Fractured A Slated Novel

Chapter THIRTY



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Holly leans a bicycle against the tree. Walks towards the door.

‘Not sure this is a good idea.’ I breathe the words near Katran’s ear. He grunts, says nothing. His face says he doesn’t like it, either. The plan is Nico’s, and it was easy to see when Katran told us the details earlier that Nico’s interference in his group rankled. Much like my presence.

This Lorder building is out of the way as you’d expect for what happens inside it; no neighbours, yet just a few miles off a main road – good transport links. There is one black van parked out front now. Surveillance had said Monday’s a good day for this. Other days there are more ‘deliveries’: Slateds to be terminated.

Before Holly reaches the door a Lorder guard steps out.

‘Hi!’ she says. Smiles too wide. She shouldn’t look that happy to see a Lorder.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘Sorry, I’m lost. Could you tell me how to get to the farmer’s market?’

Stupid story. You’d have to be a total idiot to have turned down this unmarked road and past all the ‘do not enter’ signs, and not the next one with all the signs to the market.

He says nothing, walks closer, face impassive. One eye on her and one scanning the woods around. Instinctively, I pull myself lower in the scrub though I know we are deep in shadows, well hidden from view. His hand reaches for a com at his belt.

Holly does a sudden spin kick, knocks his hand away from the com. I tense to spring forward to help her but Katran grabs my wrist. ‘Wait,’ he hisses. ‘Until the others come out.’

There are spy cameras all over the front. By now, inside, they’d see the guard tussling with one slight girl. He soon has Holly immobilised, a grip tight around her neck.

The door opens. Another Lorder comes out.

‘Report.’

‘She says she’s lost, then kicks me.’

‘I don’t like it. Check the area.’

‘My hands are full.’

He shrugs. ‘So empty them.’

He moves one hand to Holly’s chin, another on her shoulder. No! I tense to spring forward, but Katran holds me in an iron grip.

A sudden violent twist.

The Lorder lets her go; she falls to the ground.

Her body twitches, then lies still: neck broken. Black horror inside quickly turns to rage. I glare at Katran, ready to lash out, but his face is filled with pain. When he sees me looking it hardens to a mask. The look is gone.

One Lorder speaks into a com – to someone in the house? Then two of them step out. One heads towards Tori and her waiting knives; the other in our direction.

Katran releases his grip on my arm. Gestures for me to stay out of it, dark revenge on his face.

But then the Lorders stop, step back. There are vehicle sounds coming up the road. No. A van?

It pulls in front of the building.

Katran shakes his head slightly. ‘Too many targets,’ he whispers.

And I stare at him, disbelieving. Pull back? Now? After what happened to Holly?

Two Lorders get out of the front of the van, confer with the others. Glance at Holly’s body on the ground. One pulls the van side door open.

A boy springs out, takes a swing at the Lorder, his face white. Slated: I can hear his Levo from here before he collapses on the ground. There is a scream inside the van. A girl is pulled out; she tries to reach for the boy.

‘Do something!’ I hiss. Katran’s face twists in indecision. My fingers curl around my knife.

‘Stay here,’ he breathes. ‘Don’t break your promise!’ He hits his com to give the order to attack. He and the others run forward.

It’s a blur of motion, cries. Blows. Part of me is screaming to run after them, to be in it, to strike at the Lorders. Another part is holding me still, sick inside at what is happening, eyes clenched shut. What is the use of me? Why bring me here to do nothing? I force my eyes open.

One of the Lorders breaks free, runs for it headlong into the woods and straight at my hiding spot.

I crouch in a fighting stance, knock his feet out from under him. He’s winded. My knife is in my hand, there are seconds when I could use it, stab him – I don’t. He swings at my arm, the knife falls from my hand and he has one of his own. He smiles.

Then there is a loud whack – Katran has kicked him in the back of the head. He falls. Moves no more, blood on the back of his head. Katran bolts back to the house.

I stagger to my feet. There is red in his hair, so much red, and there is a rushing, roaring sound in my ears. I stagger away. Later someone calls the all clear, and I don’t know how long I’ve been standing, still, unable to open my eyes or move away; almost in a trance. A blood red trance.

But something penetrates: there is screaming. A girl, still screaming. The Slated one? The buzz of her Levo is loud, and grates deep inside my skull.

She needs help.

I fight the fog, force my feet to walk through the trees. Fix my eyes on the girl and not on what lies on the ground. I slip an arm over her shoulders. ‘It’s okay. Just close your eyes. Don’t look around you; blank it from your mind. Breathe in and out. You can do it.’ Her Levo is at 3.4: too low.

She shakes her head, eyes still wide and staring. Then Tori is there. ‘She needs Happy Juice, they must have some!’ Tori says, and we help the girl inside the door.

Katran has a doctor in a death grip.

‘Happy Juice: where?’ Tori demands.

Katran eases his grip. The doctor gasps for air, points at a cupboard unit. At a gesture from Katran the doctor pulls a syringe out of a drawer. Hands it to Katran. ‘It’s illegal to use it on that one. Not that you’d care.’

Katran turns towards her but the girl holds out her hands. ‘No, you mustn’t; no.’ Her hands are protective in front of her belly. ‘You can’t. The baby.’ She’s pregnant?

I look at the doctor. ‘It’ll kill the child if you use it,’ he says.

Her Levo vibrates again. ‘3.2,’ I say.

The doctor shrugs. ‘She’s dying, anyhow. What difference does it make?’

Tori punches him, hard, in the face. ‘Give it to her!’ she says to Katran.

‘We can’t force her.’ Katran kneels next to her, takes her hand. ‘What do you want us to do?’ he says. Her eyes are wide, panicked. Like a deer that wants to bolt into the woods but is caught, a leg held in a trap.

‘No. No drugs,’ she says, her words clear.

He hands the syringe to Tori. ‘She says no.’

It happens. Her levels drop that bit more. Her body arches with seizures. She cries out, her body twisting in pain.

‘Give her the Happy Juice! The baby will die anyway if she does,’ Tori says.

‘It’s too late for that now, and we haven’t got anything stronger here,’ the doctor says. ‘That is more painful than our way.’ He reaches back to the cupboard, a different drawer, and holds up another syringe. ‘Give her a full shot of this and it will be over quickly.’

‘She said no drugs,’ Katran says, voice barely controlled.

I hold her. She doesn’t know where she is any more but her face is a rictus of agony. Her body arches one last time: rigid, then limp.

Gone.

Tori looks at the doctor, then at the knife in her hands. ‘Let me?’ she says to Katran. ‘Slowly.’

Katran shakes his head. Takes the second syringe from the doctor’s hand. ‘No. Give him what he uses on others.’ He hands it to Tori.

Katran holds the doctor; realisation on his face now, he struggles. ‘You can’t do this. It’s murder.’

‘What about what you do here? What do you call that?’ Tori says.

‘Laws are there for a reason. That one – if she has the baby, what then? Either she dies from seizures in labour, or we give her drugs to stop that and the baby dies. She broke her contract getting in that condition. Contract breakers over sixteen have their second chance terminated according to law. It is there when they sign!’

‘Like we have any choice but to sign,’ I spit out, and hold my wrist in the air. His eyes go wide when he takes in my Levo. ‘They could have taken her Levo off so the baby could live, so they could both live!’

He shakes his head. ‘What then? Every Slated girl in the country would get pregnant on purpose to get out of her sentence.’

Tori smiles at the syringe still in her hand. ‘So. You say a full dose of this is a quick death. What about half a dose?’

The horror that crosses the doctor’s face answers the question well enough.

Tori moves towards him but I can’t stay, I can’t watch. The spinning is back, everything going grey. I stumble out of the building. Past bodies I try not to look at, but there, at the periphery of my vision, they register. Blood. Dead. No more.

I reach the trees, loop an arm around one and vomit on the ground. There are screams from the building behind.

I struggle to clear my mind, to process what I learned. A Levo would kill a Slated in labour; the drugs to stop this would kill the child before it could be born. Is this the real reason why Amy and Jazz aren’t supposed to ever be alone together? Why I wasn’t meant to be alone with Ben? I didn’t know. Did that girl?

Lorders Slated her, and now, no matter what we could do, she died. She looked older than Amy. How close was she to 21, and freedom? I open my hand. Inside it, a ring I’d slipped off her finger at the end: a silver band. There is carving on the inside: Emily & David 4ever. Was he the Slated boy with her? They’re together forever, now. I clench my fingers around the ring, tight.

Emily. I’ll remember her. I’ll remember this moment.

Including Holly, three of us dead, and the Slated boy and girl. Five Lorders and one doctor. One termination centre out of action: Katran sets the place on fire before we go. We melt into the woods in pairs to run to pick-up points, me and Katran together.

‘You idiot,’ he hisses as we run. ‘What did you think you were doing, running at that Lorder with a knife in your hand? I told you to hide.’

‘You told me stay where I was! I did. He ran straight at me.’

He shakes his head in disgust. ‘If I wasn’t babysitting you for Nico, maybe we wouldn’t have lost three.’

‘What? You were babysitting me?’

‘You heard me. What are you playing at? Look. I know you want to help, but you’re useless. You’re a danger to have around.’

‘What about Holly?’

‘What about her?’

‘She shouldn’t have gone in on her own.’

‘She volunteered. Drawing them out of the house was the best strategy.’ He looks uncomfortable.

She had something to prove to Nico after breaking the rules, and she’s proved it. Permanently.

We stay silent the rest of the way. What happened? I wanted to kill that Lorder. The knife was in my hand; the opportunity, there. But the mere thought of using it, pushing the blade in, cutting into skin, veins, and muscle – and I froze. I couldn’t do it.

If Katran hadn’t come running back, I’d be dead.

My fists clench. What was all the training I did with Nico and the Owls for? I know so many ways to end life.

I hold Emily’s face in my mind. She refused Happy Juice that could have saved her, for what? Now she and her baby are both dead. And Holly: neck snapped. The other two in her cell whose names I didn’t even know.

Lorders did that.

Next time I have a weapon in my hand and a Lorder in front of me, I won’t fail.