I shook my head. “I don’t believe you. There’s no way.”
Noah pulled a plastic bag out of his pocket, opened it, and pulled out a huge phone like the one Rachel had. He brought a photo up on the tiny screen and held it out to me. In it, Mum and Skye were being marched into a room by two armed guards that looked like Kindred. The walls were shiny and metal, and the door read Confinement. It was the west wing, the very doors I’d walked past on my way out of the complex. My family were in there the whole time. They were so close.
“Rachel took this the night you were brought in,” he said.
“Why didn’t she tell me that first night?”
“She wanted to, but the Unseen heads didn’t want to rock the boat. They ordered her to stay quiet for the time being and let things play out. You were too valuable an asset to risk destabilising too early.”
“I’m not an asset!” I screamed into the night.
Noah put the phone back in his pocket and took my hand. He held it for a moment. “I know. I fought for you, but they didn’t listen. They were formulating an extraction plan when Rachel went dark.”
Some part of me had known the whole time, deep down. There was something off about Hackman and the Kindred, about their speeches and their rituals. I’d once read an article online about the way cults work. They target the vulnerable, make people feel special, give them a common enemy … How could I not have seen it happening right in front of me? To me?
The way they’d treated Rachel was horrible. And it was all my fault. She’d been on my side the whole time, and I ratted her out. She was tortured because of me. If she was still alive, they were probably torturing her right now. I felt sick. “I’ve been working for the enemy.”
“You didn’t know.”
“You didn’t tell me,” I shot back.
“That’s not fair. I was kind of dead.”
I gave him a weak smile. “I know; I’m sorry. I just don’t know if I can trust you.”
That was a lie. In my heart, I knew I could trust him, and even if I hadn’t, the photo would be proof enough. He was telling the truth. It was in his eyes, his voice. Sitting here next to him, the night seemed brighter. I felt so guilty, knowing Josh was stuck back there with the Kindred. What would they do to him? If we got him back, I would have to explain about Noah.
But I couldn’t think about that now. There was too much going on in my head to fit anything else. The only reason I’d joined the Kindred was fear. They provided a safe place, or so I’d thought. I had fought for them. Killed for them. Tears threatened, and I blinked them back. Andrea’s dad, Elijah. I snapped his neck. And he was a good guy. That meant I was a bad guy. I was fighting on the wrong side of this war. Noah had put his life on the line for me, and I’d failed him. Rachel had tried to help me, and I’d failed her too. I had failed everyone.
Water trickled quietly into the pool, reflecting a billion points of light from the stars and moon overhead.
“You risked your life for me,” I whispered.
“Technically, I died. Really.”
“For how long?”
“Two minutes. Then I came back.”
“No one’s ever done that for me before,” I said.
“Died?”
“Lived.”
“Well, I’ve never had anyone worth living for. Not until now.” His gaze was so intense I had to look away, choosing instead to stare at an owl watching us from her perch in a tree.
I hugged my legs close and sighed. “I don’t know what I’m meant to do with everything you’ve told me.”
“There’s nothing you need to do. Just keep yourself alive.”
I shook my head. “I’m tired. I haven’t slept for two days, and I can’t think clearly. Especially not when you’re around.”
He smiled and brushed my hair away from my face. “Get some rest. You should be able to get an hour’s sleep before the sun comes up. I’ll keep watch. You’re safe here.”
I leaned into his arm and slept.
The sun was still below the horizon when I woke, stirred by a gaggle of nesting birds. My head rested in Noah’s lap, and as I moved, he ran his hand through my hair. It caught on some dried blood, and I winced.
“Sorry,” he said.
“It’s not your fault.” For the first time, I was aware of how awful I must have looked. I had dirt and mud and blood all over me, starting to crack as it dried. “I need to clean up. Can you turn around for a bit?”
He did, and I stripped down and waded into the water. It was warm and clear, and light shimmered over my feet as they stepped over the rocks at the bottom. The water was only waist deep, and I crouched down to wash the blood off my neck and shoulders. To his credit, Noah stayed facing firmly away from me.
I took a deep breath and sank under the water to get my hair wet. I opened my eyes underneath, and my view was framed by my black curls floating around me. Moonlight scattered across the surface and down through the water. Red fog seeped around my head and off my body as it was washed clean. The red slowly floated downstream in the current, and I closed my eyes, allowing myself to float with it. The creek was a cocoon around me, wrapping me up and carrying me away. I was safe here. Nothing could touch me. Maybe this was what babies felt like before they were born. Warm, dark, safe, the only sound a dull throbbing in your ears, although mine was caused by the river’s motion rather than a mother’s heartbeat.
When I came up, my mind felt cleaner, thoughts as crystal as the water running down my skin. The sun was just starting to rise, and the sky had a beautiful purple glow that signalled the beginning of a new day. I waded back to shore, made sure Noah still wasn’t looking, and stood there for a moment, drying in the air, mist rising off my body like it rose from the surface of the river. Then I got dressed. My pants were fine, but my shirt was ripped and caked with blood. I should have thought to wash it, but that wouldn’t have done much for the rips, anyway.
I said that part aloud, and without hesitation, Noah took off his long-sleeved shirt and handed it to me, keeping his eyes still firmly fixed on a tree in the distance. Gratefully, I put it on. It was warm and smelled like him. “All good, thanks,” I said.
Noah turned around. He still had a singlet on, and it showed off his arms. I stared at them for a moment.
“Hey, my eyes are up here,” he laughed.
My face went hot. “Sorry.”
“I’m just kidding. Besides, who could blame you, really?” Noah teased.
“Shut up!” I laughed, and pushed him gently. He playfully pushed me back, but I lost my balance and fell into the water, managing to stay on my feet but soaking my pants completely.
“Oh no! Sorry,” he said, stepping to the edge of the rock, offering his hand to help me up. I grabbed it, but instead of getting out, I pulled hard, and he fell forwards into the pond, completely submerged. He stood up, laughing, and looked at me with a mischievous grin.
“No, no way,” I protested.
“You’ll pay for that.” He leaped forward, chasing me farther into the water. I squealed like a little girl until he dove and tackled me, dunking me underwater. I came up and tried to pull him down with me, but he was too strong. Instead, I ended up with my arms around his neck and legs round his waist, hanging off him as my dunk attempt failed. He stood up, and I didn’t let go.
Slowly, he wrapped one arm around my waist, holding me in the air, while the other moved my wet hair from my eyes. He moved to kiss me as the sun hit the trees overhead, and I let him.
For a moment. Before I realised what was happening.
“I can’t,” I said, stopping him. “Not right now.”
He swallowed. “It’s okay. You’ve been through a lot.”
“I don’t know what to feel.” And I still had feelings for Josh. I didn’t say this, but Noah could see something in my eyes. He looked hurt for a moment, before slowly setting me down back in the water.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Don’t be.” I took hi
s hand, and we walked back to the edge of the pool, where we lay back on the rock to dry as the sun crept up to warm us both.
I closed my eyes, eyelids glowing as the sun shone through them. I could think about my confusing love life later. For now, it was a new day, and I had to save my family.
THIRTY-FOUR
“Sorry, guys, there’s no one left,” the voice on the other end of the line told us.
Noah groaned. “No one?”
“The Kindred attacked all our safe houses at once. Nearly everyone in our entire cell was killed. You’re lucky there’s anyone left here to answer the phone.”
This was bad news. Noah and I had spent the morning dreaming up a plan to recover my family from the Kindred compound, but it relied on decent support from the rest of the Unseen. Luckily, Noah kept his satellite phone in a ziplock bag per Unseen protocol, so it had survived me tackling him into the river. But he had spent close to an hour trying to get someone from the Unseen on the line, and by now, the battery was almost dead. Unfortunately, it was a new guy, Hud, who finally picked up. Noah explained our predicament, but he’d recruited Hud just a few weeks before my accident, so the guy didn’t know much.
“Can you try to muster up some support from one of the other cells?” Noah asked.
“I can try, but they’re more than a day away. You’re not going to like this, but … we heard some noise this morning about an upcoming execution in the Kindred complex. They’ve worked out that your girlfriend has defected, and they want to send a signal that betrayal is not an option, especially considering she’s not the first to do so recently. They’re going to kill the hostages—Rachel and the other three.”
I grabbed the phone. “This is my family we’re talking about, and one of your own! They’ve suffered enough in this stupid war. You have to do something! Plus, I’m not his girlfriend!” That last part was petty, but I thought it was important.
“Look,” Hud said, “the only guy who’d have the authority to get anyone here in time is Elijah, but I haven’t been able to get in touch with him.”
“Elijah’s dead,” Noah said coldly.
There was a pause. “Things are even worse than I thought.”
Noah glanced at me to see if I was all right. I couldn’t meet his gaze.
“All of our key members, our entire leadership team is dead,” Hud continued. “The only reason I survived is because three bodies fell on top of me during the assault. We can’t even do a proper head count, because the Kindred took all the dead and torched the place to keep things quiet. I got out just in time. Still smell like smoke. It’s chaos out here.”
“Any news on Bek?” Noah asked, concerned. I didn’t know who he was talking about, but it seemed important.
“Safe for now,” Hud said. “They moved her out of area a few days ago, so she wasn’t in our region when it all hit the fan.”
“How is she, though?”
“The same,” Hud sighed. “Still unresponsive and still that weird colour.”
Noah shook his head. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s not your fault. You got us out of there, remember? You’re the only reason we’re still alive.”
Their conversation was lost on me, but I had other priorities right now. I took the phone. “Is there any way at all you can help us?”
“I’ll do my best,” Hud said. “I honestly wish I could do more, but we don’t have the resources or leadership to mount a full frontal attack on the Kindred compound. Even if we did, the place is so heavily guarded we wouldn’t get past the front door. The execution is set for sundown. That’s about eight hours from now. I’m sorry, but if you want them back, I think you’re probably on your own.”
“What about the—” Noah began, but the battery indicator blinked and his phone died. He smashed it on a rock, storming a few paces away.
I came up behind him and put a hand on his shoulder. “This is all my fault.”
“Don’t talk like that.”
“It is. I killed Elijah. I turned in Rachel. The whole attack was because of me. They’re going to kill her, and Josh, and my family, because I didn’t know better.”
He didn’t answer. He couldn’t. He knew I was right.
I sat down on the ground and hugged my knees to my chest. Noah crouched behind me, putting his arm around my shoulders. He was warm. We sat silently for a while.
And that’s when it came to me.
I looked up, smiling. “There is a way in! It’s been in front of me the whole time.”
Noah sat up. “What do you mean?”
“Rachel showed me, and now I think I know why. She knew something was going to happen, or at least suspected. There’s a hidden entrance, unguarded. I don’t think anyone knows about it. It leads directly to the training ground.”
Noah thought for a moment. “If we could get there, we’d be right inside the compound. They won’t be on high alert. They’ll be overconfident, thinking they’ve crippled the Unseen permanently.”
“Which they have.”
“Maybe, but they didn’t count on one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Us.” He grinned, and I smiled back. This would probably be a suicide mission, a one-way trip into the heart of the Kindred, but we had to try. There was no other choice.
“If we’re going to find the complex, we need to get our bearings, find higher ground.”
“I think there’s a hill over there.” Noah pointed behind me. “I got a glimpse of it through the trees last night as we came in. I can’t be sure, though; it was so dark.”
We set off in that direction. An educated guess was better than nothing, and we had eight hours until sunset. Eight hours until my family were either rescued or dead. The second option was far more likely.
It got filthy hot, the kind of sticky heat that feels like you’re swimming through the air rather than walking. Pretty soon, the clean feeling I had from washing in the pool was gone, crusted over by sweat and the dust kicked up from my shoes. Noah was in front, as he had a better sense of direction than I did out here. I didn’t mind; it was nice to sit back and let him lead for a while. It gave me a chance to look at him, too.
Somehow, it still didn’t feel real that he was alive. I’d known him as dead longer than I’d known him alive, and the memory of his death had been played so many times in my head that it had become more real than most of my other memories. Just goes to show you can’t really trust your memories. You could live your whole life believing something is true, believing some version of reality that never really happened. Your whole life could be defined, understood, rewritten by a lie. Mine had been. Memory is a powerful thing. And it can’t trusted.
I’d had so many defining moments over the past month, moments that had seemed so true. I’d pledged my allegiance to the Kindred and felt so safe, when all the while they were plotting to take away everyone I cared about. My anger at the Unseen had been so strong I could taste it, but it was really the Kindred I needed to hate. I’d trusted Hackman and known beyond all doubt that my family were in the farmhouse. I was sure I’d seen Mum through the window, when it was really just some random Unseen. I had murdered that guy in the bathroom and still didn’t know his name. We’d both tried to kill each other, even though, in principle, we were on the same side. I’d been so angry when James and Vicki were killed… Did they know they were actually my enemies?
How many in the Kindred knew the truth about their agenda? Noah said the new recruits knew nothing much about anything, but once you got promoted you began to learn the truth. Hackman was an Elder Brother, which meant he knew for sure. As the heads of each complex, the Arch Elders would know everything. Nareem and Vicki were a Brother and Sister ranking, but did they know enough to be aware of the evil lurking around them? If Vicki knew, did she tell James the truth? They’d gotten as close as two people could, at least in the physical sense, and from her reaction when he died, she’d genuinely loved him. But if she’d told him the truth about t
he Kindred and why she was really there, he might have pulled away. Maybe it was better for him that he probably never found out.
It was hard to believe there weren’t more defectors, more people leaving the Kindred once they learned the truth. Guys like Nareem, Vicki, even Nathan from the hospital—they felt like good people. What would make someone stay after they discovered the evil at the heart of the Kindred?
The Kindred seemed so well connected, so integrated into society and positions of power that when they made whatever move they were planning, the world would be caught off guard. Their plan felt close to fulfilment, and I was afraid that when the Kindred entered the final stage of the Agenda, nothing would be the same. No one would be able to stop them. The end was coming and the world had no idea.
THIRTY-FIVE
Reaching the hill, we began a slow ascent. It was steeper than it appeared, and the ground was covered with gravel and rocks that slipped under our feet, making it impossible to get a firm footing. It was easier to crouch low, because I could grab a handhold if I slipped. It also meant there wasn’t far to fall. I had a few slides, but Noah had more, at least until he saw what I was doing and copied.
The sun was baking me inside my skin; I felt like a jacket potato shoved into a microwave. Noah was raspy, struggling to breathe; his lung capacity was low because of his injuries. I tried to take his mind off it. “So, for everything that’s happened to us, everything we’ve done together, I still don’t really feel like I know you.”
The Fire Unseen Page 21
