The Wandering (The Lux Guardians, #2) (42 page)

“He’s torturing her,”
I say plainly.

Behind my eyelids I
see black figures dropping from the sky, crawling all over this
hate-free place, turning the pretty sea side into a war zone with
their electric guns and grenade pulses. I know all about their
weapons, and I know that when Forgotten London fell they weren’t
using even half of their armoury—orders courtesy of the President.
All their biggest weapons were taken from the town on a ship across
the seas a month before the Fall. Wouldn’t want to waste them on a
hopeless cause, would he? He didn’t need to. He was burying the
problem under a mountain of dirt and collapsed buildings.

But the Officials
coming? They’ll be armed to their teeth. They’ll have everything to
throw at us because there are no machines planted around this town,
and there is no fail safe plan to murder us all. I pull a breath
through my nose and hold it until the haze of red violence has
passed over me. I want to kill every single one of them but that’s
not rational, or sensible. If I act on those thoughts, I’ll be
killed for sure. I need sense to rule me, not vengeance.

Vengeance can wait for
when I have Augustus Beaulieu two feet away from me, when I’ll take
the dainty little knife I’ve had hidden in my pocket for weeks and
carve his heart out. That’s if he even has one. How can he have a
heart when he let his own son die in a town collapse he
ordered?

“I’m leaving,” Wes
says, shaking me back to the present.

Honour tightens his
grip on my arm. “Wait outside,” he tells Wes.

Before the Fall I
wouldn’t have thought my brother strong enough to stay and watch
this—Timofei pressing the end of an electric rod to Anna’s
stomach—I still find it hard to believe the woman the Guardian
council trusted enough to train us in self-defence and weapons
handling has betrayed us—but now I know Honour is strong enough to
withstand anything. I am so proud of him for carrying on, for
living, when I could not.

Wes has gone, Dalmar
with him, though Hele has stayed. She lingers beside us with a
pained smile. We could all be dead by the end of this
afternoon.

The crackle of
electricity draws my eyes back to Timofei and Anna. “When are they
coming?”

Nothing.

“Fine, don’t tell me.
I’m turning the output to double.”

This time when he
presses the rod to her skin, she howls, “An hour!” Anna takes big,
gulping breaths and repeats, “You have an hour.”

“Where are they landing?” Timofei brandishes the rod like a
sword and I flinch. I grit my teeth and tense my body even more. I
won’t flinch again. I
won’t
.

“Everywhere,” Anna
gasps. “They’re going to cover every inch of this town.”

“How many?”

“Four airships.”

Timofei turns his back
on her. He waves half the Guardian council over and tells them,
“That’s four hundred Officials. All coming here, from every
direction. What’s our plan?”

Honour’s breathing is
jagged as he pulls on my hand, urging us outside. I rub the pad of
my thumb over the back of his hand, knowing even I can’t comfort
Honour now.

There’s no point
waiting to hear what else Timofei learns from the traitor. We know
all we need—an impossible number of Officials and an impossible
chance of survival. I breathe in the cold whip of air as we leave
the building.

Honour stops walking
in the middle of the road, staring at the sun-cracked tarmac.
“We’ll be okay,” he says. “We lived through F.L. and we’ll live
through this.”

I touch his cheek. “We
have to fight them first.”

“I don’t want to.”

I draw him into my
arms and he feels so fragile as he drops his forehead onto my
shoulder. His arms encase me so tightly that his desperation is a
raw exhibition for everyone running past. I rub my brother’s back
with gentle hands, willing him to pull himself together, willing
him to be as strong as I know he can be.

I whisper, “Then we
have to hide.”

“No.” He detaches
himself from me, wiping the back of a hand over his eyes. “Dalmar
will never agree to that. I think Bran might, and Hele but—Dal will
fight. And Miya and Yosiah, too.”

“And Wes?”

“I’m with you.” Wes
startles me with a hand on my shoulder. I didn’t know he was
following us. I feel sick. If Wes could creep up on us, Officials
could without a problem. We’d be dead if they were already here.
Oblivious to my horror, he puts an arm around Honour and forms a
protective cage around me and my twin. He says, “No matter what, I
stay with you. You want to hide, I’ll find you the best hiding
place. Somewhere underground maybe.”

I leave it to Honour
to decide, waiting for him to come to his own conclusion: there
will be no hiding in this battle. This is the beginning of the war,
right here in Plymouth. Forgotten London Falling was just the match
that lit the torch of war. This is the real thing and it’s going to
be bloody and brutal and while I’m terrified of it, some part of me
leans toward it like a flower seeking sunlight.

I never thought I’d
have the stomach for violence but now I know I do. I’ve already
killed someone and my conscience isn’t tainted by remorse for it. I
know I can do it again, for the people I love. Maybe even for the
thrill of it, that rush of adrenaline that erases everything in my
past and future, narrowing my entire life to one second in the
present.

I worry what that
means for my soul, whether I’m a bad person, but I can’t care about
that right now.

You have an hour.
Everywhere. Four airships.

The only thing that
exists to me now is protecting my family.

“We have to fight,”
Honour finally decides. There’s a note in his voice that is pure
resignation. He adds bitterly, “Who knows, maybe I’ll carry a
Strain and kill a hundred Officials in one go.”

It’s a joke but
neither Wes nor I laugh. If this battle is as bad as I think it’s
going to be, Honour’s status as a carrier may be a blessing.

***

Yosiah

13:37. 08.11.2040. The
Free Lands, Southlands, Plymouth.

“We have twenty three
minutes, everybody. Listen closely.” Dalmar’s voice bounces off the
grim Guardian silence. The breeze blows his words so they reach
even the Plymouth residents crammed into the park, supposedly
listening to their ambassador’s instructions. They seem more
interested in us.

“There are four
hundred States Officials coming for us, from all directions, and we
have to assume some are coming in from the water. I need five teams
of seventy to cover the town, Guardians and weapons-trained
civilians both. Cell, Hush, Peggy, Natalia, and Kyle put together
teams. Jayn, I want you to take fifty Guardians down to the dock
and stop anyone from coming inland. We’ve got long range guns that
should help you.”

“I don’t think I have
to say,” he goes on after a pause, “that if we let them into the
town, we won’t be leaving it.”

As everyone gets put
into teams for their assignments, Dalmar and Hele join us, waving
over Miranda and a couple other safe town authorities. “You did
well,” I hear Hele murmur. “You sounded very confident.”

“If only I was.”
Dalmar runs a hand through his hair, standing straighter. He
directs his attention to us and raises his voice. “Miya, Yosiah, I
want you to go with the civilians. They’ve been told to get to
Bharat’s aircrafts before the Officials arrive but they’ll have
trouble. I need you to cover them. Be merciless—take out any
Officials that might come your way.”

“Will we have guns?”
Miya is wearing a composed mask. Is she worried underneath it, or
is she as calm as she looks? I don’t see how she can be anything
but scared. Being in a battle is one thing, having to react to the
enemy coming at you—but knowing it’s coming, with breaking down not
an option? Practically impossible. Miya’s only experience with
battle is the Fall of Forgotten London, and that was mostly
running. How will she cope with true, bloody combat?

“Some,” Dalmar
answers. I forgot Miya had asked about guns until he adds, “We
don’t have any electric but I’ll be able to get you each a handgun
and ammunition. Maybe even some fire power, but no promises. Brig’s
making sure everyone who needs a weapon gets one, so it’ll be up to
him.”

“I’ll convince him,”
Miya says self-assuredly.

Dalmar lowers his
voice, leaning closer. “Get your family on the crafts first.
Guardians and family are what’s important. These Plymouth people
can take care of themselves—they’re different to us. They’ve
prepared for this.”

“I’m okay with leaving
them behind.”

Dalmar turns to
Miranda, giving her instructions to defend a small team
transporting our possessions to the crafts. Our bags have been
piled in front of the information centre along with everyone
else’s, waiting for a van to move them. Miranda is apparently a
decent sniper, which doesn’t sit completely well with me.

Dalmar in turn gives
orders to assist and accompany other teams to the rest of the safe
town leaders—mostly people from the little villages around
Forgotten London, since everyone from Manchester is dead,
Birmingham refused to leave, and Cardiff is run by a lazy old woman
already sitting on a craft. Kari is singled out, though. Dalmar
plays to her strengths and tells her to go with the team of
strategists and technologists aiming to bring down the enemy
crafts. I don’t like the idea of her being in the thick of the
planning, but Miya and I will be in the thick of the fighting so I
keep my mouth tight on any complaints. My sister gives me a sharp
nod before she walks off, her eyes glazed with unshed tears.

Miya takes my
wrist.

“Everyone else,” Dalmar shouts, “run for the aircrafts.
They’re the only place that’ll be safe.” When nobody moves, he
roars,
“Go! Now!”

People burst into
motion, civilians and Guardians alike. Miya and I hurry to go with
them, her siblings running with us. Miya stops for a second to
scoop Thomas into her arms. In the moment I debate picking up Livy
she spits, “Don’t even think about it.” I hold my hands up in
surrender, a smile fading from my mouth when I realise how little
time we have until we’re under attack.

“Where’s Brig, Miya?
Do you know him?”

“Yeah.” She looks at
me and the urgency pushing my blood to boil slows for a second,
allowing me to think up a rough map of Plymouth, plotting the
quickest route to the aircraft field. “Over here.”

“What about the
civilians? We’re meant to go with them.”

“We’re also meant to
be armed.” She pushes her pace to a run, throwing me a look over
her shoulder. I follow as fast as my body will allow, a throb of
pain going through my right leg, promising to get worse the harder
I drive myself. But there isn’t time for me to be kind to my
injury. If we don’t get those weapons, if we don’t run, if we don’t
reach the aircraft, we’re dead.

I’m not ready to die.
I won’t be ready to die in a year, or ten, or twenty. I’ve always
clung desperately to life but never so hard as I do now, rushing
down a cobbled street that smells of old rubbish and dirt, with the
thought of losing Miya and Miya losing me throbbing through my mind
like an ache all of its own.

Brig turns out to be
the skinny albino Guardian. He inhabits a lopsided grey tent, a
line of bare wood tables separating him from frantic Guardians,
desperate questions, and angry demands. A wall of plastic boxes sit
behind him, full, I’m guessing, of guns and knives and whatever
else the Guardians have been able to get their hands on. The store
of weapons Miya and Honour found in Hull should mean everyone has
something to defend themselves with, so why is it taking so
long?

Miya breaks away from
us, hassling Thomas to stay with me before she shoves her way
through the crush of shouting Guardians waiting to be armed. She’s
soon hidden by men and women much taller than she is, swallowed by
the buzz of complaints and crying.

Miya emerges a minute
later with her arms full.

“How did you get those
so fast? Did you threaten him?”

“Only a bit.”

She gives me an
assault rifle and a box of cartridges. The gun is heavy in my hand
and takes an equally damaging toll on my heart. Holding a gun in
Manchester when we were training was one thing, but being fully
armed with the intent to kill. My heart pounds.

“We have to, Siah,”
Miya says. Quiet. Just for me.

“I know.” Kill or
die—those are my options. I watch the way Miya holds the handgun
she’s got for herself, making absolutely sure that her grip is
flawless. “You remember how to load it?”

“Yeah.” But then she
says, “Show me again. Just to be safe.”

I take the gun from
her, moving out of the way of the crowding Guardians, gesturing for
Miya and her siblings to follow. Being slow, I show Miya how to
detach the magazine, how to load the rounds and put the whole thing
back together. Olive watches too, rapt. “How many more have you
got?” I ask, nodding at the box of cartridges when she’s safely
tucked the loaded gun in her pocket.

“Ten. You?”

I inspect the battered
cardboard housing the ammunition. “About the same.” With a sinking
stone in my gut, I meet Miya’s eyes. “We’re ready. We have to
go.”

“What about us? Do we get one?” Thomas’s childish voice
clashes chillingly with the serious way he’s asking for weapons.
It’s wrong. So,
so
wrong. He’s not even thirteen years old.

“No.” Miya’s voice is
cold as the gun in my hand. “You stay close to me and Siah.”

“But—”

“No,” she repeats,
though a softness has crept into her tone. “But I need you to do
something for me. It’s important. I need you to look for men and
women dressed in black, remember like the Officials from home? If
you see an Official, you tell me or Yosiah. You too, Olive.”