41. Hunted （for Sport） #3
Briar fumbles for the walkie. ‘Eugenia, it’s me. Do you have them?’
The reply comes almost immediately, like Eugenia’s been waiting. ‘Yes. And your horrible friend. But we’ve got trouble coming. Either I get them out now, or we might not get them out at all.’
‘Go,’ Briar says. ‘We’ll be fine.’
The channel fills with static, and then there’s one last beep. ‘I knew I hired you for a reason, Briar Jones.’
‘I think she’s already taken the car,’ Briar says to the others. ‘So we’ve got to run.’
‘I’m not running,’ Bastian says, aghast.
‘You were the junior county record holder in the 5k!’
‘That,’ Bastian says gravely, ‘was a very long time ago.’
A tiny scholar spots them from across the lawn, raises his arm to point; Tate whips around, Working, and the kid is unconscious before he can hit the ground. He won’t be the last - there are shouts coming from all directions now, those not mustering to gawk at the fire still on the hunt.
‘I can take them,’ Bastian says, eyes scanning as the scholars begin to converge; when Westby claps him on the shoulder, he looks completely taken aback and slightly affrighted.
‘You’re good, Wolfe, but you’re not that good. I’m afraid we’re running for it. Welcome to the side of the losers. You’ll get used to it.’
Briar bends to help Orpheus onto their back, and then they all take off in the direction of the staff exit, their one advantage the fact that not a single scholar on campus has ever conceived of a faculty car park.
Bastian was right; he’s no longer a particularly good runner, but it makes sense to have him taking the rear as the scholars gain on them.
The security gate is unmanned, the guard temporarily drawn by the fire, but he’s sprinting back to his post as they approach, and Briar’s heart sinks as he turns to them, his mouth working, something illegal and taser-shaped in his hand.
‘Shit,’ they say, turning to the others, to Bastian - to anyone with enough power to get him to drop his weapon.
But they don’t need the Work. Ben, the groundskeeper, comes barrelling around the corner - spots Briar, the others, the gate - and keeps going until he knocks the security guard bodily into the grass.
‘Thanks Ben,’ Briar shouts. Ben leans into the booth and slams his fist on the release button, and then just gives them a slightly embarrassed, breathless wave, like he’s hoping Briar won’t make too much of a fuss about it.
They duck under the gate as it’s opening and then they’re on the road; the gentle swell of the hill is ahead of them, and Briar knows that at the top, they’ll find phone signal. Behind them, Bastian pauses briefly, and they hear the gate crashing back to the ground.
Hadley is waiting for them. It seems to take an age to get to her, all of them struggling to breathe, and when they finally reach her, Tate collapses to the ground while Hadley digs in his pocket for his phone.
‘Where’s Eugenia?’
‘I told her to go,’ Hadley says, tapping so violently it’s a wonder the screen doesn’t break.
All those hours of furious texting are finally coming to fruition.
‘It was a miracle she got out with school stuff in her car, I didn’t want her to wait around and push it. Are you signed into his account?’
‘Yep,’ Tate says, closing his eyes and leaning back on his heels, letting her work.
His father, motivational speaker and the inventor of the best industrial wet vac in the business, over a million followers, is unknowingly about to break the biggest story the world has ever seen.
Briar’s phone buzzes in their pocket. Signal.
It’s such a small movement, the press of an invisible button; Hadley’s thumb moves, the post is sent, the video they filmed reading the pledge in Eugenia’s hallway shared, and absolutely nothing changes.
The sky is still thick with cloying summer clouds; the hill still quiet but for the wheat whispering around them; Tate still doubled over, threatening to vomit.
But everything’s about to be so different.
Down on the road, a car horn honks three times in quick succession.
‘For fuck’s sake,’ Eugenia yells up at them, ‘I’ve been driving around in circles like a mad woman waiting for you, and you are playing on a hill? I have a boot full of stolen books and I am not about to die for them. Get in the car, ilíthioi.’
They stumble down the hill, Orpheus almost falling completely until Hadley catches him by the sleeve and yanks him along with her.
Hand on the truck door, Briar takes one last look at Temple: the chimneys just visible over the treeline, the fence that kept them at bay for so many years, the black smoke threatening to destroy it all.
It seems utterly diminished, all its splendour already burnt up.
So much poison has dripped through it, passed from grandfather to father to son.
Maybe that’s why it’s so easy to turn away - or maybe it’s simply that Briar knows, now, that there could be so many more extraordinary things waiting beyond its walls than have ever taken place inside them.
‘Briar motherfucking Jones,’ Eugenia shouts.
Briar gets into the car.