Chapter 17
The Grimlands proves itself to be the most interesting area of Firecrest altogether.
My jaw drops as I absorb our surroundings. I knew The Grimlands was a horror-themed area, but I didn’t expect to see so many manically decorated and graffitied mannequins. They have been haphazardly spread around the area, blending and blurring with the crowds moving around them.
Settled into the tops of the branches above us sit unsettling, mangled-looking grasshoppers crafted from scrap pieces of metal, spray painted black and grey.
A large fountain spitting muddy water stands in the centre, with more mannequins and strange, tentacled ceramic creatures resting in the water.
I spot on our left The Devil’s Hand stage: the largest stage in the area, renowned for its rock and metal line-ups.
The sprawling space is decorated with even more metal creatures: spiders, centipedes and wasps look as if they’re swarming the stage, glinting with the purple lights that bounce off them.
Hennie is practically giddy at its oddness.
‘Look at that,’ she says, pointing at a tower of old, abandoned golf carts that have been tenuously piled on top of each other.
More tentacles and vines are entwined around them, looking as if they’re holding it all together in a horrifying, apocalyptic image.
A couple happily lounge in the seats of the bottom golf cart cradling acidic-looking yellow cocktails with what appear to be… eyeballs in them.
Owen leans closer to speak in a low voice.
‘Not to alarm anyone, but Elliot and I have noticed that we might have some tagalongs.’
I spin round to see the same two girls from The Lakes earlier hovering awkwardly next to the fountain. There’s a decent amount of space between us, perhaps the perfect distance to trail someone without detection.
‘I think they’ve been following us since this morning and hoping we’ll lead them to each clue,’ Elliot mutters.
‘What?’ Josh starts to walk backwards, eyeing them with disdain. ‘Horrible little rats, they’re fucking mooching off us?’
‘Yep, seems like it,’ Owen says, with a similar sourness.
‘Not on my watch.’ Hennie’s eyes are alight with fierce determination. ‘How do we lose them?’
Owen is still leading the group, walking painfully slowly so as not to alert our followers where we’re heading.
‘Do we just wait around for a while, hope that they lose interest and fuck off?’ Josh asks.
‘I don’t know if we have time for that… if we wait around we’re just letting someone else get closer to winning,’ I say, my voice plagued with worry.
Elliot’s head whips back to check if the girls are still dawdling behind us.
‘Okay,’ he says, slowing to a stop. ‘If we all split up and go in separate directions, they won’t know where to go. They have no idea where we’re heading, right?’
‘Yes, I like it,’ Hennie agrees. ‘And then we all meet at the Jungle?’
‘Won’t they just follow one of us there though?’ I ask, raising a brow at Elliot.
He’s wearing a smile dripping with mischief. ‘Not if we run.’
‘Run?’ I frown. ‘Like, with speed?’
‘Sure,’ he says, looking amused. ‘That would kind of be the point. Easier to lose them that way.’
The others nod in agreement as Hennie and I audibly groan at the prospect of exercise.
‘Nice idea, Walker. Right, let’s all meet outside Rolo’s,’ Owen says. ‘Take your time to lose them if you need to. Just be sure they’re not following you when we meet. My guess is they’ll go after Elliot and Nora as you’re the originals, and there’s two of you.’
We nod briskly.
‘Got it. Okay, everyone act normal,’ Josh whispers, taking a sweeping and exaggerated step forward.
A puff of laughter escapes me at the idea of normal. Normal is a distant memory.
The path we’re walking on is wooden, criss-crossed with graffiti and strange scratches – all part of the theme, I assume. It forks off into three different directions at the end, with signs pointing to the Jungle, Maggie’s Field, and the other to the Firecrest stage.
‘I’m gonna run straight to Jungle, then to Yellow Camp if they follow me,’ Owen says quietly. ‘Nora and Elliot, you head to Maggie’s Field, and Hennie and Josh can go to the Firecrest stage. If you split up too, it’ll be easy enough to lose them there.’
Josh salutes, bouncing on his heels as he walks. ‘Aye.’
‘Alright, see you at Rolo’s, team.’
We reach the end of the path and hesitate for a moment, people immediately bristling at the disturbance in pedestrian flow and stepping around us. The air around us seems to still as we wait.
‘Scatter!’ Owen hisses. Before he’s even finished the word, I feel my arm being torn to my right as Elliot takes off at a furious pace and my legs stumble trying to keep up with him.
I squeal with the surge of adrenaline, gripping onto the drumstick for dear life, and try not to think about how many people are staring at us in bewilderment.
‘Come on, princess,’ Elliot encourages me as my breath starts to rush out in pathetic huffs.
We run past a section of toilets and fly straight under a flowery pink and yellow painted sign that reads: Maggie’s Field.
‘Be careful!’ I shout as Elliot pulls me around a set of parents clutching toddlers and children.
Joyful shouts and sudden screeching hits us from all sides, and I recall that Maggie’s Field is the area created specifically for children and families. To my left I see a sprawling sandpit, a cinema tent and a playground hosting perilously long swings hanging freely from tree branches.
Elliot slows his pace as the path inevitably starts to fill with more and more children and prams. I turn around to check if the girls followed us after all, and see the flurry of long blond hair move towards us in the crowd.
‘Yep, they’re following us,’ I confirm with a glare, as Elliot continues to weave us quickly but carefully through the endless horde.
‘Shit,’ he snarls. ‘Let’s head straight to the Green Camp and hope we lose them there.’
He takes a sharp right and takes off down another path brimming with people, his gaze turning to check me over briefly in an imperceptible flash of blue.
Leading us both to the very edge of the path, he expertly darts and weaves between endless groups of people. The crowd is less dense on the edge of the paths, but it means more work and moving around to avoid colliding with someone.
I feel my body suddenly start to topple backwards as my foot slides on something under me. My other hand grabs onto Elliot’s wrist in a panic, catching myself just in time before I land directly on a mayonnaise-drenched carton. He pauses mid-step to steady me and pulls me back upright firmly.
‘You okay?’
I nod breathlessly. ‘Thanks.’
Without responding, he turns and continues to move through the crowds.
‘Do you have a visual?’ he calls back to me.
‘Do I have a what?’
‘Can you see them?’ he barks.
Turning back to assess our surroundings, there’s only a blur of dozens and dozens of faces I don’t recognise.
‘I can’t tell!’ I report.
The Maggie’s Fields’ exit leads straight into the Green Camp, and I look around us to spot a batch of food stalls and toilets sitting just before a never-ending rolling hill of tents. Elliot moves us to the side as his gaze darts around the area, his chest rising and falling heavily.
‘We need to hide,’ he says with a frown.
‘We can’t keep running?’
‘They’ll spot where we go immediately if we go up that path.’
He’s right. The path ahead is almost deserted; we would practically be in a spotlight. He starts to move again and I check behind us to see if our followers have successfully stuck to us. No sign of them yet.
I feel a tug on the stick and find myself being pulled towards a small gap between two food stalls.
‘What are we doing?’ I squeak.
‘Hiding, come on,’ he says, beckoning me in. Biting my lip, I hesitate. I turn back one more time to check if the girls are still behind us and with a jolt, I spot a tell-tale green dress and blonde head.
Darting in between the food stalls, I squeeze myself in between Elliot and the wall. Unfortunately, it is… tighter than I expected.
‘Sorry,’ I gasp as I press myself against him to get out of sight.
The drumstick still hangs by our hips – but every other part of me is pressed tightly against Elliot’s hard frame.
The unfamiliar exertion of running on my body means that my breaths are still coming out in heavy pants, making my chest heave and creating even more friction between us.
And the pressure of his body is making it difficult to compose myself.
Oh God. Please stop reacting to this man. He is just a man.
Trying to wriggle away from him slightly does not yield much of a result, but it does elicit a very quiet, strangled intake of breath from him. He looks like he wants to die.
Which is fair. So do I.
For some reason, he absolutely refuses to look anywhere near me. He’s probably embarrassed. He should be. This was clearly a terrible idea.
I just wish we weren’t such a similar height – his warm breath is tickling my lips and tiny wisps of his hair keep brushing against my forehead.
It feels like he’s everywhere. My senses are overwhelmed with the scent of him, the feel of him.
How his arm brushes against mine in rhythm with his breathing.
The way his hip grazes my own, as much as I try to prevent it.
A troubling thought strikes me: I don’t want to be that girl, the one who starts trembling at the first sign of physical contact with Elliot Walker.
The idea of him picking up on my heated reaction and feeling pity towards me as a result is unbearable.
Finally getting a hold on my breathing, I steady myself.