Homeroom over, Ryan took his leave as Mr. Li came in. Great, a double period of physics, my favourite.
The day crawled along at a snail’s pace, punctuated by awkward moments where I was subject to bouts of intense negative vibes rolling off Dylan and Jazza’s groups. Mehmet, on the other hand, pestered me all day, trying to strike up conversation, making wisecracks and wearing out his welcome.
When the final bell rang, I quickly shoved my books and pencil case into my backpack. Then I followed Jazza, Stefan, and Carver out of the building, through the schoolyard, and into the streets outside.
I gave them a good head start, walking as close as I could to the buildings along the sidewalk, hoping they wouldn’t see me trailing them should they glance my way. As I followed them, I kept hearing the faintest footfalls some distance behind me. Quick looks over my shoulder revealed nothing, although I could have sworn I was being followed as well. Assuming it must be Ryan, I put the thought out of my mind.
We passed two streets lined with bleak ten-story apartment blocks that cast long shadows across the road, sending a chill into my spirit. Bedding and articles of clothing – an assortment of greys, browns, blues and black – hung over balustrades.
We soon came upon the abandoned apartment block, set apart from the others by a rusty chain-link fence. I saw what Stefan meant about the place giving him the creeps. The doors on the ground level were boarded up, windowpanes were taped over, and everything was dark and lifeless. No clothes or bedding hung from the patio railings, and the upper levels were scorched black by the fire.
Careful to keep my distance, I watched Jazza and his two offsiders make their way towards the back of the building. They slipped through a large rent in the cyclone wire fence and mounted the apartments’ rubbish-strewn front steps. Entering the darkened foyer, they disappeared from view.
Treading as softly as I could, I crept down the length of the fence and passed through the same gap. Once through I navigated piles of broken wooden crates, masonry, and other refuse, before making my way quietly up the steps and into the foyer.
I knew straight away I’d been played.
Chapter Twelve
Stefan stood at the far end of the foyer, arms crossed, watching me, the whites of his eyes gleaming in the gloom. I stood there, eyes wide with fear, wondering if I should make a run for it. Hearing two people to my right put paid to the idea immediately.
Looking in that direction, my heart missed a beat when I saw Jazza and Carver standing just inside the darkened elevator; its doors jammed wide open.
The Italian boy came out first, his eyes drilling holes through me with malicious intent. He was followed by the Anglo-Saxon lad, face set in a mocking smile. Stefan came closer too. Recalling that I heard faint footsteps following me on the way here, I glanced back the way I came, wondering if this could be a situation where I needed Ryan’s help. There was no one there, though. I was on my own.
I backed towards the steps, my thoughts focused on the hole in the fence, my only escape route. Jazza saw my intent, however, and darted quickly behind me, knocking off my sports cap with a flick of his hand.
Under the shadow of the cap’s brim, I could pass for my brother, but without it, there was no way anyone could mistake me for Brandon. Not only was our hairline different, but there was also the large purple birthmark above my left eyebrow. The birthmark – the distinguishing feature that everyone always relied on during our infant years to tell us apart. Surprisingly, the three boys weren’t the slightest bit surprised at this revelation. They knew who I was. How, I had no idea. My impulse to flee doubled. This was really bad.
“Chelsea Thomas.” Jazza spat the words out, as though they were toxic.
“Filthy, stinking canary,” Stefan said as he ran his eyes up and down my body.
“Who told you who I am?” I tried to speak with authority. I was three years older than them for starters and a Specialist, but my voice wavered, giving the wrong impression entirely.
“Thought you could just waltz into school, spy on us, and go singing to the Custodians, did you?” Jazza snarled.
“Who told you who I am?”
“That’s for us to know,” Stefan said.
A dreadful silence descended after that, filled with the threat of menace. I was overwhelmed with a sense of hopelessness and dread as I realised what I’d gotten myself into. I still had nightmares about the debt collectors beating the daylights out of me. I couldn’t face going through something like that again. Still, these were just kids, right. Schoolboys. Maybe they’d just threaten me?
“You even so much as touch me and you’ll regret it,” I said, wishing I was more advanced in taekwondo. I was fairly certain Madison or Suyin could fight their way out of this predicament. Me, I was a yellow belt.
“Oooh, we’re so scared.” Stefan threw up his hands in mock terror.
“Just grab her,” Jazza said.
Stefan and Carver made to grab my arms, but as soon as they came closer, I went onto the offensive, drawing upon the self-defence moves I had learned so far. Twisting to the right, I redirected Stefan’s arm past me, grabbed his extended hand, and twisted it backwards towards him. He was stronger than I expected, but I was much stronger than I looked too, thanks to my genetic modifications and hours spent exercising.
I used the wristlock to spin him around and send him careening head first in Carver, following this up with a knee into his exposed stomach. He collapsed onto the refuse-strewn steps when I released his wrist, clawing at the concrete as he struggled to draw a breath.
I was about to leap over him and dart for the fence, but Jazza intercepted me before I had taken two steps. He seized my shoulders with strong, calloused hands, fingers digging into my muscles like knives. I grabbed his wrists and tried to break his grip, but I couldn’t budge his hands at all.
The air was suddenly expelled from my lungs thanks to Carver driving a fist into my side. Jazza followed this with a punch in the stomach, further winding me. I began to double over but before I could, Carver grabbed me from behind and put me into a headlock.
Weakened by the blows and the effort to draw a breath, my desperate attempts to break free failed completely.
Jazza took hold of my chin and forced me to meet his eyes. “People like you make me sick, Chelsea Thomas.”
I tried to glare back at him although I was terrified. What were they going to do to me? Beat me up? Kill me?
“What did they offer you, traitor? A get-out-of-jail-free card if you’d sing for them?”
“It wasn’t like that,” I managed to gasp.
“I can’t believe you made a stand against the authorities by instigating the breakout, only to sell out because you couldn’t face life in prison!”
“I told, you, it wasn’t–”
“Listen up, loser. You’re going to tell your Custodian masters you got beat up, but don’t know who did it. Then you’ll refuse to come back to school because of it. The Custodian’s will threaten you and try to blackmail you to come back anyway. But you’ll refuse, because if you don’t, we’ll tell all the students who you really are. And you know what’ll happen then, don’t you? Dylan’s not the only kid at school who’s got a score to settle with you over friends and relatives who died in that stupid breakout. How long before they work out where you and your folks live?” Jazza said.
Disturbed by images passing through my mind of Dylan and other, more vicious individuals, attacking my parents in an attempt to get at me, and seeing no way to escape except to give the appearance of compliance, I slumped my shoulders in defeat and nodded.
“You’d better do as I say, because I never want to see you again.” Taking a step back, he turned to Stefan, who hovered nearby. “Drive the message home.”
The heavily built Greek lad smiled wickedly as he slammed a fist into my ribs. “You made me look bad before.”
He smacked a fist into the other side of my body. “I don’t like it when people make me look bad.”<
br />
I grunted as waves of excruciating pain exploded through my ribcage.
“Where’d you learn that kung-fu twaddle from anyway?” he asked.
I averted my eyes, desperately trying to find an answer other than the truth.
Stefan hit me in the ribs again, causing me to cry out in pain and dark spots to dance in front of my eyes.
“I asked you a question, sheila!” He grabbed my chin and forced me to meet his eyes. I couldn’t believe how much hatred and animosity radiated from him. He might be a schoolboy, but he was another criminal in the making.
“Saw my brother do it,” I gasped through clenched teeth.
“Talking about your brother, where is he?” Jazza asked, stepping in from the side.
“Don’t know. Disappeared a few weeks before the breakout.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Don’t believe me, then. Why do you even care?”
“I don’t.”
“We finished yet? My arms are getting tired,” Carver piped up.
“Almost. Remember what I told you, Thomas.” Jazza buried a fist in my stomach, winding me again. “Now we’re finished,” he said.
“‘Bout time,” Carver said, dropping me like a dead weight. I collapsed and curled into a ball, writhing about on the grime-covered concrete as I tried to inhale.
My tormentors took their leave, making their way to the hole in the fence.
“Why’d you two go so easy on her? Thought you said you were gonna beat the daylights out of her,” Carver said as they went.
“She’s a sheila,” Jazza replied.
“So?”
“If word got out that we totalled a sheila, not gonna do much for our movement’s image, is it now?” They continued walking at a leisurely pace back the way they came, cracking jokes and laughing, as though taking a walk in the park.
As I lay there panting in the dust, arms wrapped around throbbing ribs, I considered what Jazza told me, about his insistence that I tell the Custodians – Mr. Cho – that I wouldn’t being go back to school. I imagined myself crawling back to the lab and telling Mr. Cho what happened. That thought sent shudders throughout my system as I considered how he might react to such news. Failing my first mission on its second day could well see me back in the slammer, with no way to get out this time.
What really disturbed me was that the boys knew I was Chelsea and not Brandon. And it wasn’t just Jazza’s group that knew, but Dylan’s lot as well. It explained Dylan’s sudden intense loathing for me, considering he blamed me – not my brother – for instigating the breakout that saw his cousin killed. But how on earth did they find out? And who else knew? Everyone in my class?
Did I slip up somehow? I was the spitting image of my brother in these baggy clothes and cap, so my appearance can’t have given me away. Did they speak with someone after school yesterday who knew my brother was dead and put two and two together? That made no sense, though. Ryan said his death had been kept confidential. Maybe they checked the prison records and found no evidence of Brandon having been incarcerated during the past two years. But surely only senior Custodians would have access to names of inmates in the prison factories, and I couldn’t see them releasing such information to a bunch of schoolboys.
Even more troubling was that Jazza’s group knew about my superior hearing. The set me up tonight, whispering about coming here in school, knowing I’d overhear them. If I didn’t know better, I would have sworn I had been sold out, and there were only a few people who could have done that. And that was Mr. Cho, the girls in the lab, and Ryan. The latter possibility I rejected as soon as it entered my mind. The former, well, that made no sense at all.
Knowing there was no way to find the answer, I rolled onto my hands and knees and slowly regained my feet, every movement sending waves of pain searing through my bruised ribs and stomach.
* * *
Using the key given to Specialists when on assignment outside North End, I unlocked the secret, magnetically sealed door that separated the exclusive district from Newhome Proper. The thick concrete door was hidden in a copse of trees growing on both sides of the wall.
It was early evening now, but all the same, I made sure no one was in the vicinity to observe me slipping from the trees that lead to the windowless rear of a multi-story office block.
I hadn’t gone far when I heard steps behind me. Recalling the furtive sounds that dogged my steps when I trailed Jazza and his thugs after school, I whirled around, thinking I had discovered my shadow. Instead, I found myself face to face with a slim, nondescript dark-skinned man wearing janitor’s overalls and sports cap. A man who didn’t seem the slightest bit surprised to find me here.
Chapter Thirteen
The man, who was several inches shorter than me, lifted his head and locked his dark brown eyes with mine. I gasped in surprise when I recognised the deadpan expression. This was no man, but one of my sisters in disguise.
“Bhagya? Bhagya Singhe?” Seemed I wasn’t the only one out on assignment today.
“You’re hurt, Chelsea.” She spoke without a hint of emotion.
“I’m fine.”
She just looked at me.
I sighed. “Okay, yes, I picked up a few bruises.”
“Let’s get back to the lab and get them looked at.”
“I...I want to keep this low-profile, please.” I avoided her gaze.
She didn’t reply at first, just kept staring at me until I began to fidget beneath her disturbingly lifeless expression. I wondered what had happened to make her like this. None of the other girls seemed so emotionally scarred.
“Fine,” she said at last. “Let’s get back and I’ll fix you up.”
“Thanks.”
We set off to the lab, walking in a silence so heavy that it weighed me down like a backpack filled with rocks.
“Were you following me today?” I asked when I couldn’t take it any longer.
“Why would I do that?”
“Someone was,” I replied.
“I spent the day in the Custodian Barracks, doing janitorial duties,” she said. Spying on them, in other words.
“Oh.”
She glanced at me. “You want to tell me what happened?”
I didn’t want to, but decided it wouldn’t hurt to unload. So I told her everything. I didn’t share any of my conclusions, though, I wanted to see if she would reach the same ones I did.
“Someone ratted you out,” she said when I finished.
“That’s what I thought.”
“Any idea who?”
“No.”
“You’re going to tell Mr. Cho, right? You can’t go back to school. Not after that.”
I glanced at her, expecting to see compassion, but as usual, there was no sign of emotion. “I’ll tell him, but not yet. I want to get to the bottom of this first. I want to find out who sold me out.”
“What will you do, then?”
“I’ll go back to school tomorrow.”
“And risk those boys telling everyone who you are?”
“I’ll find a way to stop them,” I said with far more confidence than I felt.
“How?”
“Haven’t figured that out yet.”
“Be careful, Chelsea. Those three aren’t your typical dissatisfied teenagers. The group they’re part of sounds more like a terrorist organisation than a resistance movement,” Bhagya said.
“I know. Mr. Cho wants me to find out who the Patriot is. But don’t worry, I’ll be careful.” I gave her a heartfelt smile, realising that although she never showed emotion, it didn’t mean her heart was cold. She obviously cared for me.
* * *
I strode across the school grounds the next day somewhat worse for the wear, though in nowhere near as much pain as I was in yesterday. True to her word, Bhagya treated the bruises on the quiet when we got back to the lab, spreading on a healing salve that was surprisingly soothing. Another application this morning took the edge off the pain.
/> I was afraid to meet anyone’s eyes in case Jazza had already blown the whistle on me. Seemed he hadn’t, though, for none of the boys paid me the slightest bit of attention.
My heart was in my throat by the time I reached homeroom, but I steeled myself and entered with a sense of trepidation. I paid no heed to the fleeting looks of pure loathing sent my way by Dylan and Isaac, and instead sought out Jazza and his cronies. As soon as I spotted them gathered around my old desk, feelings of helplessness, indignation and anger flowed through me. For a moment it felt like I was back in the abandoned apartment block, their fists raining down upon me.
It took all my willpower to keep walking towards them, rather than bolt and hide under some rock somewhere.
Oblivious to the trauma they visited upon me, they were laughing raucously and slapping each other on the back. Their frivolity vanished the moment they caught sight of me, replaced by looks of utter disbelief.
Jazza stepped closer, and with eyes fixed on mine, cleared his throat. “Hey plebs, I’ve got an announcement!” he bellowed.
Every boy in the room gave him their attention.
Knowing I had to act quickly, I closed the gap between us and whispered in his ear. “The Patriot.”
That stopped him in his tracks, doubt written all over his face.
“Well, what is it?” Dylan demanded from where he stood at the front of the room.
Jazza frowned at me, and bellowed, “Stefan’s gay!”
The class descended into a riot as the boys hooted and guffawed, clapping their hands.
“I knew it!” Mehmet said, bringing more laughs.
“I am not!” the Greek lad sputtered indignantly, glancing between his friend and me, thoroughly confused.
Forager - the Complete Six Book Series (A Post Apocalyptic/Dystopian Series) Page 108