We started walking. After a moment, Jules said, “Something wrong, wolfgirl? ’Cause you keep looking around as if you’re expecting to see someone looking back.”
I was and I hadn’t even realised it. “Don’t like the crowds, is all.”
“Is it, though?” He scratched at his jaw. “Why don’t I mingle with the masses, see if anyone’s got their eye on us?”
Connor frowned. “You think we’re being watched?”
“I think Ash has good instincts. Can’t hurt to make sure we’re not being followed.” He vanished into the throng of people, and Pen reached for my hand, clinging on tightly. Then she reached for Connor’s as well.
“It’ll be okay,” I whispered, as we started to move towards the exit. She smiled up at me. “I know it will, Ash. Because I’m here.”
She thought she was safe from anything as long as she was with us. I had to get her out of the station and away from so many Citizens. I quickened my pace and Em hissed, “Don’t walk fast. We need to give Jules a chance to figure out if anyone’s watching.”
I slowed down again, shooting a concerned glance at Em. Her voice had sounded empty. I can’t believe Jules did this to her. I couldn’t believe he’d done it to us. When we got out of here, I was going to–
A thunderous noise ripped through the station and shattered my thoughts into pieces. BOOM!
I was going … I was going to … Why was I lying on the ground? I’d been standing upright a second ago. Now I was face down on the composite floor. My eyes stung, and I could taste the acrid tang of smoke. But I couldn’t hear a thing, not over the ringing in my ears.
A small hand gripped my shoulder. Warmth seemed to flow into me, and the ringing noise started to fade. My eyes cleared too, although the air itself was hazy. I could see … rubble. Blood. Bodies. Explosion?
The ringing went away completely. With it gone, I could hear sobbing. Shouting. Screaming. I lurched up, searching for the others. Pen was beside me, and Nicky next to her. Connor was standing protectively over us. Ember was at his side, twisting back and forth as she scanned the area. And Jules …
Jules wasn’t here. “Where’s Jules?”
“I don’t know!” Em answered. “Ash, I can’t see him!”
I started looking, forcing myself to stare into the nightmare around us, gazing at the faces of the dead. Not Jules … not Jules … I couldn’t always tell, because sometimes there wasn’t a whole body. Only pieces. I swallowed, willing myself not to throw up. Debris was scattered everywhere except where we were, we’d been lucky – oh. No we hadn’t. Connor. Only Connor hadn’t been with Jules to save him. Not only that, but we’d been moving away from the platform and that had put us a good distance from the blast. If Jules had gone towards it he would have been at the heart of the explosion.
If Jules had gone towards it, he was probably dead.
I cast a desperate glance towards the worst of the rubble and the smoke and the blood. There were some enforcers there already, trying to free people from the debris, and some Menders as well. More would come – more were coming, rushing in through the entrance – but there was no way they were getting everyone out in time.
I pointed to the rubble and spoke to Connor, “Jules could be in there. And there were kids and dogs on the platform – if you were careful, no one would even know you were using an ability.”
Penelope snapped, “No!” I blinked down at her, and she glared up at both of us. “You can’t go into danger. You both have to stay safe. Jules would want you to stay safe!”
There was a hysterical edge to her voice. Pen was frightened and she thought we could protect her. I opened my mouth to say something soothing. Before I could get a word out a shout cut through the chaos, “Ashala Wolf!”
I spun in the direction of the sound. A lanky enforcer was pointing right at me. Lanky – and young. Minion.
“That’s the leader of the Tribe!” he yelled. “She’s responsible for this!”
People were turning our way. Enforcers and Menders and ordinary Citizens, their faces twisted with suspicion and fear. The enforcers began to stalk towards us, hands falling to the swords their hips. Rhondarite swords, and contact with the stuff blocked abilities. My thoughts raced in panicked circles as I tried to decide what to do. We couldn’t let the enforcers get near us. But if we used an ability to protect ourselves we’d be terrifying everyone here, and no one would ever believe that we hadn’t caused the explosion.
Then a husky, powerful voice rolled through the station, “Leave her alone!”
My jaw dropped. I knew that voice. A stout blonde woman came striding through the haze to march up to my side. Prime Belle Willis put her hand on my shoulder. “Ashala Wolf is not responsible for this.” She jabbed a finger at the minion. “That boy is the one who caused the explosion. He is an impostor who works for former Prime Talbot. Arrest him at once!”
The enforcers shifted towards the minion. Willis leaned in to whisper, “Get ready to bolt. Because I really don’t know how long anyone’s gonna buy this.”
Not Willis. Jules.
Ember sucked in a sharp breath. “You’re alive.”
Jules, who was usually so good at staying in character, threw her an entirely un-Willis-like crooked grin. “I’m hard to kill. And believe me, many have tried.”
The enforcers began to advance on the minion, who took a step back. He was in the same situation we’d been in a moment ago. He didn’t want to use an ability, not when he was trying to throw all suspicion onto us. But he didn’t want to get caught either.
The minion ran, pelting out of the station and into the city. Enforcers tore after him, and Jules said, “Now’s our chance! Let’s go.”
“You go,” Connor told him. “I’m staying. I’ll meet you at the unit.”
“What do you mean, you’re staying?” Jules hissed.
Connor shrugged. “Kids and dogs.”
Jules was obviously confused, so I added, “The Tribe doesn’t leave children or animals in trouble.” To Connor, I said, “Stay safe.”
“You too.”
He swivelled to stride towards the wreckage. Jules looked between Connor and me, and made a growling sound which was strange to hear coming from Willis’s mouth. “I’ll go with flyboy. You all get out of here.”
He hurried after Connor, and the rest of us began to make our way to the exit. Ember walked on one side of me, Pen on the other, and Nicky trotted ahead. If he could activate my ability I could save everyone. Well, a lot of people, at least. Only he didn’t seem interested. Maybe I’m not in enough danger today. The last time Nicky had made my ability work I really had been about to die. Today Connor had saved me from the explosion, and he would’ve gotten me and the others away from the enforcers too. Either that, or getting my ability to work that first time was some kind of fluke.
Pen pressed against me. “People are looking, Ash.”
She was right. There were glances being directed at us. Too many glances.
Ember shook her head. “I don’t want anyone following us. I’ll make a distraction and you sneak off, okay? See you at the unit.”
She walked away and I surveyed the station, planning how to get out. There was a train stopped nearby. If we duck around it … My gaze followed my escape route, only to meet that of a fair-haired boy in the distance. An injured boy, holding a hand to his head. He mouthed something at me. Asking for help? Then he did it again. But this time he clapped his hands together, and I understood the word he was mouthing, a second too late: Boom.
BOOM!
* * *
Blackness.
More blackness. Which was strange because I was awake. I should be able to see something. Maybe I wasn’t awake? But I was almost sure I was and I was almost sure I hadn’t been before. Perhaps there was something wrong with my eyes. Also my arms and my legs, because I couldn’t move them. No, that was because things were pressing on me. Hard, sharp – metallite? The train. I was beneath the train. It didn’t seem to
hurt that much. Vaguely I realised that might not be a good sign. Connor will get me out. Only maybe I’d been here for a while, and Connor hadn’t got me out. How big was the explosion? Could he be dead? I’d know if he was dead. He was probably just being careful. There were probably layers of wreckage, and he was moving them one at a time, or something – or he was hurt too – I’ve got to get out of here!
I pushed my legs against the wreckage. That did hurt, sending agony shooting through my body. I lay still, gasping, waiting for the pain to ease.
Someone said, “Don’t move, Ash.”
“Pen? Where are you?”
“Here.” There was faint pressure on my hand. Oh. She was holding my hand. For some reason I hadn’t noticed that before.
“Pen? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Menders are hard to hurt.”
They were, too, in the same way that Firestarters didn’t burn and Waterbabies couldn’t drown. A Mender could absorb a lot of damage before it seriously harmed them, depending on the strength of their ability. And Pen is strong. Not as strong as Doctor Wentworth, who’d once survived having her skull caved in with a rock, but still …
“Ash?”
“Yeah?”
“How do you feel?”
“Fine.” Better than fine. Warm, pleasant energy was running through my body. Pen was Mending me. “You should look after yourself, Pen! Hey, where’s Nicky? If he can activate my ability we can Sleepwalk out of here!”
“I don’t know where he is.”
He’d been right at my side, and he was almost indestructible. I hoped he wasn’t trapped. Or hurt. Like Ember, Nicky experienced pain the same as organic beings, he just healed quicker. But even if he had been hurt he was probably better by now, and he didn’t need to be close to me to make my ability work. The last time he’d done it, he’d been on the grasslands and I’d been in the detention centre. I tried calling out in my head, Nicky? I need to Sleepwalk!
There was no response, which wasn’t surprising since I felt exhausted. My ability required energy. Lots of energy. It simply wouldn’t work when I was too tired. Why was I so tired? I hadn’t been before.
“Ash? Talk to me. I don’t want you to pass out again. Tell me about when I came to the Firstwood.”
“You already know about that. You were there.”
“Tell me anyway. Please, Ash.”
Pen was scared. I should keep her distracted until Connor came to save us … if Connor came to save us … Connor is coming to save us.
“I remember you were a scrap of a kid. All skin and bone, because you hadn’t eaten in days. Mr Snuffles had more weight on him than you did, because you’d been giving most of what food you’d been able to find to him.”
“He was only a puppy. He needed food.”
“That’s what you said then. You said–” I broke off as I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye, a quick flash of reddy-brown fur and yellow eyes. Pack Leader?
“Ash?”
I blinked. Nothing was moving now. “Sorry, Pen. I thought I saw a wolf. Crazy, right?” I sniffed. “Hey, do you smell that?”
“Smell what?”
“Eucalyptus.”
Pen was quiet for a moment. “No, Ash. I don’t smell that.”
“You must, it’s so strong – hey, there’s a light! Can you see the light? Connor must be here!”
There was an even longer silence. Then Pen said, in a voice that sounded strange, “No, I can’t see the light. Ash, you have to keep talking to me, okay? You can’t stop, not for a second.” Her grip on my hand tightened, and even more warmth flooded through my system. Pen spoke again, “You asked me why I’d run away, remember? Because Menders hardly ever run, seeing as they get Exemptions. What did I say?”
“It was because of Mr Snuffles. It was all because of Mr Snuffles.”
“What about him? Tell me!”
“You healed him. He’d been in a fight with another dog, and you healed him. And they would’ve given you an Exemption, but they wouldn’t have let you keep Mr Snuffles. Because Menders are only allowed to Mend if they already have an Exemption. You didn’t. They would’ve rehoused Mr Snuffles with another family. Stupid laws! So you ran away.”
“Yes, I did. Can you still see that light?”
“Um – no. Sorry, Pen. It’s gone. Maybe it’ll come back.”
“I think it might be good that it’s gone, Ash.” She sounded exhausted, and heat was still flowing steadily through me.
“I think you should stop Mending now.”
“I’m all right, Ash. Do you remember, when I came to the Firstwood, I was worried you wouldn’t take Mr Snuffles?”
“I remember, silly girl. You thought maybe the Tribe wasn’t for dogs. As if we would’ve turned him away.”
“You said he’d have a home forever. That we both would.” She coughed. It had a wet sound to it that I didn’t like.
“Pen, I think you need to Mend yourself.” I tried to move my hand away from hers. I couldn’t; my arm was trapped under wreckage and my hand was stuck. “I want you to let me go.”
“You have to listen to me, Ash. You have to do something for me.”
“Anything.”
“You have to make a world where dogs don’t get taken away from people who love them. I always think about all the kids who get taken to detention. Some of them must have dogs, and the government won’t let them have them in detention. That’s wrong, Ash.”
“I know.”
“And you have to look after Mr Snuffles. He gets cold, you know. Sometimes he needs extra blankets.”
Now I was seriously worried. “I won’t need to look after him, because you will, and you’ll help me make a good world for dogs too. Let me go and Mend yourself! That’s an order.”
When she didn’t answer I tried to pull my hand away again. I didn’t have enough range of movement, and she just tightened her grip. I tried to persuade her instead. “Pen, I feel fine, and it’s not like you’ll need much Mending, you said yourself Menders are hard to hurt …”
“We are. But that doesn’t mean we can never be hurt.” She coughed again, the wet sound more pronounced – and bubbling. Blood.
“Penelope Mudlark, let me go!”
“It won’t do any good. I only had enough for one.” Another cough, and she added, sounding surprised, “You know what, Ash? I can smell eucalyptus.”
I couldn’t any more. “What do you mean, enough for one?”
“We’re hurt, Ash. We’re really, really hurt. And I couldn’t save both of us.”
I thrashed against the wreckage. It shifted, creaking and groaning as if it might be about to fall, and I went still. “Pen, you have to try to save yourself. You just have to hold on for a while. Once Connor gets us out there’ll be other Menders and they’ll be able to help you. Please, Pen, please try, please.”
There was no answer. “Pen? Pen!”
Silence, and the hand on mine had grown limp. I twisted my fingers so I was clinging on to her, pinching at her skin, trying to make her respond.
I was still holding on and begging for her to speak when Connor pulled the train off us. I started screaming when he tried to make me let go. Then someone put a hand on my head.
Heat stormed through my body, and the world went black again.
THE RECOVERY
ASHALA
I was somewhere between being asleep and awake, and I didn’t want to wake up all the way, even though there was a reason I should. Only I couldn’t remember what it was. That didn’t mean it wasn’t an important reason. It felt important. It felt like I needed to wake up. I tried to open my eyes, and found my eyelids were too heavy to shift. I tried again, and this time my eyes blinked open onto light.
I was lying on my side in a bed, staring out through a window at leaves and sunshine. Forest? Garden? I didn’t know, because I couldn’t see enough of outside to be sure. Where was I?
“Ashala?”
Connor. I turned my head to find he
was sitting beside the bed. His eyes were sunken and his marble features seemed brittle, as if he’d crumble to the touch.
I tried to get up. He leaned over to press me gently back down. “Lie still. You need to rest.”
“What happened to you? Are you sick?”
He choked back a laugh that had a ragged edge to it. “Nothing happened to me, Ashala. Not compared with what happened to you.”
“Then … what happened to me?”
“You don’t remember?”
“We were going somewhere, weren’t we? Is this where we were going?”
My gaze roamed around the room. I was in a sparkling composite space that held a bedside table, a bookcase scattered with books, and a set of drawers with a huge vase of colourful flowers on top. There was a big painting on the wall opposite me that showed a tall, golden-haired man standing atop a mountain and staring off into the distance. Alexander Hoffman. I knew from Ember that he didn’t really look like that; people had painted him how they’d imagined him to be.
I sniffed, noticing a strange scent in the air. Honeysuckle. Which wasn’t strange at all; there was some honeysuckle in the vase. It felt wrong to me, though. Surely there’d been another scent around before, something sharper and more soothing.
“Ashala? What’s the last thing you remember?”
Eucalyptus. “I was in the Firstwood! Where are we now?”
“The Prime’s Residence.”
“In Gull City?” I stared at him. “How did we get here so fast? Wasn’t I just in the forest, with Penel–”
Everything came flooding back.
I lurched upwards with a gasp. “Pen! The train! She was trapped with me under the train!” I grabbed hold of Connor’s shirt. “You have to get her out.”
“I did get her out.”
“Where is she?”
He didn’t answer. But I knew by the sudden flare of pain in his eyes what his answer was going to be. So I said something first. “No.”
“Ashala–”
“No! You got her out, you said you got her out …”
“Not in time. She’s gone, Ashala.”
A part of my mind was still wailing, no, no, no … The other part remembered that Pen hadn’t been the only person I cared about at the station. “What about the others? Ember? Nicky? Jules?”
The Foretelling of Georgie Spider Page 6