The Wandering (The Lux Guardians, #2) (30 page)

He looks at me
suddenly, his gaze traveling the length of me. “Okay?”

I don’t bother
answering—he already knows I’m not. I don’t feel right. I haven’t
for a while but tonight is worse. It’s the sharp ache my nightmares
leave with me but instead of fading, this lingers. I want to stop
in the middle of the street and smog and have Yosiah hold me
together. His touch used to terrify me but lately I’ve begun to
wish for it, his chest so close I can feel his beating heart
against my rib cage.

“A little further,” he
says. His hands reach out to me and then reconsider, curling into
fists.

We come to a road
populated with fallen people. Yosiah and I share an uneasy look. I
scrutinise the bodies for what killed them but there’s no blood, no
wounds, no obvious sign they’re dead at all. Siah kneels beside one
of them, sharing my suspicions, but we’re both wrong. He shakes his
head. They’re not just unconscious.

“Smoke,” Yosiah says
quietly.

“Then why—”

“Immunity.”

“But—” I look down at
my brother and sister. It doesn’t make sense.

“Remember what Timofei
said? Anyone who comes into contact with me for a long time gets it
too.”

“Oh.” I’m grateful for whatever made Siah immune to the
Sixteen Strains, for it being contagious enough to protect my
siblings, but why would the immunity protect us against the smoke?
“Do you think—the smoke—?”
Is it The
Sixteen Strains?

“Yes.”

Livy elbows my leg.
“What are you talking about?”

“Nothing.”

“They don’t want us to
know,” Tom mumbles. The first words he’s spoken since we almost
died.

“It’s not something
you need to—Holy shit.” The darkness gives way to a dozen streams
of torchlight, the isolation becoming people milling around a
crossroads. After the loneliness of the past hour, this is too
much. Too much life and sound and action.

I lead my family
through the streams of people, trying to ignore the pain shooting
up my leg, building and building with every bit of pressure I put
on my twisted ankle. Everyone is talking and shouting, sitting on
the curb or standing around waiting, running back and forth or
striding with purpose. It feels unreal, like we’ve stepped into
some other world where nobody is dead and nothing went wrong.

Honour and Branwell
come hurtling towards us and I didn’t realise that I’d assumed they
were dead until right now. I thought we were the last ones left but
people are here. Our friends are here. A little of my pain turns to
relief.

A blur of grey and
Timofei is embracing Yosiah, shaking badly. He thought Siah was
dead. Yosiah’s tight grip on Timofei’s shoulders says he thought
the same. Out there I didn’t think about Timofei for a single
second, didn’t wonder if he was one of the dead bodies. Guilt adds
itself to the brew of unwanted feelings in my gut. Timofei lets out
a shuddering breath and steps back, like his moment of jagged
relief never happened.

“Are you alright?”
Branwell asks, reminding me he’s there. Honour is still hovering at
his side, too. I think I nod an answer but can’t be sure.

I sit down in the
middle of the street, so tired and worn down that I don’t care
anymore. Tom curls against my chest, Livy sits cross-legged beside
me, and Yosiah’s fingers find a home in the tangled strands of my
hair.

An hour or so goes by.
Eventually I look up and see only Guardians, the Manchester
civilians nowhere around. Branwell tells us they’re all dead,
killed by the smoke on the horizon along with too many Guardians.
There are only twenty two of us now. Timofei has a theory it’s
because we’ve all spent time close to Siah, that the immunity has
passed on. Timofei has a lot of theories. I’m forced to listen to
them as we climb the ten flights of stairs of a fire escape,
following Guardian orders. Eventually we reach a high roof with an
X painted on it. A plane shaped like an arrowhead is sat right in
the middle of it, shiny and black.

Branwell tumbles onto
the rooftop, his face lighting up when he sees the plane. “Please
tell me that is our way to safety.”

“That’s our way to
safety,” Timofei tells him.

“This is worth every
almost-death I’ve ever suffered.”

“What a moron,” Livy
sneers as Bran stares at the plane like it’s a million credits.

I shake my head at the
both of them and herd them toward the aircraft.

“Is it safe, Leah?”
Tom asks.

“Yeah,” I lie,
hoisting myself onto the steel ladder. “Come on.”

***

Honour

03:29. 30.10.2040. The
Free Lands, Northlands, Leeds.

All of the Manchester
residents are dead. Except one. She sits at the back of the
aircraft, tucked into a corner of black metal, watching each and
every one of us. I bet we look pathetic: Tia speechless and
exhausted; Dalmar and Hele clinging to each other; Branwell forcing
himself to be optimistic; Miya and Yosiah ferocious despite looking
like hell; and me—lacking in every kind of faith, barely holding
myself together.

I wonder if everything
looks as hopeless to her as it does to me.

How
are we supposed to make a difference? We’re meant to rally everyone
left on this island, go to Bharat and devise a plan, and then take
apart the Ordering Body of States.
We’re
meant to do that. People are
waiting on us to save them. We’re their only chance at freedom, at
survival.

I want to laugh and
cry at the same time.

When I raise my eyes
again the Manchester survivor is sat in the aisle opposite me, her
head tilted to the side as she watches me. Her eyes are creased
with something that could be thinking or curiosity. There’s a bird
tattooed in gold across the entire right side of her face, one of
its wings curling under her chin.

“Hi,” I say
uncertainly. I pull on a loose strand of cotton at the hem of my
shirt and it unravels.

“Hello.” One side of
her mouth turns down in an upside down smile. “I’m Kari. You know
my brother.”

“I do?”

“Yosiah.”

“Oh.” Now I notice the
shared eye colour, the straight nose, the same shrewd way of
watching people. “I didn’t know he had a sister.”

“Well.” She tucks
black hair behind her ear. “He didn’t know I was alive. You look
defeated.”

“Excuse me?”

“You look defeated.
It’s not because of the attack on Manchester, is it? It’s something
else.” She tilts her head further, looking too closely at me. I
squirm, not liking it at all. “You’ve lost yourself,” she says.
“You’ve forgotten who you are.”

“And who am I?”

“You don’t—” Her eyes
widen. She flinches away. “You really have forgotten. You don’t
remember at all.”

“Don’t remember what?”
I’m getting angry now. Why is Yosiah’s sister talking like she
knows me?

“Nothing.” She unhooks
the hair from behind her ear and stands stiffly. With a tight smile
and sad eyes, she returns to her seat at the back of the plane. I
don’t understand the look on her face, or why I caused it, or what
I’ve forgotten.

I shake my head, her
words repeating.

You’ve forgotten who
you are.

***

Bennet

11:00. 30.10.2040.
Bharat, Delhi.

With nothing much
better to do, I join some of the Guardians in one of their lessons.
It’s something about mathematics, though in the patches of spoken
English they call it a different word. I am beginning to wish I’d
gone to the library instead, despite its profound loneliness. I
sigh, propping my chin on my hand as I watch the tutor pace the
front of the classroom, her white Guardian sari trailing across the
floor with each footfall.

I squint to make out
the words written on the chalkboard, the artificial lighting
beginning to spread its vexation from my itching eyes to a burst of
pain behind my eyebrow, when a resounding boom rocks the room.
Students stand suddenly, transforming from children wanting to
learn to Guardians ready to fight. The tutor rattles a drawer in
her desk and produces a long cylinder—a gun powered by a mix of
electricity and the sun’s power that I have seen tear a wall apart
in weapons training.

A second quake echoes
through the whole underground structure, loosing dust from the
arched ceiling above us. Footsteps, pounding against the corridor
outside. Guardians screaming orders, yelling to remain calm,
howling at a third explosion. Thundering, from somewhere to the
right of the classroom, aggressive bangs coming rhythmically like a
twisted drum beat.

“Raid,” a man outside
calls. “Get to your stations.” The instruction is repeated in Hindi
and then again in English and again in Hindi. Over and over—get to
your stations, remain calm, arm yourselves. A bolt of panic has
struck me and travelled the length of my body, from the crown of my
head to the very tips of my toes.

The room empties,
students running out to gather their guns. Words are spoken,
shouted, but I hear nothing. I see only their mouths moving.

I’m affected by a
panic I haven’t felt since I found myself stranded in Mumbai
without Branwell, when the shock fell away to nothing but tremors
and quick breathing. By the time I came back to myself an hour and
twenty-three minutes had passed, which wasn’t surprising. My fits
of terror have always taken hours from me, sometimes even half
days. I used to fall into this state at home but I always had my
twin brother to calm me. Where is Bran now, when I need him?

A wave of bodies
pushes down the corridor. Through the open door, I see men and
women all clothed in a light khaki sweeping aside Guardians and
charging into rooms. Three men burst into the classroom I occupy.
My body ignores my every desire to flee. I am trapped in the arms
of a monster of my own creation. My heart persists, thumping away
like the a great piston, but it might as well surrender. I am a
useless machine, an unmoving machine, and I have no need of a
heart.

The strangers move
around me, turning out drawers and tearing down cabinets but
overlooking me. Perhaps they come across frozen girls every day of
their lives. Perhaps a frozen girl is nothing compared to the
unspeakable things they have seen and perpetrated. My imagination
combines with my fear. Tears spring to my eyes.

Vast was right. They
had planned a raid. They want the Miracle. But he was wrong on one
account—they haven’t waited until next month to come for it. It was
a grave mistake to make and the dread of them finding it slithers
down my throat, closing my airwaves.

A girl says something
to me but her voice is distant and strange. I couldn’t tell you if
she was Guardian or enemy. It’s as if I have fallen face first into
a pool. As if water has rushed into my ears to deafen me to
everything outside the bubble of panic I’m in. I squeeze my eyes
shut, hoping the darkness will bring me clarity and breath.

Noises move around me,
funnelled through a veil of distortion: men speaking in clipped
Hindi, furniture clattering over, distant thuds from along the
corridor, Vast shouting, someone crying. Everyone around me is
distressed and it serves only to fuel my own fright. I press the
palms of my hands over my ears, refusing to open my eyes even when
a body breezes past me, the foreign scent of peppermint twining
with the musk and dusty scent of this base.

Someone screams. I
open my eyes. Days could have passed. The classroom I’m in is now
vacant but there are people streaming along the corridors, most of
them dressed in white but others in the khaki-beige that must be
the Bharatian Police’s uniform. It’s the colour of dust, of gravel
driveways and murky paint water.

My courage has shrunk
down to a fleck but now that I can move, I refuse to stay still. I
push my way into the corridor, my heartbeat in my ears, and follow
the flow of people. I know instantly where they’re going—I
recognise the route. Everyone is headed for the stairwell to the
laboratories. They’ve found it.

Please, no.

The rush of noise in
my head is increasing, worries and questions and theories all
knotted together. I use the pointy end of my elbow to create a
clear path through Guardians and police alike, batting away shouts
in Hindi. What will we do if they have found it? What will happen
to our cause? To my purpose?

I surge free of the
crowd at the top of the stairs and my heart drops to the floor. I
imagine it flopping helplessly, like a fish taken from its
pond.

A group of Bharatian
police are removing every bit of equipment they can get their hands
on. A high screeching noise—machinery—echoes up the staircase. A
woman is putting several vials of blue-gold-green liquid into a
padded box. The Miracle. They have it. We’ve lost it.

I have no chance, now.
No hope of ever going home. I will never find Branwell or embrace
Carolina or kiss Joel. My life might as well stop right now.

I stumble against a
wall and press my hands to my eyes, flashes of light slipping
through the shadow of my fingers. What will happen now? What will
these policemen do with the Miracle, and the other liquid … the
weapon? Nothing good. Nothing good can come from this.

I remember reading
about the waves of sickness that consumed the world when the
Strains were first unleashed. First they swallowed Europe, and then
Africa, Asia, and the rest of the world. I can imagine what it
would be like to be there at the beginning. The first wave—that’s
what I am part of now. Destruction will reign supreme in this City
and it will do nothing but spread and spread and spread.

That is, after all,
what diseases do.