Eutopia - Apocalypse

Chapter 15

‘You can’t leave.’

            ‘What?’

            ‘You can’t leave,’ Jinn repeated calmly, as Eutopia reached for the front door. She’d crept down the stairs, her bare feet silent on the smooth wooden floor, but Jinn had caught the shadow of her movement from the kitchen.

            ‘It’s nearly curfew,’ he said, appearing in the doorway with his arms folded and nodding towards the glass window that ran the length of the front door, where the sun was indeed setting amidst a burnt orange glow. ‘You step one foot outside and the Night Watch will be all over you. The flight paths here are different to the Wolds, Horace’s magic steps won’t be able to help you this time. Plus the fact that I’ve singled you out as mine now.’ He shrugged, almost nonchalantly.

            Eutopia’s hand shot up to the metal encircling her throat now warmed by the heat from her skin.

            ‘What do you mean?’ she demanded, whirling around so that her back was to the door and her full blown confusion was flung at Jinn.

            ‘If they get the chance to see that collar before they kill you, they’ll just bring you straight back to me. Noli me tangere, it says. They’ll know you’re mine.’

            ‘Yours?’ Eutopia spat, ‘I am nobody’s but my own! Your mark or no mark, you have no power over me.’ She reached for the door again, but Jinn’s heavy hand was laid on hers and prevented her from wrenching it open.

            ‘I have the power of life and death over you and your kind. This world is ours now. Humanity is alive only because we allow it; you had your chance in the sun and you got burnt. Now it’s our time to revel in the light,’ he said, lowly.

            ‘Good,’ Eutopia half smirked, her eyes blazing as she pulled her hand out from beneath Jinn’s. ‘I would rather live in darkness for all eternity than live in your gilded cage.’

            Before Jinn could stop her Eutopia was out of the front door and stumbling with the force of her momentum into the dying day. The half-light, tinged gold by the setting sun, was a welcome relief to her from the gloom she hadn’t noticed settling inside until that moment. The last warmth of the rays that was rapidly seeping away with the light had woken the heady scent of honeysuckle somewhere in the undergrowth around her and Eutopia closed her eyes for a moment as she drew in the familiar smell. It stirred the sharp edge of nostalgia around her heart, making her wince. The cottage she had grown up in had been draped in the stuff. She briefly wondered whether she would ever see that cottage again. Turning around to see if she was being followed, Eutopia saw Jinn watching her from the doorway, his arms were folded again and he didn’t look as though he were about to drag her back or go out of his way to follow her. Good, she thought as she turned back to the overgrown path that wound through the wild tangles of hawthorn and blackberry bushes. But before her foot had a chance to fall upon the stony ground her stomach lurched and her long hair whipped wildly in her eyes. Eutopia squawked in alarm, the whoosh of cold air that suddenly blew into her face forced the breath from her lungs and made her gasp as she watched the ground spiralling away from her.