Cristan
Derek appears just as I’m dozing off from my spot on the floor. He looks frazzled. Not something I’m sure I understand.
I don’t think the argument I made was that convincing. Not for someone who has devoted his life to obedience and compliance.
But something must have sunk in, because he sits again and goes to a great deal of trouble to not look at me. “I have received a commendation.”
I rub at the stubble that has started to grow. “Congratulations. You can stop babysitting me then.”
He meets my eye then. “This is humour? You are making a joke? At my expense?”
I snort and can’t help but smile. “Yeah. Well, anything to lighten the mood.”
Derek leans back in his chair and frowns. “You aren’t angry anymore. What changed?”
The question surprises me. I stare at my knuckles, now healed, and don’t have to think too hard on why I’m not angry.
“Whether I live or die. Things can’t stay the same,” I say.
Derek stares at me the same way he stared at Solar. “I don’t understand your optimism. Or your change of behaviour. You have had no modifying medication.”
My laugh sounds brittle as I shrug. “Yeah, well. What can I say? The drugs didn’t work for me.”
Derek leans forwards, an eager expression on his drawn face like he thinks I have the answer. “Then what will work?”
I pull a face at him. “Work for what?”
“Stopping your Irrelevant behaviour,” he says.
I stretch out my legs and wince at how stiff they are. I’m not used to sitting in the same position for long periods of time. But it won’t be long now. They’ll come and take me to the extraction room where they’ll remove all the tech they put inside me. Since a lot is interwoven in some pretty essential bits of me, it’s unlikely I’ll survive.
My lips twitch into a smile. “Nothing will work. I like being Irrelevant.”
“You can’t mean that?”
He sounds so mortified that I sigh as I attempt to stretch the kinks out of my back, difficult to do when your hands are bound together.
He doesn’t say anything so I take what might be my last opportunity to talk to him. “I know you don’t get it. But if I had to do it all over, I wouldn’t change a bloody thing. Because when I ran from here, I found something I never thought I could have.
I found a father who put himself on the line for me, and a mother who made me a fecking cake on my birthday to celebrate my existence not my Relevance. So, you tell me who’s got it all so wrong?”
I sniff and stare at my tattoos and try not to think about Drew, about Jackie and every last nice thing they did for me and for Jed.
I’m still picturing Jed’s face, trying to find peace that he’s safe, that Drew will take him back to the Zoo like we planned, when Derek’s time slide illuminates and he sits a little straighter. “The Prime Minister wishes to see you before extraction.”
I choke out a laugh. “Right. Because I won’t be alive afterwards”
Derek’s jaw works. “You don’t know that for sure.”
I’m still trying to work out why he’s arguing with me when the door swishes open and our father, the Prime Minister of Gallathia stands hesitantly in the doorway.
Unlike the last time I saw him, he’s accompanied by four guards as though he’s anticipating a violent response again.
Derek is on his feet before our father steps through the threshold. “The prisoner is secure and compliant, sir.”
Our father eyes me before he waves a hand at his personal guards. “Leave us.”
The men back away quickly leaving the three of us all eyeballing each other. My father takes the seat Derek vacated and looks at me. “The girl does work as a control then?”
Derek nods but it’s obvious my father is pleased by the sight of me in restraints behaving myself.
A trickle of heat starts to permeate the cold, giving me warning that I’m slowly simmering away, and that the anger isn’t quite as far away as I thought.
My heart has started thudding against my ribs, fists curling and hairs standing on end as he peers across the room at me.
Flashes of memories I’ve tried to suppress start to bubble away. Snatches of conversations, thoughts of how much I hate him, and the woman I’m told is my mother.
I want to break him in half for what he’s done. I want to smash him to pieces for what he allowed to happen. He’s responsible for keeping the system going. He’s the one who voted to continue Irrelevance prevention when the other council members weren’t sure.
All the evidence I collected. All the information about how he voted in public then made deals in secret rooms choke my thoughts until black starts to edge in around my vision.
My breathing starts to increase and Derek shifts so he’s standing in front of our father. “Prime Minister. You need to leave. Now.”
Our father’s eyes widen, shock lacing his lined face. “You forget your place. Besides, he won’t dare touch me if the girl is still here,” he spits at Derek.
But Derek isn’t listening, his eyes are me as I prepare to spring to my feet. “Get out. Something is wrong. I think you’re the trigger for his behaviour. I can’t guarantee your safety if you stay.”
My father rubs at his neck, where faint bruises still linger from where I nearly choked the life out of him.
He swallows, nods weakly at Derek, the golden son, and makes it out the door before I get a chance to lunge for him.
The door swishes closed and Derek blocks the entrance. He raises his hands. “Think of the Irrelevant girl downstairs.”
My nostrils flare as I struggle to quash the rage that’s going to explode. Derek slides away from me, keeping his hands up like he’s trying to calm me down. “Her name is Mallory,” I growl at him.
He nods. “Mallory. Think of Mallory. Her future is dependent on your continued cooperation and compliance.”
I close my eyes for a split second and concentrate on breathing in and out as slowly as possible.
Derek shifts his posture, so his weight is evenly balanced like he’s preparing to have to fight back should I attack him.
I can’t explain it, but thinking of Mallory, thinking of her safe back in the Zoo, watching the colours dart over the dark sky, with Jed, Jackie and Drew, starts to diffuse the desire to pummel my father into the spotless floor.
I lean against the wall and try to swipe my sweaty forehead against my shoulder. Derek is still tense but he copies my action and leans against the wall. “Cristan. Are you calm?”
I raise my eyebrows. What kind of a question is that? “I need to see Mallory before I leave and I need to make sure her transfer and pardon have been signed off.”
Derek nods slowly then scratches his hairless chin. “As per our arrangement. I’ll take her back myself.”
He folds his hands behind his back and exhales slowly like he’s trying to bring himself under control too. “When you killed Doctor Jones, I thought there was no reasoning behind your violence. But there is isn’t there?’
I scowl in his direction and take a shuddering breath, still feeling the results of the molten anger that refuses to settle completely. “What are you talking about?”
Derek stares at the door. “If you are as out of control as your records say, then why haven’t you killed me too? You’ve had ample opportunity.”
I don’t have an answer for him, so I’m relieved when his time slide calls his attention away from me again.
He sucks in a breath of air and gets to his feet. He frowns in my direction. “The Prime Minister wishes to speak with me.”
I stay where I am as Derek moves to exit. He’s almost at the door when his time slide illuminates again.
He pauses, his shoulders tighten under his uniform as he turns to look at me. “There has been a disturbance in the Viral Research Ward.”
Fear floods my body, priming me to act as I stumble towards him. “Is Mallory okay?”
Derek’s face contorts like he’s thinking of the right answer, making the panic swell even higher. He drops his voice, like he’s either ashamed or worried about being overheard. “She has escaped.”
Of all the worst-case scenarios I just mentally concocted, hearing Mallory is awake and well enough to break out, wasn’t one of them.
“How?” I ask.
Derek doesn’t reply. Just swipes his wrist and steps out into the hallway, calling to one of his men as he hurried towards the Prime Minister’s suite.
A smile tugs my lips upwards as I think of Mallory outsmarting the staff and making a break for it. How she managed it, when yesterday she was near death, and just hanging on by a thread, I can only imagine is down to her stubborn streak and sheer strength of determination.
None of which anyone could have seen coming from a tiny, pale, frightened girl who was terrified of my dog.
“Irrelevant, my arse,” I mutter.
Mallory
The guard’s fingers hold me fast as he starts to drag me in the opposite direction and towards the administration desk. I try to wrench away from him, but even injured as he plainly is, I can’t break from his grip.
His voice is barely above a whisper when all the fight leaves me. “If you want to help him, you’ll need to use the service stairs.”
He pulls me closer to a door with a staircase symbol lasered on it. “No one uses this except for low-level Relevants who clean at nights. Cristan’s up two flights.”
My shock is washed away when the burly guard releases me, opens the door and steps inside. Out of sheer curiosity my feet propel my body forwards.
He closes the door behind me. A faint smile marks his lined face. “You won’t have long before they lock the entire hospital down.”
The guard starts up the stairs and sends a look over his shoulder. “I was there when he killed the doctor. He left me with this souvenir.”
My legs lift of their own accord as I grab the handrail and start upwards. Feet moving faster than I thought possible in shoes that threaten to undo my speed.
At the top of the landing, I pause to catch my breath and manage to ask him the most important question. “Why are you helping if he hurt you?”
He smiles and carries on. “He hurt me because I was stupid enough to get in his way. For now, you just need to know I’m not the only one who’s prepared to watch this government’s secrets be exposed.”
I’m so shocked it takes me a few ragged breaths to start moving again. I don’t know how he knows Cristan or anything about him other than he seems genuine. For all I know he could be leading me into even worse danger. But given that he could have turned me in immediately and didn’t, I have to accept him at his word.
At the door at the top, he stops and waits until I find my breath again. “You look the part and you can fake the attitude, but that won’t be enough to get us past the security block on this ward. The Prime Minister is visiting, so the floor’s security has increased.”
“Then how do we get in?”
He smiles and looks at his time slide. “We wait for the signal.”
I have no time to ask what kind of signal and from whom when a violent sound like the roar of an engine explodes all around me.
The ground shakes beneath us, solar lighting flickering as dust falls from the venting above us.
I slap my hands over my ears in case the sound comes again, but the guard is grabbing for my arm and tugging me through the open door.
A siren starts to blare competing with the screams coming from inside the ward.
The guard tugs me through the falling debris and I have to run to keep up with his frantic pace. Nurses and doctors are spilling out of offices and rooms, red lights are flashing all around us, noise crushes in as we run through dazed Relevants stumbling about.
I try to suck in a breath only to choke on the cloying smoke shrouding everything. Coughs wrack my body as I fight to keep up with the nameless guard.
Angry shouts come from the right. We come to a halt and the guard pulls out a weapon from his sling and shouts over the noise. “He’s at the end of the hall. If Jackson has done his job, there will be little resistance in that direction.”
With a roar so fierce I shrink back in disbelief, he rushes towards the Government men, firing wildly.
I spin on my heel, nearly tripping as my overlarge shoes cause me to stumble but run as fast as I can to the doorway, still not sure how Jackson Stone can be involved in all this.
I’m sucking in the smoky air, and half choking and trying to breathe when I see Kit in the hallway, her arm is around a girl, and she’s trying to drag her along, and shouting as pale faces, I recognise as ghosts spill from the door she’s stepped out of. “Get to the stairs,” she yells at them.
They rush past, almost knocking into me in their haste to exit. I run towards Kit, and skid to a halt as she raises her gun in my direction as a young girl, with wide eyes, and bloodless lips buckles in her grip. “Back off!”
I shake my head and cough. “It’s me. Mallory.”
Her mouth slackens, her eyes search my clothing. “How did you—”
More shouts come from down the hall and she looks over my shoulder. “Go see if you can get Cristan out,” she yells at me.
I pick up my feet, pumping my legs and arms as hard as I can and try to get to Cristan before someone else does.
Smoke clouds my vision as I run half blinded to the door, coughing and staggering as I stumble over my shoes and my shoulder slams into the door.
Hot pain burns but I step back and swipe my wrist in front of the panel. Heart thundering in my chest, pain tearing through my skull and shoulder, I cough as smoke curls closer to me.
The lights keep flashing, sirens loud but the door stays locked. With growing panic, I try again, but nothing happens.
I start to scream Cristan’s name, smoke and tears stinging my eyes as I pound on the door as hard as I can.
My legs fold as I double over, coughing and spluttering as the smoke gets thicker. I place my hands over my ears and press myself into the door.
I’m sobbing so violently my shoulders are shaking violently as I look down the hallway into chaos.
But no one is coming. No one can help me. No one can get Cristan out.
We’re going to die here.
Hands grab me roughly, hauling me up so abruptly that I scream and flail at the man who holds me captive.
Recognition floods through me at the similar jawline and muscled build. He’s covered in filth, his uniform soiled, a thin trickle of blood is running down his forehead.
I try to get out his grasp, but he shakes his head and stifles a cough as he raises his wrist to the panel.
I sob even harder when, through the smoke and the noise, Cristan appears.