Fractured

by Teri Terry

  Contents

  Title page

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Copyright

  Sneak Peek

  If you liked this, you’ll love…

  CHAPTER ONE

  * * *

  Rain has many uses.

  Holly and beech trees like those around me need it to live and grow.

  It washes away tracks, obscures footprints. Makes trails harder to follow, and that is a good thing today.

  But most of all, it washes blood from my skin, my clothes. I stand, shivering, as the heavens open. Hold out my hands and arms, rub them again and again in the freezing rain, traces of scarlet long gone from my skin but I can’t stop. Red still stains my mind. That will take longer to cleanse, but I remember how, now. Memories can be parcelled up, wrapped in fear and denial, and locked behind a wall. Brick walls, like Wayne built.

  Is he dead? Is he dying? I shake, and not just from the cold. Did I leave him suffering? Should I go back, see if I can help him. No matter what he is, or what he has done, does he deserve to lie there alone and in pain?

  But if anyone finds out what I’ve done, I’m finished. I’m not supposed to be able to hurt anyone. Even though Wayne attacked me, and all I did was defend myself. Slateds are unable to commit acts of violence, yet I did; Slateds are unable to remember any of their past, yet I do. The Lorders would take me. Probably they’d want to dissect my brain to find out what went wrong, why my Levo failed to control my actions. Maybe they’d do it while I still lived.

  No one must ever know. I should have made sure he was dead, but it is too late now. I can’t risk going back. You couldn’t do it then, what makes you think you can now? A voice that mocks, inside.

  Numbness spreads through skin, into muscle, bones. So cold. I lean against a tree, knees bending, sinking to the ground. Wanting to stop. Just stop, not move. Not think or feel or hurt, ever again.

  Until the Lorders come.

  Run!

  I get up. And my feet stumble into a walk, then a jog, and finally they fly through the trees to the path, along the fields. To the road, where a white van marks the place Wayne disappeared: Best Builders painted down the side. And I panic that someone will see me coming out of the woods here, by his van, the place they will eventually look when his absence is noted. But the road is empty under an angry sky, raindrops pounding so hard against the tarmac they bounce back up again as I run.

  Rain. It has some other use, some other meaning, but it trickles and runs through my mind like rivulets down my body. It is gone.

  The door opens before I get to it: a worried Mum pulls me inside.

  She mustn’t know. Just hours ago I wouldn’t have been able to hide my feelings; I didn’t know how. I school my face, take the panic out of my eyes. Blank like a Slated should be.

  ‘Kyla, you’re soaked.’ A warm hand on my cheek. Concerned eyes. ‘Are your levels all right?’ she says, grabs my wrist to see my Levo, and I look at it with interest. I should be low, even dangerously so. But things have changed.

  6.3. It thinks I’m happy. Huh!

  In the bath I get sent to have, I try again. To think. The water is steaming hot and I ease in, still numb. Still shaking. As the heat begins to soothe my body, my mind is a jumbled mess.

  What happened?

  Everything before Wayne seems hazy, like looking through smudged glass. As if watching a different person, one who looks the same outside: Kyla, five foot nothing, green eyes, blond hair. Slated. A little different to most, maybe, a bit more aware and with some control issues, but I was Slated: Lorders wiped my mind as punishment for crimes I can no longer remember. My memories and past should be gone forever. So what happened?

  This afternoon, I went for a walk. That’s it. I wanted to think about Ben. Waves of fresh pain roll through with his name, worse than before, so much so that I almost cry out.

  Focus. Then what happened?

  That lowlife, Wayne: he followed me into the woods. I force myself to think of what he did, what he tried to do, his hands grabbing at me, and the fear and rage rise up again. Somehow he made me angry, so full of insane fury I lashed out without thought. And something inside changed. Shifted, fell, realigned. His bloody body flashes in my mind, and I flinch: I did that? Somehow, a Slated – me – was violent. And it wasn’t just that: I could remember things, feelings and images from my past. From before I was Slated. Impossible!

  Not impossible. It happened.

  Now I’m not just Kyla, the name given to me at the hospital when I was Slated, less than a year ago. I am something – someone – else. And I’m not sure I like it.

  Rat-a-tat-tat!

  I half spin out of the bath, sloshing water on the floor.

  ‘Kyla, is everything all right?’

  The door. Someone – Mum – just knocked on the door. That is all. I force my fists to relax.

  Calm down.

  ‘Fine,’ I manage to say.

  ‘You’ll turn into a prune if you stay in there any longer. Dinner is ready.’

  Downstairs, along with Mum are my sister, Amy, and her boyfriend, Jazz. Amy: Slated and assigned to this family like me, but different in so many ways. Always sunny, full of life and chatter, tall, her skin a warm chocolate where I am small, quiet, a pale shadow. And Jazz is a natural, not Slated. Quite sensible apart from when he stares at gorgeous Amy all moonily. That Dad is away is a relief. I can do without his careful eyes tonight, measuring, assessing, making sure no foot is put wrong.

  Sunday roast.

  Talk of Amy’s coursework, Jazz’s new camera. Amy babbles excitedly about getting asked to work after school at the local doctor’s surgery where she did work experience.

  Mum glances at me. ‘We’ll see,’ she says. And I see something else: she doesn’t want me alone after school.

  ‘I don’t need a babysitter,’ I say, though unsure as I say it
if it’s true.

  Gradually the evening fades into night and I go upstairs. Brush my teeth and stare in the mirror. Green eyes stare back, wide and familiar, but seeing things they didn’t before.

  Ordinary things, but nothing is ordinary.

  Sharp pain in my ankle insists I stop running, demands it. Pursuit is faint in the distance but soon will be closer. He won’t rest.

  Hide!

  I dive through trees and splash along a freezing creek to cover my steps. Then crawl on my belly deep under brambles, ignoring pulls on my hair, clothes. Sudden pain as one catches my arm.

  I must not be found. Not again.

  I scrabble at the ground, pulling leaves, cold and rotting, from the forest floor over my arms and legs. Light sweeps through the trees above: I freeze. It drops, lower, right over my hiding place. I only start breathing again when it continues beyond without pause.

  Footsteps now. They get closer, then carry on, faint and further away until they disappear from hearing.

  Now, wait. I count out an hour; stiff, damp, cold. With every scurrying creature, every branch moving in the breeze, I start in fright. But the more minutes tick past, the more I start to believe. This time, I might succeed.

  The sky is just brightening as I back out, inch by careful inch. Birds begin their morning songs and my spirits sing along with them as I emerge. Have I finally won at Nico’s own version of hide and seek? Could I be the first?

  Light blinds my eyes.

  ‘There you are!’ Nico grabs my arm, yanks me to my feet and I cry out in pain at my ankle, but it doesn’t hurt as much as this disappointment, hot and bitter. I failed, again.

  He brushes leaves from my clothes. Slips a warm arm around my waist to help me walk back to camp, and his closeness, his presence, resonate through my body despite the fear and pain.

  ‘You know you can never get away, don’t you?’ he says. He is exultant and disappointed in me, all at once. ‘I will always find you.’ Nico leans down and kisses my forehead. A rare gesture of affection that I know will in no way ease whatever punishment he devises.

  I can never get away.

  He will always find me…

  CHAPTER TWO

  * * *

  A distant rrrring calls into deep nothingness. It pulls me to a moment of regret, half awake, half confusion, then a slow drift back to dreams.

  The rrrring sounds again.

  Wrongness!

  Awake in an instant, I spring up, but something holds me and I almost scream, wrestle and throw it to the ground and crouch in a fighting stance. Ready for attack. Ready for anything…

  But not this. Alien, threatening shapes blur and change, become ordinary things. A bed. An alarm clock, still ringing, on top of a dresser. My restraints, blankets: most on the floor now. Carpet under bare feet. Dim light through an open window. And a grumpy, sleepy cat, meowing protests and caught up in blankets on the floor.

  Get a grip.

  I hit the stop button on the alarm. Force my breathing to slow – in, out, in, out – try to calm my pounding heart, but still my nerves scream.

  Sebastian stares from the floor, fur bristling.

  ‘Do you still know me, cat?’ I whisper, reach a hand for him to sniff, then stroke his fur, as much to soothe myself as him. I pull the blankets back into order on the bed and he jumps up, eventually flops down, but keeps his eyes half open. Watching.

  When I woke, I thought I was there. Half asleep I knew every detail. Makeshift shelters, tents. Damp and cold, wood smoke, the rustle of trees, predawn birds. Quiet voices. But the more awake I become, the more it is gone. Details fall away. A dream, or a real place?

  My Levo says mid-happy at 5.8, yet my heart still beats fast. After what just happened my levels should have plummeted. I twist my Levo on my wrist, hard: nothing. It should at least cause pain. Slated criminals can’t do violence to self or others, not while a Levo keeps guard of every feeling. Not while it causes blackouts or death if the wearer gets too upset or angry. With what I did yesterday, I should be dead: zapped by the chip they put in my brain when I was Slated.

  Echoes of last night’s nightmare fill my mind: I can never get away. He will always find me…

  Nico! That is his name. He is not an insubstantial dream. He is real. Pale blue eyes gleam in my mind, eyes that can glint cold or hot in an instant. He’ll know what all this means. A living, breathing part of my past that has somehow appeared in this life: as my biology teacher, of all things. A strange transformation from…from…what? Slippery memory falls away. My fists clench in frustration. I’d had him there, clear, who and what he was; and then, nothing.

  Nico will know. But should I ask? Whatever he was, or is now, one thing I do know: he is dangerous. Just thinking his name makes my stomach clench, both with fear, and with longing. To be close to him no matter the cost.

  He will always find me.

  A knock on the door. ‘Kyla, are you up? You’re going to be late for school.’

  ‘Your chariot, ladies,’ Jazz says and bows. He puts one foot up on the side of the car to yank the door open. I clamber into the back seat, Amy in the front. And though it has a feeling of ritual about it, every morning the same, it is so alien. A safe sameness that rankles.

  I stare out the window on the way: farms. Stubbled fields. Cows and sheep stare, chewing and placid as we go past. Herded to school, not questioning the forces that channel us into our prescribed lives. What is the difference?

  ‘Kyla? Earth to Kyla.’

  Amy has turned in her seat.

  ‘Sorry. Did you say something?’

  ‘I was just asking if you mind if I work after school? It’s four days a week, Monday to Thursday. Mum isn’t sure you should be alone so much. She said to talk to you about it.’

  ‘Truly, it’s fine. I don’t mind. When do you start?’

  ‘Tomorrow,’ she says, with a guilty look.

  ‘You already told them you could, didn’t you,’ I say.

  ‘Busted!’ Jazz says. ‘But what about me? What about spending time with me?’ And they pretend-argue the rest of the way.

  The morning is a fog. Scanning my ID into each lesson, sitting down, pretending to listen. Trying to channel my face into attentive and eager to learn, so no one will have reason to focus any closer. Scanning out again. Lunch, alone: being ignored, as usual, by most of the other students who keep clear of Slateds. Though they mostly liked Ben, me, not so much. Especially now he has vanished.

  Ben, where are you? His smile, the warm certain feel of his hand in mine, the way his eyes light up from inside. It all twists like a knife in my gut, the pain so real I have to wrap my arms tight around myself to try to hold it in.

  Some part of me is aware that I can’t contain this much longer. It has to come out.

  Not here. Not now.

  Then, finally, it is time for biology. A queasy unease grows in my stomach on the way to the lab. What if I’ve gone mental, and it isn’t Nico at all? Does he even exist?

  What if it is him? Then what?

  I scan my ID at the door, walk across to the back bench and sit down, all before I dare look: not trusting my feet to still work if my eyes see what they can’t stop imagining.

  And there he is: Mr Hatten, biology teacher. I stare, but that is all right, all the girls do. It isn’t just that he is too young and good-looking for a teacher; there is something about him. And it’s not just those eyes, that wavy streaked blond hair, longer than you’d expect for a teacher, or that he is so tall and totally fit – it is more than that. Something about the way he holds himself: still, yet poised for attack. Like a cheetah waiting for the moment to pounce. Everything about him says danger.

  Nico. It really is Nico; no question, no doubt. His eyes, unforgettable pale blue with darker rims, sweep across the room
. They stop when they reach mine. As I stare back there is a warm touch inside, a recognition, an almost physical shock that makes it real. When he finally looks away it is like being dropped from an embrace.

  Not my imagination. Right now, across the room, it is Nico. No matter that I knew it, from memories of then and now, compared and held up close together. Until I saw him, myself, with these eyes that are new with understanding behind them, I didn’t know it in my guts.

  Then I remember that although the girls in his classes may stare, I don’t; at least, not so much.

  So through the lesson, I try not to, but it is a losing battle. His eyes flick to mine now and then. Do they hold curiosity? Questions? There is some dance of amused interest when they lightly touch mine.

  Take care. Until I can work out what he is and what he wants, don’t let him know anything has changed. I force my eyes down to the notebook in front of me; to the pen that skips across the page, leaving behind random blue swirls, half-formed sketches where notes should be. Hand on autopilot.

  The pen; the hand…left hand. It is clasped, without thought, in my left hand.

  But I am right-handed. Aren’t I?

  I must be right-handed!

  Breath catches in my throat, my guts fill with terror. I start to shake.

  Everything goes black.

  She holds out her hand. Her right hand. Tears trickle down her face. ‘Please help me…’

  She is so young, a child. With such pleading and fear in her eyes, I would do anything to help her, but I can’t reach her. The closer I get, the harder I try, the more her hand isn’t where it appears. With some optical trick she is always turned to her right. It is always too far away to grasp.

  ‘Please help me…’

  ‘Give me your other hand!’ I say, and she shakes her head, eyes wide. But I repeat the demand, until finally she raises her left hand from where she held it beside her, out of sight.

  The fingers are twisted, bloody. Broken. A sudden vision flashes in my mind: a brick. Fingers smashed with a brick. I gasp.

  I can’t grasp her hand, not when it is like that.

  Her hands drop. She shakes her head, fading. Shimmering until I can see through her like mist.