“Hmph.” I drag myself away from the furnace that is Branwell. “Fine.”
I glance over the living room area. Dal and Hele are sleeping, pressed together on a sofa. Miya and Yosiah are already bickering over something unimportant, Olive is groaning, and Tom is curled into the cushions of the green sofa, fast asleep.
I smile without meaning to.
“Hang on a second,” Branwell says as I’m about to wander to the other area of the ‘house’. I can see at least ten beds, my sister tucked up in one of them, and countless pillows. I want a pillow so bad right now. I tear my gaze away from the bedroom in time to see Bran pour water from a waiting container onto a rag. He presses the wet rag to the side of my head and says, “You have ash on your face.”
I’m so exhausted I don’t fight him as, with gentle touches, Branwell cleans the killing ash from my cheek. My eyes get heavier and heavier. “I’m going to fall asleep,” I mumble.
He laughs softly. I hear the thunk of wet fabric hitting metal sink. Bran puts his arms around me, supporting me effortlessly as I stumble to a mattress. The pillow is every bit as heavenly as I imagined. I miss the heat of Bran’s body as he leaves me to the bed, but the thick cover he pulls around my shoulders and the whisper of a kiss he leaves in my hair more than makes up for it.
I fall asleep feeling warm and loved.
I wake up God knows how much later. Not late enough—it’s still pretty dark. A quick glance says everyone’s where they’re meant to be—everyone but Tia. The bed she was in is empty. I haul myself to my feet.
The store is sleepy, dead quiet except for the low hum of a generator somewhere below us. I weave my way around displays and circular wood tables, my tread quiet as I move into the thick of the shop. It gets colder and colder as I near the entrance. I rub my arms to keep warm, glad I fell asleep fully clothed.
For some reason I’m not worried about my sister. I want to know where she is, just to make sure, but any anxiety is absent. Maybe I’m still sleepy, or maybe I know Horatia can look after herself. Mostly I’m curious and numb, the way of dreams spilling into my waking life.
I find Tia stood in the doorway, dwarfed by the glass and metal, watching the world go by. A lilac knitted hat contains her hair, and a long blue coat makes her look tall and thin, a dark silhouette in the yellow streetlight. She leans her head against my shoulder when I stop beside her, gracing me with a soft smile.
Most of these Leeds people are in their homes sound asleep, but every few minutes a man or woman will stride down the road, purposeful and single minded. They wear business suits and long coats, skirts ironed to be perfectly straight, hair neatly slicked back or tied in tight ponytails. These must be the people who run Leeds. I didn’t see any of them when we came in—those were just commoners like us. But these look like some of the wealthier Forgotten London civilians in the inner zones, the ones who had better jobs and decent food, the ones who could afford pills to make them live longer.
I hated those people. Everyone did—their pressed suits would end up splattered with rotten vegetables and mud-water by the end of their walk to work. Forgotten London wasn’t a very understanding place, or a forgiving one. I see the truth of it now, that even though those people had more money and fancy houses they were still as trapped as us. And now most of them are dead, sunk into the ground with the town itself. I can’t find it in me to hate any of them, not anymore. I don’t know whether that’s because all the capacity to give a damn has been sucked out of me or because I’ve grown up.
I’d like to think I’ve become a better person in myself. Even if I am a walking Strains bomb.
I watch the trickle of people for a long time, my sister silent beside me. For once I find it in myself to be kind, to not hate Tia’s silence. In the early morning, with the sky gradually turning from a bruised arm to a pastel flower, with the flow of people growing with every half hour that passes, none of them noticing two kids stood in a shop doorway under a flickering streetlamp, I find peace.
Peace with myself, with my fate and my doom and my life as a weapon. Peace with Tia’s silent grief, with her way of dealing with life. Peace with what I want and need in life and what I’ll never have. Peace with what I’ve got to do.
I screwed up my first attempt at being a Guardian—a real one—with the speech in Manchester but there are other ways I can help the rebellion. The people here in Leeds have a strange kind of life. I watch them going to work, talking with friends, carrying briefcases and tool boxes, picking up breakfast at a cart that squats at the top of the road, waves of cooked beef and scrambled eggs and hot bread making the air almost edible. They don’t realise they’re living in a world after the world’s end. They don’t care, either. They’re acting normally, going about everyday life without Officials breathing threats down their necks. They laugh and it’s not strained, they shout at their workmates across the road without their eyes darting for Official consequences.
I want that for everyone, for all of us, for all the world.
Not matter how much I hate it or want to pretend it isn’t true, I have a privilege and a responsibility. I can make every place in the world like this—with the Guardians help, I can. They keep telling me I’m the Unnamed’s son, that I can make things better, motivate people, make a change. But all I’ve really known before this week was a contained life and a chaotic way of existing. Death, loss, pain, fear. That’s what I’ve been working on, what I thought the Guardians meant when they said motivate.
I understand now. You can’t motivate anyone with fear, can’t inspire with grief. It’s not about that. It’s not about the past, our history, what’s been taken from us. It’s about what we can have, what we can take for ourselves.
We can have normal, boring lives like Leeds, like Manchester. We can do crappy building jobs and back breaking laundry and burn breakfast and get frustrated looking after our kid brothers.
I feel so stupid that I didn’t understand earlier. I don’t think I’ll attempt a rallying speech again but if I had to, I might know what to say. I wouldn’t remind people of what they lost yesterday—home, family, love, a limb—but what they can have tomorrow.
God, it’s so simple. So frustratingly simple that I begin to understand why the Unnamed thought he could change everything with a handful of rebels. It’s not about blowing up States. It’s not about shooting Officials. It’s why States has never had the people’s loyalty, why all their attempts at breaking people don’t work. It’s one single idea, one single want, that can’t ever be taken from us no matter how many times we’re stabbed or shot—because it’s not an idea from just one person. It’s everyone’s idea, everyone’s desire. It’s future.
It’s saying you can’t break us because there will always be someone left, unbroken. You can’t kill us because we want to live, because ideas cannot be killed.
The horizon has turned a pale yellow with strokes of purple clouds by the time I return to reality. I’ve been so caught up in my realisation that I missed most of the sunrise. I should feel tired—I only slept a few hours—but there’s just the buzz in my veins and plans in my head. I feel like I could stay awake for days but I know I’ll crash soon.
My sister tenses under my arm, going so still that I only now realise she’d been jittery, the way she is when she’s happy. There’s always something about her moving—a foot tapping, a finger drumming a rhythm. But now she’s stopped moving.
“What is it?”
She doesn’t answer. She holds her hat to her head and takes off running down the street, headed for the food cart and the businessmen. I race after her, my newfound peace falling apart with every slap of my feet against the tarmac. Why is my sister running? What is she running from? I close in on her but she’s running too fast and I’m getting breathless. The wind slams into me, tasting of food and rain to come. Tia gets even further away. Unless she stops or slows, I’m never gonna catch up.
The next thing that happens makes no sense. Horatia changes direc
tion, heading right for a tall, dark haired man stood on the corner of the street. The wind tears the hat from her head when she crashes into him, her arms grabbing him into a hug. I watch the lilac blur of the hat as it’s blown across the street and stoop to pick it up, frowning, watching. The man’s arms flail about Tia’s body, clearly startled, but then they fold securely around her. I’m brimming with confusion and protectiveness and jealousy. What else has Tia kept from me? What other secrets does my sister bear?
My legs move, stiff, as I cross the street, Horatia’s hat in my fist. The bitter jealousy builds and builds until I get close enough to see the man’s face. I drop the hat.
He’s not a secret Tia’s hidden from me. He’s a secret we share. His face might be thinner than it ever was and his hair might be shorter and look black against the pale morning, but I’d recognise him anywhere. I saw his face every day for three years—it’s burned into my memory, heightened by my grief and confusion and resentment.
My brother.
John.
“God.” When his brown eyes meet mine I stagger forward and into his arms. I might want to punch him for leaving us, but he’s family and I love him unconditionally. The three of us huddle together on the street corner and for a minute it’s like no one can touch us, like nothing bad has ever happened. Like I never crossed the fence, like Tia never left me, like John never made us think he was dead. It’s like we’re back home.
John’s scent of sweat and spice drags up memories of nights spent in our living room in Forgotten London listening to his dramatic brand of storytelling. I breathe it in, and in, and in, and my heart swells. I’ve missed him, missed him holding us together, missed him making us laugh with his embellished tales, missed the comfort and protection of having an older brother.
We detangle so John can look at us both closely. “Your hair’s longer,” he says to me. “And you”—he gives Tia a grin—“When did you grow up?”
Tia gives him a dirty glare in response. The dark expression transforms her into a feral animal.
“Where have you been?” I ask, speaking the words because Horatia won’t. “Why did you drive off and leave us? Why didn’t you tell us you were alive? Why haven’t you been here where we needed you?”
“How could you leave us?” The quietest whisper but it has my heart hammering. My eyes snap to Tia.
John squeezes my shoulder but I shrug his hand off. My temper has a hold of me now.
“Not here,” he says. He begins to walk, like he knows we’ll follow. We do.
07:49. 01.11.2040. The Free Lands, Northlands, Leeds.
John shares a hole-in-the-wall bookshop with a quiet brunette girl—the girl Kari was scowling at when we first landed in Leeds. Her name is Cat and she doesn’t say anything more than a minute of small talk, though when John starts talking I’m pretty sure she’s listening. I don’t think it’s shyness that keeps her quiet, but a careful watchfulness. I don’t know what to make of her.
John strips off his dusty brown coat, throwing it over a packed bookshelf. He stuffs his hands into his jean pockets, shoulders hunched. Noticing where my attention is, he says, “You can trust Cat. She’s from Forgotten London, too.”
“What zone?” I ask.
“Underground.” Her tone says she’d rather give me blood than answers.
“Oh.” I drop my gaze to the scuffed floorboards, flinching away from the flood of thought and emotion Underground London Zone brings to the surface. I won’t think about what might have happened to me and Tia while we were there. I won’t think about Marrin. I won’t. “You didn’t evacuate with the Guardians,” I remark.
“No.” Cat turns her back on us and plucks a book with a ripped spine from a shelf. She hoists herself onto a wooden stool and pretends to read. I’m not stupid enough to think she’s really reading; she just wants us to think that so she can learn our secrets. Cat isn’t offering up her own secrets so I’m going to be careful about mine.
“Where’ve you been?” I ask John, squinting against a flare of light. The sun’s up now. It makes the hundreds of books crammed into this cardboard box of a shop gleam a gradient of amber, red, and pink.
Tia leans against a solid bookshelf, her arms crossed and her attention squarely on John. I expect her to say something but she doesn’t. I suppose she doesn’t need to—her lowered eyebrows and puckered lips are enough to suggest fiery words and insults.
“Sit down,” John says. “This’ll take a while.”
“I’ll stand.”
His eyes turn pleading but he doesn’t argue. He sinks into a tan leather arm chair and looks up at us. “I’ve been investigating the President.” When I open my mouth he holds up a hand. My jaw snaps shut. “You know that envelope? The one my brother gave me before he died?”
“Yeah. What about it?”
“It said to open it in 2040. I did.”
“And what was in it?” The question comes out harsh. Getting answers from John is like getting mercy from Officials and I don’t have enough patience to deal with it right now. I just want the truth—and all of it.
“A letter and a purpose. You could read it yourself if I hadn’t burned it. The gist of it is this: the President is responsible for all the shit of our world and he needs to be stopped before he destroys what’s left of us.”
“That’s the Guardians’ purpose. If you wanted to stop the President, you would have joined them. Don’t try and tell me you didn’t know they existed.”
“I did,” he admits. “But I never wanted to join them. I didn’t have that strong an opinion about the President until the letter. Figured the world was bad enough without adding secret movements and rebellions to my life. Plus, I was a coward. Still am, actually, but I’m pretending to be brave.”
John leans forward, his elbows on his knees, ragged and pale. He looks at Horatia with worried eyes. “Why is he watching you like you’re going to break? Like one false move will shatter you?”
“You were gone,” I answer for her. Bile hits the back of my throat along with bitterness and fury. “You left us and—Tia doesn’t speak now. I’m not saying it’s your fault but you should have been with us.”
He scrubs a hand over his face. “I didn’t choose to leave—the Officials chose that when they tried to kill me. Lucky I had the envelope, or I’d really be dead.” He peers up at Tia with sad eyes. “I’m sorry.”
My anger is fading now. I don’t feel like punching my brother when I look at him. “What do you mean you’d be dead without the envelope? What the hell was in it?”
“A letter that had been passed down for generations. It was from my great great grandfather. Maybe another great, I don’t know. He gave me a drug to fake being dead for a day, a clip that could unlock any door, and a few other things. But they came with instructions. At the top of the list was that I was under no circumstances to tell you or Horatia anything until you reached this town. Said you needed to go it alone.”
“Why?” I pick at the crumbling spine of a history book. On a second thought I pocket the small volume. It won’t hurt to learn some of our history, especially the royalty I’m related to.
“Don’t know. The instructions don’t come with reasons. I’m just meant to follow them—and if I do everything right, I’ll be able to keep it all intact. The world. The timeline.” He pauses, and then picks up another train of thought. “One of the instructions was to come for you when F.L. was Falling. Whoever wrote them, they know things nobody else does. It’s like they see everything, know everything. Can’t fight with something like that. I wasn’t sure I’d even follow the instructions until that day—but after that, how could I not? They’d saved your lives.”
“And these instructions … they told you to leave us at the Guardian checkpoint without an explanation or a goodbye?” My fingers have curled into fists. I unfurl them and pinch the inside of my wrist. It helps, but it shouldn’t.
Seeing something in my expression, John comes over to me, and it’s all too much. W
hen he hugs me I don’t even think about pushing him away. I rest my cheek against the soft wool of his jumper and let myself hope that he’ll stay this time.
“The instructions saved your life once. How do I know they won’t again? How can I not follow every single one of them if it means keeping my family alive?”
“So you did all this for me?” My voice is strangled. “How does that even make sense? I needed you, John. I needed you. I didn’t know—I don’t know—what to do. I need my brother.” I let go of him, trembling and unable to contain it. Too late I realise I’ve spilled all my fears and thoughts for Cat to hear.
John doesn’t let me go. He grips my shoulder—his hold too heavy—and only then do I realise he’s struggling to hold himself together too. “Don’t think I didn’t need you, too. I’d never been by myself, and then all of a sudden I had to do everything alone. Without Thalia, you, Tia, Wes. I didn’t know how to do that,” he says. “But I had to.”
He slumps back to the chair and sinks into it. He says, “The President is a time traveller. He goes between this year and seven others—in the past. He’s not just ending this world with the Strains and Officials. He’s putting everyone in the past in danger. Every time he goes back, he goes a week earlier, a month earlier, a year earlier. He’s doing fine now, but eventually he’s gonna change something, and something big. Something that should never have happened. The instructions will help me stop it, when I find him. That’s why I keep leaving. I’m trying to find out everything about the President—nobody knows who he is, not really. If I can find out who he is …”
I don’t have any words. If I wasn’t for Bran I wouldn’t believe what John’s saying. I’d argue, call him mad. Instead, I listen.
John sits up straighter, leans towards us. His gaze begs us to understand, to forgive him. “He came out of nowhere five years before the flares struck. A dozen dead politicians meant he could rise to a high position within two years. In five years, he was the President of States—without anyone voting for him to be there, without anyone knowing who he really was. Everyone was blackmailed and threatened, I reckon. There were protests and investigations into his real identity at the time but those were all abandoned when the flares and The Sixteen Strains struck. He’s been in power ever since.”
The Wandering (The Lux Guardians, #2) Page 24