Mutation (12 page)

The sun was starting to set, casting an orange glow over the surface of the lake. Mike leant out, scanning the area, then hauled his body back into the cavern. ‘Uh-oh.'

I crouched and peered across the water.

Officer Calvin and two of his security team. I had to crane my neck to see them around the rock face. They were thirty or forty metres away, back where we'd started, staring down at the fake picnic we'd left on shore.

‘You freaking moron!' hissed Peter, suddenly behind us, and it took me a second to realise he was talking to Mike. ‘You led them right here!'

‘We're not the ones who left our crap lying around for anyone to find,' said Mike, as one of the guards started kicking through the scraps on the rug.

But obviously none of that was the real reason they'd shown up.

It was us. Shackleton had seen that we'd stopped here, and he'd sent security to sort us out.

Calvin skulked around like a wild dog, itching for an excuse to do something horrible to us.

‘Ugh,' said Peter. ‘I liked it so much better when he was crippled.'

‘Back inside,' I whispered, dragging Mike and Peter with me.

‘Hey – no – we need to get out of here,' said Peter. ‘If he finds us …'

‘What, you think you're going to swim back over without being seen?' I said. ‘Because you weren't exactly stealthy the first time.'

‘Calm down,' said Tank. ‘No-one even knows about this place.'

‘We found it okay,' Peter muttered.

But Tank was kind of right. The Co-operative couldn't have known what he and the others were doing in this place, or else they would've put a stop to it. If we were lucky, Calvin would give up soon enough, and –

‘They're coming!' said Mike, back at the entrance. ‘They're walking around the lake.'

But since when had we ever been lucky?

I turned to Luke. ‘How well did you two hide your bags and stuff?'

Luke cringed. ‘Pretty well.'

Great.

I got down low and crept over to look out at the shore again. Calvin and his men were already halfway around the lake. Their eyes were mostly on the bushland, which was good, but they'd still have no problem finding the cave if we gave them a reason to look over here.

And unfortunately, it looked like we already had.

There was a blotch of white gleaming out from under one of the bushes. The corner of a shirt, somehow even more noticeable in the fading light.

‘
Pretty well,
' I muttered.

Nothing we could do about it now.

Mike was still at the entrance. He bent down, wrapping his fingers around the rope trailing down into the water.

‘What are you doing?' I hissed.

‘Pulling it in. They'll see it, otherwise.'

‘What they'll
see
,' I said, grabbing his wrists, ‘is that rope sending ripples across the whole lake.'

Mike stared at me for a minute, not impressed that I was telling him what to do.

Then he released his grip on the rope.

I let go of his hands, breathing again.

‘All right,' he said, following me back into the cavern. ‘How are
you
getting us out of this, then?'

‘I'm not,' I said. ‘We're going to wait here until they go. Nothing else we can do.'

‘Yeah there is,' said Cathryn, turning to Mike. ‘
We
haven't done anything wrong. We should just hand these guys over and –'

‘And what?' said Mike. ‘Just invite them into the cave? How happy do you think the overseers are going to be if the town finds out about this place?'

‘Be quiet,' said Luke. ‘All of you – please. Jordan's right. We need to just sit tight and wait for this to blow over. We can all go back to hating each other tomorrow.'

Silence. I figured that was as close as we were going to get to an agreement.

‘Everyone move to the back of the cavern,' I said. ‘I'm going to go keep an eye on them.'

Mike stepped forward, but I held up a hand.

‘
I'm
going to keep an eye on them.'

He let it go, and I tiptoed up the tunnel alone.

I crawled the last few metres, sticking to the shadows, trying to catch a glimpse of Calvin on the shore. But they'd already come around too far. No way to see them without swinging out on the rope again.

Which meant they had to be right where we were standing when Luke had seen the cave. Right on top of all of our bags and clothes.

Close enough for me to make out their voices.

‘Sir,' called one of the guards. ‘Found something over here.'

My fingernails dug into the ground.

No.

Quiet from across the water.

When the other guard spoke, he sounded unimpressed.

‘A shirt.'

‘Give it to me,' Calvin barked.

More quiet.

Adrenaline coursed through my body, fuelling me up to run away or fight. Useless energy when I couldn't do either.

Finally, Calvin spoke again. ‘It's not theirs.'

‘Sir – How do you know?'

‘Look at it,' Calvin spat. ‘It's enormous.'

Tank,
I realised.

I glanced over my shoulder, half-tempted to go back there and kill him myself.

‘Sir,' said the guard who'd spotted the shirt, ‘there's a boy in their year who's probably about this –'

‘I'm aware of that,' said Calvin.

‘Yes, sir. Maybe he was with them.'

‘Obviously he was with them.'

The officer seemed to sense that Calvin was losing patience. ‘Yes, sir,' he tried again. ‘Obviously – But – Maybe he was helping them.'

‘No,' said Calvin, and now it sounded like he was talking to himself. ‘No, they know better than that.'

He paused again.

I felt my stomach twist with every break in the conversation, terrified that one of them had noticed the cave.

‘Sir,' the officer said slowly, ‘this would be a lot easier if you told us what you think these children are up to.'

‘Making your life easy is not a priority of mine, Miller,' said Calvin coldly.

‘No, sir.'

I waited to hear Calvin's next orders, but the conversation seemed to be over. Whatever they were doing now, they were doing it quietly.

In my head, I saw Calvin pressing a finger to his lips. Pointing out to the cave. Stepping into the water. Waving at his men to follow.

I forced myself to focus, listening for any splashing in the lake.

Nothing.

Nothing, for what seemed like forever.

And then I saw them.

Over on the opposite shore, walking back the way they had come.

They were leaving.

I pulled my body up a bit higher, shifting around to track their path around the lake.

Calvin and his men were almost back at our picnic site now. Almost gone.

Then Calvin stopped.

He turned, staring across at the rock face.

I shrank back into the shadows.

Calvin watched the rocks, like he knew he was missing something. Looking nearly straight at me.

Then he moved on again, leading the others away into the bush.

Chapter 14

T
HURSDAY
, J
UNE
18
56
DAYS

I found Luke waiting in line at the bakery the next morning. He looked wrecked. The stress of yesterday would've been more than enough to explain it, but I knew that wasn't the reason. I'd seen that battered look before – usually early in the morning, and always when he thought no-one was watching.

He'd been up thinking about his dad again.

Mourning. Worse than mourning.

Everything we knew told us Luke's dad had been tracked down in Sydney and killed. But what if he hadn't? What if he'd somehow managed to escape whoever Shackleton had sent after him? How long could Luke keep holding onto that hope?

‘Hey,' I said, hopping off my bike and joining the line behind him. ‘You all right?'

Luke thought about it. ‘Alive,' he said. He nodded at the counter in front of us. ‘You want anything?'

‘I'll get it,' I said, reaching for my purse. ‘We're already even.'

‘Jordan, seriously, it's the end of the world,' said Luke. ‘Tell me what you want for breakfast.'

I negotiated him down to a hot chocolate, and we wandered up the street towards school. Still no sign of Peter, which was probably good, given what Luke had just done. Not that it had meant anything. But that wouldn't stop Peter reading plenty into it.

‘What about you?' asked Luke through a mouthful of croissant. ‘You doing okay?'

‘I'm fine,' I said. ‘It's just – I really thought we were going to find out something useful yesterday. All we got was more questions and another brush with death.'

Luke shrugged. ‘That's not exactly unusual for us, is it?'

‘Yeah, but … yesterday was supposed to be different,' I said.

‘Supposed to be.'

‘I don't know,' I sighed. It made sense in my head, but I had a feeling it might not hold up once I'd said it out loud. ‘I just thought – You know, my visions, Mike's sketchbook, finding the cave … That can't all just be random, right?'

‘Can't it?'

‘Stuff like this doesn't just happen,' I said. ‘There's got to be a reason for it.'

Luke was silent for a long time.

‘What about Reeve?' he asked, voice low as we approached the front office. ‘Was there a reason for that too?'

I stared down at the grass, guilt flaring up again.

We were the reason for that one.

‘Sorry,' said Luke. ‘Sorry, that was stupid.'

We chained up our bikes without speaking and cut across the quad in the direction of the hall.

Thursday morning. Assembly.

‘We did get some answers though, right?' said Luke, checking that no-one was listening in. ‘I mean, we know that whoever's handing out orders to Peter's mates is serious enough to brand them all with those tattoos.'

‘You should've seen the look on Mike's face when they got them. He was so –' I hesitated, struggling to put words to that crazed gleam I'd seen in Mike's eye. ‘It was – Whatever this thing is, he
believes
in it. He's committed, one hundred percent. He said it was their
destiny.
'

‘Destiny,' Luke repeated. ‘Right.'

I thought again of the people in the white robes. So far, the closest thing we had to a suspect was a drawing in a sketchbook.

‘I dunno,' I said. ‘I'm still not sure how any of that helps us, unless their destiny is to get rid of Shackleton for us.'

‘Doubt it,' said Luke, ‘seeing as Cathryn reckons we're the ones who killed those people in the DVD.'

‘Why?' I said, suddenly realising how much this had been bugging me. ‘Why would she ever think that? It's the most – How on earth does she think we did it?'

‘Dunno, but we've probably missed our chance to ask,' said Luke. ‘After yesterday, I don't think they'll be asking Peter to hang out with them anytime soon.'

But as we approached the glass doors out the front of the hall, I realised that might not be such a problem after all.

There was a body pressed up against the other side of the glass, standing in the little foyer area between the front doors and the hall itself.

Peter's body.

Cathryn had him pinned to the wall, her face centimetres from his.

What now?
I thought, getting ready to go to his rescue.

Then I saw the expression on Cathryn's face.

Oh.

She leant forward, brought her hands up to his neck, and kissed him.

Peter's eyes went wide, but he didn't try to fight her. He waved his hands around for a minute, like he didn't know what to do with them, then finally brought them to rest on her hips.

I felt a tiny glimmer of relief – like, for half a second, a giant weight had been lifted off me – but then the logical part of my brain kicked in and the weight came plummeting back down again.

‘What is he
doing?'
Luke whispered.

‘What does it look like?' I said, flaring up.

He was doing what any guy like Peter does when a girl who looks like Cathryn makes a move on him: shrugging his shoulders and letting it happen.

‘But she thinks he's a killer!' said Luke.

‘Who cares?' I hissed, striding towards the nearest open doorway. ‘The point is she's dangerous, and we can't afford to have Peter –'

Luke latched onto my wrist.

‘Not now,' he said.

‘Well how long do you think they're going to need?' I snapped.

‘If we go in there now, he'll just overreact and blow up at us, and we'll end up in Pryor's office,' said Luke. He started towards the other end of the hall. ‘C'mon, come inside and we can sort him out later.'

I looked back at Peter and Cathryn. Still going. They'd attracted a little crowd of Year 7s, but it didn't seem like either of them had noticed.