The Territory (24 page)

Tom Adams, a niceish Norm from the other class was the first Red light. He started crying hysterically on the stage and a puddle of pee formed at his feet. Everyone backed away from the stage and there were cries as someone got knocked over. We felt terrible for Tom. But it was like we HAD to get away from him. Like failure might be catching. The guards hit him with a baton and made him walk through the door into the left-hand cage.

‘Please let me pass, please let me pass.’ I chanted the mantra over and over under my breath.

Being ‘Blake,’ I didn’t have to wait long. ‘Noa Blake.’ When I reached the stage and heard ‘76 per cent’ and the green light shone, I actually puked a little bit in my mouth from sheer relief. I wasn’t going to be sent to die. I wasn’t going to kill my parents.

From then on there was this sort of sound-orgy of air-punching ‘Yes!!!’ and howls of
‘No!!’. Raf passed too and I sent up a massive prayer of thanks. As he entered the right-hand cage and stood next to me, I clutched his hand and left red marks I was gripping so hard. Our eyes met and he mouthed, ‘I love you!’ and I was so high on the moment that I lost all my rubbish inhibitions and mouthed, ‘I love you too!’ right back at him.

And then came the most shocking words of the day, ‘Jack Munro’.

That confirmed it. Jack was alive.

Two guards marched towards the stage carrying, or rather dragging, Jack between them. Jack, with two black eyes and a broken leg. Jack, beaten and humbled but still Jack, my Jack.

‘71 per cent,’ the loudspeaker announced and I literally shouted with joy. Tears started streaming down my face. He’d managed the impossible. Jack had actually passed the TAA!!! I felt like we’d all been given a second chance. That there was some sort of justice in the world after all.

That’s when the red light shone. I choked back my disbelief. But he’d got 71 per cent. ‘They can’t do this. How can then do this?’ I whispered in rage to Raf. And then the disembodied voice of the loudspeaker continued, ‘Disqualified for attempted escape’.

The guards unceremoniously dumped Jack in the left-hand cage.

‘No!’ I howled.

A guard approached. ‘Quiet! Or you’ll be in there yourself,’ he spat. But that wasn’t the voice that stopped me.

‘Noa, leave it!’ It was Jack from the other side of the bars. Jack, protecting me still. Even after everything. Raf tactfully backed away.

‘Oh, God,’ was all I could manage, overwhelmed by the unfairness of it all. ‘I’m so sorry Jack, it’s all my fault. I did this to you.’

‘It’s not, Noa,’ Jack replied sadly. ‘I did this to myself. I got angry and acted stupid like normal. Wish I’d just punched something – escaping was maybe a step too far.’ His attempts at humour just made my heart hurt more. He picked up on it, like he always does, like there was some form of telepathy between us. ‘I love you Noa. We both know that. But you don’t owe it to me to love me back. I get that now. So look after yourself, OK? It’s not your fault. It’s mine.’

I started crying openly and Jack tried to pretend that he wasn’t too.

But beneath my tears I felt some of that steel that I must have inherited from Mum.

A guard dragged me away from the bars and Jack and back to the middle of the cage.

Raf wrapped me in his arms. Surrounding me in comfort. In a safety where I could have happily stayed forever. But I wasn’t going to.

I looked up into Raf’s eyes. ‘I don’t know how or anything, but I’m going to the Wetlands to get him out. You know that, don’t you?’

‘I thought you might.’ He looked at me, trying to work out if there was any doubt in my mind. There wasn’t. ‘OK. Just let me know when we leave.’

And then he squeezed my hand so hard that he left red marks and I knew that he meant it.

Acknowledgements

Huge thanks to my husband, without whose constant encouragement I would never have made it beyond two thousand words. Thanks to Nina Duckworth, Eirlys Bellin, Sammy Mennell and Sarah Brodie for their invaluable feedback on the first draft. Thanks to my agent, Rupert Heath, for taking on an unknown and finding a home for my first novel. Thanks to Penny and Janet at Firefly for their unswerving faith and enthusiasm and to Megan Farr and Jennie Scott for their tireless PR efforts. Thanks to Jo Nicholls and Seana Johansson-Keys and everyone else who helped select the fabulous cover. And finally, thanks to my parents and thanks to my old schools for being nothing like those in The Territory.

Sarah Govett
, 36, read law at Trinity College, Oxford. After qualifying as a solicitor, she set up her own tutoring agency. Sarah has also written for children’s television.

She has two young children and lives in London.

First published in 2015 by Firefly Press

25 Gabalfa Road, Llandaff North, Cardiff, CF14 2JJ

www.fireflypress.co.uk

Text © Sarah Govett 2015

The author asserts her moral right to be identified as author in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act, 1988.

All rights reserved.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form, binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library.

Print ISBN 9781910080184

epub ISBN 9781910080191

This book has been published with the support of the Welsh Books Council.