The Wandering (The Lux Guardians, #2) (6 page)

I turn the collar of
my jacket up against the sea wind and fix my attention on Timofei
as he informs us about the long voyage ahead, detailing everything
from the route to the layout of the ship. Most of what he tells us
is surplus to requirements. I don’t care how many boiler rooms
there are.

I tune him out,
focusing instead on Honour. His short hair is stuck up in all
directions, sweat rolling down the curve of his nose despite the
coldness of being so close to sea. He doesn’t look well but that’s
what sleeping hunched over a table will do for you. He catches me
watching him and tilts his head inquiringly.

“Ever been on a ship
before?” I ask.

Honour scrubs a hand
through his hair, mussing it even more. “No.”

“Not looking forward
to it?”

“How is it safe?
Shouldn’t it like … fall over? Or sink? I don’t understand. It’s
just a bit of metal.”

“A bloody big bit of
metal.”

He looks at me
sharply, a spark of true apprehension in his eyes.

“It won’t sink, I
promise you. And it won’t fall over either. Ships are made to be on
the sea.”

“Right.” He scratches
the back of his neck. “Sure. Of course. I still don’t
understand.”

“Do you trust my
word?”

He meets my eyes,
searching. “Mostly.”

“Then I give you my
word—the ship is perfectly safe.” I don’t voice my concerns about
the crew; I hardly think Honour needs more fuel for his fright.

Timofei and another
Guardian leader whose name I don’t know gesture for us to board the
ship and the fledgling smile drains from Honour’s face. “I’ve
changed my mind,” he says. “I don’t trust you at all.”

“Come on.” I take hold
of his elbow. “We can get on this thing together. Horatia can take
your other side and you’ll be safe in the middle.”

As we step onto the
walkway, Honour’s body tenses, his shoulders locking. It’s slow
going but eventually we make it onto the ship. Honour’s breath
escapes him all at once when we’re herded down a corridor and into
a wide ballroom. There are windows framing one side of the room
through which the sea can be spotted, but with Honour’s back to
that wall I suppose it could look like an ordinary room. He
calms.

“Thanks,” he says,
shaking his head. “I don’t know why I freaked out like that.”

“It’s no problem.”

He apologises to his
sister, dipping his voice so their conversation is private as
Timofei calls the room to quiet. Everyone is on board the ship now,
even spiteful James, and we’re free to move into our rooms or stay
to help tidy the ‘common rooms’ to a liveable state.

There are only twenty
bedrooms so each chamber must be shared between three or four
people. That in itself is problematic. I assume Yosiah, Miya, and
her siblings will share a room and Honour and his sister will share
another with Dalmar and Hele, which leaves me in a room with
strangers.

Honour looks like a
wounded animal as he explains to me that there are only four beds
in his bedroom and none of those are free for me to sleep in.
Yosiah offers his bed to me, insisting he doesn’t mind sleeping on
the floor, but I can’t take a bed from someone and keep a clear
conscience.

So when everyone
branches off, I leave my jacket and satchel in the room next to
Honour’s and hope that will let people know that I’ve claimed a
bed. I slip The Cure into the pocket of my trousers because I
promised myself I would never part from it, and then I close the
metal door behind me, following the cold, grey corridor toward the
noise of many voices. It feels strange to be alone, despite always
being independent at home. I’ve been cocooned in friendship these
past few weeks, I suppose. It’s changed me a little.

The boat gives a
gentle lurch and my hands automatically reach for the walls for
stability, but it readies itself before a major disaster can
happen. I suppose that means we’ve left Harwich, the port
surrendered us to the greater mouth of the ocean. The sight of
bustling Guardians in varying shades of grey that were once white
keeps me from dwelling on the insecurity of the water.

The beige room is
grand and packed with people. Plush carpet covers the floor,
matching the muted walls, and there are a number of round dining
tables, some chipped and others ruined entirely but all clearly of
fine quality. Some Guardians are righting the fallen furniture and
sweeping up broken glass and crockery, while others move in a
flurry, doling out tins of food. I cross the fray to help a girl
with a table and between us we hide the scratched old surface with
a daffodil yellow tablecloth.

When the room is
restored, people fill the chairs and yet more cans of food are
given out to those who haven’t eaten. I spoon carrots from a tin
that was only half full when I was given it. My stomach growls,
either in gratitude at something to eat or despair that there isn’t
more. I take a sip of water to wash it down, tasting mostly
salt.

When the meal is over
and Timofei has again drilled into us what to expect of the coming
days, we’re told we can return to our rooms until morning.

Standing outside the
closed door, not knowing who waits for me on the other side, nerves
turn my stomach into a tempest. I have to take deep breaths and
remind myself that I was never before scared of meeting new people.
I shake my head, straighten my shirt, and turn the great circle of
a door handle.

Inside, I don’t find
what I was expecting—three males, all of huge stature and
intimidating aura. Instead there is a girl with white-blonde
ringlets and a pale face. She’s perched on a bed suspended from the
wall, speaking energetically with both her voice and her hands. On
the bed beneath her is the girl who rescued me from imprisonment in
the Guardians’ base. She is as unique and attractive as she was
then, a watercolour of reds and browns, but her pristine hair is
now untamed and there are scrapes and scratches marring her
chestnut skin. She somehow manages to be even more interesting than
before.

When
I step over the threshold the blonde girl stops mid-rant and says,
“So
that’s
whose
bag it is.”

“Branwell!” Priya
looks so shocked and pleased to see me that I feel awful for not
speaking to her before now. I could have found time to spark a
conversation with her during the long days of walking.

“Hello,” I say
sheepishly, pressing the door shut. “Are we the only people in this
room?”

“Yep.” My question is
answered by the other girl, the stranger. She jumps down from the
bed with leonine grace, white curls bobbing around her shoulders.
“It’s just us girls.”

“Marie.” Priya gives
the girl a look laced with familiar exasperation.

Watching the women, I
sink onto the hard bed and put the satchel under my pillow.
Sleeping on this rock of a mattress ought to be fun. Still, I tell
myself, at least it’s clean.

“We haven’t looked
through it,” Priya says quickly. “We left your bag alone.”

“Thank you.” I barely
hold off the urge to search through it, checking that everything
remains, but I trust Priya. I kick off my stifling boots and hang
my coat over the bed’s railing, feeling able to relax for the first
time in what feels like a lifetime.

“No problem,” Marie
says, yet again speaking for Priya. She produces a pack of playing
cards from the depths of her bosom and begins shuffling them. I
turn my gaze away, blood rising to my cheeks. “Never seen a woman
keep things in her bra before, Branwell?”

“I don’t know what
that is.” I’m mortified. I curl my feet up beneath me, fixated on
the floor.

Priya laughs softly,
sitting beside me—at a respectable distance. “Ignore her,” she
says. “Marie’s a terror.”

“I am sure she’s no
such thing.”

Without warning, Marie
flings herself onto my bed, draping her body across mine and
Priya’s legs. “Oh, my Lord, how the ladies must swoon! What a
compliment!”

“M, get off,” says
Priya, unceremoniously shoving the other girl to the floor. “You’re
making him uncomfortable.”

“No, no it’s fine,” I
rush to say, wiping clammy palms on my trousers.

“In that case I’ll lay
back on you.” Marie slinks towards me with intent.

I stand up as fast as
my legs will allow. “I’m fine without you … doing that.”

“See!” She throws her
hands up. “My case in point! You men think you can try it on with
any girl you find attractive and it’ll be alright with her. But as
soon as the tables are turned, it’s not alright. It makes you
uncomfortable. It’s encroaching on your personal space.” She
delivers the last two words with a strange hand gesture. “Funnily
enough that’s because it’s not alright when you do it to
girls!”

“Try it on with …?” I
repeat in confusion.

“She had a guy give
her …”—Priya pauses, searching for words—“unwelcome attention.”

“Oh.”

Marie crosses her arms over her chest. “It was disgusting.
And unwanted. But as soon as I told the guy to get the hell away
from me,
I’m
in
the wrong! He said it was a compliment.
A
compliment!
To have him leering over me,
saying he could straighten me out in no time. Great
compliment.”

“I do hope he took
your Unwanted Punch To The Face as a compliment,” Priya says,
smiling.

“If
he didn’t, I’ll just have to keep punching him until he does.
That’s the way it works, isn’t it?” Marie catches my blanched face
and adds, “Don’t worry. I won’t try it on with
you
anymore. I was just making a
point.”

“M.” Priya regards the
girl with fondness, “He’s literally an old fashioned gentleman. He
wouldn’t have tried anything anyway. Would you?”

I shake my head
rapidly.

“Right.” Marie shrugs
one shoulder, her mouth a wry twist. “Well, he’s still a man. He
needs to know these things.” She straightens her posture and
announces loftily, “It is our duty, as women of the real world, to
educate this pathetic boy.”

“Hey, now!” I think
I’m quite far from being that pitiful.

“Though he will complain,” she goes on, “we must do
everything in our power to train this weak male and provide him
with the knowledge of how things work—how things
should
work—in this new
world.”

“You are insane,” I
declare.

“And you’re a time
travelling freak of nature.” She smiles a huge, toothy grin. “So,
BFFs?”

I look to Priya for
answers. She says, “Just agree with her.”

“Okay.” I could be
signing my life away in this moment and I wouldn’t know it. Not
having a clue what it means, I say, “BFFs.”

***

Miya

00:11. 13.10.2040. The
Free Lands, Eastlands coastline.

I’m thrown into the
middle of another night by another nightmare. This time instead of
Yosiah jumping into the darkness of the train tunnel, it was my
mother yelling that I had ruined everything. I use the bottom of my
vest to wipe the sweat from my face and push her voice from my
mind. It wasn’t my fault. It was hers.

I slide out of bed,
careful to be quiet so I don’t wake anyone, and pad to the door in
the corner of the room. The bathroom attached to our room is
blessedly cool. The cold pricks bumps along my bare arms as I
fumble in the darkness for the tap. It creaks as I turn it, loud
enough for me to wince, and water spurts into the sink.

I splash my face with
water, using some of it to slick my hair out of my face. After a
minute or so of just standing in the small room, slowly calming
down, I step back into the bedroom. My body collides with a dark
figure. My heart slams into overdrive. I throw a punch, putting my
body into the blow the way the Guardians do, but a callused hand
grabs my wrist before I can connect. I’m pulled forward so hard and
fast that I’m crushed against a bony body, familiar arms coming
around my shoulders.

I drop my fist,
relaxing. I’d recognise the shape and scent of him anywhere. Siah
holds me close, his hands shaking against the bumps of my
spine.

“I couldn’t find you,”
he breathes.

An
out of place hitch in his voice has my hands following the
silhouette of his body until I find his face. His cheeks are wet,
his eyes closed. I run my thumbs over his cheekbones, brushing away
tears that he never,
never
, should be crying because of
me. He shudders.

“As if I would leave
you,” I say. I’m fuming at myself for not realising how scared he
was. All I’ve been bothered about was my own paranoia. I never
thought his might be as bad, even when he told me he couldn’t
survive without me last night.

I lean onto the tips
of my toes and do something I’d never have thought to do until
Yosiah jumped into the tunnel. I kiss his forehead. I didn’t
realise just how much things had changed until now, how much Yosiah
had changed. That tunnel didn’t just turn me into a mess, it is
haunting Siah as well.

***

Honour

10:30. 13.10.2040. The
Free Lands, Eastlands coastline.

I lean against the
railing outside our room, Horatia beside me gazing at the endless
water and fiddling with the thick braid of her hair. The waves are
locked in battle, charging at each other again and again and again.
So far the ship has been steady but the sea has other ideas. My
stomach clenches painfully as we’re rocked more forcefully.

Miya’s brother barrels
past us, screeching with laughter as Miya chases him. “Fine!” she
yells as he disappears around the front of the boat. “Don’t expect
me to come looking for you when you get lost!”