Fragments

by Caroline Green

  Reo smiles and then spits in her face, shocking her so that she flinches and drops her guard. He grabs her wrist and twists her sideways off him and onto the floor. She catches her face against the table as she falls and cries out in pain. I jump to my feet to help her, as Reo gives a nasty laugh. He gets up easily.

  ‘You’re a complete jerk, Reo, do you know that?’ I say through gritted teeth, reaching down to help Skye get up. But she brushes my hand away.

  Christian comes into the room then and stops abruptly, his eyes widening. It must be a very weird scene. There’s me with half-dried gunk all over my face, Skye is slowly getting up from the floor with the same, plus a small cut on her cheek, and although Reo is smirking, he still looks a bit red and nervous. I think Christian is going to say something, but he just backs straight out of the room again.

  Reo stalks off, still chuckling in a really infuriating way.

  ‘Right, well, I’ll leave you two bitches to carry on playing your little games,’ he says. I do a rude hand gesture at his back and then look at Skye again.

  ‘You OK?’ I say. Skye’s hands are trembling as she touches the sore place on her cheek. She nods.

  ‘He’s such an idiot,’ I say.

  ‘Yes,’ she says, in a strange, distracted sort of voice. ‘He really is.’

  ‘Come on,’ I say, ‘let’s go wash this stuff off and see how gorgeous we are underneath.’

  My joke falls a bit flat. She meets my eyes, not smiling, then nods. ‘Yeah, let’s do that.’ She seems to be somewhere else. So much for our girly bonding session. A sour feeling of disappointment spreads in my stomach. I was enjoying myself – for a little while then I felt like a normal teenager. Should have known it wouldn’t last.

  I make my way back to the bathroom and wash my face. Then I remember I’ve left my hoodie in the TV room so decide to nip back to get it.

  No one is in there now because we’re close to the ten o’clock curfew. There are only a few minutes left so I pick up the hoodie and go to hurry back to my room. I feel something crackle in the pocket. That’s weird, I’m sure there was nothing there before. I reach in and find a small piece of paper. On one side there are printed words: Inside the Terrorist Mind: A Psychological Primer by J. Martin Smith. It looks like the title page of a book that someone has ripped out. I turn it over, curiosity flickering inside. At first I think there is nothing there but then I make out very faint words, written lightly in pencil. I have to hold the paper close to my eyes to be able to read them.

  Don’t trust her

  I look up and around, but can only see one of the patrolling guards, doing a curfew check. He gives me the evil eye and I quickly explain that I’m on my way back to my room.

  When I get back, Skye is in bed, facing away from me. I go into the bathroom and rip the paper into tiny pieces before flushing it down the toilet. I have to flush twice before the last flakes of paper swirl away. The note must have been referring to her. I wonder who left it?

  I climb into bed and switch off the light, turning to face the wall. I don’t think sleep is in a hurry to come tonight. A million unwanted thoughts crowd into my head.

  Like, what is going to happen to me after I leave here? No one has told me exactly how long I’ll be in training. I’m starting to get a bit comfortable.

  OK, it might not be ideal. I get locked in at night and the guard’s expression just now was a reminder that this is ‘no holiday camp’ as we keep being told. I didn’t really choose to be here at all.

  But I’ve got food and a bed. Once I’d given up Zander’s dubious protection I had none of those things. I’m relatively safe here.

  Aren’t I?

  ‘Kyla?’ Skye’s voice takes me by surprise. Her voice is husky but she doesn’t sound sleepy at all. I turn back the other way to face her. There are floodlights outside on the courtyard and even though our window is tiny, there is always a silvery glow seeping into the room.

  ‘Yeah?’

  Her eyes gleam in the dim light. ‘That was nice, what you did.’

  ‘What?’ I murmur. ‘Throwing banana-mush at your face?’

  She gives a low laugh. ‘You know what I mean.’ She yawns. ‘You’re all right.’

  A pleased flush floods my face.

  ‘Happy birthday, Skye. Sweet dreams.’

  ‘Yeah, and you, babe. Night.’

  I turn over onto my other side again, aware that a heavy sleepiness is starting to come at last. I told myself before that I wouldn’t get close to anyone again. And I won’t. But it can’t hurt to let my guard down a little, can it? She seems OK, Skye. Bit weird and damaged, but who isn’t round here? And that’s just the staff . . .

  And then I think about that note. Don’t trust her.

  I don’t need anyone’s advice. I’ve looked after myself this long, haven’t I?

  I reckon I can handle Skye.

  CHAPTER 12

  connections

  We’re in History of Terrorism a few days later. Reo has been giving me these little smirky looks every time I see him. He tries to do it to Skye too. But she blanks him in a way I can’t help but admire. I swear he could come up and wave in her face and she’d still manage to ignore him. It’s quite impressive.

  Mrs Sheehy looks pissed off today. She blinks hard a few times and doesn’t smile as people come into the room as she usually would. Everyone picks up on the atmosphere and falls into silence. She takes a very obvious breath in as though gathering her strength and then lifts up a book, holding it as though it might burst into flames at any moment.

  ‘I’m a tolerant woman,’ she says in a cold voice I’ve never heard from her before. ‘I know that some of you have had difficult lives, but that is no excuse . . .’ At the word ‘excuse’ she takes hold of the book with the other hand and waves it at us, ‘for vandalism of books!’

  ‘What d’you mean, Mrs Sheehy?’ says Skye in a small voice.

  ‘I mean, Skye, that someone has ripped a page out of this book!’

  Curious now, I peer at the cover but I know what the title will be even before my brain registers the words.

  Inside the Terrorist Mind: A Psychological Primer by J. Martin Smith.

  Mrs Sheehy continues to complain about the damage to the book but I tune her out, slowly allowing my eyes to track the room. Only one person is looking back at me. Christian. He doesn’t blink or look away. Understanding passes between us as surely as if he’d spoken. It was him who left the note for me. I slowly turn back to face the front.

  What’s his problem with Skye? He barely talks to anyone here so why has he taken against her in particular? I spend the rest of the lesson only half listening, chewing this over.

  At the end I try to catch his eye again but he hurries out of the room.

  Later, I go for a run, trying to clear my head. I drive myself hard, even though it’s raining steadily. My feet pound the wet earth and splatter mud up my legs. My chest aches with exertion and the only sounds are the huff-huff of my breathing and pattering raindrops.

  When I get to my usual spot I stand and look at the view, which is only partly visible through the mist. Today it looks like a watercolour painting that someone has smudged and smeared; green merges into purple, which blends into brown.

  Finding my breath again, I think about cracking up with Skye before. And a wave of longing to see Jax comes at me like a punch, so powerful I groan and wrap my arms around my middle. I stand there for ages, absorbing the pain but holding back the tears that are trying to come. I keep thinking I’m over this. That I’m numb inside. But maybe some losses never stop feeling like fresh wounds. Is Cal dead? Despite everything, I almost hope he is. He’s a good person. He would have been corrupted by Torch if he’d lived.

  As for me, I don’t know exactly what kind of person I’ve become.

  These thoughts cling to me, as damp and heavy as the air outside, as I make my way into the canteen area later.

  I glance around, noticing there are quite a few of
the older CAT recruits here tonight. We don’t see them that often. They never speak to us and we never speak to them. Occasionally they will give us a curious look and I’ve definitely been eyed up a couple of times by some of the younger men, but I always give them what Mum used to call The Look. Some of them laugh and some of them squirm a bit.

  The noise level is high tonight, with conversation and the clinking of plates and cups. A gust of laughter comes from a corner of the room where a really hard-looking bunch of men, all bullet heads and no necks, are leaning into the centre of the table and reading something on a tablet.

  I weave between the tables and chairs, noticing Christian sitting alone. It’s an opportunity to speak to him about the note. Then I see Skye’s watching me two tables over from him and decide now isn’t the time.

  ‘You look like you’re somewhere else,’ says Skye kindly as I sit down opposite her.

  I shrug and take a mouthful of the shepherd’s pie I’ve absent-mindedly heaped onto my plate. It’s a bit cold and the mashed potato feels sodden and claggy in my mouth. I put down my fork and drink some water.

  ‘I know that look,’ says Skye in a low voice. ‘That’s a boy look.’

  I’m so surprised at her half-accurate guess – even if she can have no way of understanding the background – that I almost splutter the water across the table. She giggles and gathers her fine blond hair at the back of her neck, whisking it up into a scrunchie. The sleeve of her hoodie slips back and I notice the scarring again. But I quickly avert my eyes from her arms and back to her face. I don’t know if I was quick enough. I don’t want to make her feel self-conscious.

  ‘Look, babe,’ she says in a much softer voice. ‘I’ve been meaning to tell you something.’

  ‘What?’ I say. Nerves flutter in my stomach.

  Skye looks around. ‘It’s just that you sometimes talk in your sleep.’

  ‘God.’ I feel my face go tight and hot. ‘Do I really?’ I’m cringing inside. I used to do this when I was really little. Mum told me. But I didn’t think I’d done it for years.

  ‘Er, what sort of things do I say?’

  Skye chews her lip. ‘Well, sometimes you say a name I can’t make out . . . sounds like Mal? Hal?’

  I look down at the table. ‘Cal,’ I say softly.

  ‘And he’s “the boy” is he?’ Skye does air speech-marks with her fingers. I nod.

  ‘But Kyla . . .’ Her voice has gone even more serious so another feeling of unease ripples through me.

  ‘What?’

  She leans in close and conspiratorial. ‘Was he . . . you know, in a certain organisation?’ She mouths ‘Torch’ at me and I hastily look around to make sure no one else has noticed. But everyone just carries on around us, eating and talking.

  ‘Why?’

  She brushes her long pale hair back off her shoulders. ‘It’s just that you’ve said the name a few times too.’

  The desire to share what I’m thinking with her is suddenly so powerful, it’s like something tugging inside my head.

  I give a deep sigh.

  ‘Not really,’ I say in a low voice. ‘They helped him – us – for a while, yeah, but he didn’t know what he was getting himself into.’

  Skye frowns and then tips her head to the side, questioningly.

  And before I can stop myself, words pour out of me, fast and free like the little pile of sugar that must have spilled from a container on the table in front of us. I tell her about Cal and how he came into my life at Zander’s. I tell her about how he gave me his antibiotics when I was so poorly from pneumonia and how really, he might have saved my life. I miss out loads, of course. I don’t tell her anything about him being in the Facility, or the Revealer Chip, or what happened with Jax and the explosion. I don’t specifically tell her about the farmhouse. But I do tell her about spending time with Torch and that he died. I don’t mention that he might be alive somewhere. Skye doesn’t say anything much, just makes sympathetic noises in the right places. Her eyes are a bit distant again. I wonder if she’s thinking about her own past and hope she’ll share something with me. But when my voice trails off, she just carries on eating her salad, taking small, bird-like bites of lettuce, her eyes cast down.

  Finally she speaks. ‘It sounds really rough,’ she says, still not meeting my eye. Then she drops her voice to almost a whisper. ‘Best not to mention his connections too much around here, though, eh?’

  I nod and then try to force down a bit more of the shepherd’s pie. I’ve just trusted Skye when I had been specifically warned not to. What’s wrong with me?

  And it’s not just that which is worrying me. I nearly lost it earlier, in the HT class. All the painful emotions from my old life came flooding back. If I’m honest with myself, that blurry, blunted sensation has been wearing off for a little while now. It’s like I’ve been enclosed in bubble wrap but now I’m starting to emerge and feel again.

  From nowhere, a memory of Julia hugging me after Jax died swerves into my mind, making me suck my breath in sharply. She was a terrorist! I need to hate her. I need to hate them all . . .

  It used to feel like the easiest thing in the world.

  But something is shifting inside.

  And that frightens me.

  CHAPTER 13

  a fear of heights

  I try to get on with things for the next few days. Working hard on my lessons and running to my limits so all I can do is collapse at the end of the day. It stops me from thinking too much.

  I’ve convinced myself that what happened between Skye and Reo is forgotten. Even though he quietly mutters things to her when he passes, she always swans past him with her head held in a dignified way. I’m really impressed at her resolve. He makes me want to growl and hiss.

  We’ve been learning to abseil in the gym. I’ve always loved to climb, ever since I was a little girl. Like I said, I’ve got a head for heights.

  So when we’re told by Lewis that we’re moving from the gym to one of the rock faces in the grounds, I’m glad of the change of scene and to be outside for once.

  There’s a little sunshine today. I tip my head back and enjoy its kiss as we troop outside, past the outbuildings and towards the main gates. Lewis and another instructor get our group of eight to pile into a jeep with some climbing gear. Before we left, our trackers were disabled (temporarily, we’re told) because we need to get beyond the perimeter field.

  The jeep twists along a narrow road for a few minutes until a mountain swells into view. Sheep dot the scrubby grass in woolly blobs. When we stop and pile out near them, they check us out with their freaky eyes before hurrying away. Someone makes a convincing sheep noise and everyone laughs, even Lewis.

  Reo, though, is the only person not laughing. His eyes look glassy and he keeps swiping a hand across his brow and swallowing. What? Is the big bully actually scared of heights? I lean over and whisper in Skye’s ear.

  ‘Check out Bigmouth over there. Looks a bit green, doesn’t he?’

  Skye follows my gaze and grins back at me, her eyes shining. I know she’s enjoying seeing him squirm.

  We climb a little way until we can curl around onto an outcrop of rock. It’s about fifteen metres up. Lewis explains that this is going to be the starting point for everyone to abseil back down the mountain. There is a bag of harnesses in the back of the jeep and Skye volunteers to get it and hand each one out. She seems to take ages, and Lewis eventually shouts at her to get a move on before we all freeze our butts off.

  Finally we’re all stepping into our harnesses.

  I’m with Christian, who is looking a bit pale and anxious too. I give him a reassuring smile and double check his harness after he checks mine, as we’ve learned to do.

  ‘Come on,’ I say, ‘we’ll go together. It’s easy-peasy.’ We step backwards over the edge of the rock face at the same time.

  It’s much more slippery than in the gym. The rock has slimy places and I lose my footing about halfway down, swinging into th
e rock and scraping my knee painfully. My pride is hurt more badly, though. I get to the ground a little after Christian to catcalls and cheers.

  Skye and Reo are next but they don’t come down together. I wonder whether Skye got the opportunity to hiss something about how high it is to Reo. I can just imagine her doing it and I can’t help but grin at the thought. He wouldn’t hesitate to wind someone else up, that’s for sure.

  Skye glides down the rock easily; gracefully. Her cheeks are flushed bright red and she is breathing heavily as she reaches the ground. I wonder whether she found that more scary than she was prepared to let on. Typical of her to keep everything inside.

  Reo comes next. He’s such a dick, he hasn’t bothered to do his helmet up properly, but has left the straps loose around his chin. Lewis doesn’t say anything. This isn’t school. The attitude here is, you get told safety stuff once. If you get hurt, it’s too bad. It’s also your problem, and only your problem.

  Reo stares down at the ground, his face set and grim. Then he swears viciously and begins to edge down the rock face.

  And then he slips.

  There’s a collective gasp and someone mutters, ‘Shit.’

  Reo’s feet scrabble at the rock but somehow he flips backwards so he’s almost horizontal to the cliff face.

  ‘It’s OK, don’t panic,’ yells Lewis, cupping his hands around his mouth to protect his words from the harsh wind that has started to whip up now. It flings rain into our faces, hard and sharp as gravel. ‘Just bring your legs down a little bit and place your feet flat against the stone,’ he says. ‘They need to be lower than you’ve got them, but not too low. Come on, Reo, you’ve done it lots of times back in the —’

  Reo drops, fast and heavy, hitting the ground with a dull thud. His helmet lies a metre or so away, uselessly.

  Lewis runs over and everyone crowds around. There’s a sort of poisonous excitement in the air. Reo breathes in shallow gulps, his eyes stare straight up and are clouded with fear. His leg is at a weird angle and one arm is bent underneath him.