Nate and I wriggle into the back of the truck, the dirty floor scraping our palms, and pick our way over the collection of boxes and rifles. We perch on a small wooden plinth, our backs pressed against the hard metal of the cab, just like Rose and Willow.
‘Mum would have a fit,’ Nate says. He’s right. She’s always been such a stickler for road safety – seat belts on, no loose shopping in case some rogue tin of beans flew at our heads in the event of an accident. Death by beans, Dad called it, and Mum playfully kicked him under the table. I push the image from my mind; seeing their happy faces just makes my chest ache.
I watch Matthew lead Ash into a Humvee. Ash’s movements look fluid, and I feel huge relief he hasn’t sustained any major injuries. He watches me from the back of the vehicle, his face distorted by the smeared pane – a mosaic of washed-out colours beneath a black smudge of hair. The hovercycles whir into action, and he vanishes behind a layer of hot, sandy air.
Saskia jumps in beside Thorn and the truck begins to vibrate. It may look like a regular truck, but it doesn’t run on petrol, so emits no noise.
‘Hydrogen,’ Nate says. ‘I want this truck.’
‘I’d settle for a seat belt,’ I reply.
We accelerate. The G-force hurls us forwards and I nearly headbutt a crate of ammo. But the speed soon evens out and we steady ourselves against the cab, our arms linked for stability and comfort. The shelters lining the streets blur together, grey shot through with polythene, rainbow-like beneath the headlights. I can just make out the other vehicles following us, their headlights dipped and muted like a collection of glow-worms. The cab offers some form of slipstream, but the wind still makes my eyes water and my ears ring, and I can’t stop thinking about the danger ahead. I try to concentrate on breathing – in, out, in, out.
Nate turns to me. ‘Is this a good idea? The raid I mean.’
I can’t bring myself to look at his face, which I know will be all innocent and pixie-like. ‘It’s our only option.’
‘Rose and Willow only went so they could escape from the rebels. They used it as a distraction, they didn’t even enter the Meat House.’
I watch the buildings flash by, the windows and bricks merging into one long brushstroke. ‘I had to tell Thorn about it, there wasn’t a choice.’ The wind steals all the confidence from my words.
‘Why?’
‘Look, it’s tricky to explain, just let me be big sister for once.’
He exhales quickly, snatching his arm from mine. ‘Stop treating me like a kid.’
‘You are a kid.’
‘I’m nearly fifteen.’
I look at him. The wind has flattened all the spikes from his hair, and in the starlight the top of his head looks like a bullion bar. The weight of responsibility feels like it’s going to crush me. The truck swerves at a corner and I fall against the metal side panel. ‘I had to tell Thorn something or he would have killed Ash.’
‘Oh, so this is still a love story, I see.’
‘Thorn had a knife. I was thinking really fast.’
‘So you chose one Gem with one knife over many Gems with many guns.’
‘Well I don’t hear the Imp concubines complaining.’ It comes out a little snappy, which I immediately regret.
‘Soon as the rebels enter the Meat House, we should do exactly what we’re meant to – find a manhole cover and drop into the sewers so we don’t get shot.’
‘What about Katie?’
‘I don’t know.’ Guilt hangs in his words.
‘If we run, they’ll kill her. And – and—’
‘And what?’
‘And what about the Imps? The way those bastard Gems treat us.’
‘So now you’re a rebel?’
‘I didn’t say that.’ I chew my lip. ‘But if we can’t complete the story, if we can’t go home, we need to think about what sort of a life we want to live here.’ Another line of that rhyme gets stuck in my head – take up your guns, your stones and sticks. Maybe I can bring hope to the Imps even if I don’t hang at the Gallows Dance. Maybe I can help incite a revolution a different way.
The panic in Nate’s voice drags me back to reality. ‘Don’t say that, Violet. Of course we’ll go home.’
How? I want to scream at him. Exactly how are we going to go home now? Willow loves Alice. He doesn’t love me. How am I supposed to fix that in one day? But I think he’s about to cry. So instead I don’t say anything. I just gaze at the stars, which remain remarkably still in spite of the wind in our hair and the relentless movement of the buildings.
‘I miss Mum and Dad,’ he finally says.
‘Yeah. Me too.’
‘And food.’
‘And sleep.’
He watches me for a moment. ‘Violet?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Do you ever have . . . any really weird dreams?’
I shift my weight against the cab. ‘All the time.’
‘No, I mean, insanely weird dreams, where you hear . . . voices. You know, like they’re real.’
‘Mum and Dad?’
He looks excited. ‘Yeah, saying things like, Wake up, Jonathan, you can do it.’
I nod. ‘And sometimes I can smell the inside of a hospital.’
Nate bites the skin around his fingers, nudging his lip as the truck hits a bump. ‘Do you think this is the dream?’
I wish he hadn’t said this. The thought has plagued me since we arrived in this world, but it messes with my head, so I’ve dampened it down, shoved it to one side, just trying to maintain my sanity. I study the stars for a minute. Is earth – our earth – really up there somewhere? Eventually, I speak. ‘Like a coma-induced dream, or something?’
‘Maybe.’
I consider telling him about the pips of the hospital machine and about the fairy tales. About my sash and Rose’s belt of blood. About his Frankenstein insult and how it may have created the Dupes. But my head hurts from thinking, from the relentless wind pushing through my pores and under my skin, and I can feel the idea gradually undoing me at the seams. No, this can’t be a dream, it’s too bloody scary.
The braking of the truck pulls me from my thoughts. It slows and turns down an alley, the glow-worm-headlights expanding into white, sparkling plates. We grind to a halt, hemmed in by two crumbling brick walls. A line, heavy with washing, blocks out the stars.
Nate sighs. ‘I love this truck.’
‘I’ll get you one for your birthday.’
‘Nah. DeLorean all the way.’ He pats the side of the cargo area. ‘No offence.’
I feel the air – hot against my cheeks – as the hovercycles approach, disturbing the water in a nearby drain, chucking up mud particles and slime. The rebels dismount, checking their weapons and talking in hushed tones. I look for Ash, but I see no signs of the Humvee.
Thorn slams the truck door and hauls me from my perch, the sharp edge of the truck’s side scraping against my shin. ‘You can play canary,’ he says.
‘What?’ I try to straighten myself, but I feel like I’ve stepped off a fairground ride.