Darkhaven

Damp sandpaper rubbed my nose. I opened my eyes to find an amber pair staring back at me and the world came into focus around the grey cat, its coat blending with the steely clouds above it. I brushed the cat away, trying to work out what had happened. I was lying on the footpath, my knees stinging and my body feeling like it had been pummelled by a million soccer balls. My fingers met sticky blood as I touched my knees. Had I fallen off the jungle gym? But then how had I ended up so far away from it? My hoodie and the t-shirt underneath were sort of shredded, my jeans weren’t much better and my sneakers were lying on the other side of the footpath.

Thunder crashed, close. Sirens screeched in the distance. I examined my hands, my arms, looking for some sign of what had happened, but my skin at least looked fine, and I could move all my fingers, even if it felt like pushing through melted ice cream. The cat kept rubbing my legs, looking at me, then trotting away, thick grey fur rippling, like it wanted me to follow it. Perhaps the stress of TISC decisions had finally rendered me insane. The sirens wailed closer now, cutting through the pealing thunder.

I climbed to my feet, teetered for a moment on wobbly legs and collected my shoes. I found my phone a few metres further up the hill, powered off. My head pounded. The sirens had stopped, replaced by tyres squealing on the road next to the park. I looked up as a black SUV mounted the kerb, drove up the grass towards me and swerved to a stop. Two men in dark suits jumped out.

Don’t let them take you.

I froze, caught like peach slices trapped in jelly.

‘Come with us, miss,’ Suit One ordered. Suit Two backed the command up with an officious stare. When I made no move, they stepped forward, reaching for me. I stumbled back. Suit Two grabbed my upper arm while Suit One fished a phone out of his pocket. He nodded at us, and Suit Two began pushing me to the car. Panic snapped through my body like lightning, freeing me from my jellied state.

I dug my heels in and punched Suit Two in the throat. At least, I tried to. In the next second, my arm was twisted down behind my back and something small, hard and round pressed against my spine. I kicked at the man as he shoved me into the back seat, and shouted, but my voice was hoarse, ripped away by the howling wind. Suit One was already at the wheel. Fear spasmed across my mind. The door slammed shut behind me as I sprawled on the thick black leather, scrambling for the door handle, but it wouldn’t open. Wire mesh separated me from the front seats. I clawed at it. ‘Let me out!’

‘Don’t worry, miss, we’re from the government,’ Suit One said, eyes black in the rear-view mirror. His partner climbed in next to him and the car took off, bouncing over the kerb.

‘Who are you? Did you leave the note?’ I demanded, pushing against the mesh. The men exchanged a glance.

‘They’re close,’ Suit Two said. Suit One looked grim. He swung around a corner, flinging me across the seat. I twisted towards the sound of more tyres screeching behind us. A small silver car swerved around and came after us, so close I could see a brown-haired man behind the wheel, face set.

The car followed us out of the suburbs, keeping up as the SUV careened around corners. I kicked at the window, wondering what my chances of survival were if I jumped out headfirst, but it didn’t even crack, and I chickened out as we hit the freeway. The silver car got left behind, along with any ideas of escape. I hammered at the mesh again. ‘Where are you taking me?’

No reply. Not even the turn of a head.

I dropped onto the back seat, helpless. If they were on my side, surely they wouldn’t keep ignoring my questions. Maybe the man in the silver car had left the note. But who was he, and how did he know where I’d be?

We blazed down the freeway, dodging cars. Unbelted, I gripped an armrest as I slid across the back seat. I glanced through the windscreen: a wall of traffic, red tail lights snaking along all three lanes, bumper-to-bumper for as far as I could see. We were coming up fast. Cars around us slowed as they approached the jam, but we didn’t break pace. The swerving through traffic became frantic. Horns blared around us. A police siren sounded, distant.

Too distant to help me.

I watched, unblinking, my eyes drying as we closed the final metres to the crawling traffic. We veered into the left emergency lane, to angry protests from other drivers, and flew past, inches from side mirrors on the right and the barrier on the left. At the last moment, we took an exit at full speed, flying towards a line of cars waiting to turn right. There was nowhere to go. We were going to crash.

I screamed. I wasn’t the only one.

A second before we hit a delivery van, it jumped the kerb and got out of the way. Our SUV charged through, snapping off the van’s side mirror. We barrelled left, where the road, narrowed to single lanes, was clear. I stopped screaming.

The other scream continued, but it wasn’t human. It was the roar of an engine.

A motorcycle flew in from the left in a green blur, snaking through the jammed exit. In the rear-view mirror, Suit One’s eyes widened as he swerved. He clipped a silver car passing in the right lane. More horns. The motorcycle swung in again from the right, pressuring us off the road. Suit One scrabbled at the steering wheel, but the car went off the shoulder, sliding on the gravel. The front airbags exploded as we crashed into a fence. My head smacked against a pillar, and my headache burst into a thousand more shards of pain.

Fighting against a wave of blackness, I tried to open my door again, but it was locked. One of the agents was beating back the airbags and reaching for something at his belt. I fumbled for my phone, praying it would turn on. I had to call Dad.

Someone wrenched my door open.

A tall, slim woman in black and grey leathers held the door with one hand, motorcycle helmet in the other. ‘Huh. Dead ringer for Luce,’ she remarked. She had straight, blonde hair cropped under her ears and the most perfect teeth I’d ever seen. Not that she was smiling – more like grimacing. Her hazel eyes were wild.

‘Get out.’ She jerked her head towards the monstrous green motorcycle posing in front of a massive tree.

My knees buckled under my weight, the grazes from falling on the pavement tugging painfully. The woman took a firm hold of my arm and shoved me towards the motorcycle before she turned back to the SUV. Two gunshots rattled my already ringing ears.

I whirled around. The woman ran towards me and shoved the helmet into my hands. Her other hand gripped a pistol.

‘Did – did you kill them?’ I asked, trying to keep the tremor out of my voice.

She arched an eyebrow. ‘Will it make you feel better if I say no?’

As my trembling fingers struggled with the helmet straps, an engine revved. The SUV reversed out of the fence and gunned for us.

She huffed. ‘Apparently not. Run!’

She spun back, drawing another gun. I stumbled a few steps out of the way, but I felt like I was stuck in a dream, unable to run. The car kept coming towards her, and she kept shooting, pulling another pistol from some imperceptible pocket in her leathers. The windscreen cracked through. Finally, the man slumped, but the SUV was too close. With a dull thud, it ran straight over the top of her, then into the motorcycle before it smashed into the tree with a metallic crunch, crushing the bike into its fender as leaves showered the wreckage.

I clapped my hands over my mouth in horror. The woman lay in a twisted heap on the ground. I started towards her when the little silver car that had been following us before the freeway – the same one, I realised, that had just run us off the road – pulled up next to me. The driver wound down the window.

‘Quick, get in!’

I stared at him.

‘Quickly!’

A fraction of my headache cleared and I remembered how to speak. ‘You’re joking, right? I’m not getting in another car against my will.’

The next voice came from behind me, impossibly familiar.

‘It’s not against your will if you climb in by yourself.’ The woman. I turned around. She was walking towards me. Perfectly fine.

‘How are you…?’ Alive? Walking? Maybe there really was something wrong with me. The woman stalked around the front of the car and folded her long frame into the passenger seat.

The man leaned out the window. He had deep, serious eyes, and his forehead creased with worry.

‘Please. I’m Stephen May. Those agents would not have left you alive, and there are more coming. We didn’t get you out of there just to hurt you.’

My mind whirled. I was stranded on a side road, probably in need of medical attention, and these two seemed genuine –

Look for May.

Not May, the month. I’d stuffed up the first part – not that there was much else I could have done. A note saying “Don’t go for a walk. People will abduct you” might have been a bit more helpful. But I’d found May, or he’d found me. I took a deep breath and climbed in the back.

As I buckled my seatbelt, movement flickered at the corner of my eye and I nearly leapt back out of the car. The grey cat was curled up on the other end of the upholstery. As if it felt my gaze, it twitched an ear towards me. I stared at it, then turned my attention to Stephen May and the woman.

‘I’m going to stop letting you come on these missions,’ she remarked. ‘What would you have done if I hadn’t stepped in?’

Stephen’s expression relaxed slightly as we pulled away. ‘At least I didn’t cause a crash on the freeway. Are you all right?’

‘No,’ she grumbled. ‘I loved that bike.’

‘Are you okay, Gabby?’ He fixed his eyes on me in the rear-view mirror.

‘That depends,’ I remarked, unable to keep the surliness out. ‘Who are you people? Have I actually lost it?’

The impossible woman laughed. I fought down an urge to hit her. To hell with her rescue.

‘I’m Stephen,’ the man offered again. ‘A geneticist.’ After a pause in which the woman inspected one of her many firearms, he added, ‘this is Donovan. And you’re not crazy.’

Well, it was an improvement on the “don’t worry, miss, we’re from the government” suits. I tested my luck. ‘Where are we going?’

‘Darkhaven.’

What kind of place was that? Before I could ask, Stephen continued.

‘It’s a sort of research facility, where we can make sure you’re okay. You were struck by lightning.’

So that had happened. ‘And those men?’

‘Government agents from a classified operation that captures and eliminates people like you. We tried to get you out sooner, but they were quick. And cats are difficult to communicate through.’ He said the last with a wry smile.

I glanced at the snoozing cat. ‘So this cat…’

‘Followed you this afternoon. Savah is my closest connection. I asked her to keep an eye on you.’

The dreamlike feeling returned, my mind swimming in impossibilities. ‘This is crazy.’

Stephen bit back a chuckle. Donovan let hers out. She turned to face me. ‘Give me your phone.’

‘Why?’

She held her hand out. ‘Just do it.’

‘If the sim is still viable, they will trace you,’ Stephen said.

I pulled my phone out of what was left of my pocket. Donovan took it and tossed it out the window.

‘Hey!’

‘It was probably fried anyway,’ she said, unapologetic. ‘We should go –’

Something crashed into us from behind. I ducked instinctively.

‘Shit!’ Donovan whipped around. ‘Who the hell is that?’ she growled. ‘Faster. Next left.’

Stephen accelerated, his knuckles white on the steering wheel as we careened around the corner.

I poked my head up to see another black SUV right on our tail. The driver pushed closer, recovering from the abrupt turn. Even through two panes of tinted glass, his stare jarred me, and as I gazed back, eyes wide, his look was one of recognition. I’d never seen him before in my life.

He slowed, letting us pull away, and by the next turn, we were cruising the suburbs as if nothing weird was happening at all, except for the ribbons of panic and confusion twisting in the pit of my stomach. Who were these people? Why had they backed off now? Stephen pulled over and paused, hands resting on the wheel, eyes closed. After a few minutes, he started the engine and merged back onto the road.

‘We should go to the safe house,’ Donovan said.

‘We’re okay. I’ve got eyes out now.’ He flicked his gaze back to me in the rear-view mirror. ‘There’s a blanket somewhere back there.’

I had no idea what ‘eyes’ meant. More cats, maybe. I found the blanket, curled up under it and closed my eyes, hoping that I would wake up slumped on Alex’s breakfast bar, fallen asleep from a sugar overdose. Although if this was a dream, then apart from the kidnapping and car crashes and shooting people, it was a pretty cool one.