Thief! (16 page)

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Authors: Malorie Blackman

Tags: #Juvenile Fiction, #Horror & Ghost Stories, #Science Fiction

BOOK: Thief!
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If that’s what hatred did for you then she wanted no part of it. Everyone in Tarwich – or Hensonville as it was now known – was so unhappy and, for all his talk, Daniel was no happier. He was a bully and a tyrant. And worse still he was doing it for
her
. But Lydia didn’t want this. Maybe once, but not now.
Lydia desperately tried to think of something to say that would convince her brother to stop, but before she could say a word, pain flared through her arm, up past her shoulder and down to her fingertips. She winced and laid her right hand over her wound. She could feel her shirt sticking to her skin. Her wound was bleeding again. When that Night Guard had grabbed her arm, he must have damaged some of the staples. Lydia pushed up her sleeve and looked. She was right. Blood was seeping down her arm.
Lydia looked up at Daniel. He was watching her suspiciously.
‘What’s wrong with your arm?’ he asked, his eyes narrowing as he glimpsed the wound.
Before Lydia could reply, an insistent bleeping noise interrupted her. Daniel dug into his trouser pocket, took out his mobile phone and touched its screen.
‘Bring her to me,’ a woman’s voice ordered.
‘Why?’ Daniel asked.
Lydia took a step closer and craned her neck to see who Daniel was talking to. Although she could see the screen, she couldn’t make out who was on it. Daniel frowned at her and turned his back on her to continue his conversation.
Lydia took a quick look around. Coming here had been a really bad idea. Now was her chance. She had to get back to the others to warn them that Daniel knew about their tunnel. She had to stop them from using it.
Lydia took off towards the woods in the opposite direction to Daniel, her heart racing faster than her legs.
‘Hold your fire! Don’t shoot! Get her!’
Lydia looked around, not slowing her pace for a second. Night Guards were racing after her from all sides. Lydia wondered frantically why Daniel had stopped his guards from shooting at her again. Was he beginning to believe that she really was his sister? Should she have stayed and tried to convince him that she was telling the truth? By running, would he think that he was right to doubt her?
Lydia reached the woods and ducking down low, she darted around tall trees which loomed over her like giants and low bushes which whipped at her legs. She couldn’t stop. She couldn’t let the guards catch her. Not until she had warned Fran and Mike’s mum and the others in the Resistance.
Suddenly, Lydia couldn’t see a thing. The moon disappeared behind a cloud and the stars were just tiny pinpricks of light above her.
Lydia stopped running immediately. She didn’t want to run into a tree – or worse still a Night Guard! But what should she do?
Up ahead, through the trees she could see a faint pink shimmer, lightening the sky towards the horizon. She rubbed the back of her neck where it had begun to prickle.
Dawn must be coming up, Lydia thought. She hadn’t realized that she’d been unconscious for so long after she’d been shot.
‘Get those lights on. NOW!’
Lydia heard Daniel’s angry voice in the distance. Almost instantly searchlights lit up the night. Lydia didn’t hesitate. She raced towards the pale pink shimmering light. It didn’t matter that with each step towards it her skin prickled more. Somehow she knew she had to get there.
‘Lydia, quick! Down here!’
Lydia looked around. She could hear Fran’s voice but she couldn’t see her anywhere.
‘Down here!’
A flash of light emerged from the gnarled surface roots of an old oak tree up ahead. Lydia raced for the tree. She threw herself down on the ground and crawled frantically into the small hole beneath the trunk. Even now she could hear the heavy, running footsteps of the Night Guards just behind her. Lydia tumbled past Fran down a couple of dirt steps. The burgeoning dawn light in the tunnel disappeared as Fran immediately blocked the entrance.
Shakily, Lydia stood up.
‘Am I glad to see you!’ Lydia breathed a sigh of relief. ‘I thought you’d left. Mike told you to get going.’
‘Just as well I didn’t get very far, isn’t it?’
‘Daniel and his Guards know about the tunnel.’
‘Yes, I know. I heard them firing at you and Mike,’ Fran said. ‘We’ve got to get out of here.’
‘We’ve got to get a message to the . . .’
‘Shush!’ Fran shook her head quickly and pointed above them.
Lydia got the message. The Night Guards were too close to risk talking. For all Lydia knew, they could be standing just by the oak tree, still looking for her. Fran took the lead and once again, Lydia found herself trekking through the tunnels beneath Hensonville.
‘D’you remember Mike’s instructions?’ Lydia whispered.
‘I think so. I hope so.’ Fran’s voice sounded worried.
‘What d’you mean . . . ? Never mind.’ Lydia decided not to ask.
Getting back to her own time was becoming more remote by the second.
Chapter Seventeen
Mrs Joyce
With each step, Lydia had to rub her neck harder and harder. Only now it wasn’t just her neck that was prickling. It was as if each drop of blood in her body had turned into a tiny red-hot needle that was trying to pierce its way through her skin. She gritted her teeth and scratched the back of her legs and the front of her arms. It didn’t help.
‘Where are we?’ Lydia risked speaking after at least thirty minutes of silence.
‘Under the moors,’ Fran whispered. ‘It should be safe to come out here.’
‘Why the moors?’ Lydia asked. ‘Why can’t we just go back to your house?’
‘The Tyrant knows that Mike and I are friends, so he’ll send his Night Guards straight there, looking for you – and me,’ Fran replied. ‘And if we’re found in anyone else’s house it will be instant termination – for both of us and for the family that hides us.’
‘I don’t believe it . . .’
‘It’s happened before,’ Fran insisted.
What could Lydia say? There was nothing to say.
‘We’ll have to lie low for a while,’ Fran continued.
‘On the moors?’ Hiding on such a wide open space seemed like suicide.
‘It’s the best place – believe me.’ Fran smiled.
‘I suppose you know what you’re doing,’ Lydia said doubtfully.
They turned left and began to walk up a dirt slope. Fran pushed at some bracken and moss above her head at the top of the slope. Lydia closed her eyes and clenched her fists.
My skin isn’t on fire . . . my skin isn’t on fire . . . she told herself. It didn’t work.
‘Come on, Lydia,’ Fran beckoned.
Lydia crawled out of the tunnel after Fran. She looked around. They were totally alone.
Then she saw it.
Rolling towards them from the horizon was a massive swirl of burning pink and flame-yellow and fiery-red – the same as before, when Lydia had run away from home to walk on the moors. It wasn’t just some clouds that were heading their way. It was as if the whole sky was rushing towards them. Lydia stared up at the racing colours and her stomach dipped and dived within her. It was still the most frightening and yet the most beautiful thing Lydia had ever seen. Why did she feel so drawn to it and yet so repelled by it at the same time?
‘What
is
that?’ Lydia pointed.
‘I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like it before.’ Fran shook her head.
With great difficulty, Lydia forced herself to look away.
‘What do we do now, Fran?’
Fran didn’t hear her. She was still staring at the swirling sky colours.
‘Fran?’ Lydia shook Fran’s arm. ‘What do we do now?’
It took a few moments for Fran to come out of her reverie.
‘Sorry,’ she breathed. ‘I’d better phone Dad and tell him where I am.’
Fran took out her smartphone and touched the bottom of the screen before saying, ‘Phone Dad’. Lydia moved closer to see what she was doing.
‘What’s that?’
‘A phone,’ said Fran.
‘Why didn’t you use it when we were in the tunnels? Wouldn’t that have been safer?’ Lydia asked.
‘Phones don’t work down in the tunnels.’ Fran frowned. ‘You really don’t know anything, do you?’
‘I’m from the past – remember,’ said Lydia.
And Lydia remembered that it was the year she was supposed to die . . . She’d never see her next birthday . . .
‘So is Daniel Henson your brother?’ Fran asked carefully.
Lydia nodded.
‘Did he believe you?’
‘No. According to Daniel, I died . . . his sister died,’ Lydia said miserably. ‘I tried to tell him about my accident on the moors but he wouldn’t listen. He thinks I’m part of the Resistance and you’ve operated on my face to make me look like his dead sister.’
‘You died?’ Fran said, horrified. ‘Oh Lydia . . . I don’t know what to say.’
‘Well, it hasn’t happened yet. Meanwhile, I’ve got to make Daniel stop what he’s doing. He hates this whole town and everyone in it because of me,’ said Lydia. ‘Because of
me
.’
‘I don’t understand.’
Lydia chewed nervously on her bottom lip.
‘I . . . I didn’t tell you the whole story before,’ Lydia admitted. ‘The reason I was on the moors in the first place was because . . . because I ran away from home.’
‘Why?’
Lydia looked towards the swirling colours which were getting ever closer. She had to fight hard against the urge to run towards them. They were almost like invisible hands, pulling at her. She looked away.
‘Everyone at my school thinks I’m a thief. The whole town thinks I’m a thief, but I’m not. The Collivale School sports cup went missing and it was found in my locker,’ Lydia said quietly. ‘Everyone turned against me – even my best friend, Frankie. I got surrounded in the playground and called a thief. They wouldn’t stop picking on me. Then Frankie had her accident and I got blamed for that too.’
‘The Collivale sports cup . . . ?’ Fran stared at Lydia.
‘Yeah! Isn’t that stupid?’ Lydia smiled bitterly. ‘It seems so far away, so
tiny
. All this started because of a school sports cup.’
Lydia closed her eyes and tilted her head back until she could trust herself to speak again. ‘Frankie slipped on some ice. It was an accident but . . . but I can’t help wondering . . . If I’d just been a bit faster, maybe I could have caught her and stopped her from falling. Or maybe if I hadn’t slapped her hand away from me in the first place then she wouldn’t have fallen . . .’
‘Oh my God! That was
you
?’ Fran stared at Lydia, profoundly shocked. ‘Lydia, Mum didn’t blame you at all. She always said it was her own fault. She slipped and you tried to grab her but you couldn’t – that’s what she told everyone.’
Lydia shrugged and looked away. ‘Frankie was too late. I ran away because a reporter came to our house. And we started getting phone calls and Mum and Dad got paint thrown over their car.’ Lydia shivered at the memory. ‘Daniel told me that Mum and Dad were driving us to my aunt’s house in London to get away from all the unpleasantness. That’s when the motorway accident happened . . . happens. That’s when I’m killed.’
‘Lydia, I think . . .’ Fran chewed on her bottom lip nervously. ‘Hang on a second.’
Fran moved a few steps away from Lydia, then keyed some numbers into her phone. Within moments Mrs Joyce’s face appeared, covering the whole device.
‘Mrs Joyce, you’re back! I was worried that the Night Guards might have decided to keep you for longer than one night,’ said Fran.
‘They’ve never got anything out of me and they never will,’ Mrs Joyce snorted. ‘It’s just my weekly dose of harassment – courtesy of the Tyrant.’
‘Lyd . . . My friend and I are on the moors,’ Fran explained quickly. ‘We need to see you. It’s really important.’
‘Where’s Mike?’ Mrs Joyce frowned.
Fran gave Lydia a worried look.
‘I’m sorry Mrs Joyce, but the Tyrant has him in his mansion,’ Fran replied.
‘My God! What happened?’
‘Mike took us to the Tyrant’s mansion but they were waiting for us,’ Fran explained.
‘He did
what
?’ Mrs Joyce exploded. ‘Mike wouldn’t . . . he
couldn’t
be that stupid. Why did he do it?’
‘It’s a bit difficult to explain . . .’
‘No, never mind. Not over the phone,’ Mrs Joyce interrupted harshly. ‘Mike . . .’
Lydia moved closer to Fran to see the phone’s screen, but Mrs Joyce had her head bent, as if she didn’t want anyone to see the pain she was going through. Fran pushed Lydia away as Mrs Joyce straightened up. Lydia frowned at her, wondering what was going on.
‘Is he all right?’ Mrs Joyce’s face was now a mask. She could have been asking about the weather.

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