Gilded Cage (Dark Gifts #1)(25)

The girl’s face reappeared, bobbing disembodied in the drizzle of light from a lamp post.

‘Chess. Scrabble.’ She shrugged. ‘We had Cluedo, but it got taken off us for being subversive. Bumping off poshos in a mansion, and it could have been one of the servants what dunnit.’

At Luke’s disappointed expression, she threw back her head and cackled.

‘Only joking. You’ll find out soon enough. And remember: no one will make you play. We may have chosen you, but you have to choose the game.’

Then she was gone.

Luke lay awake in the dorm that night, thinking about his family, and about Doc Jackson’s club. His whole life he had been surrounded by the noise of his sisters and parents, a sound so familiar that it went as unnoticed as breathing – until it wasn’t there any more. So he sometimes just talked to them anyway. Which wasn’t weird at all.

He’d hear nothing from them until December at the earliest, once he’d been here three months and the customary restriction period on outside communication for all new slaves had passed. And it wasn’t as though he could tell them about the club in a letter, anyway. So a one-sided conversation inside his head would have to do.

What would they make of how he’d spent his first weeks in Millmoor, and his plan to go with Renie on Sunday? Because he was pretty sure the club’s activities were nothing to do with board games.

‘Forget about it, son,’ Dad would counsel from under the hood of the Austin-Healey, hand held out for a spanner. ‘Keep your head down. Just get on with your work.’

‘Don’t go getting into trouble,’ he could hear Mum say. And Abi would surely remind him that he knew nothing about these people he was getting mixed up with.

Daisy might think it rather cool. She’d never been one for doing what she was told. (Though Luke hoped she was being more obedient at Kyneston.) Would Millmoor have turned Daisy into a Renie, streetwise and defiant?

Luke saw that it came down to a single question: was getting involved with the club worth risking another thrashing from Kessler – or worse? Possibly even endangering his transfer to Kyneston?

Mum and Dad would say no, without a moment’s hesitation. But they hadn’t been here and seen what life was like in this place. It wasn’t up to Mum and Dad any more, he realized. It was as Renie had promised: the choice was his.

That realization didn’t help him sleep.

On Sunday morning, Luke reached the vehicle depot half an hour early. He prowled around the wire fence, curious. There was a row of Security 4x4s raised on hydraulic jacks, to be worked on from below. He knew what Dad would have said about that: it was incredibly unsafe without axle stands, too. Were the authorities who ran Millmoor that ignorant, or did they simply not care about the people who slaved here?

Or was it something worse? Were Millmoor’s many accidents – like what happened to Simon’s Uncle Jimmy, or the man who used to do Luke’s job – more than just negligent one-offs? Perhaps they were part of how slavetowns operated. Risky work and harsh living conditions would keep people focused on themselves and their own challenges, unable to see the bigger picture.

Is that what Doc Jackson had been trying to say?

Was Luke beginning to see Millmoor for what it truly was?

Renie materialized at Luke’s elbow. Her nod of approval at seeing him scoping out the depot turned into a grin when he explained how he’d fixed up a car with Dad.

‘It’s not like I’ll get much chance to use what I know in here,’ Luke said ruefully. ‘I’m seventeen next month. I should have been learning to drive. I already can drive, sort of. But I won’t be getting behind a wheel or under a bonnet any time soon.’

‘Never say never, Luke Hadley,’ Renie retorted, jaw working furiously at some gum. ‘C’mon. Let’s get you introduced to the club.’

Luke switched on his mental satnav to try and remember the route, but after fifteen minutes he was lost as they took shortcuts and nipped through buildings and courtyards, making it impossible to keep track of roads followed and corners turned. Did Renie not trust him with the location of the meeting?

‘Scenic route?’ he asked, a little sharply.

‘Least amount of surveillance route,’ she replied, still hurrying ahead. Soon after, she ducked beneath the half-lowered shutter of a warehouse goods entrance and headed for a door set into the wall of the cavernous space inside.

Luke didn’t even have time to run a hand through his hair and plaster on his best how-do-you-do face. He needn’t have worried. The Millmoor Games and Social Club appeared to be half a dozen people in some back room.

They were seated in outsize black-mesh office chairs around a wheeled desk littered with cans of soft drink and an empty fruit bowl. It was like the judging panel of the world’s crummiest TV talent show.

There were two grey-haired women who must be last-ditchers; they looked old even by ditcher standards, well into their sixties. A skinny guy was swivelling his chair with nervous energy. A shaven-headed black bloke sat next to a petite woman with a ponytail and a wan complexion. Were they Renie’s parents? But she gave them no special acknowledgement. Then Doc Jackson. Beside him: two empty seats.

‘Hello, Luke,’ said the doctor. ‘Welcome to the Millmoor Games and Social Club.’

The others introduced themselves: Hilda and Tilda, Asif, Oswald – ‘Call me Oz’ – and Jessica. The two women with matching names were sisters, but Oz and Jessica didn’t claim Renie.