Nought Forever

by Malorie Blackman

  ‘No? How many of your own kind have you ruined on McAuley’s orders?’ I ask. ‘How much did he have to pay you to turn you into one of his sheeple? I bet it didn’t even run into triple digits. You sold yourself for a couple of threats and a handful of empty promises. You’re nothing but a cliché. At least McAuley did what he did because he believed in something – himself and money. What’s your excuse?’

  Seven. Dan

  The expression on Eva’s face is pure poison. If it could be bottled, it could be sold as a lethal weapon. I feel her toxic glare running through my veins, racing around my brain, pumping out of my heart. I hear – and feel – every word she’s saying. To my surprise, as badly as my body hurts, her words hurt more. Memories flood in like a tsunami, overwhelming me. Snapshots of my life so far.

  Watching Mum try to hold down two jobs until fatigue and worse wore her down. She stopped fighting, turning into something I didn’t even want to name. I’d watched her as I was growing up, swearing I wouldn’t end up like her. Watching Tom cry because our house was always cold and the fridge was always empty. Living on beans on toast, or sometimes just toast, for weeks on end when money was non-existent. School was a bust. At least the reading part was. I’d look at words on a page and they wouldn’t stay still, they swam around like tadpoles, and I’d been too ashamed to tell anyone. I was good at maths – I knew my times tables by heart before anyone else in my class and mental arithmetic was my thing. But there are no exams for mental arithmetic. All tests and exams involved reading and writing. So, instead of admitting that I needed help, I took the easier option: I quit and dropped out.

  And buried deep the fact that I felt such a loser.

  Eva is right. I am a cliché. I thought I was spreading my wings, doing something with my life. What a joke! Is that why I feel such antipathy towards Tobey, even though he’s supposed to be my friend? Because he managed to avoid McAuley and this farce of a life until I dragged him down to wade through crap alongside me? Is that the reason I helped him when it came down to choosing him or McAuley? Guilt? A recognition of what I might’ve been if I’d had the guts to follow Tobey’s example and think for myself?

  I’ve been played. But the worst thing of all is, I played myself.

  Slowly Eva shakes her head as she watches a whole playlist of emotions dance across my face.

  ‘Come on. You need to lie down,’ she says, finally cutting me some slack. ‘D’you think you can make it upstairs?’

  Being honest, I shake my head.

  ‘Can you make it to the living room? You can lie down on the couch and get some sleep. You can’t stay in the kitchen.’

  I stand. With my good arm over Eva’s shoulder, I finally make it to the living-room door, by which time we’re both sweating.

  ‘Stay there,’ she says, leaning me against the door frame. ‘I need to close the curtains.’

  Once that’s done, she helps me over to the couch and I collapse onto it, the last of my strength now gone. Every bone in my body has disappeared – to be replaced by a skeleton of flame and pain.

  A knock at the front door, as unexpected as it is unwelcome.

  McAuley’s friends. I know it. I feel it.

  Eva frowns. ‘Stay put.’

  A strange, unexpected sense of calm washes over me. The whole evening, my whole life has been leading up to this moment. All the choices, the decisions, the selfish justifications have led me right here.

  ‘Listen, Eva,’ I sigh. ‘Let me just go to them. There’s no reason for you to get caught up in my mess.’ That had happened to too many people already.

  ‘Stay. Put,’ she repeats, and she heads out into the hall.

  Like I could move anyway. I’m not going anywhere. Not without help.

  My entire fate rests in the hands of a woman who hates my guts.

  Eight. Eva

  ‘Who is it?’ I call out.

  ‘Police, ma’am. Could you open the door please?’

  Police, is it? Hmm … Through the frosted pane of glass in my door I see the silhouette of a man. And from the smooth appearance of the top of his head, he’s wearing a woollen hat. Not your standard police uniform.

  ‘What’s this about, Officer?’

  ‘There’s an escaped criminal in the area and we’re going door to door to make sure everyone is safe and accounted for. If you’d just open the door …’

  ‘I live alone and everything’s locked. I’m fine,’ I tell him.

  A moment’s silence.

  ‘Nevertheless, if you could just open the door please?’

  The ‘officer’ sounds real keen to get into my house. Too keen.

  ‘Could you put your warrant card through the letterbox please, so I can check your ID?’ I ask.

  Another, longer, pause.

  ‘I don’t have it on me.’

  Seriously? Seriously?

  ‘Come back when you do,’ I say.

  ‘Ma’am, I must insist you open this door—’

  ‘And I must insist you sod off before I call the real police,’ I shout. ‘You think I’m stupid? You think I arrived in Meadowview yesterday? I let you in and you tie me up and burgle the place while I watch helplessly? Or worse. Bugger off!’

  The man outside starts knocking on my door again. I head back into the living room. Now that it’s a choice between those outside and the injured boy on my couch, suddenly there’s no contest.

  ‘Dan, get up!’ I hiss.

  He struggles, but he’s so weak he can barely sit, never mind stand. So that’s not going to work.

  ‘Get on the floor,’ I tell him.

  With my help he rolls onto the carpet, groaning softly. The pounding on my door makes me wince, echoing what my heart is doing in my chest. The guy outside is now trying to kick it in. My ordered life of nothing touching me and me touching no one has blown up in my face. What the hell am I doing? I must be nuts. If I get caught with Dan, we’re both dead for sure.

  I pick up the cushions and drop them on the floor. Then I lift the base of the couch to reveal the space underneath. It’s meant to be extra storage space but I never use it.

  ‘Get in there, Dan, and keep quiet,’ I say.

  He doesn’t need to be told twice. In one last desperate act, he raises himself up onto his knees and one hand. He and I struggle to get him inside. The moment he’s fully in, he looks up at me without saying a word. His grey eyes hold both threat and entreaty. In that moment I hold his whole world in my hands, and we both know it. I bring the metal slatted seat base down on his back and put back the cushions.

  Quickly I head out into the hall to call the police.

  Too late.

  My door slams back against the wall and the man who’d been across the street fills the door frame, glowering at me.

  I’m in deep, deep manure.

  ‘How dare you!’ I exclaim, washing down my fear with a shot of anger. ‘How dare you break into my house!’

  Now there’s another Nought man behind him, dark hair and a trim beard. Thug number one and thug number two. Police officers, my ass. McAuley’s men. No doubt about it. I know gangsters when I see them. Enough of them passed through the hospital where I used to work, looking to be patched up from this fight or that stab wound.

  ‘If you know what’s good for you, you won’t get in our way,’ says thug one.

  ‘Ooh! Aren’t you big and brave, threatening a lone woman half your size and twice your age. Your mother must be so proud,’ I say with disdain.

  Both shitheads move into my hall. I stand in the living-room doorway. Thug one points up the stairs. Thug two heads up to search for their target. Thug one pushes past me into the living room. He looks around. I make sure to keep my eyes on him, not the couch. He pushes past me again to search the kitchen and the downstairs loo. Thug two comes running down the stairs, shaking his head at the silent question asked by his colleague.

  ‘What about my door? Who’s going to pay for that?’ I ask.

  Thug one takes out a
wad of cash and throws it at me. I don’t try to catch it, instead letting it fall to the floor like confetti. Like I would touch their blood money. My unwelcome guests head out, leaving my door wide open. I move behind them to close it. The lock and the bolts are busted but at least the door is still intact. I put on the chain – the only thing left that still works.

  Bastards!

  Sirens! And the sound is getting closer. All thanks to my nosy neighbour Mr Schubaker, no doubt. Where seeing me with a strange guy in my garden hadn’t worked, obviously those creeps kicking in my door had finally made him call the police. Jesus, it’s all go! Through the small frosted-glass panel in my front door I see the whirl of flashing lights. The police – the real police this time – have pulled up outside my house.

  What do I do now?

  If I hand Dan over to them, I don’t doubt that he’ll be dead inside a week. McAuley’s men will find a way to get to him or they’ll bribe some crooked copper to do it. If I don’t hand him over and he gets better, what’s to stop him finding his gun in my washing machine and turning it on me, or using one of my kitchen knives to cut my throat? Or suppose I don’t hand him over and he dies on me? Two deaths on my conscience.

  I can’t have two deaths on my head. I’d never survive.

  What am I thinking of?!

  Dan isn’t my problem, and I can’t, I won’t, make him my problem.

  He’ll have to take his chances, just like the rest of us.

  But he reminds me of my daughter, rushing to be older, do supposedly better. So naïve.

  Maybe if I look after Dan and see him through this, I’ll somehow be atoning for not trying harder with my daughter. I should’ve fought to find a way to get through to her.

  What should I do?

  The doorbell rings.

  This time I open the door to two uniformed Cross police officers, a man and a woman. The real deal.

  ‘Officers,’ I say, ‘I was just about to phone you.’

  Read more

  Here’s a sneak preview of

  the next book in the

  Noughts & Crosses series,

  which will be coming out

  in summer 2019

  Enjoy!

  Read more

  Malorie Blackman

  CROSSFIRE

  NOW

  One. Callie

  A Nought woman, no doubt some poor jobbing actress desperate to pay her rent, was kneeling down in the middle of a stylized pigsty. She held leads attached to twelve decorated sculptures of life-sized pink pigs surrounding her like the petals of a flower, all looking out at the audience. Some of the pigs wore clothes – military uniforms, or just a hat or shoes. Two of them were simulating copulation. The Nought woman wore a bodysuit that at first glance made her look naked. She was kneeling, her head down. At random intervals she looked up to stare at the person directly in front of her for a few seconds before slowly bowing her head again. Now it was my turn to receive her numb stare. My lips twisted in distaste. Blinking rapidly, the exhibit lowered her head, her cheeks reddening.

  Embarrassed for both of us, I said quietly, ‘The look on my face wasn’t aimed at you. It was aimed at this ridiculous so-called art installation.’

  The woman’s head remained bent, the slight tensing of her shoulders and her reddened face the only indications that she’d heard my words. Whether or not she believed them was another matter.

  I shook my head, sighing inwardly. It had taken me years to cultivate my poker face, but there were moments – like now – when the mask slipped. After glancing at my watch I took a seat at one end of the gallery and looked around. A huge sign hanging above all the exhibits declared: ALBION – LESSONS LEARNED: A 21st-CENTURY RETROSPECTIVE. Talk about the chieftain’s new robes. This was supposed to be the most avant-garde, exciting art exhibition currently in the capital. Nought actors and actresses adorned the various works of art, a few of them naked, some covered from head to toe in body paint of various hues. They sat in, on or among the exhibits, seldom moving. The whole thing had a melancholy air of crass awkwardness to it.

  If I were an art critic, I know how my review would read: Dubious style and precious little substance. The few articles I’d read about this so-called exhibition described it as ‘daring’, ‘innovative’, ‘a fresh take’ – blah blah.

  Yeah, right.

  Sauley J’Hara, the Cross artist responsible for this hot mess, had been all over the news during the last two weeks, responding to the very vocal criticism of his art installation.

  ‘It’s a forward-thinking look at how we used to regard and treat Noughts juxtaposed with how they are regarded now,’ he’d argued.

  I shook my head again. What a steaming pile of horse manure. A self-congratulatory exercise in nostalgia for the backward thinkers who wished – or still believed – they lived in the past.

  I looked up at the ceiling. Now there was real art. Panels depicting Zafrika’s history – some carved from wood, some from marble, some just painted, but all exquisitely beautiful. I glanced down at my watch again. It hadn’t been my choice to meet here and I was burning to leave. The ceiling, which was part of the fabric of the building, I admired. The rest of the exhibition was making my skin itch.

  ‘Hello, Callie. What’s what?’

  The baritone voice beside me made my head snap up.

  Tobey Durbridge.

  Damn it! My heart jumped at the sight of him, dragging me to my feet. God, it had been so long. Too long. When did the air get so thin in here? There was no other explanation for the way my heart was thumping or for feeling this light-headed.

  Oh, come on! You’re a grown woman, for God’s sake. Get a grip, Callie Rose!

  It was such a long time since Tobey and I had last met. A lifetime ago. What had I been expecting, because this wasn’t it. Over the years, just like the rest of the country I’d seen Tobey on the TV as he rose in prominence as the first elected Mayor of Meadowview, but seeing him in person was so different. Tobey had moved on and up – the only directions he was ever interested in. He was currently in a race to become the capital’s first Nought mayor, and there wasn’t a single soul in not just Britain but the whole of Zafrika who didn’t know his name. I’d already voted, and by this time tomorrow all the smart money reckoned Tobias Durbridge would be the next Mayor of London. And that was just the start. As Solomon Camden, my head of chambers, had put it, ‘Only a fool would bet against Tobey Durbridge becoming the first Nought Prime Minister of the entire country.’

  And how had I voted?

  Well, I was nobody’s fool.

  It’d been so long, too long since I’d last seen him, but I would’ve known this man anywhere. The Tobey of old, with his chestnut-brown hair and darker brown eyes, still stood in front of me, but his face was harder and his lips were thinner, and the gleam in his eyes, like he was constantly on the verge of a smile – well, that had all but vanished. Something told me it would take a lot to make Tobey smile these days. And he’d filled out. He was not just taller but broader. He made me feel like I was slacking on the body-conscious front. Which I was, I admit it. I enjoyed my food! I hit the treadmill regularly, but only so I wouldn’t have to buy a whole new wardrobe every six months. Besides, I had my mum’s ass and it was going nowhere, no matter how much I exercised. Tobey, on the other hand, wore his charcoal-grey suit like a second skin. That hadn’t come off a hanger in a department store. His suit screamed bespoke from the rooftops. His black shoes didn’t have a scuff mark on them, his white shirt was spotless, as was his silk purple tie. Damn! He was wearing the hell out of every stitch he had on. Instead of looking staid and boring, he managed to make the whole ensemble look … dangerous. Like this guy could quite easily hand you your head if you messed with him, and still look fine doing it. Aware that I was staring, I mock sighed. ‘For Shaka’s sake! I see you’re still taller than me.’

  A shared smile – and just like that the tension between us lifted.

  We grinned at each other
as the years began to fall away, but then reality rudely shoved its way between us. Another moment as we regarded each other. My mind was racing. Should we kiss? Hug? What? I moved forward at the same time as Tobey. A brief, awkward kiss on the lips was followed by a long hug. The warmth of his body and the subtle smell of his aftershave enveloped me. I stepped back. The moment for anything deeper, anything more, came and went, and faded away unclaimed.

  ‘It’s so good to see you, Tobey.’ I felt faintly foolish that I’d had such a visceral reaction to him. ‘How are you?’

  Tobey opened his mouth, only to close it without saying a word. An eyebrow quirked, followed by that wry smile of his. ‘I was going to say All the better for seeing you, but you deserve more than cheesy lines and platitudes.’

  Momentarily thrown, I wondered how exactly I was meant to respond to that?

  Tobey indicated the seat behind us. He waited for me to sit before parking himself next to me, his thigh pressing lightly against mine. His warmth was unsettling in its familiarity. I slowly moved my thigh so we were close but no longer touching.

  Time for a change of subject. ‘I was sorry to hear about you and Misty.’

  ‘Were you? I thought you’d be pleased, as in overjoyed,’ said Tobey.

  Stung, I said, ‘Why? D’you think I’m so petty that I’d jump up and down with glee at the news of your break-up? Seriously?’

  Thanks a lot.

  ‘You did warn me that I was making a mistake.’ Tobey shrugged. ‘And more than once.’

  My cheeks burned. Not some of my finer moments. ‘I was wrong to do that. One of my many regrets when it comes to you – and us.’

  ‘Oh? What else d’you regret?’ Tobey asked quietly.

  I might have known he’d leap all over that one. No way was I going near it.

  ‘How’s your family?’ I asked.