Authors: Teri Terry
Tags: #Juvenile Fiction, #Mysteries & Detective Stories, #Action & Adventure, #General
Fractured (34 page)
Bzzzz…bzzzz…
What do I do? I swallow. Better to know…
I fish it out of the bottom of the drawer where it lay hidden and forgotten all this time, and push the button.
‘What?’
‘Hello, Rain,’ a voice says, one I can never forget: Nico.
‘That isn’t my name. Not any more.’
‘A rose by any name would smell as sweet…’
‘Cut the bull. I remember you killed my father.’
‘Ah. Was that the reason for the treachery, Rain?’ His voice is cold. ‘No matter. We can begin again! All will be forgotten.’
‘Never. Anyhow, the Lorders had my Levo removed, so I’m of no use to you now, Nico. Come up with another plan.’
I switch it off before he can reply, trembling. Will he accept my word, move on? Just let it go?
Not the Nico I know and hate.
And then I can’t stand having anything of him, here, in my room, in this house, for even a second longer. I rush to the open window and chuck the com out as far as I can. Once it leaves my hand I realise I’ll have to find and destroy it another time. Stupid. I watch as it glints in the early light, arcs partway across the lawn. Rests near the oak tree.
I shut the window, turn back to bed, and—
BANG!
A wave of sound and something else pushes me across the room. I fall on the floor. Winded. Pain. I groan. Pull myself up, realise I’m covered in glass. Broken glass from the window. Stunned, confused. Smoke billows in, and I cough. What is happening?
I stagger to the window. The tree is on fire. What is left of it.
The same tree Nico’s com rested near seconds earlier.
I stare, disbelieving. The com didn’t double as a tracker, but as a bomb?
The shock of realisation nearly knocks me from my feet. Nico insisting I couldn’t let him down, then his anger that I wasn’t at the second ceremony at Chequers. An outdoor ceremony, so no signal block like there would have been in the house. A ceremony where I would have been standing next to my family, and the current Lorder Prime Minister. The great and the good all around, as Cam called them. Nico didn’t just have a plan B; he had a plan C, too. Unknowingly, I was to be his suicide bomber. When they sifted through the rubble and found what was left of me to be the carrier of the bomb, with an AGT gun strapped to my arm, they’d have no doubt: a Slated who was beyond just
violent
. It would strike at all the Lorders do. Made all the Slateds a risk the Lorders couldn’t tolerate.
Nico was going to kill all of us at that ceremony, but I ruined it by running off to rescue Dr Lysander. No wonder he was so angry!
And now Nico has remote detonated it to kill me. Either he believed me when I said my Levo was gone, or he decided revenge was more use to him than anything else he could do with me.
Or maybe he just called first, to make sure I had it on me.
A giggle starts working its way up my throat.
Settle!
But I can’t help it, and soon I’m crouched on the floor, laughing, wincing at the pain the movement gives my cut back.
Nico thinks I’m dead. And I laugh harder.
And I’m
untraceable
by the Lorders. Thanks to Dr Lysander.
Before the thought is fully formed I’m on my feet, stuffing a few things in a bag. Hastily checking my back in the mirror: just minor cuts. Some blood, but that has lost the power to unnerve me it used to hold. I throw clothes on and clench my teeth when pulling a jumper over my head. Physical pain I can ignore. Quick, now.
Sebastian appears at the bedroom door, fur and tail completely fluffed out. That is one seriously freaked cat. There is a pang inside as I pick him up, give him a quick cuddle. ‘I wish I could take you with me, but I can’t. Look after Mum and Amy.’
Another pang: a note for Mum? No. I can’t. Someone else might find it. I’ll get word to her, somehow.
Sirens are starting up the road by the time I push through the back hedge and disappear up the canal path.
All those half-formed plans in my mind, the ones I might do one day…?
One day, is now.
CHAPTER FORTY NINE
It is a long trip in the dark without one of Katran’s trail bikes. On an ancient bicycle instead, bouncing around the canal and footpaths in the middle of the night. I’d allowed loads of time so it is still dark when I arrive.
Guilt, I’d felt, sneaking out without a word to Mac, after everything he’s done for me, letting me hide out at his house while I work out what to do. Guilt, likewise, at borrowing his rickety bicycle without asking. But the thing I realised more and more was this: I couldn’t make any steps forward, without taking one step back.
I stash the bicycle in the woods.
This time, it will be different. I will be different, having thought it through with care.
What if he doesn’t come?
He will come. He has to. I can’t accept any other possibility, even as the fear of it gnaws inside.
I stash the dark camo gear I wore over my clothes for the trip. Hat off; brush hair until it shines. A pale green running top, warm yet fitted, that Ben once said brings out the colour of my eyes.
The sky is barely beginning to lighten as I warm up. A distant figure appears at the brow of the hill: Ben! I almost melt with relief. Shaking with so many emotions I can barely work out what they are, I run up the path. Fast. So that as he comes over the hill I am in full view.
He won’t be able to resist overtaking. Will he?
But he won’t be able to.
I hear him closing in behind, and bit by bit increase my pace so he can almost, but not quite, catch up. Feeling the strain, the effort. The joy of speed. I slip back slightly, and then, it happens. We run side by side. That familiar skittering music of feet: his
thud-thud
and my shorter-legged beats in between. I glance up at his face just as he looks down at mine. He grins, wide, and is so much the Ben I knew, that my feet falter, and he pulls ahead. But then he drops pace so I can keep up.
Finally we both slow, dropping to a walk.
He is laughing. ‘Brilliant run!’ he says, and I smile. It feels as though I am lit up inside, and all I am is there to see, plain on my face. Like I used to be. It is so easy to forget, to pretend that nothing happened. That we are just Ben, and Kyla. Friends, and then more, with uncomplicated lives, families. A possible future together. I ache to reach out, clasp his hand. Stop and pull him close, and—
But we’re not those phantoms. Not any more.
‘You’re that girl,’ he says, and I hold still. Does some part of him recognise, or feel who I am?
That girl
– no. He must remember the other time on this path. ‘The one who said she knew me,’ he says, confirming. ‘But I’d remember you.’
‘Would you?’ I laugh. The sunrise is properly under way now. Warm light in a cold morning on our faces.
‘I’m going to be late. We came too far,’ he says, and reverses direction. ‘Run back?’
‘Not yet. We need to talk.’
‘Do we? What about?’
‘Who are you?’
‘Can’t answer that. I’m on a secret mission.’ He says the words like he is kidding around, playing some game, but something is behind them. ‘Who are you?’
‘I’m on a secret mission, too. But I can tell you a story. One that was.’
‘Go on,’ he says, still Ben in his eyes: curious, wanting to know everything I am inside, like he always did.
‘Once upon a time, there was a Slated boy named Ben, who loved to run. He met a Slated girl with a few problems: let’s call her Kyla. But she loved to run, too. They became…friends. More than friends.’ I blush.
‘Ben: that is what you called me the last time.’
‘Yes.’
And I see the realisation in his eyes. ‘I’ve got good taste in girls, even in fairy tales,’ he says, still light, teasing. Curious.
‘But now is where it gets difficult.’ My smile falls away. ‘Listen, Ben or whoever you are now. You’ve been re-Slated, or treated somehow to forget. I don’t know how, or why. Don’t believe what you are told. The old you fought to think for himself! He believed there could be a better way than the Lorders’ way.’
He stares into my eyes, something inside him thinking, considering, for a few heartbeats. Then the look is gone along with his smile. ‘This is indeed a fairy tale,’ he says. ‘Time for me to go now, dream girl.’ And he takes off, running, back the way he came. I stop myself, just, from chasing after him, and slip into shadows under the trees. Fighting not to cry at the cold vacuum created by his absence.
I did the best I could. Did I achieve anything?
For a moment, there was something in his eyes, some trace of thought. I didn’t imagine it! Have I planted a seed of doubt that will grow into something strong enough to withstand what has been done to him, what is being fed to him in that Lorder place?
I pull my dark clothes back over what I wear, and get on the bicycle to start the long ride back to Mac’s. Thinking of what I said, what I could have said that was better, and—
When it hits me I almost fall from the bike.
Dream girl
, he called me. Has he been dreaming about me? Like I dream about the past, and lost memories. Am I still there, hiding, in his subconscious?
Somewhere inside is a glimmer, a feeling. It is warm and unfamiliar, and I hold onto it, hug it tight.
It is hope
.
Late that night I’m at Mac’s, sitting at his computer. Lucy’s face – my face, from so many years ago – fills the screen on the MIA website. She was Missing In Action, but not any longer.
Aiden sits next to me.
‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ he asks, his dark blue eyes intent, and kind. Not pressing, even though I know how much he wants this.
‘Yes,’ I say. And I am; so sure. Dad said
never forget who you are
, but I did. I failed him. There is only one thing I can do to try to fix it: I owe it to him to find out who Lucy was. Who I was. And there is no other way to find the missing bits of myself, than this.
Who reported me missing? With my dad gone, was it the mother I cannot remember, or someone else? There is only one way to find out.
I take the mouse, and click the box: Lucy Connor is
found
.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Teri Terry has lived in France, Canada, Australia and England at more addresses than she can count, acquiring three degrees, a selection of passports and an unusual name along the way. Past careers have included scientist, lawyer, optometrist and, in England, various jobs in schools, libraries and an audiobook charity. The footpaths and canal ways of the Buckinghamshire Chilterns where she now lives inspired much of the setting of the
Slated
trilogy. Teri hates broccoli, likes cats, and has finally worked out what she wants to do when she grows up.
Say hello on Twitter: @TeriTerryWrites
Visit her Facebook page: TeriTerryAuthor
Website: teriterry.com
In memory of my dad
ORCHARD BOOKS
338 Euston Road, London NW1 3BH
Orchard Books Australia
Level 17/207 Kent Street, Sydney, NSW 2000
First published in the UK in 2013 by Orchard Books
This ebook edition published in 2013
ISBN 978 1 40831 949 9
Text © Teri Terry 2013
The right of Teri Terry to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
E-pub conversion by Avon DataSet Ltd, Bidford on Avon, Warwickshire UK
Orchard Books is a division of Hachette Children’s Books, an Hachette UK company.
