Every Second Counts

by Sophie McKenzie

  As I walked into the kitchen, Julius turned towards me, a worried frown on his face.

  ‘Morning,’ he said.

  ‘Yeah.’ I rubbed my forehead. ‘Any chance of some toast?’

  ‘Help yourself,’ Lennox grunted, indicating the toaster.

  I wandered over to the counter. The kitchen was pretty basic but after eating in parks and under bus shelters for much of the past month it felt luxurious to take a slice of bread and pop it into a toaster.

  ‘Where’s Charlie?’ I asked, stifling a yawn.

  Julius looked up. ‘Isn’t she with you?’ he said, a tense edge to his voice.

  I spun around, all thoughts of toast forgotten. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘She’s not in the rest of the flat.’ Julius frowned. ‘I hope she hasn’t gone outside. It’s risky to wander—’

  I didn’t hear any more, I was already back in the living room, feeling in my jacket pocket for my phone. I’d switched it to silent last night. My fingers trembled as I pulled it out. If Charlie had gone to the shops or something she would surely have left a message, wouldn’t she?

  Yes. Relief swamped me as I opened her text. And then my mouth fell open as I read what it said.

  Charlie

  I stood by the side of the road, waiting for the next car to pass. I had decided to hitch a ride to the nearest city, Manchester, in order to save as much of my money as I could. Despite the dust and the debris from an abandoned roadworks programme which scattered the tarmac, it felt good to be outside in the sunshine. Good, also, to be travelling light, with just a single change of clothes, my money and a few toiletries. I was glad not to be weighed down with jumpers and a sleeping bag – and, if I was honest, glad to be free of Nat’s attempts to protect me. I knew he only wanted me to be safe, but what I was doing now was the right move.

  I was heading for Riley’s home in London. I had been there last year when Taylor, our EFA cell leader, had made Nat and me break into the house as a test of our abilities. He had told us the place was owned by a leading League of Iron member and that our mission was to download information from his computer about the League’s next planned attack. I still burned with shame and fury when I thought of how we’d been conned into thinking the League were behind all the bombings that Riley had in fact organised himself.

  My phone rang. Nat calling.

  I rejected the call. Nat just wanted to try and talk me out of my plan to approach Riley and infiltrate his inner circle, and I didn’t want to hear it. I needed all my energy to focus on my mission. Anyway, the less Nat knew about what I was planning, the safer he would be. After manipulating us into carrying out his terrorist activities, Riley had tried to kill Nat.

  I shivered, thinking how close he had come to losing his life, how close I had come to losing him.

  A moment later Nat rang again. I shook my head as I rejected this second call. I had been totally right to go off on my own. If Nat couldn’t have talked me out of going to find Riley, he would have insisted on coming with me – and Riley would have had no hesitation, I was sure, in trying to murder him again.

  My phone beeped. Now Nat had sent a text. It was brief and to the point.

  This is mad, Charlie. Come back.

  I switched off my mobile. There was no point talking. Now was the time for action.

  Nat

  As the next half-hour wore on, I went through every emotion from terror to fury and back again. How could Charlie be so stupid as to race off to Riley without at least talking it through first?

  Her text had been sent in the middle of the night, so there was no way I could catch her, even if I’d known what route she was taking to Riley’s house in London. She was probably halfway there already. I spent at least fifteen minutes ranting at Julius, explaining what Riley had said about Charlie’s father. I knew that was breaking my promise to her, but after not returning my calls and switching off her phone, I didn’t feel she deserved me keeping my word on that. Julius looked thoughtful as I explained everything.

  ‘What Charlie has been told about her father puts what she’s doing in a different light,’ he said slowly.

  ‘How?’

  ‘Well, it’s understandable she’d want to know about her dad. Riley will believe that.’

  ‘It’s still insanely risky to run off to him without working out exactly what she’s doing. Riley’s smart – he’ll know if she’s faking anything. She should have talked it through with us first.’

  ‘Some people prefer to act on instinct and intuition – in the moment, as it were.’ Julius tilted his head to one side. ‘Are you sure you’re not just cross that Charlie didn’t tell you what she was doing?’

  ‘No,’ I snapped. ‘Of course not.’ I stood up and paced up and down the room.

  Julius said nothing further and, a few minutes later, Lennox came in and reminded us that we had to leave here tomorrow and that he and Julius needed to scour the flat to make sure they weren’t leaving any obvious clues to their identity behind.

  I rested my head in my hands. Would Charlie manage to convince Riley she genuinely wanted to join him? What would happen if he didn’t believe her? Come to that, what would happen if Charlie tried to return to the safe house and found we were no longer here?

  She won’t come back, I told myself. She’s going to join Riley or die trying. You know how stubborn she is.

  Julius and Lennox started debating which safe house to move on to next. I paid them little attention. I wasn’t going to another safe house. I was going to find Charlie and get her away from Riley, if it was the last thing I did.

  Charlie

  It took me most of the day to find Riley’s house in North-West London. The woman who had given me a lift to Manchester had dropped me close to the coach station and as, I scurried along the last few streets, past all the boarded-up shops and houses, I was careful to wear my large, shapeless hoodie and to keep the hood pulled low and my head bent away from all the CCTV cameras. I caught a coach at eleven a.m. and arrived in London just after four in the afternoon. It was strange being back in the city, knowing that Rosa, Jas and Aaron and my other friends would soon return to school for the summer term, intent on exams, while Nat and I travelled around the country, intent on clearing our names and exposing Riley.

  I checked online and found that the number 16 bus would take me fairly close to Riley’s house in Maida Vale. I was lucky it was still running; a lot of bus services had been stopped in the last few rounds of cuts. London seemed dirtier and shabbier than when I’d left.

  I stared at the murals I passed on my bus journey. They showed men in masks with guns and clenched fists – all symbols of armed resistance. They were the work, I knew, of the League of Iron – the right-wing extremist group that had, under pressure from Riley, claimed we were its agents for last month’s kidnappings and bombing.

  It was clouding over when I reached Maida Vale. Nat and I had been shut in the back of a van when we’d come here the first time, so although I knew I would recognise the house when I saw it, I was relying on what Nat had told me about his second visit to find the way to the correct street. Nat had been taken there by Riley himself, just after the Houses of Parliament explosion. He didn’t know the name of the road the house was on, but he’d described what he’d seen on his journey there in Riley’s car.

  I reached Maida Vale underground station, then hopped off the bus. Now I just had to circle the area, checking out each road in turn. Remembering Taylor’s training about staying close to walls and walking lightly to make myself seem more invisible, I sped along street after street, past endless derelict buildings and the usual, terrible lines of homeless people slumped in unused doorways. In my head I ran over my plan. I was certain that even if Riley wasn’t at home, his guards – soldiers in the EFA – would be. I planned to ask whoever I found to tell Riley that I wanted to see him. I was sure he would meet with me. After all, he’d wanted me to join his core team just a few weeks ago. I couldn’t believe he wo
uld feel differently now.

  Three hours later and I had still not found Riley’s house.

  I went back to the underground station, where an elderly homeless man with wild, staring eyes started shouting at me. I moved away and thought through what Nat had said again: After Maida Vale tube it wasn’t far, maybe just two or three minutes in the car. I was feeling weird from the drug he’d given me so I can’t remember if we went left or right, but there was definitely a pub at some point very near the house.

  I opened the maps function on my phone. I had been using it sparingly, partly to save the battery and partly because I didn’t want to see the list of missed calls and texts from Nat that I knew would be there. Sure enough, he’d messaged again. I ignored the text and looked at the map. There were three pubs within two or three minutes’ drive from where I stood right now. I had already checked the roads off two of them. This time, I headed for the third.

  The clouds overhead were darkening in the twilight sky as I stood at the roundabout and faced the street on my left. The hairs on the back of my neck prickled. This was it, I was sure. I set off, palms sweaty, eyes alert. The houses were all big on this street, just like the one I remembered breaking into with Nat.

  Lights were starting to come on in several of the homes. I glanced from left to right. There. That was Riley’s large brick house, its sweeping drive and neat front garden set behind huge ironwork gates. I crept across the road, hiding in the shadows of the hedge that bordered the neighbouring house. I reached the edge of the gate and peered in though the bars. The house beyond looked deserted. Despite the fact that it was getting darker outside, not a single light shone from any of the windows and there was no sign of anyone guarding the entrance either. I was certain, having met Riley and seen the ops base in Yorkshire, that he would definitely have at least one EFA soldier posted on his doorstep as basic security.

  I tugged my hood more fully over my head as a light patter of rain started to fall. I swore under my breath. I knew from sleeping outdoors so much in the past month that once you got soaked at night, it was almost impossible to get properly dry again until the following day. I looked around. There was nowhere to shelter in Riley’s front garden and the hedge in whose shadow I was loitering was both dense and prickly. I glanced along the side passage of the house. The smart wooden door at the end must lead to a back garden which would offer me more shelter – from both the rain and from passersby – than I would find out here.

  I would wait for Riley – or one of his guards – to return to the house there. All I had to do was climb the iron gate and then the garden door. No problem.

  Seconds later I had shimmied up the iron railings and, landing lightly on my feet, dropped to the other side. Making as little noise on the gravel as I could, I headed for the side passage and the back garden beyond.

  Nat

  Even allowing for the fact that Charlie had a head start to London, it took me a stupidly long time even to get a very little way. My bus to Manchester broke down twice – unsurprisingly really, considering what an old rust bucket it was – and it was almost dark by the time I reached Manchester bus station. One of the many downsides of living in a permanent recession was that every company in the world seemed to operate on a shoestring, with nothing – from buses to phones – working properly any more.

  I headed for the bus station ticket office to buy a ticket for London. I didn’t have much money and this was the cheapest way for me to get to Riley’s house. I hurried past several queues of passengers waiting to board other buses. There was no time to lose; Charlie was already hours ahead of me.

  I stopped to let a middle-aged lady dragging a suitcase on wheels pass me. She muttered as she was forced to move slightly sideways to avoid my luggage. I was carrying Charlie’s sleeping bag and all her spare clothes as well as my own. I didn’t want to travel so loaded down and I’d thought about leaving Charlie’s things behind, but Lennox had vowed to destroy anything left in the safe house so there would be no trace of our visit.

  When I’d said goodbye to him and Julius I had got the impression they were glad to be rid of me. Understandable, but hardly a show of resistance solidarity. Still, I was used to being alone. It felt like another lifetime since I’d had a proper home, before Lucas went into his coma and Mum started spending all her time at his bedside, while Dad buried himself in work. Before then, we’d been a real family. But for the past year or so, our house had just been the place where my twin sister Jas and I looked after ourselves, occasionally passing our parents as they came and went.

  Heavy rain started to fall as I passed the next coach signed for London, a huddle of passengers waiting to get on board. I hurried into the ticket office and joined the short queue. My phone rang, suddenly loud over the background chatter.

  I yanked it out of my pocket. Was that Charlie? Surely it had to be.

  Number withheld flashed up on the screen. I hesitated. The phone rang again. The people in the queue ahead of me shuffled forwards. Absently, I stepped after them, still staring at the screen. My mobile rang a third time.

  I held it to my ear. Outside the rain streamed down. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Is that you, Nat?’ The voice was male and vaguely familiar.

  ‘Yes,’ I said suspiciously. Only a very few people had this number. ‘Who’s this?’

  ‘They’ve taken your sister.’ The voice filled with emotion.

  ‘What?’ My head spun. Last time I’d been in touch – a few days ago – Jas had been safe at home with our parents. ‘What do you mean?’ The queue was moving again but I was frozen to the spot. ‘Who’s taken her? Who are you?’

  ‘It’s Aaron Latimer.’

  I gasped. Aaron was the Mayor of London’s son. Instantly, my hackles rose. No way could I trust either him or his dad.

  ‘How did you get this number?’ I demanded.

  ‘I found it where your parents hide it – the only place it’s written down, in your house.’

  ‘What?’ I asked, bewildered. ‘How do you know what my par—?’

  ‘They delete the number once they’ve called you. They don’t carry it around with them. They’ve never even told Jas where they hide it. But Jas once told me where her . . . your . . . mum and dad used to keep a bit of emergency money under a floorboard and I was guessing that’s where they put the number and – and it was.’

  My head spun. ‘Wait. You’re saying you broke into our house and stole—?’

  ‘You’re missing the point, Nat.’ Aaron’s voice rose with anxiety. ‘I did it to reach you, because Riley has taken Jas. His men kidnapped her on her way to my house earlier today.’

  Suspicion swirled inside me. Jas kidnapped? ‘I don’t understand. Why . . .?’

  ‘It’s about as simple as it can be,’ Aaron went on, bitterly. ‘Roman Riley thinks Jas knows where you and Charlie are and he’s determined to get the information out of her, whatever it takes.’

  I stared through the ticket office window. The sky outside was growing darker, the rain now pounding down against the glass. I gripped my phone tightly, feeling sick. ‘Whatever it takes?’ I echoed, blood thundering in my ears. No way could Jas stand up to being bullied by Riley’s men. ‘But my sister doesn’t know where we are.’

  ‘I know,’ Aaron said. ‘That’s what I’m saying. She doesn’t know anything. That’s why we’ve got to save her before Riley realises she’s useless to him – and kills her.’

  Charlie

  The back garden of Riley’s house was large and full of shrubs with a fishpond in the middle. I skirted the lawn, keeping close to the bushes to avoiding activating the light sensors on the back wall, and took shelter from the rain under a large weeping willow tree. I sat, motionless, watching out for lights to come on in the house. I didn’t want to think about what I’d do if Riley didn’t come home. I had bought myself a sandwich a few hours ago but hunger was already gnawing at my stomach. I huddled under the tree, wishing for the first time since I’d left the safe house
this morning that I’d brought my sleeping bag with me after all.

  An hour passed. The rain grew steadily heavier. I was now cold and my feet and shoulders felt damp and uncomfortable. Anxious thoughts started streaming through my brain: what if Riley was away all night? All week? What if he’d moved house? I only enough money for a few days’ worth of food. What on earth would I do after that?

  The rain slowed to a faint drizzle. I took out my phone. Maybe I should call Nat after all, tell him where I was. It was sensible to keep in touch. And I had run off without saying anything, then refused to answer his calls and texts.

  Plus I missed him. Badly. We might argue sometimes, but I’d spent the past few weeks entirely in his company and not having him beside me right now felt like a part of me was missing.

  Just as I was about to switch on the mobile and make the call, lights blazed from the house. Two downstairs rooms were now lit up. Phone still in my hand, I peered out through the fronds of the willow tree. A figure was walking past the window. It was him: Roman Riley. A moment later the curtains closed.

  This was it. I resolved to call Nat later, after I’d spoken to Riley. Nat might not have liked me attempting to make contact with Riley, but maybe he’d change his mind if I was able to report that I was now successfully undercover with the EFA.

  I crept out from under my tree. The rain was a light mist on my face. Ignoring it, I sped silently across the grass. No one was looking out from the windows of the house. Long shadows deepened the darkness of the garden. I came to the stone paving that surrounded the fishpond in the middle of the lawn. A low iron fence had been erected around the water. Crouching down I followed the fence, heading for the end of the pond and the final stretch of grass before the house.

  I reached the last bit of fence. As I stepped out, ready to dart across the lawn, a hand grabbed my arm. I gasped. Something struck me across the back. I stumbled forwards. My phone flew out of my hand.