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

  “Hey, now!” I think I’m quite far from being that pitiful.

  “Though he will complain,” she goes on, “we must do everything in our power to train this weak male and provide him with the knowledge of how things work—how things should work—in this new world.”

  “You are insane,” I declare.

  “And you’re a time travelling freak of nature.” She smiles a huge, toothy grin. “So, BFFs?”

  I look to Priya for answers. She says, “Just agree with her.”

  “Okay.” I could be signing my life away in this moment and I wouldn’t know it. Not having a clue what it means, I say, “BFFs.”

  ***

  Miya

  00:11. 13.10.2040. The Free Lands, Eastlands coastline.

  I’m thrown into the middle of another night by another nightmare. This time instead of Yosiah jumping into the darkness of the train tunnel, it was my mother yelling that I had ruined everything. I use the bottom of my vest to wipe the sweat from my face and push her voice from my mind. It wasn’t my fault. It was hers.

  I slide out of bed, careful to be quiet so I don’t wake anyone, and pad to the door in the corner of the room. The bathroom attached to our room is blessedly cool. The cold pricks bumps along my bare arms as I fumble in the darkness for the tap. It creaks as I turn it, loud enough for me to wince, and water spurts into the sink.

  I splash my face with water, using some of it to slick my hair out of my face. After a minute or so of just standing in the small room, slowly calming down, I step back into the bedroom. My body collides with a dark figure. My heart slams into overdrive. I throw a punch, putting my body into the blow the way the Guardians do, but a callused hand grabs my wrist before I can connect. I’m pulled forward so hard and fast that I’m crushed against a bony body, familiar arms coming around my shoulders.

  I drop my fist, relaxing. I’d recognise the shape and scent of him anywhere. Siah holds me close, his hands shaking against the bumps of my spine.

  “I couldn’t find you,” he breathes.

  An out of place hitch in his voice has my hands following the silhouette of his body until I find his face. His cheeks are wet, his eyes closed. I run my thumbs over his cheekbones, brushing away tears that he never, never, should be crying because of me. He shudders.

  “As if I would leave you,” I say. I’m fuming at myself for not realising how scared he was. All I’ve been bothered about was my own paranoia. I never thought his might be as bad, even when he told me he couldn’t survive without me last night.

  I lean onto the tips of my toes and do something I’d never have thought to do until Yosiah jumped into the tunnel. I kiss his forehead. I didn’t realise just how much things had changed until now, how much Yosiah had changed. That tunnel didn’t just turn me into a mess, it is haunting Siah as well.

  ***

  Honour

  10:30. 13.10.2040. The Free Lands, Eastlands coastline.

  I lean against the railing outside our room, Horatia beside me gazing at the endless water and fiddling with the thick braid of her hair. The waves are locked in battle, charging at each other again and again and again. So far the ship has been steady but the sea has other ideas. My stomach clenches painfully as we’re rocked more forcefully.

  Miya’s brother barrels past us, screeching with laughter as Miya chases him. “Fine!” she yells as he disappears around the front of the boat. “Don’t expect me to come looking for you when you get lost!”

  She pulls at her hair, turning around with a half-grimace-half-smile that drops as soon as she looks past me. I follow her eyes and jolt into action. Tia is doubled over, her hands on her stomach and her forehead creased in pain.

  “Tia? Tia, what’s wrong?”

  She clenches her teeth against a moan.

  “Is it the sea? The rain?”

  She shakes her head, gritting her teeth. A few second pass before she unfolds herself, leaning against the railing as if nothing is wrong, as if she hasn’t just been paralysed by pain. I touch her cheek and she turns her face into my hand; her eyes tell me not to worry but I don’t believe them.

  “Tell me,” I say, knowing she won’t.

  A minute later she grasps her stomach again and turns her back on me.

  “Oh.” Miya slaps me on the shoulder and drags me away from my sister. I struggle but she has a stupidly strong grip. “I’ve got this, Honour. Go take a walk or something.”

  “What’s wrong with her?” My voice is hoarse, my stomach roiling again. I tell myself it’s just worry and not the exaggerated motion of the ship.

  “Uh. Just …” She gives me a pointed look. “Y’know.”

  I shake my head, which makes the sick feeling worse. Dizziness comes from nowhere. “No,” I groan. “Not at all.”

  “Ugh. There’s this magical thing that happens to a woman once a month, Honour. It’s called a period. It hurts like a bitch. Be lucky you’re a guy.”

  “Oh.” The cold rain feels suddenly scorching.

  “Yes. Now go away.” She shoves me down the deck and strides over to Horatia, taking my sister’s arm to tow her into the cabin Miya and her family share.

  Ignoring orders to leave, I sink onto the wet deck outside our room. I tip my face up against the rain, the falling water cooling my face. But my stomach doesn’t feel any better. I’m way too conscious of the sea around me, the creaking and tipping of the ship every two seconds.

  A strong wave slams into the boat and the meagre contents of my stomach evacuate into the sea. The retching drains the last of my strength. Once I’m sure the sickness has passed, I flop back onto the wooden boards, my arms and legs spread out. I’m listless and lifeless and lacking the energy to even hold my head up. My mind is screaming that I’m going to die but I keep arguing that I’ll be fine. I’ll be fine.

  11:47. 13.10.2040. The Free Lands, Eastlands coastline.

  There’s a gentle touch on my head and something soft against my back. It’s a while before I remember the ship, letting go of the dream where I was home. I peel an eye open. Horatia hovers over me, relief in her smile and a wet cloth against my face.

  “I’m okay,” I assure her. My eyes are dying to close again but I keep them open with effort. “Come here.”

  Tia settles into my open arms, her head resting on my shoulder like always. Her skin against mine is a freezing shock. “You’re cold.”

  When I pull the cover closer around her shoulders, she stops me with a little shake of her head. It takes a second to work out what she means: Tia isn’t cold, I’m just really warm. High fever—Strains symptom. My throat gets tight when I remember the vaccine can kill me any minute. I might have taken it to stop the spread of infection, to stop me killing anyone in the Guardians’ base, and I might not regret it one bit, but I can’t even comprehend being dead. Being gone completely. No more Honour Frie.

  How would Tia cope with losing me as well? She’d have Miya to support her at least. They seem to be friends. And Dal and Hele. I think she’d cope. She’s strong enough. But the thought of being wiped out, cancelled like one of Dalmar’s computer commands … I come face to face with the fact that I’m not just staying alive for my sister like I thought. I don’t want to die. I really really do not want to die.

  I want to stay alive for me.

  I kick the covers to the floor. “I think,” I say, “I’m sea sick.”

  I feel the shape of Horatia’s smile against my shoulder but she doesn’t let loose a word. I understand her silence a bit better now than I did right after we left F.L. It’s Tia’s way of protecting herself, of dealing with her loss. I think in time she’ll speak again, when her grief at Marrin’s death is less painful.

  I recognise the spiral of guilt and darkness before it can take hold, and stop myself from thinking that painful thought. It makes no difference now. Even if I’d thought of a way to get Marrin to come with us in the past, it doesn’t change the present. He’s gone. I have to begin accepting that. I might be to blame for
his death but tormenting myself with wishes and regrets won’t fix the gap he’s left behind. It won’t help Tia.

  I need to get a grip. I won’t let anything break me down, not until we’re out of danger.

  I indulge myself in a selfish hope—I hope we’re not staying on this Island. I hope the Guardians’ big plan is to get us away from here because I don’t feel safe anywhere in the United Kingdom. I’m not sure I’ll ever feel safe again but I can try to, in a faraway town.

  People say Forgotten Paris is nice. Maybe we could go there.

  Tia’s palm hits my forehead with a harmless pat. I smile because for once I understand her unspoken words: stop thinking.

  I follow her command because she’s my sister, and I fall into a fitful sleep.

  ***

  Branwell

  13:21. 13.10.2040. The Free Lands, Eastlands coastline.

  “This is a mess,” I say, surveying the room. Everything the Guardians salvaged from the Forgotten London base has been dumped here. There are overflowing cardboard boxes piled in precarious towers, random objects scattered all over the floor, and no small number of spare Guardian clothing. The result of this dumping ground is a dangerous obstacle course to cross. I hop my way into the corner, losing my balance twice, and settle there.

  Marie groans loudly, kicking things out of the way to clear a space for her to sit. “Why is it always us?”

  “I don’t know, M.” Priya tucks her arms into her sides, squeezing through a narrow cardboard aisle. “Maybe it’s because we’re the Guardians archivists and this is our job.”

  “Maybe I quit,” Marie mutters, gathering her ice-white hair and tying it at the back of her neck. Her teal eyes take in the task before us with defeat.

  Priya pats her on the head as she squeezes past. “Maybe you can’t.”

  I smile to myself, opening the box before me to rifle through the contents. Unlike the women, I don’t have to be here. This isn’t my job. But what would I have done otherwise? Wasted the day away staring at the smooth silver walls of our room, contemplating my uselessness and my misery? I’d much rather be here, doing something productive. Besides, organising brought me a strange clarity in my father’s attic, when everything was trashed and scattered and I had no option but to sweep everything into order.

  I’d like to feel clarity now. Well, what I really want is to be curled up in the window seat in Bennet’s bedroom, her shoulder resting against mine, listening eagerly to whatever cheap paperback I’d picked up that week. But since that’s about as possible as growing wings and flying away from my loss, I’ll accept being in this box room with two girls who are fast becoming my friends. I lean around a cardboard tower to find Priya. “How exactly do we catalogue this?”

  She traps her lip between her teeth, casting a look about her. She moves a few boxes to make a circular space on the floor, but a skyscraper chooses that exact moment to topple over, sending a hundred Guardian gloves sailing across the room. Priya tucks her face low, assaulted by a snowfall of kid leather. She laughs a quiet, hopeless laugh. “I have no idea.”

  Marie adds to the chaos by making a loud crash. I watch her tip four boxes over, Priya’s clear circle now entirely ruined. Intent on her task and oblivious to mine and Priya’s bewildered stares, Marie uses the side of her body to push a whole group of box towers all at once, backing them against the wall. When she’s satisfied, apparently having fulfilled her mysterious purpose, she wades back to us and holds four empty boxes up high.

  I frown, still confused.

  She explains, “One box for books and paper, one for anything we can kill a man with, one for medicines, and one for everything else. Well, for now at least. When these are full, we’ll just empty others.”

  Priya regards Marie with awe.

  “I know, I know.” Marie plunks to the floor and delves into the pile of objects she unseated. There’s a real mountain of bric-a-brac now, each of us sat at a point of the squashed triangle of mess. I pick up a silver metal tube with thick glass on one end, contemplating it.

  “I’m brilliant,” Marie goes on, flicking curls out of her face with unique flair. “A real genius. You can repay me in kind.” She tosses a fork into the box for miscellany and looks up suddenly. “Not you, Branwell. I desire no ‘kind’ from you.”

  “Okay? I think?”

  She grins. “That’s the spirit.”

  I hold up the strange object. “Could this kill a man?”

  Priya shuffles around to me, laughing through her nose when she catches the hopeless expression I wear. “That’s a torch, sweetheart.”

  “It’s fairly heavy.”

  She hides her smile behind her hair. “In an emergency it could hurt someone, but usually we use it for light.”

  “Does it work?” Marie asks without looking up. She’s sorting things at a fast pace. “Won’t the battery be dead?”

  Priya checks. The battery does indeed turn out to be dead, which sparks a question in me. “Does this ship not run on a battery of some kind?” Everything seems to be fuelled by electricity here.

  Marie makes a neutral noise. It sounds very much like ‘meh’ and comes with the one-shoulder-shrug she does often. “It was dead when we found it,” she tells us, her head in the depths of a brown box. “It had to be jumpstarted. I heard Liss complaining about it yesterday.”

  “Who’s Liss?” I ask. It’s impossible to remember everyone’s names, no matter how hard I try. There are just too many new faces, new names, and new people to keep track of. I’m doing the best I can but sometimes it doesn’t feel enough.

  “The loud one,” Priya and Marie answer in unison, startling a laugh from deep within me.

  Ah. That one. She’s rather hard to miss, even by an impossibly old boy with bad memory. “Is she good with machines?”

  Priya gives me a handful of cardboard files, directing me to the paper box. I peek at its contents, seeing nothing but small print on the documents before Priya takes them back with a little shake of her head. “She’s an engineer.”

  “Our best,” Marie agrees.

  I take initiative and put several more document folders with the other papers. “Engineer. Archivist. How many more jobs are available to a Guardian?”

  “It’s basically unlimited. Cook, fighter, electrician … The Guardians are for every kind of person.”

  “I thought you were all warriors.”

  The boat gives a lurch several times stronger than the gentle movement I’ve become accustomed to. The bare bulb swinging overhead blinks off, and then on again, and then off completely. I clutch the floor uselessly.

  The ship steadies. Eventually the light returns, illuminating the strained expression written across Marie’s face and the way the two girls cling to each other. I push away a bout of jealously. How special it must be to have someone to cling onto when uncertain fear claims you.

  “We are warriors” Priya says softly, picking up a conversation I’d forgotten starting.

  I frown at the sad tone of her voice. “But that’s not all you are.”

  “Isn’t it? I came to the Guardians as a librarian, but now I’m a killer, a warrior just like any Guardian fighter.”

  “Priya.” Marie’s eyes are wide. She finds Priya’s brown face beneath the sheets of dark hair, taking hold of her chin. I turn my eyes down, an imposter in their personal moment. “You didn’t have a choice.”

  “I did.”

  “No you did not.”

  I recognise Priya’s words and emotions because they match my own. I haven’t forgotten the men I injured and killed in the vault of Underground London Zone. They may have been Officials that were intending to harm me but they were still men. I’m still responsible for their deaths. My regret of that has been overshadowed by my loss of Bennet but it’s still there. I suspect it will be a ghost that will follow me for the rest of my existence, branded into my subconscious like a pirate’s mark. An angry red K for killer.

  “None of us had a choice.” My th
roat is tight but I force the words out. I pick up a spoon and stare at my warped reflection. “This situation doesn’t give us choices. We are all made killers at some point in our lives.”

  19:02. 13.10.2040. The Free Lands, Eastlands coastline.

  The rocky shore outside the dining room window is dwarfed by grey, angry waves. The water rushes up the cliff face, staining the light rock a darker colour to match the sky. To match my mood.

  “The storm isn’t going anywhere, is it?” murmurs Priya. She’s hunched over the yellow tablecloth, her chin propped on her hand and a weary look about her.

  I shake my head, glowering. The jolting movement of the ship is giving me an upset stomach and the pounding rain has persuaded a headache to explode behind my left eye. “Not anytime soon.”

  Marie shrugs indifferently—this girl is always shrugging—as she scrapes a spoon across the bottom of her food tin. “Alba says we’ll be there by tomorrow afternoon anyway.”

  I perk up at the information. “Where is there?”

  “Some miserable place called Hull where there’s more rain, more wind, and more grey.”

  “London was very grey,” Priya points out.

  “Yeah, but I never had to see that. I miss my tunnels.”

  Priya nudges the blonde girl, her dark eyes mirthful. They take each other’s hands under the table. I’m not sure why they hide the gesture, perhaps because of my presence. I immerse myself in eating to give them a moment of privacy. I’m all too aware of being in the middle of them every second, a perpetual pain in the backside I’m sure.

  “Jesus Christ!” I jump halfway out of my seat when a hand falls on my shoulder, spinning around with my heart in my throat. “Oh.” I blink at Honour as he drops into the seat beside me. His forehead shines with sweat, his white shirt transparent around the neckline where moisture has affixed the material to his skin. He’s breathing hard, and my own breaths quicken in response. Is it a Strain? Or has the vaccine finally begun to claim his life? No. I shake my head at myself. No, Timofei said there were no symptoms of that, and sweating, elevated temperature and—I hazard a guess—sickness are all symptoms Honour appears to be experiencing.