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  INTERNAL EMAIL: STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL

  From: [email protected]

  To: [email protected]

  Subject: Kyla Baptiste

  Dear Alexander,

  Having witnessed the full process with this subject I am confident that she is unaware of the whereabouts of Callum Conway. I suggest continuing with training as with genuine recruits. Subject appears to have successfully attained required levels of commitment to work.

  We can assess her potential usefulness in the field over the course of the next weeks. I suggest we assign another, more amenable, candidate to monitor behaviour over her time here.

  Best regards,

  Jennifer Sheehy

  CHAPTER 10

  stag

  I may not ‘do’ countryside but something about this view really gets to me.

  I’ve run up to my usual spot, behind the camp.

  They warn us not to go too far. There’s a perimeter fence somewhere nearby. I’ve been fitted with a tiny, temporary tracker too. But up here I can almost pretend I’m free. I like to stand on this massive hill and just look.

  The sky changes so much here. One minute there are bright blue patches and clouds so puffy and perfect they look like the sort in a kid’s painting. Then the clouds rumple and thicken, hanging so low you feel like you could put your hand in up to the wrist. I wonder what it would feel like. I know clouds are only water, but I imagine they’d taste like icing sugar if I licked my fingers. Daft. But something about being up here does that to me.

  The hills roll out in front of me in a patchwork of purple heather, bright green grass and rich brown earth. Today the sky looks like a churning grey sea that rolls and turns above me.

  My skin tingles with the power in the air. I figure a storm’s coming. I don’t want to get caught in it. But I sort of do, at the same time. It would make me feel.

  I’m doing OK. Physically, I’m getting stronger and fitter all the time. Even my asthma is better here. But I feel kind of blurry most of the time. Almost like a small part of me is outside, looking down at myself – when I’m getting a tray of food, or learning about the different ways terrorist organisations are put together. But when I get out here, I remember those other bits of myself. I’m me, Kyla, the girl who once liked dancing with her mum in the kitchen. The one who laughed so hard with Jax one day that she peed herself a tiny bit.

  The one who kissed a boy, took his picture and then watched him die.

  OK, there’s plenty of stuff I don’t want to feel. Maybe things are better the way they are. Maybe I am hard inside now.

  I’ve been at this place they call Area 6 for about two months now. I don’t remember much about the time after I first got here. They told me I got sick for a week or so. All I remember is waking up with a throbbing headache in a crisp, clean bed and being told it was time to get up and be useful.

  I had some crazy dreams for a while. Dreams so realistic that I started to wonder whether they’d put some kind of chip inside my head, like they did with Cal. And it wasn’t just at night. I’d sometimes get these . . . pictures when I was awake. I’d be brushing my teeth or something and then out of nowhere I’d get a mental flash of Tom shooting Jax. I don’t think that really happened. But I’m not completely sure any more. Things have got muddled up in my mind, like I’m watching screens that have been smashed into tiny fragments and then put back together all wrong.

  I try not to think about it too much because it makes me feel weird and a bit dizzy.

  I don’t know what I expected exactly about this place but I’m definitely not training to be some cool ninja spy. I’m learning to be a snitch. It’s not exactly the glamorous job I was hoping for, although they tell us it’s important work all the same.

  We’re known as CATS’ Eyes. They want us fit, able to fight. Able to run when we need to. Our job is to watch people and report on them. Like, anyone who’s thinking about joining Torch. Anyone who’s offering a room or making donations. We’ll help to flush them out. But most of all they want us to hate. To hate terrorists, of course, but to hate Torch most of all. And we do. Even hearing that name makes my palms prickle. Surely being a snitch is justified if it stops scum like them? I think about those days at the farmhouse, with Sam being so kind to me, Julia too. That Nathan guy was sort of grumpy but he still seemed quite decent. Cal didn’t know what they were really about. Like me, he’d been fooled into thinking they were the good guys. It makes me want to throw up now.

  So I’m getting on with things here. For now, I just want to keep my head down and do what I’m told. I’ve had enough fighting to last me a lifetime. I’ll worry about what comes next when the time comes.

  Not that it’s an easy ride here. The lessons are a weird mixture of school and army boot camp, with the odd bit of extreme cruelty thrown in to remind us ‘this is no holiday’.

  For example, let me tell you what happened in one of our Fitness Training sessions.

  These lessons take place in a modern building across the courtyard from the main centre, which is all whitewashed walls and sweat smells. There are mats all over the floor and every kind of fancy work-out equipment around the edges of the room.

  I’d looked around at the other people in my programme.

  I don’t exactly have any friends.

  The blond girl from the journey here is called Skye and even though we share a bare, cold room (more like a cell) she keeps to herself. There’s a lad called Christian, who was the dark-haired, praying one on the journey. He seems OK but spends a lot of time reading and doesn’t seem that inclined to hang out. Not that there is anything to do here. We have one very basic recreational room, with a few lumpy chairs they obviously don’t want anywhere else. In one corner there’s a tiny, old-fashioned television with limited channels that doesn’t even do 3D. In the other is the world’s oldest PlayStation, which has no 3D either and a controller that looks positively prehistoric. Doesn’t work that well but a real loudmouth called Reo and a couple of others spend the whole evening on it.

  The trainer is called Lewis, a slim, muscled bloke with short black hair. Not that tall, but he looks fast and strong. Good-looking and knows it.

  He told us we’d be working on stealth and said, ‘You can be built like a brick shithouse but if you’re not capable of moving silently and with grace, then you’re basically useless. Like I always say, real life is nothing like the movies. The bad guys don’t queue up politely, waiting to be hit.’ A low ripple of laughter filled the room then. Jokes are good. We don’t get many, let me tell you.

  ‘If you get found out, you’re going to be in danger.’ His tone was sober now. ‘You need to know how to look after yourselves. So . . .’

  He went to the back of the room and dragged over a large square container made of thin plastic. A smaller box with slots in it was left at the back of the gym.

  ‘Come and take a scarf and then get into pairs.’

  I walked over to the container. Thin scarves in a silky black material were jumbled inside. I pulled one out and twisted it around my hands. It was so light I could hardly feel its silky coolness.

  Back at my mat I glanced about to see who I could pair up with. Skye was with Reo. Lucky her. I caught eyes with a woman in her twenties called Zoe and she came over to my mat.

  ‘OK,’ shouted Lewis. ‘I want one of you to blindfold the other with the scarf. You’ll both get a go so it doesn’t matter who goes first. Then I want you to take the other scarf and lay it across the other person’s shoulder. The person who can see has the job of taking the scarf, unnoticed. If the taker succeeds, place a hand on the blindfolded person’s shoulder to alert them they have lost. But . . .’ he paused, ‘if they catch you, they should immobilise you on the mat. Everyone got it?’ There was a low ripple of agreement. ‘Right,’ said Lewis with a nod. ‘Each person take ten turns and then you need to swap. When you’ve both had a go, sit on the mats to show me you’re finished.’

  He walked over to a panel
on the wall. ‘And just in case anyone thinks this is too easy for the blindfolded person, you can’t rely on your hearing either.’ He wafted his hand at the panel and rock music blasted out of hidden speakers, so earsplitting and sudden everyone in the room seemed to jump a few centimetres off the ground at once.

  I turned to Zoe and we managed to communicate through exaggerated hand movements that I would be blindfolded first. Better to get it out of the way, I thought, hoping she wouldn’t take the ‘immobilisation’ thing too seriously.

  She tied the scarf gently around my head, which was a good start. It felt feather light but still turned the world to a dense blackness. It felt familiar . . . the darkness. It’s what I imagine death feels like. I was so distracted by this horrible thought I didn’t realise we’d started until I felt the pressure of a hand on my shoulder.

  OK, so one to her. The music was starting to make my head ache but I concentrated this time, straining to make out movement behind me. Zoe’s hand fell on my shoulder again.

  This happened another five times and I was starting to feel humiliated. On the seventh attempt I concentrated on the movement of air around me. Thinking I could feel something, I clutched at thin air. Then I felt the hand on my shoulder again. It was starting to feel like that hand was laughing at me.

  Come on, I told myself. Feel it . . . feel her presence. Smell her . . .

  I tried to pretend there was no deafening music blasting my eardrums. There was just me, and her. The world shrunk around me and that’s when I sensed the faintest vibration in the floor beneath my feet. A waft of soap, so slight it was barely there, had me twisting and pushing against the warm, dense body behind me, knocking her to the mat. I couldn’t see her but quickly had her on her back, straddling her with my knees. I laughed in delight, relieved I was finally getting it.

  On the next two goes, I sensed her each time.

  Reaching ten, I snatched the scarf away from my face, blinking in the harsh lights of the gym. Zoe frowned at me and rubbed the back of her head in an exaggerated way. I mouthed, ‘Sorry,’ and she managed a thin smile. Her turn now.

  I blindfolded her and placed the scarf gently on her shoulder.

  Looking around the room I noticed everyone was wearing trainers. Almost without thinking, I whipped off my trainers and socks, flexing my toes. It seemed so obvious, I couldn’t understand why no one else had thought of it. Moving on the balls of my feet, it was easy to get the scarf two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine times. I was starting to enjoy myself so maybe I got cocky on the tenth attempt. Before I knew what was happening, the world had tipped sideways and my back slammed against the mat. All the air jolted out of me and for a second I couldn’t get my breath. I looked up into Zoe’s face. She mouthed, ‘You OK?’ and I nodded as she slid off me.

  I was more embarrassed than hurt. Breathing heavily, I wiped the sweat prickling my face with the scarf and sat down on the mat. Almost everyone else had finished, apart from Christian and his partner. Christian turned out to be really good at this too.

  We had a knockout contest then and soon it was just Christian and me left.

  We exchanged grins and high-fived. This was actually fun!

  Lewis regarded us both coolly and then said, ‘Kyla and Christian, you’ve really nailed this task. Well done. Seems you’ve shown everyone else here up. Come to the front, please.’

  I couldn’t help feeling chuffed with myself. I wondered why he wanted us to come up to the front. For a mad moment I wondered if I’d get a prize.

  Christian was flushed and looked like he was holding back a grin too, but he avoided my eye. He doesn’t give much away, Christian.

  ‘Right,’ said Lewis. ‘Time for a play-off. We’re going to do it a little differently this time. You’ll be seated. You don’t have to disarm your opponent, just catch them in any way you see fit.’

  This time he tied the scarf around my eyes himself and guided me so I was sitting on the mat with my feet poking out in front of me. I felt a bit stupid and exposed. He must have turned on some kind of noise-cancelling thing this time because it went so quiet, the silence seemed to press in on my eardrums. I couldn’t hear the other people in the room. All I could make out was my own heartbeat.

  I tried to tune in to the vibrations in the room. It was weird, though, because I couldn’t pick out anything at all. I started to get a cramp in my leg and moved it, ever so slightly. And at that exact moment, I felt a burning agony in my wrist, making me cry out.

  I screamed and moved my arm. And that’s when I realised something was attached to my wrist. My other hand closed around something warm, muscular, alive . . .

  . . . and scaly.

  Scaly?

  Wrenching off the blindfold, I cried out again, looking down at the thick, green snake clamped around my wrist by its jaws. I fell onto my knees and smashed it repeatedly against the ground, over and over. It didn’t loosen its grip and then suddenly it went limp and stopped thrashing.

  Sobbing, shaking, I wrenched it off my wrist, shuddering at the curved, needle teeth that had been buried into my flesh. Dropping the filthy thing I looked up, eyes blurry with tears. A glass panel had silently divided the room. Horrified faces gazed at me from the other side. Skye had her hands pressed against the glass, her mouth hanging open in horror. I looked to my right and saw another panel separating me from Christian.

  He was looking at the ground, shaking as hard as me. A snake lay at his feet, its head caved in. My stomach heaved and I covered my mouth, willing myself not to be sick.

  The panels slid up, disappearing soundlessly into the ceiling and walls. Lewis walked over, still with that pleasant smile, like nothing out of the ordinary had just happened.

  ‘The bite is harmless, if a little painful,’ he said in a matter-of-fact tone. ‘We’ll get your wounds tended in a minute but first I want to ask a question of all of you.’ He paused. ‘What was the point of that exercise?’

  No one spoke. Then Skye tentatively raised a hand. Lewis nodded.

  ‘Yes, Skye?’

  ‘Is it, um, that you can’t predict where threats are going to come from?’

  ‘Go on,’ said Lewis.

  ‘Well, um, because of the exercise that we did just before this, Kyla and Christian were expecting the same sort of thing to happen. I mean, for the threat to be the same.’

  Lewis gently clapped. ‘Well done,’ he said with a smile. ‘Top of the class.’

  Stomach still churning, I beamed hatred at Lewis with my eyes. It’s true that I was expecting someone to creep up on me again, but wasn’t there a better way of getting the message across than using a bloody snake? I realised now that this was what was in Lewis’s mystery box.

  I glanced at Christian, who had a trickle of blood running down the side of his hand. It didn’t look as bad as my wound, though, which was raining crimson drops onto the floor. It hurt so much, I had to keep checking the snake wasn’t still attached to me. I started to shake and had to hug myself to control it.

  I run my fingers over the bumpy skin on my hand that still hasn’t completely healed, remembering how it felt. I guess the experience was a good reminder that I shouldn’t get too relaxed here. I don’t think any of us have families out there, judging by stuff I’ve overheard. No one will miss us if they decide we don’t fit in. A mouthy girl called Renna disappeared in the first few weeks. No one wanted to know where she went. Maybe she went to the Facility. I heard some whispers that she ended up in the loch I can see from the top of the hill.

  I shiver now as I imagine plunging into that inky blankness, fighting for breath as water floods my mouth, murky and bitter. I can’t swim and the thought of drowning has always terrified me. I think I’d take any number of snakes over that.

  All the hairs on the back of my neck seem to ripple then as thunder rumbles in the distance. I’ve turned to look down at the camp, spread out below. There’s not much to see there. The main building looks like something made by a kid with no imagina
tion from grey Lego. There are small windows all across the front in darkened glass. The roof is a mess of satellite-receiver antennae and coiled barbed wire, plus some big square boxes that might be lights. It looks about as welcoming as a smack in the mouth, which is probably the idea. It seems out of place among the swollen purple hills and stormy skies.

  A strange creaking sound makes me turn the other way, away from the camp. I gasp. Right there, near the bottom of the hill, is a huge, majestic stag.

  It has a tangle of rough brown hair down its front like a shaggy bib. Its antlers are white-tipped spikes, like they’ve been dipped in paint, and they curl out so high and wide it seems impossible the animal can support its head. We eyeball each other and I feel a weird happiness that fills my eyes with tears. Then it makes a sort of loud huff before dipping down to munch on some grass. I laugh, suddenly filled up with the honour of sharing this space with it, like it has gone, ‘Hmph . . . I guess you can stay.’ I suddenly want – no, need – to get closer. I can’t explain it. Maybe it’s because of that muffled, blunted sensation I mentioned before. I don’t seem to feel so much any more.

  And that’s a good thing, right?

  It’s what I wanted . . . to stop thinking about hard things so much.

  To stop hurting.

  But the stag is all instinct and senses; a series of powerful needs. Kind of opposite to how I’ve been feeling.

  It’s free . . .

  The stag’s breath puffs clouds in the cool air. It tears at the grass with its mouth, then slowly chomps away, ignoring me now and totally focused on eating. I’m not important. None of this . . . this shit I’ve been through, is that important.

  I’ve never been the wildlife type. But it feels like the stag is the, I don’t know, guardian of all this beauty and I need it to accept me. I would have run a mile from it once. But I’m braver now than I was. I’ve had to be.

  Very slowly, I begin to move forwards. It doesn’t move away. It trusts me! I creep a little faster, taking a few more steps, and then . . .