85.

  I followed the cat, in a trance-like state, shuffling my broken body forward, hobbling like some sort of deteriorating zombie. The cat led me through back alleys and across routes with such confidence that I felt certain it knew where it was going. I didn't know where it was taking me, but I was moving forward, and that's what I needed right now, just to keep moving forward. When I slowed down too much or had to stop and lean against the alley walls, trying to stop myself from being sick from the probable concussion that I had, the cat would wait patiently, meowing at me every now and again to get me moving again. Every time it meowed, I felt another wave of calm and numbness wash over me.

  It was maybe 15 minutes of blindly following the cat before I began to vaguely recognize where I was. It was taking me back to the Mulberry Estate. Was it taking me home? The cat had an unerring ability to avoid people. Every now and again, it would just stop for no reason and wait before continuing on. We went past the park where I’d met Sherbert and all this madness began. The cat took me through an underpass that I barely recognized and then through a thicket of trees that I'd never gone through. Every now and again, I saw flashes of blue or heard snatches of sirens in the distance, but I felt completely safe following the cat. I knew it would take me where I needed to go, and it would keep me safe. Why I was so certain about that, I had no idea, but I was certain.

  I hobbled after the creature until finally, it led me to a glorious sight: a fire escape. The cat hopped onto the steps, and I slowly followed it up, gripping tight to the railings. Every step felt like an expenditure of energy that I didn’t have left. I ground my teeth and forced my body upwards. Exhaustion had set in halfway up, and my knees shook as I forced myself to keep going. Finally, I got to the top of the building. I grabbed hold of the ledge and, with my last will of effort, dragged myself onto the roof, and then climbed to my feet.

  I took a deep breath through my nose and out my mouth and saw the light of the sun. I'd survived the night. It felt like the dawning sun would wash away the madness. I closed my eyes for a second, and then, when I opened them, the cat was gone. There was no sign of it anywhere. Had I just imagined it? No, I was sure the thing was there. I'm sure it had found me and taken me home. I was certain… well, mostly certain.

  I traced familiar routes across the tall tower blocks back home. I was fuzzy on the details. I wasn't quite sure how I had gotten there or how long it had taken, but by the time I clambered down the fire escape on my own building, the sun was almost halfway over the horizon. The chaos of the night before was just beginning to be realized. Looking out over the estate, I could see police everywhere. I could smell smoke and see smashed cars and bullet casings on the floor.

  Madness had gripped the Estate, and I think some of this had nothing to do with me. Drawing so many violent criminals to one place was bound to erupt in violence. More than likely, some gangs who had problems had ended up running into each other in pursuit of me. White tents and police cordons were dotted all around the Estate. My stomach turned at the sight of the white tents: there were bodies beneath them. Madness had gripped the night. Madness caused by Brick.

  I stumbled down my fire escape, fell through my window, slammed it shut behind me, and lay on the floor, my arms spread wide, tears rolling down my temples. I'd survived. I'd gotten home.

  I blacked out as soon as I hit the floor. I never even made it to my bed. I slept fully geared up exactly where I was, and I think I could have slept for days if it wasn't for the sheer discomfort of having my Grandad’s bat digging into my back. For once, I had a near dreamless sleep. I remember the odd snatches of whispers, but for the most part, I just felt the same calm numbness I had while following the cat. Whatever it had done to me, clearly it lasted through my slumber.

  I woke up groaning, my mouth dry and full of blood. My limbs ached and my joints felt like they were locked in place. I laid on my floor, staring at my ceiling, until the pain became too much to bear and I had to start moving. I tried to remember everything that my body had gone through last night, but I was struggling to put it all together. I felt like it happened all so quickly. Had I been run over? I'd definitely been in at least one car crash and I was sent through a window… no, two windows if you counted the windshield of that car. I'd been shot at a lot. I'd been shot… I think. There were those three weird girls in the alleyway, and I'd been sprayed with something.

  I sighed and sat up, shaking my head slowly. Wait, where the hell was my balaclava?I looked around, searching the gloom all around me, and then I had a distinct memory of pulling it off in that alleyway and leaving it there. I groaned deeply and rubbed my face. That was something else to worry about later.

  I began my daily ritual of stripping blood-covered clothes from my flesh, stumbling to the bathroom, and analysing just how broken the night had left me. This one was a doozy. It turned outI had been shot. Some of the shotgun pellets had seared my flesh. While my leather jacket had protected me from most of it, a few pellets had gotten through, leaving me with the unenviable task of digging shards out of my own shoulder with a pair of tweezers. That had been one of the more horrifying moments of DIY surgeries I've done in my bathroom, and I almost passed out from the pain. Eventually, I managed to dig out all the little shards of pellets, doused the wound with antiseptic, and then wrapped it in gauze. Last time I went to Jed's, I stocked up on medical supplies. My bathroom cabinet looked like the trauma center at A&E.

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  Once the shoulder was taken care of, I then had a look at the rest of me. The whole left side of my body was just one big bruise—I'm guessing that's where I got hit by the car. It was ugly and painful, but there was very little I could do about it, so I left it alone. I checked the split on my forehead and it had burst open again, so this time it would need a more permanent repair. I pulled the cap off a tube of super glue with my teeth, cleaned out the wound again, squeezed it shut with my thumb and index finger, and then super glued the skin together. I'd read on the internet that was how they did it sometimes in hospitals when they couldn't stitch or staple, so I just hoped it would work for me. I put another pad on it and then wrapped that in gauze, sellotaping it in place.

  I looked at my split lip and winced. They were always the worst. It's like getting a paper cut on your lip; they sting to no end and there’s nothing you can do. So, I took out some numbing cream and rubbed it on my lips and my gums, which were particularly tender. Then I cared for my hands, which were looking more gnarly every day, but again there wasn't much I could do other than ice them and rub them with burn cream. Both my knees were grazed, my shins had horrible scrapes on them, even my toes hurt, and I had a bad feeling I'd broken one of the smaller ones on my left foot. I just taped them all together and ignored them as best I could. My left ankle was particularly tender. I taped an ice pack to it and left it alone. Then I went over my whole body, rubbing antiseptic cream on all my scrapes, grazes, and cuts, before going to the kitchen and downing the medical-grade painkillers I bought off Jed under the counter. That would make it all better. I sighed, drank water, and filled my belly with hard bread and some stale rice I had left over from a takeaway.

  After that, I limped back to my bedroom. I didn't even look at my gear, that could wait. I didn't have the focus, energy, or desire to start mending it. I didn't even want to know how badly damaged some of it might be after all that chaos. That was future Alex's problem. Present Alex just wanted to wait for the painkillers to kick in and disappear into a fuzz of nothingness.

  I felt safe in my flat. I was fairly certain the Syndicate didn't know who I was or where I lived, because if they did, I would have been dead a long time ago. So as long as I stayed home and the Gutter Mage stayed off the streets, Alex would be safe for now. I knew I still needed to hunt down Brick, but part of me, especially after last night’s chaos, just wished the police would catch him and that would be the end of this nightmare. Once Brick was off the streets, the bounty would go with him, and things would quiet down. Maybe life could return to some sort of normality

  The pills had started to kick in, and the warm fuzziness followed. I felt my anxiety lessening and the pain ebbing away to just a background throb. I felt my muscles relax and the tension begin to disappear. I hated how good drugs made you feel, and I knew without a doubt, that I was on a very slippery slope. But right now, I needed them. That was just right now, I told myself. As soon as I didn’t need them, I wouldn’t take them. After all, that’s how medicine worked, right?

  I settled down onto my bed and then cracked open my ancient laptop, deciding I was just going to be a regular teenager for today, at least. The Gutter Mage wouldn't be making a reappearance, and probably that was for the best. There wouldn’t be any criminals on the street anyway with all the police and media attention. I was just going to scroll aimlessly and mindlessly until sleep took me again. Maybe even order a takeaway later, treat myself to something greasy and spicy.

  As I began musing through those thoughts, I flicked listlessly through all the alerts, news reports, and breaking news items centered around the chaos of last night. Some people were even calling some of it a terrorist attack, with gunfights in the streets and gangs appearing all over the place. Was this all linked to the death of that police officer? Blah blah blah, it was all sensational crap. But, to be fair to them, last night was probably one of the most sensational nights South London had had in quite a long time. I dismissed all the alerts one by one and then grew bored of even reading them, so I just began to dismiss them, trying to find my way through the slog of news and drama.

  Then, I saw a video pop up. It was on one of the local groups. Since social media had been blacked out in the Boroughs for at least a decade now, these local groups were pretty much the only source of real information that anybody had about what was going on in the Mulberry Estate and its local areas. Usually, there were mundane things like cats going missing, cars being stolen, etc. But today I saw a video link, and it had over 400 comments underneath. I guessed it was probably something to do with last night. Maybe someone had recorded one of the shootouts. Without thinking, I clicked on the link, opened it up, and felt my heart stop. It was a video of a man tied to a chair. He was bloody, almost to the point of being unrecognizable. Blood dripped from his lips, down his temple, and his cheeks. He looked like he'd been badly beaten and tortured. Then, whoever was recording the video grabbed his face with a black gloved hand and pulled it up so that the light showed his face properly and my heart froze.

  Then the voice spoke.

  "This," the faceless figure off-camera growled. "This is the Gutter Mage's snitch, aren't you?" And then he roughly shook the man’s face, and Sherbert wailed in pain. "I've got your snitch, Mage," the voice said. "You'll know how to find me, same way you find him. Come and see me, and we'll settle this."

  And then the black gloved hand slapped Sherbert so hard that blood splattered off his face, and the poor, simple man wailed in agony. I could see in his eyes he didn't know why this was happening; he didn't know why someone would do this to him. Or maybe, maybe those eyes were asking why I'd let somebody do this to him.

  “If you’re not here by midnight, the bum’s a dead man.”

  The video ended, and I just stared at the screen. Brick had Sherbert. They must have snatched him after the gunfight. Why hadn't I stayed and made sure he got away? How could I have been so stupid? I saw that goon making a phone call. I didn't even stop to see if Sherbert was alright. I just ran. What had I done?

  Brick had Sherbert and he was going to kill him because of me.