Fractured A Slated Novel

Chapter THIRTY NINE



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It is still dark when I wake. I hug the dream close, try to hold onto how Lucy felt with her dad. I know who he is, though his face is never clear in these dreams. To Lucy, the child I was all those years ago, there were no monsters her daddy couldn’t deal with. A memory, or just some made-up fantasy? No. Everything in me says it is real. But the more awake I become, the more it slips away.

Yet if I try to remember anything about Lucy, I can’t. I know some things, facts: her birthday, just weeks ago, being one. No matter what Dr Lysander said about cell testing for age, I know they must have got it wrong: my birthday is November 3. But feelings, or faces? Nothing.

Lucy is meant to be gone forever. In Dr Lysander’s terms, I was fracked into layers – Lucy, and Rain – and Rain hid inside when Lucy was Slated. So what of these dreams?

And then there is Dr Lysander’s why. I force myself to think back over yesterday, and all we said. Before, on the horses, I told her my secrets. As I know them. The thing she seized on then was why was I Slated?

Is this the same why she called out as I left?

I pull at strands of memory, try to follow them, but like tangled wool all is in confused knots. Lorders Slated me because they caught me: simple. I have no memory of that at all. Slated away or banished in a place I can’t find; either way makes no difference. I don’t know what happened.

But maybe she doesn’t mean her question that way, not the specifics of events. Maybe, she means what led me to that place.

Well, Nico did, of course. If I wasn’t with Free UK I’d never have been Slated. But we all take that risk: whatever the case in the past, this time, I chose this cause. Chose to ignore Coulson’s deal and oppose the Lorders.

Yet there is something in Dr Lysander’s why that aches deep inside like a rotten tooth. One you know must be pulled, but you can’t bring yourself to go to the dentist.

And worse. Even there, in Nico’s custody and the worst possible danger, danger she was in because of me, was she still trying to help me?

Downstairs, a surprise: Mum and Dad having breakfast together.

‘You’re early this morning,’ Mum says.

‘Yep. Woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep.’

I pour myself some tea, sit down. Amy wanders in later, squeals with delight and gives Dad a hug. She is like Lucy and her dad, and inside there is a swirl of jealousy. Amy found a family with her assigned parents after Slating. She is really close to Dad in particular. With me, he has always been weird: sometimes so friendly; sometimes, cold and threatening.

Something niggles, something about Dad and Amy. Mum bustles about the kitchen looking everywhere but in Dad’s eyes. Dad makes all the right noises in reply to Amy’s tales, but his eyes are on me. Watching, assessing. Curious, even, but holding back, and that isn’t like him.

There is a little click inside. Maybe, I got things wrong.

Upstairs I knock on Amy’s door, go in as she hunts around, stuffing things in her school bag.

‘Amy, you know that day you found my drawings. Of the hospital and stuff. Did you tell Dad about it?’

A flash of guilt crosses her face. ‘Sorry, he called, and yeah, I told him. He’d asked me to look out for you and make sure you didn’t get in any trouble. Did he give you a hard time about it?’

‘No, no; it’s fine,’ I say, not wanting her to run back to him. ‘What about Mum? Did you tell her?’

She frowns. ‘No, I don’t think so. Why?’

‘Nothing. Don’t worry about it.’

I wander back to my room and brush my hair, staring unseeing into the mirror.

Well. I had that so wrong. I thought it couldn’t be him; he wasn’t even here. I didn’t bank on Amy spilling over the phone.

So: it was Dad who went to the Lorders. It was because of him that Cam and I were picked up that day.

Poor Mum. I want to rush downstairs and give her a hug, apologise for how I’ve been shutting her out. But it’s too late for that. Lines have been drawn. Dr Lysander is a captive because of me, and her guard is dead. I can’t let Mum into my life, not any more. I’ve chosen my path with Free UK, and there is no turning back.

If I could be so wrong about Mum, what else could I have got wrong?

Why was I Slated?

‘Amy, Kyla,’ Mum yells up the stairs. ‘Jazz is here.’

As we drive out of the village there is a queue of traffic. We inch along, and eventually reach the reason. There is an ambulance, a few Lorders. The road is blocked one way, a Lorder directing traffic, and we wait our turn to get past. There is a sheet thrown over something on the ground. And a burned-out white van smashed into a tree.

I go cold inside. Because I know what it says, I can just make out the remains of Best Builders painted down the side of it.

I slip into Nico’s office at lunch. He locks the door.

‘Rain!’ He grins as if ecstatic to see me there, and gathers me in for a hug. I don’t hug back.

He lets go. ‘Ah. Are you upset about yesterday’s little charade? Sorry about that, Rain. All for the cause, yes? Sit,’ he says, and pushes me into a chair. ‘It’s my last day in this place.’

‘In school?’ I ask, surprised.

‘Too many plans afoot to spend time here.’ He winks. ‘Between us, tonight I will have a family emergency that takes me away.’

‘How is Dr Lysander?’ I ask, unable to stop myself. ‘What will happen to her?’

‘She is a fascinating woman,’ Nico says. ‘Such strength of character.’

He says nothing else. Maybe he couldn’t get whatever he wants from her. Has he done something to her?

He must see it on my face. ‘Rain, remember: she is the enemy. Though she is quite safe, for now. But enough of her: we need to talk about what is happening at Chequers. If your adopted mother doesn’t do what is right and tell the truth, what then?’

‘You said there is another plan. What is it?’

‘You, dear one, are plan B.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Either she tells the world the truth, or she dies. And it has to be on that broadcast, live to the country.’

I stare back at him, stunned. ‘I’m plan B…me? I have to do it?’

‘There is no other way. Only you and your family will be present at that ceremony. And you go together in a state car, like the Prime Minister: they aren’t security screened. You are the only one who can get a weapon in.’

I start to panic. Me, kill someone? Not just anyone….but Mum?

‘Nico, I—’

‘You are the only one who can do this, Rain. The only one who can stop the Lorders. Freedom is there, in your hands: take it!’

‘But I—’

‘Don’t worry. You won’t let me down.’ He says it with complete assurance, his eyes boring into mine. Eyes that must be obeyed. If Nico says I must do this, that I can do this, it must be so.

Lurking somewhere inside me still, behind the horror: what brought me here today? The why behind everything.

‘Can I ask a question?’ I say, barely daring, but somehow the words come out. ‘Will you answer it with the truth?’

He holds himself still. ‘You imply I don’t always answer with the truth,’ he says, a dangerous note in his voice. ‘You should know better by now. I may not answer every idle curiosity, but when I do, it is always the truth.’

Yet Nico’s truths are not the same as other people’s all the time.

But then he smiles. ‘You, dear girl, after giving us yesterday’s prize may ask the question of your choice, and I will answer.’ He sits on the edge of his chair, alert. ‘Go on.’

I swallow. ‘Why was I Slated?’

‘You know why.’

‘Do I?’

‘Or, at least, you knew why. Think. See if you can work it out,’ he says. ‘We protected part of you from Slating, didn’t we? Your memories are coming back more and more.’

And another question slips into view in my mind, as if it had always been there: why prepare me for Slating unless I was always meant to be Slated? Was this Dr Lysander’s real why? My eyes widen with shock.

‘What is it?’ he asks.

‘I was always going to be Slated. It wasn’t just a risk, or bad luck I was caught, or any of those things.’

He inclines his head. ‘Bravo, Rain: you remember.’

I recoil, shock and horror overcoming fear enough that I don’t take them from my face.

‘But why?’

‘We needed to show the Lorders that they can fail; that we can get around them. That anywhere, any time, when they least expect it, they are vulnerable.’

‘But how could you do that to me?’

‘Now, Rain: you agreed to this plan. As did your parents. They gave you to us for the cause, for this purpose.’

‘No,’ I whisper. ‘No. They wouldn’t.’

‘They did. Your real dad was in Free UK. He knew there was no future in a country led by Lorders for his child, or any other.’ His face is full of compassion. ‘It is the truth you asked for today, and there it is.’

I close my eyes, shut out Nico’s face and words, and hold onto last night’s dream. That man wouldn’t do such a thing. He wouldn’t hand his daughter over to Nico. Never.

I open them again, this time careful to hide disbelief.

Nico puts a hand on each shoulder. ‘You made this choice. It is the right choice. You know, first hand, that Lorders and their Slating must be stopped.’

‘They must be stopped,’ I whisper, and I don’t have to fake conviction. Truth is freedom; freedom is truth.

‘You won’t let me down.’ He leans down, kisses my forehead. ‘And don’t forget what they’ve done to Ben.’ A wave of fresh pain rolls through me with his name. So much has been crowding inside me that he has been pushed out a little.

‘Ben was on our side too, you know,’ Nico says. ‘He’d want you to fight this fight for him.’

Nico ushers me out of his office. His words only really sink in as I walk away, out the building and into a grey November day.

Ben was on the side of Free UK? Nico could only know this if he’d been recruiting Ben.

My hands turn to rigid fists at my sides. I’d always wondered another why. Why had Ben suddenly decided to cut off his Levo, and think about joining Free UK in the first place? There could only be one answer: Nico.

He’s recruited others from our school, but why Ben? A Slated isn’t an ideal recruit: they’re not good at keeping secrets, and, Tori aside, they’ve got definite issues with violence. Ben could only have been targeted because of me.

Late that night, there is no sleep. Not for me. Waves of rage pass through my body, a rush of molten metal pulsing through my heart, my veins, at all Nico has done to me. To Ben. A rage that has nowhere to go, and so it grows.

But at the end of it all is still the Lorders. They and their Slating are still the ultimate enemy: it is still them that led me to this moment. They Slated Ben, and took him away. They are still the target. Nico will keep.

I jump at a buzz at my wrist: Nico’s com, as if he is listening in to my thoughts and waiting for the right moment. I consider not answering, but press the button. ‘Yes?’ I say, voice low.

‘It’s Katran. Meet me by your bike in an hour.’ It clicks off.