Fragments (12 page)

But the thing I can’t take in is that two people somehow escaped that blast.

One was me.

Who was the other?

Could it have been Cal? And if it was . . . will I ever see him again?

C
HAPTER
11

banana

I
’m in the rec room watching some soap with half my brain. Trying not to think about the future. It takes me a while to work out what it is I’m feeling, and then I realise.

I’m bored. I miss having a laugh. Everyone is so serious here.
No one
could crack me up like Jax, though. He didn’t always mean to, which was the funniest thing of all. It was one of the reasons he was so easy to love. A pang goes through me and I draw myself into a ball, my feet tucked underneath.

Think about something else
, I tell myself.

Skye comes into the room then and plonks down next to me on one of the big cushions.

‘Watching that?’ she says, tipping her head towards the telly.

‘No, not really,’ I say.

She taps at the remote until she finds a music station. ‘It’s my birthday today,’ she says suddenly.

‘Oh, hey,’ I say. ‘Happy birthday.’ I think about my last one, when I was at Craydale Farm. I picture Ariella’s face, with that upturned little nose and her bright eyes. I wonder whether she misses me and what they told her. She’s probably used to people coming and going. I mentally shrug away the thoughts. I’m not going
there
, either.

‘How old?’ I say, sitting up straighter and turning to Skye.

She does a huge yawn and stretch so that the sleeve of her top rides up a bit. I see silvery scars on her arm and look quickly back at the television.

Even though we share a room, I feel like I don’t know her at all. She stares at me sometimes and then smiles but other times she seems like a robot. Like nothing is going on inside.

‘Sweet sixteen,’ she says and then bursts into a manic sort of laugh. ‘Pretty big deal, eh? They used to have special parties for the sixteenth. My mother had one where her parents hired a pink stretch limo and she took sixteen friends to a luxury spa.’

Hearing her mention a mother is a surprise. Everyone has a mother, even if they don’t have them any more. But Skye could have hatched out of an egg for all I know about her.

I don’t know what to say, so I just smile gormlessly. She’s staring at the floor now, chewing on a nail and looking like the saddest person ever. It makes me want to do something. But partly just because I’m restless and twitchy tonight. Energy seems to be building in all my limbs.

‘Wait here,’ I say. She looks up, half frowning, half smiling.

‘Wait for what?’

‘Just wait, OK?’

I race down to the canteen. When it’s closed for the night you can still get fruit and bottles of water. The lights are low as I arrive but when I step into the vast room brightness floods the space. I know there are motion sensors everywhere. For a second I freeze, wondering if I’m going to get into trouble for wandering about at night. I don’t for a moment think I’m not being watched. But when nothing happens a few seconds later, I walk over to the counters, heart thumping loudly in my chest.

I choose a bunch of the ripest looking bananas, a plastic fork (we’re not trusted with proper cutlery, despite the stuff they teach us here) and a paper bowl.

Feeling a bit giddy inside, I hare back to where Skye is waiting. She’s sprawled out across the cushion with her legs hanging over one side, patting the rhythm to a song with her fingers.

She frowns when she sees what I’m holding.

I come over and hunker down over the table.

‘I got excited for a minute there. Thought it might be cake,’ she says in a dry voice.

I mash up the bananas in the bowl, pounding them with the fork until they’re a brown mess. Feeling doubtful about my idea now, I plaster on a smile anyway. What am I doing? I have no idea. Maybe I just want to have a laugh for once. I was always doing daft stuff with Jax. I think my mouth has forgotten how to make giggle shapes now.

‘No cake,’ I say. ‘And we can’t go to a spa. But we can bring the spa here!’

‘What?’ Her eyes twinkle a little, her lips curling into a small smile. It’s not a look I’ve seen on Skye before. It suits her. ‘In what way is a bowl of stinky banana a
spa
?’

I put on Mum’s Jamaican accent. ‘This is some of nature’s goodness right here, girl! Ain’t no need to be spending money on no face packs.’

Skye gives a throaty giggle. ‘Forget it,’ she says. ‘There is no way I am putting that,’ she points a disdainful finger at the bowl and then at her face, ‘
there
.’

The devil is in me now. I put my fingers into the bowl and scoop out a big dollop of the gloopy banana and smear it across my cheeks.

Skye watches me the whole time, starting to grin.

‘That’s a good look on you. Still not doing it, though.’

I can feel that devil inside, even stronger now urging me on.

‘Oh yeah?’ I take another scoop of the banana and go to put it on my face but at the last moment I take aim and splodge it straight at hers. She gives an outraged squeak and leaps to her feet. For a split second I think I’ve made a mistake. Her eyes have gone weird, like all the light has gone out of them. I actually think she’s going to punch me. Then her mouth twitches again and she calmly takes the bowl from my hand, spoons some of the mixture out of it and slaps it, a tiny bit too hard, across my cheek.

I rub it in and then lick my fingers. ‘It’s not bad. But I’ve just remembered it’s supposed to have a whole load of other stuff in it.’

‘Like what?’ says Skye and helps herself to another handful. This time she dabs at her forehead. She’s playing along now. I’m a bit more relieved than I’d like to admit. She scared me for a minute there. But then I suppose it
is
a bit dumb to throw smushed banana at someone when you don’t really know them and we are all being trained to fight.

We sit down, all relaxed now, and dab the mixture around our cheeks, trying (and failing) not to get any in our hair.

‘Yogurt, for starters,’ I say. ‘Bit of avocado used to find its way in there too. Although I don’t recommend guacamole. Chilli burns like hell.’

Skye regards me and licks a bit of banana from the side of her mouth.

‘Are we having fun yet?’ she says.

‘Not sure,’ I reply. ‘I’ll get back to you once I’ve got this disgusting banana off my face.’

For some reason this lights the touchpaper and we’re off, giggling helplessly – so hard, I fall forwards and get congealed banana on the sofa. It feels so good to laugh. Skye keeps snorting and that sets me off even more. It’s a chain reaction; every time she’s starting to get control of herself, my hysteria goes up a notch and then so does hers. After a while we sit up and wipe our eyes. We both look a right mess. Her eyes are shining with laughter tears and her hair is all over the place. Mine has banana in it. (Not something I would recommend for curly hair.)

There are only a few people around across the room. I see Reo watching us, then he saunters over. He stinks of the Lynx fragrance capsules he swallows all the time. I’m sure you’re only supposed to take one of those things a day, but I reckon he swallows the tabs and still douses himself in the old-school body spray. It never seems to mask the stink of sweaty man-boy he gives off anyway.

‘What are you two up to then?’ he says. ‘Bit of girl-on-girl action on the cards? What the hell is that on your faces?’ He gives a sort of whooping laugh. ‘Trust me, ladies, you’re already ugly enough. Don’t go making things even harder for yourselves.’

Skye sits up straight and stares at him. That dead look is back in her eyes.

‘Get lost, Reo,’ she says. All the laughter has evaporated into the air.

‘Free country,’ he says and flumps down heavily onto the sofa next to me. I nearly fall into him. I suddenly want this stuff off my face more than anything in the world but I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing he’s spoiled our fun.

I sit there, unsure about what to do next. I’m half looking to Skye for a cue. ‘Maybe I’ll have a go,’ says Reo and puts his fingers into the bowl.

Then he leans towards Skye. I can’t believe his cheek. Does he think she will actually let him touch her? She moves fast. It seems like half a second later she’s squatting over him and holding the plastic fork right by his eyes. I can see the dark, sticky mess coating the plastic, but the tines are sharp enough to damage him. I don’t have any doubt in my mind that she would do it. The knowledge is just there, complete, in my head, as I’m guessing it is in hers too.

Reo smiles and then spits in her face, shocking her so that she flinches and drops her guard. He grabs her wrist and twists her sideways off him and onto the floor. She catches her face against the table as she falls and cries out in pain. I jump to my feet to help her, as Reo gives a nasty laugh. He gets up easily.

‘You’re a complete jerk, Reo, do you know that?’ I say through gritted teeth, reaching down to help Skye get up. But she brushes my hand away.

Christian comes into the room then and stops abruptly, his eyes widening. It must be a very weird scene. There’s me with half-dried gunk all over my face, Skye is slowly getting up from the floor with the same, plus a small cut on her cheek, and although Reo is smirking, he still looks a bit red and nervous. I think Christian is going to say something, but he just backs straight out of the room again.

Reo stalks off, still chuckling in a really infuriating way.

‘Right, well, I’ll leave you two bitches to carry on playing your little games,’ he says. I do a rude hand gesture at his back and then look at Skye again.

‘You OK?’ I say. Skye’s hands are trembling as she touches the sore place on her cheek. She nods.

‘He’s such an idiot,’ I say.

‘Yes,’ she says, in a strange, distracted sort of voice. ‘He really is.’

‘Come on,’ I say, ‘let’s go wash this stuff off and see how gorgeous we are underneath.’

My joke falls a bit flat. She meets my eyes, not smiling, then nods. ‘Yeah, let’s do that.’ She seems to be somewhere else. So much for our girly bonding session. A sour feeling of disappointment spreads in my stomach. I was enjoying myself – for a little while then I felt like a normal teenager. Should have known it wouldn’t last.

I make my way back to the bathroom and wash my face. Then I remember I’ve left my hoodie in the TV room so decide to nip back to get it.

No one is in there now because we’re close to the ten o’clock curfew. There are only a few minutes left so I pick up the hoodie and go to hurry back to my room. I feel something crackle in the pocket. That’s weird, I’m sure there was nothing there before. I reach in and find a small piece of paper. On one side there are printed words:
Inside the Terrorist Mind: A Psychological Primer by J. Martin Smith
. It looks like the title page of a book that someone has ripped out. I turn it over, curiosity flickering inside. At first I think there is nothing there but then I make out very faint words, written lightly in pencil. I have to hold the paper close to my eyes to be able to read them.

Don’t trust her

I look up and around, but can only see one of the patrolling guards, doing a curfew check. He gives me the evil eye and I quickly explain that I’m on my way back to my room.

When I get back, Skye is in bed, facing away from me. I go into the bathroom and rip the paper into tiny pieces before flushing it down the toilet. I have to flush twice before the last flakes of paper swirl away. The note must have been referring to her. I wonder who left it?

I climb into bed and switch off the light, turning to face the wall. I don’t think sleep is in a hurry to come tonight. A million unwanted thoughts crowd into my head.

Like, what is going to happen to me after I leave here? No one has told me exactly how long I’ll be in training. I’m starting to get a bit comfortable.

OK, it might not be ideal. I get locked in at night and the guard’s expression just now was a reminder that this is ‘no holiday camp’ as we keep being told. I didn’t really choose to be here at all.

But I’ve got food and a bed. Once I’d given up Zander’s dubious protection I had none of those things. I’m relatively safe here.

Aren’t I?

‘Kyla?’ Skye’s voice takes me by surprise. Her voice is husky but she doesn’t sound sleepy at all. I turn back the other way to face her. There are floodlights outside on the courtyard and even though our window is tiny, there is always a silvery glow seeping into the room.

‘Yeah?’

Her eyes gleam in the dim light. ‘That was nice, what you did.’

‘What?’ I murmur. ‘Throwing banana-mush at your face?’

She gives a low laugh. ‘You know what I mean.’ She yawns. ‘You’re all right.’

A pleased flush floods my face.

‘Happy birthday, Skye. Sweet dreams.’

‘Yeah, and you, babe. Night.’

I turn over onto my other side again, aware that a heavy sleepiness is starting to come at last. I told myself before that I wouldn’t get close to anyone again. And I won’t. But it can’t hurt to let my guard down a little, can it? She seems OK, Skye. Bit weird and damaged, but who isn’t round here? And that’s just the staff . . .

And then I think about that note.
Don’t trust her
.

I don’t need anyone’s advice. I’ve looked after myself this long, haven’t I?

I reckon I can handle Skye.

C
HAPTER
12

connections

W
e’re in History of Terrorism a few days later. Reo has been giving me these little smirky looks every time I see him. He tries to do it to Skye too. But she blanks him in a way I can’t help but admire. I swear he could come up and wave in her face and she’d still manage to ignore him. It’s quite impressive.

Mrs Sheehy looks pissed off today. She blinks hard a few times and doesn’t smile as people come into the room as she usually would. Everyone picks up on the atmosphere and falls into silence. She takes a very obvious breath in as though gathering her strength and then lifts up a book, holding it as though it might burst into flames at any moment.