Resurgence (27 page)

I give up trying to speak and let Opie hold me, breathing him in. My eyes are shut and I feel close to sleeping again. As the sun dips completely behind the trees, I hear a voice calling. At
first I think I am dreaming but then I recognise it. Jela is calling my name, Opie’s name: ‘Come quickly.’

As I descend under the church, I expect to turn towards the medical bay. Instead, Jela leads us in the opposite direction. They have cleared so much more than I would have
expected and even Gwen is on her feet. She looks worriedly at me, but the fact she no longer has to stop the blood flowing from her chest is, in one way, far more concerning. Whatever Xyalis
thought the formula in the syringe did, he was wrong. The actual results are unnatural, perhaps inhuman. She
shouldn’t
be on her feet, let alone with a wound almost healed from the
splinter that was in her chest. What did I find?

I blink the thought away as Jela says, ‘He’s in the classroom.’

I have to crouch underneath a beam before I can get into the room, but as I turn I feel an explosion of joy. ‘Imrin!’

Imrin is sitting on a bench, caked in dust that makes his skin unnaturally light, but the dark eyes are unmistakably his. He is holding a bloodied rag to his head and wearing a weary smile. Next
to him is Bryony, grinning and unscathed. Behind them are three of the younger Offerings.

Imrin smiles at me. ‘It’s a good job I ignored your advice about staying in bed, isn’t it?’

I can’t help but laugh, crossing the room and throwing my arms around him. I brush the dust from his eyebrows until he almost looks like himself.

‘How come you’re safe?’

Bryony answers. ‘Some of the children don’t sleep very well, so I bring them here to tell them stories, rather than wake the others. I guess Imrin’s not a big sleeper
either?’

He smiles, looking at me. ‘I was waiting for you to get back and went for a wander. When I heard voices in here, I popped my head around the door.’

‘You did more than that,’ Bryony says, nudging him with her elbow. ‘I tell them stories but he turned it into a right little performance. He was doing all the voices: an evil
wizard, a thick ogre, a powerful hero. He even had a go at the princess.’

Imrin cringes in embarrassment. ‘I was trying to get them to sleep,’ he says sheepishly.

‘He was getting them more excited than tired,’ Bryony adds. ‘He gave them all roles. I don’t know who was entertaining the other the most. I sat back and
watched.’

‘What happened?’ I ask.

‘We heard a bang,’ Bryony says. ‘I thought it was the generator but Imrin knew something was wrong. He had us shove the furniture against the door. There were Kingsmen outside
and others pounding on the door but the kids stayed silent.’ She points at a vent above her. ‘We could smell the fire and it was really hot but we still had clean air. Eventually it
went quiet.’

‘Didn’t you hear us outside, digging? Why didn’t you call out?’

Imrin and Bryony exchange a look. ‘We didn’t know it was you,’ Imrin says. ‘We didn’t know if the Kingsmen had come back.’ He points to a pile of tinned food
and stacked water containers in the corner. ‘We could have survived here for weeks. We’ve got food and water plus the kids brought their blankets because they’d been in bed. We
weren’t going to say anything unless we knew for certain it was someone friendly. All we could hear was people scrabbling in the rubble and muffled voices.’

‘What’s it like out there?’ Bryony asks.

I glance towards the children and shake my head.

‘Oh . . .’

Imrin reaches under the bench and picks up the communication box which is usually kept in Knave’s office. Knave looks at him curiously as he takes it back.

‘Sorry,’ Imrin says. ‘I guess one of the stories got a little out of hand. I needed a few props.’

Knave presses some of the buttons but there is only static.

‘It came on during the attack,’ Bryony says. ‘We couldn’t figure out all of the words . . .’

Knave interrupts. ‘We use code.’

She nods. ‘We said that we were under attack and everyone was telling us the same. Sometimes it was just flashes of words – “Kingsmen” – other times it was whole
sentences. The message was clear though, they hit everyone at the same time.’

Knave fiddles with the controls, asking for confirmation if anyone is hearing him, but there is nothing. He shakes his head with despair.

‘What about Rom?’ I ask.

‘After your first visit to Middle England, he told us we should never contact him unless it is pre-arranged. He comes to us.’

‘This is as big an emergency as you’re ever going to have.’

He nods and sets the communication box on the floor, twisting the dials and pulling the microphone to him. ‘Church calling Rom. Church calling Rom. Emergency.’

There is a crackle of static and then silence. Knave repeats the call and then sits back, shaking his head.

Opie opens one of the tins of fruit and we share it between us. My stomach cramps almost instantly, probably not knowing what to do with food, having been deprived for days. The water goes down
better and I only stop drinking because I know it has to go around the others. I say I am going to fetch Ben from his spot as lookout, but Jela pushes me down gently, telling me to rest. She takes
the empty cartons with her to collect rainwater and leaves with Pietra.

Opie sits next to Imrin, telling him how things went in Middle England. He misses out the part with Rosemary and Max, but news of the broken teleporter is met with disappointment and the
question of whether I can fix it. I give the only answer I have: ‘I don’t know.’

I am about to open another carton of water when the radio sputters to life. Knave lunges forward, grabbing it from the floor. ‘Rom?’

The reply is terse. ‘Why did you call?’

‘Because we got back to the church and everyone has been massacred.’

There is no response and for a moment I think the line has gone. When I met Rom – Reith – he was hard to read. I never felt he was truly committed to any cause, more driven by his
own guilt.

‘They hit most of you,’ Rom says quietly.

‘How do you know?’ Knave asks.

‘I take it you haven’t seen the news? Footage has been shown every evening. It started the night Silver Blackthorn hijacked the screens. I told you it was going to be
dangerous.’

‘We thought you meant getting in and out!’

‘I did, but I meant the consequences too. What did you think was going to happen? You told people not to fight. You told them you’d let them know when the time was right. You
can’t have thought the King would sit back and wait for that to happen? They hit you before you hit them.’

The line crackles. ‘I can’t talk for long,’ Rom adds. ‘Who’s with you?’

Knave looks at me and shakes his head, waving his hands for the others to stay silent. ‘I’m on my own.’

A pause. ‘What happened to Silver Blackthorn?’

I can see the thoughts ticking around Knave’s head. Putting the pieces together. ‘How did they know where to go, Rom?’ he asks.

Crackle. Hum. Static.

‘Pardon?’

‘You said they’ve been cracking down on all of the rebel groups over the past few nights. How did they know where we were?’

Rom doesn’t reply but I can hear him breathing through the speaker. He answers reluctantly and then it all makes sense. ‘. . . They’ve got my kids.’

Knave puts his boot through the device, a ferocious roar of anger exploding from him. ‘Grab everything you can,’ I say quickly.

Everyone moves at once, taking blankets, food, water, clothes and anything else we can find without having to dig. Knave is inconsolable, lashing out with his feet at the rubble and punching a
wall. Over and over he repeats the same sentence: ‘He killed them all.’

He might be even angrier if he had heard Rom’s story the way Imrin and I did – that rebels had spared his life. That he had been inspired to help us because his brother never
returned from the war. Somehow, despite the deaths for which he is responsible, I find it hard to feel that anger towards him. I saw his fear when he realised his eleven-year-old son could be
chosen for the Offering. Would I pick Colt or Imp over the lives of strangers? I don’t know. I hope I never have to find out.

As I hurry away, I wonder whether I am not reacting because I am unable to feel anything any longer. My anger, hurt and pain washed away on Opie’s chest when I thought Imrin had joined the
long list of dead people connected to me.

Everyone who has survived gathers in the woods and we share out the resources we have. There is far more food and water than I thought, and one of the bedrooms was accessible to retrieve most of
the clothes. Gwen seems the most alert but Bryony is shattered. Hart, Opie, Imrin and Knave sit in silence as Pietra and Jela do their best to entertain Ben and the other children.

We sit in silence, waiting through the night in case more Kingsmen come. If they do, then it is without fire or noise and they are gone by the time it is daylight.

In the morning, I ask Bryony to go for a walk, explaining that the Offerings can’t be with me for what is to come in the near future. Someone has to care for them. I don’t need to
ask because she says she will look after them. Gwen wants to do the same. After what she has seen and gone through, I’m not sure she has the heart for what we are about to do anyway.

We spend the next day barely daring to move, but as soon as it is dark, we head away from the woods towards a village we passed when heading south. By the time we arrive, Knave, Opie and Hart
are each carrying a sleeping child, with Ben half-asleep but somehow managing to walk.

There are no lights or noise, so we leave Gwen, Bryony and the four Offerings in the remains of a remote cottage overlooking a river a few miles away from anything else. At the back is a large
overgrown hedge and a row of trees, with the front garden untended and riddled with weeds and tall grass. It’s not the prettiest of places but, if nothing else, they have water from the
stream. Despite their protests, we force them to take all of the tins of food too: between Jela’s arrows and the knives we have, we should be able to catch food for ourselves.

Then it is just us.

Imrin, Hart, Opie, Knave, Jela, Pietra and I walk for the rest of the night, eventually taking shelter in a copse on the edge of a forest. The seven of us sit together watching the sun come up,
each talking about the people we have lost and what they meant to us.

It should be morbid but it isn’t and we laugh constantly. There is a funny story behind everyone, something silly they said or did. A tale, a nickname. We even find out how Vez got his
scar, even if it does feel uncomfortably familiar with Opie on one side and Imrin on the other. I console myself with the thought that at least I have only two people vying for my attention.
Perhaps three if you count Knave, which I don’t.

Before we settle to sleep, I unzip the pouch on my belt and take out the final remaining syringe. ‘This is the last one,’ I say. ‘Hart, Imrin and Gwen have used the others.
Xyalis told me it was for diseases but we’ve all seen what it can do.’

I don’t know why I’ve held myself up as the person to decide who receives this miracle cure, but now is the time to share. I point to the pouch and tell them it’s where I keep
it.

Next, I pass the thin metal tube around – the blood bomb – telling people not to do anything other than hold it and pass it on. When it arrives back at me, I turn it over and show
them the safety catch on the bottom. The push-button trigger on the top is obvious. Then I put it away.

‘We stole this from Windsor Castle too,’ I say. ‘I didn’t realise what I was doing at the time. Initially I was told that this was a sample of the King’s blood. But
Xyalis did something to create a terrible weapon. If you are close enough to the King – and engage the weapon like I showed you – it will do something horrible to him, boiling him to
death from the inside out.’

I pause to gauge their reaction, but nobody seems particularly keen on it anyway. ‘It also kills everyone who has the same blood type within twenty miles or so. Literally thousands of
people. I was going to destroy it but . . . I suppose I never got around to it.’

I stop again, scratching my face. ‘Actually, that’s a lie. I didn’t destroy it because I wasn’t sure if I wanted to.’

‘What are you going to do with it?’ Jela asks.

‘I have no idea. It has some sort of hold over me.’

‘Why are we going to Scotland?’ Knave asks.

I laugh and shrug. ‘I don’t know that either. Xyalis told me about something called Hadrian’s Wall. He said it separates England from Scotland. If it’s any consolation,
he said we would be killed on sight if we even approached it.’

‘How is that a consolation?’ Knave asks, half-smiling.

‘I have no idea. I was awake most of last night trying to think of our options. I could only think of two – one of them was surrender and I’m definitely not doing that. Any
rebels we had contact with are dead, we have hardly any weapons, we’ve got to catch our own food and rely on the rain to give us water. Xyalis said that Scotland was the King’s weak
point. This used to be one big country – a United Kingdom – but Scotland completely divided away from England at the start of the war, not wanting to be a part of this.’

Only Imrin and Opie have heard this before.

‘Are you saying we should go there to live?’ Jela asks.

I hold my hands up. ‘I don’t know. Perhaps?’

Knave shakes his head. ‘What if they kill you before you get anywhere near this wall?’

I shrug again. ‘One way or the other, I feel as if I’m walking into my own funeral. If I’m going to go down, it may as well be trying to do something worthwhile.’

* * *

I lose track of how much time passes. There are warm days and others where we don’t leave the comfort of our blankets and hideaways because of the rain, wind and
temperature. Sometimes we walk during the day, sometimes at night, but always we stick to the same rule: safety is paramount. If there are any noises or movements one of us isn’t happy about,
then we stay where we are.