Fractured A Slated Novel

Chapter THREE



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Mum appears at the nurse’s office as the final bell rings. ‘Hello there.’

‘Hi. Did they call you?’

‘Obviously.’

‘Sorry. I’m perfectly all right.’

‘That must be why you passed out in the middle of a lesson and wound up here.’

‘Well, I’m fine now.’

Mum tracks down Amy, and drives us both home. Once through the door I head for the stairs.

‘Kyla, wait. Come talk to me for a minute.’ Mum smiles, but it is one of those that is more on the lips than the whole face. ‘Hot chocolate?’ she asks, and I follow her into the kitchen. She doesn’t chatter as she fills the kettle, makes our drinks. Mum isn’t much of a talker unless she has something to say.

She has something to say. Unease twists in my stomach. Has she noticed I’ve changed? Maybe if I tell her, she can help, and…

Don’t trust her.

After being Slated, I was a blank. It took nine months in hospital for me to learn to function: to walk, talk, and cope with my Levo. Then I was assigned to this family. I grew to see her as a friend, someone I can rely on: but how long have I known her, really? Not even two months. It seemed longer before because it was my whole life out of hospital, all I could remember. Now that I have a wider frame of reference, I know people should be viewed with suspicion, not trust.

She sets the drinks in front of us on the table, and I wrap my hands around the mug, soaking heat into cold hands.

‘What happened?’ she asks.

‘I guess I fainted.’

‘Why? The nurse said you hadn’t eaten, yet your lunchbox is mysteriously empty.’

I stay silent, sip my chocolate, focusing on the bitter sweetness. Nothing I can say about it makes much sense, even to me. Writing with my left hand made me faint? And that dream, or whatever it was. I shudder inside.

‘Kyla, I know how hard things are for you right now. If you ever want to talk, we can, you know. About Ben, or anything. It is all right to wake me up if you can’t sleep. I won’t mind.’

My eyes start to fill with tears at Ben’s name, and I blink furiously. If she only knew how hard things really are; if she only knew the other half of it. I long to tell her, but how would she look at me if she knew I may have killed someone? Anyhow, she might not mind being woken up, but Dad would.

‘When is Dad getting back?’ I say, suddenly aware of his continued absence. He always travels for work: installing and maintaining government computers all over the country. But he is usually home a night or two a week at least.

‘Well, he may not be home so much for a while.’

‘Why?’ I say, careful to hide the relief I feel inside.

She stands, rinses our mugs.

‘You look like you need some sleep, Kyla. Why don’t you take a nap before dinner?’

Conversation over.

Late that night I am lost in confused dreams: running, chasing and being chased all at once. Awake for what must be the tenth time, I punch the pillow and sigh. Then my ears perk up at a slight sound, a crunch, outside. Perhaps I wasn’t woken by dreams this time after all?

Crossing the room to the window, I pull the curtains to one side. The wind has picked up, whipping leaves across the garden. The trees seem bare all at once. Yesterday’s storm has littered the world: orange and red spin in whorls through the air, and around a dark car out front.

The car door opens, and a woman steps out; long curly hair falls over her face. I gasp. Could it be? She pushes it back with one hand as she shuts the door, enough for me to be sure: it is Mrs Nix. Ben’s mother.

I grip the window ledge tight. Why is she here?

Excitement rushes through my body: maybe she has news of Ben! But almost as soon as the thought forms, it is gone. Her face, caught in the moonlight, is pinched and white. If she has any sort of news, it is not happy. Footsteps crunch on the shingle below, and there is a light knock on the front door.

Maybe she has come to demand to know what happened to Ben, what I did. Maybe she is going to tell Mum I was there before the Lorders took him away. It flashes painfully in my mind: Ben in agony; the rattle of the door when his mum came in. I’d told her I found him with his Levo cut off, and—

The rattle of the door. She had to unlock the door to get in. I’d told her I found him like that, but she must know I lied. How else could it have been locked when she got there?

The door opens downstairs; there is a faint murmur of voices.

I have to know.

I slip quietly across the room and out to the landing, then take one careful step at a time down the dark stairs. I listen.

There is the faint whistle of the kettle, low voices; they are in the kitchen.

A step closer; another. The kitchen door is part open.

Something touches my leg, and I jump, almost cry out, until I realise it is Sebastian. He winds round my leg, purring.

Please be quiet, I beg silently, bend to scratch behind his ears. But as I do my elbow bumps the hall table.

I hold my breath. Footsteps approach! I duck into the dark office opposite.

‘It’s just the cat,’ I hear Mum say, then there is movement, a faint ‘meow’. Footsteps retreat back to the kitchen; there is a click as she shuts the door. I creep back into the hall to listen.

‘I’m so sorry about Ben,’ Mum says. I hear chairs move. ‘But you shouldn’t have come here.’

‘Please, you must help.’

‘I don’t understand. How?’

‘We’ve tried everything to find out what happened to him. Everything. They won’t tell us a thing. I thought, maybe, you could…’ And her voice trails away.

Mum has connections. Political ones: her dad was Prime Minister before he was assassinated, on the Lorder side of the Coalition. Can she help? I listen eagerly.

‘I’m so sorry. I’ve already tried, for Kyla’s sake. But it is a blank wall. There is nothing.’

‘I don’t know where else to turn.’ And there are faint noises, snuffling and hiccupping. She’s crying; Ben’s mum is crying.

‘Listen to me. For your own good, you have to stop asking. At least for now.’

And there is no logic, no thought, no control: I can’t help it. My eyes fill, my throat closes up tight. Mum tried to find out what happened to Ben. For me. She never told me, because she never found out anything. What a risk she took: asking questions where Lorders are involved is dangerous. Potentially lethal.

What a risk Ben’s mum is taking, right now.

When they start saying goodbye, I sneak back up the stairs and into my room. Relief that Ben’s mother never told Mum she found me with Ben that day mixes with sorrow. She feels like I do: the loss. Ben was their son for more than three years, since he was Slated. He’d told me they were close. I long to run to her so we can share this pain, together, but don’t dare.

I wrap my arms around me, tight. Ben. I whisper his name, but he cannot answer. Pain hits me like being crushed. Trampled. Smashed into a million pieces. Before, I had to stop myself from feeling it all, or my Levo would make me black out. Now that it’s not working the hurt is so much, I gasp. Like surgery without anaesthetic: no dull ache, but the slash of a blade, deep inside.

Ben is gone. My brain is working better now, no matter the messed-up memories inside it. He is gone, and he is never coming back. Even if he lived through his Levo being cut off, there is no chance he survived the Lorders. With my memories comes knowledge: once the Lorders take someone, they never return.

It hurts so, I want to push it away, hide from it. But Ben’s memory is one I must keep. This pain is all I have left of him.

His mum comes out of the front door moments later. She sits in her car a few minutes before leaving, hunched over the steering wheel. As she pulls out a light rain starts to fall.

Once she is gone from sight I open the window wide, lean out and stretch my arms into the night. Cold drops fall light on my skin, along with hot tears.

Rain. Something about it is important, itches in my memories, then slips away.