I give up on the hopeless task of drawing Lucy’s father. My father. And I start on Ben, instead. Now that Ben’s parents are gone, there is no one else left to remember him. I’ll look at his drawing every day. That way I can never forget him: I will always be reminded when I see his face.
And there is something else I can do. Lucy reminded me.
There is one last chance.
One final way I can try to find out what really happened to Ben: MIA.
CHAPTER TWELVE
* * *
‘Don’t you want to go in with Cameron?’ Amy smiles, more of a smirk, really. ‘He’s quite cute, don’t you think?’
‘No! I mean, no, I don’t want to go with Cameron.’
‘So you agree he is cute, then.’
I roll my eyes and get into Jazz’s back seat.
I’d told them yesterday not to wait, to go and I’d come home with Cam. Mum didn’t know and probably wouldn’t approve. Not necessarily of him, but of Amy and Jazz being alone: I’m their chaperone. Huh! I’d already explained this to Cam so he won’t think he is on regular chauffeur duties. Especially today, when I’ve got plans I don’t want him in on.
We pull up the road before I ask. ‘Jazz, do you think we could visit Mac after school today?’
‘Sure,’ he says, and that is that. Mac is Jazz’s cousin; the illegal computer in his back room is where I first found Lucy on MIA. Can they find Ben?
Amy starts babbling about all the gossip from the doctor’s surgery yesterday. I tune out, but then something grabs my attention.
‘Amy, what was that?’ I ask, not sure I heard right; not sure I want to.
‘You know that man I told you about, the one they found beaten up who was in a coma? He woke up in hospital.’
My heart skips a beat, an actual fluttering feeling deep in my chest.
Try to sound casual.
‘Has he said anything? About what happened to him?’
‘He was pretty out of it, according to the surgery nurse whose friend works at the hospital. Might have amnesia from his head injuries. Lorders came to talk to him, but gave up because he made no sense.’
Tell Nico!
But then what will happen? After he has finished being completely furious it is the first he has heard of it. After he gets over me not telling him about Wayne’s attack when he asked what triggered the return of my memories. Wayne is a risk: if he talks about what I did, Lorders will come for me. Nico will have him dealt with, one way or another. Dealt with means dead. And then he’ll deal with me.
I’m not doing it.
My instincts protest against taking such a risk. But wait, and see: maybe Wayne won’t remember anything.
Maybe, he will.
That afternoon we file into the hall for Year 11 Assembly. Everyone takes their seats without fuss, and it is pin-drop quiet. Up front stands the reason: Lorders.
A cold shock of recognition travels down my spine when I glance their way.
Don’t stare.
I fight to pull my eyes away. These Lorders, I know: Agent Coulson, and his underling. Coulson’s cold eyes sweep the room and I struggle to avert mine, but they are locked. What is he doing here?
Coulson is no run of the mill Lorder; he is something more. It was obvious when they came to question me after Ben disappeared. For a start, they’d be careful who they sent when Mum was involved. They’d want to be sure how they dealt with the daughter of the Lorder hero, Wam the Man, Prime Minister before Free UK blew up him and his wife. Mum might not be involved in politics now or exploit her connections in any way I’ve seen, but still: they couldn’t do or say anything that couldn’t be explained if it needed to be. She’d been the only reason, I’m sure, that I hadn’t got hauled off for a less gentle inquisition.
But, more than that, Coulson exudes careful power. He isn’t just a nasty bully, though I’m sure he would be if an occasion called for it. Everything about him is cold calculation.
His eyes rest on mine. Pinpricks of sweat break out on my forehead.
Look away!
I break the gaze, lower my eyes. Resist the impulse to check, to see if he still stares.
He’s just a man. A nasty one.
He would bleed red just like anybody else. He should!
Assembly begins. The Head drones on about student accomplishment, then sprinkles his usual warnings. His injunction to live up to your potential…or else.
But I am somewhere else.
In my mind, it is Coulson who drags Ben’s pain-wracked body away from his mother.
It is Coulson who holds a lit match. Tosses it to Ben’s house.
Coulson who plucks Lucy from her family.
Rage fills me inside: roiling, hot rage. Outside, my face is calm, attentive; inside is something else.
If I had a gun in my hand, right now, I could raise it. Shoot him. He deserves it. They all do.
The hard seat under me, the drone of the Head’s voice and the hall full of listening students all fade away. My hands grip cold metal, my eyes take sight, careful aim. Index finger pulls the trigger. A blast of noise, a recoil as the gun slams back in my hands. The bullet flies across the room too fast for normal eyes to follow, but mine watch its progress to target.
It strikes his chest. His heart explodes: a red wave ripples out in all directions like a stone dropped in still water. He falls.
I smile, then realise Assembly is over; everyone is filing out of the room. I’d stood and followed along without realising. Cam has dropped back slightly from his tutor group, and walks beside me. He must think I’m totally mad to smile, here, now.
I am.
The spell, if there was one, is gone. We approach the doors of the hall. The other Lorder stands there, watching students leave, one by one. Coulson stays at the front, door duty beneath him. I’m relieved. And then lunch twists in my stomach as images of Coulson’s bloody body replay in my mind.
‘Are you all right?’ Cam whispers as we step out of the hall. ‘You’ve gone all pale.’
I just shake my head, run to the toilet in the next building and throw up, again and again. When I’m finally sure there is nothing left to come up, I splash water on my face, stare in the mirror.
What the hell happened in there?
My hands are shaking. I’m not that person, I couldn’t do that. Could I? I wouldn’t cry if he died, but not by my hands.
But then what was all that training for?
And visions flow through my mind like a movie on fast forward. Shooting practice. Targets. Knives and their uses. Faster it spins. I was a good shot, the best of my cell. A cell that was, itself, the best.
No!
Yes. What is being a terrorist about? Political discussions over cups of tea? The Lorders are evil. He deserves to die. They all do.
I look at my hands. I can feel the cold weight of a gun in them. I know what to do with one. He deserves to die. Why not?
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
* * *
‘I’ll let you in on a secret.’ Jazz is smiling so I’m guessing this isn’t bad news.
‘What?’
‘Before you asked this morning, I was planning on us going to Mac’s today, anyhow. He’s got a surprise for you.’
My stomach jumps. Jazz is still smiling, he must know what it is, and it must be good.
‘It’s not Ben, is it?’ I whisper, quietly. Knowing it won’t be, it can’t be, but unable to stop myself from asking the question.
Jazz’s smile falls away. ‘I’m sorry, Kyla. If I find out anything about him, you’ll be the first to know.’
I lean back against his car, unable to stop the wave of disappointment, however unreasonable. Aiden promised he’d send news through Mac if he found out anything about Ben – so my brain inst
antly flipped to that. Wrong.
Amy appears across the car park. She walks to us, and slips her arms around Jazz. He turns and kisses her and I try not to watch.
‘Are you all right?’ she asks me.
‘Fine.’
‘A friend of mine saw you running to the loo, looking sick.’
‘Oh. I just had a tummy upset, no big deal. I’m fine now.’
‘Sure you don’t want to go straight home?’
‘I’m sure!’
‘Don’t look so fierce! We’re going already.’
‘In you get, ladies,’ Jazz says, holding the car door open.
We drive down back country lanes, through stubbled fields. Past farms and woodland, to Mac’s place. It is down a narrow lane, isolated. His huge back garden is full of bits of cars that he scavenges and salvages for parts, to build into new cars. Like the one he made for Jazz. But he isn’t just a mechanic.
What could the surprise be?
It knocks me over when we go through Mac’s front door.
Skye! Ben’s dog, a gorgeous golden retriever, jumps up and covers my face excitedly with great sloppy dog kisses. I drop to my knees and wrap my arms around her, sink my face into her fur. Fur that smells smoky.
Jazz takes Amy for a walk to get her alone as usual. Mac watches me and Skye, her tail thumping on the ground, sprawled half on my lap. Something is hiding behind the careful look on his face.
‘How?’ I ask him. A one-word question that covers so much. How did she survive? How is Ben’s dog at Mac’s?
Mac sits next to us on the floor. He rubs Skye’s ears and she flops down between us, her head on my knee. ‘That’s the happiest I’ve seen this dog look since she got here last night.’
‘Do you know what happened?’
‘Some. The rest I can fill in. What I can’t figure out is how come you don’t look surprised to see her here, and why you are the one asking me if I know what happened.’
‘I heard something,’ I say, guardedly.
Mac puts up one hand. ‘You don’t have to tell me how you know about Ben’s parents. You do know, don’t you.’
I nod, slump into Skye once again.
‘Skye here is a lucky dog.’
‘Yeah. First the boy she loves then the rest of her family are gone: very lucky.’
‘She’s a survivor. Not sure if she was out, or got out, or what. But Jazz’s mate found her the next day. Jazz brought her round here. None of the neighbours wanted to be seen to keep her in case anyone official got offended she escaped.’ The way he says the words I can tell he thinks about as much of that as I do.
‘Stay there,’ he says, and gets up, goes into the kitchen. Comes back a moment later with a bowl in his hand. ‘See if you can get her to eat.’
And so I sit on the floor with Skye half on my lap, feeding her bits of meat. She eats some, then closes her eyes and goes to sleep.
Her solid warmth and doggy smell, even with smoky undertones, feel good, real, and I don’t want to move. But I have other business with Mac. I ease her off my legs, and find him in the kitchen.
My breath catches when I see the owl on top of a cabinet: the metal sculpture Ben’s mum made from a drawing I did once, then gave to me. So beautiful, and deadly. So much talent she had, and this is all that is left of it now. I run fingertips across its feathers; inside, pain is welling up, wanting out.
I fight to contain it, hold it inside. I’m here for a reason.
‘Can I look at MIA?’ I ask.
Mac stares levelly back at me, then nods. I follow him to the back room and he uncovers his highly illegal, not government-issue computer. It doesn’t block websites Lorders don’t want seen, like legal computers do. Soon the MIA website fills the screen: Missing in Action. Full of missing children.
It was me asking Mac about Robert that made him show me this computer the first time. Mum’s son Robert is on the memorial at school as having been killed on a bus with thirty other students when they got in the way of an AGT attack. But Mac was there, too. He knew Robert didn’t die on the bus, and thought he was probably Slated. It was when he was showing me on MIA how many children go missing in this country without explanation that we first stumbled on Lucy. Me.
Somehow I have to do it, to check again. I enter into the search box: girl, blond, green eyes, seventeen. Hit the search button.
Pages of hits come up but it isn’t long before I spot her, and click on her image to enlarge the listing.
Her face – my face – fills the screen. Lucy Connor, ten years old, missing from school in Keswick. Seven years ago now, but you can still tell it is me. She looks absurdly happy, smiling at the camera holding a grey kitten.
A birthday present.
I gasp as the knowledge hits me. The kitten was her – my – tenth birthday present.
‘Are you all right, Kyla?’ Mac asks.
Tears are smarting my eyes. I’ve never had a memory like that, of Lucy’s life, just appear in my mind before. Ever. Only snippets in dreams. Mostly nightmares of horrible things, until the chess-playing dream the other night. But dreams access the unconscious. This time, I was awake. She should be gone, completely gone; Nico said so. What can it mean?
Mac puts a hand over mine. ‘What is it?’
‘It’s just that for a second there, I thought I could remember something. That kitten.’ I sigh. ‘I must be going mental.’
‘Have you changed your mind about MIA?’ he asks. He looks at the screen and I follow his eyes. There is a button, marked ‘found’. One click of the mouse and I could find out. Who reported Lucy missing? Maybe my dad. Maybe we could play chess again.
I shake my head. No. My life is enough of a mess, and apart from a few fragments of dreams, I don’t even know my real family. Anyhow, I can’t risk Free UK or Lorders following me to them: they are better off missing me.
Time to get to my reason for being here. ‘Are you involved with MIA?’
‘I’m more of a…relay, than anything else. Why?’
‘I was wondering something. Can you get Ben put on MIA?
Mac stares back. He knows Ben’s story, more or less. Even if he doesn’t know my role in it. That Ben was taken off by Lorders. He must think it will be a waste of time, that there is nothing left of Ben to be found. He’s probably right.
But he nods. ‘Of course. Have you got a photo?’
I shake my head. ‘No. But I’ve got this,’ I say, and pull my drawing of Ben out of my pocket. I’d spent hours on it, making it as lifelike as possible. ‘Is it good enough?’
He whistles. ‘It is more than good; it’s him. It’s perfect. But it’ll have to be scanned, and I haven’t got one here. I’ll get Aiden to do it. All right?’
I force reaction from my face, hide dismay. ‘Thanks,’ is all I say. Mac’s friend, Aiden was the one whose stories of Slateds cutting off their Levos gave Ben the idea to try it in the first place. It was Aiden’s Happy Pills that made the attempt possible. Aiden was also the one who wanted me to report myself found on MIA, such a breach of the rules Slateds must live by that it would be a certain death sentence if Lorders found out. He wasn’t a terrorist, he said, but an activist: trying to change things in other ways.
A no-hoper.
Maybe. But at least he doesn’t kill people. Thinking of Robert earlier reminded me of all those students who died. Killed by stray AGT bombs meant for Lorders. I’d had nightmares of that bus attack when I first learned of it, but I couldn’t have been there! I was only ten years old when it happened.
But Nico could have been.
No. Nico would never do that, not a busload of innocent school kids. He wouldn’t. His fight is against the Lorders. My fight.
I convince Mac that I’m all right, to leave me alone to compose myself, and stay looking at L
ucy on the screen. What happened to her? I can’t work it out. One minute she is a happy kid with a kitten, a dad who lets her win at chess. The next? I shake my head. She disappears age ten, then somehow there is a huge jump, a gap in time. Rain’s memories don’t begin until about age fourteen, training with Nico and other teenagers, off in some boot camp in the woods. Learning how to shoot guns and blow things up.
What happened to her the four years between to take her to that place?
Amy and Jazz get back from their walk. As we leave, I touch the owl Ben’s mother made for me. It holds a secret inside. A note from Ben, still hidden. Knowing where to look I can see the tiny white speck, the corner of paper that, if pulled, reveals itself as his last words to me. But I can’t bear to look at it, not today.
Mac holds Skye when she tries to follow us. I twist behind. Her mournful eyes follow us until she is gone from sight.
Green trees blue sky white clouds, green trees blue sky white clouds…
But different.
Fields of long grass. Daisies. Alive with detail, movement and sound, like never before. Trees, but not from underneath: top branches rush past as I dive. There is a rustle that says mouse, but when I get there, it is gone.
No matter.
I beat my wings and climb up again, the sun warm on my feathers. I should hide, wait for dark and better hunting.
But I want to fly to the sun. Leave this earth behind. How high can I go? I face the open sky: glide on a warm updraught, then beat my wings to reach the next one. Almost effortless, higher and higher. I can fly forever.
Trees are merging into field, a uniform green far below, when it happens. First a gradual sense of stiffness, making my wings have to work harder to beat at all. Then, a trap. As if my flesh is inside an owl-shaped box that gradually compresses and grows smaller, tighter and heavier, no matter how I struggle. Until it isn’t flesh and feathers inside a trap, but sinew and blood and muscle all thickening, slowing, stiffening. Becoming metal. The trap isn’t around me. It is me.
The sky is not my friend any more. Air whistles past, and trees rush closer. Plummeting down, down, down….