The Wandering (The Lux Guardians, #2) Read online

  I smile at Honour’s bluntness, admiring it in a way the Guardian council are not—their dark expressions are incredibly disapproving. Perhaps they shouldn’t expect Honour to be a replacement for Alba.

  He says, “You already know why you’re fighting. You had to live in Forgotten London like the rest of us. You suffered through the same crap everyone else did. People died, a lot of people, some of them your friends and family, and I’m—I’m supposed to make you forget that, to make you perfect Guardians again, but I can’t. Sorry.” He glances apologetically at Timofei.

  “You don’t need me to tell you to fight the Officials. You haven’t forgotten your reasons, even though some people think you have. The problem is we can’t forget. Just—carry on doing what you’re doing. You don’t have to forget the people you’ve lost and I won’t tell you to, even though I’m meant to. As long as we remember the people that were taken from us, States can never win.”

  With his last word he rushes down the steps of the cenotaph and disappears into the mouth of the crowd. Without a conscious thought, I push my way after him.

  No doubt the others in our little family have split up to search for him too but by luck it’s me that finds him. I know to canvas the back streets and alleyways, the quiet dirtiness of this shining, intact city that must remind Honour of his home. It feels like we’re always finding ourselves in alleyways.

  The narrow path snakes between two dilapidated buildings, a fifteen minute walk from Piccadilly Gardens. Honour is folded into the grubby juncture between wall and ground, his head in his hands and his fingers pulling his hair. With his grey trousers and charcoal shirt, he blends into the dirt without effort. I let out a great sigh, sinking to the ground at his side, just barely resisting the heavy urge to still his fingers.

  “Honour?” When his eyes open I catch his gaze and hold it. The guilt of the past few days is forgotten in the face of my concern. “You spoke well. It was a very engaging speech.”

  “Thanks.” He looks away, staring into the stripe of sky above brown walls. His hair is a rumpled exhibition of distress. “Not to be rude but can we talk later? I’m tired and—”

  “I’m sorry,” I say. I let all the words flood out before my courage can recede. “I’m so very sorry for what I said before. I was wrong and wretched and—you are my friend, Honour. Perhaps the best friend I have ever had, save my sister, despite the short time since we met. I didn’t mean to be so awful. I was missing my sister and my father, and I took it out on you. It was wrong of me. Do you think you could ever forgive me?” After a half second I add, “Also please tell me that you’re alright. I’m quite worried about—”

  Before I can even finish speaking, Honour catches me in a strong embrace. “Have you been worrying about that all this time?” he says, breath rustling my hair.

  “Maybe.”

  He releases me with a shake of his head. “Idiot. I’m not gonna hold a grudge against you ‘cause of something like that. I get it. Sometimes you end up laying into your friends without really meaning it.”

  I let out a breath of relief. “Thank you. I appreciate your forgiveness, Honour, very much.”

  “You saved my life, remember? With your cure thing? Even if I was pissed at you—which I’m not—I’d have to forgive you.” He gives me a crooked smile. “I couldn’t stay angry at my saviour, could I?”

  “I suppose not,” I reply, laughing. A heaviness has been removed from my heart, so much that I’ve become practically weightless. A glint of light works its way into the darkness that has come to be my constant companion. “I am glad to be your friend,” I tell Honour. “I feel lucky to have you.”

  He gives me a bewildered look. “You do know I’ve been like … biologically altered to kill everyone, right?”

  “I’m aware.”

  “And that I wreck every single thing I touch?”

  “I disagree.”

  “And that I left a guy to die, just so I could save myself?”

  I give him a sharp look. It seems guilt isn’t only eating at me, but Honour too. “You did that to save your sister. Do not try to convince me you are selfish when I know you’re selfless. I was there, remember? I too walked away from Marrin.”

  He mutters a complaint, glowering at the wall across the alley.

  “If you’re so intent on taking the blame for Marrin’s death—a death you weren’t responsible for, since he chose his own fate—then I will share it. I left him in that building as much as you did.”

  “Don’t be stupid. It wasn’t your fault.”

  “Why not? I did the same as you.”

  “No, but—”

  “Surely, if you’re to blame then so am I.”

  “You didn’t do anything.”

  “And neither did you.”

  Honour scowls at me for a prolonged moment but gives up with a heavy sigh. I can see he won’t stop faulting himself for Marrin’s death but maybe I’ve impressed upon him how nonsensical the blame is. If nothing else, I hope I’ve lessened the guilt’s vicious grip on him by a fraction.

  “Fine,” he says. He runs a hand through the tangle of his hair, a smile beginning to form. “Do you always have to be right?”

  “Pretty much.”

  His smile grows.

  ***

  Miya

  09:10. 26.10.2040. The Free Lands, Northlands, Manchester.

  Someone is pacing up and down the aisles outside our tent, banging on metal and shouting for everyone to get out of bed for training. Scrubbing sleep from the corner of my eye, I check if Tom and Olive have woken up, but they’re both out of it. I roll over with a groan and press my face into Yosiah’s shoulder, his skin a flash of cold against my forehead.

  “Please tell me they don’t expect us to get up,” I mutter.

  “I hope not.” Yosiah’s rasp is thick with sleep. He lifts a lock of hair from my head, twisting it around a finger.

  “What time is it?”

  “Time for more sleep.” He drops the strand of my hair, settling further into the old, squeaky mattress. “You staying there?”

  “Yeah,” I say sleepily. If I were more awake I might feel edgy at being this close to someone, but right now I don’t care about anything but ignoring the world for a couple hours more.

  Siah rests an arm around my waist, just lightly, testing what I’m comfortable with. When I don’t fight him off, he holds me tighter.

  Just hovering on the edge of consciousness I hear him sigh, “I’m glad you’re close.”

  No more than ten minutes can have passed before I’m thrown awake again, Timofei’s disgruntled voice wafting through the cotton doors of our tent. Cursing under my breath, I drag myself up and shake the sleep off. I throw on a dark grey vest that hangs low on me, black jeans, and the white Guardians jacket Siah gave me back in the London base. I hide my assortment of weapons in the inside pockets of the leather, tucking my favourite knife into the waistband of my jeans so the cold steel sits flat against my back. Stuffing my feet into a new pair of red canvas shoes, I nudge my brother and sister awake before stomping out of the tent to glare up at Timofei.

  “I’m not even a Guardian,” I snarl. “Why do I have to be up?”

  “Because you’re training to be one.”

  I narrow my eyes. “Since when?”

  “Since today.”

  Yosiah bats the doors of the tent apart, squinting at the flood of light.

  “Did you know about this?” I ask him, but I can tell by the furrow between his eyebrows that he didn’t. He shakes his head, scratching the scruff on his jaw.

  “Will we have time to train?” he asks. “What about all the meetings you’re planning with the Manchester council?”

  “Free time is over,” Timofei says wearily. “The Guardians have to get back into training. I suggested you all be brought in for a few sessions to learn how to defend yourselves.”

  “Not a bad idea,” Siah concedes, completely awake now. His eyes are shining, a slice of sun ad
ding highlights over his shoulders, a halo around his black hair. The unearthly appearance clashes with the tired sigh he lets out when Timofei walks off.

  “What?” I look up at him, raise an eyebrow. “Scared I’ll beat you in training, Merchant?”

  “Remind me, Vanella,” he says, tipping my chin up with a finger, “which one of us was trained to fight as an Official.”

  “You were a doctor.” His cocky grin drags a smirk out of me. I step closer, cornering him against the tent. I know the proximity will make him either flustered or uncomfortable, so I use it to my advantage. “You patched people up, Siah. You didn’t slay anyone, not like I’ll slay you.”

  He brings his face closer to mine and suddenly my tactics are working against me. “How much are you willing to bet on that?”

  My heart is hammering, my body wound so tight that when the tent door opens with a whip of air, I jolt away from Siah.

  “Can you two please stop flirting?” Livy groans, pushing past Yosiah. “It’s early and I’m tired.”

  I can’t think of a reply. She stomps off down the aisle to the main door.

  Yosiah lets out a sharp burst of laughter before smothering it with the back of his hand. His eyes are dancing, molten gold, his cheeks flushed a delicate pink. He bats a long strand of hair from his eye, watching me.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” His thumb skims my cheek, so quick I’m not sure it happened. “Nothing, Miya.” He dips his head, looking at the scuffed boots he’s wearing. That annoying strand of hair falls into his face again and he tries to whip it away with a sharp movement of his head but it refuses to budge.

  “Here,” I say, taking a penknife from my pocket to cut a thin strip of fabric off my vest. “Turn around.” He’s obviously confused but he follows my order without question. I put the cotton between my teeth while I gather Siah’s hair in my hands, and then use the strip to tie it together. When I’m done, his hair sits neatly at the base of his neck.

  “Better?” I ask, turning him by his shoulders. He still looks a little startled. He gathers me into his arms without warning, pressing me close and letting me go in the same breath.

  “Thank you,” he says. He clears his throat, biting his lip before he catches himself. “We should … we should go.” He lifts a hand to run it through his hair before remembering it’s tied back. “You can slay me in training.”

  I think I already did, I don’t say. Who knew Yosiah would be more flustered by me tying up his hair than flirting with him? I smile without meaning to.

  I face our tent and yell, “Tom!”

  “No,” is his groaned response from inside.

  “Yes.” I put as much force in my voice as I can.

  “No.”

  “Yes!”

  “I don’t wanna get up,” he whines, but I hear shuffling that suggests he’s already out of bed.

  “You don’t want me to come in there and drag you out either, do you?”

  Thomas mutters something under his breath and shoves the tent doors apart, his expression sulky and his T-shirt on backwards. I kneel down to turn it the right way, getting an “Ugh, Leah,” for my efforts.

  “You’re the worst sister ever,” he grumbles.

  I take his hand and lead him through the Station. “I know.” The warmth I’m still not used to has sunk into my gut and spread through my body—happiness that comes from having my family with me, my whole family. “I’m awful. But lucky for you, I won’t be with you all morning—maybe even all day.”

  He peers up at me, eyes dark in his small, pale face. “Does that mean we’re gonna stay with Hele?”

  “Probably.” Hele and Horatia always seem happy enough to look after the kids. I get the feeling Hele would like one of her own, but I understand why she and Dalmar never had one. Forgotten London wasn’t the kind of place you wanted to bring a kid into, and with the life expectancy of twenty … what was the point of having a kid you wouldn’t see reach even five years old? It was different for people like our mum—with her bribes and her treatments—but normal people? They don’t live past twenty two at the oldest, sometimes even sixteen. I wonder if that’s any different now we’re free of the town, or whether I’ve still got death hanging over me.

  I shake my head. Of course death is following me. None of us are safe, not even in Manchester where nobody has seen an Official for twenty odd years.

  “Awesome!” Tom says, stealing me from my morbid thoughts. “Hele tells us cool stories.”

  “Oh, I see how it is.” I purse my lips. “I have some pretty cool stories to tell as well, you know?”

  Tom rolls his eyes. “Yeah but yours are always ‘There was a bad guy, I punched him, the end’. Hele tells stories, like properly.”

  I shrug. He’s right. I’m not sure I even know how to tell a story. I think that’s something that comes from your mum and dad, something that’s passed on. Hele must have had decent parents.

  “Don’t worry,” Yosiah says in my ear. “You’re still my favourite storyteller.”

  I shove him away with a glare, watching, with a bolt of pride, the quick way he falters for balance on his right leg and steadies himself without issue. He’s getting back to normal, the injuries he got when he jumped from the Underground healing. He nods, like he knows exactly what I’m thinking, and flashes me a grin.

  “Game on,” he mouths.

  Adrenaline wakes up my nerves. I’m looking forward to this morning.

  10:24. 26.10.2040. The Free Lands, Northlands, Manchester.

  The training session turns out to be bullshit.

  Anna, a wiry woman with short blonde hair and a big nose, prances about on a mat in front of us, using a volunteer to demonstrate ‘key self-defence techniques’. She shows us how to block a punch, in extreme slow motion, how to aim a punch, what to do if someone catches you from behind. This is all common sense to me. If someone grabs you, elbow them in the gut. If someone’s trying to hit you, throw up your hands to protect your face. This is rookie stuff we all learned in bar fights the hard way.

  Then again, Horatia seems to be eagerly taking it in. I guess she never had to fight—Honour probably fought twice as often so she’d stay sheltered. Shame that didn’t work out. Those kinds of things never do. The more you try to protect someone, the harder it hits them when the bad things come knocking. And the bad things always come with a loaded gun. That’s just the way the world works.

  So I’m putting up with the slow, boring demonstrations because it’s helping Horatia and a few of the other beginners in here with us—people I don’t recognise who must be family of Guardians. There’s a twelve year old girl with a thin stature and a shock of dark hair called Allie that I’m almost certain is Timofei’s sister. But where did she come from?

  “They’ve been harbouring her here,” Yosiah says, noticing my attention on the girl.

  “How do you know that?” I hiss, looking at him from the corner of my eye as I fake punch the space in front of me.

  “I asked.”

  “Oh.” I chance a full look at him and am almost blinded by a beam on sunlight. It’s too bright in this room—I can see the dust floating through the air. “Why don’t I ever think of that?”

  “Because you don’t do subtle.”

  I make a face, accepting the truth of his words, and adjust my stance to mirror the instructor.

  “You’re being very patient with this,” Siah says. “That’s unlike you.”

  I shrug. “It’s helping people. I don’t wanna be an asshole about it when it might save their lives.”

  He doesn’t answer. I turn to him again, shielding my eyes this time. There’s a look on his face I can only describe as ‘soft’. It does this awful thing to my insides, makes it feel like my bones are turning to gloopy tar. I look away. This has to stop, this bizarre soppy mess Yosiah keeps reducing me to. I’m Miya, street hardened and world hating. But he keeps making me into some naïve, heartsick thirteen year old.

  I’m reli
eved when Anna decides we can move onto basic gun handling. Guns I can deal with.

  I cross the floor, squinting against the light. The sun is getting higher in the sky, streaming through the double row of windows in the ceiling to make molten squares on the old wood floor. The building doesn’t look like it gets much use and excessive dust is proof of it. Someone must have run a mop over the floor before we came in, though, because Livy and Tom and a handful of other kids are using the shine of the floorboards to propel themselves across the room. They skid right into the wood-panelled wall and let out loud whoops at each collision. Tom hits his head pretty hard and fear shoots through my veins, but he pumps his arms triumphantly, totally carefree.

  Kids are weird.

  I roll my eyes, turning my back on them. Anna is lining up antiquated guns on a bench, her movements assured. They’re bulky and look heavy, like the ones Honour and I found in that storeroom in Hull.

  “Will those work?” I ask Siah. “They look old.”

  “Only if they’ve got shells.” At my look he says, “Probably.”

  “Yeah, but will they work properly?” I scuff a shoe on the floorboards. “They won’t just go off on their own will they?”

  “No.” A light touch on my elbow makes me look up. “I can show you how to work one, if you don’t feel comfortable enough with them after this. I’ve used these old models before.” His lips quirk into a smile. “Not for a very long time, but I remember it well.”

  “It’s okay.” The look in Yosiah’s eye is the one he gets when he thinks about his history as an Official. I don’t know what he had to do back then, since he was only a medic, but I don’t reckon it was good. He’s seen a lot of people die, I know that. Maybe even killed a lot of them himself. I’m sure it’s the shadow of a killer I see in him. “If you don’t want to, it’s fine.”