By the time I cut through Scrubs Park, a pathetic stretch of land with dead yellow grass, thirty five minutes have passed and I’m out of breath. I collapse under a leafless tree for three minutes, counting every second, and then walk even faster. I get to Stonebridge in another twenty minutes and then run the last part of the way until I’m leaning against a faded wooden door.
I almost fall over when it opens. I didn’t even knock.
“Do you want to come in?” a young woman with a soft voice and red-gold hair asks, her eyes filled with curiosity and love. Hele. “Or were you planning to stay out here all night?”
I stumble through the door, exhausted, and fall onto the most comfortable thing I’ve touched in weeks—an actual armchair, with stuffing and an intact cover. God, I love this house.
“Dal!” Hele shouts from the bottom of a staircase, tapping her fingers absently against the striped wallpaper. From upstairs, I hear scrambling about.
Hele disappears into the kitchen, reappearing two minutes later with three mugs—one of hot chocolate, one coffee, and one tea. She sets the chocolate down in front of me with a smile.
“Is that tea?” I ask breathlessly.
Laughing, she sits cross legged on the carpeted floor. “The less you know the better,” she says cryptically. Her eyes assess my dishevelled state and her lips turn down. “Did you run here?”
“I ran the last length. I’ve gotta get back by half one.”
She nods thoughtfully. Every inch of her skin is covered in freckles the colour of fallen leaves. “How long did it take you?”
“An hour and fifteen.”
“Not your best. Remember that time you got here in fifty minutes? You could barely stand up.”
A new voice dryly adds, “I had to tell your sister that you’d gotten yourself in a drunken stupor and wouldn’t be going home that night.”
I turn my head and find Dalmar leaning against the staircase bannister, golden haired and tanned, his face deceptively young; he might be just twenty one but he has a tired and serious soul that I’ve never known anyone to have. I imagine when people used to live to twice or three times his age, they’d have the same serious eyes.
“So what do you need?” he asks, watching me. “Not that I’m not happy to see you, but you only ever come when you want something.”
“That’s not true.”
He raises an eyebrow. “So this is a social call?”
“Not exactly.” I scratch the back of my neck.
Dalmar shakes his head, half smiling. He crosses the room slowly, like a cat prowling at night, and sinks onto the floor beside Hele. His turquoise eyes fix on me, waiting, and he absently twirls a stand of Hele’s auburn hair around his fingers.
“I need you to find something out for me,” I say slowly.
“Something secret, by any chance?”
“I’m not sure.”
“But you have a hunch?” Hele leans forward. “Your hunches always turn out to be right.”
I frown. “They do?”
She nods encouragingly. I’m not sure what I need encouraging for. Her eyes are full of pity though, so I guess I must look a mess. I know my forehead’s shining with sweat from the walk even though I already wiped it on my jacket. My fingers are also trembling, the cup shaking in my hand. I’m not sure if it’s from the anger I picked up in the town centre or from this whole day.
“What happened?” Dalmar asks. Normally he reminds me of a merman from one of the books I read, all elegant beauty and charisma, but tonight he’s edgy and anxious.
I stare at him. “Do you know? Do you know that something’s wrong?”
“I heard there was a death in your zone earlier. When I got home I checked it out.”
“And?”
“And nothing. The public records are empty. It was John, wasn’t it?”
I nod. Dalmar and John never met, but I talked about the family I live with to this, my second surrogate family, enough times that they know about them. I get a flash of guilt, for not bringing Tia, for us not being here together talking about this, but when I left she was laid on the bed, silent, staring at nothing. I didn’t want to drag her out here, not even if Hele and Dal would have looked after her like they’re looking after me. They might have made her feel better—they have so many times before—but I couldn’t bring myself to disturb her.
“The records were empty?” Hele says, startling me back to the room. She sounds troubled now as she slides an arm around Dalmar’s waist; the tension in his face softening, he leans against her. Gentler she adds, “There should be birth records at the very least.”
“They told us he’d poisoned himself accidentally,” I tell them, wishing I had someone to hold me the way Hele holds Dal when he has moments of unsteadiness. “Shouldn’t that be in the records?”
Dalmar tugs a hand through his hair, leaving gold spikes in all directions. For some reason this is weighing him down. I can’t work out why. “It should be, but it’s not.”
“So …” I hover over an unseen edge, so close to falling over.
“So there’s something we’re not seeing. They don’t leave records blank. If there’s one thing I’ve learnt about States’s military, it’s that they want everyone to be accounted for. There’s gotta be some encryption blocking me from seeing what’s there.”
I press my hands together, clammy, hearing the unsaid words—he’s tried to beat that encryption. “You can’t get past it?”
He laughs, frustrated. Hele rubs circles in his back. “I’ve been doing it for the past two hours. I should have it in a day or two.”
I nod. After a long silence, I say, “There’s something else. John was looking into the solar flares right before he disappeared. And he left a load of research on The Sixteen Strains lying around. I know it sounds like nothing, but it’s not like him to leave a mess, and I keep thinking he meant for us to find it. He’s obsessive about tidiness. He wouldn’t just leave it all there.”
A sad look crosses her face and she toys with the buttons on her cotton blouse. “Honour…”
I push on. “And this evening they wrecked our house. House check, or so they said, but I think they were looking for something. They took our fingerprints and blood samples and handwriting and—” I have to stop and breathe, my chest tight, tighter even than earlier when I stood in the road surrounded by military.
Hele and Dalmar share a meaningful look.
Dalmar’s eyes are brighter, a hard edge to them, when he asks, “What do you want me to find out?”
“What John knew, and why the Officials couldn’t risk him telling anyone about it.”
“Are you sure you want to know?” Dalmar’s voice is guarded.
I nod. “I want to know everything.”
Hele reaches across the table to lay her hand on my arm. “I think that might be too much for you right now.”
“Then I want to know what happened to him.”
Dal runs a calculating look over me. “I’ll find that out for you, on one condition.”
“And what’s that?”
“That you go home right now and get some sleep.”
“And stay for something to eat,” Hele adds, giving me the same look. “There’s stew in the cupboard. I’ll heat it up.”
“Alright,” I agree begrudgingly. I know a battle I can’t win when I see it.
***
Yosiah
20:22. 18.09.2040. Forgotten London, Ealing Zone.
When I let myself into the library to meet Miya again, I stop dead two steps inside. My chest tightens up until I can’t breathe. My heart stumbles; my insides vibrate with terrified energy.
Brave Miya—fierce, dangerous Miya—is on her knees.
Her dark hair is plastered to the side of her face with a liquid that I hope isn’t blood. Her arms are tied behind her back with rope that digs tighter every time she struggles. The leather jacket she’s never seen without has a slash on the sleeve. I think I see blood on her arm as w
ell and I nearly faint.
I can’t do this.
There’s no way I can cope with Miya being hurt. She keeps me strong, balanced. Calm. Now I’m anything but calm. My fingers are shaking and my mind struggles to wrap itself around Miya, tied on her knees, a gun to her head.
I fix a glare on the gunman behind her, trying to think through my fear. The gun doesn’t seem to faze Miya but I want her away from the gun as quick as possible. Her green eyes are sparkling and furious, but when they meet mine they soften, and then they fill with worry.
For me.
There’s a gun to her head, and she’s worried about me.
I want to cross the room, shoving bookshelves and a trolley of books aside, and pull her into my arms. I never hug her because she doesn’t like people to touch her, but right now I want to. I want to hug her and run from whoever this man is. I want to blow the electrics in the library until the whole building is on fire, and leave carnage and murder behind us. I want him dead with a cold fury that scares me.
He’s not military; he wears a different uniform. Instead of the black clothes the Officials wear, this man is dressed all in white. There’s a purple shield emblem on his breast pocket, unfamiliar. He’s stone-faced and unflinching and he could kill the only person that matters to me in seconds.
“Who are you?” I force out. My voice is unsurprisingly strained.
“That doesn’t matter to you.” As stony as his expression. Does he really feel nothing, holding a gun to a girl’s head, or is it years of practise that keeps any feeling off his face? His appearance is entirely silver—pale skin, tall, lean, hair so pale blonde it catches every bit of dim light in the library.
Miya whispers “Siah.”
“Shut up, Miya,” I say harshly. I expect to see hurt or betrayal in her eyes but I only see understanding. Just stay quiet, I beg with my eyes, just stay quiet and he might not kill you.
It’s barely perceptible, but she inclines her head. She knows what I’m trying to say. Something about that, being understood, settles my fast, churning thoughts until I can pull out a plan. It’s dangerous for us as much as this gunman, and it will change the way Miya looks at me forever once she sees the darkness I’m really capable of, but to get us out of this, I’ll do it.
I scrutinise Miya. Closer now, I can see she has a head wound, but it only looks shallow. She has a cut on her arm, as well as on her thigh, but I can’t see how badly they are under her clothes. I should never have been stupid enough to leave her. I curse myself internally.
“I’m sorry if this is your territory,” I say evenly, my eyes fixed on the man. Behind him I see an emergency door—it’s no closer than the one behind me but it settles me to have a second exit. “We didn’t realise it was occupied. We’ll leave.”
“This isn’t about the building,” he says. Same flat tone, so flat I think it’s definitely false and the product of training. He could be an Official gone rogue. That only makes him more dangerous, and my blood goes cold as he tells me, “I’ve been sent to retrieve you.”
Breathe, I tell myself, breathe. “Why?”
“Our leader thinks you’ll be useful to us.”
“Us?”
“You’ll find out more if you come with me.” Unyielding.
“I’m not leaving her.”
“She said you’d say that.”
From the way he says she, it’s clear he doesn’t mean Miya. “Who did?”
“Again, you’ll have to come with me if you want to know any answers.”
I’m desperate. I’ll do anything to get that gun away from Miya’s head. “Tell me who your leader is, and I will. As long as my friend comes with me, and as long as she’s not hurt, I’ll come.” I might have heard of them—I heard a few names of Officials gone rogue while I was an Official medic. It’s not a part of my life I like remembering.
He mulls this over and nods. “Her name is Alba.” Not a name I’ve heard. “She knows about you because of Timofei.”
I falter. My eyes lock on Miya, but she doesn’t know. I never told her. I struggle to breathe. Timofei is the whole reason I flinch away from my past an a medic, from any pleasant memory I might have held onto, every single thought connected to his name tinges with grief and misery. And guilt. “Timofei is dead,” I say finally. My voice breaks. My fault. It’s my fault he’s dead. To say his name … this gunman isn’t just cool and terrifying. He’s cruel.
“Obviously he’s not,” the gunman says. “If you want to know how, and if you want you and your friend to be safe, follow me through the back. There’s a car waiting.”
The stranger takes his gun from Miya and steps back. I rush towards her. She’s hot and trembling in my arms, probably with anger rather than fear. I press my palms into her back, my heart jumping around in my chest as I try to absorb the fact that Miya’s not shot, not dead. She’s okay—alive—and as long as she’s alive, I have a chance to get us out of whatever bad situation we’re dragged into next.
A hitch in her breath, she leans into my embrace. It doesn’t take a second before she remembers herself and pulls away. I pry a knife from my boot and carefully cut the ropes from her. I know the gunman is waiting for us—I can see him in my peripheral—but he doesn’t stop me from cutting her loose.
Miya gets to her feet, unsteady but with clenched fists and a glare. She looks unshaken, completely herself. The opposite of me. Forcing my arms at my side, itching to touch her again, I take a step towards the back door.
The gunman ushers us through the building. I shudder as Miya wraps her fingers around my wrist. She avoids my gaze but she doesn’t let go. We’ll be okay. No matter where we’re led, as long as she’s with me, we’ll be okay. Even if I have to do something unforgiveable to get us to safety.
***
Honour
03:24. 19.09.2040. Forgotten London, Shepherd’s Bush Zone.
I sit in the kitchen at the crowded table that should only seat four. John is at its head, telling yet another of his stories. Tia sits beside him, hanging on his every word. I smirk as he tells us, not for the first time, about a bar fight he won against a guy that was almost seven feet tall.
There’s a girl in the corner of the room, pressed between the junction of walls. She’s striking and harsh-looking and her back is straight as she watches John, wary. This is the girl Yosiah keeps telling me about. The friend he found on the streets, long before we ran into each other in a library at night, him stealing food and me stealing books. I think her name is Miya.
“Now,” John says grandly, “down at The Grass Bar in Hounslow Zone today, my opponent was a woman. An actual woman; not a girl. She had to be at least twenty three, and she was enormous. Taller than any woman I’ve seen before and twice as wide. The odds were three to one on her.”
“What happened?” Tia asks, her head propped on her hands.
“She flattened me. As soon as I stepped into the ring she flung herself at me and I was crushed under her weight. I was done for.”
“So you lost?” Wes asks, his lips twitching with amusement.
John gives a noncommittal shrug. “I managed to wriggle myself free, got a hit or two on her.”
“And then she took you down again?”
“Four times,” John groans, running a hand through his messy brown hair. “I’d be surprised if I have any unbroken ribs left.”
Thalia wafts past the table and swats her brother around the head with a wash rag. “You wouldn’t be sitting upright if your ribs were broken.”
John rolls his eyes and says, “I won, though, in the end.”
Thalia snorts.
Wes’s eyes pop out of his skull. “You never!”
“I did,” John insists. He places sixty credits on the table. Thalia swears loudly and drops a handful of cutlery.
John begins to laugh suddenly. I ask what’s funny but get no answer. His eyes are bright, crinkled. I can’t work out what he’s laughing at—all Thalia did was drop some forks—until Thalia st
arts laughing as well, pointing at the corner of the kitchen, at the ceiling. When I glance at where Yosiah and Miya sat, there’s only an empty chair. My heart throws itself against my ribcage.
Next to me, a reassuring warmth, Tia’s eyes track the same path as mine. But when she bursts out laughing I start screaming.
It doesn’t sound anything like my voice.
In the corner of the kitchen the ceiling is red. Oozing, dripping onto the counter, into pans of boiling water and vegetables. My stomach clenches; I slide off my chair and double over on the floor. I vomit blood.
The red is growing, dripping, rushing towards me, running down the walls, and I choke. When I pull in air I breathe in blood. The walls are now completely red, enclosing me in a bloodied room, and I think it’s over.
It’s not.
Liquid rises from the floor like water in a tank but I’m sure it’s blood. It rises and rises and I’m drowning.
“You killed me,” a flicker image of John says right before I’m lost under waves of red.
“Honour!”
I thrash to escape the hands holding me down.
“Honour, wake up.”
Tia. Her hands are gripping my shoulders so hard it hurts. My eyes fly open and my sister sighs in relief. “You were having a nightmare,” she whispers as she brushes hair back from my forehead. I’m drowned in sweat. Not blood.
I nod. Just a nightmare, nothing else, nothing real. It might have started as a memory, but the end of my dream was imagined. Not real.
She tells me “You were calling out for John in your sleep.”
I can’t speak—if I open my mouth, I’m afraid I’ll start laughing.
My sister sinks down beside me, curling against my side. She’s quiet for minutes and I think she’s asleep but then she shifts and says, “I miss him too.”
I hold her and she holds me and neither of us mention the fact that I’m crying.
12:08. 19.09.2040. Forgotten London, Shepherd’s Bush Zone.
The day after my nightmare, work drags, so slow I swear I worked a full day instead of a single shift. I make it back for just after twelve and find Thalia bracing herself against the kitchen countertop.