The Power(67)

‘That’s the truth,’ he says. ‘But she got Al and Big Mick caught,’ he says. ‘The Romanians paid her, and she told where they’d be. I cried when they told me it was her, love. I did. But I couldn’t let it stand, could I? There’s no one … you’ve got to understand, there’s no one I could have let do that to me.’

Roxy’s made that kind of calculation herself, more than once now.

‘You weren’t supposed to see it, love.’

‘Aren’t you ashamed, Dad?’ says Roxy.

He sticks his chin out, puts his tongue between his teeth and his bottom lip. ‘I’m sorry it happened. I’m sorry that’s the way it went. I didn’t mean for you to see it, and I’ve always looked after you. You’re my girl.’ He pauses.

‘Your mum hurt me more than I could tell you.’ He breathes out through his nose again, heavy, like a bull. ‘It’s a bloody Greek tragedy, love. Even if I’d known all this was going to happen, I’d still have done it, I can’t deny it. And if you’re going to kill me … there’s some justice to it, love.’

He sits there, waiting for it, calm as anything. He must have thought about this a hundred times, wondering who’d get him in the end, a friend or an enemy or a growing mass in the centre of the stomach, or if he’d make it all the way to a good old age. He must’ve thought before that it might be her, and that’s why he’s so calm with it now.

She knows how this goes. If she kills him, it’ll never be over. That’s how it went with Primrose, how they ended up in a blood feud with him. If she keeps on killing anyone who pisses her off, someone will come for her in the end.

‘You know what’s justice, Dad?’ she says. ‘I want you to fuck off. And I want you to tell all of them that you’re handing the business over to me. We’re not having any bloody battles, no one else is coming up to take it from me, no one revenging you, no Greek tragedy. We’re doing it peaceful. You’re retiring. I’ll protect you, and you’ll fuck off. We’ll fix you up with a safe place. Go somewhere with a beach.’

Bernie nods. ‘You always was a clever girl,’ he says.





Jocelyn



They’ve had death threats and bomb scares at the NorthStar camp before, but never a real attack, not till tonight.

Jocelyn’s on night watch. There are five of them, scanning the perimeter with binoculars. If you do your extras and you sleep over and you agree that you’ll work for them for two years after you leave college, they’ll pay your tuition. Pretty sweet deal. Margot could have paid for Jocelyn’s college, but it looks good that she’s doing it the same way the other girls do. Maddy’s skein has come in sure and strong, with none of Jocelyn’s problems. She’s only fifteen and she’s already talking about joining the elite cadets. Two military daughters; that’s how you run for President.

Jocelyn’s half dozing at her watch station when the alarm sounds in the booth. Alarms have sounded before; it’s been a fox or a coyote or, sometimes, a couple of drunk teenagers trying to climb over the fence on a dare. Jocelyn was once scared out of her wits by a shrieking in the trash at the back of the mess hall, only for two enormous raccoons to dive out of the metal bins, biting and running at each other.

The others had laughed at her for her fright at that, as they laugh at her quite often. At first, there was Ryan, and that was exciting and fun and intense and, because his skein was just their secret, it made everything special. But then it got out somehow – photos on a long lens, reporters at the door again. And the other girls at camp read about it. And then there were little whispered giggly conversations that fell silent when she walked into the room. She’s read articles by women who wish they couldn’t do it and men who wish they could, and everything seems so confusing, and all she really wants is to be normal. She broke up with Ryan and he cried, and she found her face was dry like there was a stopper inside holding it all in. Her mom took her to a doctor privately and they gave her something to feel more normal. And she does, in a way.

She and three of the other girls on watch take up their night-sticks – long batons with sharp, whippy metal strands at the end – and go out into the night, expecting to find some local wildlife biting at the fence. Except when they get there, there are three men, each carrying a baseball bat, their faces greased up with black. They’re at the generator. One of them has a huge pair of bolt-cutters. It’s a terrorist incursion.

Things happen quickly. Dakota, the eldest of them, whispers to Hayden, one of the youngest, to run for the NorthStar guards. The others stay in a tight formation, bodies close together. There have been men at other camps with knives, guns, even grenades and home-made bombs.

Dakota shouts out, ‘Put down your weapons!’

The men’s eyes are narrow and unreadable. They’ve come here to do something bad.

Dakota swings her flashlight. ‘All right, fellas,’ she says. ‘You’ve had your fun, but we caught you. Put them down.’

One of them throws something – a gas grenade, smoke billowing out. The second uses his bolt-cutters on an exposed tube in the generator. There’s a bang. All the lights go out in the centre of the camp. There’s nothing now but the black sky, the stars, and these men who have come here to kill them.