Then she turns to me and yanks me to her side, wrapping an arm around my shoulders. Her breath is hot on my neck as she shouts in my ear “Hold on to me! We’re going up!”
I shrug her off and break free, running to Rehan. He’s limp, his limbs unnaturally arranged, like a doll tossed away by an uncaring child. When I place my hand on his chest, it rises and falls steadily under my palm. He’s breathing.
He’s going to be ok. He’d better be. He’s been through so much, and now my best friend is the one who took him down.
Katrina is shouting at me through the smoke. She can’t come any further in my direction, the silver wire that chains her to the helicopter hovering above is a restraint as well as a life-line.
I can’t leave him, I won’t leave him.
I take a few steps towards her, spreading out my hands. “Why did you do that?”
She looks resigned, and I know what she’s thinking. This is just like when Lia found us. Yet – it’s so much more serious, the smallest mistake final, and not just for me.
“You’ve been brainwashed,” she tells me.
“So have you!”
“He’s Vol. He’s KHH, he’s a terrorist, he kidnapped you. I saw him take you, they showed us the video. Now, come on!”
I shake my head as I walk towards her, searching for the words, the time, to make her understand, but my mouth is dry from the smoke. I try to speak but cough instead.
“No such thing as Vol.” I choke out. “Same as us.”
“We don’t have time for this. Come on!” She moves decisively towards me, but the wire pulls her back. Angrily she untethers it and lets it swing free, dragging back and forth across the roof like a fishing line, while she lunges after me. I feel a telekinetic wind at my back, shoving me towards her.
But I’ve had enough of people making my decisions for me. I shift to the side, grabbing her hand and yanking her past me to the ground. I leap on top of her, grabbing her wrists, trying to pin her long enough to talk. My leg hurts, it burns…
“He’s coming with us,” I say to Katrina. I try to sound firm, but my voice is shaking.
She writhes, trying to push me off. “He’s Vol. The enemy.”
“That’s not true, it’s so wrong you wouldn’t believe it.”
“Try me.” She stops struggling for a moment, giving me a chance. She spits her hair out of her mouth, staring up at me with huge, dilated pupils. Oh, great. Drugged.
“All of us – we weren’t made by Forever, we were stolen from our birth families.”
“What a crock of –”
“John admitted it. And I found my birth mother. She looks just like me. Forever told her I was dead.”
She watches me with unblinking eyes, waiting for me to finish, so she can tell me again what a gullible fool I am.
I let go of her wrists, and take her hands gently in mine. The reflection of flames flickers along her shiny uniform, giving her a demonic appearance, so unlike the playful classmate that I’ve loved my whole life. Next to her I feel so ordinary and small, even slightly ridiculous in my blood-spattered torn clothes. But I know things she doesn’t.
“It isn’t me that was tricked, Kat. Or rather it wasn’t just me. It was all of us.” I try a rueful smile as I hold her gaze with mine. “It’s nonsense, about the Vol. Just propaganda.”
I stand up, and offer Katrina a hand. She takes it, and we stand for a moment, looking out over London, the smoke swirling about us, the wind in our hair.
“Forever created them by accident, back in the second world war,” I explain. “Vol are just people like us, ordinary children whose genes are different because of what Forever did to their families. But Forever didn’t know what they’d done, not until the Vol grew up and became a threat to Forever’s power. How can Forever plot world domination, with psychics running loose? They had to get rid of the Vol, but they couldn’t find them, so they stole us. Changed our genes and brought us up to be the perfect hunters: psychic assassins.”
Her face twists. “You’re wrong.”
“I’m not.”
“You have to be. They wouldn’t, they couldn’t—”
“They did.”
Katrina turns away from me, and hugs herself. Her shoulders begin to shake. She’s sobbing, huge heaving gasps, like she can hardly breathe.
“Kat?” I expected shock, but not this total meltdown. I put a hand on her shoulder, but she steps away and my hand falls back to my side. “It’s going to be ok, but we need to go, we can talk later.” The silver rope scrapes across the roof, reminding us that the helicopter can’t stay here indefinitely.
Somewhere in the tangle of hair, she shakes her head. “It’ll never be ok. You don’t know, you haven’t been here. You’d better be wrong.” She wipes a hand across her eyes, leaving a trail of grimy shadow across her face.
I remember Arlo, twitching on the wall as he talked about the girl in the lilac coat. What have they made Katrina watch? Made her do?
I’m too late. My friends have already been used, and Forever made me the trigger for it all. Later. We’ll figure all of this out, later. The smoke is thicker, I can barely see Rehan’s slumped form by the chimney. This is not the place for this conversation.
Katrina turns to me. “Just, come, all right?” The wire swings past us again.
I step back. “Not without him.”
“He can’t come with us. They’d kill him.”
“Who?”
Her lip twists. “All of us.”
She stares at the edge of the roof, her mood shifting. She wanders towards it.
“Kat?” She ignores me.
The wire swings past me and this time I catch it, silver metal burning a graze into my hands as I hold on, skittering a few steps with its pull before I can stop it. “You should put this back on,” I tell her.
“What’s the point?” She asks distantly.
“Yeah, well I’d still rather not burn to death?”
She’s right at the edge now, looking down, smoke plumes churning up from the floors below. “Don’t have to burn,” she replies distantly.
“Scaring me now a little bit,” I tell her, and it calls her back a little from whatever drugged realm she’s gone to, but then her eyes flicker back the edge. I don’t know how to deal with this new, damaged, Katrina. She always looked after me, always. Maybe that’s the answer.
I move to stand next to her, trying to ignore the smoke. “You fall, so do I…” I say light-heartedly.
“Don’t be stupid.”
“You too. Man up.” I offer her the wire, and this time she takes it, clipping it reluctantly to her waist, like she’s leaving a part of herself here on the rooftop.
“We need to get Rehan,” I say, searching the smoke for him.
He’s pulled himself upright, but looks like he might fall over any moment. Clutching the chimney for support, he’s staring at the wire I gave Katrina, a look of betrayal on his face. He thinks that we’re about to abandon him.
Katrina’s arm slashes through the air and Rehan is flung upwards, floundering against nothing, a hand stretching towards us briefly as he disappears away from the building, backwards into the smoke.
I shriek, grabbing at her. “Bring him back!”
“Don’t panic, I’ll drop him in the Thames. That’s all I can do for him. There are boats there. He’ll be fine.”
“You can lift that far?” I had no idea. I open my mouth to ask her to put me in the river too, I can’t leave him now, not like this, and if I don’t follow him now, how will I ever find him again? There’s so much we never said to each other. He thinks I was just about to leave him on a burning roof, or thinks I asked Katrina to throw him off the building. He won’t come looking for me.
But something is seriously wrong with Katrina.
“Can you take both you and me down to the river?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “Doesn’t work like that.”
“Would you be able to put me there?”
> “Please don’t ask me to.”
Even if I could follow Rehan – I can’t leave her, or my classmates, still trapped in Forever’s lies. So I slide my arms around Katrina, and her arms make a prison at my waist, our legs entwining as I hold on for my life and she yanks on something and we fly upwards, tearing me away from danger and away from Rehan and hurling us upwards through a blur of smoke.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Clean, cool air again. Thank you.
The roar of engines, helicopter blades flashing above me as they carve air into chaos.
Blissfully cold metal against my scrabbling hands, my thighs, helpful hands everywhere, holding and strapping me into safety, my back slamming into the heli bench, as Katrina flashes her trademark grin and a cheer goes up around us, the sound lost in the roar of the helicopter engine. My friends, they’re here, seven faces beaming at me and Katrina from the benches as the helicopter shudders upward. I see everyone except for Lia – and Hannah.
Seven smiling faces, and next to them, seven expressionless faces. For every classmate, the helicopter also carries a stranger. A stranger wearing weapons. Supervisors. Guards.
Katrina is in the seat next to me, her leg pressed into mine. I shout to her over the helicopter’s fury. “Where’s Hannah?”
Katrina shakes her head, and shuts her eyes, the energy draining out of her now that the rescue is over.
There’s a tiny window next to me and, despite the wind whipping through the open doorway, I manage to turn my head and shake the hair out of my eyes for a moment, to peer through. I can’t see the Institute building itself, just its four huge towers shoving through the smoke, as we climb for cleaner air, tilting and turning away from the building. I catch a glimpse of boats in the Thames below, and even think I see a tiny figure being helped out of the water, towards what I’m sure will be KHH’s boat.
Rehan.
It’s the last glimpse I’ll have of him, and that aches. The thought beats at me that I could have gone with him, could have insisted that Katrina send me into the river, too. I didn’t have to be here, with my classmates, surrounded by Forever guards. I look around at my friends’ dilated eyes and triumphant grins and military kit and something within me shouts again and again: you’ve made another mistake!
But I couldn’t go with him.
I think I love him.
I could not love thee so well… Loved I not honour more. Where did I read those words? In Geraldine’s book, a lifetime ago. I think I know what the Duke meant, now.
I wish I didn’t.
What does he think of me, that I’ve left him?
One of the Forever guards is doing something to the open door. He must be going to shut it.
As I watch him, an address pops into my head. The address of a little cottage on the Isle of Skye. For the first time, I have a home to run to, a place to hide from Forever. A place to hide others.
I do not want that helicopter door to close.
I dig my fingers into Katrina’s shoulders and shake her out of her stupor.
“We need to get rid of the guards,” I say, lips pressed against her ear to block out the engine roar, the guards, as I shout, hoping that I don’t hurt her eardrum too badly. “There’ll never be a better time. Do your thing. Into the river. Please. We can’t trust anyone except each other, not anymore.” I pray she’s not used up all her talent for now.
She looks at me vacantly, and I don’t think she’s heard me, but then I see the tiny movement on the lap of the guard next to her, as his seatbelt clicks open. He doesn’t notice. I hold her gaze, my eyes full of promises and reassurance, as the pilot yelps, fighting with the controls, and the helicopter dives down, down, until we’re skimming the Thames’ waves. I reach out and hold her hand, while one by one, the guards fly out of their seats.
One by one, the guards fly backwards, empty hands grasping at air and combat boots kicking at nothing as invisible hands drag them out of the helicopter door to slide down, into the waves below.
The pilot is last, he has to be. He’s seen what’s happened behind him, he must have, but he can’t quite believe it, and he doesn’t know if the attack is from inside or out. Most importantly, he can’t leave the controls. He’s talking frantically to someone on his radio and wrapping his arms through his seatbelt, determined not to be blown away like his colleagues.
It doesn’t help him. The straps come alive in his hands like snakes, twisting away from him, and he screams as he hurtles through the air, and then there’s nothing but the wind and the shocked stares of our classmates, as Katrina’s eyes flutter closed and the helicopter shudders.
For a moment I think that she’s passed out, that we’re going to crash, but then we’re being lifted up, up, into the sky, not flying but lifted, against all possibility and probability, the laws of physics no match for Katrina.
I am so incredibly proud of her, I can’t stop grinning, and I squeeze her hand as I promise her. “Not much further! Just a little while more!”
Rehan and KHH and London and the guards are far behind us now, blown away with the smoke.
We’re free.
We don’t make it all the way to Scotland, of course we don’t. Even if Katrina could carry us that far, we’ve no idea which way it is. So we just fly North until the sky is beginning to lighten and either Katrina’s energy fades or the fuel runs out, I don’t know which, but the helicopter drops in slow, juddering jumps that make our friends shriek and clutch their harnesses while shouting warnings that are lost in the roaring wind.
Katrina’s fingers press into my palm as I search for somewhere to land. We’re low enough to see individual leaves on the trees, on bushes, as we jolt this way and that. Then I see water, and shout directions into her ear. Left! A little more. The river’s ripples are close enough to reach out and touch. Our harnesses simultaneously snap open as Katrina faints and the helicopter smashes into the river a metre below. Our bodies are swept from our seats by the water pouring in.
The pain in my leg burns, the drug Rehan gave me is wearing off.
The helicopter slides deeper into the water, searching for solid ground but finding only the sucking embrace of mud. My classmates kick free, hauling themselves out of the doorway one by one and disappearing upwards in a swirl of bubbles and kicking boots. I hold my breath and blink through the murk, as I push away from the wall. Katrina, where is Katrina? The water’s full of churned up dirt, I can barely see my hands.
I can’t swim, none of us can. I haul myself through the helicopter, lungs burning, hand over hand, grabbing onto seatbelts and the edges of twisted metal and whatever else my fingers find.
I desperately want to take another breath.
River weeds stab long fingers inside the helicopter, reaching for me, urging me to stop searching and just let myself float up.
My lungs are on fire by the time that I find her. She’s floating at the top of the heli, bubbles swirling through her hair. The search may have taken me moments or minutes, I can’t tell, as I grab her waist and tow her through the open door. The river isn’t very deep, the surface shimmering above us, it only takes a couple of kicks to break through into air, and as I gasp it down the thought strikes me that air is the best thing in the universe, and I’ve never truly appreciated it before.
I take a long breath.
I love air more than anything.
Then my friends are beside us, their fingers digging into my armpits as they lift me out of the sludge, and as I turn my head I see them pick up Katrina and gently carry her away. I’m half walking, half carried, slimy reeds slipping under my feet until finally I feel solid ground underneath my palms and knees as they place me on the riverbank, and Katrina next to me.
I curl my fingers into the grass, spitting and panting as they roll Katrina onto her side, pounding her back. She coughs, and water pours out of her mouth, but she doesn’t wake. Eventually she curls up next to me, and seems to drift into a more normal sleep.
“You’re go
ing to be ok,” I whisper to her, too tired to even raise my head. “I promise.”
I hear the tearing sound of opening velcro as someone rips open a med kit. The next moment, a needle is jabbed into my thigh. I part my lips to protest, but then a wonderful numbing sensation spreads through the wound.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
“What’s wrong with her?” Bel shakes Katrina’s shoulder. “She was only in the water for a few seconds.”
“She just flew a massive helicopter out of London,” I manage to get out, still panting. “Let her sleep.”
“I thought it was on autopilot.”
I roll onto my back and stare at the clouds. But it’s November, and I’m soaked, and the ground sucks away my body heat. Pretty soon we’re all on our feet, jumping up and down on the spot to keep warm, rubbing icy hands together and puffing little clouds of steam instead of breath. My leg burns but I don’t even care.
Katrina doesn’t get up. A trickle of water slides from my hair, inside my collar and down my spine. Then I’m shivering, and I can’t stop.
Amir sees me, and takes charge. “Right, we need to get out of here,” he says. “Arlo, stop staring into space and help Katrina. Nick, is your nav kit working? Mine’s bust.” They huddle together, muttering over equipment.
Luis appears next to me. “What were you doing on the roof? Katrina went nuts when she heard!”
“How did you know?” I ask.
“We were on the helicopter heading back after training outside – got to tell you about that later – and then bam! The guards get a call saying that the Institute’s on fire and not to go back and then bam! Lia – who’s gone totally AWOL, by the way – Lia ’paths Arlo from god knows where to say that you’re stuck on the roof and bam! Katrina’s all I’m going down there and the guards are all that’s not safe and then she’s out of the door on her own and the pilot’s going crazy because the helicopter’s gone mental and he can’t see a thing.”
A Girl From Forever (The Forever Institute series Book 1) Page 22