“I could take you to a nearby hotel or something.”
“No, she’d hate that. It’s ok… She’s just a bit over-excited. It’ll be fine. Right?”
“I guess… Sure. She must have had you really young.”
My fingers fiddle with the bed covers. “I don’t know. She wants to call the police, about Forever taking me, and about your Dad, but I don’t want her to, not yet at least. Not until I understand why they did what they did, what’s going on.”
“Police won’t do anything against Forever anyway. No-one does, that’s the whole point of KHH. Or I thought it was,” he adds bitterly. “If you call the police, they’ll just tell Forever where you are.”
“What are your plans?” There. I asked it. I pick at my fingernail, not looking at him.
“Head back to London, I guess. Try to find out what happened to Dad. Sift out which parts of KHH are real and which are rotten. There’s so much there worth saving, there has to be. And like you said, it’s not like I have a lot of options.”
“You could stay here.”
“Ha. Yeah, bet Anna’d love that.”
I let him think I was joking. “Why do you think she’s being so rude to you?”
He snorts. “Take your pick. Your long-lost daughter, long-lost teenage daughter, turns up with an older boy, with whom she’s been travelling. Oh, and he abducted her. And he hit her.” He lifts a hand and gently turns my cheek, looking at the bruise he gave me at the farmhouse, when he knocked me out to stop me alerting Forever. My whole body tingles when he touches me, and I stop breathing.
His hand drops back to his side, looking away, and I breathe again. “And he’s in KHH, which Anna keeps calling ‘that terrorist group.’ What parent isn’t going to love all that? Also… I met you first. I know you better than she does, and she must hate that.”
“But you do like her?”
“’Course.” He doesn’t meet my eyes. Well, the next few days are going to be interesting.
“You’ll stay anyway, right? For a while?”
“Of course,” he says again. This time he does look at me, his face serious. “I’ll stay as long as you need me.”
His words feel like a vow, perhaps they are. “Thank you,” I whisper.
This is the beginning of a new chapter between us, and we both know it. We’re not running anymore, and our search for Anna has ended. Yes, he lied to me, kidnapped me, even hit me, but he’s the reason I’m finally home, perhaps the reason I’m still alive. He doesn’t have to stay here, but he is, because I asked him to.
I’m not sure how to express all that, so I just look at him. He’s going to say something else, but Anna is back, smiling too brightly as she hovers in the doorway. “Lunch is ready!”
And that’s when Lia crashes in through the window, sending a shower of smashed glass and dead flowers across my room.
Lia is a whirl of black-clad energy, sharp eyes and spiky blond hair, using one hand to slam me headfirst into the bed mattress as she hurls Rehan away from me, into Anna, toppling them to the floor like skittles. Rehan is back on his feet instantly, throwing a punch towards Lia, but he can’t compete with a lifetime of daily martial arts classes. Unlike me, Lia was a natural. She dodges his punch easily and grabs his wrist to yank him forward, then knees him in the groin: Forever doesn’t fight fair. Her fist smashes into his jaw as he folds, and he slides to the floor. Lia doesn’t bother to watch him fall, she’s already turning back towards Anna, who’s frozen, eyes wide with shock. Lia smiles, pulling out a gun.
But I had a lifetime of those classes too, and although I was always bottom of class, this is personal. Heat shoots through me and I’m rolling across the bed as I realise that I was bottom of the class because I didn’t really care, I didn’t want to fight, didn’t want to hurt my friends, not the way I want to kick that gun away from my mother.
My foot smashes into Lia’s wrist, sending Lia staggering back and the gun flying out of her hand. It fires into the wall as it spins, the sound sudden and shocking.
Since when does Lia have a gun? We all had weapons training, sure, as part of self-defence, but we never got issued anything.
Lia turns to me, cradling her wrist as plaster from the wall drifts to the ground. “What the hell was that?” she asks.
Anna rushes at Lia, who doesn’t even glance toward her as she flicks an elbow at Anna’s chin, smacking her back down.
I rush to Anna. “What was that? What is this? That’s my mother, you moron!” I snap at Lia, bending over Anna, who is groggy but moving. I can’t remember a time I’ve ever stood up to Lia, and it startles both of us.
Lia stares at me as I make my mother more comfortable. That’s going to be a big bruise on her jaw.
“Fern. We don’t have mothers,” Lia explains slowly, as if to a child. Her eyes are dark, were her pupils always that huge?
“I do, actually. You probably do too. And since when do you have a gun? Are Forever here?” I don’t even know if Anna’s house has a back door, how can I not know that? I look around wildly.
“Just me,” she smiles slyly. “I’m your one woman rescue team.”
“I told Arlo, I don’t need rescuing. How did you find us?” Horror sinks into me. I’ve put Anna in danger. Rehan too, although he’s always been in it.
Watch your back, Nevi warned. I’ve not been watching. I’ve been paddling in the sea and searching for my mother. I led Lia here.
“You’re raving,” she says dismissively. “We were warned you might be. I’ve come to take you back.”
And then Lia, too, is unconscious, and I’m staring at my throbbing knuckles in surprise, and at the three slumped bodies on the floor.
Chapter Sixteen
Shards of glass are scattered across my bed, sparkling like frost on the pillow. With the window smashed open, the temperature inside the house drops rapidly, a cold damp feeling seeping into the building, into me.
Rehan is just coming round, wincing, as Anna ties up Lia with bed sheets and clothes. The improvised rope looks comical, but Anna’s eyes are serious: hard and angry. Anna’s dried flowers lie crushed on the floor around her, throwing up a scent that should be pleasant, but smells like dead dreams.
She waited so long for me, and I brought all this to her home.
I pick up Lia’s gun from the floor. She came after us with a semi-automatic… I flick on the safety and unload it, throwing the bullets out of the window, then shove the empty gun into my waistband.
“Is she from Forever? Is she one of the people who took you?” Anna spits out. I think that she might strangle Lia if I say yes.
“No, no – I mean she is from Forever, but look at her, she’s the same age as me, a little older. She was one of my classmates. I think she was taken from her family, like me. I think we all were.”
Anna grunts, and I get the impression she doesn’t much care about my classmates, about anyone but me. “What’s she doing here?”
“I don’t know.”
“I thought they were all locked up in the Institute,” mumbles Rehan from the corner of the room, rubbing his jaw.
“Me too. Although, we saw Arlo outside. Something’s changed.”
Lia’s only pretending to be unconscious now, but she’s always been a much worse actress than she thinks. I prod her with my toe. “Lia? Quit it. I know you’re awake. What’re you doing here? How did you know where I was?”
Her eyes open to slits, but she doesn’t answer me, just raises her brows at Anna and Rehan.
“Fine.” I turn to them. “Would you please go downstairs, so I can talk to Lia.”
They both start speaking at once – the gist seems to be that Lia is a violent psychopath and they have no intention of leaving me alone with her.
I wait patiently until they run out of words. “I’d like to be alone with Lia. I’ve known her all my life, she won’t hurt me.” I look at Rehan. “I thought I made my own decisions?” I turn to Anna, palms out, placating. “Please don’t make
this a big deal.”
They go.
I’ve so many questions, but… “Did you have to trash my room? Why couldn’t you just have come through the door like a normal person?”
“You’ve got Stockholm syndrome. These people are not your friends and that woman is not your mother. I don’t know what’s gone on here but I do know the Vol abducted you, Geraldine showed us the security footage. They put a bag over your head! I know you’re exhausted and confused, but this is so simple. Untie me, I’ll get you home. Everything is going to be ok.” She talks to me as if she’s adult and I’m a child. I’d forgotten how the talented do that.
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why did they show you the video?”
“It was part of a briefing, our first mission briefing. They needed our help to get you back.” She sounds proud.
“That’s stupid. Forever is the most powerful organisation on the planet. Why would they need help from teenagers?” I think of the farmhouse, of the shadowy figures that poured out of the helicopter. The bodies they left behind. Forever didn’t need help to find KHH, it had Lucas.
“Talented teenagers. We were the best shot at finding you. Forever knew that Vol had you, but they didn’t know which ones. They gave us a list of last known locations of some Vol and asked us to use our talents to find them, find you. Everyone volunteered. They couldn’t have done it without us.”
Something about this makes me think of the data stick. It said something else, about my kidnap. What was it…
The exercise will provide a springboard into the first offsite tasking for the remainder of the group.
Fresh blood, gleaming in the lamplight on a lilac coat.
When my voice comes out, it’s very quiet. “And when you found Vol, these Vol that Forever asked you to hunt down in the search for me. What did you do?”
She looks shifty. “We were told to interrogate them about you, and then call in for further instructions, but that we might have to terminate them. To protect you.”
“You killed people.” All those ‘self-defence classes’ and aggressive video games. The TV room where all the movies were violent. Weapons training. We thought that we had been engineered to be a new kind of human, immortal and talented, leading Mankind into the future… But we were stolen, not made, and they were training us for something quite different.
“Vol aren’t people. Anyway, I didn’t kill anyone. We were only after Vol to find you, and once I was outside the Institute, my talent went kinda – weird. I knew you weren’t in London, I don’t know how. I felt this tugging North, as if I was remembering that someone had told me. I kept remembering weird stuff whenever I thought about you. I didn’t tell the staff, they’ve always been so dismissive of my talent, I wanted to make sure I was right… As I got closer, it got stronger… Thinking of you pulled me here.”
Lia’s the weakest ’path in the class. Nevi had a little telepathy too, very weak… But his main talent was finding stuff.
“You took off. Without permission,” I say.
She grins. I remember the lure of the outside world, as I walked through London. I didn’t go straight back home either, and Lia’s always been a lot more rebellious than me. “You didn’t have a supervisor?”
Lia’s grin turns smug, and I know that her escort is nursing a throbbing head.
That is so Lia. They took her on a Vol hunt and she found the perfect excuse for dashing off to explore. “You decided to show them what you could do.”
“They told me to find you and I did.”
“How did you even get this far from London?”
“I’m an attractive female, and I have a gun. One way or the other, no-one refused to give me a lift.”
“Had a gun.”
She shrugs. “Untie me.”
“No.”
“Seriously, Fern, don’t muck about.” She strains at the sheets, and I eye them doubtfully. Sheets and towels won’t hold Lia for long. I have to explain.
“There’s a lot that you don’t know. We’re as Vol as they are.”
Her mouth twists with contempt and I know that I started in the wrong place, but I press on. “We’re not bio-engineered. Not immortal. Not the good guys. Forever took us, Lia. You – you probably have family too.”
She feels sorry for me, shaking her head. “So that’s the story they gave you? You know what the Vol are like. They’re a danger to everyone. Something has to be done, and we have to do it. For everyone’s sake. When we’re back at the Institute, you’ll understand.”
I hear angry voices downstairs: Anna and Rehan are arguing. I need to speed this up. “What now?” I ask. “You think I’ve been lied to and I think you have.” I need to show her the files that we got from Geraldine, convince her I’m right. Which reminds me, I finally have the opportunity to check some of that information. I ask without thinking. “Is it true that you got pregnant a year ago?”
She stares at me, and then she’s thrashing against her restraints so wildly that a wrist rips free. “It was appendicitis.” But her eyes are wet, and I don’t know what to say, I’m too appalled, I shouldn’t have brought it up but I just wanted to confirm that the data stick was genuine, I didn’t take time to think about Lia. I still don’t think about her enough, as she uses her loose hand to yank her feet free and then she’s up and hurling herself at me.
“It was appendicitis,” she says again, throwing a series of punches which I block, one after the other. It’s a draw, she isn’t willing to actually hurt me, and I won’t let her close enough to pin me. She came here assuming that I’d be delighted to be rescued, she has no plan for getting me out of here if I’m unwilling. Realising this, she steps back.
“Li—”
“You want to mess about with some fraud and a terrorist instead of coming home to your family. Fine. I was just trying to be helpful. Get yourself home, what do I care.” She launches herself at the window. I lunge after her, but she’s already in the nearby tree, scrambling downwards. I leap after her, scrabbling for a grip on the slimy bark as I slide down to the garden.
We hit the ground. I grab her leg and she spins, trying to shake me off without hurting me. I hang on like a dog determined to keep hold of its stick, bumping back and forth over the muddy tree roots. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I resent what she’s making me do to my new clothes. But then that same internal observer looks more closely at Lia. Her forehead shimmers with sweat, her eyes are definitely dilated. She doesn’t look well. She looks drugged, like Arlo did.
Inside the house, Anna and Rehan’s shouting is getting louder.
“Did you know that Hannah got shot by Vol?” Lia hisses as I roll, still clinging to her ankle like a limpet. “She’s probably not going to make it because of that rabble.”
My hands loosen. No. Please let Lia be lying to freak me out. “Is Katrina ok? Everyone else?”
“Last I heard they were, but if you keep hanging out with terrorists, who knows? Get off! Get off!” She kicks.
Rehan and Anna burst out of the house, but they don’t see us, here in the dark under the tree. Rehan rushes into the garden, his eyes searching the dark, but Anna grabs his arm.
“She’s mine,” hisses Anna. “I made her.”
“You know nothing about her,” Rehan snaps back.
“What do you know about it, you stupid boy? I carried her inside me for nine months, there is no bond like that, none. You think you can come between us now that I’ve finally found her?”
Lia’s movements slow as her head jerks toward them. Despite herself, she’s a little bit fascinated. Anna is splendid in her maternal rage, and Lia looks at her properly for the first time. Does Lia see the resemblance, now? Does she believe?
Rehan struggles to fend off Anna’s grip without pushing her around. “Fern’s an incredible girl and, looking at you both, I’ll be the first to admit that she’s your daughter, but you don’t own her. She’s got the opportunity to be incredibly important in fig
hting Forever—”
“She’s got the opportunity to be free for the first time in her life and I won’t let you muck it up for her by keeping her mixed up with KHH! Just – go.”
Go? My fingers stutter and Lia finally shakes me off, flinging me back against the tree. My head hits a branch, the world blurs for a moment, and I’m too slow getting up.
Lia has gone. I can’t let her run back to Forever – both for her sake, and for ours, especially if it’s true that she can find me whenever she likes. She could lead them to me. To Rehan. To Anna. I picture the farmhouse massacre, superimposed over Anna’s sweet cottage.
Lia’s gun fell out of my pocket when I hit the tree, and is lying on the ground next to me. Automatically, I pick it up. Its weight is so familiar in my hand, was I twelve or thirteen when we started practicing with these?
Bullets are scattered around me, from when I threw them out of the window. Automatically, I reload the gun, my eyes searching for Lia in the shadows beyond the garden.
I see her. She’s sprinting down the hill, leaping from stone to stone, careful not to twist an ankle. Still with that natural grace I always envied. Still in range, for a gun like this. I wouldn’t even have to shoot her, just make her take cover for long enough to catch her. Or just the leg. My arm rises.
But I might kill her.
My arm falls to my side. In so many ways, she is still my sister, I can’t shoot at her.
Lia glances back. But she isn’t looking to me, lost in the tree’s shadow. She’s looking at my mother, at the blazing ferocity with which Anna shouts down Rehan’s arguments. We never had mothers, any of us, and it was an empty space inside us all, although I didn’t know that until I saw Anna. Does Lia feel the shape of that space? Does she accept that if Anna is my mother, then Lia has been lied to as well?
The silence is sudden. Anna and Rehan have stopped yelling and are searching for me, but they’ve gone in the wrong direction. I should go and make peace. Instead, I walk back into the house, trudge upstairs, and pick my way across the broken glass.
A Girl From Forever (The Forever Institute series Book 1) Page 13