by Kate Blair
“Don’t ask me. Ask your father. His party supported it.”
CHAPTER TEN
PENTHOUSE FLAT, BANKSIDE, LONDON
SIXTEEN DAYS LEFT
THAT NIGHT I CAN’T sleep. The front door opens and closes at around midnight, but Dad’s footsteps go straight to his room. Alone, at least. He probably doesn’t want to wake me. And I don’t want to talk to him right now. All my feelings about him and Alison and what I learned today mash up in my head until I’m rigid with anger. I want to ask him about the National Law Party’s policy. I checked online and Jackie was right. The current government proposed the law on punishing children who run away from the state, and Dad’s party supported it. Only Sebastian Conway’s party voted against. How would Dad justify it?
I bet he’d say the law was for Tig’s own good. To discourage her from running away.
But the law didn’t stop her running away. And now she’ll have a criminal record. No one will adopt her. And that’s the least of her worries.
It’s my fault. I put her in that awful home. If she’s walking the streets, it’s due to me. I should have left her with Galen.
But perhaps she’s safe, hidden somewhere else. I doubt Galen would tell me, but if I see him, I’ll know. As soon as I see his face I’ll know if he’s as worried as I am, and perhaps I can help find her, help fix this. I’ll be prepared, this time. I know what I’m going into. Dad and Alison wouldn’t want me going back into the Barbican, but what do I care what they think?
I promised Jack. And, more importantly, I made this mess, and I have to put it right.
As soon as Dad leaves the next day, I’m out the door. I shop smarter this time; go to second hand stores, buy an old hooded jacket with pockets in the inside lining, a stained T-shirt and jeans riddled with holes.
It’s a sunny day, for a change, the light glaring down on the glass and steel of the city. I enter the Barbican by Aldersgate, the way I came out last time. Pulling my hood over my head so it half-hides my face, I slouch over, jam my hands into my jean pockets where I’ve hidden my mace, and try a “don’t mess with me” walk. I feel silly, but there are fewer eyes on me now.
I make a beeline for Shakespeare Tower, avoiding the market. There are no hands held out for change as I walk by people huddled in their cardboard homes. I hold my breath as I pass. Most just glance at me with tired eyes. I peer out at the strange city. The arched windows at the top of the buildings, like raised eyebrows peering down on me. The confusion of walkways and ledges. The whole place looks like a filthy nightmare of an M.C. Escher drawing.
The entrance to Shakespeare Tower is in worse shape this time. Pieces of glass have fallen away from the shattered spider’s web, leaving gaps in the window. They clink and grind underfoot as I step into the shadow of the building.
The bright sunshine makes it hard to see into the foyer. I stop inside the door to let my eyes adjust. There’s the lift doors, the stairwell. Muttered voices come from the corner. Several shadows detach from the darkness and head for me. They’re on me before I have time to react.
One shoves me, and I stumble back.
My hand flails for something to catch my weight against, and lands on the broken glass of the door. The edge cuts deeply into my palm, but the pain doesn’t come yet. I struggle to regain my balance.
Time slows down. There are three of them, just shapes in the dark space. I judge where each of them is. Okay. I had self-defense classes. Dad insisted on them, after the attack. But why can’t I remember any of that right now? My heart hammers in my chest. I duck to the right so there’s one in front of me, his two friends behind him. They can’t all get at me at once.
My eyes are adjusting. The first guy is about eighteen, hair shaved into a blue Mohawk.
“Your kind doesn’t belong here. Get out,” he says. But he’s blocking the doorway.
Without thinking, I punch his face as hard as I can with my good hand. So hard I swear at the pain in my knuckles. But he barely moves. Just rubs at a slight red mark on his jaw.
I expected him to fall down. That’s what they do in the movies — fall down when they’re punched. I guess I’m not punching hard enough. But that was all my strength. What do I do now?
“What’s the matter, princess? Break a nail?”
Mace. I have mace. I reach into my jacket pocket, fumble for the can, and pull it out, upside down. The guy with the Mohawk spots it. Takes a step back. I almost drop it from my shaking hands as I twist it upright, find the button on the top with my finger.
The guy on the left is nearer now, a barbed-wire tattoo crawling up his neck and over part of his face. I swing around to him and spray the mace in his eyes. He stumbles back, falls to the ground, screaming curse words and clawing at his face.
The third guy looks at his two friends. I hold the mace can toward him, trembling, and he backs away, raising his arms.
“Come on, let’s get out of here,” he says, and reaches for the guy on the ground. He pulls him to his feet and drags him out through the door. The boy with the blue Mohawk looks like he’s going to come at me again, but I raise the mace and he backs off, joins the others.
That was easier than I thought. I guess Dad is right. He always says criminals are cowards.
Once they’re gone I look at my hand, at the blood pooling on the floor. I swear, loudly. The pain is kicking in, no longer kept at bay by the adrenaline. It’s a bad cut, deep and bleeding freely. Holding my palm to stem the flow, I try to think. There’s no emergency department at St. Barts, it’s just for Transfers. I don’t know where the nearest one is. And even if I find an ER, how am I going to explain what I’m wearing and what’s happened without the press getting wind of it?
I need a doctor, though. I glance at the stairs. Galen. I don’t know for sure that he’s taken on his father’s role, or if he’s willing to help, but I don’t have any other options. I head for the stairs.
I barely notice the smell. I’m concentrating on climbing. I don’t want to touch the walls, or the handrails, in case I get my cut infected.
I stop halfway up to cry. But I pull myself together quickly. This is no place to fall apart.
I’m dizzy when I reach the 29th floor, and I’m not sure if it’s from the shock or the climb. I glance around the triangular space, looking for 29e, the one Tig popped her head out of. I stumble to it, and bang on it, hard, with my good hand. There’s no peephole, I note with relief. Galen wouldn’t open it if he saw it was me. I wait, then I bang again. What if he isn’t in? Where would I go then? What if the thugs are back, waiting for me downstairs?
But it does open, on a chain. Green eyes peek through the gap. Galen recognizes my face, a flash of anger in his glare, but then his eyes travel down and he takes in the blood, all over my jeans and jacket, and still dripping from my hand.
The door slams for a second, but there’s the sound of the chain being released. The door swings fully open, and Galen is standing there. I’m so pleased to see him, I smile. That surprises him more than my appearance.
His gaze falls to my bleeding hand. He curses under his breath. “What happened?”
“I got attacked … in the lobby,” I pant.
His eyes widen. “The lads in the lobby did this? Bloody hell. You’d better come in. Quickly.”
He steps out of the way, and I stumble into the flat.
“Follow me.”
He leads me to the bathroom, all white with seventies fittings; so out of date they’d probably be fashionable again, if they weren’t so shabby. Ancient grime darkens the grout. I hesitate before putting my hands near that sink, but the porcelain seems clean enough. Galen runs the cold tap, steers my hand under it. I flinch, and he studies my face. “Is that the only injury?”
I nod, not trusting myself to speak.
Galen grabs a fraying flannel from the side, and once he’s rinsed the cut, he presses it to my palm, hard. I breathe in through my teeth.
“Hold that here. Come on,” he says, and he le
ads me down the corridor, along the cream carpet. I try not to drip on it, but it’s already stained and the flannel is quickly soaking through. We step into a small room with big windows. There’s a kitchen in one corner and Galen heads for that, pointing at an old brown sofa.
“Sit,” he says.
I do, pressing the flannel hard against the cut to try to stop the bleeding. I concentrate on breathing through my teeth to try to block out the hot pain radiating from my palm. The cloth is saturated, so I press the cleanest bit of the sleeve of my jacket against it, letting that soak up the blood. I hope whoever owned this thing before me wasn’t sentenced to any blood diseases.
I watch Galen in the kitchen. He reaches for a first-aid kit, turns on the tap, and fills a bowl with water. He carries them both over to the sofa and kneels in front of me.
“Give me your hand,” he says. I take away the sleeve, and he pulls my palm toward him. He cleans the cut again with the water, then pinches it open and peers in it. I close my eyes and breathe deeply through the pain. Fresh blood oozes out as he examines it.
His face scrunches up. “It’s deep, but clean. You’re lucky it missed the tendons. What cut you? Was it a knife?”
I shake my head. “Glass. They pushed me and I fell against the broken window.”
He exhales, seems relieved. “That makes sense. How’d you get past them?” He opens the first-aid kit and picks a tube of antiseptic.
“I punched someone in the face,” I say, trying to sound calm. “Got another one with mace.”
Galen pauses, in the middle of squeezing a blob of cream onto his finger. “I’d never have guessed you’d outfight a bunch of Barbican lads.”
“Well, I wouldn’t say ‘outfight’ …”
“This is going to hurt,” he says.
I try not to flinch, but he’s right. As he smears the ointment pain stabs through my hand. My body goes rigid but I don’t make a sound.
“You need stitches. You’d better get to a hospital.”
I shake my head. “Are you any good at them?”
Galen raises an eyebrow. “Yes, but I don’t have any local anaesthetic.”
I can’t go to a hospital, can’t explain where I’ve been. “I can handle it.”
Galen stands, walks over the kitchen again. He opens a sugar jar and pours the contents into a bowl. A box flows out with the sugar. He brings it over and I read the box quickly — “Surgical Sutures — single use — sterile.” I wonder where he got those from. He looks at me, as if he anticipates the question.
“They’re veterinary, but it’ll be fine.” He pulls a package out of the box and rips it open. There’s a curved needle and some thread. He picks a pair of tweezers from the first-aid kit.
I breathe in sharply through my nose as the needle pierces the skin, and focus on counting under my breath as the pain shoots through my palm. Two stitches, three, four, five. But he’s surprisingly quick. He ties the last one off, reaches for some small scissors, and trims the thread. He pulls a white roll of dressing from the box, and starts unwinding it.
My hand throbs, but it’s bearable.
He gives me an appraising look as he wraps the dressing around my palm. “You’ll need to remove the stitches in ten days, but you can do that yourself. You’re braver than I thought.”
“I’ve been shot in the head before. This is nothing.”
“Of course.” He finishes wrapping the bandage. “How much blood do you think you lost? This time, I mean.”
“I won’t need a transfusion, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
He still crouches in front of me, holding my hand. I don’t pull it away. His head is tilted to one side, and he’s got that expression again, like I’m an alien, or some other creature he can’t figure out.
“Why didn’t you go to a hospital?”
“Didn’t know where the nearest one was. Didn’t want to explain this,” I gesture at my blood-stained clothes.
“So your father doesn’t know you’re here?”
“No, but I’ve left notes in case I don’t come back.” It’s a lie, but I don’t want him to think I could disappear and no one would come looking for me.
He drops my hand, and I feel an odd disappointment.
“I just patched you up, and now you think I’m going to hurt you?”
I open my mouth to deny it, but his gaze stops my tongue. “Sorry,” I say instead. “I … feel vulnerable here.”
He stands up, paces to a bookcase. “So why did you come?”
“I’m looking for Tig. I need to know she’s okay.”
He turns around and I notice the mostly empty shelves behind him. I guess he’s not able to afford books. “She’s not here. The police searched already.”
“I thought you’d know where she was … Kieron.”
The effect is immediate. His eyes widen. He tries to compensate, shrugs, presses his lips together. “I’m Galen.”
“Galen was an ancient doctor. It’s a pseudonym, like Hippocrates, isn’t it? Your dad taught you, and you took on his role.”
He holds himself rigidly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I stand up, step toward him. “She’s your sister. I just want to know that she’s okay.”
“So you can call child services on her again?”
I pause. I can hear a TV play in the next flat. The walls must be thin in this building.
“I didn’t know about the homes,” I say quietly.
“There’s a lot you don’t know. You should go.”
The attack has taken the fight out of me. But he’s clearly not worried about Tig. She’s not here, but he must know where she is.
I back toward the hall. There’s paper and a pen on a table by the door. I scrawl down my address and phone number.
“If you need anything, contact me.”
Galen gets ahead of me, opens the front door. “Goodbye.”
“I want to help,” I say.
“You’ve helped enough. She’ll have a criminal record now.”
I hang my head, and step out of the flat.
Galen closes the door in my face.
I’m still for a moment, in the dark hallway, staring at the number on the door. 29e. Well, this was a waste of time. But she must be safe. Isn’t that all I wanted to know?
I turn around and am about to head downstairs when I notice something.
I’m not even sure what it is, for a moment. I spin around on the spot. Three broken lifts on three sides of the triangular building. Five apartment doors. I heard the sound of a television, coming from behind me, when I was in Galen’s flat, coming from behind this patch of wall. I can still hear it if I concentrate.
But there’s no apartment door here.
What did Galen tell me, back when he thought I was Tanya? That there was a Jessica downstairs, in flat 8f. There’s no flat f on this floor.
Two of the three walls have a lift and two doors each. On the third wall, there’s a lift, 29e, and a blank wall where the sixth door should be. I walk over to it, knock gently on the wall. There’s a slightly hollow sound, as if it’s been plastered over. I think about the layout of Galen’s flat, then I turn back to his door, and I knock again.
He opens it instantly. “What now?”
I push past him, stride back into the sitting room. I turn around, orientating myself to where I was standing out in the hallway, and listening for the television.
“What?” Galen says.
The bookcase. Of course. That’s why he was standing in front of it when he was talking. I walk over.
“What’re you doing?” His voice is rising, but he’s still trying to seem cool.
There’s no hinge, no secret mechanism, but most of the shelves are empty, making the bookcase light. I bend down and lift the corner, start to swing it away from the wall using my good hand.
“Stop that!” Galen says, but it’s too late. Light comes through from the other side. I pivot it further, exposing the ragged hole k
nocked in the wall. There’s a handle fixed onto the back of the bookcase, so it can be pulled into place from the other side. I step back, and look at him in triumph. He shakes his head, and I bend down and climb through the gap, and into the hidden flat.
What strikes me first is the green. There are plants everywhere. Light streams through floor-to-ceiling windows at one side of the space. There are no walls, it’s one huge room filled with plants, and a space cleared for a bed on the floor with a few toys next to it. There’s the TV I heard, piles of books, and another old sofa. But the greenery makes it looks like a camp in the middle of a forest.
And sitting on the sofa is Tig.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
BARBICAN, LONDON
FIFTEEN DAYS LEFT
GALEN STEPS INTO THE flat behind me, and Tig tilts her head to one side. She’s got some threads in her lap.
“Kir?” she says.
Galen goes over, sits on the sofa and puts his arm around her. “It’s okay, Tig.” He turns to me, and there’s fear in his eyes. “Right? You’ve seen the homes. You won’t call child services again, right?”
I find myself shaking my head, dumbfounded. The space is beautiful, an oasis. I take it all in: the sunlight, the plants, the warm earthy smell of it all. Who would have believed the Barbican could hold such a paradise?
“I … why would I take her away from this?” I gesture at the room. “It’s wonderful.” Galen smiles, with pride and relief.
“It was Dad’s. He made this all, when he was well.” He looks down.
“When he was well?”
“He was sentenced to measles just over a year ago. It’s not usually serious, but he had complications — viral encephalitis — it messed up his brain. He almost died, and he wasn’t the same after that. We took care of him, and he took care of the plants. It calmed him.”
I inhale deeply. It wasn’t me, then. He was like that before I hit him with the chair.
I’ve heard about severe complications of disease. It’s rare, but Sebastian Conway says it’s one of the reasons why we should vaccinate people, and give criminals medicine for the diseases they’re sentenced to, instead of leaving them to suffer through it.
