Blood Rebel [COMPLETED]

Chapter Thirty - What kind of life is this?

Selene was drained of every last morsel of energy by the time they got back to the underground hideout. She hadn't bothered to pin up her dress and it had soaked up sewage to her waist and felt as though it weighed more than her own body.

Curtis and Thomas were spilling their edible haul across the floor, to the delight of the others.

"Bread, cheese, ham. We've even got a bit of chocolate!"

The men and Jackie crowded round like children, their excited yelps filling every corner of the concrete box that had become their temporary home. There was so much movement in the room that Selene and Harland's return was not noticed until Harland reached a filthy hand into the scrum for food.

"Harland!" Jackie ran towards him and threw herself against him, her arms too short to reach round his full girth to hug him.

Selene stood a little way off, her back against the door, swaying gently. Her mouth watered at the sight of the food: her crumb of bread had not been enough to sustain the physical and emotional drainage she had endured that morning.

Virgil noticed her first and rushed to her side and slid his arm around her waist, allowing her to fall into him.

"Thank you," she murmured.

"Sit down, here," he said, ushering her over to the sofa.

Even the lumps of the old sofa felt like clouds of silk beneath her tired limbs, and she relaxed into the cushions.

"Jackie, can you pass some bread and cheese for Selene?" Virgil stretched out a hand, waiting for the food to be placed in it.

Selene looked down at her own dirty hands, and didn't want to eat with them, but then she realised she was beyond caring. She took the bread from Virgil, not minding that the white cotton of bread-flesh was stained where she touched it, before tearing bits off and putting them in her mouth.

"You should have seen him, burnt to a living cinder! And with the lights on!" Harland was in mid-flow, regaling the others with details of their encounter with Hector, before Selene was able to concentrate on her surroundings once more.

She watched as his barrel-like chest swayed back and forth, and his laughter gurgled up from the hollow hidden under the muscles. The others watched, captivated by his performance.

"And you know why the lights were on?" Harland paused, chewing on a crust of fresh bread and swallowing it before adding: "Because he's afraid...of the dark!"

Selene watched, horrified, as Harland slapped Curtis on the back and rolled his torso round on the hinge of his pelvis. There were amused splutters and guffaws as they listened to Harland mocking Hector. Selene felt the falseness of his bravado just as she had felt the butt of his gun on her cheek only hours before. Harland had been shocked, afraid, and she was the only one who knew it. She held her tongue.

"He's a wreck. I could have killed him right there, but I didn't want to spoil it for all of you. I want us to share in his destruction! We should all be able to take our shot at Hector Stanley; see him die; see him writhe in the bloody ash of his stolen body!"

The men roared in agreement, laughing and shouting, and fists were thrown into the air like rocks. Harland had roused a vicious rabble, and they didn't care whether or not they were heard. They were men on the verge of a kill; on the verge of a violent success.

"When will it be, Harland?" Asked Thomas, whose hands quivered as he spoke.

"The next full moon. On Hampstead Heath."

"Not for two weeks?" Asked Curtis.

"Central Control will be searching for us now, high and low. If we stay quiet and draw no attention to ourselves the rumpus will have died down, and we will have more chance of making it to Hampstead Heath; more chance of escaping with the boy. There will be fewer guards on the lookout for us."