Children's Games: A Story of Modern Consequence

Chapter 58

~Emilia~

His eyes were wide and scared. He sat in his wheelchair with his casted leg hanging out in front of him. He looked exactly like he had on the train; sad and tired; rather than how he had looked in his shop; happy and surrounded by the people he loved. She hadn't realised it until now, but her current location would be approximately on the road behind Billy's Bargains... and thus in his backyard.

Billy reached for the wheels of his chair, ready to make a break for it. He had clearly been watching the fight down below, but a stranger landing onto his balcony was too much, too close. He thinks I'm a stranger.

Emilia pulled her headscarf from her face and raised her hands immediately, her gun pointed at the ceiling but her finger well away from the trigger. She remembered that on the train, he had compared her appearance to his daughter. Billy stopped with wide eyes, his hand almost touching the landline. Throughout her whole exploration of Fimiston these past hours, she had told herself that she wouldn't mind getting caught, but now that she had found Joshua she was determined to leave again. She noticed a clock on a small coffee table next to Billy, and it read to be almost 4am... Their train was in half an hour.

She slowly brought her index finger to her lips, silently shushing her old friend. She grabbed her things and jumped over the edge onto the next balcony before his facial expression could change. She hoped that the quickness of their interaction would make it easier for him to keep it to himself.

On the last balcony, she tried to calm her racing heart, but she could clearly hear what was being said below.

"How did you even figure it out?!" Dominik was furious, almost giddy in his blind madness. "This mission was more important than you could ever realise. We were just doing the right thing!"

Dominik and Joshua were brawling, serving out quick jabs and punches with their bare fists, while doing the best they could to block their opponents blows. Both young men wore clothes dirty and ripped, and both men were bleeding more than they were intact. Their dance was slowing down, and neither looked capable of carrying on for much longer. However, Dominik's eyes shone with excitement, and Emilia realised that he must be on some type of drug. If what Matthew said was true, Dominik shouldn't be able to stand without some chemical boost.

"Ruining our minds because you were upset that people thought you made the disease is wrong!"

"Shut up." Dominik grabbed Joshua by the sides of his face and pushed him into the concrete building. It didn't stop Joshua as he twisted out of the death grip.

"With your history of creating biological and psychological weapons? It's unrealistic of us not to assume that it was you!"

Joshua pushed him in his ribs, earning him a howl of pain before Dominik swung his fist at Joshua's bloody jaw.

"If Australia made the disease, it wasn't me!"

Dominik pushed Joshua to the ground. He kicked him in the side, making sure that he stayed down.

"Shut up, Petyr! I trusted you! What you did!-" The conflict and the pain in Dominik's voice was a shocking contrast from the furious rage, and it made Emilia flinch, waiting atop her little balcony for the right moment to jump down. She scanned the rest of the courtyard, but the only other thing of significance other than the abandoned baton was one of their explosives dismantled in the corner.

"My name is Joshua! And don't you dare talk to me about trust! We are failed brainwashing experiments! How many of us are there?! All pawns in your little Games!"

With a great yell of effort, Joshua kicked out at Dominik's shins, causing him to buckle to the ground. Joshua rose, his body a patchwork of bruises and cuts, and Emilia wondered how long they had been at it before she showed up. There was a thick bandage around Joshua's wrist that went halfway up his arm, already soaked red as the wound underneath bled.