‘You’re wrong about everything,’ she says again. ‘Choosing to sleep on a dirty floor doesn’t make you a purer soul. Risking your life climbing on to buildings doesn’t make it any more valuable, and you’re not going to save anyone screaming through a loudspeaker. I know you’re scared, but use that fear for something good – tackle the greed and destruction you see in the world, make it better for people who suffer from it the most. Go back to your homes and your families and get to work, because this isn’t the way to the afterlife. It isn’t any way to live at all.’
Teacake opens her eyes. Dozens of the gaunt, tired faces stare at her, the wind whipping through their hair or ruffling their scruffy clothes. There is shock in their expressions, confusion and fear – and in some cases, anger. But only Damien reacts.
‘No. No.’ He shakes his head. ‘You’re lying.’
This time, when he steps towards us, only a few people follow. The other members simply look at each other. Some run their hands over their protruding ribs or examine the fraying hems of their clothes, blinking, like they’re emerging from a dream. A skeletal woman slides her arm around the young boy and his little sister, pulling them close.
But Damien hasn’t given up. With a few stone-faced followers behind him, he charges towards us.
Before I have time to react, or even to feel fear, Teacake loops one arm around my waist. She slips the other around Allie and takes four steps backwards.
Together, we fall from the roof.
TWENTY-SEVEN
The ground rockets towards us. The road beneath us swells, hurtling upwards at an impossible speed, until all I can see is tarmac and moss and cigarette butts. I hold my breath and close my eyes, waiting for the blast of pain – but then Teacake throws her body backwards, flipping head over heels, and sends us spiralling into the air. Sky and concrete and the not-quite-full moon loop across my vision; the people on the rooftop spiral in and out of sight, smaller with each rotation.
For a few seconds, I am frozen with shock. It’s only when Teacake beats her wings and regains her balance, gliding some sixty metres above the ground, that fear snatches my breath and turns my blood to ice. Beneath us the sea is blue-grey and restless, its waves smashing on the shore.
‘Put me down!’ I scream, thrashing in Teacake’s grip, kicking my legs as if I could swim back to land. I can’t focus on the wind in my hair or the feeling of gliding birdlike above the sea; all I think about is the biting waves below, and our bodies being swallowed up by them. ‘Please, please – I need to get down!’
Her voice almost snatched away by the wind, Allie shouts and points towards her car on the ground below us. Within seconds, Teacake lands a few metres away from it, dropping us from her grip just before she touches down. Allie goes rolling across the dirt, while I skid towards the pavement; the gravel chews through my jeans and bites at my thighs, but I hardly notice. The crash landing sends dust billowing into the air. Allie hides her mouth behind her sleeve, but her face is already turning red.
Everything is happening too fast. Dark figures move behind the station’s windows: Damien and the handful of followers who obeyed his instructions, hurrying down the stairs towards the exit.
‘Get Teacake into the car!’ I tell Allie. ‘Quick!’
Without thinking, I grab a beer bottle on the side of the road and smash it open on the kerb. While Allie and Teacake rush down the road to her car, I race towards the two grey vans parked at the opposite end of the building and stab the bottle into their back tyres, wiggling it into the rubber until I hear a hiss of air.
As I sprint away, I hear Leah shout my name. She comes scrambling over a pile of junk, her jeans snagging on scrap metal and old wires. More people are beginning to pile out of the building, looking from us, to Leah, to the members still standing on the roof. Leah tears across the road, running faster than I knew she could, and reaches Allie’s car just as I do. We leap into the back seat, our arms and legs becoming tangled with Teacake’s.
‘Go! Go! Go!’
Allie slams her foot on the pedal. She skids in a semicircle at the corner to the building, then thunders down the road, scattering a couple of Standing Fallen members chasing after us.
‘Teacake, sit down!’ she shouts. ‘I can’t see behind me!’
Her wings are blocking most of the rear window. I gently press on her back until she’s leaning forward, her head between her knees, one wing spread across Leah’s lap and the other over mine. As I glance through the window, my stomach flips: Damien is behind us, climbing into one of the shabby grey vans.
‘No, no, no . . .’ Leah moans and clutches my arm. ‘We have to go faster! He’s going to catch up!’
Behind the windscreen, Damien’s head dips as he jabs the key into the ignition. The van lurches, then comes to a halt. Allie watches in the rear-view mirror, her face tense, as Damien stumbles from the car and stares at the wheels.
Allie takes a deep breath. She’s still wheezing, and it takes her a moment to speak.
‘That was so close,’ she finally says, her voice wobbly and raspy with dust. She meets my eye in the mirror. Though she looks as shaken as I feel, she forces a smile. ‘Nice work with the vans, Jaya. You’re like those badass nuns from The Sound of Music.’
I try to laugh, but my heart is pounding so fast I can hardly speak. Teacake is still bent forward, her head between her knees. I stroke her hair and she mumbles something – a few lines of an Alanis Morissette song. I turn her head towards me and wipe the golden blood from her jaw. Her skin is lightly scraped, and there are rusty bruises on her wrists and ankles. Just the thought of those men touching her makes my face hot with anger.
‘It’s over now, Tea. They’re gone,’ I say, though she keeps shaking. More than ever before, I wish I knew exactly how much she understands. I keep stroking her hair and her feathers, trying to communicate what the words can’t, hoping that being with us is enough to make her feel safe.
‘What did you tell them back there?’ I ask Leah.
For a moment, she can’t get the words out. Her eyes are wide as the moon, and she keeps glancing through the back window, checking that no one is following us.
‘That I’d found a – a Being. I said that I’d hidden it in the basement, but that it had escaped. They knew it wasn’t true. I’m not a good liar.’
‘You did great,’ Allie says, stifling another cough. ‘That took some guts, facing up to them like that.’
Leah shakes her head. ‘I shouldn’t have left my mum; I really wasn’t planning on it.’ She wipes her eyes on the back of her ragged sleeves. ‘But when I saw how angry she was with me about lying to the leaders, I knew she’d never choose to leave herself. You guys were my only chance.’
‘You did the right thing,’ I say, but she keeps looking back towards base even when it’s long out of sight.
The towns soon fall behind us, and we find ourselves moving through quiet country roads. I climb into the passenger seat beside Allie and, though there’s no one out here to spot her through the windows, Leah stretches her legs over the back to help Teacake squeeze into the space on the floor. Her right wing curls over her body like a blanket; the left pokes up towards the roof, so I hang my jacket over the back of Allie’s headrest to keep it out of sight.
‘Where should we go?’ I ask. ‘We can’t keep driving around all night.’
‘We can’t go back to Edinburgh either,’ Allie says. ‘Someone could have seen Teacake on the roof of the power station, or one of the Standing Fallen members might tell their superiors. It’d be all over the internet in five minutes.’
I think for a moment. ‘How about my house? It’s pretty remote, and our garden is lined with trees – you can’t see in much. We can drop you off at your dad’s,’ I add, looking at Leah. She nods, her eyes glossy.
‘Won’t that take, like, four hours?’ Allie rubs her eyes with one hand. ‘Honestly, Jaya, I’m knackered. There’s no way I can drive that long. You don’t have a licence, do you?’
I shake my head. ‘I won’t be seventeen until October.’
‘I do,’ Leah says. ‘I don’t have it with me, though . . . and I’m pretty sure my insurance has run out.’
I give a dry laugh. ‘If we get pulled over, that’s really the last of our worries.’