All That She Can See(59)

‘But Happy told me —’

‘You’ve met Happy?’ Peter growled. ‘She’s one of the worst!’ Smoke seeped in under the door and Peter coughed.

‘Happy told me they only find people when they start acting up. When they start making a scene and drawing too much attention to themselves. That’s how they find us.’

‘“How do you know whether someone is a serial killer until they’ve murdered six people?” I must have heard her say that a million times. Utter bollocks. They’ve known about us from the day we were born. I caused trouble from an early age which was why they took me away when we were in school. If you’ve only just found out about the Guild then you must have only just started causing trouble for them.’ Peter raised his eyebrows in question.

‘All I did was bake a few bloody cakes,’ Cherry huffed defensively.

‘Doesn’t matter. You started using what you can do in a way that attracted too much attention. The Guild are all about containing it. They bring people in who have been messing around with normal people’s feelings and they tell everyone they’re being taken to prison but that’s not true. They experiment on them, to try to make them normal.’

‘Normal? As in… not able to see anything?’

‘Nothing at all.’

‘I don’t understand – why would they do that? Happy told us about those lenses that can prevent us from seeing the Meddlums. Isn’t that enough?’

‘They’re only temporary. They don’t last for ever and they don’t take away our abilities for ever. Not only that, but they’re linked to the Guild. Anything you can see, they can see. It’s a surefire way to get yourself caught if you’re doing anything… unsavoury. A few little twerps sit at their screens and just watch us all day long. Which is pretty gross when you think about it. They want to get as many of us wearing them while they find a better solution, something more permanent. Which is why anyone who gets dragged into the Guild wakes up with a pair already “installed”.’

‘Happy said there was a two-year waiting list…’

‘Sure there is. They just say that to make us want them more. It makes them sound more exclusive which means if you get a pair, you feel lucky to have them. It’s a mind game, and the Guild loves mind games.’

‘Can’t you just… take them out?’

‘Once they’re in, they’re in until either the Guild removes them or the system they’re linked to goes down. The Guild’s endgame is to find a cure and they’ve become more ruthless as time as gone on. They’ve tried splicing, dicing, cognitive behavioural therapy, electric therapy… you name it, they’ve already tried it. They hit dead ends and then kept hitting them as hard as they could just to make sure they haven’t missed something.’ Peter stared into the flames of the candles, his eyes bright in the glow. His voice dropped to a whisper. ‘For so long they thought it was something in the eye itself. So they kept taking them out. People would wake up and their eyes would just be… gone. They cut them open, trying to find anything that pointed to an answer. It took jars full of discarded and mutilated eyeballs before the researchers decided to try something new.’ Peter blinked furiously a few times. ‘It made me really appreciate my sight – normal and abnormal.’

‘Oh, Peter.’ Cherry wanted to reach over and take his hand but he crossed his arms, signalling that that part of the conversation was over. She thought it best to move the conversation on so she said, ‘So let me recap. You were taken away in a van as a child.’

‘Correct.’ Peter nodded.

‘And you were taken to the Guild.’

‘Correct.’

‘Where people like us are experimented on to try to find a way to fix our sight.’

‘Correct.’

‘So we can live normally.’

‘Yup.’

‘At least that’s what they tell themselves.’

Peter nodded.

‘But really they don’t understand us and think we’re dangerous.’

‘That’s right.’

‘And most of us end up blind, or worse, dead?’

Peter nodded again.

Cherry’s stomach dropped at the thought of Chase being held by these people. What were they doing to him? ‘How long were you there?’

‘Until yesterday.’ Peter dipped his fingers in the wax of the candle nearest him.

‘What?’ The word snagged in her throat.

‘Yesterday,’ Peter repeated.

‘So you’ve been in the Guild ever since you were taken away as a child? And they just… let you go?’

Peter raised an eyebrow and said, ‘Would I be sat in an abandoned house lighting crappy candles if they’d just let me go?’

Cherry leaned forward eagerly. ‘You escaped?’

‘Yes. Like I said, this is the safest place for an escapee.’

‘I thought that was a weird joke that I just didn’t get!’ Something occurred to Cherry. ‘How did you survive in there for so long if so many people died in there?’

‘Well, it helps to have a mother who works there.’

‘Your mother?’

‘Turns out she left me to work for the Guild.’