Deviant

by Helen FitzGerald

  She reached under the bed, grabbed the three library books she’d brought with her from Glasgow, and tucked them under the raincoat.

  “You ready?” Grahame yelled from the hall.

  “Ready!” she said zipping the case.

  THE GREY AUDI CONVERTIBLE dropped her at the front of International Departures. The airport was familiar to her this time. She didn’t feel scared or nervous at all. And now she even had her own passport: real name and all, fresh post-injection smiling photo taken just in time.

  “Goodbye, Dad,” she said, hugging him.

  “Use this to phone me,” he said, handing her a mobile phone.

  “Thanks, I will.”

  “Goodbye, Mom.”

  Two kisses, a hug. “Don’t be a stranger!” Melanie said cheerily.

  Abigail waved and smiled as they drove off. When they were out of sight, she let out a burst of air. It was as if she’d been holding her breath ever since she’d woken up bound and gagged in the chair in Grahame’s den.

  “Good riddance!” she shouted, just as she had when she’d left Glasgow all those weeks ago. “Good fucking riddance, you bastards!”

  SCOTLAND IS NOT ENGLAND, Abigail thought as she stared out the train window. England was like the kids who’d had the shot: tame, neat, and well-managed. Scotland was like the toe-rags who hadn’t. England was a blur outside the window, fading rapidly. Quaint cottages. Organized fields. Rolling hills. Pretty sheep. Peace. Calm.

  She texted her father as the train plowed northward. Arrived safely.

  He texted her back seconds later: That’s good. Want to hear about your dorm and roommate once you’re settled in.

  Of course he did. If her roommate was trouble, he’d be on the first plane over to deliver a shot of PA23. Too bad that would never happen.

  Attending Rodean would have been a privilege and an honor for most kids. Not Abigail. There was a Nobel Laureate on staff, not to mention countless other revered academics, all of whom intimidated the new arrivals. Not Abigail. An imposing cluster of white buildings perched on the cliffs south of London—with gorgeous landscaped gardens that overlooked the sea, an indoor pool … any person, new student or not, would gasp in awe at Rodean. Not Abigail. No, because in a matter of hours, Abigail wouldn’t even be in England anymore.

  CAMELIA LAST TRIED TO hug Abigail in the Glasgow airport. Abigail had fled that embrace. Here, at the door of the small mews house in Edinburgh, she practically leapt into Camelia’s arms.

  “It’s so good to see you,” Abigail whispered, holding her tight. “You have no idea.”

  Once Camelia had accepted what Abigail had told her, most of it an exhausted jumble, Camelia agreed to share a taxi with her to Argyll. It was pouring with rain when they arrived. Wet, wet Scotland. But after weeks of nonstop sunshine, Abigail drank it in. She lifted her face up to the sky, felt the drops tickle her face, and rubbed the water into her skin.

  She gazed at the still grey mass that was Holy Loch. Her mother’s ashes were in there somewhere.

  “Hi, Mum,” she whispered. “I made it out. I’m free.”

  She had no idea if Bren and his parents remembered that this is where she came from, or if they got the Facebook message, or if they even understood it. It was a desperate hope, but that’s all she could cling to. That, and Camelia’s hand—which she kept gripping, knuckles white, as they walked toward the commune. The ramshackle encampment was just as she remembered it: filthy, colorful vans and filthy, colorful people. Several adults were cooking sausages on the barbecue in spite of the rain, huddled under a makeshift tent. Vegetarian, no doubt. A group of kids were squealing, playing Rounders on the shore of the loch. She didn’t recognize a single one of them.

  Her heart sank. What was she expecting? How would they ever find their way here? And what would she do now? Hide out in Edinburgh, as Camelia kept insisting? For how long? And then what? She stopped at the edge of the settlement, faint. The last time she’d had a decent night’s sleep was far in the past. She’d been faking for too long.

  Camelia must have noticed. “Hey, stop. Look at me. We’ll find them, maybe not here, but we will. I’m going to help you. Okay?”

  “Okay.” She wiped the warm rain from her eyes and looked at her friend. Then she noticed something over Camelia’s shoulder: A large white trailer tucked amongst lush green trees, about a hundred feet from the edge of the settlement. Her heart leapt.

  “What is it?”

  “The stickers …” The trailer was plastered with them. NO NUKES! STOP GLOBAL WARMING! VOTE FOR INDEPENDENCE! But it was the last that caught her eye: STUFF THE MONARCHY! Abigail ran and grabbed at the door handle, not even thinking about knocking.

  It was locked. She heard people moving inside, then a tentative female voice. “Who’s that?”

  Abigail ventured: “Stuff the monarchy?”

  The door opened an inch and an eye peered through the crack. Before she could work out whose eye it was, the door opened fully. Gracie. Dressed in jeans and a Scottish National Party T-shirt, Bren’s mum threw her arms around Abigail.

  “You made it. Oh, you’re here! Are you okay?” She moved back to look at her, smiling, then noticed Camelia. “Who’s this?”

  “My friend Camelia. Don’t worry, she’s one of us.”

  “Quick, inside.”

  The van looked just like the Winnebago in California: a Police Operations Room complete with flip charts, maps, photos, computers, printers. The door to the bedroom area was closed. Craig smiled tiredly from the table. Abigail smiled back, her eyes welling with tears. It wasn’t the caravan she grew up in, but the feeling inside was the same. It wasn’t Nieve who waited for her, but that feeling was the same, too. Abigail belonged here. For whatever twisted reason, this was home. She’d come home.

  “Bren?” she asked nervously.

  “Laying low with his uncle in Las Vegas,” Gracie said. “He thought we might need someone on the ground over there. When the time’s right, we’ll contact him.”

  “We’re going to need all the help we can get,” Craig said.

  She nodded. Two deaths so far, Abigail thought. And hundreds, maybe thousands, of brain deaths. They were going to need an army. She looked at Gracie, Craig, and Camelia. “For now it’s just us.” She wasn’t being defeatist, but she was terrified. Now that she’d found the McDowells and knew they were safe, a whole new set of realities set in. “Us four.”

  “Five! Just give me a second.”

  It took her a moment to realize the voice had come from behind the door.

  That voice! Her heart thudded, that all-encompassing thump-thump-thump she’d felt in the chair. Only this time, it wasn’t horror or panic. She looked at Gracie and then at Craig. They both nodded toward the door. She walked toward it slowly, as if in a dream. Her ankles felt like jelly. It couldn’t be. Could it be? She was too scared to open it and see, in case she was wrong. She stood before it, held her hand out …

  He opened it before she could. “Thank God you made it, Abi,” Stick said.

  The bulge from a thick bandage protruded from under his plain white T-shirt. His face was deathly white. He must have lost ten pounds; his eyes were hollow and sunken. He looked like a Glasgow street urchin. But that didn’t stop her from hurling herself at him.

  “They found me,” he murmured, squeezing her back.

  Abigail opened her eyes and turned to Gracie, who nodded, but whose face had also turned pale; she seemed to shudder at the memory. “He crawled out of the water and back to Bren’s place. He passed out in a closet, trying to hide. There was a lot of blood.”

  “I would have died if the McDowells hadn’t found me.”

  “We pumped him full of intravenous fluid and monitored him day and night on the run for seventy-two hours,” Gracie explained, her Scottish accent suddenly thickening.

  Abigail placed her hands on Stick’s face. She wasn’t imagining it, he was real. Without thinking twice, she kissed him. For a moment, everything but hi
s lips disappeared. But only for a moment, because when she opened her eyes she noticed the Book of Remembrance she’d made for Becky. She took Stick’s hand, moved toward the table, and touched the book gently.

  “Granoch is more powerful, wealthy, and dangerous than I could have imagined,” Craig commented, as if reading her mind. “I didn’t want to buy it at first. But they cover their tracks in a way I’ve never seen before. Not to mention that they kill their own children.”

  The last words sent a fresh wave of pain through Abigail. With it came rage. Those bastards. She girded her strength, not robot strength, but real strength. “That’s true,” she replied. “But Grahame said something to me right before he gave me the shot, right before I knew Becky had saved me. The Granoch group fights amongst themselves. There’s a split among them between what’s acceptable and what isn’t. My father and Stick’s father were on the same side. I really do believe that they didn’t want Becky or Stick to die. The others don’t care as much.”

  Gracie stepped toward her. “So what are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that at least we’re united. We’re one, and they aren’t. That’s strength.”

  “We are one,” Stick echoed, squeezing her hand.

  Abigail nodded. “And we have lots of work to do.”

  HUGE thanks to my editor at Soho Teen, Daniel Ehrenhaft, who nurtured this from its conception, offering the perfect mix of excitement, encouragement, and knuckle-wrapping. Thanks to my agent at Jenny Brown Associates, Lucy Juckes, for loving this project and guiding me through each draft. A big mushy ta to my husband, Sergio, for brainstorming, researching, reading drafts, and generally being ace. And to my raw material—my children—Anna and Joe, who have never read any of my books but quite like the sound of this one.