by Kate Blair
This time, when I enter the Barbican, coughing, no one gives me a second glance. My disease makes me blend in. People still don’t want to get close, but at least here they don’t look at me like I’m something they’ve scraped off their shoe. I even get a couple of sympathetic smiles as I stumble through the gray labyrinth. A black woman with neat cornrows pauses as I pass and reaches into her bag. I tense, but she pulls out a tissue and offers it to me. I fight back the tears as I thank her.
I know my way to Galen’s place now. I glide through the crowds like I belong here.
I pause outside Shakespeare Tower. The glass has gone completely and the foyer is empty. Above, two neighbors chat over their balconies, their laughter floating down to me.
I head inside, and pull the stairwell door open. The climb up to Galen’s flat nearly kills me. I have to stop at the top of each flight as I’m coughing too hard. I sit down, picking the cleanest bit of floor I can find.
But eventually I make it to the 29th floor. I knock on the door and no sound comes from inside. I hope Galen isn’t out and I’ve wasted a journey.
I knock again, the sound echoing through my aching head, and this time I do hear a noise.
When he opens the door, I practically fall into his arms.
“Talia,” he says, reaching out to steady me. “Are you okay?”
I try to reply, but all that comes out is a hacking cough.
“You’ve come for medicine?” Galen asks.
I shake my head as he leads me into the sitting room of the first flat. He gestures to the couch and I collapse on it.
“What is it, Talia?”
More coughs wrack through me.
“Rest. Get your breath back. I’ll put on the kettle.” He heads into the kitchen.
“Thanks,” I croak, as soon as my coughing subsides. “And thanks for the flowers. They … they meant a lot to me.”
While he’s filling the kettle, he looks back up at me. “You shouldn’t be out. They won’t treat any complications you end up with.”
I don’t reply. My voice isn’t strong enough to carry to the kitchen. I wait until he returns.
“I had to warn you while I had the chance.” My voice breaks as he heads across the room. “My father is planning … a raid on the Barbican, with the army, as soon as he’s PM.”
Galen freezes, mid-step. His eyes move to the bookcase. “Do you think they’d find …”
He doesn’t need to finish the sentence. “They’re planning to search for drugs and weapons. Every inch.” I’m getting my breath back, but my words are fainter. I shouldn’t be using my voice this much.
Eyes still focused on the bookcase, Galen combs his fingers through his short hair.
“You need to get out. Stay somewhere else,” I croak.
He shakes his head slowly. “We have nowhere to go. You’ve no idea what this means. There are loads of us. Loads of people they call ‘illegal’ in here. We’d all be screwed.”
“I’ve tried to talk to Dad. He won’t change his mind.”
“This place is all we have. They’ve taken everything else. They can’t have this. No.”
“I could take out some of my savings. Pay for a hotel for a few weeks.”
“And what, be homeless after that? I need to speak to some people. We can’t let them do this.”
“You can’t! You can’t tell anyone!”
Galen turns to me. “You knew it would ruin our lives, and you couldn’t let that happen to your friends, right?”
I nod.
“How can I let that happen to my friends? My neighbors?”
My head pounds. “You can’t tell the … others here,” I say.
Galen raises an eyebrow. “The criminals, you mean? Like you, me, and Tig?”
I shake my head. “I got attacked here … remember? You said there were no-hopers and addicts here yourself when we first met.”
“When you lied so you could steal my sister away from me?”
“I was trying to help.” It takes effort to make myself heard.
“And you thought I was a no-hoper then too, right?”
“I … you seemed helpful.”
Galen throws his hands up. “That’s how it is to you, right? The good guys and the bad guys. Splitting the world in two, like a bloody film.”
“No …,” I say, but he cuts me off.
“You’d have been happy getting us out of here and leaving all the other families to go through hell.”
I want to say something, but he’s right. I hadn’t thought beyond warning Tig and Galen.
“I thought you were okay, Talia, but you don’t understand anything. You’d better leave. You shouldn’t be out of bed.”
“I …”
He shakes his head. “Get a taxi home. Rest.”
What can I do? I want to argue with him, want to tell him what I went through to get here. But I have no voice left, and I’m exhausted. I stand up, still feeling weak, and head out of the flat. Galen shuts the door behind me.
Have I made a big mistake?
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
PENTHOUSE FLAT, BANKSIDE, LONDON
SEVEN DAYS LEFT
MY TRIP OUT DOESN’T take too much of a toll on my recovery. But I spend a lot of the next two days sleeping. It’s easier now. My nose isn’t running so much, and when I cough it’s not unstoppable. Alison moves in on the third day.
It’s hard to avoid her. I hate seeing her in my home, hate how she’s already treating it like her own, leaving dirty dishes in the sink. She keeps checking in on me, always asking if I need anything. She works in the dining room, constantly on the phone, and there’s nowhere on the main floor where I can get some privacy. But I’m not going to be chased out of my own sitting room. So I ignore her, even when she brings food, and puts it in front of me. Or asks me how I am.
Her phone buzzes constantly. So when it does for the millionth time, I don’t even notice until she swears.
“I see. Have we put out a statement yet?” Another pause. “Okay. And which channel?”
To my horror, she comes into the sitting room, phone pressed to her ear.
“Sorry, Talia,” she says, and she reaches for the remote control. She stops my film and switches over. “Okay, yes. Of course. I’ll make sure I’m caught up.” She hangs up, sits on the couch and points at the news onscreen.
“Something’s going on at the Barbican.”
I jolt up in my seat. “What?”
“Let’s see.”
It’s hard to tell what’s happening at first. There’s text scrolling below an image. Something about barricades. The camera is zooming in on London Wall, the entrance to the Barbican I used the first time I went there. It’s pouring with rain and the passageway has been blocked with furniture, boxes, bags of rubbish.
“… lawlessness.” The voice of the newsreader says. “Reports have been coming in of roaming gangs, breaking into flats, committing brutal assaults and burglaries. Can you tell us any more, Andrew?”
A reporter is cowering under an umbrella and trying to talk to people on the other side of the barricade. A black guy with a barbed wire tattoo up his neck is sitting astride a table at the very top.
It’s one of the thugs who attacked me in the foyer of Shakespeare Tower.
“If it’s a war they want, we’ll give them one! Bring it on, pigs!”
He beats on his chest and whoops.
I stare at the screen. “What’s going on?”
“Piers thinks they know about the raid.” Alison points at the guy. “The criminals have barricaded themselves in.”
My stomach clenches. “Does … does Piers know how they found out?”
“Didn’t ask him. But there are a lot of people involved in the planning.” Her brow furrows. “Talia, did you tell someone about the raid?” She sounds as if she is speaking to a child.
I ignore her, and focus on the screen. The camera zooms in on the guy who attacked me as he carries on ranting in the rain. “We’ll d
efend this place to the death!”
“Talia?”
He’s holding up a broken bottle, and the camera focuses on it. Something catches my eye. Something on his wrist. A handmade black, white, and blue friendship bracelet.
The anchor said that gangs are breaking into flats. Attacking people, robbing them.
I feel sick.
“Talia, do you know anything about this?”
Tig made that. I’d recognize it anywhere. Did he hurt them when he broke in? Did he steal it from Galen’s wrist?
“Talia! Answer me!”
I stand up. The vision of Galen and Tig, lying in a pool of blood, like Mum and Rebecca, sears through my mind. This is my fault. The barricades. The attacks.
I thought I was some kind of a savior to her. To them. But I’ve ruined their lives.
In a trance, I head out of the room.
“Where are you going, Talia?”
“Upstairs,” I say.
“Come back here. We need to discuss this. Did you tell someone about the raid?”
I pause. The stairs are to my right, the front door ahead of me. On impulse, I swing the door open, and run outside. I slam it behind me. Thank goodness the lift is right here. I run into it and hit the door-close button.
“Talia!” A muffled shout comes through the front door, followed by the click of the latches. But the lift doors are already closing and I start descending.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
SOUTHWARK BRIDGE, LONDON
FOUR DAYS LEFT
SECONDS LATER, I’M OUT on the street. I’m not wearing a coat. The rain soaks through my red jumper, sticking the wet fabric to my skin. The water runs off my hair, down my face, and over my arms, clutched tightly around me.
Alison can’t be far behind. I dash down the stairs at the side of Southwark Bridge and into the pedestrian tunnel underneath. At least there’s some shelter from the rain here and she won’t know which way I’ve gone.
As soon as I’m in the tunnel, I lean my hands on my knees, coughing. I’ve been so stupid.
Yes, Galen and Tig could be hurt, or worse. They’ll need help, and the police aren’t getting into the Barbican. But I shouldn’t have acted on impulse. I should have planned my escape, put on a disguise. Brought mace, and possibly a weapon. But if I go home now, I’ll never have another chance to get to the Barbican. Alison won’t let me out of her sight after this.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
I’d better get moving, in case she looks here. I head through the tunnel, and out the other side, into the rain falling on the banks of the Thames. It’s not far to the Barbican, even this way. I can cross at London Bridge and double back along London Wall.
But it takes me longer than I’d thought, and my phone buzzes in my pocket several times on the way. The first three times, the caller display says “Alison.” The fourth time, it reads “Dad.”
I am in so much trouble.
I’m weak, and by the time I reach London Wall, I still don’t have a plan. I lean against the side of a building, and ignore the stares as I wipe at my nose and struggle to stop coughing. It’s getting dark.
Above me, through the rain, loom the towers of the Barbican.
I peer down London Wall. The flashing lights of police cars illuminate high barricades of junk. Media vans and reporters huddle on the other side of the road, filming from under umbrellas. But there are walkways that run into the Barbican all around here. I take a few steps and peer down Fore Street. Only two people guard the nearest barricade.
That makes sense. The narrow walkways and steep stairs here only allow single file entry. And the steps are overlooked on all sides by the estate. It would be a deathtrap for police trying to fight their way into the Barbican.
But maybe a single person could talk their way in.
I head down Fore Street, coughing. A heap of furniture and rubbish bags blocks the bottom of the nearest stairs, with another at the top. Two teenage girls are sitting on the walls above the entrance, ragged umbrellas over their heads. The sound of their laughter reaches me over the constant drumming of the rain.
“Hey,” I shout, shielding my eyes from the water pouring down. “Can I come in?”
One of them leans over, bleached blond hair swinging from a wet ponytail. “You want to come in? Why?”
“I need to speak to Galen. Do you know him?”
The purple-haired girl examines me for a long time. Her gaze goes down to my soaking clothes and back up. I cough a bit more, deliberately this time.
The blonde smiles. “You know Galen?”
“He’s a friend.” Well, the closest thing I have to a friend right now, anyway.
The purple-haired girl is still staring. “Only the pigs want to get in here.”
The blonde laughs. “Yeah, she’s a one-girl SWAT team. Stop being so paranoid, Kaylee. Come on up, then.”
My shoulders relax. Thank goodness.
I grab on to a chair sticking out of the barricade at eye level and find footholds among the rubbish. I heave myself up, over the wet furniture, table legs jabbing me in the stomach. I pause to cough on the other side before climbing the steps, then struggle over the second barricade and into the fortress the Barbican has become.
I wipe the water from my face as I orient myself and look through the confusing mess of buildings for the middle of the three big towers: Shakespeare Tower.
“Thanks,” I say to the girls as I pass.
The purple-haired girl tilts her head. “Do I know you? You look familiar.”
My stomach clenches. “Probably from around.” I try to keep my voice light. “See ya!” Then I dash off before she has a chance to work out why she recognizes me.
It’s eerily quiet in the city in the city, and getting dark. The only people are clustered around the barricades. There are small fires lit in barrels here and there, and the sound of music carries, even though the rain. A woman with a guitar is lit by the flickering flames of the nearest fire, mouth open in song. It feels peaceful on this side. Friendly even, compared to what the news was reporting.
But it was dangerous how close I came to being identified, stupid to come here at all. What was I thinking? I keep my head down, and I soon wend my way under the buildings and along the walkways to Shakespeare Tower.
The foyer is empty, but I creep to the stairwell, and drag myself up the stairs. My shoes squelch, and I try not to cough. I don’t want to attract attention.
I’m catching my breath on the 28th floor when a door opens above. There’s footsteps, and laughter. I lean out and see a blue Mohawk.
I freeze.
It’s the guy who attacked me in the lobby. I duck through the nearest door, and into the hallway of the 28th floor. I pull the door almost closed behind me and peer through the gap as he comes down the stairs.
He’s followed by the guy with the neck tattoo, still wearing Tig’s bracelet, and the third one who I fought off that day. My heart drums on my ribcage. Why are they there? To finish the job? Am I too late?
The second they’ve gone by, I slip out of the door and up the last flight of stairs. I burst into the hallway on the 29th floor and hammer on the door. There’s a footfall in the corridor, then Galen’s voice.
“Guys, what did you forget this time?” When he opens the door, there’s a grin on his face. It fades into confusion as he sees me, dripping wet.
“You know those men?” I say, gasping for breath.
“Are you okay?” he asks. “Where’s your coat? How did you get in? What are you doing here?”
“What were they doing here?” I demand. “Those are the thugs who attacked me!”
Galen grabs my arm and pulls me inside. He checks the hallway and shuts the door behind me. “I’ll get a towel.”
I push through and walk to the sitting room, where I start pacing as he heads into the bathroom, comes back with a towel, and holds it out. I ignore it.
“They’re your friends?” I feel like he’s punched me in the gut.
“I saw one of them wearing Tig’s bracelet on the news, and I thought he’d stolen it. I thought you’d been hurt, or killed!”
“She gave it to Reece. He and Gazzer are like brothers to her. Look after her a lot when I’m out helping people.”
My mouth opens and closes. “But they attacked me!”
He takes a deep breath. “You weren’t meant to get hurt.”
I’m shivering. I just stare at him.
He turns away. “After Tig escaped from the home, I thought you might come back, or send someone. So I asked the guys to keep an eye out. Scare off anyone who didn’t belong.” He looks me in the eye. “No one was meant to get hurt.”
I hold up my palm, show him the scar. “Well, in case your memory is fuzzy on that, I did.”
Galen shrugs. “I was protecting Tig. Keeping her out of that bloody home.”
A wash of guilt sweeps over me.
“Did you ….” I take a deep breath. “Did you do this? Did you tell people to start the barricades?”
Galen slumps down on the sofa. “I didn’t know it would end up like this.”
“So all of this is your fault.”
“I guess.”
I shouldn’t have trusted him. I launch myself toward him. I’m slapping and scratching and he’s batting away my hands. He grabs hold of my wrists and stops me. I’m panting, shaking with anger. Another cough wracks through me.
He lets go and I step back.
“We have a right to defend ourselves,” he says. “But it got out of hand.”
“Out of hand? You know there’s going to be a war, right?” I breathe in fast. “You’ve made them more determined to send the army in.”
Galen hangs his head.
“That’s it. This is your problem. I’m leaving.”