Enna strolled into Jack’s workshop. ‘So how’s Dal?’ she said, trying her hardest to sound concerned.
‘He reckons that he’s broken his leg. That means he won’t be able to walk for about a month! I’ll have to lend him my crutches.’
‘You’ve got crutches?’
‘Yeah, I broke my leg last year. Dal went back to his dad’s surgery to get them for me.’
‘Anyway,’ said Enna, she was bored with the Dal subject, ‘Have you had any more thoughts on transport, because I had a brilliant idea…’
‘Hold on a minute. Er… what about Dal?’
‘Oh, yeah, it looks like it’s you and me? Think you can cope for a few days on your own with me Jack?’ Enna wasn’t worried about Jack, she knew he’d be too shy to make a move on her. It would be hell if he did. In the meantime she enjoyed playing with him.
‘So it’s just you and Enna then Jack’ Ellie gave Jack a meaningful look. Jack jumped, he hadn’t realized Ellie was there!
Enna just smiled. ‘Actually, we could do with a hand. Would you like to come?’ There was a silence. Jack cringed, oh no! This would be a nightmare! The three of them was about the worst possible combo together in the whole tribe, other than Ebony, Lex and Bray of course.
Ellie smiled back at Enna then at Jack. ‘Sure. I’d love too, if that’s OK by you Jack?’
‘Er.. yeah, sure’
Enna nearly laughed, he could at least try to sound as though he meant it. This would make the trip more interesting! she thought.
That night the three of them were packing for the trip. Enna threw a few of her borrowed clothes into a bag. It would be nice to go back home again. Sure it wasn’t the happiest of childhoods as far as her parents were concerned, but Enna had always managed to make her own fun! Her old room would still be there. How strange, Enna thought; some of her old clothes, her old make-up, her old books would still be there. Then she remembered about what her brother had said about the corpses. She wondered where they’d be. She was regretting now, just running off and leaving them as soon has her mother caught the virus, but as she and her brother had agreed; their days were numbered. She still had to find and clear up the bodies though! Dad, if he was still strong enough would have buried Mum in the garden, so she was out of the way, but Enna doubted that he would have buried himself. His corpse would still be there. But where? Maybe in their bedroom? Maybe slumped over a microscope in the! labs? Enna just had to make sure, that she’d get to them before Jack and Ellie did or she’d have a hard time explaining why she’d left them. Enna hoped he’d rotted away by now, the stench would be unbearable!!
As he approached the bank he caught sight of Ryan with a couple of water carriers leaning down towards the river to fill them. Ryan caught sight of Lex coming down the bank and felt confused, what should he do? How should he react? Lex too was thinking what to say, he saw Ryan was embarrassed. ‘It’s OK, man you can talk to me, you know.’
‘Oh.. er.. Hi Lex. How are you?’
Think Enna tactics, thought Lex. ‘OK,’ he said clearly not meaning it. ‘I mean I still can’t find a place to stay so I’ve been sleeping rough the past few days.’
‘I’m sorry Lex.’
Lex suddenly came over all pleading. ‘You don’t believe what she said do you Ryan? It’s not true, you can’t believe it. She’s having you all on.’
Ryan looked uncomfortable, ‘She was in a pretty bad way Lex, when she came and all. I doubt that she’s really trying to steal the formula, I mean, have you met her? She’s really sweet.’
‘Oh no, she’s got to you too man?’ Lex sat down on the bank. ‘Ryan I am not messing you round here; she is not the sweet girl you all think she is. Listen to this; the second night when she was here, you know the first time she saw you. I’d seen her the day before they brought her in; she was fine, she’d kissed this bloke and then she made him punch her, he didn’t want to. Anyway, like I was saying, after the first night she met you, she came to see me afterwards because she knew that I’d seen what had really happened to her. And she slept with me, Ryan. Can you believe that? I know it doesn’t sound like the Enna you know, but do you remember when she disappeared and you came looking for me to ask if I’d seen her? She was with me then.’
‘But Lex, she was scared of men.’
‘Don’t you get it? She’s just pretending, it was all just an act to get into the Mallrats.’
‘I dunno, I mean she was bleeding everywhere when she came in and she was unconscious, we were sure of that.’
‘Oh yeah, ‘ Lex laughed, ‘She told me about that. It was a mistake, she meant to pretend and faint but then she slipped and banged her head on the marble floor. It’s pretty hard you know Ryan, I mean do you remember what happened to Zoot?’
Lex was right, thought Ryan, anything was possible on that floor and he remembered Lex’s smudged make-up when he’d come looking for him. It was starting to make sense. ‘But still, why didn’t you tell us about Enna, what she was really like?’
Lex, sighed, he didn’t get it. ‘She was, well, blackmailing me.’ He stuttered, ‘anyway I told you in the end but by that point she’d set up the whole thing about me with Salene and Bray saying I was blackmailing her!’
Ryan remember Lex’s exasperated face when he’d been thrown out.
‘Ryan, what the hell are you doing?’ The guys swung round to see a furious Salene standing behind them. Lex was gonna make a comment but then he stopped himself, ‘I was just talking to my ex-best mate. It’s alright Salene, I’m going. See you Ryan.’
Ryan murmured a goodbye, wrapped up in his own thoughts. Lex disappeared off up over the bank. Salene moved to sit down next to Ryan and put an arm around him. ‘What was he saying? Was he trying to persuade you of his innocence?’
Ryan nodded sheepishly, his mind racing; maybe Enna wasn’t what she seemed. ‘Come on, lets talk about it on the way back, Jack, Ellie and Enna are about to leave, we really should say goodbye.’
Meanwhile Ryan and Salene were still on their way back from the river. ‘So what was he saying?’ asked Salene, unable to contain her curiosity for much longer.
‘He was just talking about Enna.’
‘Oh yeah?’ Salene answered trying to sound unconcerned. ‘What about her?’
‘He’s still saying that he didn’t do anything and that it was her who was doing the blackmailing.’
Salene laughed, she knew she shouldn’t because it was serious but ‘Enna blackmailing Lex?!’ it sounded stupid.
‘Yeah,’ Ryan gave a nervous laugh. ‘But still, you know when she disappeared on the second night, Lex said that she was with him and that she told her about when I interrupted you girls talking earlier and she ran out in tears.’
Salene put on a concerned face and tried to comprehend Ryan’s line of speech.
‘The point is, Lex knew about how she ran out of the dinning room in tears when I came in.’
‘I hate to tell you about this Ryan, but everyone knew about that. You know how fast news travels in the tribe.’
‘And you know how she when she came in she had that black eye and was bleeding everywhere? Lex said that she’d told him it was only because she’d fallen too hard on the floor when she pretended to faint and he’d seen her boyfriend give her the black eye.’
‘Ryan, doesn’t that sound a little far fetched?’
Ryan had to admit that it did. He racked his brains to remember what Lex had said to make him so convinced about Enna. ‘Salene, I’ve known Lex for a long time and sure, he’s done some pretty stupid things but I know he’d never do anything like this.’
‘I don’t know, he might have been driven to it. I mean with Zandra’s death and let's face it, there’s been all this bad feeling between him and Bray. Enna’s really pretty, Ryan. I mean you don’t know what’s going through Lex’s mind any more.’
Ryan nodded.
‘And then there was that thing about him threatening her. Jack saw it, he had her by the neck up against the wall.’
Salene was right, thought Ryan, it all added up in Enna’s story and Lex’s was sketchy. But still there was a feeling of guilt that he hadn’t stood up more for his best friend who had got him through so much.
Meanwhile the three were still walking along the empty streets making conversation.
‘So Ellie. You came from the farm? Is that right?’
‘Yeah. Alice and me lived there before the virus, or at least on the weekend we were there. My mum and dad were divorced so we lived with mum in the city in the week. That’s where I went to school.’
‘Oh right,’ Enna did her best to sound interested. ‘What about you Jack?’ She turned around to find him still sulking behind.
‘What me? Oh just in some regular house in the suburbs.’
Enna, in attempt to get more out of him, turned to his area of speciality. ‘So how did you get so good at computers?’
Gradually the conversation picked up. Enna smiled periodically and nodded but inside she was dying of boredom. She quickly glanced at Jack to see if he was feeling the same way. Their eyes met and Enna looked away embarrassed. He isn’t so bad after all, thought Enna, sure he was a little young but in this brave new world, older men weren’t really an option. Besides, he could be useful. She remember what her brother had said, she must control herself.
‘What about you Enna?’ asked Ellie, ‘Where do you come from?’
Jack moved in-between the two girls. ‘Er… Ellie we know where Enna comes from, we’re going there.’
‘Oh yeah,’ Ellie paused lookng stupid, ‘Well did you have any brothers or sisters?’
Jack looked at her meaningfully.
‘Oh yeah, ‘ mumbled Ellie remembering how Ebony had sold her little sister to slavery and her brother had died of the virus while…. ‘Um… can you tell us about your life?’
‘Er, sure.’ Enna wondered which life they’d like to hear about. There was the innocent, happy childhood in a loving and secure family, the pitiful one with abuse and unloving parents, and then there was the real one, sneaking out every night down the fire escape and meeting her mates, she wouldn’t come back for a whole week sometimes. Her parents soon found out that the more fuss they kicked up, the longer she would stay away!
She decided on the combination of the innocent life and the pitiful life. She mentioned frequent trips to the hospital along this road.
‘Why Enna?’ asked Ellie concerned.
‘I erm… they found out when I was still fairly young. I can never have children or anything.’
‘Oh Enna, I’m sorry,’ Ellie said comfortingly, Jack just looked embarrassed.
That did the trick for Enna, for the rest of the trip they avoided the subject altogether.
Meanwhile Enna had noticed out of the corner of her eye, something moving behind them, it had been following them for the last half hour. She signalled to the others to keep walking and talking, they did what she said, a little confused. Enna quickly moved over to behind a nearby crate and waited for who ever it was to come closer. It did, it moved up from it’s hiding place a way off and crept closer and closer. Enna reached for an iron bar that was behind her. The figure was nearly in front of her now. She jumped out holding the iron bar in front of her.
‘Who the hell are you?’ Jack and Ellie swung round to see Enna about to pound some guys with a iron bar. ‘I said, who…’ Enna trailed off, to her horror she realised who it was.
Back in the Mall, it was heaven for KC without Jack around. The first opportunity he got he stole a huge handful of batteries and went straight down to the gambling den. He traded them in for some chips. That was one advantage of being in the Mallrats, no one would dare rip him off any more, in fact they usually gave him a good trade. KC seated himself at one of the card tables and the dealer threw him three cards.
‘Well, well, well,’ came a voice from the shadows, Lex leant forward into the light. ‘It’s nice to see you. How are things down at the Mall? Cosy as usual? Or has Enna taken over yet?’
KC wasn’t sure what to say. He still kinda believed Enna’s side of the story. ‘She’s not that bad Lex, you should have gotten to know her,' he said nervously.
Lex laughed, ‘Oh I got to know her alright, KC, better than you think, I got to know her better than all of you in fact.’ He saw the look of disgust on KC’s face. ‘Not like that I mean. Do you really think I’d do all the things she said?’ KC still wasn’t sure so Lex gave him the line on what had really happened. ‘Look KC, if I was making this up I would have said something more realistic like, ‘I heard her talking to someone and….’ But I’m not I’m giving you the truth.’
KC could see that he had a point, it was a weird thing for Lex to make up. But still he said nothing. Lex could see he was getting anywhere, so he stood up to leave.
‘KC, I know don’t really trust her underneath it all. Guys like you and me, we have instincts about people like her and Enna definitely gave me a bad feeling. Trust your instincts KC.’
He left the table leaving a confused KC to think on what he’d said. Lex was right; he’d never really trusted Enna and he’d found it pretty incredible that she’d managed to become so popular so quickly. KC had always admired Lex and he wasn’t sure that what Enna had accused him of was right. She didn’t seem his type anyway. If she was as evil as Lex made out then maybe… but she wasn’t and that was the point.
The travellers were getting tired; they’d walked all morning and now they looked around for a place to have lunch. They’d left the city centre behind and they were well into the suburbs, rows on rows of identical estates and houses with an occasional park or shop. All the houses had wild and over grown front gardens and most of them had the mark of the virus, one or two simply marked graves. It was quite chilling, everything was deathly quiet, no noise of passing traffic or lawnmowers or even the sound of a passing plane to the airport. Along one of the roads Enna pointed to another one of the identical houses. ‘Oh my God!.’
‘What?’ asked Jack and Ellie simultaneously.
‘It’s my Kat’s house. Look; number 30!’ Enna fought her way through the tangled undergrowth that was the front garden and headed straight for the front door, followed nervously by Jack and Ellie. The door was slightly ajar so Enna went on in and found the kitchen. Opening the cupboards she found a few tins of peaches and at the back of another drawer she found a huge slab of cooking chocolate.
‘Come and sit down,’ she ushered the others, who were standing around awkwardly, into the lounge and onto two sofas. She threw them the food and went back to the kitchen to find some bowls and forks. ‘Here,’ she handed them some forks, ‘They’re a little rusty, but they’ll do.’
The three tucked into the food. Jack and Ellie still had the feeling they were intruding in somebody’s house even though that somebody was long dead. As for Enna she felt right at home, along with her brother, she had systematically cleared all the houses in one estate taking food, clothes, anything useful and tradable that they could find. She left the others to the tin of peaches and found her way to friend's bedroom. She grabbed Kat’s old school bag off the floor and pulled out all the drawers looking for things she might like to take back to the Mall with her. Everything she did want she threw into the bag and the rest just formed a pile on the floor. Kat, had some cool make up stuff thought Enna as she scraped the entire contents of the table straight into the bag.
‘Enna what are you doing?’ Ellie sounded shocked, she was staring at the mess in the room.
‘Oh, er… just borrowing Kat’s stuff, she wouldn’t have minded, really.’ Enna said casually. But Ellie took more convincing, Enna gave her a few encouraging words.
Ellie caught site of a rejected t-shirt hanging out of the drawer. ‘That’s nice,’ she said, feeling the soft material with her fingers.
‘Take it,’ said Enna handing it to her.
Ellie soon got the hang of looking for stuff she liked and Jack joined in too, he’d found some batteries and a tool kit in the kitchen. In no time at all they had a huge pile of stuff in a collection of bags piled just inside the door. ’We’ll pick it up in the car on the way back,’ suggested Enna as they set off deeper into the suburbs.
Late that night, back at the Mall, KC couldn’t get Enna out of his head. He tried desperately to recall some action of Enna’s, a look, a word or even an expression which might reveal the Enna that Lex was talking about. Meanwhile, Ryan’s conscience was still being racked. Salene noticed how unusually quiet he’d been that day and she knew the reason why. That night in bed, she took the subject up with him again. ‘Ryan, are you still thinking about Lex?’
‘What? Oh, yeah. He’s a good guy, Salene, underneath it all he’s a good guy.’
‘What kind of a "good guy" would blackmail a girl to sleep with him otherwise he’d reveal her secret about being a prostitute…’ Salene was angry now, why did Ryan keep clinging to Lex, ‘when he was one of her customers anyway?! He makes me sick Ryan!’
‘What?’ asked Ryan genuinely confused.
Salene sighed, ‘You’ve heard it all before and I’m not sorry for the way I feel about him, even if he was, or is, your friend.’
‘No, not that, the last bit. Lex went to see her when she was a… well….’ Salene nodded.
‘But I never knew… Lex would never…’
‘Oh get over it Ryan,’ Salene’s voice was angry and strained. ‘Lex doesn’t deserve hero-worshipping. Face it; he’s not the guy you think he is. He never was and he never will be. Just let it go!’ With that she got out of bed and headed for the door.
‘Where are you going?’ he called after her.
‘Out, Ryan, just out,’ she said without turning round. She couldn’t believe it, after all Lex had done to Enna, Ryan seemed to find it forgivable, or maybe he didn’t find it serious. Whatever it was, she didn’t care. She went through into Enna’s empty room and lay down on the bed, exhausted.
Episodes 26-30
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