The Wandering (The Lux Guardians, #2) (27 page)

***

Honour

08:55. 30.10.2040. The
Free Lands, Northlands, Manchester.

After the speech I
messed up, The Guardians leave me alone. I don’t hear anything of
them other than training sessions with Anna for almost a week,
until someone causes a big enough commotion that I crawl out of my
tent to investigate. Dalmar and Hele hover, watching a small crowd
of Guardians in the widest of the narrow aisles. I’m about to hang
back with them when I spot Yosiah over the heads of a few short
Guardians.

I push my way into the
fray.

A guy I don’t
recognise is shouting at Timofei, snarling really. The dark haired
leader watches silently, his face contorted with rage. I can barely
make out the words coming from the Guardian’s mouth but I catch
Alba’s name.

Yosiah is stood on the
other side of the circle formed around the two men, watching the
scene with narrowed eyes. His posture is taut. His jaw is set.
Before the cruel Guardian can spit another word at Timofei, Yosiah
steps forward and punches him squarely on the jaw. Another punch
breaks his nose. I wince at the sound.

Yosiah turns away,
only glancing back to give Timofei a summoning tip of his head. The
crowd parts to let them through.

A loud snort to my
left has me meeting Miya’s gleeful grin. She nods at the crowd,
directing my attention. I turn back, watch the Guardian cover his
bleeding nose with his dirty sleeve, drops spilling to the floor. I
sense a shift in the atmosphere, a heaviness, and then everyone—all
the Guardians who came here to watch, who stood back while Yosiah
hit this guy—converges on the figure. I automatically take Miya’s
elbow to guide her away but she shakes it off. The sting of hurt
fades quickly when she slants a smile at me. Right, she doesn’t
like people touching her. I remember now.

Ignoring the thudding,
crunching sounds from behind us, we walk away from the fight.

“What a dick,” Miya
says. “That asshole, I mean, not Siah.” She reaches up to touch a
gold necklace at her neck. I don’t comment on it.

“Yeah,” I sigh.
“Timofei didn’t deserve that.”

“They keep doing
that—fighting. Every day. And it’s getting worse.”

“It’s Alba. They don’t
know what to do without her.”

“Well they need to move on or they’re gonna kill each other.”
She jams her hands in her jacket pockets. “Then there’ll be no
Guardians left. And what will
we
do? We can’t do this revolution on our
own.”

My eyebrows shoot up.
“Are you admitting you need their help? That seems out of
character.”

She elbows me in the
ribs.

15:01. 30.10.2040. The
Free Lands, Northlands, Manchester.

“Leeds, Birmingham,
and Cardiff are the largest safe zones,” Dagné is saying as Dalmar,
Miya and I creep into the back of the theatre. The outside was
nothing to look at—a cream coloured crumbling brick—but the inside
is impressive.

Rows upon rows of red
cushioned seats fan out around us, the old fabric filling the
high-ceilinged room with the musty scent of history. Gold columns
hold up a second level of seats; I crane my head to take it all in,
the city of crimson velvet, the intricate gild work on the
balconies, the curtained archways that could hide anything from
spare seats to lost treasures.

We slip into seats a
row behind the Guardian council, and the cushion swallows the back
of my legs. I lean back and accept that I’m probably going to fall
asleep. So much comfort, and they use this place for meetings?

Marc nods at Dagné’s
point and speaks in a deep voice. “We’ll find the largest numbers
in those towns. They’re the most similar to our colony in terms of
being organised and civilised.”

“Agreed,” says Cell,
the Guardian leader with the dust-coloured moustache. I’m amazed he
can speak with that thing. “But if you’re working with us, you’ll
be following Guardian guidelines. And we won’t be leaving anyone
behind, not even in the smallest safe town.”

“That will take too long,” Marc argues. I watch him cross his
arms over his chest, and all I can think is
his muscles try too hard
. Nobody
needs arms that big, especially not some old guy.

“And there’s the small
problem of finding them all,” Dagné sighs.

“Who will organise
these evacuations?” I don’t know who asks this but the voice is
familiar. All I can see is the back of their head—cropped dark
hair. “We might be able to find them, between our contacts and
yours, but how will they be managed? Because the larger our numbers
get, the more at risk we are of being found.”

“And killed,” adds
Marc.

Cell sighs, rubbing
the bridge of his nose. “So you’re saying we should leave these
people behind? People who’ll benefit from life in Bharat? People
who may well be skilled fighters or technicians?”

I lean my head against
the back of the seat and let my eyelids close. Dalmar prods me in
the arm and I can picture the expression of disapproval he’s
wearing. I peel my eyes open. He sighs with more than a little
frustration. “Why aren’t you sleeping at night?” he hisses.

“I can’t,” I whisper
back. “Either I can’t fall asleep because my mind won’t stop
running or I have nightmares.”

He taps his bottom
lip, thinking. “I’ll think of something,” he says before returning
his attention to the front.

Yosiah comes out of
nowhere and, without a noise, sits beside Miya. He offers an
apologetic smile to me and Dal for being late before speaking
quietly to Miya. She puffs out her breath, folds her arms over her
chest, and glares straight forward, though the tips of her ears
redden. I wonder if they’ve finally accepted they’re more than
friends. It looks like it, with all their blushing and secret
touches.

“Guardians do not
leave people behind.” Saga’s gravelly voice makes me jump. “I
admire the bravery it takes for you to consider leaving your town.
I know you have made Manchester what it is now, and that it is
important to you. However—I’m not sure a joining of our efforts
will be possible. We have a major clash of interests. Too much
compromising will have to be made for this to work, and I don’t
know if we Guardians will ever compromise. We are an unforgiving
group of people.” From the sounds of his voice, he attempts a smile
at Dagné. The Manchester leader’s icy expression matches her hair
colour, her back ramrod straight where she sits on the edge of the
stage facing everyone else. I don’t think she’s happy to hear that
Saga is rethinking teaming up with them.

Her voice is cold and
even when she replies. “Well, we tried. As you say, we’re just too
different.”

Marc opens his mouth
but Dagné silences him with a wave of her hand. His face turns
bright red, furious, but he doesn’t speak a word.

“We can’t stay in
Manchester,” she continues. “We’re a bigger target for Officials
each day we—”

I zone out, giving up
on the meeting. These things are always the same, always boring,
always talking, talking, and more talking. I don’t know why I keep
getting invited. Dalmar thinks it’s a good idea for me to know
what’s happening with the Guardians and the rebellion, but if I
didn’t get an invite, I wouldn’t ever turn up. I wonder who keeps
sending for me. Somehow I doubt it’s Cell…

Dalmar kicks my leg. I
jump in my seat, my eyes flying open.

“You fell asleep,” Dal
says.

I rub my eyes. “For
how long?”

“A minute. Maybe
two.”

“Is that it?”

“This is important.”
He points at the stage. “Pay attention.”

“Yes,
dad
.”

“Son,” he says.
“Don’t.”

I shake my head at
him, begrudgingly tuning into an argument between Manchester and
Guardians.

“
We
won’t aid you in evacuating your safe areas.” Dagné hops down from
the stage. “But we’ll stay here and gather our intelligence and
weaponry, so that we can help you in Bharat.” She says it slow,
like she’s speaking to idiots.

The Guardian with pale
skin and white hair speaks for the first time, his voice rich with
an accent I can’t place. It’s not Forgotten London, for sure. “You
want to come with us to Bharat, but won’t help us save the lives of
people who are unsafe on this island. You’re going to take
advantage of our numbers and our technology, but with minimal
effort. Do I understand correctly?”

“We
have
numbers
you
can add to your army, and all our civilians are trained in combat
and weaponry.”

Oh, nice. So I’ve been
wandering around this place, thinking I’m safe among the ordinary
people, and everyone can kill me without even trying.
Fantastic.

“I told you,” Miya
hisses to Yosiah. “I told you they were all soldiers and you
wouldn’t listen.”

“I didn’t think they
were,” he whispers back. He shakes his head, looking around us with
narrowed eyes. “Should’ve listened to you.”

“Damn right.”

“Not to mention,”
Dagné’s voice cuts through the tension and we all look at her,
waiting for the next axe to fall, “the information we have in our
library is a hundred times larger than the small collection of
books you have.”

“And how’d you plan on
taking it to Bharat?” Cell asks. I can hear the sneer in his voice
without seeing it on his face. “Your technology must be more
advanced than ours if it’ll move whole libraries at a time.
Miraculous, really.”

Miya laughs loudly,
clapping her hands over her mouth. “Sorry,” she wheezes when
everyone looks at her. “But he’s hilarious. Also I’m leaving
because this is boring as hell.”

Dalmar can’t hide a
smile. Miya jumps to her feet and takes off up the sloped walkway,
Yosiah right behind her. I squeeze out of the row of seats and into
the aisle after them without a second thought. Maybe I’ll go back
to the Station and nap.

“For the love of God,”
Dalmar mutters, coming with us.

When we’re near the
back door of the theatre, Miya turns around and waves at the
councils still staring at us. “Later, losers.”

Yosiah huffs a long
suffering sigh and pushes her through the door.

***

Miya

00:16. 31.10.2040. The
Free Lands, Northlands, Manchester.

It’s the middle of the
night and Yosiah isn’t here.

I know where he is, of
course, but it doesn’t make me feel any better. Ever since the
train incident I’m uneasy when he isn’t with me, expecting him to
do something honourable and suicidal without me there to stop
him.

I check on Tom and
Olive, watch their deep breathing and quietness for a moment, and
then slip out of the fabric doorway. I don’t think about Siah, or
dwell on what he could be doing right now inside Timofei’s
tent—talking, planning this screwed up rebellion, kissing.

I
don’t know why the thought of them together hurts so much. I get
that Yosiah and Timofei have unresolved romantic feelings. I
understand
it, but my
stomach is still twisting at the thought of someone else kissing
him. Something dark inside me is growling. Maybe it’s because of
the times we’ve kissed. Maybe it’s because I’ve denied my feelings
for him.

“Get a grip,” I
whisper to myself.

I should have just
given in, given myself over to him like a repressed part of me
wanted to. If I had, he wouldn’t be with Timofei right now and I
wouldn’t be stalking around like a possessive lover.

I reach the doorway
under the huge glass semicircle and frown. The night outside is lit
up in shades of orange instead of the black it usually is. Seems
like a waste of electric to power more lights at this time, but
Manchester people are weird.

With a shrug, I pull
the door open. I’m instantly hit by a scorching wall of air and a
scent that burns my nose as I inhale. Something is wrong. The edge
of the sky is grey, murky with smoke, and the orange that shone
through the glass is caused by patches of flickering light.
Fire—and a lot of it.

“No,” I say. “No, no,
no
.”

My boots squeal as I
spin on my heel and run for my brother and sister—but before I can
take a second step, there’s a sound so low my ribs shake. It
muffles all other noises, packs the Station with a heavy, humming
pressure. The humming is swallowed by a boom so loud I lose my
hearing. I’m thrown off my feet. I crash through the air and hit
the concrete on my side, a foot twisted under my leg. Veins of
agony go from my ankle to my thigh and I scream before I can trap
it.

I haul myself to my
feet, gritting my teeth at the pain. I spit blood, drag myself back
together despite growing dizziness, and force my legs to work.

People are staggering
out of their tents, angry and scared and confused. I shove my way
past them, getting faster and faster with every step until I’m
tearing across the room at a sprint. I push and kick my way through
the people to our tent, to Thomas and Olive, as the humming builds
again. I screech to a stop, bracing for the blast that comes six
seconds later. My hearing is coming back to me, gradually, so I
hear the curses and screams when they fill the Station. As soon
it’s steady, I’m flying over the ground again.

The Officials have
found us. I knew they would—Manchester is a neon sign in a
wasteland. Leeching power from an Official port on the coast, using
electricity and other technology with signals that can be detected,
not even attempting to stay out of sight. Why did the Guardians
lead us here? It was a death sentence.