Renegade (24 page)

‘Where’s my present?’ Imp complains, slapping me in the back of the knees.

‘If he gets a present, I get one!’ says Colt.

I shake them both off and crouch, opening my bag and taking the thinkpad out. I hand it to Colt, who happily begins to jab at the screen. ‘Mum will show you how this works,’ I tell
him. ‘If she ever needs it, then you listen to her and let her have it. Understand?’

‘Yes.’

I try to hug him but he pulls away, fascinated by his new toy.

Imp is yanking on my leg. ‘Is there one for me too?’

‘I’ve heard you’ve been playing tricks on my friends?’

Imp puts on his best innocent voice. ‘No.’

‘Something about magic beans . . .’

He looks at his feet. ‘Do I still get my present?’

‘Are you going to be nice to my friends?’

‘Yes.’

‘Promise?’

‘Yes.’

‘Okay, come here.’ I pull him towards me and squeeze him to within an inch of his life. ‘Here you are,’ I say, reaching into my bag and giving him my soft toy.
‘It’s called a tortoise.’

He squishes it in the middle and turns it over. ‘What does it do?’

‘A tortoise is an animal that they have in other places around the world. They move really slowly and when they get scared, they hide their arms, legs and head inside their
shell.’

‘All the way in?’

‘Yes. This is one of my favourite things and I’m giving it to you to look after for me. Can you do that?’

‘Yes.’

He is poking the toy in the head, seeing if he can force it into the soft shell. ‘Look at me,’ I say, waiting for him to do so. ‘If there is ever any trouble, if any men come,
if there are any bangs or anything like that, I want you to think of the tortoise. Grab Colt, grab Eli and hide somewhere. Okay?’

His face screws up as he continues to poke the tortoise in the eye. ‘All the way in?’

‘Exactly. Don’t get into trouble; don’t think you’re helping out, just hide. Make sure your arms, legs and head are all hidden somewhere safe.’

‘Okay.’

‘I’m relying on you to take Colt and Eli with you.’

‘I will.’

‘Thanks, mate.’

I push myself up until I am standing, heave my bag onto my back and walk across to the others.

‘Ready?’ I ask.

Nobody answers but the four of them turn to follow. We are heading south from our location, as we looped around Lancaster in the first place to get here. Having had a chance to rest, eat and
drink over the past day, at a decent pace we should arrive as the sun is rising.

I lead the way, stepping onto an improvised ramp that heads towards a place we can easily clamber up the side of the gully.

Just as I hop from one car bonnet to another, I hear the crunching thud of flesh on metal. My shoes slide as I spin to see Hart lying flat on his back, eyes rolling back into his head, blood
pouring from his nose.

Opie drops his pack and falls to his knees next to Hart. ‘What do we do?’ he says, looking at me.

I struggle to control the shock and concern in my voice as I stammer a reply. ‘Get him to my mum and Pietra.’

With a grunt, Opie heaves Hart into his arms and hurries back the way we came. I don’t know why he has collapsed but assume it is because his infected arm has never healed. Imrin and Faith
stand waiting to see what I’m going to do but I feel lost too. Throughout everything, Hart has been there. As his body hangs limply in Opie’s arms, I remember the look on his face as
his father called through the house to say he and his mother were proud of him. There was a sense of self-worth I hadn’t seen in him before.

I follow Opie, not knowing what else to do and by the time I arrive at the shelter, my mum has already cleared everyone out. Hart is on a pile of blankets, unmoving.

‘You’ve got to go,’ my mum says without looking at me.

‘What’s wrong with him?’

Pietra is on her knees on the other side of Hart, pulling away the sleeves of his top to reveal an ugly yellow gash. My mother peers at it and winces, then mutters something to Pietra that I
don’t catch.

‘This cut is infected,’ my mum says. ‘He might have blood poisoning. We’ve got a few odds and ends here.’

‘Is he going to be all right?’

For the first time, she looks up. ‘I don’t know. Now go.’

‘Mum . . .’

‘Silver, go and do what you have to do. We’ll do what we can for him here.’

‘How long will he survive if you don’t have enough medicine?’

‘Silver!’

It is the first time she has shouted at me in years.

‘Just tell me and I’ll go.’

She shakes her head in frustration and Pietra returns with a bowl of water. ‘It depends on lots of things. Now go.’

I take one final look at the mess that is Hart’s arm, wondering why he let it get that bad, and then turn and walk away.

* * *

Imrin, Opie, Faith and I walk in near silence for the entire night, only stopping once for a drink before ploughing on. Almost the whole journey is through fields or woodland
and we don’t see a soul from the moment we climb out of the gully until we reach the outskirts. We have moved so quickly that there is at least an hour before the sun comes up. Imrin and Opie
work together to fix the tarpaulin to a tree as I take Faith to the edge of the woods that overlook Lancaster.

‘What happened to this place?’ Faith asks.

We have passed many towns and cities, plenty that were deserted but there have always been at least some buildings almost unaffected and still standing. This place feels different – it is
a sea of wreckage. The moon is fading as daylight prepares to take over but the dim light allows us to see for a couple of miles across to where there are more fields on the far side of what was
once the city. In between, there is nothing but concrete and carnage.

I indicate a spot below us, pointing out the remains of a castle. We see the outline of what could be a moat but it is filled with rubble, circular patterns of interconnected bricks the only
indication of what it once was.

‘Is that where this “X” person is?’ Faith asks.

‘I have no idea. He said I’d be smart enough to find him but where could he be? Everything’s flat. Can you see anything that looks even remotely liveable?’

‘No.’

Neither can I, which means we are going to have to explore ourselves.

‘At least there are no Kingsmen,’ Faith adds.

She is right – there is nothing to patrol. We head back to where Imrin and Opie have done a good job of creating a shelter. They are sitting underneath the tarpaulin, each fiddling with
his pack, not talking to one another.

When we are all under cover, I start to speak, aware that Opie doesn’t know as much as the other two. ‘All I have to go on is that we are supposed to be meeting someone called
“X”. He said we should visit him here but didn’t say exactly where he was. I never asked because I didn’t realise there would be so little here.’

‘Do you have a way of communicating with him?’ Opie asks.

I shake my head but it is something I should have thought of.

‘What do you want to do?’ Faith asks.

‘Usually it wouldn’t be safe to go out during the day but there’s nothing here. If we wait on the edge of town and watch for a few hours, we can see if anything happens. With
any luck, we’ll spot some sign of where X is but if not, and it’s quiet, we’ll explore this afternoon.’

I don’t know if it is worse to leave Imrin and Opie together, or to go off with one of them, leaving the other. Hoping that a miracle occurs and they become good friends when I am not
around, I tell them to get some sleep as Faith and I head back to the spot we found earlier. In the time we sit together, the only thing we see is a pair of fighting seagulls. Faith names the
smallest one after her, insisting the larger one is called Silver, and then tells me it isn’t an omen when Silver gets pecked and scratched until she flies away.

After three hours, we awaken Imrin and Opie and try to sleep ourselves. Although Faith’s breathing becomes heavy within minutes, my mind is clouded by Imrin and Opie. Once they were
interchangeable in my dreams, now they are both in front of me giving me a straight choice. I know it is absurd that this is what’s keeping me awake when there is so much else going on.
Meanwhile, poor Hart has battled so hard to make his way back to see his parents and now he could end up dying just a short distance away from them, without them knowing what has happened.

Time crawls to a stop as I try to fall asleep, even though I am as warm and as comfortable as we are likely to get sleeping outdoors.

Opie and Imrin arrive back just as my eyes are about to give in to much-needed sleep. I yawn three times in a row, which would usually be a signal for either of them to ask me if I’m all
right. In the world I have somehow created for myself, neither wants to pick a fight with the other, so they remain silent. In case we need to make a quick escape, we pack our bags and cover them
and then head for the castle.

We trace around the outline of where the castle walls once stood, before moving towards the centre. There is a constant crunch of rubble and glass as we cross the debris, stopping regularly to
look at anything that appears out of place. There are signs which would once have hung over shops, twisted pieces of metal entwined with tattered items of clothing fluttering in the breeze, random
shoes buried under piles of bricks. On and on we search but there is nothing other than destruction.

After hours of traipsing around, we head back towards the castle shortly before it is about to get dark again. We have wasted an entire day walking and hunting around, only to find nothing. I
can feel myself getting angry at whoever X is for bringing us here. I try to replay the conversation with him in my mind, wondering if there was a clue he gave about his location, but also cursing
myself for not pushing him on the simplest of questions: how do I find you? I was so consumed that he had made me admit to myself that I was motivated by revenge that everything else became
irrelevant.

We start one final lap of the castle site. I focus on the moat as the others find their own way around the rubble. It is hard to tell the colour of the remaining water because the space is
filled with rocks, moss covering almost every surface. I reach in, pulling out a fistful of the velvety green sludge, although I have no idea what I’m hoping to see.

‘Silver.’

Opie is standing in the centre of the castle, looking towards the mass wreckage of the town through which we have spent the afternoon hunting. The remnants of the walls are low but I can just
about make out the shape of the structure.

‘What?’

‘Come here.’

I throw the moss to the floor and pull myself up. I am so used to the long days and nights of walking that the twinge which shoots along my back is almost an afterthought.

‘What am I looking at?’

Opie points towards a spot at the edge of the castle. ‘What do you see there?’

I look along the line of his finger and squint. ‘Bricks. What do you see?’

He places both hands on my hips and shunts me into the spot where he was standing. Underneath my feet is a metal grate. ‘Look again.’

This time I see it: one of the pieces of metal I had walked past and ignored earlier has been bent and twisted into a very deliberate X-shape. A couple of steps in either direction and it looks
as if it is at random but from this central point it stands out.

I start running towards it before remembering there is a moat in the way. Embarrassingly, I have to retrace my steps before I can catch up with Opie, who is already halfway towards the metal. He
gives me a look as if to say I haven’t changed, as I call for Faith and Imrin to join us.

When we reach the spot, I realise why it was so hard to see. The metal isn’t twisted into an X at all; instead it is a Y-shape. What makes it look like an X is a separate piece of metal a
short distance away. When they are lined up at the right angle, the illusion is formed.

Imrin nods approvingly as Opie talks him and Faith through it, although I’m not sure if he is impressed by the fact Opie spotted it, or that someone managed to create it.

At first, I think there might be something under the Y but both pieces of metal are sticking out of huge concrete slabs. We count the steps between the concrete until we have a solid idea of the
central point between them – and then we start digging. Because of the way the hatch looked at Knave’s hideout, I think I have a pretty good idea of what we are searching for. It takes
less than a minute before I try to pick up what I think is a rock but find it attached to something far larger. The sensation surprises me so much that I overbalance, collapsing into a heap.

‘You found it then?’ Faith says with a grin, helping me up.

Between the four of us, we push away any loose stones until we find the edges. None of us can find anything to grab on to, as the stones that are stuck to the hatch are either too small or too
smooth to pick up. Imrin finds the trick this time: by simultaneously pressing the stones in the four corners, the cover pops downwards and then clicks up. Unless they were particularly flexible,
it would be impossible for one person to open this by themselves.

Imrin slides the hatch to one side and we stare into the darkness below us. The fading sunlight reveals a rusting metal ladder descending one of the walls. Opie stares at me asking silently what
I want to do but this is nothing new for the rest of us.

‘I don’t suppose anyone thought to bring a light from Martindale, did they?’ I ask.

Imrin and Faith look at me blankly.

‘Me neither,’ I add, before I notice Opie reaching into a pocket inside his top.

He hands me a box of matches. ‘I took these from our house when we were leaving. I’ve never taken them out.’

I pocket them and begin climbing down slowly. The rust feels rough on my hands but the rungs are at least solid as I descend carefully. When I reach the bottom, I can hear the tip-tap of
footsteps above and then Imrin’s voice echoes downwards: ‘Should I seal it?’

‘Yes,’ I call and, as the hatch is pulled into place, the final traces of daylight are blocked, leaving us in darkness. I try to remind myself that we were invited here, even though
we haven’t had much of a welcome.