Chapter 5.14

Further in the city, we noticed that the main road, which should have been a maze of abandoned cars, had been cleared of vehicles. Instead, there was a steady stream of vehicles ferrying to and from the apartment complex. Although, not all of them stopped; presumably, there must have been more locations in the city where they were keeping people hostage. One of them must have been where they kept the adults- I surmised that some of them must have been alive- you don't invade a country and kill sixty percent of the citizens- they'd be no-one to rule at the end of it.

"There's a place where trucks go on the other side, do you think that where the kids will be?" Tommy whispered.

"Probably. Show us." With my hands firmly gripping his shoulders, he guides us to the other side of the building. Behind the complex was a loading bay bordered on the other side by thick bushes, and beyond that, gardens of the houses that backed onto it. A large truck took up most of the space, and four guards stood at each end. There didn't seem to be any more security than any other part of the building, so I started to doubt that we were in the right place.

"Use Rex to see if there's anyone in there." I whispered. Rex had been cowering and whimpering since Shadow had covered us, Tommy had given up trying to comfort him after the first few attempts, and it was only then that he tried to address him again. He knelt, careful to stay within Shadows border and beaconed him. He closed his eyes and seemed to be communicating with him in some way, reluctantly Rex slunk away towards the container, but every few steps he looked back at Tommy, begrudgingly. Tommy concentrated and after a few moments, he muttered "they're in there." In the next second, Rex bounded back, much happier to be in his vicinity. He led us around to a gap in the bushes, and we edged our way through the space between the bushes, counting under his breath until he abruptly stopped and stooped down, quietly tugging against the fence panel. With a little resistance, the panel broke apart, producing a hole big enough for a child or a small adult. Breaking away from Shadow, he scuttled into the garden. I peered through the hole, I could see an overgrown lawn and a child's brightly coloured slide. The hole was a little too small, the wood scraped against my shoulders; a person even a centimetre larger wouldn't have fitted. When I was through to the other side, Tommy swung the piece of wood back into place. Shadow directly fazed through the fence and met me immediately on the other side.

Inside the garden, there was a shed and a climbing frame that had been converted into a shelter using a tarp tied at each end. Inside there was a random selection of items that would have been useful for survival.

"How long did you stay here?" I whispered, still aware that there was only about ten feet, a fence and some bushes between us and the Garlantian guards.

"I think just under a week." He answered, rummaging through the stuff he'd left behind. He slipped a few things in his pocket but left the rest. "I snuck out when they did the registers, I needed to know if any of my friends had got caught. I was about to move on when I saw you."

The garden had a front entrance via a gate that stood between the gap between that house and the next. I eased open the latch and peered through the empty drive and onto the street. The street was empty- quiet, despite being so close to the compound. I noticed there were some rubbish bins near the gate with the number 16 etched on them. Then I rushed back to the shelter and laid out the map on its base. Previously, I'd marked all the sewage access points around the apartment complex as we weren't sure what ones we would end up using. I searched the surrounding streets until I found the correct one, then traced my finger along it, counting the houses as I went. There! Only two houses down from where we were was a sewer access point.

I tapped my finger on the map, "that's the access point we'll use. I'll take the kids a few at a time to this garden, and then Sergeant can ferry them out to Theo who will be in the sewage system."

He nodded.

"Are you ready to go? We should let the others know." I asked.

He gave a final nervous look around the garden, then "lets go."

We used the gate, and crept out onto the street, although it appeared abandoned, I couldn't have been certain, so Shadow bent over us and covered us in his shadow. Then we navigated our way back over ground, careful to avoid as many people as we could. About halfway, we hadn't seen anyone for over ten minutes, so we decided it was safe enough to walk normally, although we still kept to the shadows as much as possible.

Theo had just got back when we arrived; she was washing her hands with a canister of water and a towel with a grimace. I noticed there was a smear mark on her trousers of what I hoped was mud, but given that she'd been in a sewer, I doubted it.

"What happened to you?" I asked, trying to hide my smirk.

She glared at me. "Seriously? Not a word. I'm fully aware of the fact I'm covered in shit and I stink and it's disgusting. I do not need to be told."

In the next step, I noticed the stench- it wasn't exactly the smell of shit; it was the smell of stale shit.

Both Sargent and Bella were closer than we were, and they managed to hide their disgust, I must've commended them for that. Tommy could not, he tried to hide his face by looking down at the ground, but it didn't fool anyone. Thankfully Theo didn't have the heart to snap at him.

"I have a set of spare clothes if you want them." Bella offered.

"Thanks." She used the back of the truck to change, and we waited until she'd finished to tell them what we'd found. After, the smell had dissipated a bit but there was still an after tone of sewage.

"What did you guys find?" she asked.

I laid out the map and let Tommy explain, "we found the kids, they were already being held in a storage container at the back of the building." He pointed at the map, "I stayed here before, there's a loose panel in the fence. So that where we'll take the kids, and we'll slowly take them out to the sewage access point on the street."

Theo glanced at our map and tried to find the correct access point on her map. Then circled it with a pen.

"It will be like a relay. I'll take the kids from the container and give them to Tommy, then Sargent will take them from Tommy to Theo in the sewage access point in the street."

"How do you plan on doing this without getting seen?" He asked.

"You don't need to worry about that, we have it covered." Theo intervened on my behalf.

He looked at us suspiciously but didn't say any more.