Fragments (7 page)

Alexander starts to walk up the stairs. One of the CATS men releases my arm and moves towards Mick.

All I can hear is the word ‘
that’
in my head. Like I’m a bit of dirt that must be scraped off and disposed of quickly. The rage explodes again. Hot and clean, like a fire that will melt them all to ashes.

Mick and the other guy disappear into the kitchen. The one holding my arm says, ‘Come on then, you,’ in a weary, disgusted tone. I feel the grip on my arm loosen for a second.

I don’t even think. My body is pure movement. I swing my arm up at the elbow and feel a crunch as my fist makes contact with the guard’s nose. He cries out and goes to grab me but I lift my knee and ram it into his groin. He crumples like he’s been shot, groaning. I start to run down the hallway but the other guard is almost on top of me straight away. I jab at his eyes and he pulls back so that I can swing my foot round and smash it into his chest, winding him. I’m almost there . . . almost at the door. A crazy urge to laugh bubbles up inside. Freedom!

And then pain shrieks through every part of my body, fizzing, frying me with hot agony. Crying out, I fall onto the ground and huddle into a ball. Another wave slams into me. I bare my teeth like an animal and the warmth around my legs tells me I’ve wet myself.

‘That’s enough,’ says a voice somewhere distant. ‘You’ve made your point. Throw her in the van and we’ll deal with her tomorrow.’

I’m lifted up roughly under the arms. My head lolls. The sharp slap around my face barely registers, nor the hissed, angry words that tumble, hot, into my ear.

‘Little cow. There will be more of that if you try anything else.’

They throw me into the back of a van. My head throbs in waves that seem to expand then shrink tight into a pinprick. My clothes are damp and cold and I’m suddenly ashamed about wetting myself. I pull a rough sheet of material around me and lie there, shivering. I know that I have to try to lie still. I’ll feel better if I just give it time, I tell myself.

I’ve never been volted before. Zander had, more than once. Used to boast that they needed to use a more powerful volter on him because he was ‘resistant’ or something.

God, I’m practically missing Zander. This is so messed up.

Bastards . . .

Self-pitying tears rise up inside and I squeeze my eyes shut.

What’s going to happen to me now?

I’m so cold. I can feel myself shuddering against the hard floor of the van. A headache rattles around my skull and my wet skirt clings to my legs, rubbing them sore. I can hear the rain outside, drumming onto the roof of the van. My wrists and legs are tied with some sort of strong, stretchy stuff. I try to bite it but it hurts my teeth. I can only move my hands and feet a little way apart. If I try to stretch the binding further, it shrinks, so I stop.

Somehow, despite all this, I drop off to a muddled sleep.

I’m jolted awake when the doors of the van open and daylight blasts in. I crack my swollen eyelids open. The events of the night before fill my mind and I go limp with fear.

The rain falls warm onto me as they drag me from the van. I’m so thirsty. I never even got my glass of water last night. I let the rain run into my mouth, even though it has all sorts in it, they say. The guards from yesterday jerk me roughly as they carry me towards a massive black car. One of them whispers an obscene thing into my ear. I wince at his sour breath. He has a piece of gauze strapped across his nose and I want to laugh that someone of my size could do that to a thumping great man, but I think he’ll hit me if I do so I lower my eyes, meek as a lamb.

Lamb of God, have mercy on us . . 
.

I remember Mum saying that prayer when I was small. I believed her when she said prayers protect you.

My bound feet drag behind me, churning up mud, and then I’m thrown into the back of the black car. A sheet of plastic has been put over the seats and as the door is closed behind me, I look around and see that man Alexander from last night, looking at me with a wrinkled nose, like I smell. I
do
smell.

He turns away and looks out of the other window. The windows are tinted, so the greyness outside is deepened and intensified.

The next thing I know, he’s holding up a phone.

My
phone. And the screen is filled with the picture of Cal.

Oh, God
. . .

‘Who is this?’ he snaps.

I swallow, trying to keep my eyes completely blank.

‘No idea,’ I say in the boldest voice I can.

‘Isn’t this your device?’ he says crisply. He has a weirdly womanly mouth with a bow-shaped upper lip.

‘No.’

This seems to surprise him because he pauses before speaking again. I force myself to wait.

‘Why was it in your possession then?’

I roll my eyes, hoping this isn’t overdoing it. ‘Because I stole it, didn’t I?’ I say, as though he is the stupidest man alive.

I got that phone recently. I only texted Jax from it and I never sign off texts. I didn’t use the email. There wasn’t time for anything much before my life fell apart. There’s only one photo on there. Why did I take that photo? I haven’t even been able to bring myself to look at it since then so it had no purpose. And now it might get me into even more trouble than I’m already in. Cal escaped from the Facility but he’s dead now. Still, I can’t let them know there was any connection between us.

I risk speaking again. ‘Didn’t your old mucker Mick tell you I was a dirty little thief? That was right after he tried to rape me. You might remember.’

A muscle in Alexander’s cheek tightens and I’m frightened I’ve gone too far. I shrink back against the door like a kicked dog, expecting a blow.

But the man next to me just gives a loud sigh. ‘This is a convenient place to stay sometimes,’ he says through tight lips. I notice they are completely without colour and seem to blend into his face. ‘He’s no friend of mine, whatever he thinks.’ He pauses and then his voice is sharp and full of authority again. ‘So where did you get the phone?’

‘I lifted it from some lad’s pocket in Sheffield. We were in a crowd. It was easy.’ I shrug, praying that I’m putting on a convincing act.

A long silence fills the car. I can feel my heart stampeding in my chest but force myself to look into his eyes. Or, at least, where they lurk behind those glasses.

Finally he says, ‘You’re quite something, aren’t you, young Kyla? Thief. Vicious little wildcat. A devil with the face of an angel.’

This makes me look down at last, heat creeping up my face. Is that what I am? I don’t like that description. That’s not who I want to be.

But he’s speaking again.

‘I have a proposition for you. I’m not interested in debating its pros and cons. You either take it or you don’t, I really don’t care.’ He pauses and then turns to me. His eyes behind those shiny lenses are still hard to see and I realise the glasses are tiny screens. He’s probably reading emails and surfing for holidays or something while he’s talking to me. Or arranging for some people to be arrested. Of course he is. Why would he waste time even looking at someone as worthless as me?

‘Do you understand?’ he says.

I find myself nodding. He has that sort of voice. Cold and low and assuming you will do what it says, always.

‘So,
Kyla
.’ He says my name silkily, stretching it out in a way that makes me shiver uncomfortably. Then his voice changes, becomes hard, businesslike. ‘I’m arresting you for three counts of assault, including wounding with intent using a deadly weapon. You have the right . . .
blah blah
.’ He waves his hand and then sighs deeply. ‘You will be tried. Eventually. But the courts have a backlog so I doubt you will see the inside of a witness box for at least two years. And in the meantime you will be spending time in a young offender’s institution. It’s called the Facility. Have you ever heard of it?’

My mouth somehow goes even drier. I can’t reply. I thought the Facility had been closed down after what happened with Cal and the riots. But maybe it’s open again. And maybe the experiments have started up again. I think about punching him and trying to get out of the car but I know the doors will be locked. And I’d never get away.

I hang my head, suddenly so tired that I wish I could sleep and never wake up. I could be with Mum, Jax and Cal. Somewhere better than here. It doesn’t seem as though there is anything much to live for any more. I glance back at the house, hoping Ariella isn’t upset. I wonder what they’ve told her?

The man is speaking again.

‘Or, there is an alternative,’ he says. My head shoots up. I don’t know what to say. Is he going to let me go? Then it strikes me maybe he’s a creep like Mick. I set my jaw and beam what I think of him with my eyes. Never. He’d have to kill me first.

He laughs and it’s a surprising sound. A proper laugh, filled with humour, like someone has just told him a joke.

‘Don’t flatter yourself, darling! Anyway, I’m not interested in children. But there it is again!’ he says, and leans over, taking my chin in his hand. It hurts and my eyes water. ‘That spark . . .’ It’s like he’s having some sort of conversation with himself, the weirdo.

He lets go of my chin and his face is serious and unreadable again. The glasses suddenly clear and reveal his eyes, which are pale green and piggy with a red, exhausted tinge.

‘We need more young people – young women, specifically – to be trained up for security work,’ he says. ‘We send them to one of our training centres.’

‘What kind of security work? What would I have to do?’ My voice croaks now and I have to cough.

He knocks on a glass pane separating the front of the car from the back, which slides open a little. He says, ‘Water’ and a bottle of water is handed back, glistening with cold. I want to snatch it but wait until he takes off the lid. I grab it between my bound hands. As I pour the sweet water into my mouth, I’m filled with gratitude. I almost love him for giving me the water.

‘Better?’ he says after a moment and I nod.

‘Thank you,’ I force myself to say.

‘Just security work,’ he goes on. I’d forgotten my question and am confused for a minute. I suddenly feel conscious of how dirty I am and want to shrink into myself again.

‘You might not even get that far, so there’s no point discussing it now,’ he continues. ‘Many recruits don’t make it through the basic training. It needs a certain . . . strength of mind and spirit, shall we say. You may not even last a day.’

I stare into his eyes as though I’ll find an answer there but they are blank and unseeing, almost as though his thoughts are somewhere else entirely. I clear my throat before speaking.

‘And if I say I don’t want to do it?’

He sighs again and glances at the gold watch on his pale wrist like this is all so
boring
. He has small, neat hands that are weirdly creepy on a man of his age. ‘Well, you will go to prison and await your trial,’ he says wearily. ‘That’s if you’re still alive.’

I swallow some more water and look away from him, desperately trying to think. What should I do? My whole future rests on what I decide here. Should I take my chances with an arrest?

I think about Cal then, when he told me and Jax about the Facility. He tried to look cool, but I saw the way he clenched his fists so that his knuckles strained white. It made me want to hold his hand but I didn’t. I wish I had now. He kept swallowing too, like the words were hard to force out. He said he’d do anything not to go back to the place where they experimented on him and stole his identity. I shudder at the thought. I can’t do it.

But what’s this ‘training’ all about? Will I become some sort of cool ninja spy at the end of it? It can’t be that easy. What do they do to you at these training centres? I don’t like what he said about ‘surviving’.

Then I remember that surviving is something I seem to be good at. The pig flu didn’t get me. CATS didn’t get me when they picked up Jax and killed him. And the farmhouse was blown to bits with everyone inside, apart from me.

I survive even when I don’t want to, it feels like. Maybe I can get through this too.

I wipe my mouth awkwardly with the back of my wrist and try to sit up straighter in the seat, despite how small and cold and frightened I feel.

‘All right,’ I say and my trembling voice gives me away. ‘I’ll do it.’

I lift my chin defiantly.

I have no clue what I have just agreed to.

C
HAPTER
8

road trip

T
he car door opens and I’m yanked out by the arm. Alexander doesn’t even look at me as I stumble out of the seat, my bound ankles dragging behind me. He has probably already disappeared behind his screens and is onto the next problem that must be dealt with.

‘There’d better not be a peep out of you, missy,’ hisses the guard as he frogmarches me back to the van. ‘I’d like nothing better than to give you the hiding you deserve so you’d better not give me any excuse at all – are we clear?’

I nod, meek again. The rain has stopped briefly and the air smells sweet and clean. He opens the back of the van and just as he’s about to throw me inside, I glance up at the house. Charlotte is standing at a window on the first floor, the baby against her chest and one of her hands splayed on the back of his tiny head. Our eyes meet. It’s impossible to read her expression but, despite everything, despite the fact that I am sore, cold, hungry, and I smell of wee and shame, I wouldn’t want her life. I wish I could say goodbye to Ariella but the coward in me knows it’s better this way. I don’t want even her to see me like this.

But I’m not to be let off that easily.

I pull my legs up and huddle in the back of the van. The guard is about to close the doors when I hear a high-pitched wail coming from the direction of the house and suddenly she’s there, a whirlwind in PJs and bare feet.

‘Kylaaaaaaa!
’ she calls desperately. Pleading.

I can’t do it. I’m not strong enough. I can’t make her feel better. I don’t know how to make anyone feel better. And anyway it’s not my job any more, is it? I hurriedly reach over and pull one of the doors myself as the guard slams the other with a loud thunk. I can still hear her calling as the engine starts. I curl into a ball on the cold, metal floor and try to will the sound away as the van begins to move. But her voice tears at me inside long after we’ve driven away. I didn’t get too close to her, just as I’d promised myself. But I got close enough to feel guilty about leaving her behind with no explanation. Next time I’ll be harder still. I won’t let anyone in.