Delete: Volume 3 (Shifter Series) (26 page)

Aubrey hotwired the ignition, fired up the engine, and slowly pulled away. I watched the smoking ruins of the Hub grow smaller in my rear-view mirror.

Katie was curled up in the back. Her shoulders quivered, and I was sure that she was crying. I wished I could do the same. I wished that I could feel something. Anything.

I watched Aubrey. She stared straight ahead at the road.

“Where are we going?” I said.

“Somewhere that nobody can find us.”

I let out a long breath, feeling the tightness in my chest lighten a little. “That sounds good. Just for a while.”

“Just for a while.”

She drove across the river, pausing only to talk to some guards at a roadblock.

Yes, she told them, the treaty had been signed. No, she said, she didn’t know what was going to happen next.

Katie’s sobs had quietened, and when I looked back, she was asleep.

I reached my hand out and wrapped it around the back of Aubrey’s neck. She settled her head against it. “What are you going to do?” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“Now the war is over.”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I never really bothered thinking beyond tomorrow. The future always seemed so far out of reach. What will you do?”

“Go and see my parents, I guess. Spend some time with Katie. Get to know you.”

I watched her smile. “I thought you already knew me,” she said.

“I know the other you. The one from the other reality. I know your favourite book is
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
.”

“Same! My father gave me that book!” she said, sounding delighted. “He used to read it to me whenever he was home. What else do you know about me?

“I know you had your first cigarette with Adam Jackson.”

“Never heard of him. Different! What else?”

“I know you like your coffee with vanilla sprinkles.”

“Vanilla sprinkles?” she said, laughing. It was like the sound of rain in the desert.

“Yeah, you always said a coffee wasn’t complete without vanilla sprinkles. I mean the other you did.”

“I’ll have to try it sometime. But different. What else?” It was like a guessing game, how much did she share with her other self?

“I know that you love me.”

She looked over at me, scanning my face, as if she was trying to find the answer to a question there. Then she turned back to the road. “Same,” she said, finally.

Aubrey stopped the car in front of a familiar tower block.

“Your sanctuary?” I said.

“Our sanctuary now,” she said, getting out of the car.

I left Katie asleep in the back and followed Aubrey through the twisted metal and up the stairs till we were back on the roof, looking down on the city.

It was so huge, stretching out as far as anyone could see. As the wind whipped around me, I thought about how big the city was and how small I was. Rather than making me feel scared or lost, it felt so good. Because what did my problems or my experiences matter against something that huge? I was just one life among millions. And soon, the city would recover and thrive and I could disappear into the crowd.

Since arriving in this place, I’d felt nothing but a crushing responsibility to fix everything. To fix the world. But now, I was a boy holding the hand of a girl he loved. And nothing else mattered.

“I thought I lost you,” Aubrey said, tightening my hand.

“I’m hard to kill.”

“No, I thought you were going to Shift back to your old reality. To save yourself.”

I looked down. I didn’t want to say that I was still considering it.

“But what about me?” Aubrey said, reading my expression. I was never able to hide anything from her.

“You’d be there with me, I’d make sure of it.”

“But that would be a different me. I’d still be here.”

“No, you wouldn’t. There’s only one reality, like we were told.” I thumbed her cheek.

“But you said you can remember the other realities. And that means they must exist, doesn’t it? Somewhere, somehow, they don’t collapse like we’ve always been told. So if you return to your reality, I’ll have never known you. And I’ll still be here, fighting.”

Was it possible that what we’d been taught about there being a single version of reality was wrong? Were there multiple versions existing alongside each other? Were there thousands, billions of other Scotts out there, living their lives? Thousands of other Aubreys? How many versions were there? How many different choices?

It didn’t explain why I could remember the alternatives when no one else could. But it did explain why with every choice I’d made, I felt weaker. As if I’d left part of myself in that other reality. And the only thing that stopped me from disappearing altogether was her, the girl in front of me. She had always been my anchor in the storm. The one person I kept coming back to. The one person that made me feel whole.

“As long as I’m with you,” I said. “I am home.”

Maybe we stood there for hours. Or maybe it was only minutes. Eventually, I heard Katie call my name from the street below.

“We’d better go back,” Aubrey said.

And I knew she didn’t only mean back to the car. As glorious as it was to imagine we could stay here for the rest of our lives, we had to return to the Hub. They’d come looking for us eventually.

One more day, I thought. One more day and then I can finally keep the promise I made to Aubrey what seemed like a lifetime ago. Quit ARES and get on with the rest of our lives.

Just one more day.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

By the time we made it back to the Hub, the streets were filled with people, cheering and waving the strange version of the Union flags. It was hard not to be infected by their shared joy and relief.

‘Is it possible?” Aubrey said as she stopped the truck. “Can it really be over?”

I’m not sure it would ever be over. Not really. As long as there were men like Vine in power and people like Ladoux willing to oppose them, the rest of us would constantly be caught in the middle. But at least the fighting had stopped. And for now, that would have to be enough.

“One way to find out,” I said, opening the car door.

As soon as I stepped out, I was scooped up into a bear hug so tight, I couldn’t breathe. Finally, I was put down.

Cain beamed at me, his broken face twisted by the huge smile. “I couldn’t be prouder of you than if you were my own son, Tyler,” he said. His good eye became as clouded as his damaged one as a single tear traced the ragged path of his scar. “What a day,” he said, wiping the tear away. “What a day!” He wrapped his arm around my shoulder. “Come on, Vine is about to address the troops.”

I was subjected to so many congratulatory pats as Cain led me back down into the Hub that my shoulders were stinging by the time we made it down the lifts.

The platform had been lowered once more and the whole of the S3 was packed into the hall along with the cadets. Some of the soldiers had lifted little kids onto their shoulders so they could see. Morgan stood in the corner with a gaggle of young women around him hanging on his every word. He’d earned it.

There was a buzz of excitement and happiness that I wished I could feel. But all I felt was worn thin. Tired and broken. The only thing I really wanted right now was to sleep.

The chatter silenced and all faces turned in the same direction. Vine walked up onto a raised platform where a lectern waited for him. He was dressed in a brown suit, an attempt, I guessed, to give his look a military flair. But all it managed to do was remind me that he was a man who had never seen action.

He rested his hand on the edge of the podium, the other tucked in his suit pocket. A pose perfectly orchestrated to create an image of a man in control. It was, I was sure, an image cribbed from great leaders of the past. A bit of Churchill, some Lincoln, perhaps some of the great dictators, too. Everything about this was had been planned by Vine, an attempt to give the perfect message. His leadership election campaign was already under way for when the dust of the war had settled and Britain had to rebuild herself. What kind of a country would we become? A country built on fear and control? Or a country that swore “never again”?

I knew which I hoped for. But that would take leaders who believed in humanity. Vine was not that leader.

“Today,” Vine said, his voice screeching slightly through the speakers, “a treaty has been signed that has brought an end to this war. But that treaty would have been nothing but dust had it not been for your bravery. The courage and sacrifice of each and every man, woman and child today has saved thousands, millions of lives. But this victory was not without its costs. I know you stand here marked not only with your own blood but with the blood of your brothers and your sisters.”

I looked at my hands. I’d not cleaned CP’s blood off them, and it had started to harden and crack like old paint. I felt that wiping them clean would be a betrayal to her. So I clasped my hands behind my back.

“But their sacrifice,” Vine continued, “will not be forgotten. You are soldiers of uncertainty; you have lived your whole lives built on the moving sands of a power I cannot comprehend. But this is one event that will not change. It will not alter. You have made history today. And your actions will echo throughout the ages.”

Cheers and supportive murmurs passed through the crowd.

“They pushed us and we pushed back. They wanted to tell us what was right or wrong, they wanted to force us to follow their God rather than our own conscience. And we said no. No more. This is the line and no further. We have been a sleeping dragon for too long. Well, the dragon has been awoken. And they have felt our fire. Let them run. Let them hide from our wrath. We will chase them to the ends of the Earth so that none shall ever push us again. The tide has turned and we shall ride the wave of victory till our country is safe once more. The war is over. The war is won!”

There was a deafening roar as every voice in the room picked up his chant, “The war is won!”

Vine pulled off his beret and raised it into the air. One after the other, the men and women of S3 did the same, removing their berets or unclipping helmets and holding them up in salute. Some threw theirs into the air like mortar boards on graduation day.

On the blood-splattered face of almost every adult here, one thing repeated over and over and over. A single scar across the foreheads. The cost of our victory today was deeper than any of them truly knew.

This is what it means to be a man.
His voice was so clear now.
To be able to make tough choices.

Perhaps I was a child – if that meant being unwilling to accept the death of innocent children as a necessity. If being a man meant living in a grey winterland – where there was no right or wrong, only survival, no absolutes to hang onto – then I didn’t want to grow up.

I remembered the words that Zac had sprayed onto the outside of the old ARES HQ. “
We don’t stop playing because we grow old. We grow old because we stop playing.
”

It wasn’t that I thought this was all some big game. I wasn’t in the playground, shooting my friends with stick guns. There were real bullets. Real deaths. But that didn’t mean I had to accept them. I didn’t have to measure lives in terms of collateral. There were some sacrifices that I wasn’t willing to make.

I rubbed at my face, trying to wipe some of the agony away. But as soon as I closed my eyes, the images threatened to swamp me. Explosions and limbs being torn off. And blood, so much blood.

When I opened my eyes, Vine was staring straight at me. He smiled at me across the sea of soldiers in a way that troubled me more than any look he’d given me since I’d met him. I was about to walk away when I felt a heavy hand on my shoulder.

“The Minister would like a word.” It was Vine’s guard. The one I’d punched when he’d tried to stop me at the hospital. His black eye was turning purple.

I shook his grip off. “Maybe later,” I said.

“Now,” he said.

I looked over to Aubrey. She had her hand resting on Katie’s shoulder. She tilted her chin at me.
Go on
, the look said.
We’ll be here when you’re done
.

I laid my hand over the large palm on my shoulder, applying just the right amount of pressure in the right spot. The man winced and pulled his hand away. “Come on, then,” I said. “Let’s get this over with.”

Vine’s office was coated in a thin layer of white plaster dust, but he was carrying on as if it wasn’t there. Keeping up appearances, just like always. He sat behind his desk, hands pressed down on the green leather as if he were trying to stop the table from floating away. The small smile on his face reeked of smugness. I’d proven to be his puppet after all.

“Congratulations, Commandant Tyler,” he said as I walked in.

I didn’t bother replying. I wanted out of this office as quickly as possible.

He wasn’t put off by my silence. “Can you leave us, please?” he said to the guard who had led me here. The man nodded and closed the door behind him. I heard the bolting of locks.

“I admit,” Vine said, standing up. “I was worried that the Red Hand would be victorious. But I should have kept the faith.”

I let out a small laugh at the irony. The Red Hand were supposed to be the faithful ones, after all. If Vine understood what I found funny, he didn’t let on. He just smiled that thin, stretched smile. I wanted to hit him. Hit him and keep hitting him till there was nothing left of his smug face.

“Our super Shifter is always victorious, after all.”

“Don’t!” I shouted, the rage I’d been trying to push down bursting to the surface again. I slammed my fist into the wall next to me, leaving a crack in the wood panelling. Vine flinched, the first genuine reaction I think I’d ever seen from him. I looked down at my hand. There were long splinters of mahogany sticking out of my knuckles. I pulled them out without even feeling a thing.

“I know it’s not been easy,” Vine began.

“Don’t,” I said again, more softly. “Just don’t.” I couldn’t bear this.