‘Hello,’ Evan says as Tregan climbs into the car next to him. Damon goes around the vehicle and gets in the other side so my little brother is between them. Jack’s showing me he’s got what he wanted without me. A woman who puts out and does as she’s told. And Evan makes three. It’s an abomination.
The shell of my little brother leans into Tregan. ‘Look,’ he says, showing her the tablet. ‘Snots ’N’ Bots.’
She smiles warmly. I want to throw up at how clucky she feels already. Like they’re a goddamned family.
Damon grins at her—at me—and ruffles Evan’s hair as the four-wheel drive bumps down a dirt road towards Baroonah.
‘Where did you find him?’ Tregan asks softly.
‘Danby and Nathan left him behind in Samsara.’
‘You’re kidding.’
Damon shakes his head. ‘Luckily he’s not really aware of what’s going on. We’ve been keeping him at another safe house with other kids.’
The lies pour out of Damon like honey and the single doubt Tregan has about him makes me despise her even more.
He’s-too-sweet-I-hope-he’ll-know-when-to-be-ruthless-Kill-her-him-avenge-Gary-Jack-Don’t-think-that!-She’ll-hear-If-you’re-listening-Danby-Damon’s-serious-wants-peaceful-surrender-Better-than-you-deserve-you-fuc—
Tregan closes her eyes, inhales deeply, pictures herself doing wind chime meditation, exhales the bad energy, clears her mind. When she opens her eyes, Evan and Damon are staring at her.
‘Danby,’ Damon says, ‘if you’re here, I want you to see we’ve taken good care of your brother.’
Tregan nods solemnly, but her soul flares jealously. So-much-time-away-from-me-looking-for-that-bitch-Now-he-talks-to-her-through-me?-That’s-why-I’m-here?
‘Danby, I want you to know,’ Damon continues, ‘that there can be a peaceful outcome to all of this. There doesn’t have to be any more killing.’
Their four-wheel drive turns into Baroonah’s main street. I see it on my tablet, joining another vehicle with tinted windows. The cars drive through the intersection and stop amid the vehicles and soldiers laying siege to the mansion.
‘They’re in there?’ Tregan asks. She imagines the place riddled with bullets, me and Nathan as full of holes as Bonnie and Clyde. Don’t-think-that-Visualise-your-wind-chimes—
‘We think so,’ Damon says. ‘Make sure they can see it all.’
Tregan obediently pans her head like a camera so that I get a good look at their military might.
‘Danby,’ Damon says, ‘you can see we’ve got you surrounded. If you and whoever else you’re with put down your weapons and come out I guarantee you won’t be hurt. We’ll talk. We’ll take you somewhere safe where you can live your way. You can see how Tregan’s been kept safe. You can have that and take Evan with you. We don’t want any more violence.’
Tregan nods and her heart swells at how good it feels to be with this man and on the side of righteousness.
I don’t come out of the mansion with my hands up. Even if I was in there I wouldn’t. I’d be in an upstairs window trying to shoot Damon, Tregan and Evan dead in their vehicle.
Minutes tick by. Damon sighs theatrically and shakes his head at Tregan and thus at me.
‘Maybe her friend can talk sense into her,’ he says. ‘It’s all we’ve got left.’
My blood chills. Friend?
Tregan frowns as the doors of the Humvee ahead of them swing open to release the driver and his shotgun passenger. Hulking specimens. Clad in fatigues. Clutching assault rifles across chests protected by body armour. I don’t know these Jacks. Have never seen them. One of the men opens a passenger door and nods for whoever’s inside to come out.
My throat knots and the spaces behind my knees go slack as a slump-shouldered man with grey dreadlocks steps onto the street. Marv. The only Special who’d been alive in Clearview when Jack and I rolled into town with his unholy army. The man who’d saved me from being shot on the bridge. The man who’d escaped with us and selflessly carried my little brother, even as it put him farther and farther from his own family. The man I’d last seen setting out on a desperate and likely doomed mission to save his wife and child from Jack’s control.
‘We didn’t hurt him,’ Damon says to Tregan and me. ‘Not even when he came at us with a machine gun.’
She nods sagely. Thinks: Bloody-hell-I-would’ve-blown-his-ass-to-kingdom-come.
I want to be glad that Marv’s alive. That he wasn’t killed by Jack on his way back to Clearview to save his wife Jane and daughter Lottie. But seeing him like this isn’t cause to celebrate. I wonder how close he got to rescuing his family. My answer comes a second later when a tween girl climbs from the back of the car. Overalls hanging from her waif’s frame, she’s olive-skinned like her dad. Lottie: I watched Jack raise her in Clearview, along with her mother, Jane, who’s next out of the vehicle, a slender woman under a smudge of strawberry blonde hair.
Damon nods at Tregan and they climb from the back of the four-wheel drive and make their way to where Marv and his family stand together on the road.
‘Marv,’ Damon says with a nod. ‘This is Tregan.’
Tregan sticks out her hand. Marv lets her hang but Lottie breaks from his side.
‘Hey,’ she says, shaking the offered hand. ‘I got my dad back!’
‘I’m glad,’ Tregan says.
Her smile bounces from Lottie to Jane but flatlines when she meets Marv’s hard stare. The look in his eyes tells me his wife and daughter are still Minions. Not that Tregan sees that.
Marv’s-alive-got-his-family-back-And-he’s-still-ungrateful-what-a—
‘Ungrateful?’ Marv spits. ‘How can you be so stupid?’
Tregan stiffens. She’s forgotten what it’s like to be around anyone who can read her mind. If only she knew the truth. Her thoughts fill up with her wind chimes.
‘You can’t block me out,’ Marv says with a sneer. ‘You bloody bi—’
Damon steps up to him. ‘Enough!’
Marv flinches. Backs away a little. Glances at Jane and Lottie. I’m guessing he still has hopes they can be freed from Jack’s control.
‘What do you want?’ Marv says, looking past Damon at the amassed army. ‘Doesn’t look like you need my help.’
Through Tregan, through the video cameras, I see Marv’s shock when Evan climbs from the four-wheel drive and wanders across the road to take Tregan’s hand. My gut churns at the mirror image mockeries: Marv trapped with his fake family; Tregan unaware she’s stuck with a man and child who share the same soul as everyone here except Marv, the man she can’t stand.
I can only imagine what Marv thinks as he stares at my little brother. The boy he spent long days defending and carrying, now standing as part of the enemy and eyeing him coldly. I wish he could know I did everything I could to save Evan. Except that’s not quite true.
‘We think Danby’s in there,’ Damon says, nodding past the trees towards the brick mansion. ‘She knows you. If she’s in there, she can see we haven’t hurt you or your family. If anyone can help her end this peacefully, it’s you. Just go up, get her to come to the door, talk to her.’
I scream into the beanbag for the second time. This is Jack’s plan to lure me from hiding.
‘We’ll come with you,’ Jane says.
Marv shakes his head at Damon. ‘I’m going alone.’
Jane touches his shoulder. ‘We’ll do this together.’
‘Dad, it’ll be okay,’ Lottie adds.
‘If they’re with you, Danby’s less likely to do anything silly that’d hurt them,’ Damon says.
‘We’re not going to hurt anyone,’ adds Tregan, proud to be part of the peace process.
Marv looks away from her in disgust and glances again at all the guns before his eyes settle on Damon. I think he senses he has to choose his words carefully. ‘If we do this, that’s it. You let us be. Me, Jane, Lottie—we get to go somewhere far away.’
Damon nods. ‘I promise.’
Marv’s eyes glisten. He’s clinging to the hope that if he’s no longer useful he can be free and Jane and Lottie can go back to being themselves. I wonder if Marv would want to kill them if he knew Jack was in them forever. The way I still want to end Evan.
I begin to cry as Marv gathers Jane and Lottie behind him and they walk through the mansion’s gate and along its garden path. I see him via the cam by the front door, wiping sweat from his brow, arms sweeping backwards to ensure his wife and child are shielded by his broad body in case I’m inside and start spraying bullets at my enemies.
Hostage-negotiator, Tregan thinks about Marv, not seeing that the phrase is only half true. Surely-Danby-won’t-shoot-Not-him—
Marv stops at the bottom of the steps and cups his hands and shouts my name. The cams don’t have sound but I hear him through Tregan even above the choppers. Marv waits.
When there’s no answer, he turns and looks past Jane and Lottie. Damon waves him forwards, mimics knocking and opening the door. Marv shakes his head and Jane begins to step around her husband. He grabs her arm and shepherds his wife back behind him so she’s beside Lottie.
Marv crosses himself, mouth whispering in silent prayer, as he climbs the verandah steps like a condemned man ascending the gallows. His face looms in the camera lens by the front door. He turns to look back down at Jane and Lottie, framed by roses blooming out of season.
This is where I should run screaming from the cellar. Fire my rifle to get their attention. Surrender on my hands and knees. Kiss Damon’s boots. Except none of it would serve any purpose. It wouldn’t save Marv and it’d kill me.
‘I’m sorry,’ I whisper.
I pinch the screens, zero in on Damon’s face, see him through Tregan. A smirk lingers at the edge of his mouth and there’s a glimmer of anticipation in his eyes. I dig my nails into the palms of my hands so hard they bleed.
Damon has sussed I’m not in the mansion. Jack knows I’d have to be stupid to hole up there after ambushing his outriders. But whether or not he thought I was inside didn’t matter until Marv was put into play as a pawn.
My friend raises a fist and knocks. He waits. Knocks again. Turns to Jane and Lottie. Through Tregan I see Marv’s lips move. He’s telling them he loves them. I can’t watch. I bury my face in the beanbag. But I can still see everything. This is the reason Tregan’s been brought to the siege. So I can’t look away.
Marv turns the doorknob, opens the door a crack and leans in to shout into the house. There’s no response. He pushes the door wider, calls again. Nothing. He turns to Jane and Lottie, a look of relief on his face, and I read his lips: ‘I don’t think there’s anyo—’
Marv and Jane and Lottie disappear inside smoky orange flashes. There’s a tremor in the wall behind me and then the explosions reach me as a dull bhumpff.
I sob into the beanbag. Two of my grenades. Just inside the hallway. Wired so the pins would be pulled when the door opened. I did it because it’d look suspicious if the house wasn’t booby-trapped. The idea was to kill a few random Jacks. Not one of the only people I had left in this world.
Oh-my-God-oh-my-God: Tregan thinks, held tight by Damon, Evan under his other arm. She-killed-him-Oh-my-God.
Through her blurred eyes, I see Marv and Jane and Lottie, blown onto the lawn, brown smoke swirling from the smouldering verandah. Then Damon’s dragging Tregan and Evan back to the four-wheel drive and shouting at them over her ringing ears to stay down. She huddles with my little brother on the backseat.
‘I’m scared,’ he whimpers.
She kisses his cheek, mouths that everything’s going to be all right. Evan blinks up at her, nods and smiles just for me.
I scream again. Want to scream until I turn myself inside out. But inside the agony there’s a centring force. Hatred. It burns cold and it’s by that light that I gather myself enough to focus on the tablet.
My cams show clearing smoke. Marv, Jane and Lottie crumpled where they fell. Soldiers pour up the path past them, weapons sweeping every which way, as they rush through the shattered doorway and smash their way in through the windows.
After the car bomb in Samsara, Jack was wise to my moves. I couldn’t have known he’d use Marv and Jane and Lottie like that. But somehow I should’ve. What I do know is I’ll make them pay.