city of anarchy

chapter twenty-two

Hermes stepped over Cabbot and threw himself shoulder-first into the direction in which the doctor had glanced. He hit the white door in question, which shuddered but did not yield. Taking a step back, he levelled his gun at it, but paused, blinking, and then tried the door handle. The abused door opened willingly.

He stepped inside the bedroom, Carmella abandoning the doctor and jogging after him. Sheets had been dragged over the back end of the bed and pulled towards an open window, from which the back of Jella Turnfly, gradually tilting forward, receded in slow motion.

Carmella gasped. 'Quick!' she cried, running to the window. 'Somebody get a trampoline!'

Hermes instead tore the sheets the rest of the way off the bed, ran out of the room and descended the stairs, the nurse running after him. They heaved open the front door and unfurled the sheets, positioning themselves below Jella's dreamlike head-over-heels tumble.

At the window above, Dr Cabbot stared down.

When Jella landed in the bedsheets, it was almost graceful. But then, coming back to normal speed, she fought it--fought it like a mad cat, limbs flailing, with the result that she tore the sheet from their grip and managed to wrap and tangle it around herself.

She panicked and stumbled blindly, a small circle of sheet popping in and out over the hole of her muffled, screaming mouth. Then she managed to trip through the gap between Hermes and the nurse and flee meanderingly down the suburban street.

Hermes raced after her, cursing as he found himself once again hobbling on his bad leg, and tried to grab hold of her in the slapping flurry of white. Jella's wail rose to a shriek and she began to rotate as a last resort. 'Fuck off!' she said.

The nurse hurried over, found her arm and subdued her by twisting it. Jella struggled on the ground, but Carmella took her by the armpits while Hermes grabbed her thrusting legs.

'Calm down,' Jella,' the nurse said. 'I know you're scared, but we're going to sort everything out.' And to Hermes, 'Let's take her back inside.'

* * *

Talk in the warehouse was animated, jovial and excited, as the Dark Circlers put on their flimsy novelty capes and tied them proudly around their necks.

Holly looked about in wonder. Even her own ever-ready scorn was inexplicably held in check by the sight, by what she felt was complete inappropriateness. She stood very still, curling and uncurling her fingers, feeling very tense. She could not understand their levity; how they could fail to take such a mission seriously. Or if they were taking it seriously, she did not trust their expression of it. Those capes--how could she take it seriously?

Eugene, likewise, looked doubtful and more than a little put off.

Holly spotted Vann going over some of the mission's finer details with Salvo, put her thoughts into physical motion and walked over to him. He ended the conversation and turned to meet her.

'Before you ask,' he said, 'and while we all appreciate your eagerness, I'm afraid you're going to have to sit this one out. This is an important mission, a tough mission, and I haven't decided if you're a bona fide Dark Circler just yet. For a start, you still need to be properly initiated. You haven't undergone the process.'

Holly opened her mouth to impatiently dismiss the process, but decided against it. She did not want to get drawn into that mysticism again.

'Did France find my scooter?' she asked instead.

'Yes.'

'Are you using it?'

'Yes.'

'Then I'll drive it.'

'Nope,' Vann said. 'I'm driving it.'

Holly glared. Vann looked infuriatingly amused again. 'It's cute,' he said. 'Really. But that has to be my answer.'

'You're using it as a getaway vehicle,' Holly persisted. 'One that nobody will notice. Who's it for?'

Vann's grin retreated a little. 'What d'you mean?' he asked.

'I don't think everybody in this room is going to fit on one scooter,' Holly said. 'And even if they could, the people you'll be trying to get away from--the police officers, the ones that survive--they'll see it happening. You're going to divert their attention with everybody else. There's someone in particular you're trying to break out, isn't there?'

Vann nodded. 'Russ and Dorz,' he said.

She stared at him.

Vann's grin flourished again. 'We look after our own,' he told her. 'If the police come after us, we can handle ourselves. Dorz and Russ, as you know, were never fully initiated either. So the less attention that's on them, the better.'

'And who's going to mind the scooter while you're all in there fighting?' Holly said. 'Or are you just going to be stood there waiting around?' She paused to let this sink in; Vann looked thoughtful. 'Let me do it,' she said. 'I owe it to Dorz and...and Russ. Then, if you really want, you can take over the driving when you come back out.'

She stood there in suspense, hanging in hope to the victory of getting him to think it through.

'You stay out of sight,' he said eventually. 'Park it down the road away from the building, facing it in the opposite direction to the cars. Your friend, Eugene--he stays here with Salvo. Now go and get ready. And don't disappoint me, Holly.'

Holly swelled with importance, excitement and a sudden, reprehensive wave of apprehension. She breathed out what she hoped would be taken as a sigh of relief. Then she nodded and strode meaningfully, and somewhat despite herself, over to the box of capes.

* * *

Agent Carmella drew the curtains; one thing, at least, that Dr Cabbot felt he could be grateful for in the whole situation as he continued to feel at the swollen bridge of his nose. At this point it was likely too much to hope that the neighbours had seen nothing.

Jella had been tied to a kitchen chair and placed facing the others on the sofas to form a ring of conversation. Hermes was slouched in his seat. The nurse switched on the light, picked up the file of notes the doctor had grudgingly brought down from his study, and likewise made herself comfortable, perched on the edge of the sofa with her knees and toes together.

For a while the conversation did not happen as Carmella quietly leafed through the notes. When she was done, she passed them over to Hermes.

'It makes for interesting reading,' she said, frowning.

The notes did not make much sense to Hermes. The details--dark rooms, hypnosis, sleep--felt vague and irrelevant. They told him nothing.

Jella looked at them both miserably.

'This Bourne Umbel,' Carmella addressed her, 'which may, of course, not be his real name--you really didn't know him?'

Jella shook her head.

'A scientist,' the nurse muttered, thoughtfully.

'That's what he told me,' Jella said. 'It was all a trap, though. I was tricked into everything.'

'I believe you,' the nurse said. 'Though that doesn't do much good for our lead. And you don't remember anything that happened to you between...missing the train and waking up in hospital?'

Jella shook her head again. 'No,' she said.

Carmella turned to Hermes. 'Your thoughts, Agent?'

'This Umbel,' Hermes said. 'What did he look like?'

Jella shrugged in her bonds. 'Blond hair, slicked back. Pale--'

'The Electric Man,' Hermes said, setting the notes aside. 'That'll be why he kidnapped you. He wanted you back.'

Jella looked from Hermes to Carmella and back again. 'What are you talking about? The Electric Man?'

'He took you from us when we were bringing you back to the Tower, after you fell,' Carmella explained.

'He found me?' Jella cried.

'Somehow I doubt he ever lost you.'

'And you let them take her?' Dr Cabbot interjected. 'You were supposed to protect her! That's why I entrusted her to you! How did she escape your building in the first place?'

'That was unfortunate,' Carmella replied coldly. 'Jella proved more capable--or more desperate--than we expected.'

'She told me you interrogated her with a chainsaw!'

'That was Avgi,' Hermes said. 'She does that to everyone.'

The doctor gaped. 'The ringleader of irresponsibility and incompetence!' he declared. 'And where is she now, to explain herself?'

There was a pause. 'We don't know,' the nurse replied quietly.

The doctor gaped a little more. Incredulity silenced him; he folded his arms and looked away.

Carmella sighed. 'Leastways it doesn't matter now, as far as you're concerned. The Electric Man--Bourne Umbel--is dead. You're safe.'

The room became uncomfortably silent. Then Hermes asked, 'So what's it like?'

The other three looked at him. He was looking at Jella, who stared back fearfully. 'What's what like?' her voice quivered. 'Being tied to this chair?'

Hermes did not reply. She knew what he meant. She sniffed tearfully and said, finally, 'Wrong. It's all wrong.'

* * *

The warehouse skylight slid back and the cannon extended with a mechanical whirr until it protruded a little above the roof.

Holly breathed deeply for the millionth time. The chatter of the Dark Circlers around her had quietened and become a focused murmur.

Holly tried to ignore the nauseous, squirming feeling in her gut. She was scared, bordering on terrified--a terror that was only held back by her persistent denial, on some sensible level, of the fact of the matter: that they were raiding HQ, Commander Brutt's stronghold.

She tightened the knot in her cape. Eugene had already asked what she was doing and struggled to accept his exclusion, choosing instead to sit in gloomy silence. Holly stopped looking over to him when she got sick of his face doing a perfect job or mirroring her own apprehension.

The minutes stretched long when she had nothing to do but wait around, to pace her little space without disturbing the often scary-looking individuals who were busy getting themselves pumped up for the action around her.

Eventually she sat down beside Eugene and watched Salvo across the room making his final adjustments to the cannon. The anxiousness that had been wringing her insides settled into an uncomfortable, gently fluctuating but otherwise background torment for a while, until Vann called out in a voice that wrung and twisted her anew.

'Alright!' he said. 'We're getting ready to move out. You all know where you're supposed to be. Do whatever Salvo tells you, unless I already told you that you're coming with me, in which case--get to your vehicles!'

Holly stood and only stared at him when he made his way through the others towards her.

'Your scooter's outside,' he said. 'All ready for you when you're ready for it.'

Holly nodded. She waited for him to walk on, but instead he appeared to be waiting for her. Conscious of his gaze, she turned to Eugene, who also got to his feet. She lingered to take in his worried face; then she embraced him.

'Holly--'

'I'll be right back,' she said, and stepped away.

She walked with Vann across the warehouse, feeling absurd in her cape. On the way, Aura passed and smiled a preoccupied smile. 'Have fun,' the girl said.

Holly attempted a smile and nodded back. She and Vann and a group of others left the warehouse and looked up at the rapidly darkening sky. The asphalt courtyard was now filled with cars; the Dark Circlers moved between and began to fill them, then starting the slow crawl, to a chorus of happy, honking horns, through the narrow exit.

'Over there,' Vann said, pointing to the scooter. It leaned against the warehouse wall. 'Let me know if you have any problems with it.'

Holly's shaking hands gripped the handles of the scooter, tried to squeeze some of its old normality out of it. She felt isolated from the others, and though the motor scooter started up just fine she began to panic as the procession of cars started trickling away.

Vann stuck his head out of a driver's window. 'Just follow us!' he called back. 'I'll signal you when to go ahead.'

Holly nodded again, making a noise of frustration after Vann's head had disappeared in order to force some control over her nerves. She did not want to fall apart now.

She eased the scooter into motion and followed the other vehicles, not quite the last to leave.

* * *

They left Jella Turnfly asleep on the sofa, a blanket over her to keep her warm and the responsibility of her care officially handed over to the tight-lipped doctor. Rehabilitation, as well as he could give it. A return to regular reality.

Hermes and Carmella walked down the middle of the road, suburban houses lit on either side of them, with their hands in their pockets.

'I had a thought,' Hermes said, looking at his feet with a glassy-eyed expression.

The nurse turned to him. 'Yes?'

'I think there's a second Facility.'

The nurse considered it. 'It's a possibility,' she said. 'What led you to that conclusion?'

'That whole set-up Turnfly talked about,' Hermes said. 'Dark rooms and crazy helmets. If you need all that stuff to make it work, there's got to be another one somewhere.'

'Why?'

Hermes seemed to think about it, hesitating, and then he said, 'It's something the Dark Circler said to me. He kind of implied that I could be in on it in return for helping him.'

The nurse raised her eyebrows. 'He could have been lying,' she said.

Hermes shook his head. 'It wasn't like that. He wasn't trying to get me to do anything. I'd shot the officers anyway.'

Carmella blinked.

'And he pretty much helped me get away when more showed up. But he couldn't make that offer,' Hermes continued, 'if everything to do with the Facility had already gone up in flames. And it obviously hasn't.' Hermes looked along the street, feeling impatient. 'But we keep hitting dead ends.'

'There may yet be something else we can follow up on,' the nurse said, scrutinising him. 'Especially when we finally meet up with some of the others. But Hermes...' She stopped and faced him. 'We need to end this madness. That's what we're here for. If we do manage to pick up another lead, promise me that's what you're trying to do, and nothing else.'

Hermes' face was expressionless. 'I promise,' he said, and walked on.

* * *

France was the first to go. He had happily volunteered.

The metal body of the cannon jerked back, one segment briefly retracting into the other, and with a sharp, low, heavy sound and an almost obliterated giddy scream from France, the Dark Circler was fired up into the night.

He cruised, closed his eyes and enjoyed the breeze as it ripped at his cape, with complete and total faith that he was going in the right direction. He arced, slowed and began to descend.

Far, far below in the Yard, in one of the outbuildings, five police officers were sat around a small table below a single, swinging lightbulb, playing a game of poker. A few seconds later, after hearing a strange whistle and flutter in the wind outside, they were not. The wood and corrugated iron exploded outwards amidst the vivid colours of blood and guts and playing cards as the entire width of the outbuilding cratered and the earth cracked and sunk.

France bounced high, shrieking amongst the crackle and pop of surprised gunfire. He teetered on his feet when he hit the ground again and tried to get back up. Looking around in his blurring, kaleidoscopic vision, the Yard was much bigger than he had expected it to be, a sparse shanty town of outbuildings, and an image that did not disappear when his vision eventually cleared.

He ran haphazardly for cover.

* * *

Salvo was scrutinising a small electronic device in his hand. 'I lost the signal,' he announced to the others. 'But last time I had it, he was right over the Yard. A little westerly given the wind, but otherwise exactly where I wanted him to be. Now we pick up the pace. Get ready, guys.'

* * *

It was Vann's passenger, a Dark Circler Holly did not recognise, who stuck his upper half through the window and gestured to Holly to split from the rest. They were only a few blocks from the police building; Holly now swung on ahead so that it did not look like she was part of the group, who were themselves slowing and holding back.

* * *

France ripped off the tracker that was strapped to his arm and peered around the corner of an outbuilding he had run to with his head low. There were a great number of officers heading in his direction and the snipers on the roof had already taken shots.

He had socked an officer in the face and taken his gun, after his own had not survived the fall, and was checking the magazine when, to the shock and dismay of the cautious, advancing officers, the other Dark Circlers began to rain down on them like the worst hail storm they had ever experienced.

France whistled. Salvo and Vann did not seem to have accounted for quite the level of destruction their landing had caused. They nearly decimated the outbuildings, their instructed cover from the snipers; many also decimated themselves. And though by now most of the surviving ground-level officers had scrambled for cover, the snipers on the top of the tall glass building had easier pickings. Once the snipers figured out what was happening, some Dark Circlers fell with headshots; others were picked right out of the air.

France and some of the other brighter invaders screamed out, gesturing expansively for a quick push towards the building. The Dark Circlers, their capes in tatters, found what cover they could and scrambled on as, from open windows above, grenades were thrown.

* * *

Officer Killet was at the back entrance, with Rolo, Coates and some other officers, flanking the doors on either side. The doors were locked, closed because shooting at the intruders had done very little to stop them, but the bulletproof glass had already taken a battering and would not hold out for long.

'Retreat!' cried an officer.

'We're not going to retreat, you fucking coward!' Killet spat, delivering the offender a hard punch. 'Those freaks are going to get in here one way or another, and then there'll be nowhere to retreat to!'

'We should move back, though,' Coates said. 'Maybe form some kind of barricade.'

'What for? Look at them! A few upturned desks aren't going to stop them!'

'You think they're after the guy we took?' Rolo asked, scratching at the bleached peroxide bristled on his head.

'Too late now if they are.' She looked around. 'Where the hell is Brutt? Shouldn't he be out here rallying the troops or something?'

* * *

There was excitement in the jail cells. Strange noises of destruction came very clearly from somewhere above them.

Beans looked up from checking the burns on his arm and went to the bars of the little window in his door, as did the other prisoners, for some vain hope of seeing the action.

In their cell, Dorz turned to Russ, his face lit with triumph as the smaller man tried to wrestle him aside for some viewing space.

'I told you!' Dorz said.

'I don't see anything,' said Russ.

'They're coming to get us out!'

'Just us?' asked Russ, raising an eyebrow at his cellmate. 'I doubt that.'

They fell silent, listening to the noises get louder.

* * *

France threw his knee up to meet Officer Rolo's face before dragging his head back, twisting his neck and throwing him at Killet.

Killet dodged and kept on firing until her gun ran out of bullets. She threw the weapon aside and crouched down to take Rolo's, rolling his body onto its side to effect a limited shield. She took a few more shots and then, cursing, retreated further into the building.

Aura stumbled out from behind France and fell to her knees. Her face was white and drawn. 'I got sniped!' she cried, uncertainly. 'I got...I got sniped!' A trail of blood trickled from her leg, and the hand that had inspected it left an extra streak of colour in her hair when she went to push it out of her eyes.

France did not seem to hear and moved on. 'Just shake it off,' another Dark Circler advised.

'Yeah,' Aura replied, getting dizzily to her feet. There was another wound between her shoulder and her chest. 'Yeah...' She fell to the floor again, her eyes wide open, and stared at all the feet stepping over her.

The fight then moved down corridors that branched in several directions and up stairs. Some of the Dark Circlers ascended the building. The rest attempted to proceed towards the lobby, caught in firefights in the narrow spaces as doors opened and officers emerged, using the doors for cover. Progress was slow but steady.

Killet looked gaunt as she kept retreating door by door, watching her fellow officers get thrown around and torn apart. Soon she found her gun empty and, white and slick with sweat, she disappeared into one of the rooms to escape.

France squawked in triumph as they finally reached the lobby, sending the officers there into an even more active chaos. He looked around at them, his expression almost disinterested. He shot at a few who dared to fire, most now hiding behind corners or large objects, but otherwise strode across the battleground ignoring them, while his team-mates worked to keep them in check.

* * *

Holly shivered, trying to make herself comfortable on the scooter seat. The vehicle was pointed away from the police building and she had to twist and strain her neck to see what was going on behind her. She could hear all the noise even from where she was.

A red flare suddenly issued from the roof of the building and shot up into the sky. Moments later, Vann's posse of vehicles turned around the corner.

* * *

As France walked around the lobby, some other Dark Circlers hurled themselves in from the back, gleefully carrying large gas canisters they had found miraculously intact either outside or in storage rooms. They ran at speed lest the officers should be foolish enough to take shots at them.

France watched them carry the canisters into other rooms. Meanwhile, he found what he was looking for: the door to Commander Brutt's office. He knocked with exaggerated formality, placed his ear to the door and listened. When he got no response, he tried the handle and then, when it would not open, proceeded to assault the thing.

* * *

Vann's team pulled up right outside and swiftly climbed out of their vehicles. They stopped at the glass façade and looked in, finding it still locked and themselves only able to admire the chaos from a distance.

Vann tried to get France's attention, or the attention of someone else on his team. 'What are you doing, you crazy idiot?' he muttered under his breath, hammering on the glass.

France had taken a fire axe to the wood and looked at him just as the door finally gave way. Then something on the other side of the door blasted him backwards, taking him off his feet and leaving him on the floor with a massive, dripping hole in his torso.

Vann screamed out and beat the glass with his fist, then with the butt of the submachine gun he was carrying. He stepped back when the hulking figure of Commander Brutt strode out of his office pointing a large shotgun at France, and Vann was already trying to shoot the bullet-proof glass down when Brutt blew France's head off, airbrushing gore in a shocked ring around where the head had once been.

Vann's team joined him in a spray of bullets, watching through the flash and glare of their own hot metal as Brutt blasted another Dark Circler who ran at him, leaving a splattered mess, and then stooped to pick up the fire axe, swinging it and embedding it in the skull of another. This Dark Circler looked surprised and continued shooting misguidedly for a while, before dropping of his own accord.

The glass façade finally shattered and Vann's team stormed through. At first Brutt ignored them and continued his berserking rage, his face red, the veins at his temples bulging, the muscles of his neck stretched taut and his cry close to blood-curdling. He was surprisingly fast and as powerful as he looked and many of the fighters simply stopped to stare. Soon, however, the shower of bullets got too much and he retreated from the lobby.

Vann marched furiously after him, the grin gone from his face. The remnants of France's team kept the other officers at bay and allowed Vann's group an almost clear passage through the lobby. Then they went along the door-lined corridors and began searching.

Vann's attention was called to one room where another unwelcome sight awaited him. The room was small, clinically white and almost bare and showcased a surgical table upon which Boris was splayed, his chest cut open vertically. They had begun to dissect him.

Boris stared blankly at the wall behind him, his long hair dangling and his circular tattoo clearly visible.

Vann grimaced. 'Sick bastards,' he said, punching the wall on his way out.

Eventually they found the room of ropes. Vann let his submachine gun chatter briefly to light up the gloom. Then they discovered the sloping passage. Their calm descent was almost ceremonial, until they reached the cheers and jeers of the prisoners from their cells. Vann and the Dark Circlers methodically unbolted each and every door.

'This is a jail break,' Vann announced, offhandedly. 'Run for your lives.'

As the prisoners began to stream out, Vann kept on walking, peering into each cell that he opened.

Dorz swelled with gratification when Vann opened their door and gave him a nod of acknowledgement, and Russ followed him out of the cell, cautious but all the same relieved.

'Get out of here as fast as you can,' Vann said to them. 'The others will probably offer you a ride, if you still want to come back with us.'

Dorz nodded and they hurried after the rest, trailing quietly behind some less than friendly looking characters who were also enjoying their liberation.

Beans eagerly awaited his turn. But the Dark Circlers paused at the cell opposite him, the tanned, tattooed man at the front lingering at the cell's window.

'That's him,' Vann said to the others, and they took turns to peer through.

Vann pulled back the door and Beans got a glimpse of an old man, sitting at the end of his cell, either sleeping or meditating. He did not heed Vann's entrance. The old man's hair was long, wavy and steely-coloured, as was his beard. In his tattered clothes, he looked like a vagrant the police had found on the streets.

'Lift him carefully,' Vann said to one of his men, and they pulled an arm each over their shoulders. 'The rest of you let everyone else out.'

Beans was interrupted from his spying as a face blocked his view and the owner of the face unlatched his door. The analyst nodded by way of tentative thanks and walked away slowly, glancing back.

Their exit did not go quite as smoothly as their entrance. The police had a resurgence of strength, officers from the upper levels making their way down to the lobby and battling against the Dark Circlers who were trying to hold them back in the stairwells.

In the ecstasy of their freedom, some of the former prisoners caused aimless trouble and miscellaneous damage to property, but turned out much easier to deal with than the Dark Circlers. The police then began to focus on denying these people their escape, in the process, so they thought, denying the Dark Circlers their prize.

Vann's team formed a human wall, several of them abreast, which made its way slowly across the lobby with people sheltered behind them, including Russ and Dorz. Beans hardly dared to lift his head. The Dark Circlers' delay in attending to the old man had caused a gap in the flow of prisoners which seemed too dangerous for him to run across, and he looked around for other nearby cover.

Then Vann and his helper joined him, carrying the old man over their backs, and Vann began to call out for faster movement. Beans ran in their wake, and with a final, focused push, the Dark Circlers managed to battle through.

Vann's helper was suddenly shot in the shoulder by officers firing into the crowd. His support wavered and the old man slipped, pulling Vann down with him. As the Dark Circler moved away to deal with his attacker, Vann was left to tend to the old man on the floor. He tried lifting him on his own, gave up and looked around for help.

'You!' he said to Beans, who had retreated at the gunshot. 'Come and help me!'

Beans hesitated for a full three seconds and then made his way back towards Vann crouching low. He wrapped the old man's arm around his neck and they carried the load while Vann pushed on ahead once again.

Several floors above, two Dark Circlers stood by the window each behind one gas canister, taking idle shots at the officers trying to get into the room. When their ammunition had nearly run out, the officers began to file in and they found themselves trapped, they glanced at each other, exchanging a mischievous look. They pressed their backs to the window and spent the rest of their bullets on the canisters.

The ensuing explosion took out their attackers while they were blasted through the glass and through the air, happily trailing fire.

* * *

Holly caught her breath when the first explosion happened, followed by others that blossomed across the building and sent shattered glass raining down on all the little figures emerging noisily at ground level.

There were the sounds of screeching and skidding tyres as the cars set in motion, all the Dark Circlers climbing in and on top of them, some holding on ridiculously. Holly's stomach turned when the black-clad police officers belched from the building and moved after them, some climbing into big four-by-fours that seemed to appear from nowhere.

She was very tempted to ride away now before she got caught. She realised that it was the second time she had been in this position--though this time she really did have something to do with the big building erupting in flames behind her.

Holly waited a few tense, strained minutes before she saw some figures ambling towards her. At first she could not make them out and thought the police might have spotted her. But then she noticed that one of them was being carried by the others.

'Time to go!' Vann said, coming towards her at speed.

Holly looked at the others, but did not recognise them. 'Where's Russ and Dorz?' she asked.

'Move up.' Vann and Beans lifted the sleeping old man onto the seat. 'Get out of here,' Vann said to the boy, once this was done. 'Enjoy your freedom.'

Beans stepped back, spent a few moments taking them in as Vann got on the back of the scooter and pushed the driver forward off her seat, and then he ran away into the darkness.

'Go,' Vann ordered, as Holly perched herself on the very edge. 'Back to the warehouse. Now!'

They set off, Holly nervously guiding the scooter through the streets.