by Sarah Dalton
The wailing alarms approached, and Daniel’s stomach sank as the flashing lights appeared behind them.
“Put ye foot down,” Ali shouted. “I cannae shoot with civilians on the street. I hope the priest has the garage door open and waiting.”
“Shoot its tyre out,” Matthew shouted.
Daniel sat staring out of the back window of the van. The few people on the street so early in the morning rushed away. Ali fired and the Enforcer vehicle swerved to the side.
“Nice shot,” Matthew said.
Dale steered to the right, cutting off two lanes of traffic. Daniel watched the cars behind screech to a halt, and heard their horns blasting out after them. It didn’t matter, not if they could increase their lead.
“Keep making sharp turns,” Matthew said. “You’ll lose them.”
They were still on a large road, with the early morning traffic around them. Dale over-took slower cars and black cabs, swerving in and out of the lanes, missing collisions by inches, and being met with the chorus of honked horns. Daniel clutched hold of anything he could to stay upright. He rested Luce on his lap so she wouldn’t slide across the van floor.
“I should’ve gone to Mina directly,” Daniel said. “Before Elena tried to trick her.”
“Dunnae get with the ‘shoulda woulda couldas’ cos ye’ll be at it fer the rest o’yer life if ye let it.”
Dale steered them onto a quiet street, using the opportunity to floor the van, so that the houses whizzed past in a blur. Daniel listened to the fade of the sirens as they lost the police cars. At least they were going to make it back without any arrests. That was one thing to be grateful for. One, tiny, miniscule, piddly little thing, that was no pigging use to anyone without Mina with them.
“Dunnae go dark, lad,” Ali warned.
Daniel met Ali’s eyes. He was a little older and wiser, and easily read Daniel’s expression, which just made him blush. Ali always saw everything, and yet hid so much.
The van pulled into the open garage. The priest was there waiting for them with the first team, and to Daniel’s relief, so were Kitty, Mike and a few of the others. They needed as many hands on deck as possible to get the Professor and Luce back to the church for treatment. Daniel swung open the doors and hopped down to where the others waited.
“What happened? Where’s Mina?” Kitty jumped right in front of his face before he could say anything.
He ignored her and helped Ali lift Jonathon from the first van. Mike picked up the arm of the older man, and wrapped him over his shoulder. Matthew rushed to take the other.
“We didn’t get her, Kitty. She attacked us and we had to run,” Daniel said with a sigh.
Kitty’s shoulders slumped and her face dropped. “She attacked you?”
“Did you get a good look at the Prof?” Daniel asked. “She did that to him.” He slammed the van doors shut and led Kitty out of the garage. They pulled down the heavy garage door together.
“No, I… I only glimpsed. He was covered in blood though… She never… she never did that?”
“She did.” Daniel shut his mouth and tensed his jaw. That was all he’d say about it for now. It hurt too much.
32 ~ Mina ~
“Quick, in here.”
Elena took my arm, and dragged me into the alley behind an abandoned shop. All around us sirens wailed. She stalked around the scruffy back yard, searching for a way in. It was surrounded by a brick wall with an entrance for deliveries. She kicked in the back door and gestured for me to follow.
I entered the cold, dark, shop with my arms hugging my body. Even if it’d been boiling hot, I still would have felt frozen to the core. My fingers shook, and my teeth chattered.
What had I done?
Elena led me through into a storage room. I dropped to the floor, resting against the cool wall.
What had I done?
I pressed my fingers against my eyes – trying to block out the memories.
“Mina, are you all right?”
It was only then that I realised I rocked back and forth while hugging my knees. I stopped, and forced my back against the wall.
“What did I do?”
Elena frowned, but it wasn’t harsh or disapproving. “I’m not sure. You lost it, though, big time.”
“I hurt people.”
Elena slowly nodded. Her icy blue eyes watered with tears of pity.
“Mina, your mum has been messing with your head for weeks. None of this is your fault.”
“It is,” I said sadly. “I had a choice. I made the wrong one.” I wiped tears from my eyes and hugged my knees. “I never read your note.” I straightened up so I could fit my hand into my jeans pocket and retrieve it.
“I figured,” Elena said. “I’m working for the Resistance, Mina, because the GEM killed the boy I fell in love with over the summer.” She sighed. “It’s a long story. Daniel has been working with the Resistance to try and get you out, so you’d be safe. Your mum’s been drugging you, getting you gradually addicted to this vile stuff that makes you, I dunno, more susceptible, I guess. Then she’s been twisting your feelings to make you hate and make you angry. I’m sorry, Mina, I’m sorry to be the one to tell you.”
I let out a wretched sob from deep in my chest. “It was her all along? I… I thought I had the flu.” My voice shook with emotion. “I think she made me forget things.”
Elena nodded. “Did you put on your Plan-It this morning?”
I shook my head. “No. I always put it on after training.”
“That’s good. They can’t track us.”
A banging at the door stopped Elena from saying any more. “Des,” she said. “We have to get out of here.”
She pulled me to my feet and rushed me through the stock room of the old shop. I tripped over empty shoe boxes and almost fell to the floor, but she kept me balanced. There was a crashing noise behind us as Des broke down the door. Elena threw herself at the locked back door.
“Help!” she insisted, her bright blue eyes wide with panic.
I tried to shoulder the door. Des burst into the stock room dragging his left leg. He lunged at us, but Elena kicked him in the shin of his injured leg and directed me around him as Des cried out in pain.
“Who is that, and why is he attacking us?”
We ran through the main part of the shop, where old shelves and litter was strewn across the floor. The door hung open on its hinges. We dashed through.
“He’s the leader of a Resistance group. It’s a long story. I think he wants to use you as a weapon.”
We sprinted around the street corner and took a left into a residential area. Terraced houses backed onto the road with back-gardens set out in a neat row. Elena climbed over the fence into one of the gardens.
“What are you doing?” I hissed.
She grabbed some clothes from the washing line. There was a deck chair on the lawn, and Elena darted over to it, stooped down, and retrieved a sun hat from the grass. Then she rushed back. I gestured for her to hurry as a middle-aged overweight woman ran out from her kitchen, yelling at us. Elena scrambled over the fence.
“Run!” she said, shoving the hat on my head.
I forced my muscles on, despite the bone-deep feeling of exhaustion. I had no choice. We weaved through the back alleys of the residential area, until we’d made so many twists and turns that I didn’t even know which direction we headed. Finally, Elena pulled us into a ginnel between two houses.
“Take off your top,” she instructed.
We changed into the clothes from the washing line, and Elena pulled her hair out of the tight bun, pushing it forwards over her face. She removed a small notebook from the lab coat and then dumped the coat onto the dirty ground.
“That’s Mum’s,” I said. “You stole it from her!”
She nodded. “The day I came to your flat. I’d noticed her scribbling in it during your training and I knew it must be important.” She lowered her chin and looked me straight in the eye. “You need to
read it. It describes everything.”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s no time now, we have to go. I have to get you back to the others.”
Elena walked to the end of the ginnel and checked around the corner. In the distance I heard the faint sound of sirens.
“What do you mean others?”
“Daniel, your dad, and the Resistance,” she said. “I need to get you there. Dale will keep you safe.”
When she mentioned Dad, my stomach flipped and the pain came flooding back. I held back a sob.
Elena noticed my expression and took my hand in hers. “It’s going to be okay, Mina.”
I shook my head. No it wasn’t. Not after what I did. “They won’t forgive me.”
“They will,” she insisted. “Because it wasn’t you.”
I wiped tears from my eyes. “And Daniel… I thought he… I thought he was with her, and I thought he’d come to attack me. B-because of what Mum said.”
“No, Mina. He loves you. He’d never attack you. He risked his life to try and save you from your mother.”
More tears spilled as I thought of how stupid I’d been. “I thought… I thought he’d moved on with that girl. And Mum showed me all those decapitation scenes. Were they fake too?”
Elena’s lips pursed. “No, they were real. There’s this woman in the Resistance – Susannah – who kidnapped me. She runs a rebel group of Resistance workers who kidnap and kill prominent GEMs. I don’t work for her. The people I work for are all right. They’re sensible. And they’ll get you back to your dad and Daniel.”
“Dad,” I whispered.
I thought of his blood soaked face, covered in cuts and gashes, the heavy furniture hitting him in the side. Oh, Dad. What did I do to you?
“He was alive when they left, so there’s hope. I know where they’re based and can get you there.”
“My mum’s going to be searching for us,” I said. “She’ll want me back.”
Elena nodded. “You’re her weapon.”
I felt sick. Is that all I was to her? A weapon? Of course it was. It was all I’d ever been.
“I can’t use my powers anymore,” I said. “I just can’t.”
“Okay, we’ll try to get there without them.”
*
We rushed through the streets, sticking to back roads and climbing over walls. I realised most of the homes stood empty. Many shops had been abandoned. Where did all those people go? Why did they go?
Because they knew it was coming.
I thought of the clone soldiers with a terrible, clawing nausea in my stomach. Of course they knew what was coming. They could smell it. The air was thick with it. Tensions between GEMs and Resistance were just the beginning. The warm up. Soon the temperature would rise until it boiled up and evaporated everything into nothing.
I couldn’t breathe. My chest constricted, blocking air to my lungs. I stopped running and leaned over the pavement – trying to gulp in air. Instead I made a horrible retching noise, like someone trying to vomit on an empty stomach.
“Mina? Mina are you all right?”
Elena rubbed my back as I doubled over. I opened my mouth, trying to take a gulp of air.
“Slow down, Mina, take it slow,” she said. “Take it slow. Breathe in…” I tried but I couldn’t. “Breathe out…” I exhaled a tiny puff of air. “Breathe in…” This time I took some air and relief washed over me. “Breathe out.” I emptied my lungs. They were working again. “Breathe in…” I sucked in a long, amazing gulp of air. “Breathe out…” My heart started to slow.
I straightened up and took a few more deep breaths. My hands trembled. For just a moment, I longed for Mum and her tea to make me feel better. Then I remembered what it was and why she gave it to me.
“We have to leave,” Elena said. “Can you do it?”
I nodded. I felt so weak that my body hurt. The thought of seeing the people I’d hurt made my skin turn cold. I needed to know they were all right. I had to see them.
We walked away from the faint sirens. To pedestrians and residents we just looked like two young girls out for a stroll. The sun hat hid my features from view, so no one would know I was Blemished. More than once we hid behind bushes or sheds as Enforcers patrolled the streets. Sometimes we just got lucky, like when we didn’t notice the Enforcers until it was too late, and simply walked past them as though out on a stroll, or heading home for lunch. No one noticed I didn’t wear my Plan-It, since my ears were covered with my hair and the wide brim of the hat. Elena’s bright smile tended to distract people anyway.
“This is it,” Elena said as we approached a church.
I stared up at the front steps, and my stomach churned. Tears pricked my eyes. I felt weak at the knees. “I can’t do this. I can’t face them.”
“You can,” she said softly. “Just follow me.”
I took a deep breath and stepped after her. She gripped my hand in hers, directing me up the steps. My legs shook.
A smiling priest greeted Elena at the door. I’d never been inside a church because my dad always said science was his religion – or at least it was until the GEM made it dirty. My heart skipped a beat just thinking about the times he said that.
Inside, stone arches reached up to a tall ceiling, and stained glass windows depicted biblical images. The priest regarded me kindly, and it only made me feel worse. He didn’t know how bad I really was – rotten to the core. I couldn’t look him in the eye. Instead I stared at my feet as I followed them both through several rooms and finally to a staircase leading into darkness.
My skin tingled and my stomach churned. Each step sent shivers up my legs. Down the stairs, seconds away, were the people I’d tried to kill. I heard them arguing. As we approached I realised they argued about me.
I steadied my breathing and looked down into the darkness below. Four people greeted me at the bottom of the stairs. When I saw their faces staring up at me, the warm feeling of home spread in my abdomen. They’d known. They knew I was here and they came to me.
Mina, came a voice, I missed you, Aunty Mina.
A jolt ran up my spine. “Hiro?”
I rushed down the stairs, almost tripping over my feet, and pulled Hiro into a hug. Tears spilled down my cheeks. Someone stroked my hair. I let go of Hiro and saw Kitty, her face pensive and taught. I hesitated, not sure whether she’d welcome me or not. But then she hugged me and I felt her soft yellow hair against my cheek.
Then Daniel. Our eyes met and my mind flashed back to the lobby. I reached out to touch the cuts on his face.
“I did that,” I muttered.
He stepped away from me. His jaw set. I deserved worse. Much worse.
Uncle Matthew approached. “Come on, kid. You need to see him.” He wrapped his arm around my shoulders and directed me away from the probing eyes of the Resistance.
“Wait,” said a nervous looking man with thick-rimmed glasses. “She could be dangerous. We should––”
“Matty an’ I can take care of her,” Ali said. He joined Matthew and the two of them steered me away from the others, turning a dark corner under the church. The chill made me shiver.
When I saw Dad, a loud sob escaped from me and I pulled out of Matthew’s grip to run to him. He lay on a blood soaked mattress; his face a mangle of deep cuts. The blonde girl I’d hated so much leaned over him, tending his wounds. She almost dropped her flannel as she saw me running towards her. I ignored her. All my focus remained on the lifeless body of my father. I knelt at his side. Shards of glass littered the floor. His skin seeped blood from the tiny gashes all over his body. All my hatred for him escaped in that moment. All the hours of training my mum had forced on me – they left. None of it had been real. None of it. The only person I hated was myself.
33 ~ Angela ~
They sat cramped together in the back of the truck. The raucous Blemished army laughed over the ease they took Area 14. The musky scent of men in a confined space drifted through the air, and she boun
ced up and down, bumping her buttocks on the hard floor, as they covered the rough terrain.
“Did you see those Enforcers? They didn’t stand a chance against us. One of ‘em came at me and I punched straight through ‘is ‘elmet.”
“Did you ‘eck as like. You can’t break them things. Everyone knows that.”
“I did. And I shot another one straight through the heart. Died instantly he did.”
“Yeah right.”
“I’ll show you when we get to London.”
“And I’ll be waitin’ to see these grand heroics. Seein’ as how all the Enforcers are down there.”
The truck erupted in laughter. Some of them cleaned their guns or checked their ammunition. Others leaned back against the side of the truck smoking cigarettes.
“It’ll be different though, won’t it?” one said. He wore ripped jeans. The symbol of the Blemished had been torn away from his pocket. “There’s more of them down there. And they say there’s an army.”
“It won’t be like 14. Everyone knows the GEM have nearly cleared out of the Areas. Why else would they put a pillock like Vincent Cole in charge?”
Angela glanced across at Sebastian. His fists clenched.
“Show some respect,” she said. “That’s someone’s father you’re talking about.” She’d learned that her position as Daniel’s adoptive sister gave her a bit of leeway when it came to the Blemished army. They treated her with some respect, or at least more respect than they showed the rest of her group. One of the men nodded to her and the atmosphere changed.
“It won’t be like taking Area 14. We’ll have some real fighting to do.”
The men quietened and returned to their tasks. They didn’t make jokes for a long time after that.
“It’s not far to Area 13,” Angela said in a soft voice. She hated the silence and wanted to break it. “Only about an hour’s drive. I went there with my dad once. We got clearance from the Enforcers and he took me when he was looking for mining work. The hills roll up and down, and it’s full of mills: weird buildings with tall chimneys and neat windows. I remember the way they all lined up.” She paused. “Do you think there will be many Enforcers left?”