“Since when did we do training outside the Institute?”
“Since you.” Since I got taken, he means. I want to put off the explanations, the revelations, just for a few moments more, to enjoy being back with my friends, even Luis, even Bel, but Amir is looking down the river worriedly.
“We should start heading back towards the Institute or they’ll never find us,” Amir says.
“We don’t want them to,” I explain. “Katrina threw them out, they didn’t fall…” Seven faces stare back at me, and the words tumble out, disjointed, no planned speech, but I shouldn’t need one, not with my friends who have known me forever.
“Forever lied to us. They didn’t create us, well not entirely, they stole us. We’re not immortal.” Their faces are changing, but not in the right way. They look… Sorry for me? “They wanted to use us to hunt Vol, because they couldn’t find them. The Institute is – well, evil, basically.”
Luis’s arms wrap around me in a bear hug. “We’ll talk it all out later. You’ve had a tough week, take a few moments.”
Bel snorts. “Our week’s not exactly been relaxing.”
“Shut up, Bel,” Luis says.
I struggle free of the hug. “No, seriously, it’s true, I’m not gibbering, John admitted it all.”
“You spoke to John?” asks Kim. “Where?”
“At the Institute, during the fire—”
“He was in there? We’ve got to get back, security may not know! I told them to give us our own comms,” says Mark.
“No, it’s ok, he fell out of the building—” That really sets them off, and their voices begin to sound distant.
“He fell? How is that ok?” demands Bel.
“Oh my god. Oh my god,” Kim says.
“I’m sure he’s fine, Fern’s had a crazy week, and it must have been chaos in there, John’s not stupid, he’ll be fine, it’s too early to worry about what Fern thinks she saw,” Mark offers.
“I don’t think I saw anything, I saw him fall out of the building, ok? And do you not think we should talk about what I just said? Forever lied to us! About everything!”
I search their faces, gazing at me with patience or pity or irritation, with none of the revelation that should be there. Something slimy slides down my forehead, and I yank the weed out of my hair and throw it away, seeing myself as they see me – hair a tangle of weeds and knots, mud spattered pastel green jumper hanging too big over my torn jeans and sneakers. They’re soaked too, but with tied back hair and black uniforms, they still look dangerous, powerful. I do not. My credibility would be zero right now, even if I hadn’t always been the untalented one, bottom of the class in everything. I’m to be protected, supported – but not followed, never that.
I spread out my hands. “It doesn’t matter if you believe me or not, not really. It just matters what is true. There is no more Institute. Forever’s serum laboratories are gone. John fell out of the lab window. Before that, he told me that we aren’t immortal, admitted that we’re Vol. But Vol aren’t really evolved. The first talented children were a side effect from some Forever experiment in the nineteen-forties, but talent is hereditary, which is why Forever are hunting Vol…”
I wish they wouldn’t stare at me like that.
“Do you even realise how you sound?” asks Bel.
Mark glares at her. “Shut up, you don’t know what she’s been through.”
Amir looks at me. “That’s a lot to process. You say you had this from John?”
“Brainwashing,” offers Bel. “Or some Vol mind control thing we didn’t know about.”
“We were stolen from our families.”
The flat disbelief on their faces wavers a bit. And I realise that what matters is not what’s true, but whose story they want to believe – me, or Forever.
“We have mothers, women who were told that we’re dead.” I tell them. “I saw the file of their names, met my mother. She’s waiting for me in Scotland.”
“You’ve been to Scotland?” Luis looks impressed.
“It’s my home now.”
“And you reckon we’re not immortal,” muses Luis.
“That’s right – but I took these for you, from the lab – I don’t want it – but I wanted you to have the choice…”
My numb fingers fumble with the bag’s strings at my waist, as the thought occurs that I should have checked whether there’s enough for everyone. I open the bag and stare at the damp shards of glass, the last drops of serum shimmering in the thin dawn sunshine. When did they smash?
“Come on, Fernie,” Amir says. “Let’s talk it all out later. We need to get back to London. Guys, I’ll carry Katrina first, then if she doesn’t wake soon we can pass her around. Luis, can you look after Fern? Arlo man get it together, come on.” Arlo twitches his head, like he’s dislodging an irritating fly.
Amir hefts Katrina’s sleeping body into his arms. And then everybody except Arlo gets up, and the group begins walking towards London.
“Come on, Fernie,” says Luis. “It’s quite a walk.”
“Hey!” I shout after my friends. “I’m not done talking. I’m going to Scotland.”
They look back at me.
“I’ve said what I’ve said. You know I’d never lie to you. I’m not brainwashed. And I’m not going back to London. How can you just – assume that I’m mistaken? Risk everything on that? When you could check for yourself?”
The only sound is the river’s muttering, as we look at each other. Then Arlo stands up. I’d kind of forgotten about him. He walks over to me.
“You really believe that this woman is your mother,” says Arlo.
“I know that she is.”
“That’s good enough for me.”
“It is?”
Arlo dips his head and his lips brush the top of my head. “I trust you.” He looks at the group. “Fern and I are going to Scotland. You can come with us, find out if there’s a chance that you have family somewhere – or run back to the Institute, never question what you’re told, and never find out what happened next. Come on,” There’s a trace of his old easy charm behind his drugged eyes. “Don’t you want to find out what happens next?”
Katrina’s legs shove at the air. She sits up in Amir’s arms, pushing him away as she slides to the ground.
“I want to go to Scotland,” she says, taking a wavering step towards Arlo and me, then another. My other friends hesitate, then plod after her.
“How long does it take to get to Scotland?” asks Mark, resigned.
I hug him. “Thank you.”
“No promises. But we’ll meet this woman, and then we’ll talk and decide together what to do, when to go home. When we’re all less tired,” says Mark. “I mean it’s not like we can sleep at the Institute for a while anyway.”
“What do we do now?” Amir asks me.
“We need a train station.” I glance around. “There’s houses over that way, let’s ask.”
They grumble about how long the journey takes, but I watch their excitement grow with every mile we travel away from London. They love this. Love queuing up for tickets and handing over the money Rehan gave me, then watching, wide eyed, as the coins of change are handed back. Love the freedom to walk up and down the train, without guards, without supervision and critique. Love watching England flash by through the glass, as the farms get bigger and the woods wilder and sheep-scattered hills fold into heather-covered crags.
We climb off the train at Inverness, in a tumble of tired but excited bickering. It’s colder here, and the wind is sharp and fierce, cracking our lips as we jump up and down to keep warm on the train platform. But the sky is clear and the sunlight bright, and everything is new. It takes two hours for the train to Mallaig to arrive. This train is smaller, its rocking gentle and soothing as it clanks through the hills in a wandering line that makes me wonder if walking might have been faster.
Eventually, we arrive at the ferry port. We’ve been travelling all day. The light fades away
as we stand, looking out across the ocean edge, watching lights move slowly towards us across black water. The sea has silenced my friends.
“We’re really getting on a boat?” asks Bel, staring at the approaching ferry. “Have you been on one before?”
“Yes,” I say. “But it wasn’t like this.”
I hope that Anna doesn’t mind my turning up with seven other teenagers who happen to be suspicious trainee assassins. I hope that finding me, then losing me, didn’t push her over the edge. I hope she’s there.
I look at my friends’ smiling faces, and force my own lips to curve upward.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The address that Rehan gave me isn’t far from Skye’s ferry port, so we decide to walk across the fields, instead of trying to find taxis. When the others aren’t watching, I thumb through the paper money in my pocket. The wad is so much thinner than it was. Not enough to take us much further, if Anna’s not here.
And it’s nearly night, and we’ve walked so far today.
Please be here.
The hill crests, and the field begins to slope downward, towards a collection of houses that’s barely a village. At the edge of the village sits a small blue and white building, apart from the other houses. I glance again at the directions on my scrap of paper, then squint at the tiny house. That must be it.
It has to be.
The building is on the edge of the village, looking out to the sea, across a pebble beach. At the back of the building is a small garden, backing onto a lane, then fields, that rise up to where we’re standing.
We jog down the hill towards it, wet grass slapping our ankles with each step. I try to watch my step – can’t afford to twist my ankle as well as the injured leg – but my eyes keep returning to the building where my mother might live.
It’s more of a cabin, or beach hut, than a cottage. As we get closer I see that the walls are wooden planks, painted in blue and white that’s faded in sun and seawinds, yet held together by black pipes and ivy. The garden gate is framed by an archway, on which I think I see a winter rose. It’s like something out of a fairy tale.
Around me, I feel my friends’ excitement rising to breaking point, tangled with exhaustion, and guilt about not going straight back to Forever as their mission brief required. They fear that I’m right, and fear that I’m wrong.
I’ve got one shot to prove that I’m right. If this doesn’t go well, they’ll want to go back to the Institute, burned ruin or no.
Please be here.
And then Anna’s running out of the building and through the garden gate and up the hill towards us, towards me, and she’s laughing and crying but thankfully doesn’t look too unstable, and when she reaches me she pulls me into her arms like a dance move that we’ve practiced for years. I burrow into the warmth of her neck, and let the world wait for a while. She smells of baking and scented candles and seaside.
When I pull back, seven faces next to me are staring at Anna, but she hasn’t even looked their way yet, she can’t stop smiling at me.
Luis’s mouth is open as he looks at her. I’d forgotten how much she looks like me.
“I thought I’d never see you again,” Anna says. “Sometimes I wondered if I’d imagined you. If I’d gone completely crazy.”
“I’m sorry that I left. I had to. But I should have found a better way to do it. I’m so sorry.”
“You came back to me. You don’t have to be sorry about anything.” She pulls me into her arms again, squeezing tight, her lips brushing my forehead. “Do you think that you might be able to stay this time?” she whispers into my ear. My voice isn’t working, but I nod into her chest. Her arms hold me tighter.
We separate again, and Anna glows with happiness. She looks around at my friends. “Hello.” She looks to me. “New friends?”
Everyone’s looking at me, now. “Old friends. Let’s go inside,” I say, a week’s worth of adrenaline suddenly running out. I could sleep standing up.
I love that Anna doesn’t ask loads of questions. She seems quietly delighted to have so many teenagers to look after, dashing about her home, yanking open cupboards and drawers, conjuring up towels and sleeping bags and blankets and even spare curtains. “If Fern comes in my room, there’s two more doubles in the spares,” she says, shaking lavender seeds out of the bedding, wafting their scent around the room, “but I’m afraid that still leaves three of you on the floor.”
“Thank you for letting us stay here,” Amir says awkwardly. My friends nod. This is uncharted territory for them, social niceties were not a big part of our upbringing.
“No problem at all,” Anna replies. She looks at me. “Are we also expecting Rehan?”
I feel a little empty inside as I say “No.”
Her smile gets even bigger.
It’s late when I finish telling Anna what happened, and she’s fussed over my leg wound and redressed it with gentle fingers. She falls asleep soon after, her fingers curled around mine on the pillow, her lips still curved in the smile she can’t shake.
Sleep doesn’t come as quickly for me, going back over everything that happened at the Institute has flooded my blood with adrenaline. So when my door begins to creep open, I sit up immediately.
But it’s only Mark.
“Fern?” He whispers. “Are you asleep?”
“Yes.”
There’s a puzzled silence.
I untangle my hand from Anna’s grasp, and tiptoe to the door.
“A few of us were wondering,” Mark whispers, “could we have a look at that list you said you’ve got? Of our families?”
“Lia’s got it.”
“Lia? But how?”
“Yeah. I thought I said, sorry. She found me, then left.” I didn’t want to tell them when we were travelling here, didn’t want to say anything that might make them think twice about coming with me. “But Lia knows where I am and she’ll bring it back soon, as soon as she’s done what she needs to do. We just need to wait a bit.”
I wish that I could see his face, but it’s dark in here, and his back is to the light leaking out of the window.
“Wait. Right.” He turns back to the living room, and I can’t think of anything to say.
The bed frame creaks under me as I climb back in, trying not to wake Anna.
The wait turns out to be good for my friends. Whatever drugs they were given fade away, and their smiles appear more often as the days drift past. We’ve never had so much free time, never been this relaxed. Never had a parent, instead of a jailor. They still do daily self-defence practice, some habits are hard to break. Sometimes I join in. Mostly I don’t, though the Institute’s drugs are healing my leg fast.
Anna is teaching me yoga.
We play ball in the garden, and make bonfires on the beach, where we collect shells and try to make sandcastles out of the sticky sand we find under the beach’s layer of pebbles. We don’t care that it’s winter. We’re doing the things we never did as children.
Someone should make a plan for what we do if Lia doesn’t come, but I don’t want to think about that. I want to stay here forever, with my friends and my mother and the taste of the sea in the wind. So I listen to my friends chatter in the garden, and I wander round the house, sniffing at Anna’s pot pourri and half-heartedly tidying my friends’ mess.
I’m clearing out a pile of laundry one morning, three weeks after Forever burned down, when I find the books. Just behind the door, an entire row of romance novels. Regency – my favourite. Anna reads them too! I abandon the laundry, grab a couple, then a couple more, and sink into the sofa, reading the back covers, trying to decide which to enjoy first.
Footsteps in the corridor. Automatically, I shove the books under a cushion. But then – I hesitate. I didn’t steal these from a teacher. I don’t have to pretend to be tough any more, don’t have the Institute dictating who I should be. If these books are good enough for Anna, I’m not ashamed of them either. I pull them back out, and select The Loneliness of
Lord Ravenspike.
I curl up on the sofa reading. Moments later I tense, as Luis and Amir walk in, followed by Bel. I wait for them to notice the soppy book I’m reading, and for Bel to make a double edged comment.
“We’re heading outside to do some kickboxing,” Mark says. That’s it? I twist the cover more prominently towards him.
“I’d rather read.”
“Sure, thought so, but wanted to check.”
“I hate kickboxing.” It feels great to finally say it.
“We know that, Fern. Enjoy your book.” They glance at the cover, ruffle my hair, and head outside.
Anna comes in, wearing gardening gloves and a sunhat. “I’m going to tackle the Convolvulus today,” she says. Her agoraphobia seems to be a thing of the past. “It’s all over the rose bush. Will you be exercising with your friends?”
I shake my head.
Her face lightens. “Can I tempt you outside? I know it’s cold, but it’s sunny. I promise you don’t have to do any gardening—”
“I love gardens,” I interrupt. Her eyes drop to the book in my lap. I should have asked permission. “Is it ok if I borrow your books?”
“Of course! Which have you picked? Oh, the ending’s great in that one. I don’t want to interrupt your reading, come out in a bit.”
“Ok,” I say. She drifts outside, humming.
I try to settle into the book, but all the passion and angst reminds me of Rehan. I feel sad when I think about him. I miss him, but I’m not sure if I miss the real Rehan, or the imaginary boy I fell in love with.
Either way, I dream of him most nights. Exciting, embarrassing dreams, of kisses sliding across sun-drenched skin on the beach. Over my throat, on my belly. Sometimes I even dream during the day, when I’m barely asleep. Little flashes, when I’m lazing on the sofa, like I am now. Of Rehan smiling at me, or tickling me, or handing me a drink. So vivid that they feel like memory, except that they’re of moments that never happened.
A Girl From Forever (The Forever Institute series Book 1) Page 23