章 17: Seventeen: Flee
I had lost a fair bit of stamina during my time in isolation. Before I left the hospital, I had forgotten to check what day of the week it was and what the date was. Along the way, a shuffling, hunched man in an old coat raised his hat at me. I nodded in return and then paused to look back.
The man was already gone.
If I hadn't been wrong, he had been the Bosky soldier with mountain shoulders in disguise. I whirled around to see where he might have gone. Spotting a shadowy alley nearby, I guessed that was where he must have gone. My already racing heart beat even harder.
Was he keeping an eye on me? Following me around?
Forget it. If he was here, I couldn't afford to be. I ran as if I had the hounds of hell on my heels.
Three kilometres later, I had to stop to catch my breath. He wasn't still around, was he?
"It's good to see they finally let you out. Are you feeling better?" his voice reached my ears from behind me but when I swivelled around, I couldn't see him. His voice wasn't even puffed. "I got worried when I didn't see you for a few days. It took me some time to get the word to the right ears for them to check on you. I'm glad they did."
In spite of the stitch in my side, I took to my heels again. I didn't wait to hear anymore. Just our brief contact on that day in the train station had turned my life upside down. If my government found out I had been contacted by him again, my life could literally be over. I didn't want to get involved with him anymore. I didn't want to see or hear from him ever again. There was no way I dared to stop or slow down again the rest of the way back to the Compound. My flats broke and tripped me up but I just kicked them off and kept running.
An army vehicle patrolling the streets flagged me down while I was fleeing through the banking precinct.
"What's wrong, Miss? Oh. It's you - um, Miss Wallace," the soldier with a dimple leaned out the window to speak to me. "What happened? You're white as a sheet. What happened to your shoes?"
I must have looked a mess with my bloody bare feet. There wasn't enough breath to even reply a single word. Swinging back to look behind me and examining any shadowy alleys to make sure I wasn't being followed, I flopped on the footpath in relief, putting my head down on my knees. Tears and sweat dripped down onto the dry concrete.
It was at that point I realised that it had stopped raining and storming. The sky was still overcast but it was only a light cover of grey clouds. They weren't dark overhanging harbingers of danger anymore. It must have stopped raining while I had been locked up in the toilet block.
"Boskies," I finally managed to find the breath to gasp out. "Chasing. Shoes - gone."
"There were Boskies chasing you?" Dimple Soldier and his partner switched to alert mode and started scanning the street.
"One," I replied, holding up a finger and leaning my hands on my knees, still trying to catch my breath. "Saw one. Disguise."
"You recognised a Bosky in disguise? How did you know he was a Bosky?"
"Saw him - Heartly Station - take over," I panted, finding more energy to look around.
"How did he look just now when you saw him? How was he dressed? Where were you when you saw him?"
Dimple Soldier's partner picked up the radio and was relaying what I had seen to whoever was on the other end.
"Normally - big shoulders," I raised an arm and stood up. "This tall. Big muscles. Just now," I hunched into that posture I saw the Bosky soldier in, "like this. Red and black checked coat. Ripped jeans. Brown gussets - pull up boots. Fisherman's hat. Wide brim. Faded jeans blue. Nose - broken before. Scar on chin here," I drew on my chin the shape and angle of the scar. "If he's around - he'll kill me - if he knows - I told. Threatened me - before."
"Did he say anything to you just now?"
"Asked - how I was feeling. Said - said he was worried - hadn't seen me - a while. He sent people to - check on me - in the Compound. He might have - followed me from - the hospital."
"Stay there and catch your breath a moment, Miss Wallace," said Dimple Soldier, "while we check what our orders are."
I heard the hiss of the radio and intermittent voices. It wasn't easy to make much of what they said out because the Dimple Soldier wound his window back up the whole way.
"... keeping an eye… her… safety… escort… Sending more… check out…"
The window rolled back down and Dimple Soldier got out to open the back passenger door for me.
"Here, Miss Wallace," he beckoned, helping me to sit into the backseat. "You'd better get in. We'll take you to get your feet seen to and then drop you off at the Compound, just in case. You'd better tell us everything you can about this Bosky soldier when you met him at Heartly Station and then exactly what happened just now. Do you know why he might have been keeping his eye on you? Are you affiliated with any of our government agencies?"
He drove me to the army barracks where a military doctor checked my feet but a nurse took over to wash and disinfect my feet for me, before wrapping them up in gauze. In the meantime, I told him my abbreviated version of what had happened the night of the invasion, although I didn't go into great detail about how the Bosky soldier and I had interacted.
"He saved me from a runaway trolley. The next thing I knew, he was taking off his shirt and I realised he was a Bosky soldier. Then my brother and I ran with the crowd outside. My brother managed to cross the railway to get back home but I was too slow. I got stopped by the soldiers," I told them. "I was chased by Bosky soldiers and got lost. When I found my way back to the train station, I fell asleep under a shop front. When I woke up, he was right there beside me. Back in normal clothes. Once he realised that I recognised me, he threatened to kill me if I reported him. I was so scared that I ran until I ran into the police."
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