Fractured A Slated Novel

Chapter FORTY ONE



* * *





‘How do I look?’ Cam does a model twirl in his suit. Mr Casual looks surprisingly good in a jacket and tie, but other things are on my mind.

I frown. ‘Your tie’s crooked. Stay home, Cam. You don’t want to come today.’ My eyes plead with him.

He straightens his tie in our hall mirror, faces me. ‘What’s up, Kyla?’ he asks. ‘Tell me.’

‘Nothing. But this will be boring as hell. You don’t have to come; run while you can.’

He looks thoughtful as if he can see there is something that I’m trying to hide. Half opens his mouth to say something else when Dad comes in from the lounge.

‘Aren’t you two a picture,’ he says.

I’d worn what I was told, without comment. A deep green dress – swishy, silky stuff – luckily with long sleeves. Fits well. Stupid shoes with heels not my footwear of choice on any day, but today speed might be useful and if so, they’ll have to come off. The cold feel of something round and deadly against my skin, strapped inside my arm.

‘Isn’t your mother ready yet?’

‘I’ll go see,’ I say, and climb the stairs. Knock on their bedroom door. ‘Mum?’

‘Come in,’ she says.

‘Are you all right?’

She shrugs, dabbing powder on her face. ‘I hate these ceremonies.’

‘Why? It honours your parents, grieves their loss to you and the country.’ I parrot the official line on Armstrong Memorial Day. Watch her closely.

‘I miss them both, so much. But today, here, I am a puppet on a string. This isn’t about my parents, or me. It’s about them.’

‘Lorders?’

Her eyebrow quirks; she nods.

‘Maybe it’s time to cut the strings.’

She stares back. ‘Maybe,’ she finally says, and sighs. ‘If only it were that simple.’

‘Can’t you just tell how you feel. Tell the truth. Isn’t that always the right thing to do?’

‘Knowing what is right and wrong isn’t the end of it, Kyla. I’ve lived my life like this: cut the crap, cut the politics, keep out of it. Look after the people I care about who are here, now. Like you.’ She touches my cheek and a knife of pain twists, deep inside. ‘If only everybody did that.’

‘Maybe, sometimes, here and now aren’t as important as doing what is right. Maybe the people you care about will understand.’ And I know I’m pushing it, that she’ll start to wonder. But I can’t not say it.

She stares back. ‘Maybe.’

‘Car’s here,’ Dad calls from below.

‘Come on,’ she says. ‘Time to dance.’

Cam walks us to our car. ‘It’s not too late to change your mind,’ I say to him.

‘Not a chance! I’ll see you there.’

Our limo is a state car, like Nico said it would be: flags on the bonnet. A Lorder motorcycle escort in front and behind. Dad is in happy mode as we set out, chatting with Amy. Mum is silent; her eyes are tired, drawn. A face that hasn’t slept well. A face that is grappling with decision.

Inside everything is pleading to her silently: tell the truth. Do it!

Don’t make me kill you.

We near the gates to Chequers, and next to the entrance is a black van. Lorder security. A wave of fear clenches inside: perhaps it ends here. They will haul me in, search me; find the gun and take me into custody. Surely Coulson would never let me through these doors without making sure, not when he suspects what is true. Not when he doesn’t know if I’ll stick to our bargain.

But then, like Nico said it would, our limo and escort sweep past the guards and straight through the lodge gates. Down Victory Drive: a gravel lane that sweeps round a lawn with a broken statue.

‘See that?’ Dad says. ‘Statue of the Greek goddess of health. Broken by vandals in the riots. They were found, brought here and executed at the site of their desecration; it is left as it was to remind us what we fought for.’

Executed, there: on the grass. For knocking over a statue? Lorders do these things. Resolve grows hard and cold inside.

We pull in front of the main doors. Guards open them, and we step through and into a stone hall. We follow an official to the Great Hall inside, and I catch my breath. The ceiling is so far above and the space huge, our footsteps small as we walk across it. Massive paintings hang on the walls: portraits of dead people watching on. A crackling fire burns in a white fireplace, two armchairs arranged to one side of it. Cameras and microphone set up show the speech will be here.

An official goes through the order of the day. First: at 1:10 pm, the moment the bomb went off killing her parents, Mum’s live televised speech. Only immediate family will be in attendance: Dad, Amy, me. Then our friends and family – Cam included – will be allowed in, and we’ll have tea. Second: new this year to commemorate twenty-five years since their deaths, the current Prime Minister addresses the nation, and a select crowd of dignitaries. This will be in the grounds of Chequers, us alongside him, at exactly 4 pm: the precise moment the treaty that ended the county riots was signed thirty years ago. Then I’m leaving with Cam, while Mum and Dad stay for an endless reception and then, later, dinner. Amy, crazy girl, chose to stay for that as well.

But things will never move beyond first, will they? One way or the other.

I stare up at the ceiling, so high above. Would a gunshot echo?

‘Impressive, isn’t it?’ Mum says. ‘Yet it still felt like home. I used to love staying here. There’s a library so long you can play cricket in it.’

‘Did you?’

She winks. ‘I wasn’t much of a reader back then.’

We’re called to our places. Mum in one chair, Dad in another. Amy and I are to stand behind Mum, a hand each resting on her chair. Lights are checked, then sound; I’m checking things of my own.

Lorders. They are everywhere, but not too close so they stay out of screen shot. Not close enough to stop her speech if they think it is going wrong, but she’ll only have seconds before transmission is cut. I search their faces, convinced Coulson will be here, that he’ll stop this before it starts. But he’s not.

A girl darts forward and dabs Mum’s face with powder.

But if she doesn’t give the speech we want: what then?

My head is light. I look up again and feel as if I’m floating above the room; everything is crawling, each second – tick, tock – slowing.

If she doesn’t give the speech we want, then: I must slip my hand in my sleeve, pull the gun out? No. I’m next to her, no aiming needed. Hand in sleeve, grasp the gun. Shoot her through the sleeve; they won’t have a chance to see it, to stop me.

No. She’ll tell the truth. She will.

If she does…what then? Lorders are still here. Transmission stopped. Will they arrest her? Shoot her? I blink.

Nico said no. They wouldn’t dare, they’d have to do things legal and proper for a change, everyone would be watching how she was dealt with. And that if what she said is proven true there is no treason. That he’s finding Robert, and they’ll prove it is true.

Unless they react without thought, shoot her to stop her words before the transmission is cut. My stomach twists. The country would see them in action, see them for what they really are.

But if she doesn’t tell the truth… I try to reach for the cold resolve I felt earlier, hold it inside. Focus. Hand in sleeve; gun; shoot. I can do this. There will be blood. But not until I’ve done it, and what does it matter then if I flip out? With all the Lorders here I’ll be dead before I have a chance. We’ll both be dead.

‘Kyla?’ Amy pokes me in the side. ‘Smile.’

I compose my face. They’re counting down. A light comes on the camera, and then—

She begins.

‘Twenty-five years ago today, there was a terrible tragedy with the deaths of William Adam M Armstrong, and his wife, Linea Jane Armstrong, at the hands of terrorists. Our nation lost its prime minister and his wife. I lost both my parents.

‘There was no accident to the timing on this day. November 26. Thirty years ago today the treaties were signed in this very room to form our Central Coalition Government. The government led by my father that ended the riots, that brought peace back to this country.

‘I am here before you with my family now, and I ask myself what my dad would say if he were here. What he would do.’

She pauses. There are little white cards clenched in her hands, held together. Not open.

I see the official behind the camera exchange a watchful look with another. She’s not on the prepared speech any more! Hope quickens inside.

‘Dad was a man of principle. He believed what he did was right, and he fought to make this country a safe place for his children, and his children’s children, at a time of chaos when that seemed an impossible dream. Yet he never knew his own grandson. A son I have also lost.’

She really is going to do it. Without thought my hand reaches forward to her shoulder. Mum’s hand reaches up, holds mine.

The official is whispering to a technician, listening, watchful.

‘One of my beautiful daughters reminded me today of what is important: to do what is right. To tell the truth. But the truth to me is this: it is time to stop focusing on past tragedies. We can’t go back, only forward. It is time for our country to focus on what is good: on what we can do for our children, and our children’s children.’

The Lorders are alert; her words are getting close to the line now.

Her eyes flick to them. She turns around to Amy and me, smiles.

A Lorder moves towards the camera technicians.

Time is running out! Say it now! I plead inside. Say what happened to Robert.

She turns back and faces the camera. ‘Thank you,’ she says.

I’m frozen. That is all? It was in her eyes, that moment when she turned to Amy and me. She wasn’t going to do or say anything to put us in danger. That was it. She still holds my hand, the hand that should be slipping up my sleeve, now, reaching for the means to end her life. Mine as well.

An official steps up. We are in front of the camera next to him; still transmitting live. He thanks Mum, starts to explain the order of the day. And all the while I could let go of her hand. Reach inside my sleeve. There is time. The seconds are slowing down, each tick of the clock sounds further apart, each an eon of decision.

Think.

Cut the heart out of the Lorders. That is what Katran said; parroting Nico, without doubt. His words I recognise.

We need popular support: Katran again. But how could killing Mum, the daughter of the Lorder hero, achieve this? The hole in logic is gaping in front of me. It could have the opposite effect, swing opinion away from us. Surely Nico realises this.

Nico says we must strike at the Lorders wherever and however we can: show their vulnerability…?

No.

I push their words away. It is just me, alone, in this moment.

Here, now: I decide. I’m not who I was, or who Nico wants me to be. I almost gasp out loud when I realise:

Who I am is what I choose to do.

Just like Mum. Who she is, at her core, is made up of all the decisions she makes. She did what she thought was right: pushed the boundaries of what she said, but not too far. To protect us.

I can’t do it.

I won’t do it.

The camera light goes out. Too late. It is too late for her to say what she should have said.

Too late for me to do what I never could.

‘Are you all right, Kyla?’ Mum says. ‘You look all in.’

‘I’ve got a headache,’ I say, truthfully. People have spilled into the Great Hall now for tea and cakes. A few familiar faces, but many more that are not. And Lorders, everywhere: watchful eyes that will take more notice of Mum, now.

Everything is shifting, shaking inside. She couldn’t do anything to put us in danger, no matter what she thought. I couldn’t hurt her, either. All this feeling: is it a trap? The ties that tangle our loyalties, Nico would say. He was wrong about me: I couldn’t do it.

‘Go if you want,’ Mum says. ‘You don’t need to stay for the second ceremony. You only really needed to be here for the first one, the family photo op.’ She rolls her eyes. She beckons to Cam. ‘Why don’t you two go now?’

‘Sure,’ he says. ‘This suit is itchy. Come on, Kyla.’

We are told to follow an official: down hallways, out a door. Across a lawn to the car park with Cam’s car.

As we walk, thoughts tumble inside. What happens now? Nico said the Free UK attacks were timed with Mum’s speech that the Lorders Slated her son, or her death. Neither happened. Is it all off?

Nico will be livid at my failure. I sigh. Not just angry; lethal. I’m dead.

Maybe Katran will try to stop him. But—

Katran. He said the attacks were timed for when the treaty was signed: the second ceremony. Nico said for the first. Did I hear one of them wrong? I frown to myself. No, I’m sure I didn’t. What did Katran say? Attacks and assassinations timed together, at the second ceremony: it takes place at 4 pm.

Assassinations…does that include Dr Lysander? Pain twists inside.

We’ve reached Cam’s car now, and get in. An official signals us to wait. Another state limo is coming up the drive, motorbikes in front and behind. It stops and the door is held open; we catch a glimpse of untidy blond hair before security flank the Prime Minister, hiding him from sight. They walk up the steps and into Chequers. Once the door shuts we get the signal to go.

‘You’ve missed your chance to meet the Prime Minister,’ Cam says, as we head down the drive and out the gate. I don’t answer. ‘What’s wrong?’ he asks.

I shake my head, close my eyes, lean back against the seat. Dr Lysander has been pushed out of my thoughts by everything else. Or maybe I was avoiding thinking what would happen to her.

All along, even when I didn’t understand what she was doing, she has protected me. To the point of falsifying hospital records. She has broken rule after rule to tell me what I needed to know. And the biggest of them all in meeting me outside of the hospital. Nico said, that to her, I am the child she never had. Yes, she is part of the whole Lorder regime that I hate. But because of me, her guard is dead, and she is a prisoner.

Dr Lysander is part of my family in the ways that count. She, like Mum, would protect me if she could. Mum’s words earlier, at home: look after the people you care about, who are here, now.

I glance at my watch: 2:20.

‘Kyla?’

‘Cam? Do you remember when you said if there was anything you could do to help, you’d do it?’

‘Of course.’

‘Can you drive home really fast so I can change? Then drop me off someplace else. But the really important bit is, no questions asked.’

He grins and hits the accelerator.

Racing up the stairs at home, I kick off my heels and unzip the dress as I go. I chuck the dress on my bedroom floor, yank on jeans, a dark top. I hate the feel of Nico’s gun on my skin, but leave it strapped to my arm. I might need it. I start racing for the door, then pause.

Nico’s com. It might be a tracker as well as a com, and I don’t want him to know where I’m going. I pause, fiddle under my Levo to try and find a release on it. Curse, about to give up, when my nail finally finds an edge. A pinch and it is off. I chuck it in a drawer of clothes and sprint downstairs.

Cam is already at his car, changed as well. ‘That was quick,’ he says. ‘Is there some kind of emergency?’

‘No questions, remember?’ I say, then relent. ‘You could say I’ve just got to help a friend.’

I give him directions as we go, all the while wondering: what am I doing? Do I dare? Can I oppose Nico?

Yes.

For too long I’ve been pulled one way, then another; between who I was, and who I am. But who do I want to be?

Who I am now and what I do, now, will be decided by me, and me alone.

There are so many big questions: political ones. The sort embroiling Katran and Nico. The Lorders are wrong, so wrong, but is cutting their throats one at a time any sort of answer? I’d convinced myself that Nico was right; that, as Rain, I’d already made this choice, long ago; that we should use any means necessary. But I was wrong. It isn’t my answer.

I direct Cam down the single-track road, the way Nico took me the first time, and then feel a sudden constriction of fear: what if he comes this way today? But it is too late to turn back.

‘Stop here,’ I say, finally. ‘You’ll have to reverse a bit before you can turn around.’

‘Here? Are you sure?’ Cam peers out at the overhanging trees.

‘Yes. Here. Thanks.’

‘Isn’t it about time you told me what is really going on?’ He pauses, peers closer at my face. ‘Hallelujah! You actually are going to tell me something, aren’t you?’

‘One thing,’ I say. ‘You know those Lorders we were introduced to the other day? They might be pissed off at me, and I really hope that it doesn’t extend to you. I just wanted to warn you. I’m sorry.’

‘Pissed-off Lorders I like, though not in my immediate vicinity. But if they’re going to be that way anyhow, let me come with you. Maybe I can help.’

‘No.’

He sighs. ‘Are you sure you’ll be all right?’

‘Positive,’ I lie, hand on the car door, poised to run if he tries to follow.

‘Good luck,’ he says.

‘Bye now, Cam,’ I say, and get out, slip into the trees. I linger out of sight to be sure he goes. He reverses back up the lane, disappears from sight.

That felt wrong. Why, I can’t quite work out. Did he give up too easily? I listen until the engine sounds fade away and are gone.

And Cam is one of the worst of many points of guilt in all of this. It isn’t his fault he came to the Lorders’ attention; it was purely because of me. I hope, so hard, nothing will come back to bite him. If today works, if Dr Lysander escapes, Coulson will know soon enough what I’ve been up to. I can’t imagine he’ll be too happy about it.