Keep her safe. I’m going down there.”
Only a few seconds had passed since the gunshot rang through the startlingly quiet air, but it felt like far longer than that. Clive jumped back on his bike and powered back down the road, looking all around him for other threats. He didn’t like what he saw. The buildings that lined the street were rundown and dilapidated. They rose high above the street, giving a would-be attacker countless hiding places to strike from.
His mind raced to make sense of what had happened. That Terry had shot one of the boys was obvious. Why hadn’t they retaliated?
“They had knives,” Terry mumbled when Clive reached him a few seconds later and jumped off his bike.
Regardless of the danger, he had no choice but to act. After all, wasn’t he the one who’d put that weapon in Terry’s hand?
“Give me the gun. Now.” Clive held out his hand as he fell to his knees beside the prone figure on the ground.
“Why? I was defending myself.”
Clive didn’t reply for a minute. He was too focused on feeling for a pulse. He held his breath. It soon became clear that there wasn’t one. He shook his head.
He stood up and brushed the dust off the knees of his trousers. “Give me the gun. Now.”
Terry’s face crumpled. He made no move to hand the weapon over. Clive stared into his eyes. They needed to get the hell out of there, but he couldn’t allow Terry to remain armed after what had happened.
“Gun. Now.” He started to reach for his own weapon.