Hurricane Heart

Hurricane

‘Arjan,’ I said clearly, giving him a soft but firm nudge on the shoulder. Outside, a grey day dawned, a cool, misty rain hanging in the air.

He rolled over, eyes half-opening and sleepily mumbling ‘wha’?’

‘Get up,’ I ordered, turning away and brushing out my damp hair a little more, already ready to leave.

‘Oh,’ pulling himself out of the thick quilt and into the cold morning, he rubbed his eyes a little more and I chucked him a towel and some clothes, not caring whether they matched or not, impatient to leave.

Sitting on the bed and swinging my legs as I waited for him to hurry up in the bathroom, my phone rang.

‘Hello?’ I asked immediately, snatching it up on the second ring.

‘Don’t go to Scandinavia.’

‘What?’

It was without a doubt one of the more unusual greetings I’d heard on the phone before, but I recognised the voice as the Master’s. That alone was disconcerting; that meant it was far too important a message for him to trust Carl or anyone else with delivering.

‘Don’t go to Scandinavia, Hurricane,’ he repeated, his voice a little slower, but still not saying hello and still not telling me anything more useful.

‘Good morning, Master,’ I said, using just as much sarcasm as I dared, making sure I didn’t push my attitude over the edge and make him angry. ‘May I ask why?’

I heard him grunt on the other end. ‘Soulless have been spotted around there.’

‘Around Scandinavia?’ Personally, I thought that Scandinavia was a bit big to be able to generalise it that much. It was about as useful as saying ‘there are Soulless in continental Europe.’ Of course there were, but I couldn’t let that stop me.

‘Yes,’ he said, his tone a little more impatient now. ‘Especially Finland. I’m guessing your plan was to go across the border and towards Helsinki.’

I hesitated a moment, realising that I didn’t actually have a plan of any sort; not to mention that I’d decided approximately ten seconds after Arjan asked me last night that we weren’t going there anyway. ‘I guess so,’ I agreed. ‘But I think I was planning to turn south from here and go into Belarus or something; maybe even head towards Moscow.’

‘Yes, I agree that’s a better idea,’ said the Master, ‘however, if you’re as reckless as everyone says you are, whether that’s on the side of the line of the brave or the insane, I’d like you to try something else.’

‘What?’ I asked, perking up there and then. I had never been one of those people who craved ‘points’ from the Master as some people called them, but I still got a lot of personal satisfaction out of doing something ‘reckless,’ as he liked to call it, not to mention a sort of adrenaline rush. He was right, though, in saying that there was a very, very fine line between brave and insane. I liked to think I walked that line like a tightrope.

‘I want you to turn round, right now,’ he said, ‘and I want you to drive right out of Russia and back down through the Baltic states—via Tallinn, preferably, and I want you to head directly west until you’ve just about retraced your steps back into Germany. Don’t come to Berlin though. No, perhaps you could try going further south—keep on the move.’

I blinked. ‘What?’

‘I know it sounds crazy.’

‘There are going to be tons of Soulless following me here; I’ll be driving right through the firing line,’ I cried incredulously.

‘I know,’ he said, sounding sympathetic. At that moment, Arjan came out of the bathroom, fully clothed and towel drying his hair. A sharp hand in the air silenced him as he froze in his tracks. I carried on.

‘So what am I going to gain from doing that?’ I asked.

‘They won’t be expecting it,’ he said, as though that was an acceptable reason to be so foolish. Because this was on the insane side of the line; not the brave side. It was too far over the line even for me.

‘If you can get down through Lithuania,’ he continued, ‘drive straight and don’t stop, not even overnight, and stick to main roads, then you’ll be much safer driving through Poland and into Western Europe.’

I was still confused. ‘Why though?’

I heard him huff loudly on the other end of the line. ‘Because, if you can do that, they’ll be confused, they’ll be lost, and they won’t catch up with you for a lot longer. Right now, they’re in Finland, and all the Russian Soulless are heading west; towards you.’

‘So what’s wrong with Belarus?’ I asked.

‘Now that they know that you most likely know that they’re guarding Moscow and Helsinki, they also know that you’re quite likely to turn and go down that route. So they’ll probably guard that area too. In a weird way, coming back south-west is your best chance.’

I flopped backwards on the bed, staring up at the blank ceiling, groaning and scrunching my hair up to my scalp in exasperation.

‘What do they want with us?’

There was a prolonged silence, before he replied in a most unhelpful way.

‘I don’t know, but I’m looking into it. I just know that they want the boy—‘

‘Well what should I do with him?’ I snapped, my voice raising an octave higher. ‘Can’t I have backup or something?’

‘It’s not practical,’ the Master said.

‘But—‘

‘Goodbye, Hurricane,’ he said in a voice so calm that it made me want to scream at him. ‘And good luck.’

‘But Master—‘

He hung up.

I screamed at the phone viciously as though he would hear me if I was angry enough, and threw it violently to the floor before falling backwards.

‘What’s wrong?’ asked Arjan, walking in cautiously.

‘Go away,’ I snapped. Reluctantly, he edged backwards towards the bathroom. I clawed at the bed sheets, scrunching the quilt cover tight into my hands to keep from digging my nails into my own flesh.

Minutes passed as my anger slowly subsided. Eventually, Arjan spoke again; something which I did not relish.

‘Would you mind telling me what’s going on?’

I sat up and purposefully turned away, replying with nothing but a cold glare. After at least a full minute of deathly silence, he went to ask the question again, but I cut through him, already annoyed by his very presence.

‘Get your stuff,’ I ordered. ‘We’re leaving.’

Neither of us had eaten, and I was well aware of that, but if Arjan was hungry he didn’t dare mention it. He was scared of me when I was in a mood like this, now that he perhaps didn’t hate me so much. That was good. He should stay scared of me.

Unfortunately, that completely contradicted the Master’s other stupid plan of making me get close to him so that I could find out everything I needed to from him. Quite honestly, until I got the necessary information—whatever it was that was so important, we were stuck driving round and round Europe; the lone ranger and her prisoner.