Destiny sees it the moment I do. I try to hold her back, but when the guard walks away she struggles free from me.
How can this be happening?
I look up at the sky, but all that’s there is the cold white.
The day passes in frozen words and hunger. I don’t warm up. An empty window in the sewing room tunnels cold air into us and it freezes my fingers and numbs my brain. For the first time I’m actually pleased that Lilli has been taken to the other room, even though the younger children aren’t there with her and The Trads will have more chance to get to her. At least she’ll be warm.
She doesn’t come back for lunch and I hope they’re feeding her something better than what we get. When Destiny and I take our food outside I see Darren, standing right up to the fence that divides us, so I weave quickly through the women to get to him. But now I’m facing him I am shocked by how gaunt he looks.
‘Ruby,’ he says and his smile is still his own. ‘How are you all? How’s Mum?’
‘She’s fine.’ I see her walking over and Lilli has joined her now, so I know I haven’t much time. ‘But they’re still taking Lilli to that room and I don’t really know what they’re telling her or what she’s saying to them.’
‘What she’s saying to them?’
‘I know she wouldn’t do it on purpose.’
‘Darren,’ Lilli says, as she rushes up next to me and she looks so pleased to see him that I’m surprised she doesn’t scale the fence. I can tell Mum is trying not to cry as she touches her palm as close to Darren’s as she can get.
‘Ruby.’ It’s Destiny beside me. ‘Luke wants you.’ I look further along and he’s there and now he’s all I see. I push through the women until I’m facing him and I try to smile but my heart hurts so much.
‘Nice dress,’ he says.
‘I made it myself,’ I say, pulling the material to the side. ‘We’re working on your outfits now.’
Luke raises his eyebrows. ‘Lucky us.’ And I see his hunger and his sunken cheeks. There’s a sudden tension in his eyes as he bites his thumb. ‘We’ve heard rumours that they’re doing things to the women. The male guards are.’
‘No,’ I tell him. ‘There’s nothing like that.’ But how can I be sure?
Luke’s shoulders relax just slightly.
‘How’s Conor’s mum?’ he asks.
‘Not well,’ I say.
‘They managed to find each other,’ Luke tells me. ‘At the end of the fence.’
‘You’re going to have to stay with him later. I don’t know what he’ll do.’
Luke nods. ‘I drew you something.’
I feel desperate suddenly because the seconds are ticking by and I need to fill them with him. I want to touch him and have him hold me and I have to breathe so deeply to stop myself from screaming.
‘Ruby?’ Luke looks at me. ‘I’m going to drop this on the ground by the fence and then I’m going to walk away. If you want to you can pick it up. But only if you think it’s safe. Okay?’
‘I love you, Luke,’ I tell him and he smiles, his fingers moving silently in reply. He’s signing the words to our Prince song. I would die for you. I take each beat, each letter and hold them in a place where the guards can never find them.
Luke throws a piece of paper as close to the fence as he can get, before coughing shakes his body and he turns and walks away. I don’t even look for guards as I dart forwards, wriggle my hand through the fence until my fingers sweep the ground the other side. I grasp the paper, pull it back through and go to join Destiny so we can move into the crowd of women, becoming one of the grey mass again.
‘What is it?’ she asks.
I open it up. It’s the size of my palm, torn from his sketchbook. A pencil drawing of Luke and me when we had to stand together the whole night. His face is silhouetted against the white moon, mine against the black sky that’s dotted with stars. We’re there together. There’s no fence, no guards, no fear. Our hands are joined, our bodies so close that even light can’t shine between us.
‘That boy loves you, Ruby,’ Destiny says.
I fold my picture and put it in my pocket.
When I get home, I’ll put it on the wall of my room. And I’ll lie on my bed with Luke and I’ll kiss him beneath it.
We line up, our grey dresses doing nothing against the freezing cold. It slides its way beneath my skin, turning my blood to ice before it eats into my bones. We chant as we move forwards, slower than ever, before Destiny and I finally get to the front.
‘Number?’ the guard asks blankly.
‘276,’ I tell him.
‘Move on.’ I step away.
‘Number?’ I hear him ask Destiny.
She answers quietly, so that only he can hear. There’s a pause. I stop and look back to see the guard drumming his pen on his paper, a strange smirk on his face.
‘Sexuality?’ he asks her.
‘Excuse me?’ She looks him straight in the eyes, but I can see her panic too clear.
‘Do you like boys?’ he asks. ‘Or girls?’
How can they know anything about Destiny? Don’t answer, I silently beg her. But she stands tall. Just lie.
‘I like girls,’ she says.
The guard looks at her as though she’s infected.
‘Wait to the side,’ he tells her.
‘No,’ I say. ‘She’s with me.’
‘With you?’
‘She’s just my friend,’ I say. ‘But we’re staying together.’
‘No,’ the guard next to him says calmly, tapping his finger on the trigger of his rifle. ‘You’re not.’
‘I’m okay,’ Destiny tells me, yet her hands are shaking. I step forwards to hug her, but the guard blocks me.
‘I’m only protecting you,’ he sneers. ‘It might be catching.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with her,’ I say, anger spitting from me.
‘Leave it, Ruby,’ Destiny says, as the guard starts to pull me away.
‘I can walk on my own,’ I tell him, before I look back and see Destiny there, her hand over her mouth, her breathing fast. ‘Be the raven on the wire, Destiny,’ I shout, before I yank myself free from the guard and run. My feet pound the ground and I wait to hear a gunshot. Wait to feel the bright red pain piercing my back. But it doesn’t come.
I push past the women, knowing only Destiny standing terrified, the guard’s hand gripped on her shoulder. I run up the stairs and count the doors until I’m at our room. I burst in and the first thing I see is Aba. Somehow, she’s smiling. She’s with Mum and Lilli and Conor’s mum and they’re all laughing, the sound so wrong in the air.
They stop the moment they see me.
‘They’ve got Destiny,’ I say. Aba staggers to her feet.
‘What?’ she steps over women to get to me. ‘Where? What do you mean?’ The panic around her is fierce.
‘At roll call.’ My breathing is struggling.
‘Ruby.’ Aba shakes me. ‘Where’s Destiny? Where is she?’
‘They made her stand to the side.’
She runs down the corridor.
‘Aba,’ Mum calls to her, but she won’t stop. ‘Keep Lilli with you here,’ she tells Conor’s mum.
By the time I’m outside, Mum’s caught up with Aba. She’s trying to hold her, but Aba is kicking herself free.
‘Where’s my daughter?’ she screams.
‘Help me, Ruby,’ Mum says. And I have to grip Aba’s arms, cradle her head as the line of women still waiting for roll call stare at us. ‘Destiny will be all right,’ Mum struggles to say.
Two guards close to us stand with their legs far apart, watching as though we’re some form of entertainment.
‘What have you done with my daughter?’ Aba shouts at them, as we try to hold her. ‘No!’ she screams and she’s fighting against us.
I never thought I’d see her cry. Destiny’s proud, strong mum, who’s made of love and steel, is falling apart bit by bit in our arms.
‘I want her
back,’ she cries.
‘You’ll get her back,’ Mum says and we start to lead her towards the door, almost carrying her.
Suddenly Aba breaks free. She runs and we can’t catch her, a flame of anger burning across the ground. The guard looks shocked when she reaches him. He flinches, but stands firm.
‘Where is Destiny?’ she snarls. Now she’s the animal they want us to be.
But the guard just laughs.
I watch Destiny’s mum raise her arm.
‘No, Aba.’ Mum’s voice is a bullet through the air.
Everything slows as Destiny’s mum hits the guard. I see his mouth twist and his hand is on his gun and death walks from his face as he forces back the trigger.
Aba’s arms reach up and there’s blood, too much blood as she falls. We can’t get to her in time. She’s bleeding and my mind can’t make this real as I kneel next to her and Mum strokes her forehead and I hold her hand. Her breath is just a violent jolt and she stares at us and tries to speak.
But now she’s still. Everything is still.
Apart from my heart and my body that’s shaking.
‘Get up,’ I hear the guard shout. He must be talking to us. His voice is so close, yet it’s somewhere far behind the mountain.
The light goes from Destiny’s mum.
The light goes from our world.
I’m kicked in the side and I fall.
‘Now,’ the guard’s voice tells me. Mum is pulling me up.
‘We can’t leave her here,’ I say.
‘We have to,’ Mum says. And she pulls me away, back towards the building.
I glance at the crowd of men watching through the fence. And I see Darren, his hands raised to his head, as if he’s trying to tear from his mind what he’s seeing. But I know it’ll always be there. Aba’s blood will stain us forever.
Lilli stands in the doorway of the bedroom, Conor’s mum’s arm tight around her.
‘What happened?’ she asks.
Aba’s blood is on our hands. It soaks the front of Mum’s dress, sticking the material to her skin. Lilli stares at it. ‘They shot you?’ her words are too small, too simple.
‘No,’ Mum says. We step into the room. Women are sitting on the floor in silence, needing to know but not wanting to. It’s better that they have a world with Destiny’s mum still in it.
‘You’re bleeding,’ Lilli says.
‘No.’ Mum’s legs give way beneath her and she sinks to the floor. ‘They shot Aba,’ she whispers.
Conor’s mum opens her mouth, but there are no words there. How can there be? How can there be questions when there are no answers? No reason?
My whole body is trembling as I sit down. Lilli stays standing. She doesn’t move.
‘Where’s Destiny?’ she asks.
‘I don’t know,’ I say.
‘Did they kill her too?’
‘I don’t think so.’
But they’ve taken her. They’ve murdered her mother.
I lie down, my head on the bare floor. I hold Mum’s hand. Someone puts a blanket over us. And this is how we stay.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
‘With a total shutdown on anti-social behaviour, we will clean up our streets, we will clean up our nation.’ – John Andrews, leader of the Traditional Party
Mum wakes in the morning with Aba’s blood dried on her dress.
‘You need to change,’ Conor’s mum tells her. Mum nods.
Conor’s mum goes to talk to a guard and a new dress is passed through the door. Mum changes into it, but she won’t let go of the old one.
‘I want to keep it,’ she says.
‘You can’t,’ I try to tell her. But Aba’s soul is caught in the spread of blood.
‘I have to,’ Mum says defiantly. ‘When we get out, I’ll show people. It’s proof that it happened.’
‘You won’t need proof,’ I say. ‘People will believe us.’
‘Will they?’ She looks around, searching for someone she doesn’t find, before she folds the dress and puts it under her blanket.
We line up and drink from the shared glass of water. Today I hate it. It makes me feel sick. I have to force my throat open to swallow it.
Lilli and I are in the line in front of Mum. We shuffle forwards, our hands so tight in each other’s.
‘How did they know Destiny was gay?’ Lilli asks me quietly. ‘Who else knew apart from us?’
‘Did you tell anyone?’ I hate doubting her, but it’s still there, nagging at me.
‘No.’
‘If there’s someone spying, they could have overheard her,’ I say.
Any of these strangers around us could be Trads. But would they really starve themselves along with us, for bits of conversations that might mean nothing?
‘We can’t trust anyone,’ I tell Lilli, as we move closer to the front. ‘You mustn’t speak to anyone but us.’
We eat bread. And then we sew.
We line up.
We give our numbers.
We clean.
And we sleep.
In the morning it’s difficult to wake Conor’s mum. When she opens her eyes, I see how the whites have crept yellow. Her skin looks thin enough to tear.
‘You have to get up,’ I tell her. ‘It’s breakfast.’
‘I can’t,’ she says.
‘You can. You have to.’
She lets me and Mum lift her and even though she’s so light I don’t know where I get my own strength from. Thirst has taken off the coating of my mouth and replaced it with sand. My swollen tongue licks it, needing water. It’s like torture, imagining a tap turning on, the drip, drip of it.
It’s not long before I’m in the queue and given the glass and I can drink. The relief blinds everything else for these few seconds, as it slides cold down my throat.
We stand in line.
‘Why is this happening?’ Lilli asks, more to herself than to me. Her blood nestles in the cracked skin on her lips and I feel useless that I can’t heal them for her.
We move forwards until I have bread in my hands and I want to eat it, but it hurts to swallow. I don’t know if it’s something real or imaginary that’s blocking my throat.
And we’re outside in the bitter cold. The sun is there, but it doesn’t reach us. It’s turned its back on the camp and lets the blistering blue sky pierce us with ice.
‘Number?’ the guard asks me when it’s my turn.
‘276,’ I reply. He looks up, bored.
‘You’re to go to the general’s office.’ It’s been days since I’ve been there and I thought maybe the general didn’t want to see me again. I say a silent thank you to Zoe as I start to move away in the direction I’m meant to go. ‘Wait.’ He grabs my arm enough to hurt. ‘You’ll be escorted.’
As we walk, I scratch through the reserves of my energy but there’s nothing there. Every movement of mine is slow. My eyes see through the window as we go down the corridor. Outside, there are piles of men working, digging trenches, but I can’t see Luke or Darren.
‘What are they doing?’ I ask the guard who leads me.
‘A new shower block,’ she says, pulling me towards the cleaning cupboard.
How will I work when I can hardly stand up? I’m kneeling down to pick up the bucket when she turns to talk to someone in the corridor. I can rest, just for a moment.
‘They’re bloody barbarians the lot of them.’ It’s a man speaking, his voice chiselled from fine china. The guard laughs and she’s no longer watching me. She’s now simply a woman flirting with a man. ‘The sooner we get rid of them all the better.’
I walk out of the cupboard and it’s Stan standing close enough to touch her. I look around him for the man who was speaking but there’s no one else here.
‘Stan?’
He looks so shocked and I’m worried that by saying his name I’ve got him into trouble.
‘Ruby,’ he says, but it’s not his voice, not Stan’s.
‘What’s wrong?’ I whisper. �
�What’s happened?’
I don’t blink, waiting for some sort of sign from him. But he just does a stranger’s laugh.
‘I suppose you were bound to find out sooner or later.’ There’s no trace of Stan’s voice that I know.
‘Find out what?’ My mind is knotted. Nothing is making sense.
‘I’m a Traditional.’
‘You can’t be,’ I say.
‘Can’t I?’
And I see it, there in his sneering eyes, that he’s telling the truth. The flint of his betrayal rubs against my heart, striking it again and again until sparks of anger appear.
‘You tricked us,’ I whisper. ‘You bastard.’
But I’m just the dirt on his shoes, the dust in his eye.
‘A vulgar Core,’ he says to me. ‘You’re nothing more, nothing less.’
‘I am more,’ I say, standing straight. ‘I am so much more, as we all are.’
‘I haven’t got time to waste on you,’ he says, turning his back to walk away.
‘I’ll tell the men on your side of the fence,’ I say. ‘I’ll find a way.’
He stops and looks at me. ‘If you do,’ he says calmly, ‘if even one person finds out who I am, I shall have your mother shot. And I’ll line up Luke next to her, for good measure.’ He tips his head to one side, twists his moustache. ‘And you wouldn’t like that would you, dear little Ruby? Especially when your sweet gay friend has already been taken away.’
Destiny. It was never Lilli. It was me who told Stan.
I can hear my breathing, as biting pains start in my stomach and find their way to my chest. But he just laughs and touches the guard gently on her shoulder, before he finally walks away. I watch the gap he leaves behind. The empty space. Stan doesn’t exist, he never did and he never will. Whoever this man is took our trust and crushed it. He took Destiny.
‘You really are stupid, aren’t you?’ the guard beside me says. It takes every part of me to ignore her as I walk towards the general’s office. I wait for the guard to catch up with me, before she knocks on the door.
‘Enter,’ the general says.
The guard steps in before me. ‘Number 276 to see you, sir.’
‘Ah,’ the general says and I step inside and close the door in the guard’s face.
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