The Blemished

by Meredith Bond

  “Where’s Matthew?” I shouted as Daniel hopped down from the wall.

  “No time,” he said. He grabbed me firmly by the elbow and we ran across another garden strewn with junk.

  I pulled myself out of Daniel’s grip. “We have to go back for him.”

  “We’ll be killed!” Angela cried. “Matthew has a gun. We’re unarmed.”

  Daniel didn’t say anything. Instead he helped Angela over the fence into yet another garden. I followed.

  Two Enforcers faced us, their guns pointed straight ahead. We stopped and put our palms up.

  “That’s right. Time to surrender,” said an Enforcer, his voice low and menacing.

  My hope faded. We couldn’t take on two of them.

  Then I had an idea, something I hadn’t considered before. I concentrated on the two Enforcers, thinking about everything in the world which made me angry. I focussed my energy on them, conjuring every last bit until my palms tingled and my face was on fire.

  “Mina, what are you doing?” Daniel said in awe.

  The Enforcers’ guns floated in the air. I’d ripped them from their hands and now I floated them gently to us. Daniel took one and I took the other.

  “Now you put your hands above your head,” I said. They obeyed. “That’s right. Now back up.” Their boots moved backwards. “Slowly! No! Slowly. Don’t you dare reach for that Plan-It.”

  I heard a noise behind me but didn’t dare to turn. Angela did it for me. “It’s okay, it’s Matthew,” she said.

  “You’re going to let us go now,” I said evenly. “Because you’re outnumbered and out gunned.”

  We edged slowly away from them, moving sideways like crabs. In the corner of my eye I saw a man stood at the window, his mouth gaping. I nodded at him, hoping he would open the door and let us inside. He moved away from the window. My stomach clenched, waiting to see if this man would help us. The Enforcers remained rigid, but they watched us, waiting for us to make a mistake. The door opened and we ran in.

  “Thank you,” I said hurriedly.

  The man, weathered and old with deep wrinkles, said nothing. His face twitched, revealing just a tiny glimmer of something like guilt. I grabbed hold of Angela and turned to Daniel and Matthew.

  “We’ve got to get out of here now!” I yelled.

  The four of us pushed our way through the halls of the house to get out. I tripped over a dirty tabby cat and fell into a door frame, banging my head. Daniel grabbed hold of my elbow and guided me through the door into the narrow entrance hall of the house. He tried the front door and it opened.

  Everything turned into a blur. Guns fired and we fired back. Matthew pushed me to the side and ran forward. He screamed something, something which sounded like, “Run!” Someone shoved me through the door and I bent low, avoiding shots. Red hot heat ripped through my arm. Daniel tugged on my other arm and shouted at me.

  We ran hard and fast – faster than I’ve ever run before in my life. My ankle didn’t hurt anymore. Nothing hurt. My brain no longer registered the pain. I turned back, briefly, a glance over my shoulder. They had Matthew in cuffs. He was bleeding from the head. I wanted to scream. I wanted to stop and run to him but Daniel tugged me forward. We had to keep going. No matter what.

  *

  Angela crawled into my side, her head almost in my arm pit, pressing into my fresh wound. I let her, hoping the pain might make me feel less hollow inside. We had run and run until I thought my ankle would burst. We didn’t look back, not for a second, and now we were hiding out in an abandoned shack on a quiet road on the edge of the ghettos. We were near the field where I used to meet Sebastian. They had Matthew, the man I learned to be my uncle for little more than a few hours. I closed my eyes and leaned my head back. We waited silently, patiently, for night to fall.

  Daniel noticed me wince as Angela moved my arm. “Are you hurt?”

  I shook my head. “It’s nothing.”

  “Let me see,” he insisted.

  Angela moved to let me up. I sighed and rolled up the sleeve from my tunic for him to examine me.

  “The bullet grazed you,” he said thoughtfully. He touched the skin around my wound delicately. It made the hairs on my arm prickle. “But it’s a deep cut. You could do with stitches.”

  “That’s not an option,” I reminded him.

  “It might have to be an option,” he said. “We need food, water, clothes and new dressings. Let me see your ankle.”

  I lifted my leg. Daniel peeled a corner of the dressing and Angela sucked in her breath.

  “Mina, that looks bad,” she said.

  “Thanks,” I muttered. “That makes me feel much better.”

  “You have to get that treated,” she said.

  “We can’t go to a medical centre. The Enforcers will be waiting there,” I reminded her.

  We fell into silence. It suited me. I didn’t feel like talking. The image of Matthew, bleeding and in handcuffs kept running through my mind on a loop that I couldn’t stop or slow down. I put my head in my hands. Angela placed a hand on my shoulder.

  “He did it for you,” she said. “He did it so we can get away.”

  “No.” I didn’t want to think it. “No.”

  “We have to keep going so that it wasn’t all for nothing,” Angela said gently. She rubbed my shoulder with her warm little hand.

  I trembled. I pulled at my headscarf with my fingers, my face still buried in my palms.

  “Mina, it’s okay,” she soothed.

  It wasn’t okay. I didn’t have a family anymore. First Mum left. Then Dad. And now, just as I find out my dad has kept a huge secret from me for all these years, just as I discover I have an uncle, someone else I can get to know and learn how to love, he is taken away from me before I have a chance to do any of those things.

  “It isn’t fair,” I mumbled into my hands.

  The world isn’t fair, I thought to myself. For just a few seconds I let all of the self-pity wash over me. I wallowed in it. Finally the hot tears pricked at my eyes and I let them fall. And then my body convulsed into a huge sob. Angela held me close and I cried into her shoulder as she stroked my back.

  “Everything is going to be okay,” she cooed.

  “I don’t see how it can be,” I said after the sobbing stopped. “Everyone close to me either leaves or is taken away.”

  I wiped away my tears, hoping that the self-pity would wipe away with them. Daniel stared at me, his eyes brooding and intense. He looked away as though ashamed of my tears and I told myself to get a grip. I pulled away my headscarf and used it to dry my face.

  “This is stupid,” I said, half to Angela and half to myself. “It’s just wasting water.”

  Angela laughed but it was half-hearted. We were thirsty.

  I took a deep breath and with it pulled myself together. “We need a plan to get food and water. Angela, look through the bags we brought with us. Did we pack any more gauze?”

  Angela rummaged through the backpacks.

  “There’s one left,” she said triumphantly. She wasted no time in ripping away at my ankle dressing and I winced.

  “Dress the wound on her shoulder too,” Daniel said.

  I looked at him. “What about you? The dog caught you last night too. Your ankle…”

  As I said the words it hit me that only twenty-four hours ago we’d been breaking into Mrs Murgatroyd’s house. Since then I had discovered and lost an uncle, been shot at and chased by the Enforcers. I felt exhausted.

  Daniel grimaced. He shook his head to say no but then clutched at his temples. Angela stopped what she was doing, frozen, staring at him. Daniel lurched forward and groaned in pain.

  “Vision,” he muttered before losing consciousness.

  40

  I peeked out between the wooden slats of the shack. “It’s dark out. We should be leaving soon. Is he waking up yet?”

  Angela shook her head. She knelt by Daniel, her hand on his forehead. Daniel looked relaxed and pe
aceful. With his intense eyes closed his face lost some of its seriousness. He was a child now, an innocent child. Something inside my chest burned. I swallowed it away.

  “I think I have an idea,” I said.

  “What is it?” Angela asked.

  “Didn’t you tell me that you used to go to birthday parties at Billie’s house?”

  “Yes,” she answered, “a long time ago.”

  “But you know which room is her bedroom, right?”

  Angela nodded. “I think I remember.”

  “Well, we’re going to go there when her parents will be asleep. She’ll help us,” I said.

  Angela’s eyes narrowed. “Why would she help us? She doesn’t even like you.”

  “Because we are going to get out of here. We’re going to break the system against all odds and actually have a chance of a better life and I’m going to offer it to her too.” I paced the shack, trying not to look down at Daniel. He’d been out for several minutes and it made me nervous.

  “Do you think she’ll come?” Angela asked.

  “I don’t know. She’d be stupid not to though.”

  Daniel stirred. He rolled onto his side and moaned. I dropped to my knees next to him.

  “Are you all right?” I asked.

  Angela looked at me, confused for a second. Then she recovered and helped Daniel sit up. “You were out for a long time.”

  He laughed. “I feel like hell.”

  I looked desperately around the shack. “We don’t have any water left.”

  “I’ll be okay,” he said. His voice was hoarse and dry. He moved awkwardly and his fingers trembled.

  “It was a bad one,” Angela said gently. “Wasn’t it?”

  Daniel looked at me and a shadow of pain crossed his features before disappearing in an instance. He stared at his feet. “I don’t remember it.”

  He was lying. It wasn’t even a good attempt at a lie. Angela glanced at me. She knew it too.

  I chose to ignore it. “We’re going to go to Billie’s in a few hours,” I said. “The sun set a while ago. We need to stay put for a bit. Are you okay with that?”

  He nodded. “Sounds good to me.” He smiled with his mouth all crooked. “Maybe I can shift this headache and Angela can take a nap. We can take turns keeping watch.”

  “I’ll take the first one,” I said. “You rest your head.”

  Daniel’s eyes grew tender. I rocked back on my heels and stood up awkwardly. The burning in my chest came back. I tried to avoid Daniel’s eyes. Angela curled up next to her adoptive brother and I paced the shack, wondering how we were going to get to the farm.

  *

  I woke to Daniel gently shaking me. He pressed his finger to his lips and squeezed in between me and Angela. I’d curled up in the corner of the shack to get some sleep. Angela snored softly.

  “Do you really think Billie will help us?” He asked quietly.

  I could tell that this wasn’t what Daniel really wanted to ask me. I nodded but didn’t say anything else, giving him time.

  “Are you okay,” he said eventually. “You cried.”

  “I’m fine.” I went very still, worried that reliving the memory would kick-start my tears. “It’s just been a really crazy day.”

  “It’s all my fault,” he said. “If I hadn’t let you stay at Murgatroyd’s I’d be the one banged up and everyone else would be free. You would have had time with your uncle. You wouldn’t be in this dirty shack.” He put his head in his hands.

  “Stop it,” I said gently. Feeling bold, I slipped an arm over his shoulders. “I chose to go with you and I wanted to. Stop beating yourself up about this because… well… I don’t want to lose you. Do you really think that you being locked up instead of my uncle would make me any better off?” I fiddled with the necklace, feeling the smooth wood. “I knew him for a few hours. I’ve known you for weeks and…” My cheeks felt hot. I stopped talking before I made a fool of myself.

  “What?” Daniel said.

  He lifted his head from his hands and looked at me. Even in the dimmest of lights his eyes seemed to shine. They took me, wholeheartedly, all of me. They took every bit of my attention, swallowing me up. Even if at that moment we were hit by a meteor I wouldn’t have noticed. Everything was Daniel. Daniel was everything.

  “Um….” I faltered. “I don’t know, I erm…”

  He leaned towards me, his face just inches from mine. Tingles ran down my spine and I heard the rushing noise of blood in my ears. I held my breath. He tilted his head, angled so that our mouths would fit together. Our lips touched just for a moment and then I heard Angela stir. I pulled back, my breath rasping out of my body. Panicked I jumped to my feet. Daniel stared up at me, wounded.

  “What’s going on?” Angela said sleepily.

  “It’s time to leave,” I answered.

  *

  We ventured out of the shack. Daniel and I carried the guns. I folded mine into the vast material of my tunic and Daniel tucked his in the waistband of his jeans. We tried not to draw attention to ourselves but it was dark and there was no one around. It seemed that even the excitement of our chase and the town meeting had faded and died into the night.

  “Right at the end of this street,” Angela whispered.

  She navigated us through the ghettos expertly, occasionally whispering to us about people at the school. I had forgotten that these streets were her playground, the place she grew up. Sometimes I spent so much time protecting her that I forgot she was capable too.

  “Third house on the left up here,” she said in the darkness.

  I quickened my pace, ignoring the pain. “Which is her bedroom?”

  Angela squinted up at the house, an end terrace which meant fewer neighbours to wake. “I think it’s the window on the right. Upstairs.”

  I bent and scooped up tiny pebbles. “Okay, here goes.”

  The pebbles tapped against the glass and I cringed, half expecting Billie’s parents to shout out of the window or call the Enforcers. I paused, waiting for movement. Nothing. I collected more pebbles and tried again.

  “Come on, Billie,” Angela whispered.

  She held her body with her arms. It was a cold night and we were all hungry and freezing. I tossed the last pebble, beginning to lose hope.

  “Maybe it’s the wrong house,” Daniel said sullenly.

  He’d remained quiet and withdrawn since our almost kiss. I dared to turn and look at him. His eyes were brooding thunderstorms. I pulled myself away from his gaze, feeling a shiver down my spine. Above our heads a hinge creaked.

  “Oh great,” Billie said, “it’s you. I should have known.”

  “Can you let us in? Just for a minute?” I said.

  “What mess are you in now? My parents are asleep next door you know.”

  “We’ll be silent. Please, we haven’t eaten or had any water all day.” I paused. “And we lost people today.”

  Billie looked us up and down and her expression turned to pity. I glanced down at my ripped tunic. We were a mess. Finally she sighed and closed the window. A few moments later she herded us into her kitchen.

  “You do realise that you’re on the most wanted list of Area 14, don’t you?” Billie said to me with raised eyebrows. “You seriously broke into Murder-Troll’s house?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “But I’m not proud of it.”

  Billie laughed without humour. “After what she did to Emily, I think you should be. Anything that hurts that bitch is fine by me.”

  I smiled half-heartedly.

  “So what do you need?” Billie asked.

  “Food, water and medical supplies,” I replied.

  She nodded and moved silently around the kitchen. We gulped down water and devoured apples. She even gave us bread, cheese and fruit for the journey as well as aspirin, gauze and antiseptic cream, some of which I smeared on my bullet graze and on Daniel’s ankle. Angela redressed my ankle and I took two of the pain-killers.

  “Thank you so
much,” Angela wrapped the girl into an unexpected hug and Billie’s eyes grew wider. She laughed and hugged Angela back.

  “Don’t mention it, kid,” Billie said.

  Daniel patted her on the shoulder. “You’re a life saver.”

  Billie nodded in reply. “Listen, guys. We had the town meeting today. Murgatroyd is a big-wig. Did you know that?”

  “I had my suspicions,” I said.

  “Well, she’s Ministry level, or she must be, because we have a new Commander.”

  I gawped. “At her request?”

  “Seems so,” Billie said. “And he’s a complete arse. They are searching houses for illegal material tomorrow. Things in Area 14 are pretty much getting shut down so you have to get out of here.”

  “We’re leaving tonight,” I said.

  “I thought as much,” said Billie, eyeing our back-packs. “The Enforcers are still looking for you. I saw a couple of them running past my window when I went to bed. You gotta blend into the shadows like you never did before.”

  “We will,” I replied. “Billie, why don’t you come with us?”

  She hesitated. Billie looked younger in her pyjamas and her hair loose. It was long and red, which suited her personality. I saw her expressions change as she mulled it over.

  “I can’t leave them,” she said eventually. “I’m all they have since…” Her voice trailed and she shrugged.

  “I understand,” I said. I placed my hand on her arm and smiled. “We have to leave. Will you look after the Daffodils for me?”

  She smiled back. “Of course I will. Good luck.”

  41

  “So, do you know how to get to this farmhouse?” Angela asked as we left Billie’s house.

  I thought back to that night with Sebastian, the sincerity in his brown eyes as he asked me to give up my family and live with him. Now I had no family. I looked guiltily across to Daniel.

  “I think so. He gave me a map.”

  “Did you bring the map?” Daniel demanded.

  “I memorised it,” I said, biting my lip.

  He scowled.

  “Look, I remember, okay? There’s a forest on the edge of Area 14. It’s going to be a long walk though.”