by Natasha Ngan
He flinched away. ‘I’m just great.’
‘What was in that memory that’s bothering you so much?’
‘Look, just drop it, OK?’
Alba drew back. She had no idea what Takeshi had put Seven through with that memory, but it seemed to have really shaken him. Even as Takeshi was clapping him on the back and pushing his servant’s cap on (back to front), telling everyone what a wonderful job Candidate Seven had done before ordering their release, Seven had looked utterly miserable.
He’d looked as though he’d failed, Alba thought. But at what, she didn’t know.
‘We’ll be there soon,’ Kola said. He was sitting in a seat facing them. He shifted, folding his hands in his lap. ‘If you have questions, now is the time to ask.’
Alba glanced at Seven. He didn’t seem to be listening. He was still gazing out of the window with glazed eyes that made her chest feel cold and strange. She turned back to Kola.
‘You’re not doing this all on your own,’ she said. ‘Who are you working with?’
‘A group of people who all want to put a stop to TMK,’ he answered. ‘We call ourselves the Free Memory Movement. The group was founded by Harold Merriweather and others involved with TMK who wanted to put a stop to their actions. Having people on the inside has benefited us greatly. The Movement has gathered enough information and evidence over the years to use against them now.’
‘Which you will do how exactly?’ asked Dolly.
‘By revealing the facts to the world. There is an event this weekend all the prominent national and international leaders will attend. The Movement will hijack the event and show them the truth about TMK, while also broadcasting our findings across the Net. And now we have, of course, our very own Memory Keeper as proof.’
Dolly leant forward. ‘Wait. Are you talking about the Winter-turn Ball?’
Kola nodded.
‘No,’ she said fiercely, shaking her head. ‘No. Alba will be there. It’s too dangerous. I will not let you bring her into this any further.’ Her eyes flashed. ‘What do the Movement’s plans for hijacking the event entail exactly? Surely the London Guard and Lord Minister, Alba’s father and every other official in North and beyond – not to mention their bodyguards and the security at the Ball – are not just going to sit down quietly and listen to you revealing their secrets to the whole world?’
Kola smoothed a hand over his trousers. ‘We have our own security. We will be able to restrain them.’
Dolly let out a cry. ‘Takeshi and his Bakerloo Boys? You know they were going to –’ She stopped abruptly, throwing a worried look in Alba’s direction. ‘They only let us go because Seven altered that memory. I don’t know what deal you and the Movement have struck with Takeshi to get him to help you, but I can assure you, they won’t keep their side of the bargain.’
‘Then do not go to the Ball if you are afraid,’ Kola said. ‘Neither of you have to be there.’
Alba gave a wry laugh. ‘Oh, I’m going. To be honest, I’m more afraid of what my mother will do if I don’t.’
For some reason, Seven jerked round at that. He looked at her – properly at her – for the first time since surfing the memory Takeshi had forced him to. There was something uneasy about his gaze.
‘Seven?’ she whispered.
Wordlessly, he slipped his hand into hers. He stroked the back of her hand with one thumb, his grey eyes anxious.
Still looking at her, he said, ‘I’ll do it.’
‘What?’ Alba asked, somewhat distracted by the intense way he was looking at her.
Seven turned to Kola. ‘I’ll help you. I’ll be your proof. If it’s what’ll put those TMK bastards in jail and stop them altering skids, I’ll do it.’
Just then the car pulled to a stop. The engine growled as it sat idly next to the kerb, indicator ticking quietly. The driver – Alba presumed he was another Movement member – twisted round to say something in Kola’s ear.
Kola nodded. His eyes were lit up in a way Alba hadn’t seen before.
‘You’ll help us?’ he asked Seven eagerly. ‘You mean it?’
Seven nodded. ‘I don’t want anyone being able to change skids ever again.’
Kola slid back against his seat, visibly relieved. ‘You made the right choice, man. Really.’ He reached into a pocket and handed a small tablet to Seven. ‘Take this. Use it only in an emergency. It’d be a good idea to stay with Alba and Dolly from now on – Alastair White’s house is the last place they’ll be looking for you. If I don’t hear from you, the next we’ll see of each other will be the night before the Ball. I’ll explain then in more detail what we’re going to do, but until then … stay out of trouble.’
Seven raised his eyebrows, and for once Alba knew exactly what he was thinking.
Fat effing chance.
71
SEVEN
By the time they arrived back at Alba’s house it was late afternoon. The air was chilled and grey. Clouds sank low in the sky overhead, their undersides tinged with black; a storm was coming. Dolly ushered them out of the cab and round the side of the house to the servants’ entrance before anyone could see, and then into her room at the back of the west wing.
‘We need to get you back to your room,’ Dolly said to Alba as soon as they were inside, the three of them brushing themselves off from the rain. ‘Just in case your mother comes looking. Seven,’ she added, ‘you’ll have to stay here.’
He grinned, though it felt lifeless. ‘Crap. I was hoping to crash another one of Alba’s baths.’
Dolly’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Another one of her baths?’
Alba threw Seven a dark look, her cheeks pinking. ‘Ignore him. He’s talking nonsense.’
His smile fading, Seven backed over to the bed, sitting down and closing his eyes. He flipped off the servant’s cap. Dropping his head into his hands, he ran shaky fingers through his hair. He could sense Alba’s enquiring gaze on him.
Seven couldn’t bear to look at her. When he met her eyes, it was her mother he saw instead. Oxana, as she had been in the memory, clothes ripped, eyes wide, blood welling around her ankles and wrists from where the plastic cords cut tight.
He heard Alba walk over, then felt the warmth of her hands over his, which were still tangled in his hair.
‘I’ll come back tonight,’ she said. ‘As soon as I can.’ She leant in close. So close he could smell the sweet sweat on her skin, hear each and every breath. So close he forgot for a moment Dolly was still in the room, because Alba was the only thing in the world. ‘You don’t owe anyone anything,’ she whispered. ‘Whatever you want to do, I’ll support you. I’ll be right here with you.’
Then she kissed the top of his head and was gone.
As soon as the door shut behind them, Seven slid down to the floor, crumpling into a messy heap of limbs and elbows. He scrubbed his palms into his eyes until multi-coloured spots swirled across his vision. No matter how much he tried, no matter how much he wanted to, he couldn’t get rid of the image of Takeshi’s grinning face as he knelt down in front of Alba’s mother, unbuckling his belt.
Even though Seven had twisted, torn at the memory-space, replacing Takeshi with Aro Black, it was still Takeshi’s face he saw when he closed his eyes, and his assured, glittering smile.
Seven wished more than anything he could alter his own memories. What was the point of being a Memory Keeper if he couldn’t at least do that?
72
ALBA
Dolly twisted Alba’s hair into curls, fixing them at the nape of her neck with leaf-shaped gold pins, a single crystal set into the centre of each one. Alba sat in silence as her handmaid worked. She didn’t know how on earth to talk about everything they’d learnt today. Everything that had happened. It was all just too big. She didn’t know where to start.
When Alba was five, Dolly had bought her a giant gobstopper at the Hampstead Heath summer fair. Alba had almost choked on it. That’s how she felt now: as though there were some huge thing
blocking her throat, taking up all of her.
After a few minutes, Dolly stepped back. ‘All done.’
Alba looked up at herself in the mirror.
It was like looking at a painting. Her porcelain skin, the soft pink cream blushing her cheeks, the way her hair was pulled back artfully from her head in loose curls … it all seemed so fake. It felt wrong getting ready for dinner with her mother and father when just a few hours ago she’d been bruised and dirtied and miles underground. Alba had never felt easy in expensive dresses and jewels, but now it was even worse. Everything about her life in North felt like a lie.
‘Your parents don’t seem to know about your missed attendance at school today,’ Dolly said, touching her shoulder. ‘If they ask, just pretend you went.’
Alba raised an eyebrow. ‘What a shame. I was ever so looking forward to telling them about Takeshi’s Bakerloo Boys and Dr Merriweather.’
Her voice caught on Merriweather’s name. His face came back to her, ghostly pale, eyes soft and unfocused.
He’d died in front of her eyes.
A sob caught in Alba’s throat, and immediately Dolly was crouching down, turning her round in her chair.
‘You can do this, Alba,’ she said sternly. ‘Don’t be afraid of them.’
That hadn’t been what she was thinking about, but Alba felt herself harden at the mention of her parents. Does Mother know what Father did? she wondered. Does she know she goes to bed every night with a murderer?
She pictured her father, smug and distant, echoes of all the deaths he’d been responsible for in those cold, black eyes. If Seven hadn’t been rescued would her father have kept forcing him to surf and alter memory after memory until his brain bled to nothing?
Alba bit her lip to stop herself from crying. The idea that she might never even have met Seven, never even known he was somewhere out there in the world, made something inside her physically hurt.
His grin flashed into her mind, those small grey eyes of his always dancing with some secret or joke. The smell of mint laced in his breath and under his skin. His lopsided, slightly sticky-out ears. How he’d reached for her that morning in Dolly’s room, leaning in, their faces moving closer like two planets falling into orbit.
How every single time Alba thought of Seven, she thought of a life she had never even wanted, never dreamed of, but which now seemed like the most precious thing in the world.
Was this what falling in love was?
‘Are you ready?’ Dolly asked, bringing her back to the present.
Steeling herself, Alba stood. She brushed down her dress and pushed back her shoulders, taking a long, deep breath.
‘I’m ready,’ she said.
And she meant it. Not just about dinner. Not just about facing her parents.
But about facing the world.
73
SEVEN
He was dozing when the door to the room opened and someone came in. Soft footsteps padded towards where he lay on the rug, twisted in sheets and blankets. He smelled her before she reached him – clean, sweet, floral, female, full of Alba-ness, whatever that was – and then her warm hands touched his face.
‘Come with me.’
‘But what about Dolly?’
‘She’s asleep. Come on.’
Seven pushed back the blankets. He got up and dressed (thank the gods it was dark in here – he was only wearing a pair of boxer shorts), pulling on a thick navy jumper and black trousers Dolly had borrowed for him from one of the male servants. After lacing up his boots he followed Alba out of the room.
She led him through the maze of hidden corridors, one hand curled round his. He tried to ask where they were going, but she hushed him quiet. In the night-time shadows her skin looked as though it were glowing.
It all felt like a dream. Perhaps he was dreaming. A beautiful girl waking him in the middle of the night, taking him somewhere private …
‘Yep,’ Seven murmured to himself. ‘Definitely a dream.’
Alba stopped by a door. She opened it a fraction, listening through the crack, then pushed it further, pulling Seven through with her into a large room.
It was some sort of glasshouse, the walls and arched ceiling looking out over the dark grounds of Hyde Park Estate. It was filled with rows of plants. The whole place smelled green and fresh, like a summer’s night. Outside, rain pattered on the glass, the room alive with its secretive, whispery sound.
‘This is the herb-house,’ Alba said, leading him into the room. ‘No one comes here at night.’
They walked down between the rows of plants at the far side, the glass wall next to them. Faded moonlight, filtered by the thick clouds, touched Alba’s outline where she walked slightly in front of Seven, casting her in a glowing silver shell. His heart raced. She was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
Finally, he wasn’t afraid to admit it.
When they were deep in the herb-house, Alba stopped, turning to him. She was still holding his hand. She looked down as though only just noticing and let go quickly. Even in the moonlit shadows of the room, he could see her cheeks colour.
Seven’s eyes trailed over her long white sweater and leggings. The jumper fell off one shoulder, making his stomach ache at the sight of her pale, curving skin.
He knew what was about to happen. And effing hell, did he want it to. But he still felt confused and hurt and angry about everything that had gone on today. More than that, he still felt guilty. Alba deserved to know about her mother; he just didn’t know how to tell her.
Seven didn’t want her to always think of him as someone who had told her something that made her heart break.
‘Alba,’ he started, taking a deep breath.
She shook her head. ‘I don’t want to talk. I don’t want to think. I just want you.’
And then she closed the gap between them, slipped her hands up round Seven’s neck and kissed him.
74
ALBA
Oh almighty god, we are kissing!
75
SEVEN
Holy effing hell, we’re kissing!
76
ALBA
It was both the most natural and the strangest thing she’d ever experienced. But good lord, did it feel good. Seven’s hands wound round her waist and the back of her head, tugging her closer. His mouth was hot. Their lips parted and their tongues brushed each other’s, sending electric shivers down her spine.
So that’s what you did with your tongue.
Alba sighed. She drew him in like air. Their heartbeats were racing against each other, jumping out of their chests. Her fingers roamed up into his tangled hair, down the ridges of his back. Finding the edge of his jumper, they slipped inside and she traced her fingertips along the skin just above his waistband.
Seven breathed heavier at that, a soft growl in his throat that made her knees weak.
Somehow they lowered themselves to the floor. Still kissing, still curled in each other, they lay on their sides. Alba’s shoulder pressed into the cold stone tiles but she didn’t notice. She didn’t even hear the rain thrumming on the glass walls. All she heard was hers and Seven’s breaths, the soft sounds of their kissing.
All she felt was him.
Seven was the one who eventually pulled away.
They had been kissing for what felt like hours. Alba’s face felt soft and blurry, and her lips were numb, but her body felt alive. Every inch of her hummed.
Blinking, Seven sat up. His hair was sticking out in every direction, his clothes ruffled. They’d shifted along the floor to the outer edge of the room. He leant back against the glass wall, rubbing his neck.
‘Effing hell, Alba,’ he muttered.
She laughed softly. Curling under his arm into his lap, she sat with her back to his chest and gazed out at the green shadows of the plants in the room, not really seeing any of it because it felt as though her eyes were still closed, like Seven was still everywhere. Why had no one told her kissing was like that, something
you felt with every part of you, like surfing the memory of it over and over even as it was happening?
Seven took a deep breath, and Alba moved with the rise and fall of his chest.
‘Alba.’
‘That is my name.’
She smiled, burrowing deeper into his lap. Tilting her head back on his chest, she looked up at his face. He looked shell-shocked.
‘Alba … ’ he started again.
‘Seven.’
‘Oh, come on! I’m trying here. Just – I dunno what to say.’
‘Then don’t say anything.’
She pushed up, leaning in to kiss him again.
‘Alba, stop.’
Seven grabbed her shoulders, yanking her away a little too roughly, and pushed off the floor. He paced along the row of plants opposite. Letting out a sudden growl of frustration, he stopped, shaking his head.
‘Fuck!’ he cried. ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck!’
Alba scrambled to her feet. ‘Seven, keep your voice down!’ She watched him warily. ‘What’s wrong? Was it – was it the kissing? Was it bad?’
‘It was effing perfect,’ he said firmly, and he sounded so sincere it made her heart feel like bursting. ‘It’s not that. This is about earlier.’
Alba relaxed, understanding. ‘I meant what I said. I’ll stand by you, whatever you decide. You don’t have to do this for Kola – you don’t owe the Movement anything. We could … we could run away instead. Maybe Dolly would come. Maybe –’
‘No.’ Seven’s voice was steady. He stared at the ground, hands squeezed into fists. ‘I’m going to help. I have to, Alba. TMK is too dangerous. The things it can be used for … ’ He let out a huff of breath. ‘That’s why I’ve gotta tell you this.’
Unease twisted Alba’s stomach. ‘Tell me what?’
‘The skid Takeshi made me surf,’ Seven began after a long pause. ‘It was about your mum.’
