The Wandering (The Lux Guardians, #2) (18 page)

But
we couldn’t possibly offend these people and risk them not helping
us. That’s what the Guardian leaders keep saying—we need
their
help.
Not
we need their guns, or we need their people to fight with us. No,
we need their help. So here I’ve been all morning, scrubbing
laundry, my hands tingling and stinging in the places skin has
rubbed away. All because we need their
help
.

Livy is in a worse
state than me. She’s only supposed to be rinsing the clothes that
are muddy and passing them to me, but the weight of the water
logged shirts and jeans are taking their toll on her thin arms. Her
jaw is clenched against the ache and she refuses to let it get the
better of her but she shouldn’t have to do this. These aren’t our
clothes. This isn’t our town.

“Go if you want,” I
say, wiping sweat from my forehead with the back of my hand. This
work would be a lot easier if the wall in front of us wasn’t
covered in windows, the sun heating the laundry hall to a
sweltering degree. “I’ll cover for you.”

She shakes her head.
Stubborn. “I can do this.”

I wring a red shirt
and throw it into a basket to be taken outside to dry. “Do you
really want to?”

Livy glares. “I can do
this. I’m doing it.”

“Fine.” I scrub the
next shirt harder than I need to, pressing my lips into a thin line
to trap in any words that might escape.

I have to be careful
around Olive and Tom. They’re my family, but they haven’t been with
me for two years. Livy is barely starting to trust me again and
Thomas still looks at me like I’m some kind of magical fairy that’s
come to grant him wishes. Like he can’t believe I exist. I’m
tiptoeing around them, policing my words so I don’t say the wrong
thing. So I don’t turn Livy against me. One slip up and I could
lose them for good.

I’m their big sister,
not their mother—they’ve got no obligation to stay with me. I’m not
like mum. You have to stay with your parents no matter what because
they’re your parents. You don’t get a choice. But sisters? You can
live without your sister. Estranged, people call it. I’ve heard
talk about estranged brothers and aunts and God knows who
else—people you don’t want or need in your life.

I’m not gonna be that
to Tom and Livy. Not after we survived all this shit.

I bite the inside of
my lip until I’ve stopped seeing red. It’s not Livy’s fault she’s
grown up stubborn and independent. It’s mine and mum’s. Someone
should have been raising her these past few years, making sure she
grows up happy and good and cared for, but instead she’s brought
herself up. I don’t like how hardened she’s become. I miss who she
used to be.

She’s always had a mouth on her—she got that from me—and her
manners were more or less non-existent, but she was different.
Childish. That’s the difference between the Livy I remember and the
Livy beside me. In my memory she’s still a kid but in reality she’s
an adult. An adult at ten years old.
Fuck
. For that and that alone I hate
Forgotten London. What would she have been like if we lived in
States? Maybe someone would have stepped in to help, instead of
leaving my family to deal with life alone. Maybe someone would have
reported mum—maybe there’d have been someone to report mum
to
.

I almost pull my
shoulder out of its socket with how hard I throw another shirt into
the basket. There’s no point thinking about this. We don’t live in
States and we never did. I hold in a breath, let it out slowly, and
ask, “Are you alright?”

I don’t remember ever
asking Livy how she was and I should have. I watch her from the
corner of my eye; she’s stretching her arms, staring out the dirty
window at the line of buildings across the street, at the people
with baskets of food in their arms, at the dark haired Manchester
woman pacing the road barking orders I can’t hear through the wall.
She makes me uneasy, that woman. There’s something about her I
don’t like, and it’s not entirely the way she watches us too
closely or the way every soldier listens to her without
question.

I clench my jaw and
drag my attention back to my sister.

Sometimes I forget she’s a year younger than Thomas, that
she’s the baby of our family. Tom has always been the weakest of
us. It makes him seem younger than he is. I think that’s my fault—I
coddled him too much when he was young, because he was sickly and
tiny. He’s still tiny, but that doesn’t mean he needs me to baby
him, and it doesn’t mean Livy
doesn’t
need me to. I should look
after her more—look after her better.

In
the two years I’ve been gone from her life I haven’t forgotten how
to be a sister, but I
have
forgotten what I was to my brother and sister.
I’ve forgotten how to be a mother.

“I’m fine.” Livy turns
to me, pursing her lips. “I used to do the washing at home. I’m
used to it.”

“I didn’t just mean
this.” I stab a finger at the dirty water in front of us. “I meant
everything. How are you … dealing with it?”

“I’m
not.” Livy bats a strand of dark hair out of her face. I keep
trying to connect her juvenile face and her mature attitude. “I’m
not dealing with it. I’m ignoring it. I don’t even want to think
about it.
So I’m not.
”

I try to bite down on
a smile but she sees it. She sounded so much like a petulant kid
throwing a tantrum just then that it took me off guard.

Livy gives me the
finger.

“Sorry.” I bump my
shoulder against hers. “I’m ignoring a lot, too.”

“Yeah?” She hauls a
pair of jeans into the sink, groaning at the backlash of muddy
water that sprays at her T-shirt. I wince inwardly at the mauling
of a perfectly clean shirt. “Like what?”

I
didn’t think she’d
ask
. I thought she’d just bite off another remark and close the
conversation as usual. I drag the words from myself before I can
think about them. “Like mum.”

Livy goes still,
dropping the jeans with a wet thud. I’ve screwed up. I shouldn’t
have mentioned mum. We haven’t spoken about her—not even Thomas
has. If we don’t talk about her she won’t be gone. She won’t be
here either, but it’s not like she’s … dead.

It’s suddenly hard to
swallow, panic grabbing me without warning. I automatically seek
Siah but of course he’s not here. Manchester people are, along with
all their other asshole qualities, sexist. Siah’s helping the
builders repair some fallen house somewhere because building is
men’s work and women—obviously—are meant for laundry.

I shake the water off
my hands, my gut swimming with sickness. This is the first time
I’ve let myself think about mum and I wish I’d carried on
pretending. I didn’t realise loss could make you physically ill but
that’s what it feels like right now. Like I’m coming down with a
Strain and I’ll be dead by the end of the day.

“Hey.” Livy’s hand is
small and cold on mine. She grips my fingers. “Miya?” I don’t
answer her. “What do I do? What do you need me to do?”

I shake my head.
There’s nothing she can do. This is me. I made myself this way—my
feelings, my panic—and I can fix myself. I just need to calm down.
I’ve felt this way before, strangled and out of control. I used to
get like this back when I first found Siah, when he’d leave to
steal food or supplies and I’d panic that he’d never come back.
That I’d be fending for myself alone again, that I’d be recaptured
by Officials and they’d jab the needles back in my—

Breathe
, I hiss at myself. It’s hard
but I’m persistent. I hold onto what Yosiah has told me when I’ve
been this way before. After a while I can control myself again. I
think of good things: safety, family, the future.

As soon I’m back to
normal, I shrug off Livy’s concern and meet the stares of
Manchester residents with cold glares. All I hear for a long while
is the sloshing of water and my bruising attempt at laundry.

Eventually, Livy says, “I miss her too. I know she wasn’t a
good mum or anything but she’s our mum.
Was
our mum. I mean—I know how you
feel.”

“That’s just it.” My laugh comes out twisted. “That’s exactly
my problem. I don’t miss her. At all. I’m glad she’s gone, glad
there’s no chance I’ll ever see her again. She was a bitch and she
hurt me. Every day I was home, she’d find some way to hit me or
throw something at me or make sure the knife slipped when I was
making tea. She’d find the smallest thing to punish me for. And
when I stood up to her, what did she do? She kicked me out. Made
me
homeless
. I
nearly
died
. I
was caught by Officials, I was—”

I say, very slowly, “I
don’t miss her for a single minute. She made my life a living hell
and I’m glad she’s not here to wreck the smallest bit of good I
found for myself.”

“I know.” She won’t
look at me. “I know.”

Pointedly ignoring the
tightness in my throat, I rest a damp hand on Livy’s back,
communicating in the best way I can how sorry I am and how glad I
am she’s here. I’m still not good with being open but I’m
trying.

That’s gotta count for
something.

“You wanna go out
later?” Livy asks casually. “Do something? Tom says there’s a cool
building on the outskirts of town. ”

I summon a smile.
“Yeah, why not?” Beginning to feel a bit more like myself I add,
“Think we could take a detour? I saw some trainers in one of the
shops on the way in just begging to be stolen.”

Livy’s answering smile
is a flash of white light in her pale brown face.

***

Bennet

10:29. 22.10.2040.
Bharat, Delhi.

Today’s locale is a
rank diner. Shiny orange seats reflect the sickly yellow lights
that swing from the ceiling, the metal tables have a number of
dried-on liquids I’d rather not think about, and the staff barely
blink at my arrival let alone rush to attend on me. Were I here for
food, I suspect I’d have to get it myself. I can’t even stomach the
thought of eating something from this place. The scent in the air
is a noxious mix of burnt potatoes, boiled vegetables, and spices
so strong they turn my stomach.

It’s all I can do to
keep my breakfast down as I slip into one of the seats, the silk of
my sari sliding over the pocked vinyl surface. It might be a vile
place but it was chosen for a reason. Nobody would think a conclave
that could potentially affect the entire planet was happening in
somewhere such as this. Important meetings take place in
marble-white buildings in Connaught Place, not in back street
restaurants in Chandni Chowk.

The potential Guardian
ally I’m persuading today is a Statesman. I assumed I would meet a
male, as the name suggests, but it seems Statesman is a term given
to anyone who hails from the City. The Guardian ally is a white
woman, kind faced and large bodied. A keen eye suggests
intelligence and watchfulness, which must be what lends her to
being a spy. She looks too kindly to be plotting behind one’s back,
too motherly to be scheming—but that is exactly what she does when
she’s in her home City.

So far she’s the first
ally I’ve met whose language I can speak, even if some of her
nuances are odd. I’m here to influence her to take a major role in
the Guardians’ plan, but I haven’t the faintest idea where to
begin.

“Thank you for
coming,” I say, leaning close so she can hear me over the chatter
that fills these walls.

She
tips her head forward in acknowledgement but remains silent,
waiting for me to say what I’ve come to.
Just say it, Bennet.

“The Guardians and I
would like you to be a part of our long-term offense on States.” I
try not to let out a frustrated sigh. Those are Vast’s words. I
need to put this in my own. I have to be convincing if I’m to win
her over. If I’m to get the device that will find my brother. “We
have a weapon,” I say, “that could change everything. But we need
it in States and we don’t have a safe way of getting into the
country.” After a moment, I correct, “City, I mean. All the
Guardians already in the City have no way of getting out and we
can’t send anymore in. The security, I’m told, is excessive at
present.”

“I know all this,” the
woman says. “What do you need of me?”

“To take this weapon
and give it to one of our Guardians in States.”

“That’s all?”

I pause, thinking of
how exactly Garima worded her explanation. “It’s a biological
weapon. There is much danger to you in transporting it alone, but
if you’re found in possession of it—”

“Officials will kill
me,” she finishes.

“It’s not only that.
They will certainly kill you, but they’ll also be in possession of
a disease capable of reducing the world’s population to nothing. We
can’t have that happen. There is already too much sickness, too
much suffering.”

I know that first
hand. Vast keeps making me watch their videos of Strains victims in
the Forgotten Lands. I can’t stand it but I have little choice. I
must make myself aware of the terrors this world has in store for
me. I must harden myself to armoured ivory. If that means watching
a hundred people die, I’ll do it. To heal the world, I must be
intimately acquainted with its illness, and what I’ve found is its
illness is little more than pure greed.

I suspected this
already but now I have the proof. I’ve heard my brother and
cousin’s accounts of what transpired in that house in the past,
with the man who bragged, threatened, and vanished. I know he spoke
of a new world, about changing history, about being Gods. That is
who leads this States, I’m sure of it. I never saw his face
personally—I was too busy grieving and sulking—so I can’t verify my
suspicions. But I’d be willing to stake my life on him being the
President of States in this day and age. It’s his greed that has
left the world in this ravaged state.