The Killables (23 page)

‘I kissed Lucas,’ she whispered.

Raffy laughed. ‘I know. I saw you. It wasn’t the night we ran away. It was at work. I saw you, remember? I didn’t like it, but you were matched to him. You didn’t have a choice. I know that.’

Evie shook her head. ‘I don’t mean then. I mean I kissed him when he came to my room. When he told me you and I had to run away.’

Raffy didn’t move. His face didn’t change. For a second, a blissful, beautiful second, Evie thought that maybe she’d been worrying too much, that Raffy understood, that he could see that a kiss meant nothing . . . And then she saw his eyes, saw that they had gone black, and that it was not understanding that kept his face still, but anger – thunderous, consuming fury.

‘You kissed him?’ He stared at her, his eyes narrowed to slits, his expression cold as ice. ‘You kissed Lucas?’

‘I . . . I don’t know how it happened,’ Evie heard herself say. ‘I didn’t mean to. It just . . .’

Raffy stood up. ‘I trusted you,’ he said. ‘I trusted you more than anyone else. I didn’t care if there wasn’t anyone else in the world, so long as there was you. And now . . . Now I find out you kissed my brother?’

Evie stood too, pulling a sheet around herself, holding her hands out to Raffy. ‘I’m so sorry. I wanted to tell you, to explain. I love you, Raffy. Only you. But I had to tell you, I had to—’

‘You love me? You don’t know what love is,’ Raffy spat, pulling on his ill-fitting clothes, lent to him by Linus. ‘I don’t even know who you are any more.’

Evie tried again – to touch him, to make him look at her, to forgive her, but he shrugged her off. ‘I’m . . . I’m going for a walk,’ he said angrily, marching out of the tent.

‘A walk? Where?’

‘Anywhere,’ she heard him say as he disappeared outside, leaving her to fall back onto the makeshift bed, a crumpled mess, curling up next to her tear-stained pillow.

It took Evie half an hour to leave the tent herself. Half an hour of listlessness, pacing, rehearsing conversations in her head and falling back down on the bed in hopelessness and despair. Eventually, she dried her eyes and dressed herself, then went to the communal tap beneath the rainwater containers to splash water over her face. She had never felt so alone. And she had no-one to blame but herself. Would Raffy ever forgive her? Would his dark eyes turn soft again? She knew too well how long his anger could last, how slow he was to forgive. He had never forgiven Lucas; now he may never forgive her.

She scanned the camp but there was no sign of Raffy; no sign of anyone. Evie suspected that he and Linus would be sitting at the computers working through programming code, while everyone else would be in the food tent having breakfast. But Evie wasn’t hungry, couldn’t contemplate eating. Instead she navigated her way through the various tents, trying not to think too much about what she was doing and to think instead of practical things, of normal things. Like tents. Tents were the only suitable accommodation for them, Linus had told her and Raffy the day before. Tents offered protection but they were portable, easy to dismantle in a hurry. The City could build for permanence, with its wall around it and its dominance of the river, but Base Camp had to be moveable, had to be flexible and adaptable. Sometimes strength meant knowing when to run away, he’d said. And the words had stayed with Evie, though she wasn’t sure why.

She moved past the tents, telling herself that she was just exploring, finding her way around. But she knew she wasn’t. She knew exactly where she was going. She had lost enough people. She had lost enough love.

And then she was there, outside the tent she’d seen for the first time the day before, the tent that had filled her thoughts ever since.

‘These are the lucky ones,’ Linus had told her. ‘These are the ones we managed to rescue. The others . . .’

He hadn’t finished the sentence, had simply walked on. But later she’d made him finish; later, over supper, she’d asked him everything. She’d seen a wary look in his eye, but she had also known he would tell her, because it was in his nature. And so he’d described how the Evils were kept in another camp, set up by the City. How the guards looking after them (his voice when he spoke these words heavy with sarcasm) beat them, mutilated them and raped them, because they had no rights, because they were evil incarnate, and because the guards had no other entertainment. He’d told her that every so often the Evils were brought to the City at night and let in to cause havoc and destruction, so that the people would continue to fear them and what lay outside the City walls. So they would believe that Man without the New Baptism was destined to become like the Evils: lawless cannibals who wanted only to destroy.

‘I’m sorry,’ he’d said quietly, reaching out and squeezing her hand. ‘But you asked.’

And she’d nodded gratefully because he’d told her the truth and hadn’t hidden things from her, like everyone else had her whole life. But inside, she’d felt a rage stronger than anything she’d ever experienced before; an anger that had consumed her, that consumed her still. Their lies. Their terrible, terrible lies. All her life she had feared being evil, had feared that she had evil within her and that she would let down her parents, let down the Brother. All her life she had been flooded with guilt at every transgression, every illicit meeting with Raffy, every less-than-generous thought about Lucas. And now . . . Now she knew the truth. That she was the daughter of Evils, that the Evils were not evil, but were victims of the City’s cruel regime. That evil lived not outside the City’s walls but within it, throughout it, with its secrets and its brutality.

She pressed her nose against the plastic window; inside she could see the people resting on mattresses just like the one she and Raffy had shared. But would never share again. She felt a desperate longing consume her, felt a miserable tear sting her eyes, but she forced her consciousness back to the present. Not now. Not now.

Many of the Evils’ eyes were open; they were awake. But they would never really be awake again, Evie knew that. Their awareness had been taken from them. Their future. Their children.

A woman sat up slowly on her mattress and caught Evie’s eye – the same woman who had caught her eye the first time Evie had seen them. The woman whose kind face had stirred something deep within Evie which had stayed with her. As Evie gazed at the woman, she felt herself grow warm. The woman smiled, waved and walked towards the window. Mesmerised, Evie reached out, pressing her hand against the plastic; the woman did likewise. She looked to be in her forties; a little younger than the woman who had pretended to be Evie’s mother back in the City. She was more beautiful, too – even if her eyes were shadows, even if her mouth fell slackly and her movements were awkward. Her eyes had a sadness to them that Evie recognised, one that she had seen reflected back at her in the mirror every day of her life.

‘Evie?’ She started at the sound of Linus’s voice; he was behind her and she had no idea how long he’d been there. Then again, she had no idea how long she’d been there either. ‘It’s time for breakfast, if you’re hungry.’

‘Not really,’ Evie whispered. She could feel the woman’s hand through the plastic.

‘Come anyway. If you don’t mind?’ He put his arm around her to guide her away; Evie knew she was powerless to resist. She gave the woman one last smile, then turned to follow Linus.

‘We look after them here,’ he said as they walked. ‘They’re as happy as they’re able to be.’

‘I know,’ Evie said, her voice slightly strangled.

‘And we’re going to stop what’s happening.’

‘I know,’ Evie said again. But stopping it wasn’t enough for her, she realised suddenly. It was too late for that. Because no one had stopped it from happening to her parents. Because no one had stopped it from ripping her life apart.

‘Morning! Sleep well?’ Martha was sitting next to Raffy and smiled brightly – too brightly, Evie found herself thinking. Had Raffy told her? Did she know that Evie had betrayed him? Did she judge her as Evie judged herself?

‘Very well, thanks.’ She smiled, then sat down opposite them. Raffy wouldn’t look at her; he turned his shoulders just slightly so that he was facing away from her. Linus disappeared off to the counter and returned with some porridge and dried fruit.

As he sat back down, Raffy stood up. ‘See you later,’ he muttered as Evie stared after him.

‘This’ll set you up for the day,’ Linus said, putting the porridge in front of her, his face once again creasing into the smile that Evie felt she’d known for years, not days.

She took it gratefully and started to eat, surprising herself when she found that she was hungry after all.

‘Is everything okay?’ Martha asked, concern filling her eyes. ‘You don’t seem yourself.’

‘I’m fine,’ Evie lied. She turned to Linus. She didn’t want Martha’s concern. She wanted distraction. She wanted not to think about Raffy, not to feel the huge, painful hole in her heart that was of her own making. ‘Where do you grow all your food?’ she asked. ‘Where are your animals?’

Linus exchanged a wry smile with Martha. ‘We grow what we can around the back. And we’ve got a few goats. But largely we’re foragers.’

‘Foragers?’ Evie asked, her brow wrinkling.

‘He means we search for food,’ Martha said.

‘You mean like berries, that sort of thing?’

Linus grinned. ‘Berries, squirrels, City grain . . .’

‘City grain?’ Evie asked doubtfully. ‘But how do you carry it all the way from the City?’

She looked at Linus, saw a flicker of something in his eye and felt herself flare up. ‘If you don’t want to tell me the truth, that’s fine,’ she said bitingly. ‘I mean, why should you? No one else ever has.’

Martha stared at her, her eyes wide with surprise, but Linus just put his hand over hers and pressed it gently. ‘Evie, we’re not keeping secrets from you. Martha and I were exchanging a private joke, but not a secret one. There are things you don’t yet know about your City. I know it sells itself as being self-sufficient, but the small patches of land within the City walls can’t sustain the population.’

‘So then where do they get their food from?’ Evie asked, but even as she did so, she realised she knew the answer. ‘The camp,’ she murmured. ‘They make the Evils work.’

‘We prefer to call them the damaged ones,’ Linus said, his voice soft, ‘but yes. In a nutshell.’

‘And you steal the food?’

‘We . . . assist with distribution,’ Linus said, his eyes twinkling slightly.

Evie looked down at the porridge in front of her; suddenly she wasn’t hungry any more. She pushed her bowl away.

‘You don’t want it?’ Linus asked, a note of concern in his voice.

‘You’re using them too,’ Evie retorted. ‘They’re feeding you as well as the City. I think I’d rather forage for berries, if it’s all the same to you.’

Linus scraped back his chair. ‘You could look at it like that,’ he said.

‘There’s another way?’ Evie asked stiffly.

Linus shrugged. ‘The damaged ones are working for the City. They don’t get a choice in that. The ones we’ve saved, the ones who are here, they don’t work; they are cared for. We’re not part of the regime. But we do mess with it. We do steal the food because it upsets the Brother, because if there are food shortages it will call into question the Brother’s leadership. Because we need food to feed the people we rescue and to fight the evil that has corrupted the City.’

He spoke quietly and gently but she knew that he felt far from calm. Evie watched him carefully, wishing she could speak so articulately, so calmly when inside she felt like a tornado was whirling.

‘We steal the food,’ Linus continued, his eyes not leaving Evie’s, ‘because when we do, the guards who rule the mutilated ones with a rod of steel, who treat them with cruelty and contempt, are punished for the theft, and it’s one way of bringing them to justice. But the real way of achieving justice is to win the war that we’re waging. The real way of achieving justice is to take the City back, to tell its citizens the truth and to stop the Brother once and for all. And for that, we need strength. I’m not at Base Camp to build a new city or to establish farms. I’m here to wage a war.’

He reached into his back pocket and pulled something out – a gun, the same gun Evie had seen him with the first time she’d met him, when he’d captured her and Raffy, when she hadn’t known who he was or what he wanted. He watched her watching the gun, then put it away again. ‘How about you, Evie?’ he asked then. ‘Are you here to wage a war?’

The question hung in the air for a few seconds with neither of them moving. And then, slowly, deliberately, Evie pulled the bowl towards her again and took a mouthful.

‘Atta girl!’ Linus grinned. ‘Now hurry up because we’ve got work to do. You and Martha are on logistics and timetabling. Who’s going to be where, when and how. We’re going in tonight and we’re going to surprise everyone. The City won’t know what’s hit it, but we have to be absolutely prepared and ready. Okay?’

‘Okay,’ Evie agreed, feeling Linus’s gaze on her. Suddenly she didn’t feel so alone anymore. She realised that she was part of something. And she still needed to earn Raffy’s forgiveness, still felt a hole right in the centre of her, but she had something new to mask the pain a little; she had a purpose. ‘Okay. We’ll be ready.’

The Brother looked at the screen in front of him, trying to suppress his rage, trying to learn from Lucas and maintain a cool exterior even though inside he was at boiling point. Such betrayal. Such terrible, brutal betrayal. He should have known. He blamed himself. No he didn’t. He didn’t blame himself at all. Blame was irrelevant, anyway. What mattered was retribution, justice, defeat of those who thought they could challenge him and everything he’d worked so hard to build up. He was the Brother and they were . . . nothing. Savages. Pathetic weasels. And all in thrall to Linus, that pitiable, snivelling man who thought that he could change the world by giving people what they wanted. People didn’t know what they wanted! People could never know. They needed to be told what they wanted. They needed to be led. And the Brother had led them. He had led them well. They were safe. They were ordered. They were happy . . .