Halo (Blood and Fire Series (A Young Adult Dystopian Series)) (13 page)

JACK

A fire rages in a pit located in the very centre of the huge tent. This is undoubtedly a very bad idea. A strong breeze could catch an ember and the whole thing could go up. A thousand tents make up Freetown, though, and there seem to be just as many fires. I can only imagine they must know what they’re doing. Or at least I hope they do.

I hide behind Ryka as we walk into the room, trying to find a calm space in my head where I can convince myself everything is going to be all right. Along one side of the tent, six stacks of chairs form a line, varying in height. The one closest to us is overloaded, and the tower leans forward like it might topple over any minute. Four gas burners sit in the corners of the single large room, flickering inconsistently and throwing off shadows, which dance where the light fades. There is nothing in here apart from the fire, the stacks of chairs, the gas burners, the sticky mud floor, and the small group of people sitting close to the fire.

“Well!” A voice calls out, low and gruff. “Look who it is. The wanderer returns.”

I peek around Ryka’s shoulder and see three faces gazing back at me. The eldest, a man of at least sixty, looks startled when he catches sight of me. “And he’s brought someone with him. You been hunting wild people in the woods again, Ryka?”

“Wild is
definitely
the word,” Ryka replies.

Since I’ve been spotted, I side step out from behind Ryka and eye up the people around the fire. The man who spoke lounges back in his chair, his legs thrust out before him, crossed at the ankles. The toes of his boots have gone grey where the caked-on mud has dried in a thick crust. His hair is shaggy and steel grey, swept back out of his face. He wears a loose blue shirt, which pulls a little tight over his considerable belly.
 
Quick, intelligent dark eyes study me back. They seem so much younger than the rest of him. Bright.

The other two, a woman and a man, have a more polished look about them. The woman reminds me of my mother
―
my birth mother. Her dark hair is coiled in a tight braid on the back of her head, and gentle creases line the delicate skin around her eyes and her mouth. She looks like she must smile a lot. The dark-haired man beside her wears nothing about his personality on his face. He is devoid of anything but cool curiosity as his stony eyes pick over me. He doesn’t look friendly, not like the old man or the woman.
 
There is something of Lowrence to him, even though he looks nothing like my father. I’m ashamed to say I don’t hold his gaze for long.

“Well,” the older man says, “are you going to tell us where you’ve been and who you’ve got with you?”

Ryka looks at me and frowns. “I went where I always go. And she,” he gestures to me with his thumb, “says she’s called Kit.”

The old man uncrosses his legs and then crosses them the other way with a small smile on his face. “Kit, hey?”

“Yes, Kit. My name’s Kit. Well, not really, but—”

The old man bursts out laughing, rocking back on his chair. When he reaches up to brush his hair out of his face, I see the same thin stack of marks trailing up the back of his arm. The ink has faded, though
―
gone blue and fuzzy, unlike Ryka’s crisp lines.

“You don’t seem to know who you are, child,” he says around his smile. He’s more right that he can ever know. I kick my toe against the back of my other boot and pull a wry face. He takes this as some sort of response. Turning to the woman and man at his side, he says, “Perhaps we can discuss your proposition in the morning, Ella. As for you James, my answer was no yesterday, it’s no today, and if you’re half as smart a man as I think you are, you can probably guess what the answer will be tomorrow.” He chuckles when he speaks, knocking James’ boot with his, but James doesn’t smile. He gets to his feet stiffly, his back ram-rod straight.

“Thank you, Grandfather.” He holds his hand out to shake with the old man. His face is expressionless and well contained but I know body language. The guy is furious. Ella leans forward and kisses Grandfather Jack on the cheek, squeezing his hand.

“Good night.”

James doesn’t say anything as he stalks out of the tent, but Ella smiles broadly at me and winks. “Lovely to meet you, Kit. Ryka.” She inclines her head to him like the people around the fires before did, and then they’re both gone.

“Come and sit down, the pair of you,” Grandfather Jack says.

Ryka moves off and sinks down in the chair next to the old man with ease. My hands prickle as I join them.

“So,” the old man grins at me, leaning forward to prop his elbows on his knees. “Kit,” he offers me his hand. “You can call me Jack.”

I lean forward so I can shake his hand, noticing that Ryka’s staring at Jack with his mouth open. I ignore him.

“I’m very honoured to meet you, Jack.”

He laughs. It’s a low, rumbling sound that might come from as deep down as the soles of his boots. “Likewise. Now, where have you come from?”

I let my gaze flicker over to Ryka, trying to work out how much of my ‘fantastical story’ I’m not supposed to tell.
 
He rolls his eyes.

“She’s from Lockdown. She was drowning in the river when I first found her.”

“I was
not!
” I answer hotly. “I was doing just fine, thank you very much.”

“Uh-huh. She drank her body weight in river water and nearly died of exposure,” Ryka says.

“All right, now, never mind that. So you escaped Lockdown, then?” His eyes creep down towards my neck, and my cheeks start burning. I know what he’s wondering. I tug down the neck of my shirt to reveal the halo around my neck. With the back of my fingernail I lift it up, a little afraid to touch it. He nods his head, lacing his fingers across his belly. “I see.”

He doesn’t seem even remotely fazed. I tuck my halo away. It feels wrong that Ryka should be looking at it
―
at
me
―
with such unveiled horror in his eyes. Jack raises an eyebrow.

“I have to say, I thought you’d be different.”

My heart stutters. “What?” Maybe he has some preconceived ideas about what people from the Sanctuary are supposed to look like. Green spots, three heads, something like that.

“The Sanctuary put out a radio broadcast two days ago. Said one of their fighters had gone missing. There’s a reward on your head, Kit. They’re offering an astronomical amount of money to get you back.”

I stare at him until the heat from the fire forces me to blink. A number of things run through my head, the first of which is how best I should escape from this tent. Jack is pretty old, but it’s wrong to underestimate someone based on their age. He could be a proficient killer for all I know. Secondly, I’m wondering who put up the money. Was it Lowrence and Miranda, or could it possibly have been the Sanctuary municipality themselves? I’m worth a lot of cash to both parties. I shouldn’t be surprised that they would do this. Ryka leans forward in his chair. “Why would they be willing to pay a small fortune for her?”

Jack
tsk
s. “I just told you, boy. She’s one of their amphi-fighters. Pay attention.”

I’m well and truly over Ryka’s belief that I’m a frivolous, lying little girl. I ignore the dumbfounded look on his face. “What are you going to do?” I say to Jack.

He purses his lips and squints one eye
―
a pretty strange look. “I’m not going to do anything, I shouldn’t think. What do I want with a basket full of money? We don’t use it here. Everything we have is traded or worked for. The only place I could spend money would be in Lockdown, and the likelihood that I’ll be headed there any time soon is, well, nil.”

This doesn’t reassure me. Jack knows as well as I do that the Sanctuary will give him food and clothes and technology in place of money if he wants it. I shrink back into my chair, still thinking about running. Jack smiles easily, rocking on his chair legs.

“I’d heard about you even before your escape act, child. You’re quite famous. We listen to the match reports every month. And every month it’s your name they’re repeating over the airwaves.”

“I didn’t know you got their match reports,” Ryka breathes. There’s a combination of excitement and annoyance in his voice.

“I’m sure there are a lot of things that I know and you don’t, Ry,” Jack says. Ryka pulls a face and slouches back into his chair. He’s not showing the same reverence to Jack that Ella and James did just now, but the old man seems to expect it from him. “We like to keep abreast of the news in your city,” he says to me. “Frankly, we’ve been waiting for a rebellion to break out for a long time. Surprised it’s not happened by now, in fact.”

“Why? Why would there be a rebellion?” I ask.

“Do you think you’re the only one with a halo that doesn’t work? There are plenty of people, Falin and Therin, all over the Sanctuary that go about their daily lives, living and breathing and
feeling
. They’ve organised themselves into cells in some parts of the city, mainly the Narrows and the poorer areas. They’ve been waiting to strike. It’s only a matter of time.”

My jaw hangs slack. “I…I had no idea.” I could have gone to someone. Someone inside the city could have helped me. Wonderful news after everything I went through to get out.

“That’s a good thing,” Jack says. “Means the Sanctuary don’t either. We’ve been talking to people on the inside for years, trying to help them make a break for it. Things are beginning to ramp up.”

“So, you’re helping them?”

He gives me a cursory nod. “There’s only so much we can do, but we do it gladly.”

“And…you’re not going to turn me over to them?”

He stares into the fire, watching it pop and flare brightly against the relative darkness of the tent. Ryka’s eyes are on me but I don’t look at him. I’m too desperate for Jack to say something that will reassure me. Make me believe I am safe.

“We’ve never turned anyone away from Freetown. This place is a home to anyone who can live by its rules. I have to say, Kit, things are different here. Your life will be different, but that can be a good thing if you let it. Can you accept that?”

“Do you mean,” I look at Ryka, “I’m not supposed to fight?”

Jack nods. “You’re not
allowed
to fight. You can’t let your temper get the better of you. How long has it been since your halo came free?”

I think back, shocked by the short space of time it’s been. “Six days since it got ripped
―
” I hesitate. “Since it came off partially. Two days since it came free completely.”

“Then you’re still withdrawing. You’ve got a way to go before the drugs leave your system.”

All the air vanishes from my lungs, one long, painful sigh. “You mean I’m not feeling everything right now?”

“Not even close.”

I slump forward and hide my face in my hands. I’ve been waiting for this whole overwhelmed feeling to get better, but that’s not going to happen. It’s going to get worse.

“You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to, you know,” Jack says. I can’t see him with my face in my hands but his voice sounds like he’s got a frown on his face. I peek through my fingers, and he has. “No one would blame you if you wanted to go back to wearing it. It’s incredibly hard to come to terms with powerful emotions when you’ve never experienced them before. Especially if you’ve…
done things
that might make you feel bad.”

A shallow, surprised laugh slips out of me. “Let’s not skirt around the matter here,” I say. “You mean,
especially if I’ve killed a whole bunch of people
.”

Ryka makes a strangled noise, and I glimpse at him out of the corner of my eye. He looks morbidly fascinated by me, and there’s the tiniest hint of a smile playing at the corner of his lips. The light warms his hair to a honeyed gold, his skin a sun-kissed bronze. I want to shake that strange expression off his face with my bare hands.

“Don’t look at me like that,” I say.

“Sorry. I just thought
―
”

“Yeah, I know. You thought I was lying. I got that.” The weight of my halo resting unnaturally against the back of my neck feels like a forceful hand pushing me down. Half the time I’m comforted by it; the other half of the time I feel like it’s strangling me. I touch it through my shirt, feel the material whisper across its surface.

“We could fix it for you if that’s what you really want,” Jack says.

Ryka leaps out of his chair so quick that it wobbles dangerously. “What? Why on earth would she want
that?
”

“Calm down. You don’t have a clue what she’s going through. It
could
be what she wants. Maybe she doesn’t want to deal with any of the things she’s going to feel. It’s certainly not gonna make her happy, now, is it?”

“How do we know what she’s going to feel? She could be happy. She could feel
―
”

“Guilty,” I say, staring into the fire. The flames have leapt from the pit and are burning in my mind. In my heart. I blink to take away the strange pricking in the corners of my eyes.

Jack and Ryka stop talking and stare at me. I feel both their eyes boring into the side of my face, but I’m not ready to look at either of them.

“I want it
off
,” I whisper, clenching my fingers around the halo through my thin shirt. Claustrophobia floods through me; I want it off right now and I feel like I’ll scream if I have to wait one more moment.

“Good,” Jack says quietly. I don’t notice when he rises from his chair. I only feel his hand on mine, and I realise I’ve been pulling at the metal band really hard. The back of my neck burns from the release of pressure when I stop.

“We can’t do anything about it now, sweetheart. In the morning, though. August will be able to take care of you in the morning.”

“Okay.” I ball my fists up and rub my eyes, which are itchy from the smoke and the way that I
feel.

“Ryka will show you where you can sleep. We’ll set up a tent for you soon, all right? Get some rest. Tomorrow will be a big day.”

I don’t say another word as we leave the tent. Jack trails behind us and squeezes my shoulder by way of a goodbye.