Authors: Sophie McKenzie
Anger surged through me. ‘Has he hurt you again?’ I said.
Mel’s cheeks flushed. ‘It’s since he found out about me and Lewis. He didn’t do it before.’ She looked up at me, her eyes dark and defiant. ‘Don’t worry about me, Theo. I’ll find a way to get out of here. Now remember, my class starts in an hour. I’ll be back just before then.’
She left. I sat at the table and ate my lonely breakfast. It hadn’t occurred to me before that Mel and Lewis might have been seeing each other, but now she’d said about Elijah ‘finding out’ about them, it made sense. It explained at least why she had been so upset at Lewis being shot and why Elijah had got so angry. Not that it justified him hitting her.
Nothing justified that.
The exercise class was far better than I’d expected. It was held in one of the big rooms near the Outdoor Room. There were about twenty or thirty other people there. A mix of ages. Out of their uniforms it was hard to tell which of the twelve or so younger men and women were professional security guards and which worked in the labs.
Mel began by getting us all to jog round the room, then we did some shadow-boxing and kick-boxing to music. It was all fairly easy to be honest, though some of the older guys looked a bit out of breath at the end. Then she paired us up. I was with this smiley, fair-haired woman about Mel’s age. I felt a bit self-conscious then. I mean, it was one thing to ponce about to music when everyone else was looking in the mirrors that lined the side of the room, but I didn’t fancy doing it in front of a pretty blonde.
Thankfully Mel turned the music right down and started talking us through the detail of what we were doing. Each pair took it in turns to attack. We ran through a series of moves in slow motion. Kick. Block. Punch. Block. Uppercut. Block.
Then we practised in our pairs, with Mel coming round correcting our moves and yelling out encouragement.
‘Nice, Laura,’ she said as she passed my partner. ‘Get him in his six-pack.’
The two women laughed. I blushed. I wasn’t sure whether Mel was teasing me or whether she thought I might really have incredibly toned abs. Which, of course, I absolutely didn’t.
I redoubled my efforts, determined not to look stupid.
Once Mel was convinced each partner of each pair was sure of the routine, she made us stand slightly further apart, so there was no danger of us actually hitting each other, then speed up.
I really started to enjoy what we were doing then. Laura was good. No doubt about it. She was well co-ordinated and springy on her feet and managed to block all of my moves without breaking sweat.
When it came to my turn to block her, she was too fast for me at first. Every time I raised my arm she’d whip her fist past it. It was frustrating but fun too. As we kicked and punched at each other, following through the routine, I could feel adrenalin starting to pump through my body. The release of tension was fantastic. By the time the class finished I was feeling better than I had for days.
I waited while everyone left, then Mel walked me back to my room. We talked through the moves from the class. I asked for more information about the decoy gambit she’d shown us that I hadn’t really understood.
As we got close to my room, Mel laughed. ‘So you enjoyed it, then?’
I nodded eagerly, practising a punch, then a cross in quick succession.
‘Can I do it every morning?’
‘Sure thing, babe.’ Mel smiled. ‘Though I guess I’ll have to check with Elijah first. He’s off compound today.’
‘Oh?’ I raised my eyes. ‘In that case would you mind if I went down to the Outdoor Room? I could do with some fresh air, even if it isn’t real. And I promise I won’t talk to anyone.’
Mel hesitated.
My face fell. ‘There aren’t security cameras, are there?’
She shook her head. ‘No. At least only on the front entrance. There’s no need for them inside, it’s so secure.’
‘What then?’
She bit her lip. ‘There are always at least four guys by the front door, Theo. You’re not thinking of trying to get outside, are you? It’s just . . .’ She tailed off, looking embarrassed.
I suddenly saw what she was worried about.
‘I won’t do anything that draws attention to myself.’ I touched the peak of my cap. ‘And I’ll keep this on, promise. The last thing I want is to get you into trouble. I’d just like some fake sunshine.’
‘Okay.’ Mel’s face softened. ‘Okay, but I can’t come with you,’ she said. ‘I’m on duty in half an hour and I’ve got to shower first.’
‘No worries,’ I said. ‘I know the way.’ I turned and walked away before she could change her mind.
‘Hey, Cinderella,’ Mel called after me. ‘Elijah’ll be back by one at the latest. Make sure you’re in your room well before then.’
I waved my hand to show that I had heard her, and walked on.
Ten minutes later I was hopelessly lost. All the corridors looked completely alike to me, and I’d been out of my room so little – and, then, mostly to the cafeteria at the end of my row – that I really had no idea where anywhere was in relation to anywhere else.
I passed a few people but didn’t dare break my promise to Mel about not speaking to anyone and asking them the way to the Outdoor Room. I passed a wall clock. 11:33.
Man.
At this rate I’d still be wandering about when Elijah came back.
I paced up and down a couple more corridors, feeling more and more frustrated. The lab-room doors were labelled with symbols that I didn’t understand, while the ones in the living area were named after flowers. I’d already passed my own – which was called
Begonia
– twice. There was no sequence of numbers anywhere to help me get my bearings.
I walked on and on. Left down one corridor. Right down another. Past
Tulip
and
Iris
and
Rose.
I turned down another long, empty corridor. Only one door, halfway down. A door which had neither a flower name or a symbol. It was simply labelled:
Private
.
I stopped, my heart thudding. This was where Elijah had gone on that first day. I was certain of it.
I stared at the little iris-recognition screen on the wall beside the door. Nowhere else on the compound had that level of security.
And that’s when it hit me. If I was genetically identical to Elijah, then surely my eye would open the door, just like his had.
My heart hammered against my throat. He wasn’t here. And Mel had already told me there weren’t any security cameras.
What did I have to lose? All I was doing was trying to open a door. If it didn’t work, I’d just carry on looking for the Outdoor Room. I took a step up to the little pad. Tall for my age though I was, Elijah was several centimetres taller. I stood on tiptoe, trying to remember whether the scanner had run down his left eye or his right.
From the way he’d been standing I was pretty sure it was the right eye.
I leaned closer towards the pad.
It whirred into action, running a bar of light down my face. I held my breath.
With a smooth swish, the door in front of me opened.
Several days passed. Lewis and I stayed mostly in the squat – going out for jogs and to buy food only after dark and with our hoods up.
We washed in the public toilets at the end of the road. Lewis bought a bucket and told me to take it into the ladies with some soap and a handful of paper towels. The water was cold, but at least it meant we could stay clean. After we’d both washed, Lewis would fill the bucket with drinking water and we’d haul it home.
Home. The squat was a bit less smelly now – we’d bleached the floors and walls – but no lighter or warmer.
I lugged the thin, hard mattress into a corner of the room. That first night I hardly slept, it was so uncomfortable. But soon I got used to it, though I did start dreaming of luxurious four-poster beds and being able to soak for hours in a hot bath.
Lewis lay on the floor. He chose a different part of the room every night, but always placed himself between me and the door. I asked him once why he didn’t pick a single spot and stick to it.
‘Habit’s a dangerous thing,’ he said. ‘When something becomes familiar, it’s much easier to let your guard down.’
I guess he never did let his guard down. He slept lightly, waking at the slightest noise. And when he moved, it was always stealthily, like a big cat. The only time I ever saw him remotely out of control was when he woke, screaming, from a nightmare on our second night in the flat.
The noise woke me instantly, but I was so bundled up in my blanket that he didn’t see my eyes open. Across the room I saw him sitting, hunched over on the floor, panting. Then he got up and went over to the window. We had pulled one plank of wood away to let in daylight and right now a sliver of yellow street lamp was gleaming through, casting a thin line of light across the floor.
Lewis leaned against the wood and peered out through the crack. Sweat glistened on his forehead.
I heard him whisper her name. ‘Mel.’ It was almost a sob.
I squeezed my eyes tight shut, not wanting him to know I’d seen and heard him.
During the day Lewis trained me to fight – how to defend myself from attack and how to throw my bodyweight behind kicks and punches. I hated it at first, but I worked hard – partly because I knew being able to look after myself was important, but mostly to please Lewis. He made me feel special, like no one ever had. Like I was a little sister he wanted to look out for. He told me he had never known his dad, and his mum had died when he was eight years old. I couldn’t imagine what it must be like to have no family.
‘So, d’you think of Elijah as your dad?’ I asked him one day.
But he shook his head. ‘No. Elijah was always fair, but he never showed me any affection.’ He smiled at the look of horror on my face. ‘But I had carers. Kind people who cuddled me and listened to me when I was younger. So I didn’t do so bad.’
We met up with Max every few days. Lewis insisted we used different internet cafés each time, to reduce the risk of RAGE discovering us. Max had found new identities for me and Theo and Lewis now. I was Alice Stewart – dead from meningitis as a toddler. It felt weird to be thinking about new names. I still hadn’t asked Lewis about us all relocating near each other. I knew him well enough now to be pretty sure he would say it was too risky. And I didn’t want to hear that. I didn’t want to hear that I might be separated from him – or from Theo.
I thought about Theo a lot, playing out endless fantasies in my head where we met up by running into each other’s arms and kissing passionately. I knew I was probably being stupid to even think it would happen, but I couldn’t stop myself from imagining it. By Thursday afternoon, we had all the identities sorted. I stayed in the squat while Lewis visited his friend to order all the paperwork we were going to need. He was planning to get Max to hack into one of Elijah’s online accounts at the last minute to get the money to pay for the passports and certificates his friend was forging for us.
That whole side of things seemed slightly unreal to me. I was happy to let Lewis deal with it and stay behind to concentrate on the simple martial arts moves he had taught me.
I was so focused on what I was doing that I didn’t hear Lewis come back into the squat. When I turned round he was standing in the doorway, watching me. He tossed a pack of sandwiches on the floor. I made a face. I was fed up of eating nothing but sandwiches.
‘You look good, Rachel,’ he said. ‘Seriously. You’re really starting to be able to handle yourself.’
I blushed, more pleased than I could put into words. I hadn’t seen myself in a mirror for days – the one in the public toilets had been ripped off the wall – but I knew I’d really toned up because my trousers felt looser and my arms didn’t get so tired any more when I worked out. Plus, my hair had started to annoy me all round my face, so I’d started tying it back into a ponytail. But none of those physical things seemed to matter so much any more. What counted was feeling strong and confident.
And, with Lewis around, I did.
I grinned at him, then bent down to pick up the sandwiches.
Egg mayonnaise.
‘They’d run out of ham,’ Lewis said apologetically.
I straightened up. Something was different. Lewis seemed a little on edge. Anxious even.
‘What’s up?’ I said.
‘I’ve contacted RAGE,’ he said. ‘Told them I’ve got you and I want to talk. They’re bringing us both in. Tomorrow night.’
It’s instinct, isn’t it? A door opens in front of you. You look inside.
I looked. And saw a smart, comfortable living area, not that different from my own, complete with sofas, table, and TV. On the left-hand wall were two doors. On the right was a desk and one of those large holographic panels like they had in the Outdoor Room, showing a moving scene of trees waving in some imaginary breeze.
Everything was neat and ordered. No sound of anyone nearby.
I stepped into the room.
I didn’t think about it. I just did it. The door immediately swished shut behind me. My heart bumped in my chest. There was no way I could kid myself any more. I was somewhere I wasn’t supposed to be. Doing something I wasn’t supposed to be doing.
I crept across the room to the doors on the left-hand wall. Eased the first gently open. A bedroom. Large, steel-frame bed. Black silky cover. A picture of Mel on one of the bedside tables.
If I hadn’t been completely sure before, I was now. I was in Elijah’s private quarters. I opened the second door. A grey-and-white marble bathroom. Again, everything neat and ordered.
I couldn’t see any more doors leading on from the bedroom and bathroom. I frowned. Was this all the space Elijah had? It didn’t make sense. He used a private jet. Surely, at the very least, he’d have some kind of kitchen or dining area.
I shut both doors and walked across the living area to the large desk. I scanned the surface – a slim computer, a bundle of papers and a large, scuffed leather diary. Clearly Elijah liked old-fashioned ways of keeping track of his schedule.
Glancing round me again, I shuffled through the papers. A few incomprehensible reports on some scientific research. My medical report was there too. I flicked through it. I hadn’t actually seen it written down, but as far as I could tell there was nothing in it that differed from the information the doctors had given me at the time of the examination.