The Divine Infection

Chapter Twenty-Three: Burn It To The Ground

A long while passes of PJ driving down the long road by the time Jim and Crilly have calmed down about the explosion. A painfully long, irritating while.

"Where are we going, then?" Crilly asks, finally being serious about something. "I mean, we can't go back to Dundee. They'll know it's us!"

"That's a good point." PJ nods. "Where to?"

"We should go down further from the factory, near water. I can get Barrone cleaned up, and you can all get a rest." I look over the back of my seat to see Barrone lying in a bloodied, crumpled heap on the floor, his blood-matted head resting upon a rolled-up sheet. The crates are gone, replaced with bags of what I'm going to guess is something that will presumably benefit Dundee. I mean, why else would they send anyone to "trade" with RedempCorp?

"Good idea." PJ nods again in agreement. He drives onto the main road, the van humming and spluttering as it prowls across cracked tarmac, and I sigh back against the chair. My mind is filled with worry as I think about the state we found Barrone in. The sound of his agonised screams still echoes around in my mind, and I shudder; the noise refuses to leave my mind, no matter how much I will it to, and the image of Barrone so stripped up and injured dances menacingly in the back of my mind.

"Wait. We need to go back to Dundee at some point." Jim pipes up, breaking the tense silence in the van. "Jake and Alex are still back there. And Tom, Pip, Frenchy... What about them?"

"They're safe where they are." PJ sighs. "If we go back, then people will think we had something to do with all this. They'll think the others played a part in it, too. And then they'll be in as much danger as we are."

"But-"

"Believe me, Jim, we can't go back." PJ's voice is firm, and no one questions him. No wonder: we all know he's right. We can't ever go back.

"Is everything over, then?" I ask quietly, as PJ turns a corner and the van makes its steady descent down a hill and towards a considerably large dock at the edge of the loch.

"No." Jim says. "We found this map, see, in an office back there. Had a couple of circled red areas; Inverness, and Dundee."

"Anything else? A map like that could mean anything." PJ questions.

"No. But maybe that wasn't RedempCorp's HQ." Jim suggests. "Maybe their HQ is Dundee."

"Hm...too far-fetched." PJ frowns. "I don't think it-"

"But it makes sense." Jim presses on. "Inverness is where we've always thought it was, right? And why would some guy in Dundee send a few guys that only showed up the day before, when doesn't even know their motives, to RedempCorp's HQ, knowing what could happen, how security could be breached? No one is that stupid. Wouldn't they want to send the newcomers away from the HQ? Trick them, make them think it's the main hub, test them to see what they do? And if they blow up the factory, don't let them back into Dundee, and instead shoot them on sight?"

"That's a really good point." I blink in surprise.

"Yeah. When you put it that ay, it makes a whole lot more sense." PJ says, before killing the engine. "We should go to Dundee."

We bundle out of the van, and Crilly carries Barrone's hardly-moving form down to the water for me, resting the broken man's back against a rock to the left of the dock. I smile sheepishly up at him. "I've got him now. Thanks." And so, Crilly goes off to toy with the van's engine, and PJ and Jim sit up on the dock, talking between themselves and watching me carefully. I use a rag from in the van, wetting it in the water and then ringing it out ever so slightly.