Alex Palmer - Blood Redemption

The back door opened and he appeared there in silhouette. He was looking, it seemed, straight at her. She was certain that he had seen her and raised her gun, waiting for him to come towards her. He did not.

He shut and locked the door behind him and walked quickly up the stairs, to his room. In the half light she could see that he was carrying a small white paper bag, something round and compact. A fit, was Lucy’s instinctive thought, the kind you get free and anonymously from the needle exchange. She was certain that it was intended for her.

She did not wait. She went to the back door and shot the lock open, stepped out into the cold night air and sprinted down the alleyway towards the street, still holding onto her gun. As she reached the end of the lane, she heard what seemed to be a shout behind her, a strange guttural sound, but she did not stop to look back. She cut her way breathlessly past narrow rows of terraced houses, sprinting silently on the tips of her toes. As she ran, she heard a car behind her, its engine suddenly engaged. Its lights caught her briefly as she ran and she sped up, reaching the Peace Park on Church Street, coming through a small grove of eucalyptus trees to the sandstone wall bordering the cemetery at St Stephen’s Church. There she lost the strength to run any further.

She collapsed on the ground, dropping her pack, and leaned against the wall, curling into the stone out of the light.

She crouched there, gathering breath and looking back at the small grove of trees but no one appeared after her. Her lungs were burning.

Still on the edge of panic she thought of Greg, and putting down her gun she reached into an outside pocket of her pack for her mobile phone. Her hands shaking she rang Wheelo’s, more out of hope than expectation that Greg would be there. She looked around at the empty park with its sparse lights as she waited for someone to answer her call. Someone would answer sometime, they always did. Someone was always awake. With her free hand, she held onto the butt of her gun.

‘Yeah?’ a female voice eventually said.

‘I was looking for Greg,’ she replied.

‘Yeah, who’s this?’

‘It’s Luce. Is that Jade?’

‘Yeah. He’s not here, Luce. He went out with Wheelo. He said he was going for a joy ride, he knew this car he could get hold of. They were going to torch it, I think. That’s what I thought I heard them say, anyway.’

Shit! Lucy thought. ‘When?’

‘I dunno. A while ago now. But I think the pigs got Greg, because some of them came sniffing around here for Wheelo just this little while back. Mick told me to stay out of the way but I think that’s what I heard them saying. So if they got Greggie, that means he’s going back in again.

So you can’t get him. Unless you want to go and see him up at Kariong.’

Lucy was silent.

‘You still there, Luce?’ said the voice.

‘When you see Wheelo, you tell him from me that I rang looking for Greggie, okay? And if he sees Greggie, he should tell him that he’s got to be careful. Really careful. Tell him he’s not to go back to the refuge ever again, okay? Tell him exactly that. Just say it’s not safe.’

Jade sounded surprised. ‘Yeah, if you want.’

Lucy did not believe Jade would remember to do any of this. She cut the connection without another word. She had no energy left and her head was bathed in sweat.

Back to the cells for you now, Greggie. I can’t get to you there, it’s too dangerous. Just believe I’m thinking about you in there. They’ll shave your head again and they’ll take away your beanie and, if you’re lucky, they’ll give it back to you when they let you go again. Whenever that is.

Graeme won’t be able to get you out of there this time. This time, for the first time, you might even be safer in there. Just for now anyway.

Someone would tell Graeme what had happened; it wouldn’t be her.

The woman from Family Services, Ria, would call him if no one else.

Or the police. He would be angry when he was told, very angry.

Thinking of this, she almost smiled. Then a giddiness took hold of her and she leaned back against the wall. She felt cold, a residual wave of the drug was travelling through her bloodstream. The telephone slipped out of her hand and fell to the ground. Having nowhere else to put it, she pushed her gun into the outer pocket of her backpack and buttoned her jacket tightly around her, hugging herself. She wanted to run but could only sit there unable to move, feeling her eyes closing against her will. She had no strength.

She was breathing deeply and was part way between waking and unconsciousness when, even in the dark, she became aware that there was a shadow across her face and someone was leaning over her. She could hear and then feel their breath. She forced herself awake, not quite screaming, plucking desperately at her pack.

‘Luce! What do you think you’re doing? It’s only me.’

Stephen’s voice and her perception of who it was were simultaneous.

Unnerved, she sat up slowly.

‘Stevie, please don’t ever do that to me again,’ she said. ‘I was so frightened just then.’

‘You frightened me too.’

He smiled nervously and hunkered down close to her. The empty park and the dark streets of Newtown stretched around them.

‘Shit, Luce. Look at you. What have you done to yourself?’ he said, and touched her forehead which was damp with perspiration. ‘Are you all right? You look like — I thought you were clean. Has that all changed, has it?’

She did not immediately answer him. She tried to smile but could not.

‘No,’ she said, ‘this was something I really didn’t want to take.’

This particular truth sounded strange in her mouth, like the taste of metal on the tongue.

‘God, Luce, you take some risks. I never know what I’m going to hear about you next.’

‘I do, don’t I?’ she said a little shakily. ‘Chasing me around, are you?’

‘I must be.’ He spoke quietly, looking around them. ‘You know that guy you told me about, the preacher? I went and saw him yesterday evening but he said you weren’t around. He threw me out, I thought he was going to break my wrist. Where were you?’

Lucy said nothing. She swallowed some leftover fear and shook her head. Stephen’s glasses had slipped down over the bridge of his nose.

He pushed them back.

‘When you came out of there,’ he said, ‘you were running so fast. I tried to get after you in the car but you just ran. I thought I saw — did you have something in your hand? I didn’t know if … ’

He stopped.

‘No. That was just me being me,’ Lucy said. ‘I was being paranoid.

I get like that.’

‘I heard — I don’t know … Did you hear a shot or something? Was I dreaming? Did you hear — ’

‘I didn’t hear anything, Stevie. I wasn’t listening.’

He looked at her where she sat against the wall, her jacket pulled around her, then sat on the grass beside her, stretching out his damaged leg. The glow of the park lights touched on his pronounced forehead, his straight dark hair.

‘I’ve got to deal with Dad, Luce. And he’s dying. I don’t have the energy for anything else. You have to tell me that you’re not in any sort of trouble and there’s nothing that’s going to make the shit hit the fan.

I can’t deal with it if there is.’

‘Dad?’ Lucy interrupted him. ‘He sent you running around town looking for me? Wouldn’t you know it? He wasn’t going to come looking for me himself.’

‘He can’t, Luce. He can hardly move. He says he wants to see you before he dies. He keeps at it, he won’t let it go. If you don’t come, it’ll be the last thing he ever says to anyone. We’ll all be standing around and the only thing he’ll say is that you’re not there.’