The Wandering (The Lux Guardians, #2) (3 page)

“And then we’ll kill
them.” His finger brushes the back of my neck. I’m sure he’s
following the scar I have there. I have to fight simultaneous urges
to shiver and to flee.

“Miya?” I hate the
tone of his voice.

“No.”

“I didn’t say
anything.”

“Still no.”

He
huffs, removing his touch. “How are you feeling about your mum?”
Now I
really
want
to thump him. “She must have been killed by the
collapse.”

“Thanks genius, I
hadn’t worked that out for myself.”

He’s silent, probably
thinking his quiet will coax an answer out of me. I make myself
borderline comfortable and focus all my energy on going to
sleep.

I’m not going to talk
about this now. Or ever.

***

Honour

07:32. 11.10.2040. The
Free Lands, Southlands.

The Free Lands are not
what I expected. All the time I lived in the confines of Forgotten
London, I imagined a wide land that looked like the area we walked
through yesterday—dead, unforgiving wastelands. But the further
away we get from the crater of F.L. the more I have no choice but
to face the idea that I was wrong.

Even though I’ve been
rebelling for years, fighting against Official rules by thieving
and going out way after curfew, the truth settles on me like a lead
weight as we walk through the thriving row of fields, green and
yellow grasses bathed in pale morning light. I’ve always believed
what the Officials told me. I never questioned them, not even once.
I might have thought I did, but deep down I believed everything
they said.

When
they told us the lands beyond our fence were deadly, uninhabitable
places I didn’t question it. I knew they were keeping us inside the
fence for a more malicious reason, to kill us, but I also
knew—
thought
I
knew—that being free would kill us anyway, that we’d be struck down
by the Strains.

It never once occurred
to me that there might not be as many Strains out here as we were
told.

I was willing to risk
whatever dangers the Free Lands might throw at us for a sliver of
freedom, even if that freedom took our lives. But the thought that
this place with its sharp, clean scent and its chattering nature
was always here, safe and waiting for humanity to return to it
…

As Tia walks mutely
beside me and Branwell trails his fingers through rustling white
flowers, I go to war with myself to keep tears from spilling onto
my cheeks.

I’ve been so stupid.
So naïve. I let someone else tell me what was true. Did I ever have
a thought that wasn’t influenced by someone else?

Starting now, I’m
thinking for myself.

The
only question is:
Do I know
how?

12:18. 11.10.2040. The
Free Lands, Southlands.

There is water. Clean,
drinkable water. My shock is quickly trampled by a tightness in my
chest. There has always been a way to live in the free lands, and
for years we’ve struggled for no reason. If I’d tried to get
through the fence years ago, if I’d discovered my father’s letter
years ago, we would have been living here.

But would I have been
ready for this? For the expectations and pressure put on me because
of that letter?

Unite the Forgotten
Lands. Unite the island you live on. Its real name is Great
Britain, The United Kingdom, and it belongs to you. You are
royalty, my children. You have royal blood. You are both Prince and
Princess, and this island, no matter how small and ruined it is, is
yours.

Unite the Forgotten
Lands. Yeah, because it’s that easy. What the hell made my father
think a couple of kids would be able to make that kind of worldwide
change?

I guess I know where I
get my naivety from.

I fill my lungs with
fresh air and shove those thoughts away. I don’t have time to worry
about what the Unnamed wanted. My main priority is Horatia, and I
can’t help her get better if I’m falling apart over some impossible
revolution. The Guardians are the ones that want change, that can
actually make it happen. I’ve already played my part in this
uprising—I gave them the letter. I’m done with it now.

I watch my twin from
the corner of my eye. She’s looking at the silver lake with more
emotion than I’ve seen in her since we left Forgotten London. I
wonder if she’s thinking the same as me, that the free lands are
everything I’ve dreamed of for so long. The paradise of it all
isn’t even ruined by the tempestuous sky, or the knowledge that the
solar flares burned away the top half of the island before we were
born. The flares might have scorched land into ash, claiming most
of the United Kingdom’s towns, and Officials might have infected
the rest, but there are still places that can be rebuilt.

For a split second
Tia’s gaze meets mine, the slightest flicker of something other
than grief stirring in her clear brown eyes. I smile, hoping to get
one back, but she returns her attention to the scenery with a
neutral expression. It’s not a frown, though, or a grimace, which
replaces the tight feeling in my chest with something lighter, air
instead of gutter water.

I approach the edge of
the water, following the Guardians’ cue, but instead of drinking it
like they do I splash my face, washing off dried tears of self-pity
as well as grime and sweat.

I glance up as a
shadow falls across the water and watch my sister drop to the soggy
dirt floor, her clothes instantly caked with mud. She doesn’t seem
to mind, though. Tia rests her chin on her knees and closes her
eyes. The dark circles around her eyelids aren’t any better, but
she’s started eating again, swallowing every tiny mouthful with
grim determination, and she stopped crying long ago. I think
sometimes I don’t have to hold her together, though I still do.
She’s got enough steel in her will and stubbornness in her heart to
keep her from succumbing. She won’t let anything beat her, not this
new Tia.

What will happen when
Horatia realises she doesn’t need me at all?

I
draw an arm around her and think
I can’t
keep being so selfish
. I have to stop
thinking about how every single thing that happens will affect
me.

Yeah, things are bad
for me right now. Everything has changed. I’ve lost my home—I
should be glad to have lost my home. I don’t want to go back to the
rations and rules but I miss the … stability, the predictability of
it. I’ve lost people I love, lost my family. Thalia. Wes. John,
wherever he is. It feels like the weight of the whole universe is
pressing me into the mud face first, holding me down until I
choke.

Suffocation, that’s what it feels like, to be always
surrounded by grieving people but not to allow yourself to grieve
with them, to be wracked with guilt but to never let a single crack
form in the shell you’re wearing because it might make your family
even worse. It feels like all the oxygen in the air has burned away
and I’m gasping and gaping wide open, like some kind of fish washed
up from the Thames. But only on the inside. Never,
never
, on the
outside.

People have died and I feel responsible,
am
responsible. But none of that is
even half as bad as loving a person the way Horatia loved Marrin
and having to live when they are dead. If Tia can keep going, I can
keep going, and I can suffer silently.

I splash a handful of
water over my face, fill a bottle I found along the trek, and help
my sister stand. She tips forward but finds balance with her palms
against my chest. She must be able to feel my heart beating under
her fingertips, beating for her and her alone. I’m not like Tia—I
can’t keep on living no matter what. I’m not strong. I don’t
endure. If it weren’t for my sister I’d have lost my life in the
Fall. She’s the only reason I fought, the only reason I’m still
trudging on now when all I really want is to stop.

“I
love you,” I tell her. “I’m here if you need me.” I tip her face up
with fingers that could be gentler and wait for her eyes find mine.
She stares, glassy, right through me. “You have to tell me what to
do, Tia. I’ll do whatever you need to stop this … this
pain
, but you have to
tell me,” I plead. “You have to speak.”

She shakes her head,
stringy hair spilling around her.

“Okay,” I sigh. Maybe
what Tia needs right now is for me to leave her alone.

Over my sister’s
shoulder I see Branwell, his calves buried in the water. He’s
staring at the still pool like it hides the answer to life itself.
I also see Hele watching me and my sister with a sad smile. I wish
people would stop feeling sorry for me—it’s not a feeling I like,
being pitiful, pathetic—but I can’t really expect them to stop
pitying me until I stop pitying myself.

I try to conjure the
feeling of when Tia was chosen on Victory Day, when I knew she had
left me willingly and thought she was working for Officials, when
everything was dark and hopeless but I was fighting anyway. I had a
purpose then: I was determined to find my sister and rescue her
from the military. And I think that made me strong. But what
purpose do I have now?

Horatia is missing now
as much as she was then. But there are no Officials to protect her
from, no military to fight or run from. I can’t save her from loss
when it has become everything she is. To save my sister I’d have to
fight my sister. Nothing about this is the tiniest bit
possible.

I need to just … get
away from everything. Just for a minute. But what do I need? I look
between Bran and Hele with indecision, torn between Hele’s gentle
reassurance and Branwell’s steady friendship. Eventually, I trudge
through the water to Bran.

I’m not sure being
with Branwell will make me feel any better, but it might distract
me for a minute. At least his loss is separate to my own, unlike
Tia’s, which only amplifies the ache in my chest. Grief is
everywhere. It’s inescapable. It isn’t something I can stab or
shoot at, and no matter how far we run or how deep underground we
hide, it will always creep inside and find us. How can I stop
it?

And how am I supposed
to stop it when it’s slowly creeping up on me too, elbowing its way
into my dreams and tormenting my subconscious with images of my
family whole and happy.

The murky water has
soaked into my jeans, freezing damp crawling up my legs. I’ve only
been in the pool a minute and I already want out.

“Bran?”

He’s staring blankly,
almost as vacant as my sister on a bad day, his curling brown hair
wet and stuck to his cheekbones. His green eyes have shadows around
them, much darker than the circles around Tia’s. How could I have
missed this? He’s not sleeping, that’s obvious, but that brings a
rush of questions to the front of my mind. Is he eating? Is he
drinking? Is he talking? Has he become mute, too?

“Yes?” His voice is
flat, but I breathe with relief.

“You okay?”

“Yes.”

I touch his arm where
his sleeve has been rolled up, half expecting him to flinch. He
doesn’t. His skin is a freezing shock, and I glance at his arm
instinctively. At first I mistake the contrast of my brown hand
against his arm as the usual difference between black and white,
but I realise his skin is deadly pale. His pallor, his temperature
… if he stays in the water like this he might kill himself.

The only way I can
think to get him out of the water is bodily dragging him. I eye
him, wondering what the best way to grab him is, and how to pick
him up without breaking my back—but then the hands that were balled
into fists at Branwell’s sides uncurl, his arms hanging suddenly
limp, and he seems to come back to himself. He draws in a ragged
breath, still watching the water as if it’s gonna perform some kind
of miracle, and says, “No. I’m not okay.”

Taking speech as
encouragement, I grip his shoulders and try to turn him. But he
won’t budge. He feels as solid as a building.

“We used to visit a
place like this when we were children.” Branwell gestures at the
other side of the pool where murky grass meets murky sky. I slip
off my no-longer-white jacket and tuck it close around Bran’s
shoulders. I doubt it’ll help much but it feels like the right
thing to do. “It was a lake, I think,” he goes on. “Much bigger
than this. I used to dive into the water and come home dripping,
tracking water down all the corridors. It drove Nancy mad. My
father always laughed. He said I was discovering the world by a
hands-on approach, as opposed to Bennet’s observe-from-a-distance
approach. Benny would scowl and haul me to my room to dry off. And
to berate me for being so childish.”

He looks at me then,
finally, and his lips form a smile that cuts right through my
heart. He says, “She’s dead, isn’t she? My sister?”

“No.” I don’t know. I
haven’t even thought about it. I’m so crushed by my own troubles
that I forgot Bran’s were even worse. “You got to Forgotten London
alright. I’m sure she’s just … somewhere else.”

Bran looks at me
steadily. “You don’t believe that. But you’re saying it to make me
feel better, which I appreciate.”

I
watch him slip his arms into the coat sleeves, surprised at it
fitting him. I thought it’d be much too big, since he’s so short,
but for the first time I notice muscles along his arms and
shoulders, straining at the Guardians jacket. I kinda assumed he
was skinny all over without really looking. “
Did
it make you feel any better?” I
ask.

“Not a bit. But thank
you for trying.”