The morning sun in Jude’s face was pleasant, even if it did nothing to keep the cold at bay. The last three weeks had been tough on him. He looked hard and weary. His recently shaved head was attracting a chill from the biting wind, though it was cooling on the scar, which still shot pains through his forehead from time to time.

He reached for his chin and itched his stubble. It edged towards being a short, scraggly beard. He quickly replaced his hand on the wheelchair, for fear of hitting a crack in the pavement and tipping the crippled man out to the melting frost underfoot.

He glanced down. The man in the chair looked to be sleeping, chin dipped to his chest, his large hood falling over his face. The empty sleeve where his right arm should have been was flapping behind in the breeze. Ash clouds hung low and heavy. Jude trudged on, weaving in and out of Crocheads strewn about the pavement, propped up against bins and benches, laying on the floor, needles protruding from slabs of putrid scaled flesh.

It felt like an age ago, that fateful day he tripped over the addict on his way to see Zuri. He remembered feeling powerless, wanting to help but not knowing how. Now he was on a quest, like the heroes in the cowboy films he used to watch with his father. He was going to help every single addict. He was going to stop Croc from hitting the streets and destroy whoever was behind it.

Jude swung a left, hitting a pothole and jarring the man in the wheelchair awake.

“Fuck!”

“Sorry, Ansell!”

“If the disguise is going to work, you’ve got to take it seriously,” Ansell hissed. If I was actually your crippled father, would you rag me about the city like this or take some damned care?”

“Sorry, my mind wandered. Won’t happen again.” Jude smiled as another pothole drew near, and he wondered if it would be funny to bump Ansell through it. He decided against it. “How’s your arm?”

“Numb.”

Jude grinned at Ansell’s dour demeanour. He’d gotten used to it over the last few weeks, and now he almost found it endearing. Perhaps if the man wasn’t a brutal murderer, he’d be fun to antagonise. He smirked as he remembered back to that morning at the cottage, before the sunrise. After strapping Ansell’s right arm to his chest with tight bandages, Jude secured the final length of the bandage with surgical tape and thumped Ansell hard on the shoulder, laughing as he ducked and dodged attacks from the angry man’s other arm.

Aside from providing humour, the disguise they deployed to move through the city was working like a charm. A vagrant son and his crippled father, just another sad story in a city of thousands. They had planned to separate from each other to reenter the city but were pleased, albeit confused, when they saw the perimeter guard was still a skeleton crew.

The plan was for Ansell to drag through the questionable supplies for the clock tower on foot and for Jude to drive through in Ansell’s beat-up old jeep. But they had passed through together, unchecked. Once inside the perimeter, they had seen why. The City Guard were everywhere, patrolling and squashing small pockets of rebel resistance. Ansell said they mustn’t have been able to spare men to guard the arterial roads into the city as they normally did. That suited them.

After stashing the jeep in Ansell’s yard, they had begun the journey across the city, and now they rolled on the final stretch towards their destination. Arnero’s Shanty.

“That’s it.” Ansell nodded his head towards a derelict hotel opposite Arnero’s.

Jude narrowed his eyes against the low-hanging winter sun and surveyed the building. He knew it; he passed it all the time. But he’d never had cause to look at it until now, not properly anyway.

It towered over them, nestled grey in the low ash-colored clouds, with tall windows thrown in sporadically against the murky grey walls. Large chunks of the walls were missing, and the top floor was completely open to the air. It was far taller than Arnero’s, and just like Ansell had said, the top floor would give a clear view of the shanty.

“I can’t believe it's still standing,” said Jude.

“It won’t be in a few years. Every winter crumbles it further. Hopefully when it topples, it goes Arnero’s way.”

“Here’s hoping,” Jude agreed. “Gone to plan so far. Let’s get inside,” he continued as he closed in on the building. The tall windows on the lowest floor were completely devoid of glass. They acted as makeshift entrances. Hungry Crocheads poured their eyes over them as they approached, though they averted their gazes to other passersby when they realised there was nothing to be stolen from the homeless boy and his crippled father.

Jude spun and reversed the chair up the steps, grimacing with every bump as he imagined Ansell’s irritation rising. Reaching the top, he turned the chair and pushed on through the lobby, which was another all-too-familiar desolate slum. Ansell dipped his chin to his chest once more as Jude pushed him past tents and mattresses towards the double doors at the back of the room.

Ansell thrust out his legs and pushed open the doors with his heels. Jude eased him through into what should have been a staircase, though all that was there was a jutting pile of rubble.

“Thank fuck for that,” Ansell grunted as he hoisted himself up out of the chair and shrugged off the thick blanket from his shoulders. “Get this off me.”

Jude hurried to his side and drew his hunting knife, carefully cutting away the bandages. Ansell freed his arm and began rolling his shoulder, allowing the circulation to return. He picked up a gnarly old length of rebar and slid it through the looped handles on the door.

“So, you’ve been here before?” Jude said as he pulled out a grapple hook attached to a length of rope from under the chair.

“Yes. Another place I can disappear to. It was a shanty in the early days. Only the ground floor is accessible now. Most of the building burnt and crumbled in an old war with Arnero. She won. She always does.”

He took the grapple hook and swung it, the speed increasing with every rotation until, with a waft of wind, it whooshed from his hand. Jude watched wide-eyed as it ripped through the air to the second level and clanged to rest around a thick, gnarled lump of concrete.

Ansell climbed with ease, his feet walking up the wall as his hands overlapped the rope. He disappeared from view as he rolled over the lip of the floor, reappearing moments later to watch Jude ascend.

When he reached the top of the rope, he saw that the stairs from this point on were intact. Together, they climbed to the top floor. When they reached it, sunlight and swirling cold wind greeted them, thanks to the absence of the roof.

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Ansell led them through a series of corridors. They passed heavy brown doors on either side. Huge gaping holes where the walls had crumbled allowed whistling cold gusts of ash to blast through from outside. Ansell finally halted at a door and shouldered it open, beckoning Jude to follow him inside. Jude traipsed through, stepping over rubble and the rotting remnants of old furniture, until he arrived at the far wall, which had crumbled away at waist height.

“Get down,” Ansell ordered, and Jude obliged immediately. “Here, take these. Tell me what you see.” He pulled at a strap around his neck and produced a set of binoculars, which he thrust towards Jude.

“Cheers, what am I looking for?”

“Give me strength.”

“What?”

“Your favourite bird, or perhaps an ash cloud shaped like a puppy. Shit. Scan the levels and find Marcus.”

“I knew that,” Jude grumbled as he raised the binoculars to his eyes.

He scanned the top level first. He observed people milling around and several guards with scoped rifles leaning on the railings, but no sign of Marcus. “Not on the top.”

He let his gaze fall slowly, recoiling as the three hanging bodies came into view. They were badly rotten now and being feasted on by crows. It amazed him that they still hung there at all.

“That’s Arnero’s level. You see how the gaps between the floors are boarded up? She lives there.”

Jude could see it. He scanned to the right of it and saw two nasty-looking dogs. They made Winston look like a puppy. Three cages came into view next, with only two prisoners occupying them.

“Two prisoners, both women.”

“They’ll be next to hang. Unless one of them is Marcus in a wig, keep looking…Jude…Jude, keep looking!”

Jude couldn’t move. His heart was in his mouth as his magnified view stayed fixed on one of the women. Her black braided hair, her bronze skin, her slender neck and lithe frame.

“It can’t be. It can’t be.”

“What?” Ansell snapped.

Jude dropped the binoculars and fell back, crestfallen, slipping down the wall to the wet carpet beneath him. “It’s Zuri. Zuri is the prisoner, Ansell. How can this…I don’t understand!”

“We’re here for Marcus.”

“I have to save her. I can’t let her hang! I love her!”

Ansell grunted his frustration and tugged at his beard. “You wanted this, you asked me. We’re here for Marcus.”

“At the cottage, you told me you loved someone once. So can you please park your vengeance for one second and show some compassion!”

Ansell sighed. His shoulders dropped, and he sniffed as he smoothed his moustache. Jude could feel the tension from the man, could feel his internal struggle.

“Marcus killed your friends. Marcus is the next step towards ending Croc. We’re here for Marcus. That’s the plan. That’s always been the plan.”

“Plans change, Ansell. I’m going in there. I don’t expect you to help me. You don’t owe me anything.”

“You’re going to storm Arnero’s Shanty on your own, are you?”

“I’ll die trying.”

“Then you’ll die exactly how you live. As a naïve fool,” Ansell snapped.

Jude stared at Ansell, and for the first time, he was unafraid. “I’d rather die trying to save Zuri than live with the guilt of her death. That’s something you wouldn’t understand. Guilt, conscience, remorse.”

“You know nothing, boy,” spat Ansell.

“Then tell me! Let me in. What are you afraid of?”

Ansell’s eyes flashed as he slammed his fist into the wall, crumbling rubble to the dusty floor below. He turned his back on Jude, his shoulders rising and falling sharply. When he turned back, he was calm. He dropped to his haunches in front of Jude and dipped his head.

“First person I killed was someone I loved, more than anything. I tried to save them, but I failed. So I saved them in a different way. I live with guilt. I carry it with me every day. The remorse drives me. I understand how you feel. Helpless. I’ve been there.”

“Then help me.”

Ansell stood up and paced the floor. “If I helped everyone in this city, I'd never get my revenge. I’d just be going from trauma to trauma, putting plasters on the cracks.” He turned to Arnero’s Shanty and pressed his fingers into his temples, muttering to himself. “We deal with Marcus first. Then we help the girl. I know how to get in. I’ve planned it all out before, in case I ever needed to kill Arnero. Risky, but should work. That’s my only offer.” Ansell raised the binoculars to his eyes and began scanning the shanty.

Jude sat quietly, thinking, his brain in overdrive. The thought of letting her out of his sight without helping her knocked him sick. But the logical part of him knew the only way to save her, and for her escape alive, was with Ansell’s help.

“Tell me the plan and you’ve got a deal.”

Ansell spoke as he continued scanning, “You’ve heard of the Trials?”

“Of course.”

“I’ll enter them. The winner gets taken to Arnero’s chambers for the prize. I’ll kill her and release the girl.”

Jude knew Ansell was oversimplifying. He scrunched his eyes and pushed the back of his head into the wall. The damp was cold on his skin, though it did little to soothe the boiling pressure inside him.

It didn’t make sense for Ansell to help him. There was nothing in it for him. He didn’t care about friendship, and he had no allegiance to Zuri. Perhaps he just lusted after Arnero’s death. But then he’d said it himself. Someone else would replace her. Jude racked his brain but came up with nothing. He wasn’t in a position to ask questions. He needed Ansell, that was in no doubt. He’d just have to trust he had his reasons to help.

“How will you get her out? Once you’re at Arnero’s chambers.”

“Never planned for that. We’d need a distraction. I have one in mind.”

“You can only enter the Trials with a referral, right?”

“I know. We will have to consider it nearer the time.”

“I know someone. Someone who can vouch for you.”

Ansell nodded. “So we have a deal?”

“Ok. Deal. Marcus first, Zuri straight after.”

“Speaking of Marcus...” Ansell turned and pulled Jude to the wall, jabbing the binoculars into his face and manoeuvring his head to face the bottom floor.

Jude searched intently. On the nearest side of Arnero’s Shanty, at the lowest level, Arnero’s men came and went from an old pub. The ones not on duty, looking for a drink and some company from Arnero’s working girls. He followed the building line eagerly until, at last, he stopped at a recessed doorway. There, huddled against the door, away from the biting wind, leaned Marcus. His beady eyes scoured the street, a cigarette jutting from the corner of his concerned frown. His hand hovered around his belt line, inches away from the handle of a pistol.

“I see the bastard.”

“We need to move. We’re going to lose sight of him getting down. Best hope he’s still there.”

Ansell swung away and began the descent through the building with speed and purpose. Jude followed, his head ringing. Should he cut and run? Should he try to save Zuri now, on his own? Or should he stick with his plan, his promise to himself, to side with Ansell and seek to end Croc and its stranglehold on the country?

He wanted to go now, to be with the woman who occupied his mind at all times. But no, he needed Ansell to stand a chance at getting her out alive. He knew that. Could he trust his new friend, though? That he didn’t know. Not for sure.