Page 55 of Monsters within Men
“Can I help you?”
“Lieutenant Forrest?”
“Depends who’s asking.”
The woman—late thirties, likely a career soldier judging by her adorned sleeve—swayed slightly, before collapsing onto the floor. “Want some?” she said, hiccuping, offering him the flask.
He fought to keep the irritation out of his voice. The Black Rangers were supposed to be London’s best. Sent on surreptitious missions of high importance, the task force was highly regarded in the community. But Noah didn’t think highly of this particular Black Ranger so far. “Can I walk you back to the gate?” he asked, not bothering to hide the annoyance in his voice. He was cold, and wanted to return to the fire, where Zeke would surely have joined them by now.
She waved her hand to gesture for him to sit down. “I’m Leonie Voigt. Your uncle’s sent me.”
His breath hitched. Leonie Voigt. He recognised that name as one of the most high-profile Black Rangers—she’d done several filmed interviews for mainstream media. “What? Why?” He knelt down next to the woman, shining the flashlight at her face to get a good look at her.
“He says don’t bother to message or call. He can’t reply.” Leonie hiccuped again, which made her laugh. Her manic giggle unsettled him. He wasn’t sure whether to catch her as she swung her body backwards to lie on the ground, gazing up at the stars through the thick cloud cover.
“I lost eight of my friends today.”
Eight! Heaviness settled over his limbs, a magnet pulling him to the Earth’s core.
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Aren’t you going to ask how?” The peculiar woman unscrewed the cap on her flask and poured it vertically into her mouth. Upon discovering it was empty, she threw it a few feet away from them. “They were all banked by typeBs.”
Noah blinked. “Banked?”
“Their tracker chips are still active. All eight of them, about fifty miles north of here. Imagine being dragged all that way.”
“Why would they drag them fifty miles away?”
Leonie let out a cackling laugh. “I think they’ve worked out we won’t bother sending a rescue mission out beyond twenty miles.”
“That’s ridiculous. If we had good intel anyone was alive, in captivity, we would—”
More laughter. Still sprawled on the floor, Leonie’s body shook as delirious sounding noises spilled out of her.
“You know the real reason we don’t rescue anyone in the banks, right?” Leonie jumped to her feet, swinging her arms wildly as she said, “If the typeBs have a nice, steady stream of human blood—and flesh—to snack on, they won’t bother rounding up the troops to attempt to breach the city.”
He shivered. “How manybanksare there?”
“Dozens. Hundreds even. Some have a handful of people, some have more. Obviously,”—she paused to squint at him—“Lieutenant Forrest, we never had this conversation. And now, I need to go and find more alcohol.” She made to move past him.
“Wait.” He grabbed her arm. “What else can you tell me about General Forrest? Is he okay?”
“Oh!” she said, swaying under Noah’s grip. “I almost forgot. He said to tell you…” Her eyebrows knitted together in concentration. “You have everything you need, and youwillneed to use it. Something like that, anyway.”
After composing himself, he returned to his tree stump to find Splat and Aoife crouched close to Luo, concern etched onto their faces.
“What’s happened?” said Noah.
Luo shook his head. “The message… was really distorted. I could barely hear over the chaos in the background. They shouted something about loving me and that they were sorry we weren’t all together.”
A grim silence fell.
“Aww, hell, man,” said Splat. He flung his arm around him and squeezed him tight—their spat paused, at least momentarily.
“It’ll be okay. It’sMontreal,” said Noah, unconvincingly, even to himself. During the decade-long war, Montreal had often stood out amongst the cities in North America for their resilience and forward-thinking ideas.
“We said that about Houston. They built a fucking fort. Didn’t stop them from falling last June,” said Luo. He stared at the ground, crestfallen.
