by Rae Else
‘I told her to come here with us,’ Dan said. ‘Then not to ask questions. I told her to wait.’ His tone was growing steadily more sullen. ‘Make it quick.’ He withdrew to the kitchen.
Ingrid’s curvy figure was apparent beneath her jumper and straight-cut chinos. Her chestnut hair hung in a glossy curtain. She was always polished. El thought that her mum would like her friend’s style. Would have liked it. She swallowed the lump in her throat.
As El stared at her friend’s blank look, she was tongue tied. What could she say to her? How could she explain tonight’s events? She breathed deeply. This was something she’d wanted to talk to her about for so long.
‘Ingrid?’ she said, calling her eyes to her. ‘Can you think about what you saw tonight? Do you remember why you came to find me?’
Ingrid’s lips were pressed tightly together. Her eyes widened.
‘El! I was so worried.’ She clasped El’s hand. ‘You’re hurt.’
El patted her hand. ‘I’m fine, but I still don’t get why you came to look for me. How did you find me?’
Ingrid rolled her eyes, instantly seeming more like herself.
‘You don’t call, and you send one text that doesn’t even sound like you, and you expect me not to worry! I thought your grandma had killed you or something.’ She smiled dryly.
El grimaced as she thought of her grandma. Her friend’s words recalling the fact that the Order had her. She thought too about how her grandma was a murderer – an ex-Order member.
‘Your house,’ Ingrid said. Her face tensed. ‘Everything was broken.’
El pictured the manor house, the giant door ajar, the urns and furniture smashed, imagining how the Order must have left it when collecting her grandma.
Ingrid started to play with her fingernails, tracing the shape of her long nails.
‘But how did you find me?’ El asked.
‘It was easy. I still had all your codes from when I set up your mobile. I just used Find My Phone.’ Ingrid’s uncertainty flitted away again, her voice sure.
‘Ingrid,’ El prompted slowly, ‘what else do you remember from when you found me?’
Ingrid’s eyes narrowed. El could see her concentration, the mixture of confusion and mirth playing across her face as she tried to think back. She knew that Ingrid must have seen the battle, from the other side of the street she couldn’t have missed it.
‘Those men you were with,’ Ingrid whispered, ‘they were throwing fire and water.’ She laughed like it was a joke but shock marred her features again. ‘I saw a car … fly. Then it exploded.’
El grimaced. Okay it was worse than she’d thought.
Ingrid’s eyes were leaping around the room. ‘I don’t remember how I got here…’ There was a tremor in her voice.
Ingrid’s tone sounded so unlike her that it forced El to talk. ‘It’s okay. They’re arete – people who can manipulate the elements and control humans. Like I can. But they’re after me. They’ve got my grandma.
‘You see, my grandma was hiding me from them. She managed to until I used my power last night–’
Ingrid’s brow furrowed. ‘Your power?’ Her eyes were confused but suspicion crept into them. ‘Control humans? You mean … last night, that man–’
‘It was an accident,’ El said quickly. She experienced a feeling of déjà vu as her own words rang in her ear, seeming to echo those of her grandma’s.
Ingrid’s eyes flicked from side to side as she pieced things together. ‘You control people.’ She paused as if she was letting this fact solidify in her mind. ‘How did I get here?’ She stared at El. ‘I can’t remember … and you…’
El shook her head. ‘No. I didn’t but someone else did. But only to get you away from that street. To get you here – quickly, safely–’
Ingrid shot to her feet and backed away. Her eyes bored into El. El stared at her friend, remembering how she’d always pictured this moment. But this wasn’t how she’d imagined it going. It was all playing out so differently to the way she’d dreamed it would. How had it gone so wrong? She tried to think of what to say, if she could just find the right words Ingrid would understand. Her mouth turned dry as she watched the terror become ingrained in Ingrid’s expression.
Catching sight of Dan’s movement in the doorway, Ingrid stopped. Her fear seemed to melt away as his gaze found hers. El didn’t know which was worse: seeing her best friend’s face distorted by fear or hollowed out of emotion.
‘Tell me what to say,’ Dan said. ‘You can’t do this – you’ve had a dose of serum. It’s important the concealment holds until we get somewhere that’s safer.’
El looked at her friend, then at Dan, and back again. He was right. It was better, safer for Ingrid to forget about her. El had caused her nothing but fear. And it would be safer for Ingrid to be as far away from El as possible. The blankness on Ingrid’s face may seem monstrous but that’s exactly what El needed to give her. A fresh start. A clean slate. A life in which she didn’t even know her.
‘Tell her to go back to her car and get home safely,’ El said. ‘Tell her that if she thinks of me later, or ever, to think of me as a passing acquaintance, someone she knows a little. Someone who moved away, who’s gone…’
Dan nodded minutely before steering Ingrid into the elevator. El watched as the doors closed. She imagined him staring into her friend’s eyes and relaying her words in a toneless fashion as if recording a voicemail message. The tears streamed down her cheeks as she pictured the artificial smile that would appear on Ingrid’s face. She visualised Dan, his hard, hot eyes reshaping her memory: a laser erasing a piece of her mind, the piece that encased all the memories of El. A vital part of her life. Sobs wracked her body as she realised she’d given permission, asked for this to be done. Her cries rose in volume. Everyone and everything that she’d ever cared about was gone.
- Chapter Fifteen -
Homecoming
The streetlights whizzed by in a blur. The Porsche Dan drove was the same one that Anna had picked El up in yesterday. But the sense El had then – that something lay ahead of her – had vanished. She didn’t raise any questions about where they were going. Earlier, when Dan had returned from dropping Ingrid off at her car, he’d insisted that they leave the lab. El had dressed, with some difficulty because of her leg, and they had left.
She didn’t look out at the city: its streets or people. Her surroundings became a haze, her senses deadened. It was like she was looking down on herself. Is this how graeae felt, she wondered. Do they move outside of time and view everything dispassionately? Pain flared through her at the thought of them, reminding her that her emotions still existed, just deep down. She quashed them, letting hate harden her.
The car stopped in front of a tall, glass building. Bright lobby lights and the curious, yet restrained, glance from a human concierge greeted them. Dan was supporting her since she couldn’t put much weight on her leg. They took the lift to the twenty-fourth floor. It opened onto a hallway with a single door: the penthouse.
A wide spacious living room met them, beyond which the floor to ceiling window let the outside in. El saw the white dome of St Paul’s Cathedral on the opposite side of the river, a scattering of cranes littered the skyline, the disjointed bones of the city. The cubic shapes of the buildings looked cruel against the night sky.
Dan’s voice tugged her back to reality.
‘This spot is probably our safest.’
El frowned again, looking out and down at the river Thames and across to the cathedral. This was so central. How could they be safe here from the All-Seeing Eye?
‘It’s like Alex always says about arete power,’ Dan said. ‘You are visible to graeae because of the unique signal you give out. In this area there are lots of arete residences and businesses; their power will obscure yours and offer camouflage. Plus, this is one of the few buildings registered under a different name to Endon, so won’t be immediately checked by the Or
der if they start trying to find you through links to the company.’
El nodded, hugging herself as she looked out at thousands of glowing lights. Dan turned on a few lamps and put the kettle on in the kitchen. El hobbled to the leather couch. A lime-green ottoman and vinyl record player caught her eye, a collection of sports car magazines lay on the coffee table. The cup of tea Dan brought her was weak and milky. Just the way she liked it. She wondered how he knew.
He sat on the other sofa, leaning forward, alert. He sipped an espresso, its bitter flavour tinting the air.
‘Have you heard from Alex?’ she asked.
He shook his head.
El took a sip of tea. ‘I didn’t know they were … that Alex and…’ She couldn’t continue. The word sealed her mouth shut. It lay thick and heavy as though her tongue was swollen. Anna, Mother, Mum.
‘They’ve been together as long as I’ve known them,’ he said.
El looked at him questioningly.
‘Ten years.’ He caught her look. ‘That doesn’t mean I’m old.’
The shadow of a smile flitted across El’s face before vanishing.
‘They rescued me from the Order when I was nine,’ he said.
Her eyes widened. The Order had wanted him too.
‘But it was only when I turned sixteen that they let me help in the Opposition.’
El knew that he was replacing she with they and was grateful. She couldn’t say her name and didn’t think she’d keep it together if she heard it. The teacup rattled against the saucer as her hands began to shake. She set it down, staring at the fine porcelain. It made her think of her mum. Delicate and elegant. She could imagine her sitting cross-legged in one of her silk dresses, sipping her tea. She didn’t need to ask, she knew it had belonged to her or at least Anna had chosen the china.
El wondered how often her mum had come here? She looked out at the smooth steel and glass opposite. Scaffolding surrounded incomplete structures, but there were the more permanent fixtures, such as the cathedral’s dome and church spires on the horizon. She imagined her mum staring out at these, her eyes resting on the same spot as hers.
‘Do you know where the Order are keeping your grandma?’ Dan asked.
El’s eyes held him uncertainly, but she remembered that he must have heard her telling Ingrid that the Order had captured her grandma. She shook her head.
‘It’s likely the Olympia,’ he said. ‘Nowhere else is as safe.’
That’s where the Triad would have taken El tonight – for training and to compete in the arenas. She wondered where she would be at this moment if Dan and the other rebels hadn’t interceded. Would she have got to see her grandma? A cold feeling crept through her. The Triad had executed her mum to show her what would happen if she failed to cooperate. Guilt stole through her as she wondered what they might do to her grandma because of her escape.
‘With the graeae blood in your system,’ Dan said, ‘we knew the Triad would execute you.’ The statement was tinged with a question.
He was wondering why she was still alive. When she caught his eye, she noticed something else too. He rearranged his look but she was sure that a moment ago it had been coloured with blame.
Of course, she knew that Louisa had been watching her for the last few weeks. She was the reason El had lost control of her power. El knew too that the typhon had orchestrated for Anna to collect her. Louisa had known that her mum would attempt to hide her from the Order, and that it was only a matter of time before proof of their treachery would secure their executions.
Dan didn’t know any of this though. As far as he was concerned everything had gone wrong the moment that El had shown up. She had run away from the Opposition, confided in Luke, gone to an Order meeting and blown her mum’s cover. In his eyes, she alone had been the one to get Anna killed.
El tried to stick to the facts. ‘They cut my wrists. They wanted to foresee my power before I died. When they drained me, they foresaw that I would attain the full power in the final arena, at the London Olympia. So they gave me something that healed me. Instantly.’ She remembered the syrup-like feeling of the metallic liquid.
Dan was on his feet. He paced before the window. ‘Okay. We can work with this. This is an opportunity. We’ve been trying for years to work out where and when the Triad will be altogether. With you attaining the full power in the final arena, we know they will be there. We have a whole week to train, to get you ready for the first match–’
‘Wait.’ El leaned forwards. ‘I can’t stay here that long. They’ve got my grandma. I need to hand myself over to them – tonight … or tomorrow.’
‘What?’ Dan said, turning to her. ‘Go back to them?’ He came towards her. ‘Anna devoted her life to fighting them and now you’re going to give yourself up after a day?’
The courtesy was gone. Evidently there wasn’t going to be any more they. El jumped to her feet, ignoring the pain that shot through her leg. ‘So I should just leave my grandma to die?’
‘Your grandma will understand.’ His pacing quickened with his voice. ‘To bring down the monopoly of wealth and power that the Order holds is the only way anyone can be safe. Their members hold the top two percent of wealth worldwide and ensure that it stays in the hands of those chosen. This structure of power means that arete who are weaker in manipulation – arachnids and nymphs – will always remain subservient. Whilst harpies, sirens and serpents will fight and die to swell the ranks of the Order and live at the top. Not to mention that most world-wide disasters – forces of nature … tornadoes, tsunamis, earthquakes – are just forms of persuasion, thrown around by Order members in power plays, destroying and taking thousands of unnecessary arete and human lives.’
Not this again. He sounded like Luke, just from the other side. Anger swelled through her chest as she thought about him. Luke. He was to blame for what had happened to her mum, just as she was. But as Dan stood in front of her, his eyes burning with fanaticism, she let all the anger she felt for Luke fuel her words.
‘You forget,’ she said, ‘I’ve seen how much you rebels value the human lives you talk about.’
He was silenced for a moment.
‘If you hadn’t run off, I would’ve told you there are radicals within the Opposition too. But, I’d have been there to keep them under control – if I hadn’t had to search for you in the first place.
‘All they were supposed to do was alter payments that were going into the pocket of Order members – stopping funds that would hinder their movement – but you ran off before you even knew what was happening.’
He glared at her. She felt the rage bubbling up inside her. Was he going to say it? She could see it in his eyes, see the hate flaring. She wanted him to say it.
‘You were lying to me,’ she said. ‘You were never going to tell me any of this, never going to trust me with any information. You and Anna were determined to keep it all to yourselves.’ As her voice rose, she willed him to say what he really thought. ‘You didn’t trust me!’
‘And we were right. If you hadn’t run, she wouldn’t be dead!’
El felt as though the air had not only been cut off again but squeezed from her lungs. It was true. Yes, El knew Louisa had been hell bent on finding a way to capture and condemn both of them, but perhaps if she’d listened to her mum’s instructions, they’d have eluded capture. If it wasn’t for her, her mum might still be alive. She stared at Dan. Her heart sank. She’d let him go on blaming her. After all that’s why Alex had left, and that’s why Dan was shouting at her. It was all her fault. Her mum was dead because of her.
She turned and let her senses journey ahead. She limped past the few framed prints and paintings in the hall to the bathroom, following the water moving in the pipes. Throwing the door shut, she turned the lock. The marble bath gleamed in the spotlights that she flicked on. Her heart drummed and blood rushed to her temples. The sensation reminded her of sitting up on the stone platform too quickly, when
her mum had been led into the vaulted room.
The memory was so vivid it seemed to conjure her mum’s sweet, floral perfume. As she leaned back against the bathroom door, she felt a soft, silky material brush her cheek. A dressing gown: cool and soothing on her skin. As if afraid to crease it, she touched its folds with care. It’s where the fragrance was coming from. It was her mum’s. A sharp pain seared through her chest.
She took the robe down, switched the light off and climbed into the bathtub. The silk was refreshing on her face. She hugged it to her chest, pretending that she was burying her head into her mum’s neck again, the scent rising from her warm skin.
El ignored Dan’s knock. She told herself that she’d only stay a little longer. Her tears soaked into the material. She told herself that she would get up soon. She’d leave and go to the Olympia. She didn’t know where it was, but she’d wander around all of London if she had to. She wouldn’t let her grandma down like she had her mum. Besides, Alex and Dan hated her. The aroma caressed her tired limbs and stilled her mind. And she fell into sleep’s arms as if they were those of her mother.
- Chapter Sixteen -
Foundling
El awoke stiff and disoriented. She had slept the night in the bathtub. She splashed her face with water and swilled some toothpaste about her mouth. Eyeing herself in the mirror, she decided it would be best to sneak out. Dan loathed her presence and she didn’t want to still be here when Alex returned either, sure that he’d look at her with the same hatred. She’d scour the city centre for the London Olympia. It was unlikely to be signposted, but when she ran into an arete she could ask for directions.
She’d leave a note: a warning about Luke spying on Alex and the Opposition at the lab, in case they weren’t aware of it. She needed to explain too that Louisa had been watching her and her family for the last few weeks. Not to reassign the blame from herself, but to present the dangers that were encircling them all.
