Wanted (Flick Carter Book 1) (38 page)

It could only have been a fraction of a second that she’d stood there, for the armoured men were still coming towards them. They stopped and inspected the bodies.

‘Not them, keep looking,’ one said.

Shea motioned her to stay still and they waited silently for the Kingsmen to go.
 

‘If Griffin’s thugs don’t get us, the Kingsmen will,’ Flick said despondently.

‘Don’t give up hope,’ Shea said, giving her arm a squeeze.

They crept on along the side of the building. ‘This looks like it was the main terminal, I’ll bet they are in here somewhere,’ Shea said.

There were no windows low enough that they could see in, but eventually they found a door that wasn’t locked. Inside was a long featureless corridor. The door swung shut with a clunk, and plunged them into darkness.

‘Candles!’ said Flick, ‘I knew there was something we’d forget!’

‘Just feel your way along the wall,’ Shea said.

After a dozen or so metres the corridor turned a corner.

‘Ow! Stairs!’ Flick cried out as she walked straight into them and fell forward. Her bow clattered on the floor. She scrabbled about for it, and slung it over her shoulder. ‘I guess I won’t need it now.’

The stairs turned another corner, and light filtered down from windows high above them. Soon it was light enough to see their way. Eventually they reached a large open space, filled with lines of pillars. One wall was glazed from floor to ceiling, and looked out over the grassy field that they had so recently crossed. Shadows of people played through a large plastic curtain. Flick tapped Shea on the shoulder, pointed, and held a finger to her lips. He nodded.

They crept forward and moved the curtain carefully aside. There were five chairs facing away from them, only two of which were empty.

‘Hannah, Jules, Chas, it’s me, Flick,’ she said, rushing to them. The figures squirmed and wriggled as soon as they heard her voice. She drew her knife and started cutting at the ropes, and Shea did the same.

She heard the sound of a gun being cocked, and froze.

‘Ah Felicity, so nice of you to join us.’ The voice was oh so familiar; it had haunted her nightmares for weeks.

Griffin
. She froze.

‘You keep turning up
alive
. Such a disappointment.’ He waved the gun at her.

‘And Mr O’Connell too,’ he continued. ‘Although I was expecting you to come in by the front door, not skulking around the back. But ten out of ten for resourcefulness.’

Griffin stepped out of the shadows. He had a revolver pointed at her. She recognised Ron Welch among his henchmen, but said nothing.

‘Drop the weapons. Didn’t your parents tell you that children shouldn’t play with knives?’ They clattered to the ground. He waved to his henchmen who kicked the knives away before grabbing hold of Flick and Shea.

Ron hissed in Flick’s ear, ‘Hello Carter, I’m going to enjoy killing you.’

‘Not so hasty Ronald, all in good time,’ Griffin said genially.

He looked at Flick. ‘My own boy was such a…
disappointment
. But young Ronald here is a delight. I’m thinking of adopting him, you know. It’s so important to have good parents, don’t you think?’

Griffin looked at her quizzically.

‘Oh I was forgetting, your parents are dead. I had such fun killing them too. And your sweet little sister. I had such fun killing her.’

That sounded wrong, Flick thought. Surely they’d died in the fire? Griffin hadn’t killed them himself, had he?
 

‘You bastard!’ It came out as a whisper, yet was filled with all the venom she could muster. She tried to wrench herself free, but Ron’s grip was too tight, and the sudden pain from the wound in her side made her scream in agony.

Griffin sat in a chair opposite and placed the gun on a low table. ‘Now Ronald. Take your time, savour the moment. I shall watch and enjoy.’

Flick steeled herself for the end. Ron’s face was right up against hers. She could feel the warmth from his skin, feel the moist dampness of his breath and smell the awful stench of it. She felt the cold steel of his knife against her neck and shut her eyes.
I’m coming Rosie
.

‘AMELIA!’ The shout took Flick completely by surprise, and evidently surprised Ron too, because the knife disappeared from her throat. There was a loud crash, and Flick opened her eyes to see Ron falling to the floor under a pile of broken chair legs.

‘Well, come on then Flick, don’t just stand there!’ It was Hannah. She must have worked herself free from the partly cut ropes while no one was looking. She handed Flick the knife.

Griffin was reaching for his gun, an angry roar bellowing from his mouth. Flick launched herself at him, but staggered from the impact of a blow from someone she didn’t see, and dropped to her knees. A boot made contact with her and she toppled, momentarily senseless.

‘Touched a nerve did we?’ Griffin smirked.

There was a loud crash as the doors at the far end of the room burst open and the room filled with black figures. Shots rang out.

‘Nobody move!’ a female voice barked, ‘Everyone down on the ground!’

Flick stayed on the ground where she was, but slowly felt along the floor for her knife. The room lit up as something flashed, and there were several incredibly loud bangs, but she ignored them as she grabbed the knife. She looked up just in time to see Shea throw his knife at one of the black figures. There was a bright flash and another bang, and she watched, stunned as Shea stopped, surprise registering on his face. There was a little red flower on his shirt, and as it grew bigger, he looked at her and sank to his knees.

‘Shea! No!’ She screamed. She turned and saw the figure, the red-haired Kingsman woman, with the gun in her hand. She raised her knife to throw it and there was another voice shouting.
 

‘Flick! No! Stop!’

It sounded familiar.

Adam?

What was he doing here?

From the corner of her eye she saw Griffin. He was getting away. She couldn’t have that, no matter what. She launched herself at him. She saw the flash from the muzzle of the gun and felt the searing pain, but she was close, so close. Her knife made contact and she felt the hot spray of his life gush onto her skin as everything went black.

Adam raised his hands. His throat went dry as he looked into the black depths of the gun barrels. ‘Don’t…’ he managed to croak.

Then the barrels all dropped. ‘Nice of you gentlemen to join us.’ It was Dixon. ‘We’re splitting into teams,’ she said. ‘We’ll go to the top and work our way down, that way no one will surprise us from behind. Anyone surrenders, tie ‘em up and tag ‘em. If they resist, you know what to do. Right, move out.’

They nodded, and quickly climbed the stairs to the top, dispersing into teams and searching from room to room. In between the calls of ‘Clear!’ Adam heard occasional exchanges of gunfire, but each time the silence that followed was filled with another call of ‘Clear!’
 

‘Top floor is secure.’

‘Good work, men.’ Dixon nodded as they moved down to the next level.
 

The third floor they reached was at the bottom of a double flight of stairs. ‘This must be the main departures and arrivals hall,’ Dixon said. They checked the corridors, and that just left the big hall, with two sets of double doors. Lieutenant Dixon gingerly pushed the doors open a crack and peeped inside before ducking back to cover.

‘I counted nine, including at least three civilians tied up. Now fire only on my command, unless fired upon. Is that understood?’

Everyone nodded.

‘Good. We go on three. One… Two… Three!’

They rushed in. Initially the people at the far end of the room seemed oblivious of them, but Dixon fired three rounds into the ceiling, and that seemed to grab their attention.

‘Nobody move!’ she barked. ‘Everyone down on the ground!’

People dropped, but not all of them. Some were tied to chairs and obviously couldn’t move. Adam saw that several of the people appeared to be fighting, and were oblivious to their presence. Then he saw one of them had a knife and started to throw it in their direction. In a flash, Dixon raised her gun and let off a round. The figure dropped. One of the other fighters screamed. It was a woman. She sounded familiar…
Flick!
Then he saw she had a knife and was about to throw it.

He shouted, desperately against the noise, ‘Flick! No! Stop!’

But she wasn’t throwing the knife at them, she was attacking one of the others.

It was still too late and a second shot rang out and they both dropped in a spray of blood.

Adam screamed, ‘No! Flick…’

He ran across the room towards where she lay, oblivious to everyone and everything else. There was shouting and there were shots, but he didn’t care; he just ignored them. He knelt down beside his sister and pulled her off the body of the man she’d been attacking. She was drenched in blood but he held her gently and cradled her in his arms.

‘I’m sorry, Flick,’ he sobbed. ‘I’m so, so, sorry.’ Tears ran down his face, and a tear dripped onto Flick’s cheek. He wiped it off tenderly and reached down and kissed her forehead.

He didn’t know how long he’d knelt there, but at some point he’d become aware that the man Flick had attacked was George Griffin. He was clearly dead; Flick’s knife was still sticking out of his throat. But he didn’t care.

 
Arms grabbed him and pulled him away. Two men appeared with a stretcher and placed Flick onto it before whisking her body off somewhere. Only then did Adam become aware of who was holding him.

It was Lieutenant Dixon.

‘You shot her!’ he sobbed. Then he turned around to face her, and screamed with all his might. ‘You shot her!’

She slapped him hard around the face, ‘Pull yourself together, soldier! Of course I didn’t.’

Her words didn’t register as he caught a movement out of the corner of his eye.

‘Bastards, you killed him!’ a voice said.

‘Ron?’

Adam realised too late that the blood stained figure had a gun in his hand. He raised it and fired.

FLICK SLOWLY BECAME aware of a white light.

So this is what it’s like being dead
, she thought.

Then she gradually became aware of more things. Pain. Her jaw hurt, her chest felt like it had been sat on by an elephant, her arms and hands hurt. Her feet didn’t hurt. She guessed that was a blessing at least. Something… was stuck to her arm. She opened her eyes and blinked. She was lying on her back in a room. It was a strange room, white, sterile, like a hospital. That was it; she was in a hospital.

Then the memories started coming back. The fight, the Kingsmen, Shea, Adam. She struggled to sit up.

‘Shea!’ she croaked.

‘Easy now.’

There was someone else in the room. A woman. She had long blonde hair.

Rosie?
No, it couldn’t be, she was too old.

‘What happened?’ Flick managed to say.

‘You’ve been in surgery, but you should recover fully. The effects of the anaesthetic will make you woozy for a while, but it’ll soon wear off.’

‘Surgery?’

‘You were shot. You lost a lot of blood.’

‘Shot… I remember.’

She looked at the other woman in the room, the red-haired one lurking by the door. ‘It was you. You shot me.’

’Not guilty I’m afraid. I shot the man you were attacking.’

‘But… I felt…’

‘You had already been shot before, and the effort of the attack, not to mention the kicking you had just received was enough to rupture your wound.’

‘Griffin?’

‘Is dead. I shot him. But you stabbed him. Both wounds were equally fatal, so I shall award the kill to you.’ She smiled graciously.

Flick relaxed. Griffin was dead.

‘Lieutenant Dixon.’ The woman introduced herself. She nodded at the nurse, who left the room. ‘We have met before, but under equally… trying circumstances.’
 

‘Shea? Adam?’ Flick muttered.

‘Shea is outside. He is hurt like you, but he will also make a full recovery. Adam…’ her voice trailed off. ‘I’m sorry. One of Griffin’s henchmen managed to hide a gun.’ She took Flick’s hand and held it. Flick just stared blankly, not taking it in.

‘We do have one or two formalities,’ Lieutenant Dixon told Flick a few days later. ‘Technically you are under arrest, and for practical purposes that means you may not leave the hospital. There will have to be a new trial, but that should just be a formality.’

There was a knock on the door, and the nurse entered. She whispered something to the lieutenant, who nodded.

‘It seems even the threat of death can’t keep him away. I’ll leave you two alone.’

As the lieutenant left the room she called out, ‘Only a few minutes now, she still needs her rest.’

Shea sat down beside Flick and took hold of her hand. She smiled up at him.

‘Hey,’ he said.

Lieutenant Dixon banged her gavel on the desk and brought the courtroom to order. They were back in the upper room of the tiny town hall-come-jail in the middle of Faringdon, and Flick was back in the dock. Only this time she was not chained, nor in rags. It was a month now since the events in Bristol, and most of her injuries had healed, although she still had bandages around her ribs under the white blouse she was wearing. Her new supple tan leather fitted suit was a gift from the people of the town, many of whom were crammed into the two small benches of the gallery, or standing outside in the square. They would have filled the room and the stairs if Lieutenant Dixon hadn’t put her foot down and ordered them out.

She recognised Fred and Stanley and Maggie sitting in the front row of the gallery and waved. Maggie patted the noticeable bulge in her belly as she waved back. Flick gave her a little grin and a thumbs up.

Lieutenant Dixon banged her gavel again, dragging Flick’s attention back to the proceedings. ‘Defendant will rise!’ she commanded, although her voice was not harsh.

Flick stood.

‘On the charges that the you did, on the night of the eighth of May, in the year of our lord twenty-three eighty-three set fire to the Crown inn and thereby cause the death of Nicholas Carter and Rosie Carter, how do you plead?’