Nada's Escape

3- Capture?

I force myself to focus on the rest of the plan. We need something to help us haul the ladder up with because it's too far down to reach from the top. I start ripping pieces of my t-shirt off. By the time Fern reaches the top I have two dubious cloth ropes for her to tie onto the top rung.

"We need these to hold the ladder steady against the wall as the last of us climbs up and to pull the ladder up and over once we're all up." Fern is nods seriously and quickly works away with the cloth. She heaves herself beside me and Josie begins her climb.

Above the sound of both of our breathing a whisper of wind tickles the hair at my neck. The ladder makes a scratching sound as it shifts imperceptibly on the wall even if Josie is solemnly quiet as she climbs. Dry foliage crunches on the wrong side off the wall. I whip my head in that direction instead, searching the garden strip for any sign of movement. But the shadows are inky amorphous shapes, not human sized silhouettes. A possum or a fox then, I wonder?

White light slashes across my retinas and I freeze. I try not to breath, not to blink even as my eyes sting from the assault. It stabs my eyes a second time, fixing on me and I know we've been found. The light turns away and I squint away the coloured dots in my vision, hearing the crunching footsteps accelerate into a running cadence.

"All up!" I call down to the other girls, praying that our finder will take their time calling for help. I watch our finder's zig-zagging progress, highlighted by the torch beam and at the same time imagine the panic of the girls below, having to come up one after the other. The finder reaches the bungalows and dashes right by those at the tip of the cul-de-sac. He slips into the front yard of the bungalow on the corner and I lose sight of him behind the hedges there. I tap my fingers that aren't holding the makeshift ladder rope against the sandstone in trepidation.

"Can we still make it?" Fern asks over my shoulder. I frown down at the ladder below, shrouded in darkness like a great secret. I catch sight of movement at a couple of points in the darkness, still too far down.

"I don't know," I start with in despair. "If we're lucky," I amend a second later, putting the positive spin on it. Surely we have to, after coming this far.

I check the progress of our finder and he's emerging with another figure from behind the hedges. They're walking slowly and haltingly; the way two people do when they know they have to part but still want to convey one or ten last messages. I keep tapping my fingers, glaring at them to stay put even as one of the figures points up towards me.

They split off in different directions suddenly and my hand clenches into fist. What a boon, I think sarcastically, being able to watch the circumstances of my own recapture. I shift aside so that Fern can pull Josie up but my eyes are glued to the tableau before me. The original figure, still with a torch in hand rushes along the main curving street away from us. The second figure, their shape hidden by a long flapping robe or nightgown rushes across the street to another, bigger house. I smile as they stand at the doorway, illuminated by a streetlamp, and no one comes running. I imagine that I can hear the frantic knocking from here.

"How far are the others?" I whisper to Fern and Josie, the latter hugging the top of the wall tightly behind Fern.

"A minute or so," Fern shrugs, "If we kneel on the ropes on either side then I'll pull up Laura and you pull up Amy right after to save time?" I nod in agreement.

I shift my eyes back to the first figure who has cut off the main street is running faster and faster. They have curved around the walls of Seven and are now heading for the gate. This realisation has me tapping my impatient fingers again. I turn my eyes back to the second figure just as the door she's standing in front of opens. I squint to try and make out this new silhouette but with no luck.

"Nada," hisses Fern and I switch tasks, leaning over the knotted rope and down the sandstone wall. My hands are clumsy when it's my turn to haul up Amy and I must force her to graze her knee on the lip. Lights at the gatehouse shift, glowing over the top of the main hall. I can see that we are just in time: our finder has reached the gate and is causing a stir.

I take both ropes and clench into a sit up position, legs parallel with the wall. I am the start of this strange train of girls arranged like a rowing team along the top of the wall ready to lift the ladder over. My arms strain on the ropes until they feel the petrified wood of the ladder and then my muscles protest loudly as I tilt the side up into Amy's waiting arm.

From here on out we are well oiled machine, each additional girl of adding their strength to bring the ladder to meet us. And once it is up and level with the top of the wall Fern then counts us through bringing it over our heads and releasing it back to the ground in perfect sync like the steps to a dance.

I gaze with triumph at the clarity of our next step straight down the ladder to escape. But a beam of torchlight intersects our ladder and I hiss. A Huntsman runs through the garden strip and halts as he reaches the edge of the gravel drive. My heart sinks at the sight of his bulk and the torch beams clattering through the cul-de-sacs behind him. It might take a few minutes before we are surrounded by more Huntsmen, but that's how long it will take us climb down.

"Go Nada," hisses Amy, "You get down there fast, you take that bastard out and if they're closing in too fast you run like Boreas."

The gravity of that last command sinks into my chest like lead. I don't want to accept it but we all swore we would follow the order without question, no matter who gave it. I'd never imagined that I would be the one receiving it from Amy. All five of us were meant to escape together.

But it makes a wicked kind of sense. I am closest to the ladder. I have the best chance right now. So I start down the sketchy wood, forgetting for a moment the height and the danger, appreciating the responsibility now thrust upon me. Even if it means leaving the rest of my friends behind now, I will fight like hell to escape and I will come back for them.