He unlocks the door. ‘Go,’ he says. And I walk as if in a daze into the hall. After a few steps, I look back; he smiles, then shuts the door. Gone.
The further I am from Nico, the more the warmth and joy seep away, leaving cold and loneliness.
More bits and fragments are coming back. That training in my dream? It was real. Training with Nico: with Free UK. Hiding in the woods with others like me. Learning to fight. Weapons. Whatever we could do to strike at Lorders, we learned. For freedom! And every one of the girls was in love with Nico; all the boys wanted to be him.
All it took was minutes alone with him today for me to feel the same as I did back then. Seeing myself through Nico’s eyes made me sure who I am: it made me become the Rain that he knew. Part of me wants Nico to take over; to tell me what to think, what to do. So I don’t have to try to work anything out for myself.
The further away I get from him, the more it terrifies me.
CHAPTER SIX
* * *
‘Kyla? You have a visitor,’ Mum calls up the stairs.
A visitor? I walk down, and there is Cam: a sheepish look on his face, and a plate clutched in his hands. His sandy hair is almost neat, he wears a collared shirt, and there is a distinct air of aftershave about the place.
‘Hi,’ he says.
‘Ah, hi.’
‘I just wanted to apologise,’ he says, and holds out the plate. Chocolate cake? And I’m thinking don’t say anything at him, really hard, but it doesn’t work. ‘That detention you got was totally my fault.’
‘Detention?’ Mum says.
I give Cam a glare.
‘Oh, sorry! You didn’t want her to know, did you.’
Thanks for spelling out the obvious. I sigh.
‘Kyla?’ Mum says.
‘Yes, I got a lunchtime detention today, and yes, it was Cam’s fault. Happy?’
Mum laughs. ‘I can see you will have no secrets with Cam about the neighbourhood.’
‘I’m really sorry,’ he says again, looking even more miserable.
‘It’s fine. Really. Thanks for the cake,’ I say, and take the plate, hoping he’ll do the same with the hint, and leave.
‘Come in,’ Mum says. ‘I think we need some tea with that.’
No such luck.
The word ‘cake’ tempts Amy away from the TV to join us. Luscious-looking dark chocolate cake, with butter icing.
‘This is really good,’ I say, starting to thaw once I begin to tackle a piece. And it is: gooey with delicious bitter dark chocolate and just enough sweet to balance. ‘Did you make it?’
‘Believe me, if I made it, you wouldn’t want to eat it. My uncle did.’
‘Why have you come to stay with them? Will you be here for long?’ Amy asks.
‘Amy!’ Mum says.
Cam laughs. Dimples appear when he smiles – one in each cheek. ‘It’s fine. I’m not sure how long, my mum is off on a research platform in the North Sea. Depends how long it takes them to discover something important, I guess.’
‘What about your dad?’ Amy asks.
‘He split last year,’ Cam says, with no elaboration, and a look on his face that suggests Amy has ventured into no-go territory. Mum quickly changes the subject, asking after his aunt and uncle.
Eventually they leave the kitchen when Cam asks me what we’ve done so far in biology. Like I’ve been paying attention. But I go get my notes.
‘I’m sorry. I won’t be much help.’ I give him my notebook and Cam flicks through, but soon realises much of what is in it is nonsense. ‘I have trouble concentrating in that class,’ I admit.
‘You were away with the fairies this morning,’ he says. ‘I just passed you a note to tear your eyes away from the Teacher God Who Walks Amongst Us.’
‘That’s ridiculous,’ I say, nervous how much he noticed, how much anyone could.
‘Oh, come on. You and every other girl were totally in awe of his swaggering magnificence: I notice these things. But Hatten is a mite creepy, if you ask me.’
‘How so?’
He pulls a piece of paper out of his pocket. Unfolds it to show a cartoon with the title, ‘Survival of the Fittest’.
First a cute little bunny; then a fox chasing the bunny; then a lion chasing the fox. And chasing the lion, a dinosaur: T. rex? Who is finally chased by Nico. Dressed in skins like a caveman, and clutching a club with a decidedly evil, manic look on his face.
I laugh. ‘Is that really how you see him?’
‘Oh, yeah. He’s all animal, that one. How’d he get a teaching qualification? I expect any minute he’ll march us into a freezer, and make us into sausages or something.’
How did he get a teaching qualification? While he seems to know more about biology than I do, I’m sure he hasn’t got one. Perhaps somewhere there was a real Mr Hatten, biology teacher, who is no more. My smile falls away.
Absently I start sketching students in our Lord Williams’ School uniform: maroon-and-black sausages, marching along.
‘Wow. You can really draw.’
‘Thanks. Your stuff is good, too.’
‘Nah, I just do cartoons. Silly stuff.’
‘No, really; it’s good. But I can see you need help in lessons.’
‘Oh?’
‘For a start, this,’ and I tap his cartoon, ‘isn’t survival of the fittest. It is more the food chain.’
‘And?’
‘Dinosaurs aren’t in the food chain any more.’
He stays for an hour or so. He could talk for England: goes on about nothing, and everything. More cartoons of other teachers follow. I wonder how he would draw Mrs Ali?
‘It’s nice to see you smile, Kyla,’ Mum says, as I go upstairs for the night.
And I think, wouldn’t it be nice to stay this girl? Who has nothing more on her mind than school, making fun of teachers, and boys bearing cake. Cam is nice, funny; uncomplicated and silly. Nothing like Ben.
Ben. Stricken, I wonder what he would think of Cam. He might think Cam isn’t just being friendly. And he might be right.
What was I thinking? All at once the evening fades away, the sense of another life that might be. Guilt and pain twist inside. I wasn’t thinking of Ben, at all. Mum said it was good to see me smile. But how can I smile, even at Cam, when Ben is…is…what is he?
The other night his mother wasn’t smiling at anything. Mum couldn’t help her, and she was in despair.
Maybe there is a way I can help. Give her something she can do: report Ben missing on MIA, with all the other missing children. Having something like that may give her hope, make her able to go on.
Maybe it will stop her from hating me if she learns the truth.
I run.
Sand slips under my feet. The salty tang from the sea rasps in my throat as I gasp for air. Run faster.
Through my fear I still hear gulls’ cries, see stars glint on the water. The boat pulled on the beach ahead.
Faster!
So tired now, one foot not raised high enough catches in sand, and I sprawl. Fly through the air, land hard. Air is knocked out of lungs that already couldn’t take in enough to keep running. Everything spins…
…and changes. The night is softer. More distant. I can’t feel my frantic gasping for breath or my thumping heartbeats any more, but the fear is closer, more complete.
‘Never forget who you are!’ a voice shouts, then cuts off. Disconnects.
Bricks rise all around, thunk-thud, thunk-thud. Like a shovel dragging in sand.
And all there is, is darkness.
Silence.
Thick, and absolute.
CHAPTER SEVEN
* * *
Dark jacket, jeans, warm gloves. A dark hat, both to cover blond hair that might catch the moonlight, and to stay warm: it is cold tonight.
I slip like a shadow down the stairs, then carefully, quietly, open the side door and step out into the night. And I marvel at how I move, making no sound. Not such a mystery any longer, these hidden skills have an explanation: learning them formed part of my Free UK training. They were tucked away inside and not recognised until needed. Who knows what else I can do?
A car goes past and I melt into shadows. Where are they going at three in the morning?
I’m going to see Ben’s mum.
Old walking maps found tucked on a bookshelf at home show the canals behind Ben’s house link with the footpath above our village, just crossing a few country lanes on the way. No more than six miles. Maybe seven. A run should make it an hour, and I’m desperate to run. To shake off my dream. A dream that with some variation has haunted my sleep ever since I woke up in hospital after I was Slated.
It is a slow start, hugging the shadows through the village in case any insomniacs pass a window. There is one tense moment as a sleepy dog gives a few half-hearted barks, but no doors open or voices follow, and it soon goes back to dreaming. Once I reach the footpath at the end of the village, I start to run: slower than expected, taking care not to trip on tree roots in the faint moonlight, then faster as eyes adjust.
This footpath, that Ben and I came up together.
This lookout spot, here, where he laughed at the mist-obstructed view, and was about to kiss me. Before Wayne interrupted.
Before Ben’s levels crashed and he nearly blacked out; would have, if he hadn’t taken a highly illegal Happy Pill. The pills that started all the trouble. And it was all because of Wayne: his attack, Ben’s inability to help. Slateds can’t use violence, even to defend. What would have happened if Amy and Jazz hadn’t interrupted? Would my memories have come back then? I quail inside.
There is nothing to fear now.
No. Not since I started to remember all that Nico taught me. Just ask Wayne. My smile falters.
Before long the path branches. The left way, I know; it goes back to the other end of our village. The right is new, and leads to tonight’s destination.
The run, the dark, the night: exhilarating! I’ve been locked up for too long. The cold air, the rhythm of feet and white breath, the here, the now, take over. Until all there is, is running.
But as I get closer, thoughts intrude. What will happen when I get there? What Ben’s mum will make of me knocking on her back door at four in the morning is hard to predict. What should I say?
There is only one way to deal with it: I have to tell her the truth. I have to tell her what really happened.
She must know I love Ben. I’d never hurt him, not for anything.
But you did.
No! It wasn’t like that. He was going to cut off his Levo, anyhow. I tried to stop him.
You should have tried harder.
There it is, face on: I should have tried harder. We were always told that any damage to your Levo would kill you, either from pain or seizures. And yes, he was so determined to try to be free of it, that he wouldn’t listen! But while the pain of Ben’s absence is intense, the thought that I should have been able to do something, anything, to stop him, is worse.
My reasons for helping him seemed right. With my help he was more likely to survive. Without it, he almost certainly would have failed.
He still failed, didn’t he?
Did he? The Levo came off quick with my sure hands on the grinder, his wrist held still in a clamp. He still lived, then. But the pain. The slightest touch on a working Levo hurts like being hit in the head with a sledgehammer; the cut through must have been like an amputation without anaesthetic.
I cannot banish what happened next, the last time I saw him. Ben’s mother, home unexpectedly, found Ben writhing in pain, my arms around him, tears running down my face. His Levo off, body convulsing. No time for questions. She called the paramedics, and told me to leave, to get out before they arrived. And I did it. I left, to save myself. Ben was lying there, in agony. His body in spasms, his beautiful eyes clenched shut tight. At least he didn’t see me walk away and leave him.
And then the Lorders came, and took him away.
I blink back tears as I run. Focus: on feet on path, on the night, on staying upright. Ben’s mum deserves the truth.