Legion Lost (18 page)

“She
was from inside the System,” he begins.

“No
way,” Goddie interjects immediately. “People in de System are supposed to be
safe and happy. It’s practically a wonderland, if you’re willing to worship
Prudell.”

“Well,
it wasn’t for her,” Stirling replies. “It says here that her father was an
engineer for all sorts of mechanical things. He developed some kind of vehicle
called a Reaver. It’s a life support system that can transport wounded people
across all terrain, but the System seemed to have found a darker purpose for
it.”

“Wait,
what purpose?” I ask. “How can you make life support into something sinister?”

“Search
me,” Stirling replies. He thumbs to a particular page, narrowing his eyes to
read Lucrece’s scrawled writing. “
The consequences of Papa’s invention are
too dire to even put into words. It’s too great a risk to write it here. If the
System’s police were to discover what we know, I don’t know what fate might
befall my family
.”

Apryl
gulps audibly.

“I’m
guessing the police did find out?” she ventures.

Stirling
nods grimly.

“They
were murdered. Her father, mother, and two little brothers, all dead. Their
house was set on fire in the night.”

“But
Lucrece survived?” I ask.

“She
wished that she hadn’t,” Stirling explains. “The police captain, a fella by the
name of Tyrion, kept her captive. He . . . abused her.”

“He
beat her up?” I say, realising how fresh Lucrece’s bruises were when we first
met her.

“Yes,”
Stirling answers.

There
is a pause, but nobody speaks. Our captain is holding something back. There is
something more to this moment in Lucrece’s short life.

“And
Tyrion raped her.”

The
words hang like lingering embers in the dying fire, burning into each of one us
as we drop our heads low.

“No
wonder she came to the Legion,” Apryl says. “She wanted a new life, a fresh
start.”

“No,”
Stirling says sadly. “She came here to die. It was her intention all along, but
she wanted her life to end doing something useful.”

“She
actually
wanted
to die?” Goddie says in disbelief.

Stirling
nods again. “It’s all here in the notebook.”

“Then
why didn’t she?” I say. “Why didn’t she walk out into the minefield the first
chance she got?”

“Her
illness,” Stirling explains, his eyes downcast to the pages. “She had a
suspicion about what was causing the sickness, and she was right.”

There
is another pause, another of those awful, tension-filled moments passing us by.

“She
was pregnant,” Stirling concludes.

He
is close to the end of the notebook and his long, pale fingers rifle through
the final leaves. I watch, frozen in fascination as Stirling’s brows knit close
together. His mouth twists in silent contemplation, eyes roving back and forth
until his head begins to shake.

“No . . . this
can’t be right,” he says. “She went to see Sheila, just like I told her to, and
Dr Bartlett was there, and . . . ”

Stirling
swallows hard and I watch his Adam’s apple bob. There can’t be more bad news,
not after all that we’ve heard already. His face tells me not to hope for
anything good.

“Sheila
just sat by and let it happen. Dr Bartlett brought Lucrece a pill to abort the
baby.”

“Stop,”
Apryl says suddenly, and the weak sob in her usually strong voice makes me
shudder. She holds up her palm. “Two more lives gone,” she concludes, “because
of the System.”

If
I have learned one thing on this mission, it’s that I’m not alone in my hatred
of Prudell’s government. Her satisfied smile from the training video haunts my
memory now, just as Lucrece’s conversation with me in the Underground returns and
echoes in my head. She wanted to tell me that she’d discovered my secret,
because she knew she wouldn’t be coming back to the Legion with us. Sheila had
called the abortion pill a cure—Lucrece’s hateful looks to Dr Bartlett on the
hovercraft suddenly make an awful lot of sense in hindsight. Lucrece had no
family, no future, and nowhere to run from her past. And now she is only a
story in a notebook.

“We
didn’t even know her real name,” I say in a sad, empty whisper.

Stirling
steps over the last glowing embers of our campfire, crouching before me to put
the diary back in my hands. It is open to the final page, where a deliberately fancy
script is curled inside a shape that looks like a shooting star.

The
Diary of Adore Esparza, Aged 17 ½

Year:
2126

I
look up into Stirling’s eyes, watching the salt water gathered there as it
glistens like the oceans I’ve never seen. I mouth a quiet thank you, and my
captain nods, straining to smile. He puts one hand on my arm, the other is
steadying his weight on my knee. His warmth makes me realise how cold and numb
I have become, as the dark night settles in around me.

“Come
on,” Stirling says gently. “You need to sleep. It’s a long way home tomorrow.”

I
let him lead the way to our tent, and I can tell by the shuffling feet behind
us that Apryl is letting Goddie share with her tonight. None of us should be
alone after what we’ve just seen and heard. I can hear the pair of them talking
in quiet mumbles as I slip into my sleeping bag, too frozen to even try to
shuffle out of my fatigues. Stirling doesn’t undress either; he just lies on
his side, facing me with a solemn, faraway look.

“I
don’t want to go back to the Legion,” I whisper.

His
eyes refocus, studying me among the shadows. After a moment’s contemplation,
Stirling reaches down to his feet, returning with something that he activates
with a familiar click. It’s the torch from his protective vest. The white beam
shoots upwards between us, illuminating his concerned expression.

“Why
did you come here in the first place?” he asks. “It’s been obvious from day one
that you hate the System as much as we do, even if you’ve been cautious about
admitting it.”

I
can feel the wall of secrets forming between us again, though now it seems as
though my side is threatening to crumble.

“I
had nowhere else to go,” I admit. “I was alone, and totally lost. There was
nothing but the Legion on the horizon. I didn’t even know what it was when I
signed up.”

Stirling’s
brow furrows at that last part.

“You
must have been living under a rock not to know that,” he surmises.

“You
could say that,” I reply.

He
gives me silence then, a sad smile forming on his lips.

“You’re
not going to tell me, are you?” It’s more of a statement than a real question.
“You won’t talk about where you’re from.”

“I
want to,” I say, “but I can’t.”

It’s
the hardest truth I’ve faced since I began hiding within the Legion’s fortified
walls, but Lucrece’s story has proved to me that no one here can be trusted
completely. I’d started to think that, deep down, Sheila might care about us
rejects, just a little. But knowing that she stood by willingly, whilst Dr
Bartlett did what he did, is too much to bear. Everything changes here so
quickly that it hardly feels safe to speak at all.

“All
right,” Stirling says with a sigh.

He
flips onto his back with an agile twist, staring up at the white circle of
torchlight on the tent’s ceiling. With his eyes closed, he fools me into
thinking he might settle to sleep, until he suddenly speaks again.

“I
lost my father in a fire too. I think it must be an awful way to go. All that
smoke and spluttering.”

I
silently agree. In the Underground, a fire would have spread with devastating
effects. There were three great fears in our lives back then. Fire, flood, and
the System. We always had to be sure that everything was safe and secure to
reduce our risks. My father was always going on about it. Stirling’s words have
echoed into a deep, empty part of my heart, touching something I’ve tried not
to think about for a very long time. I try to push that feeling away, focusing
on the boy before me instead.

“You
must have been young when you lost him,” I reply.

Stirling
nods, though his eyes are still closed.

“Twelve,”
he says. “It was just before I joined the Legion.”

“How
did the fire happen?” I ask.

A
few seconds pass, and I worry that my question might have crossed a line.
Stirling shifts in discomfort, his eyes pressed tighter together than they were
before.

“The
System brought a firestrike down on the West Highlands,” he explains. “There
was no rebel force living there when I was younger, only innocent civilians.
The forest burned, and so did we. There was a funeral for sixty when the last
flame had fizzled out.”

“But
you survived,” I add.

“I
did,” Stirling concludes.

I
know exactly what it’s like to lose your whole community in one terrifying
swoop. Against my better judgement, I reach past the torch to rest my hand on
Stirling’s forearm, just at the point where he has pushed up his dark sleeves.
He doesn’t shy away from my touch, and I can feel my heart aching to tell him
something, anything, that will help him through this moment.

“I
lost my father too,” I say quietly.

I
know Stirling has heard me, because his eyes flicker open. He tilts his head to
face me, patient and silent. I lick my dry lips, looking down at my dark hand
resting on his pale arm.

“It’s
not that exciting really,” I say, “but it is sad. I was twelve too when it
happened. He went out one day and just never came back. I don’t know if he was
hurt, or if he found somewhere better to be than with us. He could be out there
right now, but I wouldn’t know how to reach him.”

I
never talk about my father, the foolish scavenger who filled our lives with
rules, but never followed them himself. I can still hear my mother pleading
with him on that day when he vanished. The Underground guards had warned him
that it wasn’t a safe day to go to the surface. He never listened, and that
day, it cost him his family for good.

“Who’s
‘us’?” Stirling asks. “Do you have other family out there?”

I
nod slowly. “A mother and four brothers.”

“Four?”
Stirling repeats, sounding impressed. “And tell me, are they all as defensive
and secretive as you?”

No,
they aren’t. They are sweet, docile boys, who don’t deserve any of the horrors
that have happened to them. I can’t bring myself to talk about them with
Stirling, not with the painful vision of Vinesh’s cloudy eyes still haunting
me.

“I
wasn’t like this before the Legion,” I say.

“Oh
yeah?” Stirling chuckles. “What were you like?”

The
answer comes to me instantly.

“Pretty
boring, actually,” I confess.

What
I wouldn’t give for that boring life right now, with its close-knit gossip and
rationed food. I long for the days when I could moan at Bhadrak for not
bringing exciting things from the surface, and for the stories that Mumma used
to tell us. I could almost still be there when my eyes are closed, stealing
Mukesh’s hat and squealing for help when he tries to get it back.

“Raja . . . are
you crying?” Stirling asks.

There
is only one answer, and it hardly needs saying as massive tears stream down my
face, pooling at my cheek where it rests on the sleeping bag. My shoulders
shake desperately as the week’s worth of pent-up feelings rush through my body,
tears flowing for every sufferance I’ve seen and endured. Tears for my captured
people, and for the eight deceased after the raid. Tears for Bhadrak and his
blood-soaked shirt. Tears for Stirling’s bruises and the boot print on his
back. Tears for Vinesh’s burned face and his empty, blinded eyes.

And
tears for Lucrece. Tears for Adore Esparza, who fought the System, and lost.

Stirling’s
arms are warm and firm around me, and I crawl up to lean my head on his chest
as the sobs rage on. All I can do is let him hold me steady as every scrap of
fury and desperation attacks me at once. The sorrow ravages my body until I’m
an empty, exhausted heap that lies motionless in his arms.

“Feel
better?” he asks, his lips close to my forehead.

I
sniff up enough breath to answer: “A little.”

“A
little can sometimes do a lot where I come from,” Stirling tells me.

I
start to feel awkward and a little embarrassed, lying with my ear to the lanky
boy’s fast-beating heart. I’m far too tired to move myself away from him yet,
though.

“Sorry,”
Stirling says with a quiver in his throat. “I suppose I should have asked
before I scooped you up.”

My
tired brow furrows.

“Why?”
I ask.

“Well,
you might think this is a bit weird,” Stirling stammers.