The Fandom(86)

‘Jesus, Nate, this is too dangerous.’

‘This affects me too.’ He puffs out his chest, trying to seem older.

Ash takes him gently by the shoulders. ‘You’re a kid. You need to leave.’

Nate shakes his head. ‘And you haven’t got a clue, Squirrel.’ He ducks to one side and breaks into a run, streaming across the Coliseum towards the gallows. We follow, stopping only when we reach the stage. This close, I can make out Darren perching on the beam, checking the lashings one by one. Thorn stands beneath, his forearms tensing as he fastens a series of slipknots.

I shove past the terrified Gems and vault on to the stage. ‘Thorn, wait.’

He sees me. ‘You want to help?’

‘You can’t hang them,’ I say.

‘Why the hell not? They hang us every Saturday.’

‘And it’s wrong. You know it’s wrong.’

He grabs a nearby Gem and positions him above a trapdoor. The blond hair twinkles in the stark lights. Howard Stoneback – his eyes still glassy from the draught. A gag muffles his words, but I can tell from the whimpering that he’s attempting to plead with me.

Thorn ploughs his fist into Howard’s ear. ‘Shut it.’ He turns to me. ‘The condemned Imps are innocent. These Gems are rapists, sadists, some are paedophiles. If you don’t like it, then look away.’

The violence still shocks me. I can’t help but look at Nate – hovering at the base of the stage, face drawn in horror. I should have forced him to leave, carried him kicking and screaming back to Saskia.

‘This is murder,’ I say.

‘It’s the price of freedom.’ Thorn shoves a rope over Howard’s crown, pushing the knot into the base of his neck. ‘Half of these Gems are politicians. Do you realize the publicity we’ll get, the stand we’ll make, when their bodies are found hanging from the gallows?’ He crushes Howard’s cheeks so that his lips stick out around his gag. ‘This bastard here is Howard Stoneback. Howard bloody Stoneback.’

The rebels begin to follow suit, pushing the Gems on to trapdoors, fumbling with lengths of cord. Only Ash stands motionless, his hand resting on my shoulder.

I grip Thorn’s hand, the one which encircles a length of rope. ‘If we behave like animals, they will never think us human.’

‘They deserve to dance on the gallows and know how it feels,’ Thorn says. ‘Your own words, Little Flower. If you were a true rebel, you would make them dance.’

A few Gems begin to weep. A puddle of urine stretches across the floor, nudging up against my boots.

Ash steps forward. ‘What if we could still get the publicity – still make a stand?’

‘Go on,’ Thorn says.

‘We sit them on the stage, nooses around their necks, and then we write across their chests, telling the world of their crimes. Then we alert the Gem media. Even the government couldn’t spin a story like that.’

‘That’s brilliant,’ I say. ‘We take the moral high ground.’

Thorn glances from my face to the trapdoors, gouges both hands into his eyes and makes a strange noise like a balloon deflating. ‘But they deserve to die. They have to be punished.’

‘Look at them,’ I say. ‘Gagged, crying, standing in their own piss. They’ll be humiliated and shunned. It’s worse than death.’

Thorn seems to stroke the noose for a moment. His eyes fill with tears, his beautiful lips press together. I know he’s thinking of Ruth. My heart swells with pity, and the sobs of the Gems sound so very far away. Maybe I would want to hear the snap of the ropes, see the flailing of Gem boots, if she’d been taken from me. I suddenly know how Katie must feel, pitying Thorn.

Very slowly, I unpeel his fingers. ‘You have to trust me.’

He grips my hand for a moment, searching my face for some unspoken truth. ‘OK,’ he finally whispers.

A siren cuts through the air. So loud I feel it pass through the soles of my feet. I turn to Ash, just in time to see his lips forming the word ambush.

The floodlights cut out, plunging the world into black.





Silence. Nothing but darkness and silence. Even the Gems on the gallows seem to hold their breath. From far away, I hear the ocean, a distant roar as it rises and falls, smashing into rocks. The ocean grows louder, angrier. Helicopters.

‘FALL BACK!’ Thorn roars.

The rebels begin to shout, feet slap the tarmac, gun barrels click into position.

I hear Ash. ‘We need to get out of here.’

But I stand completely still, my legs jammed in position. There was no ambush in canon. The rebels never even went to the Coliseum. How do the Gems know we’re here?

Helicopters swarm above, pouring shafts of white light into the black, like giant streamers probing the ground. I see fragments of movement as if captured by a strobe. Cables arcing over the Coliseum walls. Rebels retreating, their weapons raised. Figures crawling over the wall like spiders. A helicopter passes directly overhead. The pulse of the blades travels through my skin. All the tiny hairs on my face – even my eyelashes – stretch towards the ground, caught in the downward draught. My nose fills with dust, my ears feel ready to burst, and in the blinding white light, I see the blanched-out faces of the Gems beside me, ropes twisted beneath their chins.