All the childhood stories about Wilderness bogeymen come back to me. Even worse than that, I remember the cannibal boys that I encountered in the Wilderness behind the Academy.

Kay’s face is pale. The Wilderness is where they send the worst-behaved Specials. She’s got her own horror stories to remember. I hate seeing her worried.

‘We must have crawled right under the fence,’ I say.

Kay isn’t listening. ‘I didn’t know the pipe came to the Wilderness,’ she says. ‘Ty didn’t tell me.’ She stares out at the barren landscape. ‘If you’re not good, the Enforcers make you go here,’ she says. ‘They say to you about the Wilderness to scare you. They tell you things.’ She sweeps her gaze across the horizon. ‘This is the place they send all the bad ones, isn’t it? Not just the Academy Specials. It’s all-danger here.’

She doesn’t have to tell me. The hairs on the back of my neck are already standing up. I try to focus my mind. ‘Are you sure that Ty said this is where the anti-Leadership people are?’

‘Yes, big sure. Do you think we should go back?’

I’m not sure there is a way back. The pipe is useless now that it’s flooded. Even when the water drains away, there is no way I am getting back in there. And I’ve tried the fence that surrounds the Wilderness before; it’s electrified. Besides, sometimes guards patrol along its length and I’m pretty sure if they saw anyone coming in from the Wilderness they would shoot first and ask questions later.

We’re stuck here.

‘What exactly did Ty say about where we could find the people who would help us?’

‘He didn’t say big lots. He said there is the pipe. The pipe is an escape for the Leader-haters – he called them . . . the Resistance.’

‘Really?’ Resistance sounds a lot less scary than terrorists.

‘Yes. He said he can talk to his friend and ask if the Resistance want us to come, then we can go in the pipe because the pipe is a way to get to their . . . hecwaters?’

‘Headquarters. But where exactly?’ I look around at the desolate stretch of muddy fields and ruins in front of us. ‘There’s nothing here.’

‘No, it’s not here,’ Kay agrees. ‘But I’m thinking it’s near. I asked Ty what place it’s in and he said Anuldsity.’ She says it with a flourish. As if this clears matters up. ‘Do you know where that place is?’ she asks, as if I’m some kind of Wilderness expert.

‘I’ve got no idea. Did he say anything else?’

‘No.’ She frowns in concentration. ‘Yes! He said Anuldsity is in the south-east! Does that mean Wilderness?’

‘South-east is a direction.’

‘What?’

‘It’s a way to go.’ I rub my hand over my face. I wanted to make things better so badly, but it’s all gone horribly wrong. I don’t even know where we’re going to get our next meal from. ‘What should we do?’ I ask Kay. ‘Should we try to find the Resistance?’ I don’t tell her that I’m still a little afraid of them.

Kay eyes the thinning clouds. ‘I think maybe it’s better to get on a way to go than to stay here not getting any place.’ She touches my hand. ‘Ty said they would help us and I think it’s true.’

‘Why? We don’t really know anything about Ty. He was just a friend of Janna’s.’

‘When he talks about The Leader he has the look like you. I can see that he wants to stop him.’

And that’s how we decide to search for the Resistance. I put my trust in Kay’s ability to read someone’s feelings in their face.

The rain has completely stopped so we step outside the hut and take a look around.

We’re in the middle of what must have once been countryside. Roads snake through hills, but instead of fresh green, the fields are bare grey mud. To the right a large building has been reduced to a pile of bricks.

‘Which way is south-east?’ Kay asks.

I look up at the sky; a pale sun has broken through the clouds. ‘I can work it out,’ I say. ‘I just need something . . .’ I turn back into the hut and poke about until I find a strip of metal that holds a bundle of wires flat against the wall. I wrench it from its pins.

‘What are you doing?’ Kay asks.

I go back outside and stick the long thin piece of metal in the ground. The sun casts a weak shadow. Using my finger I mark the end of the shadow in the dirt.

‘Now we have to wait a while,’ I say. ‘The sun moves from east to west, so when the shadow moves we’ll be able to work out which way is south-east.’

While we’re waiting I teach Kay about the points of the compass, but neither of us are completely focused. It feels stupid to be standing still. I expect a pack of vicious Wilderness people to attack at any second. I’m constantly scanning the land around us.

I probably don’t wait long enough, but when the shadow has moved some way round, I make a second mark, then draw a line between the two dents in the earth.

‘Okay,’ I say. ‘The first mark is east and the second is west, so if we stand with east on our right, we’re facing north, which means . . .’ I turn one hundred and thirty-five degrees to my right. ‘This is south-east.’

‘That’s good,’ Kay says.

‘It’s not horribly accurate,’ I admit. ‘But we can always do it more precisely later when we’ve found a better stick.’

We set off in the direction I pointed. Fortunately, one of the few marks on the landscape, something low and black, is just to the left of my calculated trajectory. As long as we keep that on our left, we should be fine.

I hope.

The muddy ground sucks at our boots as we walk. There isn’t much to see. What little vegetation there is doesn’t add much colour; the grass is yellow, the trees are grey and withered. After a while we end up on a road that’s leading in the right direction.

I hope we don’t have to go far, but deep down I’ve already assumed that a group of rebels wouldn’t choose to live near the boundary fence. I prepare myself for a long walk.