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Back The Enemy Save as PDF
Chapters (69)
  1. Table of Contents
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. 4
  6. 5
  7. 6
  8. 7
  9. 8
  10. 9
  11. 10
  12. 11
  13. 12
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  53. 52
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  69. 68

It would be over quickly, at least, when they got inside. For now he would enjoy the chocolate and the Coke and the music. He wished he wasn’t alone. He wished he had someone to share his last moments with. He’d been slowly dying of loneliness since his friends had left.

He’d gotten what he’d wished for, but, like in the fairy tales, he’d discovered that what he wished for wasn’t what he really wanted.

He leaned over and plugged in his headphones, turned the volume up so that he wouldn’t hear the grown-ups scrabbling at the shutters. He slipped the headphones over his ears. ABBA was still singing away. They reckoned if you had a song to sing, you could cope with anything.

Yeah, right . . .

He stuffed half the chocolate bar into his mouth. The taste of it was overwhelming. It seemed to fill his whole body. He sighed with delight. When he’d licked all the chocolate from his teeth he took a swig of Coke to wash it down.

He’d killed his mom in the end. Smothered her with a pillow while she was asleep. Not that she was really his mom anymore by that time.

There was an almighty crash and a rush of cool air from outside. He could sense movement.

They’d broken a window.

He tried to keep his eyes clamped shut, to lose himself in the music. But he couldn’t bear it. He had to look. He had to.

He opened his eyes. For half a second. Less. Saw grown-ups running toward him. The bald man with the huge lolling head at the front. He was grinning, his arms raised, clutching his club.

Callum closed his eyes.

He sent a silent hello out to his mom, and they were upon him.

58

Achilleus had been patched up, but he still felt like crap.

His muscles were stiff and bruised, the whole left-hand side of his head throbbed, the cuts across his chest where John’s blades had raked him stung like a bastard. He was covered with a patchwork of tapes and bandages and had been liberally painted with disinfectant. He prayed that the wounds were clean. He saw what had happened to Arran after he’d been bitten. What were the chances that a filthy animal like John would keep his weapons clean?