Chapter 34
Dig carried me to the bed and laid me down, placing the bouquet of wildflowers on the bedside table.
After checking the weapons in his belt and jacket, he pointed his finger to me with warning. “Stay.”
I rolled over on my belly, putting my chin in my palms and kicked my legs around in the air. “Stay here?”
“Stay there. Eat something. Keep hydrated. Have a bath. When I’m back, I’m making dinner and then if you want it, we’re fucking.”
This was all very tempting, but I had other plans.
He left.
During that time, I ate and drank and slapped on vitamin A undereye patches, fixed my hair and rubbed sunscreen wherever I was bare. I pulled on my boots, changed into my bra and another one of Dig’s t-shirts and packed my satchel.
The apartment was up four storeys and the staircase was a maze. When finally, I reached the ground stairwell, I pushed open the front apartment doors. Seams of white gold sunlight spilled over the city, desolate of people —
I twisted back to the apartment. “Oh, shit!”
I forgot about the upside-down man.
Making it back inside of the apartment, I was already sweating from the workout of four flights of stairs and so I had another shower, used a hair mask, moisturised and changed my t-shirt again and padded into the spare room.
The upside-down man hung upside down with the kiddie pool under him swirling with his blood and tears.
“Hey.” I flicked his cheek. “Wake up. I’m saving you.”
He did not. Still alive but sleeping.
“Rude!” I punched my hips with my fists. “This is not the time to take a nap—oh, wait. Dig knocked you out.”
I clicked my fingers in front of his face. Nothing.
It took a while to cut through the cord that had him strung up with the butterknife, but I refused to leave him hanging. Literally. Just as I was about to cut through the last thread, his eyes fluttered open, he moaned.
“Yay!” I almost jumped. “You’re finally awake!”
Blinking through his daze, he located me next to the rope and eyed the butter knife in my hand which I had found outside. “Are you…you’re getting us out of here?”
“Yes!”
“Thank you!”
“Woo!”
“I’m going to live!”
“Together!”
The cord split from his movements, and he fell headfirst into the plastic kiddie pool. The bone of his neck snapped on his impel down and his head twisted at an angle that I did not think was natural, and he fell into a slump on the floor.
Unmoving and without sound.
“Upside-down guy?” I prodded his back. “You’re okay, right?”
He was not okay.
After setting the upside-down man free from his restraints and from his life, I went back outside. I searched the streets, probing for a pair of pants.
I did not know the best way to the suburbs.
I only had a quick glance at Dig’s wall map in his hideout.
My best guess was to keep heading in one direction and eventually I’d hit into the tall grey wall that cuddled the city arena and from there I could follow the curve of it until I ended up in the suburbs.
But what if Tommy and Fiona were hurt?
What if they were dehydrated and hungry?
What if they needed medical attention?
The last days of the Execution Battle were always the worst. People were dying of dehydration, of injuries, or so starving they took reckless chances to find food.
And the largest gangs grew stronger and overconfident, weeding out any strays and weakened people to cull them off before they went back to prison, hoping to make their cells less crowded.
I couldn’t guess where the suburbs were, I had to be smart and know their exact location.
Before I looked for them, I needed to look for directions.
Luckily, I found them.
“Excuse me!” I waved with a huge smile.
Two men with blades fought viciously, stabbing, slicing and cutting each other.
Their cries of pain and shouting mingled into the ruckus of their combat.
I skipped past them and headed over to the drone junkies who were doing their dance routine to an old hip hop song blaring from a solar speaker.
The drone above them hovered midair, filming.
Drone junkies. There were usually three or four in a group.
Soulless inmates from all three prisons who became social media famous from fun dance routines.
They practiced routines all year in prison and whilst they were in the Battle they tracked down the drones that were filming fights and danced in the background.
They became so popular that now they had sponsorships from outside of the prison.
Companies would pay them and send gifts to advertise their products and services mid-dance routine.
None of the other inmates bothered harming the drone junkies since they brought in regular revenue to the prisons and shared what they made from sponsorships.
The drone junkies dancing were three young men in matching cheerleading skirts, their hair in pig tails, their makeup without blemish.
I waited for them to finish their routine, their finale being a human pyramid with the top person smiling wide into the camera on the drone waving their hands, as the fight between the two men finished with one of the men stabbing the other in the eye.
The young man in the cheerleading skirt on top of the pyramid did a back flip off his friends and paraded down to where the man collapsed in the dirt, ragged and bleeding.
“Having trouble keeping stains out of white t-shirts like this one?” The drone junkie gestured to the man bleeding on the ground.
“Try Oxymo’s newest stain remover, Wipeaway!
” He picked up a bottle of spray and spritzed it on the now dead body before holding it up to the camera.
“This bad boy can get any stubborn stain out, including blood! And it’s twenty percent off until March! ”
“Hello!” I waved to them.
The drone junkie beamed a huge smile and strode over to me, beckoning the drone to follow him. “And here we have Delphine De Astor, once a good girl, now a heartless Soulless. Delphine, have you tried Oxymo’s newest stain remover Wipeaway?”
“I think my house cleaner has.”
“Of course she has! Look how spotless your clothing is.” He gestured to my shirt. “Nine days in the Execution Battle and not a single silly stain. Delphine De Astor may not survive the Execution Battle, just as no blotch will survive Oxymo’s newest stain remover Wipeaway.”
After the drone went to commercial, the drone junkie pointed me in the location of the suburbs.
I did not get far when someone stomped their boots across the road, forcing me to stop. Bald headed, a mountain body, wearing a pink bathrobe, carrying an axe and a grudge against me.
Vil sneered. “Delphine De Astor.”
“Where?” I gasped and looked around. “Where is she? Where is that bitch? I must find her and kill her myself!”