A man pushes free of the crowd and runs towards Julia’s twisted body. He wears the regulation grey overalls of the Imp slaves – the Imps who work in the Pastures for the Gems. I can’t help but notice how uncomfortable they look in real life, the fabric coarse and poorly stitched. He drops to his knees as he enters her blood pool, and kind of scoops her into his great chest in one easy motion. Her hand flops away from her and begins to twitch, like she rests on the edge of a dream. The twitch becomes more pronounced, and I begin to wonder if she’s still alive, then I realize her small frame has been swallowed up by the movement of the Imp as he convulses with grief. I suddenly feel like I should look away, like I’m somehow intruding.
The ground around him begins to explode as the guards open fire. I want to shout to him, run, run away, but my lips won’t move. He looks up, and for some reason, his eyes find mine. We stare at each other and I absorb his face. Mahogany skin, dirt rammed into every crack, a nose which has stopped too many fists. I recognize him from the film. Matthew. One of Thorn’s most trusted rebels, and responsible – at least in part – for recruiting Rose. The tendons on his neck stand out like rods; he thinks I’m intruding too.
The gunfire causes a few of the Gems to turn, their beautiful faces changing from joy to horror as they clasp their cheeks. Panic breaks out at the back of the crowd. A few of the Gems dash towards the great, metal gates at the side of the Coliseum which leads to the Pastures.
The bullets stop, guards afraid of piercing the wrong belly, just long enough for a woman, also dressed in grey overalls, to fall on to the man. She pulls at the clothes on his back, her thin mouth shouting orders, her raven, grey-streaked hair fanning around her face. Saskia, the other rebel responsible for recruiting Rose. She has the same hard face as the actress in the film, yet she looks kind of different.
Matthew stands, clasping Julia to him as though she’s a sleeping child. He pauses and, again, catches my eye. He then looks to Nate, and I see a shift in his dark eyes as some impulse shoots through him. He lays Julia back in her own blood, whispering something meant for her only, and then runs towards us, arms extended. I don’t flinch, shielded by disbelief, but I notice the blood on his hands as he grasps a handful of my tunic.
‘Quickly,’ he roars. ‘Come with me.’
I look to Nate, expecting a nonchalant shrug, but his face remains frozen with anxiety. We are in The Gallows Dance, his eyes say. I almost start to laugh. We are in The Gallows Dance.
Matthew seizes my shoulders. ‘For God’s sake, you won’t last a second with all these Gems.’ He pulls me forwards so my nose almost touches his.
He’s the same height as me, which strikes me as odd – he seemed so big on the silver screen. Then I remember, I’m still standing on the steps. But I don’t move, caught between shock and laughter. This close I see he also looks slightly different from his film counterpart – the structure of his face looks more robust, his eyes an even deeper brown.
He pushes me back, frustrated, and grabs my cheeks with slippery, warm fingers. ‘Look.’ He forces me to contemplate the stage. Nine bodies hang limp from their ropes, their necks arched almost like a swan’s, their feet no longer dancing but pointing towards the earth.
Saskia runs up behind him. ‘Leave ’em, Matthew. Bloody leave ’em.’
But Matthew doesn’t budge. ‘You want to end up like them?’ He squeezes my cheeks, causing my lips to pop out. ‘Cos that’s what will happen if you don’t shift your arses, right now.’
His words obviously rouse Nate, who tugs at my tunic. ‘Come on, Violet.’
And it’s this motion which finally unlocks my legs. If we truly are in The Gallows Dance, then we are in the most dangerous place imaginable . . . the place where they hang non-genetically enhanced humans. Me. Nate. I pull my face from Matthew’s grip and clasp his hand, wrapping my free arm around my brother. We begin to run around the back of the crowd, crouched low, anticipating more bullets.
‘Where are we going?’ Katie shouts, catching us up.
Only when I see Katie do I remember with a burst of guilt that four of us entered this nightmare.
‘Alice,’ I scream. ‘Alice.’
But I can’t see her anywhere. Panic winds around my chest. Matthew begins to drag us through the Gems, I bash into perfect figure after perfect figure, they look at us, disgust registering on their faces, but the disgust keeps us safe, causing them to recoil like we have some contagious disease. I hear a couple of cries. Apes, filthy apes. But still no Alice. I slow for a moment, trying to catch sight of her blonde hair, gleaming at least a head above the rest of the crowd. But what normally sets her apart instead makes her impossible to spot.
‘Guards,’ a Gem shouts. ‘Guards, there’s some rogue Imps in the Coliseum.’
‘Come on,’ Matthew says, his grip tightening.
‘Alice.’ My voice soars above the crowd.
Saskia runs up behind us. ‘Shut your face, you little idiot. You’ll get us all killed.’
Then, faintly, I hear a voice. I want to say that familiarity draws me to it, something deep-rooted which recognizes the timbre, the pitch, but it’s the fact she calls my name. Violet. Violet. She wobbles towards us, standing out only because of the soot and terror which mark her face.
She lunges into me. ‘Where the hell are we? What the hell’s going on?’
‘We need to leave,’ I reply.
I don’t think she can hear me above the crowd, but she must clock my urgent expression, and without another word, begins to follow us – crouched low – as we weave through the crowd.
We reach a small wooden door which must lead to the Imp city. The dead meat smell intensifies and my stomach turns. We’re right next to the Imp-pen, a wooden cage which holds the relatives of the condemned Imps, allowing them to witness the death of their loved ones. They watch us through the gaps in the bars with stony, tear-lined faces.
Matthew ushers us towards the small, wooden door, pulling a gun from his belt, anticipating the guards’ arrival. ‘Hurry.’
My trembling, ghostly hands reach before me, scratching at the wood surrounding the door knob. And just as my fingers encompass the globe, I hear the rounded vowels of a Gem guard. Don’t let them escape. I imagine I can feel the red spots of the lasers tremoring just above my neck, a swarm of angry fireflies. A fresh wave of panic surges through me.
But I don’t look. I just focus on the metal grating beneath my hands. I rattle the handle – nearly dislodging my arms from their sockets – but the door remains firmly shut. Saskia pushes me to one side and manoeuvers the knob with deft fingers, her hands surprisingly steady. Finally, the doors open and we tumble into the city.
Matthew pulls the door shut behind him.
‘We’re in The Gallows Dance,’ Nate says, his voice trembling.