Rise Read online

  RISE

  Victoria Powell

  Thanks to Garth Olwg Creative Writers for their support and guidance while writing this novel.

  Thank you also to our tutor – Stephen Jenkins – for guiding and motivating me.

  Copyright © 2021 Victoria Powell

  Cover Image Copyright © “Curve” by It’s No Game is licensed with CC BY 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 9798728547686

  1 - The Daughter

  Alex pushed open the fire exit door into a green-lit emergency staircase. If the cops were after her then the CCTV hot spots, like the apartment lifts and lobby, would be dangerous passing places. But these were her shadows. This was her secret route from Heather and Robert Appleby’s apartment. Descending for the last time, Alex checked the dove pendant was in its place, then pushed out into the cool autumnal cityscape.

  In this part of the city apartment blocks trailed away in every direction. The Sun disappeared hours before and the end of the 4pm school pick-up rush was in near darkness. Cars drifted by in unison at the designated speed, following convoys of similar units on autopilot. A handful of parents shuffled past, heads down, earbuds in, running late to pick-up their kids before curfew. Alex turned the corner to join the flow of suits streaming towards the underground station.

  Sirens wailed past as Alex funnelled into the underground only three streets from the flat. The flow of suits split left towards Platform 1, to Central. All alone, Alex split right down the curving staircase onto Platform 2. On the crackled platform a dozen people were huddled together waiting for the train south. A couple of new suits dotted about, avoiding black market traders and pickpockets, all basking in the shade away from the ground-level CCTV.

  A low hum built, warbling as the tunnel mouth brightened. The train should be empty now, this far from Central. Only the desperate travelled further at this time of the evening... like the girl hiding in the camel-wool coat. Alex sat in the orange, flickering light near the exit. Her dark plait was tucked out of sight beneath her hood and a silk scarf masked her distinctive jaw. Her eyes darted from face to face, all senses stretched to feel the room, back pressed into a pillar.

  The train would pass through a dirty chewing gum suburb called Falisans, which still survived despite the Ambassador purging the rest of the walled city. The perfect place for the Ackersons group to blend in. That’s where Alex was going and she wasn’t the only Ackerson out tonight.

  Clicking shoes tapped down the steps from the surface. Seven sets of solid, rapid footsteps scampered directly behind the pillar by the exit. Stay still; do not move. Her sweaty fingers slipped from the camel-wool sleeves, tucking the dove pendant carefully under the coat’s collar. Nothing to identify her, not her age, her shape, nothing to betray her.

  Police uniforms. Handcuffs dangling from their belts. Who were they looking for? How good was her disguise?

  The train shot from the tunnel mouth, rounding the corner with wheels screaming to stop. The doors creaked open.

  Do not run.

  “Alex Jenkins! We know you’re here.” The voice was like rustling iron filings with the sharp twang of the old capital, not like the fruity local accent. That’s a bred copper, brought up in police barracks.

  Terrified whispers rippled from the far end of the platform. Maybe some newbie drug dealers? The cops picked up the fear and ran down the platform. Hugging the sweat-damp camel-wool closer, affecting a shuffle with deliberate slowness, Alex staggered through the carriage doors. She looked back. The cops were far down the platform. Two travellers were wearing cuffs. Another Ackerson stepped past the cops, boarding the train.

  “We know you’re here, Alex.”

  That voice! There, a middle-aged cop, the tallest of the lot, with peppered brown hair and a sculpted moustache. It’s him! Inspector Defoe. Eleven years since he arrested her mother, executed her, and still Alex remembered that stupid moustache. The door-closing beeps began. He scanned the length of the train, his eyes jumping two carriages and locked onto hers.

  Alex swung herself inside the carriage and the doors leisurely closed. Was Defoe still on the platform? Pressing her face to the glass, cops were running and for a moment they gained on the train. The platform fell away and the train dove into darkness.

  Buffeted by the cacophony of the train, Alex strained every sense for signs of a chase. Was that his shadow in the strobing strip lights? Were those his footsteps pattering between the clatter of train wheels and the groan of the engine? Could even the oil, urine and bleach smells press down the scent of his ruddy filthy cigarettes?

  Alex’s skin prickled, but the carriage was still. Nobody was waving a gun in her face. Nobody was pressing her into the floor. She leant back in a chair. From here she could see every corner of the carriage. There was plenty of warning if someone approached.

  How did they know she would be at the station? This was the third close call in a month. That man! His voice was etched into her skull. He’d gotten close, he’d called out her name, he knew she was there. This was the first time he’d had sight of her. Something was wrong.

  Who gave her up? At the Ackerson hideout only two council members and the door guards knew about her stays with the Applebys’. That was protocol. A necessary risk. She’d done her homework, she knew the latest cop camera positions, this wasn’t her fault. Would Robert... No! Never! Even after their fight he’d never turn her in.

  Deep breaths. The train was making distance from the station. Get off at the next stop, before the police swarm. It’s shy of Falisans, but there’s a pick of fire exits to choose from.

  The steel-plated carriage door swished open. Defoe! The cocky git was holding a lit cigarette in his left hand and his pistol loose in his right.

  He smirked and swaggered like he’s forgotten her rep - escape sprinter extraordinaire - but if it came to a fight her seventeen-year-old runner’s frame was outmatched by his bulk.

  Alex ducked behind a chair. There was only one way out. The pistol followed her dive across the aisle.

  “Where are you going, Miss Jenkins?”

  Alex’s adrenaline-shaking hands trailed the wall until a small red box covered in safety glass hovered just behind her right ear.

  A smooth trail of smoke spluttered; he’d figured out her plan. “More of us will be waiting at the next station. Just take the easy route.” The safety clicked on the pistol. “Give yourself up now and you’ll come to no harm.”

  She snorted. “As if I believe that.”

  Twisting around Alex thumped the safety glass and rammed down the stop lever. The wheels screamed. Alex’s ribs smashed into a chair and the cop slid down the aisle towards her. Screams shivered down the train. Run! The train doors opened into the tunnel.

  Gravel crunched underfoot. Purple light flooded the tunnel from the train’s high beams. Ancient smells of oil and coal clung to the walls. Keep going. The cop’s breath laboured, but he was on her heels. No shooting? They want her alive.

  The train lights faded as she weaved past roof collapses and bucked walls in the peppered emergency light. Shadows flickered in the distant light of the next station. People on the tracks. They were coming.

  Alex burst through the next fire escape. Springing up the stairs, chest heaving and muscles burning. The cops were close. They’re falling behind, but not by much. Twisting and turning, she cut corners on the dizzying spiral. Slipping sidewise, her elbow clipped on the jagged iron railing. Pain, ragged pain as oxygen touched her bleeding arm. It ripped out through her lungs, but her legs keep ahead of the chase.

  The upper door swung open at a touch. She pushed out into a district of two storey buildings. Factories. Office units. There was no time to
recover from the twenty-metre vertical run. A firebullet flew over her right shoulder, designed for external pain rather than death. She tripped but kept to her feet.

  “Bastard!”

  “Give it up!” Defoe wheezed, but he was still behind her. The cops were too keen; they were supposed to collapse halfway up the stairs.

  “Go to Hell!” She turned left into an alley she did not remember.

  Seven years ago this area had been her home. There was a base around here, somewhere she could hide. Maybe her luck would hold out. Or maybe she’d hit a dead end.

  The next turn revealed a junction, one road leading to the west end of Main Street. The busy markets are good cover and her father probably would head for it, but Alex turned away. The cops were still on her heels. She couldn’t risk running into more cops and search beams.

  The sign for Swift Street! The old base couldn’t be far. There, the entrance crack was still in the wall and the cops were out of sight now.

  Squeezing into the entrance crack, Alex folded into the familiar charcoal smells and smoke blackened walls of the old chimney stack. This site was ingenious. To get into the base they climbed up inside the chimney by propping their back against one wall and their feet against the opposite wall, then shuffle vertically to the first floor. As a kid she remembered a rope ladder being thrown down the stack for her father to climb up with her quaking the whole time.

  Now the smells brought back a desperate fear, but she climbed upwards with her back and her feet until she was just above the crack. Chest heaving, legs trembling, arm seeping blood, she urged quiet over her body as Defoe ran past.

  Silence.

  With blood steadily leaving her wound she felt for her scarf to tourniquet her arm. Panic! Her scarf was gone, somewhere between the train and the hideout. Hopefully not near the crack in the wall. The hem of her camel-wool coat had to do.

  “Where the hell is she? I bloody had her!” Defoe was just outside. “I want a full search of this area. She has got to be here!”

  Climb, climb up the chimney. It’s the only way.

  The rooftops were quiet. Still. Deceptively dangerous. Don’t trust the strength of the corrugated sheets. Don’t trust the chimneys not to hide security cameras.

  Then the low rooftops stopped. Towers clung to the sides of the now shallow underground railway. The shadows grew as she descended to the streets of Falisans.

  This district had an end date. It crawled around the edge of the Business District, waiting for the Ambassador to roll over the streets and flatten the rabble in his path. Farewell Falisans.

  Dilapidated buildings offered excellent lurking places for discretionary passing trade for the lovely ladies and jacketed lads carrying addictive goods. No matter what the Ambassador wanted, the traders would lurk around the edges of the Business District, where the demand was highest.

  Police endlessly circled the streets, pausing only to convey sleazy patrons or traders to prison. Despite the cops, and the misty rain, the streets still bustled. People trudged through the plastic litter trying to look innocent; few were in this area. One man, not the most nervous of the lot, hurried in the shadows.

  Police cars drove past slowly. His large jacket bulged. The cars kept going. The police were searching for someone, otherwise this guy would have been in for it. His ethnicity was too minority for this city. The cops could only see that smidge of the oriental and the chance of catching a spy. He would lose a lot of money if he dropped the bags to run from the cops.

  Nobody would be buying if police were about. He turned down the lane where most of the prossies lived. Outside Madame Mercy’s the ladies gave him nothing more than a nod. They knew he was skint.

  That’s when he spotted Alex. He shook rainwater out of his eyes, flicking drops out of his curls at the same time. His eyes now carefully avoiding her.

  He’d clocked her... she was not local. Alex knew her clothes were too new; she had a healthy weight and a good stance. Even so, she leaned heavily on the wall. She had blood on her coat. He must know that she’s with the illegals.

  Should she run? Would he attack her?

  The blood drew his eyes.

  She cut across his path.

  He turned around and snapped at her, “Get lost.”

  Alex pulled down her hood revealing a tangled black plait, paling skin and haunted eyes. A wage of notes appeared in her hand and she forced them towards him. That was a whole haul of dope money in her hand.

  “All that is yours if you help me. More if I get away alive.” She could see the conflict in him.

  He considered it and pushed the notes back towards the her. “Not a chance.”

  “Please. I need to get out of here,” she said.

  “I’m not helping a murderer. The cops would hang me.”

  She groaned and clutched his jacket, blood dripping from the hem of her sleeve. “I’m an Ackerson. We don’t do bombs or any of that shit. Just jail breaks. Only innocent people.”

  “An Ackerson?”

  “Please,” she urged. “You’ve heard the rumours. We’re the good guys.”

  “What’re you doing out here?”

  The alley was quiet, all eyes sheltered from the rain.

  “I was meeting friends; someone I’ve known since school. The cops set a trap, but I shook them off,” she hissed through her teeth. “Please, I just need bandaging up, then I’ll disappear.”

  Just medical help. She could see his mind ticking over.

  She took his hand. “The cops will never know.”

  There was a whole bunch of stuff this guy could do with that money. Maybe he had sick kids or debts that needed paying. Whatever it was, he sighed and beckoned her down the street.

  A wall of noise greeted them as they exited the alley. The bustle on the streets blurred them into the background. The rain played its part too, forcing people to keep their heads down. He watched her closely. If she hadn’t been woozy from losing so much blood she would’ve run straight back the way she came, but instead followed him into his block of flats.

  “I’m back Claire!” The guy called as he pulled open the door to his shabby bedsit.

  He pushed Alex down the narrow corridor into the lounge-bedroom. Claire called from the adjoining kitchen; her voice muffled by the paperboard wall. Alex was abandoned on the pull-out sofa bed and he skipped into the kitchen. Pushing back the dizzy spell, Alex softly approached the paperboard wall, peeking around the doorway.

  Claire looked so happy. She was making jewellery at a pop-up camping bench they used as their kitchen table. The whole kitchen was hacksaw-adjusted, done on the cheap. The one expensive item was a wheelchair.

  Claire pulled him down into a hug. “Nath, the store bought everything this week.”

  “Wow, for how much?”

  She scoffed with a sideways sarcastic smile, taking his rough hand in hers. “It’ll pay for the rent so you can take the week off?”

  He brushed his free hand over his jacket, reflexively feeling the lump of cash hidden underneath. “You know I have to buy a minimum off my suppliers each week or they’ll drop me. I need to sell the stuff. I am not stock piling that crap.”

  Alex bumped against a lamp and Claire shrank away from him when she heard the noise. “Nathan, did you bring someone back with you? A client?” She asked in disgust.

  He paced over to the odds-and-ends cabinet where the first aid kit was kept. “No, not a client. Just some woman who needs patchin’ up.”

  “Nath, what have you gotten into? The streets are covered in wasters, but you’ve never brought one back before.”

  “Leave it, Claire.”

  Claire fumed silently and followed Nathan into the living room. “My bloody hell, Nathan! It’s Alex Jenkins! That girl is part of the inner circle of the Ackersons. She’s a bloody walking time bomb, dickhead.”

  “She can’t be…” Nathan seemed to check off a list of Alex’s features - long black hair, strong jaw, about five and a half foot, slim, young.


  “I didn’t tell him,” Alex said, snatching the first aid kit from Nathan’s unresisting hands.

  Claire pushed her chair at Alex, backing her into a corner. “You didn’t tell him?”

  “Claire, don’t…”

  “How dare you! How dare you do this to us!”

  Alex hissed as she applied pressure to her wound. The whole antiseptic smell was overpowering. “What’s your problem? We help people.”

  “Nathan, get off!” Claire sucked in deep breaths.

  Alex said, “Ok, it’s Ok.”

  Claire glared at her. “No, it’s not! How dare you? Three years ago, I worked in a classy venue in Falisans when cops came in and found illegals. They started shooting. Lots of people got killed and I got shot in my back. Your kind did it.” She leant forward and pulled up the back of her shirt. A long, deep scar stretched along her ribcage. “I can’t walk, but it could have been worse.”

  “Claire, baby.”

  “My little sister was working in the back room that day. They brought out her body when I was lying on the pavement waiting for an ambulance. Thanks to you, my baby sister is dead.”

  Alex raised a blood-stained palm for Claire to see. “I’ve seen my share of dead family too.”

  Claire stilled.

  “They say my Mam was a sympathiser, but she wasn’t,” Alex said. “My Dad actually worked in Central, for the Ambassador. He’s seen that shiny mask up close. He was loyal until the day they took my Mam.”

  Claire approached the wounded woman. “What happened?”

  Alex shrugged. “I have no idea.”

  “I mean what happened to you?” Claire pulled Alex’s coat down past her wound. “They shot you.”

  Alex scoffed, and then said, “No, not shot. It’s a bit more complicated than that, but they hurt me.”

  With her delicate hands Claire peeled back Alex’s ripped shirt sleeve.

  “Nathan, get me a needle and a very fine thread from my jewellery kit.” Nathan wavered, but then left the room.

  The air in the room was tight, the rose-scent pressing in and Claire leaned closer. She squeezed a stinging anti-sceptic wipe into the cut, smirking at Alex’s hiss.