Split Second

by Sophie McKenzie

  I reached for Riley’s pistol. It was gone. It must have fallen out of my pocket when I tripped and fell. The truck was approaching fast. Down the road, the soldier raised his gun. “Hands up,” he shouted. “Or I shoot.”

  There was no time to think. The truck was about to pass us. If I didn’t make it stop, we would all be caught and taken back to Riley.

  I flung myself into the road. Arms waving, I yelled at the truck driver.

  “Stop! Stop!”

  The truck kept coming. It was huge, towering up in front of me. I caught a glimpse of the driver’s face, his mouth open with shock. I closed my eyes as it roared right up to me.

  It screeched to a halt just inches away from my outstretched arms. I stood, trembling, for a second.

  “Get in!” Charlie yelled. She was already dragging Aaron toward the driver’s cab.

  I ran around to the far side, scrambling in next to the shocked driver before the man could protest. Aaron and Charlie hurled themselves in on his other side. A shot fired out.

  “Drive!” I shouted.

  The truck driver—still open-mouthed—roared away at top speed. I struggled with the door, slamming it shut, then peered out of the window. The masked soldier was running after us, gun poised, ready to shoot again. Then the truck swerved—far too fast—around a corner and the soldier disappeared.

  I sat back, squashed between the door and the driver.

  “What the hell?” the driver shouted. He was middle-aged, with a lined, weather-beaten face. “What is this?”

  Charlie and I exchanged a glance. We shouldn’t say anything, not until we knew we were safe.

  “We . . . I was taken—” Aaron started.

  “Quiet,” I ordered.

  Aaron stopped talking.

  I sat back. Where on earth did we go now? The enormity of getting—and staying—away from Riley and Taylor was overwhelming.

  “Whatever it is, I don’t want to get involved,” the driver said. I glanced at the speedometer. The truck was still traveling at over sixty miles an hour. We turned onto a main road. Other cars were passing. The driver slowed slightly. “I’m dropping you here.” He indicated a traffic circle up ahead.

  I nodded. We needed to get out of the truck anyway. The EFA soldiers had seen us get inside and were probably already looking for it. We were better off on our own. A few moments later the driver pulled up. Charlie, Aaron, and I got out opposite the circle and the truck zoomed off again.

  I pulled the others into the cover of the trees. Two roads led off from the circle: one was signposted to the highway, the other led downhill, to a town called Hilmarton.

  “That driver could have taken us farther,” Aaron said. He was white-faced, his whole body shaking.

  “Better we’re away from anything Riley’s men can trace,” Charlie said.

  She slipped her hand into mine and squeezed. I squeezed back. In spite of everything I felt better, stronger somehow.

  Cars roared past us. There was no sign yet of Riley’s men but they couldn’t be far away.

  “We need to go,” I said. I crept across the trees toward the turning that led to Hilmarton. From the edge of the copse I could see the lights of a small town spread out at the bottom of a hill.

  “Let’s try here,” I said, turning back to the others.

  “Wait.” Aaron pointed at Charlie. “I’m not going anywhere with her. She kidnapped me.”

  “Whatever Charlie did, she was tricked into,” I said, peering back along the way we’d just come. Riley’s men would surely be here any second.

  “I don’t care.”

  Before either of us could stop him, Aaron had run out into the road. He raced across the circle, toward the road that led to the highway. I gasped as a car swerved past him, almost knocking him down.

  “Aaron!” Charlie called.

  But Aaron didn’t look back at us. He darted to the side of the road, then flung out his hand in an attempt to flag down the next car. It zoomed past him. So did the next and the next. I started to run toward him, but before I had even gotten across the road, a large gray station wagon pulled over. I watched as Aaron bent down and talked to the driver through the window. A second later he opened the door and got in. The car drove off toward the highway.

  I ducked back behind the trees where Charlie was waiting, open-mouthed.

  “I can’t believe he just ran off like that,” she said.

  “He was scared.” I blew out my breath, trying to control my own rising panic. “Come on, let’s head for the town at the bottom of the hill.”

  “Okay,” Charlie agreed. “We can find a police station. Explain what’s happened.”

  I said nothing. Taylor’s words about the police being sympathetic to Riley were echoing around my head. Could we really trust the police force? Could we trust anyone?

  It took about ten minutes to reach the center of Hilmarton. We talked as we ran, telling each other everything we had found out this evening. Charlie was as shocked as I had been that Taylor and Riley had been prepared to let me die.

  “Me and everyone else caught up in the bomb,” I said. “Which makes the EFA just as extreme as any of the groups it’s supposed to be against.”

  Charlie shook her head. “Even if my dad were alive, there’s no way he could be involved with terrorists. My mum used to talk about him . . . I’ve seen videos of him. He just . . . he wouldn’t be capable of bombing and killing innocent people. I mean, my mum died in the market bombing and he loved her, I know he did. Riley must have been lying about all that.”

  She sounded like she was trying to convince herself. I didn’t say anything. After Taylor’s and Riley’s betrayal, anything seemed possible.

  We kept a careful look out for EFA soldiers as we left the shelter of the trees and followed the signs to Hilmarton High Street. Neither of us had a phone and both of us were starving, so when we came to an Internet café offering five minutes free online with every pizza, we decided to grab some food and take the opportunity to work out exactly where we were. Charlie logged on while I went to the counter to fetch our pizza. When I came back to our booth, she was staring at the screen, her eyes wide with horror.

  “What is it?” I said.

  “Look.” She pointed at the news website on the screen. It was a piece about the Parliament bombing posted ten minutes ago. I followed her finger to the third line.

  In a statement issued earlier tonight, protest organization the League of Iron has claimed responsibility for the bomb attack, naming north London teenager Nathan Holloway as their “hero at ground zero.” Holloway, 16, who attends a local private school, was seen leaving the scene by several members of the public. All witnesses claim Holloway was heard boasting of his successful detonation of the bomb.

  I gasped. Why was the League claiming responsibility? And who on earth had come forward telling lies about me boasting I’d killed all those people? There was a video immediately under the text. I clicked to play it, the pizza I’d bought growing cold on its plate.

  The screen showed the sights and sounds of the bombs aftermath: people running about, sirens going, lots of shouting and bright lights. I could clearly be seen, an intense look on my face, heading past the cordon, then ducking past the policeman who’d tried to stop me. The way the thing had been edited made me look as if I was trying to run away from him. The shot changed to a head and shoulders view of Roman Riley. He was standing on the street outside his own house.

  “Yes, the boy, Nathan Holloway, came up to me,” he was saying sorrowfully. “I couldn’t make out what he was saying at first, then I realized he was actually claiming he had set off the bomb. I led him away from the crowd. I was looking for a police officer. But before we’d gone very far, Nathan ran away again. I’m afraid he’s a very troubled young man.”

  I turned to Charlie who was watching the screen, open-mouthed beside me.

  “I can’t believe Riley’s done this,” I said, my voice hoarse.

  Charlie refres
hed the screen. A new post had already superceded the one we were looking at.

  The police have issued an arrest warrant for Nathan Holloway, 16, who is wanted for questioning in connection with tonight’s Parliament bombing. This follows their earlier arrest warrant for Charlotte Stockwell, 16, a friend of Holloway’s.

  A picture of both of us followed the post, with a warning to the public to approach us with caution and call the police if they saw us. Charlie’s hands flew to her mouth.

  “Why do they want to arrest me?” she breathed.

  “Kidnapping Aaron Latimer, I guess,” I said.

  Charlie swore. “But he’s free. We rescued him. Surely he’ll tell them I was tricked into kidnapping him? I’ll tell them. Let’s go to the police ourselves. Right now. Surely if we explain they’ll have to believe us.”

  I shook my head. Taylor’s earlier words about how much support Riley had among top-level police officers echoed in my head. We couldn’t trust the police, just as we couldn’t be sure of what Aaron would say or do.

  Right now, we couldn’t be sure of anything except the need to hide. I let the reality of this knowledge settle in my stomach, a deadweight.

  I turned to Charlie. “We need to get away from here and think it all through.” I pulled my pants pockets inside out, showing her what was left after I’d bought our pizza. “I’ve got three pounds on me,” I said. “You?”

  “About thirty pounds.” Charlie made a face. “It’s nothing. Where are we going to go? What are we going to do?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, “but thirty-three pounds is a start. We’ll just have to work out everything else as we go along.”

  TWO WEEKS LATER

  CHARLIE

  I can’t tell you where we are, but we’re safe.

  We’re still together, Nat and me. Life is hard, but we have each other. We even talked about how we feel. That scares me. A lot. But the truth is Nat means everything to me. I don’t know what I’d do without him. I certainly wouldn’t have made it this far.

  We’re getting some help, though I can’t tell you who from.

  It isn’t from the police. That’s for sure. We are public enemies as far as they are concerned. Nat knew we would be, right from the start. I was all for turning ourselves in, attempting to prove our innocence in person, but Nat was more cautious. He suggested that we waited a bit, maybe gave our side of the story at a distance to see how the cops responded.

  In the end we got ahold of a phone, made our own video, and posted it online.

  The response was unbelievable.

  And not in a good way.

  Our faces were plastered across every news program and website in the country. Commentators were calling us “a Bonnie and Clyde for the iPad generation,” whatever that means. Roman Riley was widely filmed, shaking his head sorrowfully and saying how sad it was that young people like us felt so desperate that we turned to violence. Soon afterward CCTV footage appeared showing me shoving that gun in Aaron’s face. He and Jas look terrified and I look like some mad, evil teen.

  Just like Riley planned.

  Nat and I waited for news to come out that Aaron was no longer kidnapped. But, again, it was all twisted. Two days after the kidnapping, the mayor of London did an interview with Aaron at his side. They both claimed that I kidnapped Aaron for the League of Iron and that he managed to escape without any help from either me or Nat.

  “Why are they lying?” I asked Nat. “Aaron knows he wouldn’t have got away if it wasn’t for us.”

  “He’s probably lying because his dad’s told him too,” Nat said. “Because they’re scared that if they don’t blame us, Roman Riley will come after them again.”

  The League of Iron posted another statement claiming responsibility for both the Parliament bombing and the kidnapping of Aaron Latimer—and naming Nat and me as the people they used to carry out the crimes. This post also included broadcast footage of us doing combat training with the EFA, though the way it was presented gave the impression we were learning to become the League of Iron terrorists.

  At first we wondered why the League kept saying we had been working for them. And then we saw Riley on camera, telling the world about his stand against fraud. He looked right into the lens and said, “I pledge to expose tax crimes wherever they take place.” It’s the kind of thing you often hear politicians say but, when Nat heard him, he remembered the folder of accounts he sneaked a look at the League of Iron meeting.

  “Riley must be using the accounts to blackmail someone in the League,” Nat explained with a groan. “That’s why they’re keeping quiet.”

  It seems that Riley set us up from the beginning.

  He ordered Taylor to make us break into his own house, even planting that photo of Aaron to make us believe we were discovering a League of Iron plot. And—again through Taylor—he fed us lie after lie about what the EFA stood for.

  Riley lied. Taylor lied.

  It was all lies.

  Almost all, anyway. I often think about what Riley said about my dad being alive. I’m sure that was yet another lie. Well, 99 percent sure. There’s always that little bit of doubt inside me.

  But then, as Nat points out, that’s how Riley operates: making you believe him, then shifting the ground underneath you, just as you start to feel secure.

  We’ve been in touch with Nat’s family. They’ve been wonderful, actually, really supportive, though Jas was wary of me at first until Nat explained how we’d both been tricked.

  I tried not to let that hurt me. It wasn’t Jas’s fault. It was Riley’s.

  Everything is his fault.

  My own family hasn’t been anywhere near so helpful as Nat’s. In the first week we went into hiding, one of the news stations did an interview with Brian and Rosa. Brian was clearly deeply shocked that I’d kidnapped Aaron. At least he kept saying I must have been brainwashed into doing it. Rosa, on the other hand, was happy to be digging the knife in.

  “Yeah, Charlie’s always been a bit odd,” she said, a fake-concerned expression on her face. “She’s a loner . . . never made much attempt to get along with me or anyone else at school.”

  The worst news of all we learned only last night. Parveen got in touch using the old draft e-mail technique. It was good to know she was okay—and her advice was helpful: she was adamant that we should stay in hiding, that we would never get a fair hearing with the League and the mayor of London and half the police force in Roman Riley’s pocket. And then she told us the devastating information that George was dead, killed after acting as fake decoy down in the tube station.

  The news has hit both of us hard. It’s impossible to believe that George, with his powerful fists and easy charm, simply doesn’t exist anymore.

  At least Parveen also gave us some hope. She told us about a resistance movement based in a secret location, which is working against Roman Riley and his allies. We’re heading to find it now. Neither of us has said as much, but we’re both aware that becoming part of a bigger protest against Riley is our only hope for survival. We know that if we go home, the evidence against us will send us to jail—that’s if Riley doesn’t get us first.

  And we are determined to resist and defeat him, whatever it takes.

  It’s going to be a battle. The latest polls show that the House of Parliament bomb has sent the Government’s ratings plummeting. There’s going to be an election soon. Everyone’s predicting yet another coalition—with Riley’s Future Party expected to win the most seats.

  In a few weeks, Riley will probably be prime minister.

  He’s got everything he wanted.

  Except us.

  Except our lives.

  And we intend to keep those for as long as we can.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thank you to Molly Harcourt and, of course, to Moira, Gaby, Julie, and Melanie. Particular thanks to brilliant author and feedback queen, Lou Kuenzler.

  SOPHIE McKENZIE is the author of more than six-teen novels for teenagers.
She has worked as a journalist and a creative writing teacher, and now she writes full time. Her books have won numerous awards and twice made the long list for the Carnegie Medal. She lives in London.

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  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2013 by Rosefire Limited

  Originally published in Great Britain in 2013 by Simon and Schuster UK Ltd.

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