Into the Wilderness: Blood of the Lamb (Book Two) (20 page)

“It was cruel and stupid, I know that now—and I'm really, really sorry, all right?” She heard a dull thud, as though he'd punched the wall. “How many times do you want me to say it? But I couldn't stop thinking about you, so then I started following you, and when I discovered what you were up to I realised it might be my only chance to get away and live my own life.”

She felt so confused. Part of her was totally disgusted that he'd tracked her, while a tiny part was flattered, though it made her sick. “It didn't occur to you just to ask Joseph and tell him the truth?”

“It did. But do you think you'd have agreed to take me even if Joseph said I could go?”

In this, at least, Lazarus was right. “Never in a million years!” She stood now and paced the cell, needing the motion to clear her head. She was not so much shocked by his words as by the fact he said them at all. In truth, everything he said made sense in a twisted and deluded way. “And Joseph…do you
swear
to me you didn't mean him harm?”

“I can't believe you even have to ask.” Now he sounded more like the Lazarus of old.

“Well I do,” she insisted, staring at the wall as if he'd feel her eyes upon him now and have to tell the truth. “I need to know you grieve for him as well.”

“Do you think I was feigning tears back on the boat? Of course I grieve his loss. But if you're asking me to grieve
for him
, then no.”

His words pierced like a blade straight to her heart. “Why not?”

“Why grieve for him when he was the lucky one? From the moment he was born he knew he was loved.”

“But it isn't fair. He didn't have to die.”

“Fair or not, I still say he was lucky…He had you.”

What on earth?
She shook her head, uncertain if she even wanted to know what he was trying to say.

“You understand that I can never trust you?” she said at last. “Too much has happened to ignore.”

“I know,” he said. “And
that
grieves me.”

This was too much to take in. Everything she'd believed had shifted beneath her feet like wind-blown sand, leaving her unbalanced and unsettled in its midst.

Their conversation was interrupted as the outer door slammed open and the guard wheeled in a trolley carrying fresh cups of water and small bowls of soup. Maryam watched, relieved to have this break to gather up her scattered thoughts, as the guard placed the food and drink within reach of each cell for the prisoners to either take or leave. Maryam retrieved her share and sipped the watery broth, all plans of self-denial swept away. The broth contained nothing identifiable in its stock, yet its warmth was soothing and she gulped it down. Outside she could hear a jumble of voices and guessed that the others were gathering for their evening meal. She could only hope that someone had befriended Ruth so she would not have to sleep inside that awful little room alone.

Now her bladder ached with fullness and she eyed the bucket the kind guard had left. The thought of using it in such a place embarrassed her, but she had no choice. She squatted over it, the sound of her splashing waters loud in her ears. Just as she had finished and moved the bucket as far away as possible,
a woman entered the building and Maryam recognised the white woman she'd seen teaching in the courtyard when they'd first arrived. Her face was pocked with scars; her hair greying and very short. But her manner was reassuring, and she smiled as she stationed herself in the corridor so that she could see into the two adjoining cells. She acknowledged Maryam first, and then turned her attention to Lazarus. As she did so, her smile dropped.

“You are Lazarus?” she said. She spoke in the same flat accent as the guards.

“Yes.”

The woman pointed at him. “Those are fresh?”

Again Lazarus merely said yes. Now she turned to Maryam, scrutinising her carefully from head to toe, her gaze coming to rest on the grubby plaster cast.

“And I take it you are Maryam? My name is Jo Sinclair. I wonder if we could talk?”

Maryam nodded, trying to read the woman's status from her clothes. She wore men's trousers made from thick faded blue fabric and a short-sleeved orange shirt. There was nothing to indicate just who or what she might be.

Jo Sinclair retrieved a chair from further along the corridor and placed it so she could be seen by both Maryam and Lazarus. “I belong to a human rights group that tries to help the detainees.”

“Can you get us out of here?” Lazarus asked.

“I don't know. I'd like to hear your stories, though, so I can see.”

Maryam was still trying to decide if it was safe to speak. Her only interactions with white people—apart from Joseph and his
mother, Deborah—had been so painful she wasn't sure if it was worth the risk. Lazarus, however, had no such prejudice, and launched into an account of what had happened to them.

“We sailed from Marawa Island a few days ago—I've lost track of time a bit—and then—”

Jo held up her hand to halt him. “Hold on. I've just spoken with your friend Ruth. She said you came from Onewēre?”

“She told you that?” Lazarus broke in, sounding annoyed.

“It's the truth,” Maryam snapped back. “What's wrong with that?”

“I'll tell you later when we can talk alone.”

Jo raised an eyebrow at Maryam and shrugged before directing her attention back to Lazarus. “Okay. I don't think you realise how serious this situation is. Unless you can trust me, there's no way I can even try to help. As it is, my powers are limited, but, believe me, I'm the best—and possibly the only—chance you've got.”

“Why should we trust you?” Lazarus asked.

Why was he being so pig-headed now, Maryam wondered, when only moments ago he'd seemed so keen to talk?

“Because you have no other choice.”

Something about the frankness of the woman's approach convinced Maryam that she spoke the truth. “This is foolish, Lazarus. She's right, we need her help.”

For a long moment Lazarus did not reply and Jo said nothing, obviously waiting for him to make up his mind without trying to interfere. At last he said, “I want to speak with Maryam first—alone—and, meanwhile, if you can convince them to let us all meet together in the same room then I'll agree. I need to see her face to face. These are my terms.”

Is he mad?
He was no longer the Holy Father's son but someone with no power to make such stupid demands. Jo's face remained passive, however, as she rose from the chair. “Rightio, I'll see what I can do.” She turned to Maryam and winked. “Men!” she mouthed, and rolled her eyes. Maryam grinned, despite herself.

The moment Jo was gone, Maryam called to Lazarus, “What on earth are you up to?”

“Look, you can guess what they did to the people of Marawa Island—if they think we're the first of some great exodus, it's possible they'll try the same thing at home. Do you really want Onewēre invaded by this lot?”

“I can't believe you…here's a chance to tell someone what's really going on back there, yet you're perfectly willing to let your father's wrongdoing go unpunished so he can keep it up? Can't you see he's used our isolation as an excuse to trap us all under his rule? I'll have no part in keeping him in power.”

“And I'll have no part in opening our doors to these thugs.”

Why was
everything
so complicated where Lazarus was concerned? Just when she'd almost let her guard down with him, this new argument saw them back where they had started: totally at odds.

“The Confederated Territories or Apostles…they're all the same.”

“Look, if you'd just see this logically—”

She cut him off. “If you tell me to
look
just one more time, I swear I'll scream.”

“Now you're being childish,” he snarled.

“Maybe I am,” she bit right back. “But what do you know of being oppressed? You've been stuck in a cell for one day and
you think you understand how it feels to have no power? To fear for your life?”

“You'd be surpri—”

His reply caught in his throat as the outer door was flung back open to admit Jo again.

She was followed into the building by the guard who had unshackled Maryam. He pulled his keys from his pocket and unlocked Maryam's door, ushering Jo into the cell and carrying the chair in after her so she had somewhere to sit. “Behave yourself, missie,” he warned Maryam, shaking his finger at her to underline his words.

“Thank you,” she said. “I promise I will.” She smiled her thanks.

Next the guard approached Lazarus's cell and unlocked the door. “Listen to me, bucko. I'll put you in together, ‘cause I happen to think this fine lady here can do some good—and, god knows, someone needs to—but if you do
one
thing that brings me grief you'll get your arse whipped again, no two ways. You comprendo?”

Maryam was still struggling to decipher the meaning of the man's strange words when she heard Lazarus sullenly agree. She had to hand it to him: it seemed he'd got his way.
The Confederated Territories for Christian Territorials…whites for whites.
She heard his door creak open and waited for the guard to lead him to her cell, dreading the pompous look of triumph he'd have slathered on his face.

When Lazarus appeared, she was so shocked she cried aloud. Both his eyes were buried in a swollen mess of angry red and blue bruising, and a gaping cut on his left cheekbone still oozed with blood. He moved like an old man, favouring one side, one arm wrapped around his lower ribs to hold them firm.

“What in the Lord's name happened?” she whispered, automatically crossing to him to help ease him down onto the sleeping mat.

Behind her, the guard locked the door. “There's people here don't like so-called wiggers and boonga-jockeys, miss.” He shrugged and looked at Jo. “No rewards for guessing whose handiwork this is, eh? Anyways, I'll be back in half an hour to let you out.”

Jo shook her head slowly, her frown deepening. “Thanks, Charlie,” she said. “I owe you one.”

Maryam looked from Lazarus's messed-up face to Jo. “What did he mean?”

“It seems one of the guards objected to Lazarus's allegiances.”

“His what?”

“Allegiances. His loyalties…his friends.”

“But why?” She didn't understand. Why beat up on Lazarus when he was white?

“We've been taught, over the years, to loathe and fear anyone who doesn't look or act or think like us. So when some people see one of us mixing with the ‘other side'—” she raised two fingers from each hand and wiggled them strangely as she spoke—“they see it as a betrayal of our race.”

“You mean it's
our
fault Lazarus has ended up like this? Ruth's and mine?”
Oh great.

“Forget it,” Lazarus said. “I'm fine.” Beneath his swollen bruises, his face set hard. “Let's just get on with this.”

Maryam studied him from the corner of her eyes. He'd insisted that they speak together in this one room, so obviously he'd wanted her to see his injuries, yet now he told her to forget it. That made no sense. Still, now wasn't the time to pursue it. She might have only this one chance to tell someone what was going on back in Onewēre and she didn't want to waste it. “I'm ready to tell you why we left our home.”

She could feel Lazarus glaring at her, but refused to let him put her off. She closed her eyes to block him out and began to tell her tale. At first the words came in nervous bursts but, as
she proceeded, the horror of the Apostles' treatment of her—of all the Sisters—took over; her heart pounded hard and fast now as she relived the days and weeks since her Crossing. She found herself thinking ahead, trying to decide how much of Lazarus's involvement she should reveal. His presence in the story loomed large in her mind, but she was uncertain of what would be achieved by inviting a direct confrontation with him. By the time she'd told of Joseph's death, words were sticking dry and awkward in her throat, and she skipped ahead, ending in one breathless rush at the point where they'd been plucked from the sea. She glanced across at Lazarus, but he was staring steadfastly at the floor.

“My god,” said Jo. “I had no idea.” She shook her head, as though trying to fit in place everything she'd heard. “Onewēre's literally been off the radar for decades, like all the other outer islands. Everyone just presumed they were totally annihilated. When the first wave of refugees started arriving after the flares, our government made it policy simply to ignore any islands that hadn't been heard from—that any contact would just encourage further floods of refugees. And the government certainly didn't want that—especially with the start of the Confederation Wars. The people of those islands were literally abandoned then and left to rot.”

“They didn't care that we might need their help?”
So much for their claiming to follow the Holy Book's teachings. Goodness and mercy…what a lie.

Lazarus broke in now. “Come on! Even if they had shown up, do you really think my father's predecessors would've welcomed them? I'd be prepared to wager that if anyone had arrived in our lifetime, my father would've had them killed. The first Apostles set things up exactly as they wanted—and the fact you lot swallowed
the line that you were the only ones Chosen to be saved just made you all the more compliant to their Rules.”

“There you go again, blaming us. You haven't changed your thoughts at all.”

“These are facts. It doesn't mean that I condone them.”

Bitterness hardened Maryam's laugh. “Fancy words. To see something is wrong and do nothing is just as much a sin.”

Lazarus bristled. “I'm merely pointing out that any kind of attempted contact would've met with grief.” He shifted in his chair with a pained grunt. “This is stupid. They didn't even try to help—isn't that the point?”

Maryam turned away from him, sickened by his slick answers, and spoke instead to Jo. “But we're supposedly
all
the Lord's chosen children—His followers—the same as them.”

“I'm certainly not excusing us,” Jo answered. “But you have to understand what was going on at the time. Governments disintegrated, services collapsed. Only the toughest and the most powerful survived—just like your so-called Apostles—who were able to manipulate people's fear to seize control of the few resources the world had left. It really
was
a case of survival of the fittest—and often the fittest meant those prepared to stamp on the heads of others to survive.”

“But don't you think the Territorials would act to put things right if they knew?”

Lazarus grabbed her arm and held it tight. “Don't do this, Maryam. Think about what I said before.”

“I can't believe they wouldn't care.”

“You're being foolishly naive.” He released her arm, but not before he squeezed it so she could feel the imprint of his fingers well after his hand had dropped. “Look around this place and
then tell me again that they'd care. Look at
me
.” He thrust his battered face in front of her. “This is what I got just for mixing with you and Ruth. Imagine what they'd do to your people if they went there with their guards and guns.”

“I'm afraid he's right,” Jo said. “Go look around this place. You think the filth and squalor here is an accident? It's not. This camp has been used to detain refugees since well before your so-called Tribulation, and they've done nothing—absolutely
nothing
—to improve it since that time.” She tipped her face towards the ceiling and drew a long slow breath, as though to rein her anger back under control. “It's designed to break wills and strip away dignity, while feeding the prejudices and fears of the people back at home. Calculated but clever, eh?”

“But if they'd just let us speak—”

“Your plea for help would fall on deaf ears. Most people in the Territories are struggling to survive—and they're not about to share what little power and property they
do
have.” She massaged her temples for a moment before she continued. “Besides, unless the authorities think you're the first of a new wave of boat people from there, they'll not bother helping Onewēre even if you ask. They've got enough to contend with, given the number of people who still keep arriving.”

“What
I
don't understand is why anyone is trying to come at all, when they must know the Territorials don't want them,” Lazarus said.

“Because you don't know where they're coming
from.
” Jo turned to Maryam again. “I wish I could tell you how much your story shocks me but, believe me, there are many people out there who suffer as much as you…in fact, the depth of human depravity does my head in sometimes.”

Jo talked so fast and used such foreign words that Maryam struggled to understand her. “So there's nothing you can do to get us out of here?”

“I'll try. The fact that you share the same beliefs and that Lazarus is white may help.” She sighed. “But, if you want my advice, I'd tell them you were the last of the people from Onewēre, otherwise god only knows what they might do if they thought the remaining population might look to The Confederated Territories for sanctuary or support. Remember the lessons of Marawa Island. I wouldn't want to see that kind of genocide take place again.”

“Genocide?” What did this flat-voiced woman mean?

“Oh, they never admitted to it, of course. But a whole race of people doesn't suddenly drop dead for no reason. And our government had had a gutsful of boat people and made it plain they'd not stand for more.”

“But The Confederated Territories must be huge—”

Jo laughed caustically. “Life's never quite so straight forward. After the solar flares there was precious little left for us, let alone all the other people decamping to our shores. It's said that some of our top brass decided to teach the poor people of Marawa a lesson—one the rest of the region wouldn't soon forget. Some say they were herded into the temple and gassed; others claim that they were shot…” Her voice drifted off and she shuddered.

Maryam pressed her hand over her eyes, trying to block out the picture of those tangled bones.
How could one human do that to another, in cold blood?

Lazarus nodded his head and prodded Maryam. “See? Do you still want to send them to Onewēre now?”

He seemed so smug, so unaffected by what Jo was telling them. Maryam felt her fury rise again. She jumped to her feet, facing Jo accusingly. “Then what's the point of your even being here? You said that you could help.”

Jo stood up. “I come as a witness, Maryam, to let you know there are still people out here in the world who care. And if I can help in any small way I will certainly try.”

“Then I will do something myself. There has to be a way…”

Jo placed her hand on Maryam's arm. “I'm sorry,” she said, “I'll speak to Sergeant Littlejohn myself, and see if he will let you put your case for settling on the mainland…”

She was interrupted as another group of hunger strikers were wrestled into the building. One of the guards pressed his face up to the bars of Maryam's cell.

“You kids can beat it now—we need the room.” He nodded at Jo, unlocked the door and waved the three of them out. They did not need to be told twice.

The air was cooler outside the cell, but the stench of phosphate and human excrement still hung in the evening air. Somewhere an engine was thumping, setting up a dull reverberation, and lights were coming on in the walkways like scraps of weak winter sun between the clouds.

Jo and Lazarus looked at Maryam, as if waiting on what she would do next. She had no idea. All she knew was that they appeared to expect something from her, just as Ruth would, back in their airless little hut. But she had no plan and no reassurance to give. All she knew was she had to get away. Without any destination in mind, Maryam ran. She dared not look back as she dodged down an alleyway between two buildings. Lazarus
called out after her, but she did not stop. All anyone had done since she'd been rescued was talk, talk, talk, bombarding her until she truly thought her head would burst. There were too many words she didn't understand—too many
things
she didn't understand—when all the time she felt as young and ignorant as a newly fledged chick.

The huts that butted up against the shadowy paths pressed in on her, and she tried to focus on her breathing, on the way the air rasped in and out of her lungs, rather than acknowledge the hum of human desperation that leaked out from the gaping doorways of the huts. Too much. Too much.

Eventually she turned a corner and found her way blocked by another fence. But the gateway remained open and she slipped through it, uncertain now of her direction or of whether this was the route Aanjay had shown them on their morning tour. She stuck to the fenceline, scanning ahead of each footfall to avoid the animal droppings and rubbish that lay in stinking piles. She ran on until the fence turned abruptly at a large building. Rounding a corner, she nearly crashed into a tall, bearded man.

“No girl, no girl,” he shouted, holding out his hands to bar her way. The rest of his words were indecipherable, but his tone was not. She guessed she must be trespassing on the place reserved for men and turned on her heel, backtracking fast, and didn't stop until she'd traced the fence back to its start.

She dropped to her haunches then, panting out the stitch that knotted up her sides. When the pain had subsided, she set off in the opposite direction, turning down alleyways solely on the basis that they were deserted. At last, just as darkness swelled the shadows at the edges of the camp, she found herself out in the open ground.

A gaggle of young men were kicking a ball around on a patch of dirt. She slipped past and took herself off to the garden, crouching in amongst the malnourished plants to breathe in their dry leafy scents. Closed her eyes, trying to conjure up a picture of Joseph's face. If only he were here to talk with her, to help her understand what was going on. She felt tears rising as she pictured his vibrant blue eyes and the way his mouth curled and puckered as he leaned in for a kiss. The memory of his kisses tweaked low inside and she wrapped her arms around herself to try to hold the memory of him close. But the presence of the unyielding plaster cast that pressed against her breasts and the ragging laughter of the ball-players shattered her whimsy, sharply reminding her that Joseph was gone and there was no one to replace him.

What, then, would he do?

The answer to that question was not the one she wanted and she tried to bat it away again, but it persisted, knocking at her conscience until she had to give it space. Joseph would tell her to return to Ruth, who would be fretting once she heard that Maryam had been released. She could not add to Ruth's despair. So she rose and tried to retrace her steps, even harder now the natural light had gone and the man-made lights strung overhead cast little more than a watery glow. The mood of the camp was changing now, winding down. Babies cried weakly in their mothers' arms; women whispered and crooned as they rocked children to sleep; and the adults who clustered together by their small open fires murmured quietly—some even broke into laughter and sang plaintive songs that dissipated quickly in the thick night air.