Fragments Read online

  Most of the people in the back are looking at the ground, ignoring me in a weird way. Aren’t they curious? Then I notice the screen at the far end of the van. I see myself standing there and understand. They saw what happened just now. They’re too frightened to catch this woman’s eye. Maybe they think they’ll be next.

  God, what have I got myself into?

  Only one person looks out at me, a white girl a bit older than me who has blond hair twisted into a messy ponytail. She has a sharp face and quick, darting eyes.

  I climb into the back of the CAT van and sit in the empty seat nearest to her. The woman jumps neatly up and brings down the arms of the seat over my head. With a sharp click they lock into position. I understand why my hands aren’t tied now. The position of the restraints means my arms are wide apart, my hands useless.

  ‘We will stop for a break when we reach Carlisle,’ says the woman. But she does a weird thing then. She throws a bottle of water to the blond girl, who nods in thanks. I can’t understand it.

  And then without another word, she slams the doors closed and I hear a series of clicking sounds, as though several locks are sliding into place.

  The engine starts up and the van begins to move. No one speaks.

  Trying not to draw attention to myself, I look around at the other people here. There are four others, including the blond girl. A thin boy with a mop of dark hair who looks about my age. I can see his lips moving ever so slightly. Maybe he’s praying. A woman in her twenties, with tattoos and short dark hair, has her head tilted away. One of her hands plucks at the material of her skirt over and over again. The last passenger is a smallish black boy about my age who catches my eye and stares at me until I look away.

  The blond, sharp-faced girl is looking at me too. I stare back. I’m not prepared to smile and pretend we’re all off on some jolly trip together. I don’t know exactly what happened back there, why that man was shot. I close my eyes as the image replays, sickeningly, in my head. I feel a bit sick and force myself to breathe slowly. I’m still desperate for some water. I have no idea how far Carlisle is from here or how long it will be until we get a break.

  I’ve never known time move so slowly. I can’t sleep and I don’t want to meet anyone’s eye. It feels like every second is an hour.

  After some time that could be anything from half an hour to half a day we stop. I guess this is Carlisle. I need to pee now, as well as being so thirsty I think I’ll go mad. One at a time we’re led at gunpoint by a male CAT to some bushes at the side of the road. I try to hide away to pee, embarrassed. I’m given a plastic container of water and I greedily gulp from it, feeling sick because I’ve drunk too quickly.

  Once everyone is back in the van, we move off again. Time seems to slip by more easily now as the miles unfurl beneath the van’s wheels. The steady, low hum of the engine lulls me into a sort of nothing state after a while. Every time my mind tries to picture where I’m going I force myself to focus all my energy on a small light in the ceiling opposite. I can’t afford to start freaking out here. Seeing what happened to that bloke has made it clear this isn’t going to be the easy option.

  I try to sleep but I’m too uncomfortable. I want to be able to move my arms, and my back hurts from the hard seat. I rest my face against the cold plastic of the restraint.

  I can’t stop myself from doing a quick calculation of my misery, even though I know it will make me feel worse. My face and ear still ache from where Mick hit me. Or was it the guard who did that? It’s becoming muddled in my head now. And my thigh hurts like crazy where the guard kicked me. Or was that Mick too? Was he there when the bomb went off, when the farmhouse blew up? It was so loud. And bright. It must have hurt so much when they died, blown to bits, like . . .

  Oh, I miss you . . .

  I feel a spinning, dropping sensation and then I’m wrenched back to consciousness again.

  I open my eyes with a jolt. That girl is looking at me, curiously, again. This time she gives me a weak smile.

  ‘Were you dreaming about someone?’ she says. Her voice is high and much posher than I would have imagined. She sounds like she comes from somewhere south, although all the accents down there sound the same to me. ‘Is it your boyfriend?’

  I feel heat creep up my neck and face. Was I talking in my sleep?

  ‘No,’ I murmur. ‘I wasn’t dreaming about anyone.’ I have an instinct not to share anything. I turn my face away, hoping I’ve closed down the conversation.

  But she’s not finished yet.

  ‘You look like you’ve been in the wars,’ she says. ‘Did one of those bastards hit you?’

  I glance around. Everyone else is staring down at the ground or has their eyes shut.

  ‘You should see the other guy,’ I mumble and the blond girl gives a weary laugh.

  Some time later the engine sounds change and the van slows. We’re climbing up a hill and the road is twisty-turny. I close my eyes and try not to feel sick. I keep shaking so I clench my muscles to try to stay still. No one speaks in the van. The blond girl has given up trying to chat to me now and instead sits with her head resting against the arm restraints. Her eyes move under the bluish-white skin of her eyelids and I wonder if she’s the one dreaming now.

  The van comes to a stop and everyone, to a person, snaps to sit up straight, on high alert.

  There’s a long pause where nothing happens for ages. Everyone starts to fidget and then the doors are thrown open at the back of the van.

  The woman with the cruel face is standing there, her expression blank.

  ‘Well, here we are at last,’ she says in a tired voice and then her eyes glitter as her lips twist into something a bit like a smile. ‘Welcome to your new home.’

  CHAPTER 9

  cloaked

  We’re herded out the back of the van. The cold darkness seems to wrap itself around me like a dank, heavy coat. The air is different here, wherever we are. I can’t work out what it is straight away, it’s too strange and new. There’s something sharp that reminds me of stuff you’d put in the bath, which tickles my nose.

  Then I get it.

  It’s clean. There’s no miasma or filth in the air.

  Gradually my eyes accustom themselves to the dim light. Pure, icy panic floods through me then as I decide they have brought us here to kill us.

  There’s nothing here. The ground seems to swell into hills that might be natural or man-made, I can’t tell. There are tall pine trees stretching up into the night sky and in the distance I can make out vast shapes that might be mountains. There’s a strange, shimmery effect, though, among the pine trees, and I blink hard, thinking maybe my tired eyes are playing tricks on me.

  I glance at the blond girl, who is frowning and looking just as confused as me.

  A sharp pain between my shoulder blades makes me jolt forward. The mean female soldier has jabbed me with the butt of the gun.

  ‘Plenty of time for sightseeing tomorrow,’ she says. ‘It’s been a long drive so let’s just get inside.’

  ‘Inside . . . where?’ says the blond girl, sounding scared for the first time.

  The woman mutters something into her phone and there’s a buzzing, popping sound as a series of floodlights snap on. There’s a huge ugly building ahead on two levels, with blackened long windows. It’s a building that definitely wasn’t there a minute ago.

  ‘But how . . . What . . . ?’ the blond girl gives voice to the confusion I think we’re all feeling. Everyone is staring at the woman now with wide eyes.

  ‘It’s cloaking technology,’ she answers, as though she has said this a million times before and is bored with the whole thing. ‘It’s what you might call smoke and mirrors. Well, mirrors and light-bending paint, anyway.’

  I don’t know what she’s talking about but a wave of complete exhaustion washes over me then and I think that I don’t care what they do to me as long as they let me sleep.

  ‘You’d better get used to it,’ says the woman. ‘Thi
s place is full of surprises.’

  We’re taken inside the building, which smells the same as the army barracks but with a vague bleachy smell. There are bright lights that make my eyes ache and a few people dressed in normal coats or CATS uniforms walk by, eyeing us as they go.

  We’re told to line up and an unsmiling man dressed in uniform gives us a small paper cup and tells us to drink. I sniff but it looks like water. The blond girl says, ‘I don’t want to drink it. I don’t know what’s in it.’

  Without saying a word, the man grabs her arm and has her in a headlock before she can blink. He grabs her jaw and wrenches it open, while she squeals and kicks. He tosses the contents of the cup into her mouth, making her gag and choke but he slams her chin up so her mouth is closed and she swallows.

  The girl goes limp, and he lets go of her arm. She doesn’t cry, just fixes him with a look of pure hatred.

  ‘It’s not going to hurt you,’ says the guard. ‘But we can force all of you to drink it if we have to.’ He pauses. ‘Anyone else?’

  The others hastily tip the cups into their mouths, never moving their eyes from the guard.

  I look at the liquid inside the cup again, hesitating. If they’re forcing us to drink something, it can’t be good for us, can it? What the hell is it? If I have to be in this weird place, I want to be in control of myself.

  I’m not taking it.

  I know it’s insane. I know I’m only going to get hurt. But all the same I find myself tipping the cup upside down so the liquid splashes onto the white-tiled floor.

  The guard jumps back as some of it splashes onto his boots and eyes me with distaste. He sighs deeply and nods to someone behind me. My upper arms are seized by two more guards and they drag me along the floor. I don’t even struggle that much. I only wanted to make a point. But now I’m thinking I’m a bloody idiot. We get to a plain white door. They open it and push me inside. It’s like a cell, with a narrow cot bed and a toilet in the middle of the room with no lid. It smells rank and my stomach clenches. A woman comes into the room. She has curly brown hair tied back at the nape of her neck, wire-rimmed glasses and a pretty face. She comes over to me and it’s only when I feel a sharp scratch that I realise she’s plunged a syringe into my arm.

  A feeling of deep peace and calm instantly spreads through my chest and belly.

  ‘There now,’ she says. ‘That wasn’t so bad, was it?’ I think she says something else but I’m being guided onto the bed now and a delicious feeling of sleepiness is washing over me.

  This isn’t so bad, I think. This isn’t so . . .

  I’m burrowing down, deep somewhere soft and warm. I’ve never felt so safe and warm and sleepy. I’m a little kid again and Mum’s singing a song in her husky voice, stroking my hair. I start to laugh because I’ve never felt as good as this. Am I even allowed to feel this good?

  There’s the smiling woman again and it’s her stroking my hair now. She’s whispering something to me but I can’t really make it out so I just nod, and nod, and then . . .

  Pain screams through every part of my body and lights blast into my eyes.

  People are shouting at me, men with bulging eyes; two women are watching, including the kind one. Her arms are folded.

  I’m sweating all over and everything hurts. I don’t understand what they want! More pain. I think they’re volting me. It hurts so badly. Please stop, please stop, please stop . . .

  ‘Enough,’ says a quiet voice and a paper cup is held to my lips.

  The woman from before has soft brown eyes and pretty eyelashes behind her glasses. She smiles kindly and I drink.

  And I’m falling again . . .

  But just as I’m sinking into the deepest, most comfortable place ever, the lights are on. I’m curled in a ball on the cold, hard ground, too shocked to scream. A pair of cold eyes in a stubbled face looks down at me. I hear a female voice say, ‘Go up to level two this time.’

  Pain, pain, pain. Everywhere. In my fingers and in my face. My stomach’s cramping. Hot pain. I’m being torn apart.

  Like when the bomb went off. Everyone dying.

  ‘They died, Kyla?’ says a calm voice. ‘All of them?’

  ‘Yes,’ I whisper, through lips that feel ragged and bloody. ‘All of them. All dead. Cal. Jax. Mum. All gone.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  Such a stupid question . . .

  Another blast of pain. I don’t know where one wave ends and another begins. I’m on a wave of agony and reaching the top. When I get there it will be over and I can die, I can . . .

  And the pain stops.

  I’m free of this horrible place, running in the fields near the farmhouse. I’ve got a gorgeous white dress on and my skin hums all over with the knowledge that something wonderful is about to happen. Sunlight sparkles all around and there are wildflowers growing everywhere. And now Cal is here. Alive . . .

  He grabs my hand, laughing. He pulls me close and we kiss. It’s a good kiss, longer than we had before, that one time. Better. I know that I’m safe at last. Home. But then everything gets hot, so hot, and there are flames devouring the flowers and turning everything to blackened stubble. Cal screams out in agony and the skin is blistering all over his face. I reach out to help him and I’m crying too. I think my tears will help him heal and so I touch my wet cheeks and then reach for his face.

  There’s a booming noise and everything goes white-hot inside my head so I’m blinded for a minute. There’s smoke everywhere and when it clears I see horrible things. People torn apart, some of them children. Limbs littering a busy street. Oh God, make it stop . . . Then I recognise someone smiling in the middle of all the wreckage. Who is he? Then I remember. He’s the guy from Torch who rescued Cal and Jax from the Facility when it blew up. Tom. That was his name. He’s holding a gun in one hand and lifting his finger to his lips to make a shushing gesture with the other. His eyes glint in a weird way. He looks . . . evil. But I turn away from him because someone calls my name. Jax? He’s walking in that bouncy way, his long arms with hands in his pockets, and he’s whistling. Relief floods through me. He’s not dead! I don’t have to be alone again. It’s all going to be all right.

  ‘Jax!’ I yell but Tom is walking towards him and I know he’s smiling, but I can’t see him. He lifts the gun and shoots Jax through the head. Jax jerks and collapses on the ground. I scream and I try to run to him but I can’t because my legs are so heavy.

  I’m crying and crying and my head hurts. I’m in darkness now and I try to open my eyes but something is pressing them down. A sliver of light glints and I hear a groaning sound from somewhere. I’m opening my eyes and the light is bright, but then I see faces watching me and feel that my head and shoulders are being held by something tight.

  ‘I think we’ve probably gone as far as we can for now,’ says a woman’s voice. I feel myself being sucked somewhere deep and dark.

  I’m floating, weightless, like an astronaut drifting through space. I have no body any more . . . no bones and flesh that can break and hurt. I can let everything go. I like it. Time means nothing. The world might be spinning but I’m no part of it now. On and on and…

  . . . but then I see a pinprick of light and I’m hurtling towards it. I don’t want to come back. Please don’t make me! But the light becomes a tunnel and then it’s inside me and everywhere. Someone is spitting angry questions into my ear, into my brain . . . ‘Who, Kyla? Where, Kyla? Why, Kyla? Who? WHO . . . ?’

  And my lips open and words come spewing out like vomit; bitter and sour.

  I hear myself say Cal and Jax several times and every time I say their names, I’m filled with a sadness that’s unbearable. It hurts so much. Then I say other names – Tom, Helen . . . and my mouth seems to flood with a metallic taste. Tom, Helen, Torch.

  ‘They took away everyone you love, Kyla,’ says the voice. ‘Torch did this. It’s what they do. They kill and hurt.’

  Torch, Torch, Torch.

  Pain blasts through me again
and I hear screaming from somewhere.

  Torch, Torch, Torch . . .

  And then the pain stops and I’m filled with a feeling that’s pure, clean and bright.

  Hatred . . .

  I hate them . . .

  ‘Why, Kyla?’ whispers a voice close to my ear, encouraging me. ‘Why will you kill them? Because they’re evil? Because they want to hurt the people you’ve loved?’

  ‘Yes!’ The word comes out as a long hiss of relief. It’s like I’ve been gripping something so tightly that my fingers ache. My whole body has been cramped and in pain. But now I’m letting all that go with one simple word.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Who do you hate?’

  I shake my head because I suddenly don’t want to answer.

  Pain shoots up my arms.

  ‘Torch,’ I whisper, letting it all go again. And the hatred heals all my sore places.

  A hand touches my shoulder. ‘Good girl. Now, why don’t you sleep?’

  I don’t know what is real and what is inside my head any more. It’s so dark it doesn’t make any difference if my eyes are open or closed. I feel like a leaf tumbling in a breeze from the tallest tree. When I cry, which I do a lot, my eyes don’t make any water. Sometimes I hear whispered voices and I feel water running over my lips. There are sharp pricks into my arms and then I’m floating again, floating . . .

  PART II

  AREA 6

  SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS