“Come on now, sweetheart, stop playing games,” the man said, reeling me in like a fish on a fishing rod.
I struggled against him, shaking out my foot. He reached to grab the other ankle but I swung back and kicked him straight in the face, putting every bit of weight behind it. He fell back, clutching at his nose and I ran away for the second time.
“Oh no you don’t.” The man got to his feet to chase me and I knew I couldn’t outrun him – I was too exhausted. Then, just as the man reached out to touch my shoulder there was a splintering noise and a thud. A bottle smashed over his head and the man slumped to the floor unconscious. Daniel stood before me, fury in his eyes.
“Come on,” he said, grabbing me roughly by the arm.
He almost dragged me through the huts. My feet tripped as I followed and the world around me became a blur. Eventually Daniel lifted my arm over his shoulder and put the other around my waist, half carrying and half dragging me. When we got back to Angela she took my other arm and carried me. All I could think as we moved was that Daniel was angry with me and I’d messed things up. I’d gone after my dad and nearly got us all in trouble.
“Angry,” I mumbled. “Angry… at me?”
Daniel turned his head to me, our noses almost touching. “Why would I be angry at you? You just saved us! I’m angry, no, furious, that I let that man touch you.”
“Let?” I mumbled again, my lips only just able to move.
“I should have been with you. I shouldn’t have let you run off like that.”
“My fault,” I said.
Daniel shook his head but didn’t say anything more. Instead the two of them focussed their energies on getting me back to Angela’s. I drifted in and out of consciousness, each time opening my eyes to something that looked more like home. Finally I opened my eyes to find myself laid out on a sofa.
“Are you feeling better?” Angela asked, bringing me a milky tea.
“I could have taken that sleaze if I’d been at full strength,” I muttered. I still smelled his breath and when I closed my eyes I saw his rotten teeth. I shivered. It would take days to rid myself of the filth of the Slums.
She grinned. “I’ll take that as a yes! I’m glad you’re okay.”
I laughed. “I guess I’m as okay as you can be. I mean, you know, on a day when you go into the Slums and then find out your dad is secretly plotting with the same Resistance who got your mum killed. And you get attacked by a greasy weirdo.”
17
The next morning I woke to the sound of Theresa banging pots and pans in the kitchen below Angela’s room. I pulled myself out of the makeshift floor bed and rubbed sleep from my eyes, the night in the Slums now more like a bad dream.
“Mum’s cooking,” Angela said, leaning over the bed and smiling down at me. “She must be feeling better today. I can hardly believe what we did last night. It was mad!” She paused. “Hey, you never said where your dad went. Was it the…?”
“No,” I said sleepily. I still felt exhausted. “No, he didn’t. He went into a warehouse. I think it was the Resistance meeting.”
Angela’s eyes widened. “Wow, really? What was it like? Did they have guns?”
“No,” I answered. “It was––”
“––disappointing?”
I looked up. Daniel stood in the doorway in his pyjama bottoms and no top. I pulled a blanket around me, even though I was in a long nightgown, and tried not to stare. But I couldn’t pull my eyes away. The woodwork had made his muscles strong, his chest broad. He looked like a man, not a boy just one year older than me. Daniel noticed my expression and smirked. I forced my eyes to the ground.
“Yeah,” I said, staring at the floor. “You thought so too?”
“It looked disorganised, like a rebellion in tatters,” he said. “I thought about joining when I went. But what I saw wasn’t worth joining. Did you hear anything?”
“I overhead my dad.” I fumbled with the blanket between my fingers. “He was talking to this man in a leather jacket, someone I’ve never seen before. They kept talking about time, and whether things were ready. They mentioned a boy and said ‘she’s not ready yet.’ That’s all I heard.”
“Do you think they were talking about you, Mina?” Angela asked.
“I don’t know. And I don’t know what they meant about the boy either.” I didn’t say that I suspected they had been talking about Daniel. What it all added up to, though, I couldn’t guess. “I know Dad wants me to start training on my power today.” I shrugged. “Maybe it’s linked.” Talking about everything just made me feel even more tired and worn out. I decided to change the subject. “What are those Slums, Daniel? Why haven’t any of those people been marked Blemished?”
Daniel shook his head. “They live outside society. They… serve a purpose for adults.”
“You mean men who want to get drunk and see women?”
“Yes.” He swallowed dryly. “Like I said, the Enforcers turn a blind eye because it suits them too. The only thing they do is monitor the violence and take away new born babies.”
“But there were children there, teenagers like us,” Angela said.
Daniel didn’t answer; instead he looked down at his toes. I shivered. “I’m never going there again,” I said.
“I should never have taken you.” His voice sounded wracked with guilt. “I’m sorry. I should have told you how pathetic the Resistance is.” He kicked at the carpet. “I guess I was just showing off.”
I watched him, noting how in a flash he could turn from confident to vulnerable again. It made me want to give him a hug. “It’s okay. We wanted to see it. We want to see what the world is like for ourselves,” I finally met his eyes. “Thank you for letting us make that decision.”
Daniel looked at me in surprise. It was the first time I became aware of how beautiful he was, not GEM beautiful, his eyes were too big in proportion to his lips and there were large pores across his nose. But there was something about him that over the weeks I’d grown to really… well… like. I blushed and look away, Sebastian’s face popped into my mind and I was aware of my cheeks growing even more coloured with the guilt and shame of my feelings.
“Breakfast, children!” Theresa’s voice called from the bottom of the stairs. She sounded cheerful and happy and we all piled down for scrambled eggs and bacon. My feelings were soon forgotten and instead we all enjoyed a rare moment where Theresa looked after us all.
*
After breakfast I made my way home. The food had replenished the lost energy from using my powers but I could not take away niggling nerves tickling at my stomach. In the Slums, when Angela asked me what I planned to say to my dad, it made me think about whether I really was going to confront him.
I waved goodbye to Angela, Daniel and Theresa through their kitchen window and stepped into the early morning sunshine. The cold weather of winter was finally turning into a warmer spring and bright sunlight and clear sky put some extra bounce in my step. But that didn’t mean that I wanted to go home straight away. When it came to the turning towards my road I walked in the opposite direction towards the fields. Impulsively, I ripped away my headscarf and let the breeze take my hair. At the edge of the field I closed my eyes against the wind, enjoying how it felt against my skin. I relaxed there for a few minutes when I heard my name being called.
“Mina!” shouted a man’s voice from somewhere in the field. “It’s me, Sebastian!”
I smiled and hopped over a stile in the wall. Sebastian had on his jogging clothes. In one hand he held his Plan-It but slotted it into the pocket of his shorts as I approached.
“Jogging?” I asked.
“Yeah.” He smiled up at the sky. “It’s a beautiful morning for it.”
I could tell from the sheen of sweat on Sebastian’s skin that he had been working out for a while. He spoke between long breaths with his hand on his hips and the sun behind him, lighting him up like a halo.
“I know, I’m meant to be going home but I
couldn’t resist a walk.” The wind whipped up my hair and I pushed a few strands behind my ears. It didn’t seem worth it to replace my headscarf but I cautiously looked around for people. “Do you jog in the morning and night, then?”
He laughed. “I’m not stalking you, I promise. I guess we both just like to be outdoors.”
We walked together through the straggly weeds. “I really do like the outdoors. In Area 10, where I grew up, the ghettos backed out into this forest. It was beautiful in the mornings with the sun glinting through the branches. I used to go for a run before breakfast. It felt nice, you know, to be undercover like that, where you can just be yourself. Everywhere in Area 14 seems so… exposed. This field, the school, the town – there isn’t anywhere to hide.”
“What do you want to hide from?” he asked.
I paused, realising I’d said too much. “I don’t want to hide… I mean I just like privacy. You know?”
He laughed. It was a lovely musical laugh. “And I keep getting in the way of your privacy.”
“Oh! No, I didn’t mean…” I laughed too. “Sorry, that’s not what I meant.” I fiddled with my headscarf in my hands, wanting the ground to swallow me whole. My cheeks flushed. Why was I such an idiot?
“It’s okay, I know what you meant. I was just teasing you. And I know exactly how you feel, except for me it was kind of the opposite growing up.”
“Oh yeah?” I said, encouraging him. I wanted to know more.
“My family lived in London before we moved here and in London you are never alone. There aren’t any fields or forests anymore, just streets and shops and shopping centres and buildings everywhere. The streets are full of people, and the tube is crammed with even more people, so vast that you just get lost. You become nothing but a face in the crowd.” He turned to me and smiled. “That’s how it’s opposite to you.” He paused. “You know I’m jealous?”
“Of what?” I said.
“Of you! Of your running through a forest like that. I would love to do something that cool. That’s why I love the field here.”
I had never thought about it like that. I thought back to the night before in the Slums with all those people crammed into the tiny shelters. Then I remembered something else, something that I wanted to ask Sebastian. “Hey, you grew up in London, right?”
“Yup.” He grinned.
“Do you really have big film-stars there? Do they make all those films and stuff that they say they do?”
“Well, I wasn’t expecting that question,” he said with a laugh. “When I was a young boy, I remembered lots of fancy processions on the street. There would be men announcing winners over the Tannoys and people cheered. There were films. We watched them on the screens. And then there were loads of soaps, which my mum got completely addicted to. She used to cry when it finished.” He laughed, but it wasn’t his usual laugh, there was a bitter edge to it. “Eventually it just became competitions.”
“I knew it,” I muttered.
“What?”
“Oh, nothing.” I smiled. “Actually, that wasn’t my real question.” I admitted.
“Somehow I didn’t think it would be.” He flashed me a smile, white teeth aglow.
“What you said about your dad… And Elena not hurting me anymore.”
“I was expecting that question,” he said with his smile growing wider. “And I wish I could tell you more.” His Plan-It beeped from his pocket. He took it out, a small white rectangle, and pressed some buttons. I looked closely and saw the tiniest speck of something flash across his eyes and he frowned. “Mina, I am sorry. All I can say is that you are not ready yet.” He put his hand on my arm. “And you have the most beautiful hair I’ve ever seen.” My body tingled. “But I have to go.”
He turned to leave and my eyes instinctively followed him. I just wanted to talk to him more, get to know him. There was something about Sebastian that made me want to be around him. But then there was something about Daniel too, and I found that I couldn’t be around one of them without thinking about the other.
“Stupid, stupid girl,” I chastised myself.
“What did you say?” Sebastian asked, turning back.
“Oh, nothing,” I replied, mortified.
“Okay,” he said. I watched him begin to walk away but then stop and turned sharply on his heel. “Why don’t we get coffee tomorrow?”
I nodded. I shouldn’t have, but I did. He told me a time and a place and assured me it was safe before leaving me with yet more unanswered questions.
18
“Concentrate on the pencil again, Mina,” Dad said, pacing the basement. “After we’ve done this I’ll teach you how to box.”
“What do you know about boxing?” I scorned.
“You’d be surprised,” he said with an infuriating smile. “I used to be rather good at it when I was your age. Your Grandfather put me forward for a few amateur fights.”
“Something else I didn’t know about you,” I mumbled into my tunic sleeve. I was sat cross legged on the floor of the basement with the pencil inches from my knees.
“What did you say?”
“Oh! Nothing,” I replied. Instead I let the anger of my dad’s lies take over. The pencil flew into the air, hovering a few feet above my head.
“That’s it! Good!” Dad exclaimed. “No, direct it. Make it float towards the wall. You have to concentrate hard now, imagine it moving. You need to visualise it.”
I concentrated hard on the pencil, imagining it moving towards the wall. I memorised the room and closed my eyes, focussing on the picture in my head, seeing the pencil fly through the air like a paper aeroplane.
“You’re doing it!” Dad clapped his hands together. “Mina, that is really quite incredible.”
I opened my eyes and the pencil dropped to the floor. “Didn’t quite make it to the wall,” I said.
“No, but you were focussed and you directed it. Do you know what that means?”
I shook my head.
“It means that you are beginning to control your gift. And that makes you even more powerful.”
I didn’t feel powerful. Not after standing back and watching Emily taken away. Not after collapsing in the Slums. Not after stupidly agreeing to meet a GEM when I shouldn’t even talk to him. I felt weak.
“I have to say,” he continued as he removed boxing gloves from a high shelf. He groaned slightly as he reached, reminding me of his age, “you are much more accomplished at this than I thought you were going to be. Have you been using your power?”
I didn’t answer and instead looked at the floor.
“I won’t be mad, Mina. As long as you are careful.”
“I used to practice in the woods,” I admitted. “But I was not very good and most of the time it didn’t even work.” It was all true, I just left out the parts from school and in the Slums – well if he could miss out vital bits of information I could too.
“Whatever you did has laid the groundwork for our training very well.” He tossed me the boxing gloves. “Now, let’s have a go at boxing. I think you will enjoy it very much.”
I pulled the gloves on unenthusiastically and made my way over to the punch bag. “What do I do?” I said with a sneer. “Just hit it? Doesn’t seem to need much skill.”
Dad raised his finger as though I had prompted an interesting point. I imagined him doing this to his students and wondered if they’d found it as tempting to test out a pair of boxing gloves on his chin.
“Punching a bag – maybe. But! Becoming a boxer does require skill. Going against an opponent takes up not just physical strength but mental strength too. Now, first we’re going to start with the punching. Bend your elbow, yes… that’s right. A little more… now move your arm away from your torso…”
I punched the bag as hard as I could, Dad, holding the bag from the other side, was almost knocked over. “How was that?” I asked cockily.
He sighed. “Is there something the matter, Mina?”
My cheeks red
dened. I wasn’t ready to confront him yet. “No. Nothing.”
“You’ve been sullen ever since you came home from Angela’s. Did you have a falling out?” He looked at me with such concern that I felt my bravado slip.
“No,” I said. I sighed and relented. “Now, teach me how to be a boxer.”
*
I trained with my dad all weekend. Despite everything that happened in the Slums I really enjoyed boxing and I enjoyed his company even more. It was for that reason why I didn’t mention the Resistance meeting. Soon it was Sunday afternoon and all I could think about was Sebastian. I’d memorised the time and place and I told Dad I was meeting Angela – I no longer felt guilty about lying to him.
He’d told me the address of a small coffee shop in the centre of town and I approached cautiously. Blemished were not banned from the affluent areas of our small town centre but most of us stuck to the market to buy and sell from our own people where we were comfortable. We rarely went into GEM owned shops, like the Café Sebastian directed me to.
It sat between a butchers and a delicatessen. It was small and quaint and Sebastian sat in the window, smiling, which relaxed me. I opened the door tentatively and went inside. The teller behind the counter stared at me and I froze bracing myself for abuse, or derision and scorn, or all three, but instead he simply smiled.
He turned to Sebastian and raised his eyebrows. “Back room?”
“No, we’re fine here,” Sebastian answered firmly. Then he turned to me. “What would you like to drink? Do you want to sit down?”
“I don’t know, and yes,” I said. I smiled and tried to move nonchalantly over to a chair as though I went to Cafés all the time. Instead I tripped on my tunic and Sebastian stood to help me sit. I settled in the chair and glanced around, looking for people staring. The Café was empty. “You choose for me.”
Sebastian smiled and turned to leave but I stopped him by putting my hand on his arm – a bold move for a Blemished girl. I immediately regretted it and pulled away but Sebastian didn’t seem to notice. “Why did he ask if we wanted to go into the back?”
The Blemished (Blemished Series) Page 9