The Fandom(80)

Night falls and I wake Nate. We leave the protective walls of the church, lurching from the archway into the cold night air. Clouds obscure the sky and I can barely pick out the skeletons of the surrounding buildings. The rebels start loading weapons on to a collection of beat-up vehicles – Humvees, hovercycles, trucks – all originally Gem vehicles, stolen or salvaged.

Thorn guides us to a faded-yellow pickup truck; the jagged, dark shapes of weaponry fill the cargo area. It’s the same truck Willow and Rose travelled to the raid in, and it feels like the canon is mocking me again.

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.’