Hunt and Power. Stephen Hayes

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СКАЧАТЬ me how you feel,” she said. “Tell me what you think of me.”

      My mouth went very dry. I was no good at this—I never had been. I’d never had any practise, but there she was, standing in front of me, holding my hands and staring into my eyes, asking me how I felt about her. She already knew, so what was the point in retreating now?

      “Well, I’ve got very strong feelings for you,” I said, finding it easier to keep going now I’d started. “I always have, but… I guess… I didn’t really think I’d be in with a shot. And I didn’t wanna ruin our friendship, or Nicole’s.”

      She smiled, and it lit up her whole face, making her more beautiful than ever. I still felt tense, but also as though a weight had come off my shoulders.

      “You don’t know how good it feels to hear that,” she said, her voice dropping even lower now, so that it was the same pitch (or thereabouts) as my own. “Come on, we’ve got this moment; let’s not waste it.”

      Though I’d had no practise, I knew instinctively what was to be done. She was leaning forward, so I did the same. But our lips had barely touched when there was an almighty bang and shouts filled the room. I looked around and, to my horror, saw Tommy. Not just one Tommy though; many Tommys were running around the room, blocking the door that had been my way forward. I looked back at Natalie and realised, to my further horror, that she was gone.

      “How dare you!” one of the Tommys shouted at me.

      “You will not get away with that,” another shouted, and they began to advance on me.

      A quick glance around told me there was nothing to do for it. There were at least twenty of them, and they were going to beat the crap out of me. Even one Tommy would normally be too much for me. There was only one thing for it: I bent low and charge forward, straight at the walking wall of Tommys.

      The Tommys furthest out closed in around me as I approached the line, while those directly ahead prepared for the collision. It came, but I didn’t break through them as I had intended. Two grabbed me, and a moment later I was on the floor, having my arms, legs and hair pulled and twisted, and those not doing that were punching and pummelling every bit of me they could reach. It looked bad, all right.

      I struggled and kicked and flailed every bit of me I could, but achieved nothing for it, at least not until I unwittingly kicked one of the Tommys right in the nuts. A moment later, another of them had delivered a powerful blow to that same region of my own body, making all my limbs seize up, but apparently I had set off a chain reaction, because the Tommys closer to my feet—starting with the one I’d hit—were all getting in each other’s way and falling over each other; there were simply too many of them.

      I got my feet on the ground, seeing my chance, and attempted to lift the rest of my body. But there were still so many Tommys holding my arms and punching the wind out of me that I achieved nothing, though the little movement I caused made a few of them fall over and let go of me. I was still very much out of breath, but I rolled over and jumped unsteadily to my feet. A few Tommys advanced on me immediately, while most of the rest were pulling themselves back to their feet, looking hungry for revenge.

      With every ounce of energy I had left—which wasn’t much after the pounding I’d just copped—I ran for the door, swung it open, and hurled myself through it, shutting it behind me and locking it in the process. For a moment, I thought the door would collapse under the weight of the pounding from the Tommys on the other side, but it seemed to be holding up okay.

      The last of my strength left me as I fell to my knees, and then onto my stomach. I could hardly breathe, and every part of my body was aching horribly. I couldn’t move a muscle without feeling terrible pain. I could feel blood running down my face, and knew my nose was broken. I thought perhaps a rib or too was broken too, but I wasn’t sure about that.

      Now that I was safe, at least for the moment, I could think about what had taken place in the previous room. Hall had said that this game was about resisting temptations, and judging by what had just happened, I’d failed the first test miserably. It was infuriating to think that Natalie’s words could so effectively make me forget everything else going on around me. Hall had told me that I could die if I failed badly enough, so I supposed it could have been worse. Perhaps the Tommys would have had guns if they’d caught us rooting or something. As I lay there, I resolved myself of two things: I was going to get the hell out of here as quickly as possible, before anything worse happened; and that in order to do that, I would have to walk right past any further temptations that might present themselves to me.

      After a few minutes, during which the door took the pounding from the army of Tommys, I sat up and, for the first time, took a look at where I was. It was just another corridor, the same as the one I’d started in, and there was nothing to see. With a groan, I pulled myself up, leaning on the wall for support, and began to move along it, grunting in pain with every step. I still couldn’t help thinking about Natalie—at least the one that had been in the other room. She’d said exactly what I wanted to hear, but I had no reason to believe anything she’d said now, and I despised myself for getting so caught up in her words that I forgot what I was supposed to be doing. All the same, it had felt good to hear her talk that way. If only those Tommys had waited three more seconds…

      Within a few minutes, I reached the next door. I felt extremely fearful about going in there this time, knowing what might be awaiting me. Okay, I told myself; whoever’s waiting for you in here, tell them to get stuffed because you’re not interested. I was too sore to fight if I had to, but an almighty crash sounded behind me, meaning only one thing: the army of Tommys had broken down the door behind me and were now charging up the corridor towards me. That meant I had to move. I pulled the door open and slammed it behind me, just in time to see the Tommys come racing up the hall. They started pounding on the new door, now, and I turned away from it. Only then did I have a look at the room in which I was now standing.

      For a split second, I thought I’d won, because I was back in Room 11. Then I realised that it was not Room 11 at all. It was, in fact, Room 12; I recognised the settings through the windows. But it couldn’t be the real Room 12, because instead of Hall taking to a detention class, I saw Mrs. Worlker apparently talking to a History class. Everyone looked around at me in surprise when I straightened up.

      “There you are,” said Peter, patting the back of the seat that I usually sat in. “Come sit down. We were wondering what—blimey, John, you’re a mess.”

      I had no idea what I looked like, and considering these people weren’t even real, I hardly cared.

      “Sorry, Pete,” I said, dragging myself excruciatingly past his row. “Can’t stay.”

      There was a door at the back of the room, which normally led into a storeroom. On this occasion, though, I knew that it was the way to keep moving forward. I headed straight for it.

      “Enough of that, John,” said Mrs. Worlker angrily. “You’ve disrupted this class already, now sit down or it will be detention. What on earth is going on out there?”

      “You sound just like Hall,” I muttered, and a few people laughed.

      Someone suddenly grabbed my hand as I passed the last row of seats, a hand that felt very much like Natalie’s had felt, though perhaps slightly larger. I looked around and saw Serena staring at me.

      “John, you’re really hurt. Do you want me to take you up to the sick bay?” she asked, concerned.

      “I’ll take him, he’s my brother,” СКАЧАТЬ