It was Stella and Mum that finally made me face up to telling the truth. They both did, so how could I not? Staring at everything I’ve been and done, I struggle to keep myself contained when inside everything feels like shattering glass. There are no walls, no illusions left to hide behind. Mum knows. Aiden knows. Soon the whole world will know.
Finally Mac declares it done. ‘Do you want to watch a run-through? No problem if not.’
‘I’ll watch,’ I say. Mac projects it on the wall. At the beginning, titles run across the screen: Need to Know – a MIA production.
I try to watch the whole fifteen minutes of it dispassionately, objectively. Like I don’t know anyone in it, and I’m Joe Public sitting on my sofa about to get the evening TV surprise of a lifetime. But when the footage I shot from the Church Tower comes up, I can’t watch. I look away. A warm arm slips around my shoulders: Aiden. I want to look up at him, but I’m afraid what I’ll see in his eyes.
BANG.
A massive crash makes us all jump, then laugh when we realise – it’s thunder. The storm is here.
Aiden grins. As if on cue, his com rings: DJ? He answers. ‘Hello? Yes. It’s ready.’ He pauses, listening. ‘Got it, bye.’ He clicks end, then turns to us.
‘We’re to transmit at six, when the storm should be at its peak. It’ll be on then instead of the evening news. It will be the evening news!’ he says. He and Mac give high fives, excited, and part of me is, too. All we’ve worked towards is finally really happening.
But part of me is with all those who suffered, who died. Florence, Wendy, all the other students. Those small children who were Slated.
‘What is it?’ Aiden asks.
‘How can we celebrate? We can’t do anything for those who died, for their families.’
Aiden slips an arm over my shoulders, and I lean into him.
‘We can remember them,’ he says. ‘And through what we’ve done today, make it stop. Make their loss have meaning.’
Without discussion, the three of us stay silent: a minute, two. Then another massive crash of thunder hits, and again I jump. I don’t mind storms; normally I like them, the wilder the better. Not today. I’m as jumpy as…
Skye.
I pull away from Aiden. ‘Skye will be scared alone with the storm. I’m going back to the house.’
‘Do you want me to walk back with you?’ Aiden asks.
‘No. Stay and have your moment. I’ll be fine.’
‘Wait a sec,’ Mac says, does something with the computer and my camera, then hands it over. ‘I put a backup copy of Need to Know on it. Just in case we’re struck by lightning.’
I scowl at him. ‘Don’t tempt fate,’ I say, and head out the door – fresh air, storm or not – and escape.
It’s about two miles back and just getting dark, but now and then the sky lights up with crazy, jagged lightning. Each time the thunder crashes, seemingly right over my head, I almost jump out of my skin, annoyed at myself for being so jittery. I’m about halfway there when it starts: huge, heavy, freezing cold raindrops. So I get cold and wet; so what.
As I run, I wonder at how I feel; I should be celebrating with both of them. Instead, I feel empty.
What is next? What is my future? How will Aiden feel now that he knows all the things I have done?
Mum said caring for somebody is never a bad thing, even if it doesn’t work out.
Do I care?
CHAPTER THIRTY NINE
* * *
I’m nearly at the lights of the house when they go out, and all is darkness.
A power failure, because of the storm? I hope that doesn’t affect the transmission. Knowing Mac there will be a backup generator.
It’s inky black now, and despite the freezing rain, I slow to a walk to find the path at my feet. Tonight the dark is unnerving, not comforting as it usually is, and without thinking about it I switch to moving silently, every step taken with care.
Another blinding flash, and everything is lit up – a split second only – there! By the house, near the back door. Two figures in black?
Fear whips through me as all is plunged into darkness again. Lorders!
Did they see me?
Panic finds my feet, and I run blind, no longer silent, headlong back the way I came. Cries sound behind: spotted or heard, either way, they’re on to me. When the path branches, I go the other way, away from Mac and Aiden. I can’t lead Lorders there; anything but that. I should be able to lose them. I can run faster than almost anybody I’ve come across.
But I’m not pulling away. I can hear pursuit keeping pace behind. Now it sounds like just one runner, a long, loping gait. A familiar gait, and when there’s another blinding flash I can’t stop myself glancing back.
Ben.
My feet falter, then I push on; gathering speed again, but it’s no good. Bit by bit he gains. I can hear him getting closer, and knowing it is Ben has confused my feet.
Then all at once he’s flying through the air and I’m knocked to the ground. Winded, under him, and I struggle to breathe. He holds my hands with one of his and gropes at my pockets. No! I twist, but he’s got it. My camera.
He pulls me to my feet, presses something cold and hard against my back. ‘Walk!’
‘No. Just shoot me already, if that’s what you want to do. I don’t care any more.’
He twists my arm behind my back, and pushes; I stumble forwards. What is the time? I have to delay them. I have to stop them from finding Mac and Aiden, from stopping the transmission at six.
I trip, and sprawl forwards. With an exclamation of annoyance Ben scoops me up and carries me, my arm still twisted. A gun pressed into my stomach so hard it hurts.
‘How could you do it?’
He doesn’t answer.
‘Everyone, all those students, just shot against the wall. Dead.’
‘They were traitors. They deserved what they got. As will you.’
‘You’re the traitor, you betrayed me. You used to love me, you acted like you still did. How could you do it?’ My voice is too soft, plaintive, and I hate myself for it.
‘Ah, sorry about that. Seducing you was difficult. But I had to get you to fall asleep somehow.’
‘Why?’
‘Scanned you while you slept. How do you think we found you? Somehow your records were wrong, we needed the scan to track you by your brain chip.’
No. Dr Lysander had changed the number; Lorders worked out they couldn’t track me, so got Ben to take care of it.
Now I’m full of rage, and struggle, but despite a few AGT tricks I know the Lorders must have taught him how to hold someone. Or maybe the pain inside is making me too weak to fight back.
When it hits me, I almost sag. He let me go so he could track me here. And I’d thought some part of him couldn’t bring himself to hurt me, but I was wrong. ‘You’re evil.’
‘Sticks and stones.’
‘And that little girl: how could you?’
‘What girl?’
‘Edie! You knew their address. I ran there, and they were gone.’
His shoulders move slightly: a shrug? ‘No idea. I didn’t tell them her address.’ His voice is uncomfortable; he should have told the Lorders he works for everything, even that, and he knows it. Is there some part of the Ben I knew inside him, still? Can he be reached?
We’re at the door to Mac’s house now; the lights are back on, and the door is held open. Ben pushes through and drops me on the kitchen floor. At Tori’s feet.
A golden streak rushes past: Skye. She jumps up on Ben in excitement, licking his face. He tries to push her off but she’s not having it.
‘That’s Skye. Your dog,’ I say.
‘My dog?’
Skye barks as if to say yes.
‘Your mum and dad gave her to you when she was a puppy. Look, Ben: your mum was an artist; she made that owl sculpture. Made it for me.’
His eyes start to follow my gesture to the owl on the fridge, but then Tori pulls me up by the hair and starts dragging me across the floor into the front room. I scream and Skye flips round, growling, starts to leap at Tori, but Ben grabs her collar. ‘Down,’ he says sharply, and she’s confused.
‘Let Kyla go,’ he says to Tori, and she pauses, surprise in her face. ‘Until I get rid of the dog.’
Tori lets go of my hair, and my head thuds painfully on the floor. She smiles, but her eyes are full of twisted hate. I was right, wasn’t I? She remembers me. Did the Lorders think she was of more use with revenge to drive her?
Ben pushes Skye into the hall, shuts the door. She starts whining mournfully on the other side to get back to him.
‘Aren’t they here yet?’ Ben says to Tori.
‘No. Not yet,’ Tori says, and something hides behind the glee in her eyes: some lie. She wants to deal with me all by herself.
‘Are you waiting for reinforcements?’ I say. ‘She hasn’t called anyone in. They’re not coming.’
Ben frowns, looks at Tori.
‘Don’t listen to her,’ she says, and slaps me so hard on the side of the face that tears come to my eyes. I blink furiously.
‘You remember me, don’t you Tori? You want to hurt me, don’t you?’
‘I don’t just want to, I’m going to.’ She pulls a knife out of her pocket. ‘You know I’m good with knives.’
‘You killed a Lorder with a knife once. I can’t believe you could go from that, to this. Don’t you remember that day we attacked the termination centre, and Emily, the Slated who died?’ I slip the ring off my finger, throw it at Ben. He catches it. ‘That’s Emily’s ring, the pregnant girl I told you about at the college. Everything I told you that day is true, Ben, and Tori knows it. She was there.’
Tori looks at Ben as he reads the inscription on the ring. ‘She’s lying. She could have got that ring anywhere.’
‘You hate the Lorders, don’t you, Tori? For what they did to you: Slating you, then taking you to a Termination Centre. The Lorder who pretended to rescue you: do you remember him, what he did to you? Is working for them worth it, just to get back at me? Or is it to be with Ben: that’s it, isn’t it. You always wanted what you couldn’t have. You’re just a jealous little girl.’
Tori starts to advance on me with her knife; I shrink into the wall. Too much?
‘Tori, wait,’ Ben says. ‘Leave her be a minute.’
‘What?’ She scowls, turns to him.
‘You do remember her, from before.’ A statement not a question. ‘Explain.’
She looks between us – wary. Trapped.
Is it working? My eyes find the clock on the mantel: 6:02 pm. The transmission has started! Delay and distract. I’ve no doubt she’ll kill me, or, if she doesn’t, eventually they’ll make the call and more Lorders will come and they will. I’m detached from it. I don’t care. What is there to live for? If the transmission is made, I’ll welcome death.
‘I don’t know what they’ve told you, Ben. But Tori is here for revenge: nothing else. Because Lorders followed me to her, arrested her, hauled her away.’
‘And you never told me!’ she says, and hits me hard again across the face, this time with the flat side of the knife in her hand, and the cutting edge bites in and cuts my cheek. Tears spring to my eyes.
‘Oh, is that why you’re so miffed? Because I never told you Ben was alive?’
‘Tori, is this true?’ he asks.
‘Ben, I—’
‘Why haven’t you told me this before?’
‘Ben, think for yourself,’ I say. ‘It’s lies, all of it. The Lorders and Tori have been filling you up with lies, to make you do what they want. All those people dead: all because of you.’
‘No,’ Ben says. ‘You’re the traitor! It’s because of you and Aiden they died: you twisted and turned them. We had no choice.’