Hunger Games, Noughts and Crosses 1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

**Ash**

**"Everyone's a kid that no-one cares about."**

They came in the middle of the night. They always do.

Ash was asleep, a loose kind of sleep, kicking against the sheets and the mosquito net hanging above his bed. The heat woke him from time to time, but he soon drifted off again. He was dreaming of a girl's face. She was smiling at him, waving at him. She walked towards him slowly. He was frozen to the spot, waving back at her. Her round, dark brown eyes seemed to seek him out; she quickened her pace, and took big bouncing strides towards him, a little unintentional wobble in her hips that made his lips quiver. She looked self-assured, calm and fresh as a spring day. But when he looked closer he could see there was something else. Something sad about the way her shoulders drooped. Something guarded in the way her jaw was clenched. Ash could almost see her back teeth grinding.

She came closer and closer. He felt his blood start to pump harder and faster. His guts twisted and knotted. He held out his arms, ready to greet her. But she slid past, her shoulder brushing callously against his, without even glancing at him. She ran straight into the arms of another boy. She punched the other boy's arm playfully, her long arching eyebrows rising in pleasure at a private joke shared. Her gentle round face suddenly lost its sadness and lit up with a grin, the corners of her mouth curling slightly downwards even as she smiled. She looked Ash's way for just a second. But she looked right through him. He turned and sighed.

There was a smell caught up in the dream, the smell of fried potatoes. It could have been part of the dream, or just a lingering smell left over from tea.

It's better to eat very little and eat well. That's what his father had always said. He didn't believe in powdered foods. So every week they bought a sack of potatoes or a sack of rice and spent the leftovers on fresh herbs. Ash sometimes idly fingered the hollows between his ribs and wondered if perhaps they wouldn't be better off with powdered food after all.

You could forage, at the outskirts of the city where patches of green still lined the canals, despite the painfully low water levels. There was food out there for those who knew what they were looking for. The plants had adapted much faster than the people to the rapidly rising temperatures. Chives and wild garlic grew huge and chunky and almost towered over Ash. Fat brambles and grinning sunflowers were good sources of food too.

You couldn't get caught. That was the catch.

Ash groaned and cradled his rumbling stomach. The girl was still there, standing with her back to him. He walked up to her and reached out to tap her on the shoulder. But his hand got stuck, froze midair.

Some nights this was where the dream ended. Every so often, when she turned to look at him, her expression changed. Lifted. A smile of recognition crossed her face as she stepped up to him, as she took his hand in hers, like they had always known each other. Then he would trail a finger down the side of her face, gently slide his hand round the back of her neck and into her hair. And then they would press into one another, their lips meeting at the last minute.

But it didn't end that way this time.

As she turned away from him, her body shook and fractured. Everything around her started to shake. She cried out for him as the ground split beneath her feet and swallowed her whole. Ash reached out for her, but it was too late. His ears were filled with a screaming noise. The walls around him started to crack and crumble. A cloud of dust billowed up, stinging his eyes.

And then the real world started to scream too. The picture Ash had put up in his mind was ripped away as a crash woke him, a crash so loud it shook the house.

For a second, nothing happened. Lying bolt upright in his bed, Ash felt the blood drain from his face. For the first time he understood where the expression came from. It felt like all the life was simply pouring out of him, his stomach a swirling, gurgling drain.

He could almost taste the stillness of the second between the crash and the scream. A baby's scream

He leapt out of bed, tearing the sheets and net away from him. His older brother was already up, sat bolt upright on the bed between Ash and the door. They looked at one another. They knew the baby's scream. And they knew it hadn't come from another house, another street. They knew that scream belonged to their nephew downstairs.

Voices snaked their way through the house, high, low, gruff, shrill, a mixture. The baby's wail could be heard loud and clear above them all. A sudden animal shriek tore through.

_Annie_, Ash thought, his heart pounding. He gripped the edge of the bed, frozen with terror. He could feel the wood splintering under the pressure of his grip. But Sonny seemed to know just what to do.

"Get under the bed brother," he whispered, standing and pulling on his baggy linen trousers.

Ash nodded mutely. _But what about Jay_, he thought. _What about Annie. What about the baby. _He opened his mouth to speak but no sound came out.

"Do it now," Sonny said as he pulled the door back just a little. Ash saw the light from the hall fall softly on his brother's face, creating a brief flicker of dancing shadow. He crouched down, stubby nails still digging into the bed frame, feeling the pressure in his shoulder joints as his arms bent back. He became aware of his heart again, pounding and thrashing against his ribs like an angry prisoner. His feet seemed planted to the floor.

_Get under the bed_, he repeated to himself.

Then another huge crash, closer to him this time. It took Ash a moment to realise what had happened, to connect the noise with the twitching figure of his brother, thrown back from the door and smashed against the back wall. He replayed it in his mind later, the sudden jump, the almighty crack of electricity. But now there was no time to let it sink in, just a sudden scoop, giant thumbs digging in to his armpits, the gasping pain, a blow to the chest, one to the jaw. The howling, that started far away, then got closer and closer until Ash realized that it came from his body. He had never heard anything like it.

In a blur his mother's face swam before him, baby Jaz's screams getting further and further away. Then the sudden shock of bare feet on dry, crisp grass. The shockingly warm hit of the night air. A huge spotlight. The whopping thud thud thud of a helicopter overhead.

And then nothing.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

**Rose**

**"It's not over yet."**

Rose wriggled her toes against the soft cotton sheets. A sliver of sun was peeking through the gap in the curtains, leaving one warm ray across her ankles. She yawned and stretched out her legs before turning away from the window and pulling the sheets over her head.

"Time to get up, sleepyhead," she heard a low, gentle voice say from just outside the door.

"Five minutes, ok?" Rose croaked in reply.

"I'll pop the kettle on, shall I love?" the voice continued. It was her mother, Grace.

Rose groaned and reached out to grab her phone from the bedside table. No messages. That was strange. Unexpected. Usually by now, Jem had been in touch.

She sat up for a moment and scanned the screen. The signal looked to be strong. But that might not mean anything. Maybe there had been a problem with messages getting through. There had to be a logical explanation anyway. Phones weren't safe, of course. But they were a way of saying hello, of letting someone know you were ok. That you were still here.

Putting the phone down, Rose sighed and reluctantly threw back the sheets. She hated sleeping under sheets, the way they tangled and wrapped around her legs in the night. It made her feel trapped. She hadn't slept under a duvet since she was a little girl, but she remembered the snug cosiness of it, the safeness. Of course, it was always far too hot for that now.

Grace appeared at the door carrying two giant, steaming mugs of coffee. The scent wafted in and made Rose smile.

"Room for one more?" her mother asked with her usual crooked grin.

Rose shuffled over towards the far side of the bed. It was a single bed, but Grace perched just on the edge, and passed Rose her coffee. She took it in both hands, letting the heat of the mug burn her palms just a little, then brought it to her lips and slurped loudly. The powdered milk hung around the rim of the mug in clumps, but real coffee was a rare treat, acquired (Rose had no idea how) by their neighbour Caroline.

Rose's room was spare and light, catching the morning sun here and there. The cream paint peeled slightly in the corners. Above the bed was one of Grace's old pieces, a giant tapestry of turquoise and silver threads. It was the sea. It was the only piece they had left.

This was an old morning ritual, sharing a brew in bed before starting the day, although when Rose was smaller they could both lie in bed together, cradled in each other's arms and sharing one mug.

Now Grace seemed almost uneasy. She fidgeted like a nervous fluttering bird, taking little sips of her coffee and letting her eyes dart around the room. Rose observed her, envious of her smooth clear skin and enormous brown eyes. Her mother was beautiful. But every so often, when she though no-one was looking, a flicker of worry would cross her face, causing her to purse her lips ever so slightly, and her face took on an expression of solving a deep, complex problem. It was easy to imagine her face lit up by the faint glow of a computer, her fingers moving furiously over the keys. But those days were over, and only the worry remained. Rose knew that Grace's teeth would be gritted together when this happened. Sometimes going to the bathroom or kitchen late at night, she would hear Grace grinding her teeth in her sleep, through the open door of her room.

"Time to get ready," she smiled, getting up and taking Rose's mug. Rose watched as her mother shuffled out of the room.

Rose checked her phone again and sighed. She rubbed her eyes and slowly eased out of bed. Her room was at one end of the flat, and opened out into a corridor. From this corridor, all parts of the flat could be reached. Still sleepy, she stumbled past the lounge on her right, and her mother's room on her left. The lounge opened out into the kitchen behind, which shared a wall and its plumbing with the bathroom. The flat was at the top of a tall building that overlooked the city. It had once been a hotel, when times were good and people had wanted to come here.

The bathroom door was directly opposite Rose's at the other end of the corridor. She went in and clambered into the bathtub. The shower was an old-fashioned hose type thing that had to be attached to the taps. Rose crouched down and held it above her head. A slow dribble of water ran down her back.

After a few minutes of being dribbled on, Rose stepped out with a towel around her. She shook her head to loosen the drips from her hair, which was short and clung together in tight curls. She skipped back down the corridor and got dressed quickly. Still no messages on her phone. What was going on?

"Rose," a voice called out, Caroline's this time. "Come get yourself some breakfast chick."

Caroline lived next door, but for as long as Rose could remember, the three of them had eaten breakfast together in the morning and tea together at night. Sometimes she found Grace and Caroline asleep on the sofa with the television still on. Then it was up to her to make sure they both woke up and Caroline returned home. People might get ideas. Even in unregistered housing there were always people who talked. And then the Wardens would surely find out. And the fewer questions were asked, the better, as far as Rose was concerned.

"Just a second," Rose shouted back. She pulled back the curtains and looked out over the city. She could see all the sights from here, the cathedral, the shopping centre, the prison. Her building even overlooked a river that split the city into two cities. The river had once been deep and green, but now, especially at this time of year, all Rose could see was a brown trickle of sludge. She grabbed her binoculars from the top of her wardrobe and gazed downstream as far as she could. A few brown leaves caught her eye as they danced along on the breeze. Then, out of habit, she started scanning the windows of the tall steel and glass buildings opposite, all shops. The binoculars had been her father's. But she hadn't seen him since she was twelve years old. Five years ago.

There wasn't much to see this morning. The sun cast deep rays of orange and pink which shimmered on the windows. She watched people for a while, scuttling over the bridge and going about their lives. A thin stream of people seemed to be crossing the green and entering the train station. It would get busier soon enough. Rose could just about make out the clock tower that leaned over the station entrance. Quarter to seven. She still had a little time.

She let the binoculars hang around her neck a moment, then took one last look. She scanned the shop windows one last time. Everyone going about their business. It made her feel safe. She watched a man pinning a shirt to a mannequin, a young girl running past the window at street level, her backpack jogging along with her. Rose lifted her head and started surveying the highest level of windows. And then she saw.

A man looking back at her. With a pair of binoculars.

She gasped and took a step back.

"Rose?" Caroline shouted again. Her voice sounded faraway, like she was under water.

Rose shrank back behind the curtains. Hands shaking, she pulled the curtains shut. Her stomach contracted like there was something inside biting hard. She stood for a minute, feeling her breath push against her lungs and her heart jumping about on a spring.

Once her breathing had started to calm down, she let the curtains fall so the tiny sliver reappeared. Trembling, she picked up her binoculars and clutched them tightly. She held them so tight that she could feel the pressure on her eyes. She scanned around, quickly, darting back and forth. The man had gone.

"Rose?"

"Yep," she called back, feeling her voice crack a little. She kept looking. She knew she hadn't imagined it. But the man was nowhere to be seen.

Pursing her lips, Rose put the binoculars back on the wardrobe. She put her hands on her face and rubbed. It was an old gesture. Someone told her when she was small that it was possible to rub off her freckles. She rubbed until it started to hurt. It must have been a mistake, right? No-one would ever think to spy on her. That was the point.

Rose pulled her phone out of her trouser pockets. Still no messages.

Best not to think about it just yet. Get some food, get some air, and you'll figure it out, she told herself. After all, wasn't she known for being cool in a crisis?

She headed to the kitchen. Caroline was sat at the counter gulping down some kind of purple juice and scraping burnt bits off her toast. Grace sat opposite, quietly sipping at another coffee and taking tiny bites of a potato waffle.

"Can't afford to waste your mum's bread, can I?" she said with a grin on seeing Rose. Rose nodded back, trying to look normal. She put her hands behind her back and gripped her wrists, twisting anxiously.

"Anyway, I've got to go, but I've left everything out for you, ready," Caroline said in her light, calm tone. She had a shock of straight red hair pulled back from her face, a generous figure and paler than pale skin, the complete opposite of Grace, who sat watching her with her wavy black curls dancing around her collarbones. She presented her cheek for Caroline to kiss as she made her way out through the lounge to the front door.

"Byeee!" she almost sang as she pulled the door to behind her.

"Mum?"asked Rose once she was sure it was just the two of them.

"Yes love?" Grace offered absentmindedly as she wandered towards the sofa.

Rose put a waffle in the toaster and leaned against the counter. Taking a deep breath she asked, "Have you noticed anything strange happening in town? Or around the building?"

Grace's eyes grew wide. She hated questions like this and Rose knew it. But there was a chance she might have noticed something, and Rose couldn't afford to miss that chance.

"No," she finally replied in a whisper.

"No?"

"No," Grace repeated, seemingly to herself this time. She sank into the sofa and felt around for the remote control. The television flickered into life.

"...and one suspect is being held," the presenter onscreen reported cheerfully. "Now for the weather."

"Never mind Mum. It's nothing. I'm just being silly, really."

The waffle popped up out of the toaster and landed on the counter. Rose tore off some kitchen roll to wrap it in and headed for the door.

She stopped in her tracks halfway there. What if the man from the window had worked out which flat she was in? What if he were waiting outside? She stopped and thought it through. Caroline would have made a noise, given some kind of warning, if anyone strange had been lurking about. She would have called. Rose checked her phone again. Still nothing. Well, no news is good news, right? Her stomach started to churn.

"I'm not feeling great actually," she said. "Can I come with you today?"

Grace smiled. "I've got a lot on today," she told Rose in her usual soft tone. "You look alright to me. Why don't you try going in? If you still feel bad you can always come home."

"I could stay here?" Rose offered.

"You'll get bored chick. I know what you're like. What will you do with yourself all day."

"I could save the world."

Grace gave her crooked grin. "That would be nice. But how about going to college first?"

Rose thought about it. She couldn't tell Grace what was wrong. And at the same time, she would only scare herself stupid cooped up inside all day.

"Fine," she said. "Hope everything goes well today."

She bent down to kiss her mother on the cheek, then headed for the door.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

**Ash**

"Do you know where you are?"

_Do you know where you are?_

"Do you know why you're here?"

_Do you know why you're here?_

"Are you ready to talk?"

_Are you ready to talk?_

_Well, are you?_

The voices sounded far away, dreamlike. They came from some far corner of this bright room, strip lights hot and penetrating, walls a shiny flawless white. Ash lifted his head, slowly, feeling like his face would burst. He could barely see and was overwhelmed with heat and heaviness. The room was dry; the air stale and musty. It felt like no whisper of fresh air had ever entered. His eyes felt swollen. It was a strange sensation; he felt as though his face had been filled with gel packs, some kind of poison that would split and kill him instantly if he so much as twitched. The slightest brush of his hair against his skin felt like a razor blade. It fell uneasily all over his face, as usual. There was an unsettling tension, like a stench in the room, and Ash suddenly realised the voices were asking him questions. He peeled apart his velcro lips but couldn't muster up more than a croak.

"We'll come back at a time that's more convenient for you, shall we?" one of the voices growled in his ear. He heard them move out, two or three of them, the unbearable screech of metal chairs dragging across the floor as they stood. The door slammed, making him wince, and the lights went out. Ash tried to look around but the room had been plunged into an unbreakable darkness. He tried to make sense of his body but without his sight he could only feel his head, hoping the rest was still there. He became very aware of the different parts of his head, the little pointy bones behind his ears which ached now like they did anytime he was stressed, his forehead throbbing, throat like sandpaper, tongue seeming to fill his entire mouth, threatening to choke him. Ash's eyeballs, too, felt like they were expanding and would pop against his cheekbones any second now.

"Sonny," he mumbled, barely moving his lips. "Where are we, Sonny? Where's the baby?"

He thought he saw the girl from his dream, but she was only drifting in and out of his mind, swaying and shimmering. She smiled and walked straight past him. She smiled and took him in her arms.

People, the voices, came and went, flooding the room with light and just as cruelly snatching it away. Their questions were always the same- "Do you realise who we are?", "Do you know why you are here?" Slowly, Ash began to recover physical sensations, though it could have been minutes, hours, days. He could feel a clammy, scratchy feeling around his lap and legs, a damp rash, and realised in shame that he had wet himself. He seemed glued to a cold, metal chair. It was only then, as he moved to rearrange his clothes and ease the damp itching sensation in his lap, that he felt his hands were tied behind the chair. In utter disbelief he tried to prise them apart, though the thin, pinching wire binding them began to pierce his skin.

Suddenly he came rushing back to life. Thrashing about, he screamed. The voices stormed into the room but as they moved to restrain him he swerved and swung at them with the jagged chair legs, the chair still attached to his body. He managed to batter a couple of them in this way, sending them crashing to the floor, sliding across the room. But there were too many this time, coming from all directions, a stealth attack. One sharp blow to the back of Ash's neck was enough to see him slump in his chair, wounded and exhausted.

And then there was nothing.

Until in fuzzy spots of light, zooming into his eyes and boring into the back of his skull, then suddenly panning out and pulling him out of himself, he started to hear someone talking to him.

_Where did that come from? _Said the voice. _That's not like you._

And some small part of Ash realised that his mother was not in the room with him, that she couldn't be talking to him, that it was impossible. But another part of him heard her as loud and clear as if she were standing over the chair trimming his hair. Her hair hung long with loose curls. It tickled his face as she leant over him, but tickled in a good way, unlike the scratchy sensation of the tiny cut hairs falling down the back of his shirt.

He wasn't trapped at all. He was just in the kitchen, having his hair cut. It had all been a bad dream. He could hear his mother humming to herself as she pulled at the hair that was getting in his eyes and snipped it in small chopping motions that sounded to him like the sound of crunching on a carrot. Every so often she would stop to examine him, and would then examine herself as well, finding a hanging thread on her baggy old cardigan. She would snip that too, and then she would place the offending strand of wool in a jar on the windowsill. The jar was full of wriggling threads of purple and orange and silver and plain old brown, ready to retwist and reweave back into the cardigan when the holes grew too severe.

She kept the hair too. That was the really odd thing, the thing that made his father wrinkle his nose. Ever since Ash could remember, the two of them had the same conversation every time one of the boys had a haircut from his mother.

_Why are you keeping this old hair?_

_It's useful. What do you think keeps you warm on a winter night?_

_I was hoping wool and cotton._

_Well mainly those things. But how do you think we've kept hold of the same bedding year after year, without it ever thinning out or losing its shape? Hmmm? Do you think these things happen by magic?_

_No of course not. But I'm certain there are less disgusting methods we could try._

That's not like you, the voice told Ash again, to lash out like that. How far will that get you? React with intelligence, not with instinct. Stop. Stop and think. What's your next move? What's the move after that? And after that?

Ash didn't know what the next move was.

What had they been doing with their hair? All these years without their mother. Who had been replenishing the bedding? Ash struggled to answer this, felt somehow that this memory was just beyond his reach.

He felt his eyes start to ache with the pressure of the big throbbing splodges of red that seemed to be bursting all over the blank white wall in front of him. He drifted in and out of darkness. At times he couldn't tell if he was awake or asleep, whether the flickering in his eyes came from the outside or the inside. He felt his head roll backwards and forwards, like it was held in place by nothing more than old strands of wool.

When he came to, he was in the darkness once more. He tried to stand but soon realised that his chair had been secured to the floor, bolted perhaps, and would not allow him to so much as shuffle. His chest suddenly tightened. He called out for his mother, but there was no reply, no reassuring voice, not even inside his head. Where was he? He knew he had been in his own bed. He had been sleeping, dreaming, tossing and turning in the heat of the night air. He had been thinking of the girl from school, the one he always thought about. And then what?

Into his mind came his brother's face, telling him to hide, to get out. The sound of the baby screaming. The stomping intrusion of heavy boots on the stairs.

Ash was smothered in panic, could barely breathe because of it. He tried to calm himself down, to ease his confusion and as he did so, he found his voice. Although there was no-one in the room, he tested it out, speaking clearly.

"I don't remember anything," he said, "I don't know why I'm here." People invaded the room once more, the lights came on and Ash repeated himself over and over, rocking back and forth, eyes glazed over.

"I don't know, I don't remember, I don't know."

The same fierce growls as before filled his ears.

They roared like huge thrusting pinions.

Something told him to stay calm. This is only the beginning. This – the lights, the noise – is all just to disorient you, to try and break you down. What's their next move? The shock and awe approach isn't working. You're showing them that you're no good to them like this.

So what's next?

When the roaring stopped, Ash found he was in total darkness. And silence too. His ears were ringing. His eyes stung and watered. He tried to imagine what his battered face would look like, but in every image he could conjure up of himself, his eyes were dripping blood.

A low hum filled the room, followed by what felt like a breeze. Ash couldn't place it, couldn't reconcile this light tripping breeze with the blank white walls and the screaming and the flickering strip lights.

There was someone speaking to him. Outside his head this time. A woman.

He strained to hear what she was saying. But the humming noise grew louder and louder and louder until it made his body rattle against the hard metal chair. His jaw hung open. The breeze became a violent swirling wind that forced his eyes closed and pulled his clothes tight around his neck and waist.

The humming built and built until it felt like the only noise anyone had ever heard, until it shook even the bolts beneath his feet.

It came to a sudden end.

But there was a sound that stayed behind, a sound like water hitting a bright blue flame.

It was the only sound left in the room. The woman had stopped speaking.

Ash realised that the sound was coming from him.

And then he was gone again.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

**Rose**

"Who's missing?" Rose asked, digging her nails into her palms and gritting her teeth. "Who is it?" she demanded, her voice growing louder.

This day had gone from bad to worse, she thought. First the man in the window, then the woman on the street... something was going on, something even worse than usual, and it made Rose feel uneasy.

She had been on her way to college, shuffling along the dirty, dusty streets, looking carefully at the glass windows of the shops and offices, making sure no-one was following her. She watched the shimmering reflections of people rippling through, but no sign of the suited man in the window. Though there were plenty of people making their way to work every morning, not that many young people lived in the city centre. Most of the people who went to her school lived in registered communities on the other side of town. In her situation, the positives outweighed the negatives, Rose had always thought, but it made her easy to spot at these routine times of day. Inwardly Rose cursed, knowing that she had made herself easy to track. She had just thought they would never identify her, would never match up her two identities. But if they had, well, then she was in real trouble. She took a deep breath, then quickened her pace as fast as she dared.

Halfway through, on her way out of the city centre at the other end, she had heard the wailing. It seemed to ring out from high above her, like the old peal of church bells that no longer sounded. Rose looked around but no-one else seemed to have noticed. They shuffled along, heads down, a low murmur of phone conversations the only sound they made. Rose followed the sound of cries and shrieks down an empty side street. She ducked into a doorway and looked up cautiously. There was a small hollow inside a giant steel post to the right side of the doorway, a safe spot on this clean deserted street. The building behind her was all steel and blood-red brick, with boarded up windows, but further along there was only glass. It was impossible in this light to see inside any of the buildings. The sky mirrored itself, a great streak of rust pinging off at all angles. Maybe that was the point, Rose thought, not for the first time. The wailing started up again, a long cry of anguish that sent shivers down her spine. And then the unmistakeable sound of fists pounding against glass.

As Rose peeked out from her doorway, she finally saw her. The woman, many times reflected and magnified on the sleek office walls, screamed and smashed her forearms against a glass door. She rocked and sobbed, so that her head looked like it was held on by a thread. Her pale stringy hair came down over her shoulders and shook with fluttering rage as she hurled herself against the glass. Rose could just make out a silvery-suited figure, standing solid and impassive on the other side of the door, centimetres away from the screaming woman.

"Where is he?" she howled. "What have you done with him?"

Rose winced. She knew this was going to end badly, that the best thing she could do would be to creep away and rejoin the busy main walkway. But she found herself rooted to the spot, unable and unwilling to move. Someone should see, should witness, record what would inevitably happen next.

Sure enough, Rose saw the man behind the glass lift a finger to his ear. It was done in a small, subtle way, as if he were adjusting his hair. His lips seemed to barely move as he spoke into his earpiece. Rose instinctively shrunk back. She could at least make a run for it. Though she knew she wouldn't get far if it came to that. Rose bit down hard on her lip. She could get as far as the walkway. She could make a scene, force others to see, if it came to it.

The woman carried on wailing and thrashing, even as she sunk to her knees. She smashed her fists into the concrete and pulled at her hair. Rose made herself look and took in every detail. The woman's bloodied knuckles and tight fists, like meaty stumps hanging off the end of her long freckled arms. The orange and green scarves wrapped around her forehead, and her long strings of blonde hair now hanging limply around her neck. The simple white cotton dress that came down to the ankles, torn around the hems. No shoes, just socks, grey and grubby. On her right wrist there was a bracelet, a thin band glinting in the sun.

Suddenly a crack appeared in the building. The man with the earpiece appeared, sliding out from behind the glass with a surprising grace for someone of his size. He scooped the woman up in his arms with a swift movement that almost looked gentle, tender even. She froze in his arms. Rose could see her face reflected in the glass, her mouth held agape yet silent, as if someone had pressed pause. The woman dug her nails into the Warden's shoulders and continued staring blankly ahead. Rose stared at her mirror image, mentally recording her expression of fear and fury. But then her face changed, eyes widening, suddenly alert. _She can see me!_ Rose realised, staring back intently. The woman held her gaze in the glass for what seemed like a lifetime. Then, with a full, deliberate movement, she bit the Warden's ear. He let out a yelp, but didn't drop her, just held her even tighter. She kicked and struggled until he couldn't help but let her go. She turned towards Rose and started to run. _Don't let him see me_, Rose begged silently, her fists clenching, shoulders arcing back and tensing. The Warden launched himself after her, pulling at her ankles. She hit the concrete with a dull thud, her arms outstretched. He threw himself on top of her, grunting and growling. Rose watched in horror as he let his weight cause the most pain, pinning her down. She still stretched out towards Rose, her face taut with the effort of looking up.

In the corner of her eye, Rose saw it. A little glinting band of gold, rolling along the smooth concrete towards her. The woman's bracelet. It dropped with an almost imperceptible clink. Rose bit her cheek. She looked at the woman, forcing herself to meet her eyes, and gave a small nod. She slunk back as far as she could against the rough brick, safe in her abandoned hollow. She closed her eyes and pressed her palms against her ears to block out the blunt crack of the woman's skull smashing into the ground.

The clean up was quick and efficient. Rose settled in her hollow, feeling the rusted edges of the steel scratch at her arms while they did it. She could hear the swish of their suits, the long slurp of the hose. Rose watched silently as a trickle of water ran past her, a tear rolling down her cheek. From her hiding place, Rose could just see the main walkway. Everyone she saw walked in profile, trying to look purposeful. Not a single person looked down the street towards her. Rose held her breath as two figures strolled past her, muttering. One man, one woman, both in clean creamy linen. The grey suited man from behind the glass was nowhere to be seen.

Rose waited. She held herself tight in her arms and leant her head back as far as she could. She looked out and planned her exact movements, step by step. When at last it seemed safe, she took a deep breath in and out and made her move. She squeezed out of the gap in the steel, and with strong purposeful strides, she made her way towards the bracelet. She leant as if to tuck in her shoelace, and picked up the thin gold band the woman had left behind. Without missing a beat, she pulled it onto her wrist and kept walking. Tucked close against the red bricks, in the shadows, head down, Rose walked as fast as she dared. Her knees began to tremble as she got closer and closer to the main walkway. There were fewer people now, latecomers and stragglers, and still no-one glanced her way. She slipped onto the path, and darted in and out of other people's shadows.

Rose looked at her phone. No messages. But it was still only half eight. The only safe thing to do now was go to college. She couldn't let someone track her back to Grace. If she could make it to class on time, she could blend in, alongside the thousands of others, and they might just lose her.

By the time she arrived, breathless and pouring with sweat, only a few other students were still dawdling outside on the grass. She rushed past them, through the revolving doors and darted into the nearest stairwell. The main plaza was too open, too empty. She ran up the stairs and through the into the caretaker's storeroom. Tripping over mops and buckets, she clattered her way through the long, dark, echoing cave of a room as quickly as she could to, then crept out through the back exit down into a narrow corridor. Rose knew this building like the back of her hand. It made days like today easier. Through a thin strip of mesh along the left side of the corridor, Rose could see students filing into her room. She took out her keys and felt her way along the left wall until she felt the cold sharp metal of a lock under her fingers. This brought her out at the other end of the building, opposite the entrance. She peeked over the first floor balcony back along the plaza. No-one. Just a few of the other students, sharing a laugh and shoving one another. Rose let out a little sigh of relief, and strolled as casually as she could through the door of her classroom.

Once everyone was seated, along long rows of tables and benches, books open, ready to learn how to be a productive citizen, Rose did a mental head count. It was part of her morning routine. There had already been four students go missing this year. It was only October.

As she neared the end of her count, her friend Jem caught her eye and smiled. Rose smiled back weakly. Jem raised his eyebrows as if to ask what the matter was. Rose gave a tiny shake of her head and carried on counting. _Forty-one_, she said to herself. _Forty-two_. No wait, that wasn't right. There were forty-three of them. Maybe she had forgotten to count Jem when he looked at her. Or herself. Sometimes she would count them three or four times just to check. Rose went through the rows again. Forty-two. Someone was missing.

She couldn't figure out who it was. Not one of her friends. Rose wracked her brain, trying to put a face to the empty space where a student should be. The lecturer stood at the front of the room and droned on and on, distracting her from her thoughts.

After two hours, her legs numb from sitting still and her shoulders tensed up, Rose headed out onto the back lawn. Jem was ahead of her but didn't look back. They had to move in an orderly fashion inside the building. It wasn't worth causing trouble, or drawing attention to close friendships. Those who did often found it used against them later on.

"Who's missing?" she demanded when she and Jem were finally face to face, huddled close to the columns that flanked the edge of the building. He sat down on the grass and leant into a column's shadow.

"Keep your voice down," he muttered, his brow furrowed and his hard blue eyes glaring at her. She sat next to him and noticed that the sun-bleached hairs on his arms were standing on end, despite the oppressive heat.

He glanced at her and gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. "You really don't pay attention, do you?" he joked.

"You know I do," she said with an edge to her voice. "I'm just asking you if you know who is missing."

He looked away and sighed, the shadow cutting across his cheekbones. His face had grown more and more stubbly, which fascinated Rose. She looked at him, wanting to stroke his jaw. They weren't like that though. Just friends. But still, the temptation was there.

"You know that kid Ash?" he asked, almost mumbling the name.

"Oh," Rose said, almost relieved. "He must be sick or something."

"Or something. There was plenty of commotion on the estate last night."

"Maybe his brothers are in to something. I can't see Ash having problems."

"We'll see," Jem said, sounding unconvinced.

"Is that why you didn't message me?"

"I did," he said, looking surprised. "To say good morning," he added, looking sheepish.

Rose frowned. Maybe the signals had been blocked. She put it to the back of her mind and tried to bring Ash to the front. But when she closed her eyes, all she could see was the face of the woman, pinned to the concrete with the Warden smothering her.

She could usually figure it out straight away. Two boys had been taken who had been known to organise street fights. A girl who had smashed a school window. A boy who had spent his days sketching one of their lecturers. He had mistaken the older man's snarling contempt, had imagined it to be fear or confusion. But it wasn't. They had come for him publicly, calling him names as they dragged him from his chair. The lecturer had shuffled his papers and looked away.

Within minutes he had resumed his talk on the history of the registered communities.

"These were and are," he said, his voice flat and even, "the best way to repair our broken society. By removing the element of chance, communities can be carefully managed in order to promote social cohesion. As for those who remain outside this system…"

He leant against the wall directly in front of Rose as he said it, making it clear his comments were directed at her. She bit her tongue. The caricaturist's screams could still be heard reverberating around the open building.

"As for those who remain outside this system, they are placing themselves in grave danger, away from the protection offered to the registered sites. It is suspected that a great many of these individuals have criminal leanings. Why else would they set themselves apart from the rest of us?"

He returned to his desk and shuffled his papers again. The bunch of ripped cables sprouting from the floor by his feet showed where, until recently, there had been a single computer.

"It is my belief," he bellowed, waggling his finger in the air, "that unregistered housing is a stain on our otherwise orderly society. And judging by recent conversations I have had, I have every reason to believe that the outlaws who perpetuate this odious lifestyle will soon be brought under much tighter supervision."

Rose remembered this now as she thought about Ash.

She knew he lived in a community, maybe on the same estate as Jem.

She knew too that the promised tighter regulations on housing were imminent. Grace refused to even discuss it, would huddle up with a cushion in her arms, rocking gently back and forth, staring at the television. But they were going to have to face up to it eventually.

That didn't help her figure out anything about the missing boy though.

But maybe, just maybe, if something bad had happened, someone would have witnessed it. And perhaps that someone would be prone to 'criminal leanings', as their history lecturer liked to put it. And if that person had access to a secure computer…

"I'm going inside," she told Jem. "To do some research."

He raised his eyebrows. "Be careful," he whispered.

"Where does he live? Near you?"

Jem nodded. As she turned away from him Rose thought for a second she saw a frown flicker across his face. But it vanished as quickly as it had appeared and she walked on, leaving him brooding in the shade..

Once inside she made her way to the back stairs. She took calm, controlled strides.

When she reached the caretaker's office she paused for a second, to check that nobody was about. The eye in the sky was safely around a corner. Until someone invented a way for the college security cameras to see through walls, this was a blind spot. A safe spot.

She scuttled through the cupboard and out through to the other side. There was the narrow corridor that led off towards her classroom. But to the right there was a gap, no wider than a person's body, that she could sidle through.

Once through the gap, there was a short distance to go before she reached a thin metal sheet. This slid aside to reveal a tiny room, completely in the dark except for the soft blue glow of a computer screen.

The internet was one of the first places that had stopped being safe. But there were always ways in, if you knew how. Rose's mother and father had known. They had built the Witness system.

There were computers hidden everywhere, if you knew where to look. Once they were only confiscated when a serious crime had taken place. But the definition of serious had jutted forward so dramatically that soon, a negative word or two in a private communication, became grounds for confiscation.

Rose's father had described the path to this room to Rose when she had been small. He had been determined that she would know.

Grace had been quite something. She had been strong, assured, smart. Entirely capable of looking after herself and usually several other people as well. But that had all changed when she had lost Rose's father.

_Not lost._ Rose thought. _Lost was a callous word. It made it sound like clumsiness. Or carelessness._

_When he was taken._

Witness was the one safe place that Rose was sure of. It had one purpose, and one purpose only. People all over the world would post descriptions of people they'd loved, or complete strangers, anyone who had been taken.

Grace thought it was long over. But Rose had watched and learned, and along with Jem, monitored the entire network from the caretaker's cupboard. They had rebuilt it. It had taken them a long time – they were only kids when they had started. But they were good. And they had never been caught.

She read through some of the posts that had appeared today. 'They took my brother', 'my grandmother', 'a man who stole a pair of shoes', 'my daughter', 'my friend'. Nothing about Ash. Not yet. He must just be sick, Rose told herself.

Rose clicked through the pages, back to the very first post. The username was phoenix, Grace's old pseudonym. It was a way of reaching out to people, a way of letting them know that Rose was someone they could trust.

Rose knew the words without even looking:

'They took my father six months ago. He was a good man. He was tall and gentle. His mouth turned down a little when he smiled. He loved his work with computers. He loved dancing with my mother when no-one else was around. He didn't sleep very much. He used to come and stand at my bedroom door whenever he woke up in the night. To check that I was still breathing. I don't know what else to say about him. But I hope that someone is out there reading this. That we can start to witness again.'

This single paragraph, a condensed life, sat on the page with one other record.

'They took my twin sister.' That was how it began.

Jem's sister, Cherry. Rose had never met her. She had been taken when she was ten, before Jem's family had been relocated. People were always kept moving, unsettled. Evictions happened often. But there were also the more subtle methods. Shutting down a factory. Demolishing a high rise. All the ways that people could be made to scatter, they were scattered. Even the better off people were handled in the same way. Suddenly your company would move to a new city, or they would ask you to travel to a different country, offer you an apartment somewhere far away from your family. And that was not to mention the effect of the weather, uprooting whole communities, whole countries even. 'You can't grow into strong trees without roots' was what Grace used to say. Before. When she was still herself.

It had taken a long time for Rose to trust Jem. She remembered seeing him arrive on his first day at her school. He skulked about, hugging the walls of the corridors, sunken-eyed and sullen. Even before she knew his name, Rose could see that he was broken, missing half of himself. She thought she could understand all the ways that hurt.

Jem's father had been waiting for him at the gates. And not just that first day, every day until Jem told him to stop. He was a tall pale skinny man, with a mess of thinning hair and a haunted look. As Rose got to know him better, she found out that he barely spoke. And then only in a spindly whisper. He had spindly fingers too, that fixed things. Phones. Televisions. Computers even. He rarely looked Rose in the eye, but when he did she saw his eyes were a watery blue, pale and sick-looking. Not like Jem. His eyes were a dark, sparkling blue, like a clear night sky in winter. Not that there were many of those night skies anymore, just the yellowing fog and haze.

Rose looked up at the ceiling tiles and took a minute to compose herself in the low blue glow of the screen. This place was one of the few places she knew that was cool and calm. She took a deep breath and started to write.

'Today I saw a woman taken off the streets. She was calling out for someone, maybe her partner or her son. She wore a gold bracelet made of thin strands...'


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

**Ash**

Soft afternoon light filtered through a tiny window in the top left hand corner of the back wall. The walls themselves were stone cold to the touch and painted over in a dark forest green, patchy, peeling and claustrophobic. Ash had woken to find himself lying on a small, hard mattress in the back left corner with the hazy light dancing on his damaged face. The room itself was roughly nine by six. In the right hand corner was a tiny metal toilet and hand sink, both coated with water spots, toothpaste residue and what looked like blood stains. At the front of the room were a couple of book shelves, directly opposite his feet and, to the other side, an imposing black door, about three feet wide with no door handle or ID swipe panel to get in and out. There was a narrow slit towards the bottom of the door, currently closed off by a metal flap, a little like a letter box except longer and not quite wide enough to stick a hand through. The whole room smelt of iodine. There was a single round artificial light in the centre of the ceiling, also forest green. Suddenly the light switched on, flickering and emitting a low buzz. Ash wondered if this meant people were coming and wasn't sure whether to be glad or terrified. He swivelled round on the mattress, feeling tender all over, putting his feet firmly on the floor before he stood, as if he didn't trust his body somehow. He had been stripped down to boxers, socks and a plain white t-shirt, all clean and not his own, the rest of his clothes nowhere to be seen. He attempted to catch a glimpse of his reflection in amongst the stains on the sink but could only make himself out as a blackened, bloody, pulpy mess. His body was stinging, it was he who smelt of iodine, not the room. He was pleased to feel clean.

There were bandages round his wrists and it took a while for Ash to remember being tied to the chair in the early hours of the morning.

The light continued to flicker, distracting him. He could still feel it when he closed his eyes. He stood on the mattress, on tiptoe, struggling to see out of the window and make some sense of his surroundings. He assumed he was still in the city, although given the amount of time that had passed, he realised, he could be anywhere. The window was too high and angled upwards; all it revealed was the sky, the time of day. And then there came footsteps, echoing as if in a long corridor, approaching his door and eventually stopping outside the room. Wide-eyed and nervous, Ash could feel his pulse throbbing beneath the bandages on his wrists; his whole body on edge. He could hear a couple of voices, muttering too low for him to make out the words, and suddenly craved some kind of real human contact.

Outside now, someone cleared their throat and, with his shoe, lifted up the metal flap in the door so that Ash could hear him and spoke softly.

"Ash? That's your name, right son?"

Ash grimaced. Confused, pissed off, hungry and tired as he was, he still noted the patronising tone of voice employed by the stranger. For one thing, being called 'son' had been bad enough when he was a small child and was even worse now. He pressed up against the door and answered, surprising himself with his own boldness.

"Yeah, that's me. Who are you? And when can I go home?"

"My name's Steve, I'm the counsellor here." the voice replied. "I was just wondering if you'd like to come and have a chat with me? It's totally up to you, Ash. Same applies to going home. Totally up to you."

"I'll see anyone to get out of this room. The light's broken, yeah? It's been driving me mad. I just want to get out."

Ash surprised himself with the way he spoke. He sounded like Sonny, he thought to himself, amused. He had spent most of his life keeping his head down, keeping out of trouble, under strict instructions from first his parents, then his brothers. But what had been the point of that? It hadn't stopped him ending up here anyway.

He had heard all the stories. Of course he had. As far back as he could remember, his mother had sat him on her knee and rocked him back and forth as she spoke.

"I want to get out," Ash said again, his voice a little weaker this time.

"That's good to hear," Steve said simply. Ash couldn't tell whether or not this man was sincere. Somehow he doubted it. But there wasn't anyone else to talk to, or any other way out.

He heard a long beep followed by a heavy crunching of metal on metal. The door opened slowly outwards to reveal a kindly looking man, though thin and grey, who smiled at Ash a little sadly. He held out a pair of pale tracksuit bottoms and a crumpled navy blue shirt to put on over his modest attire. Out of a clear, sealed plastic bag, like an evidence bag, Ash noticed, the counsellor then produced a pair of battered old trainers.

"These yours, son?" he asked softly.

"Yeah," replied Ash, in a similar tone of voice.

"Well, they've pulled them to pieces and found nothing suspicious about them. They said you could have them back. I'm sorry, the lining's all torn up here, but they wanted to be certain, you know?"

Ash nodded, though he didn't know. WHO ARE THEY? he screamed inside his head, though there was only one possible answer, and Ash didn't want to hear it anyway. And did they really think he could have hidden anything in his shoes, for god's sake? Razor blades in his soles, perhaps? Not likely, he thought, feeling venomously irate.

His trainers. His only pair of shoes. Ripped to shreds.

_They_ must reckon I'm pretty determined then," he tried to joke as he took the useless shoes from Steve's outstretched hands.

"Yeah," Steve the stranger answered.

Scowling, stomach lined with panic, but at least fully dressed, Ash followed Steve down a clinical white corridor with about ten doors on either side. His legs felt like plasticine. These doors, including his own, were painted white on the outside as well, embodying a cleanliness greatly at odds with the inside of his room. Maybe they'll move me, Ash wondered, they can't all be as bad as mine. He noticed that each door had an individual swipe panel next to it, along with an impressive, imposing array of locks and bolts. Top, middle, and bottom. The counsellor walked up to a mirrored door at the end of the corridor, constantly looking over his shoulder as if frightened. As he stopped in front of the door, Ash saw himself properly for the first time in days. Easing back his long jet-black hair from his face, where it spent most of its time, he saw staring back at him no recognisable trace of himself; instead a whole category of injuries. Bruises, cuts, scratches, grotesque swelling round his eyes and lips, every colour of the rainbow danced across his pale brown skin. Shocked, he dropped his hair, letting it fall back across his face as a curtain to shield him from what he had seen. Lifting up the hair that covered the back of his neck, he turned with one eye on the mirror and saw a long red mark across the top of his shoulders. He hadn't imagined the scene in the white room; it had actually happened, and knowing this made Ash's guts clench in fear. He realised that Steve was watching him, and also looked afraid. He didn't have to be afraid of Steve, he decided, Steve was mild, timid, gentle.

"What's the mirrors for?" he asked after a long silence. "It's double-sided glass," Steve replied, almost whispering.

Ash stared at him, unsure how to interpret the man's nervousness. "So they can watch the corridor?"

The counsellor glanced up uneasily and Ash followed his gaze to two black, beady half-spheres attached to the low white ceiling at either end of the corridor.

"They're watching you anyway," he breathed, his voice even lower than before. "Now, come on, let's get out of here and into my office," he continued as he swiped a card and leaned forward for an iris scan. The mirror door buzzed loudly, making them both jump, and slid away.

Ash followed the counsellor down a seemingly never ending labyrinth of cold white corridors, twisting and turning, with a swipe and a scan at the end of each one. Some had more rows of white doors, others huge mirrored panels.

"Sit down," Steve instructed Ash.

"Not much of an office," Ash said. He was in another huge, stark room, walls so white it felt like he was standing in the beams of a thousand angry spotlights.

"Now then son," Steve started, fiddling with his sleeves. "They tell me you've been uncooperative. Have a seat."

There was a single metal chair in the middle of the room. Some office.

Ash stared at Steve, trying to figure him out. He did not sit.

Why bother going to all this pretence? Calling himself a therapist.

Steve spoke into his sleeve. Ash realised with a jolt that there was a tiny microphone pinned to the cool white sleeve of the little grey man. He had to be one of them.

"I think our friend needs to be moved somewhere more comfortable," he said, the kindness zapped from his voice. "Until he's ready to cooperate."

Ash hardly heard them coming this time. Two set of paw-like hands hooked him underneath his shoulders and carried him from the room. They went left, right, left again down another endless corridor. Then with a sudden swipe a section of the wall suddenly sprung into life, sliding into itself and revealing a cold metal tomb of a box.

The two guards stepped in, still carrying Ash. His shoulders were starting to ache, sending tremors through his neck. Another quick swipe and they were swallowed up by the building. With a deep jolt the metal box holding them started to move. Down?

After what felt like hours, they exited onto another white corridor, looking identical to all the others Ash had seen.

They stopped in front of another blank patch of wall. The same swiping motion came and the wall split to reveal another metal box. Not much larger than the elevator, but with a tiny mat in one corner and a metal toilet in the other. There was a strip light running down the length of the room, a shiny round camera hanging from the ceiling in one corner like a wasp's nest.

Ash barely had time to take it all in before he felt the big meaty hand between his shoulder blades and found himself being shoved into the room, face first.

For a split second he was horrified by the counsellor's betrayal. Steve had not been what he expected, had seemed almost kind. But of course he should have realised what 'more comfortable' would mean, he told himself. Hadn't his brothers spent all these years trying to keep him out of this exact situation, never telling him too much, always encouraging him to avoid standing out?

The wall slid back into place behind him, creating an almost seamless metal slab on his side. He turned and ran his hands along the narrow cracks. There was no hint of a door handle or a lock, but he noticed that there was the outline of some kind of flap near floor level. He quickly discovered that the flap was impossible to lift from this side of the door.

There was no window, no hint of being anywhere near the outside world. And it was cold, colder than Ash had ever been. The pads of his feet started to complain at the contact with the cold metal floor.

His shoes! They were still in the old room.

It wasn't dark at least. For now.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

**Rose**

It had been almost a week since Ash had gone missing, and Rose still couldn't figure it out. If he'd been sick, or been reregistered with another community, they would have heard about it by now. There were always ways and means. As it was, the complete silence, the lack of information, he must have been taken. There was no other explanation. But what did they want with him? That was the frustrating thing. He didn't do anything, or say anything. He just came in, clean cut and timid looking, and made himself invisible. _Just like you do_, Rose suddenly thought.

So maybe there was something going on with Ash after all? He could be into something she had no knowledge of at all. Rose didn't want to admit that this was a possibility. She prided herself on being aware, always with one ear to the ground, a good judge of character. She had assessed and dismissed Ash as being a nice boy of little consequence. But maybe she was wrong. She scrunched up her face in concentration, trying to remember something, anything, of note about the missing boy.

He lived in the same community as Jem, she knew that. She'd seen him hanging about on the estate, usually on his own, but sometimes playing football. He had two older brothers too, who were louder and brasher and teased and pushed Ash any chance they got. She had seen them with him sometimes, carrying food back to their house.

Rose made herself think of Ash, and traced his face in her mind. He had a thin nose which peeked up right at the end. Thick round black eyebrows which framed his eyes and made him look like an owl from one of her old picturebooks. He had long eyelashes, fluttering and nervous, and dark brown eyes. He kept his hair short. When he wanted to speak in class, he would look up with a pained expression, and when he disagreed with something, his chin would jut out just a little. He disagreed a lot, Rose seemed to remember, which suggested that he'd had some rebellion in his life, even if just in the way he'd been brought up. Maybe he was religious, Rose thought. Or gay. That could account for the dissent.

He was skinner, she knew, skinnier than her, but a little taller. He was skinny in a different way to her though. He didn't look like he was hungry all the time, not like Rose. He just looked like he was taking his time growing into himself. And he was taller than her but not as tall as Jem. He wore plain clothes, faded greys and blues. He didn't smile often. But when he did, it made his whole body seem to light up and come to life. What else did she know about him? He wrote awkwardly by hand, in long swooping careful strokes. He was always on time. He was just _there_. Except now he wasn't, and she hadn't even been able to figure out it was him that was missing. He had just been part of the furniture.

Rose realised, with a jolt of shock, that she missed Ash. She didn't know how that could be. They never spoke to one another, as far as she could remember. She rotated her wrist slowly, feeling the cool swirl of the gold bracelet. She had been wearing it since she saw the woman. Rose watched it catch the light, wondering at the workmanship behind the thin twist of strands. She couldn't see what it was meant to be, though it reminded her of something that she couldn't quite put her finger on. Feathers? They didn't see many birds around the city nowadays, except for the occasional persistent pigeon. The choking black smog saw to that. But the bracelet definitely reminded her of something, some long forgotten image.

Rose scrunched up her face. She didn't have time to worry about the bracelet now.

She thought about the way things used to be. But her memories seemed to belong to someone else, all muddled up with the stories her parents told her. About the earliest decades of the century. Nothing had ever been perfect, they had said. But there had always been a sense of moving forward and upward, however slowly. But that progress was driven by an old, broken engine, that had started to stutter and fail, before eventually grinding to a halt and rolling back the way it came.

The world had changed so slowly that no-one had taken it seriously. It hadn't happened all at once, but little by little. There was no earthquake, no nuclear bomb, no terrorist takeover, no tidal wave: there was just the gradual retreat of freedom and, licking and lapping ever closer, the roaring taunt of the sea.

For a long time, resistance movements thrived. But they had all been crushed. Or else they had imploded.

Grace had told her how often she had been turned away from these movements, how she had been told she wasn't wanted, her help wasn't needed.

"But why?" Rose had asked, feeling anger rise up in her. Grace had just smiled and gazed into the distance.

Since her father had been taken, all that Grace could give her was scraps of information, tiny clues that she let fall from her fingers in her calmer moments. Little by little, she let things out, but then clasped the rest closer to her, as if she were afraid of letting go completely, of losing control.

But Rose had understood from her silence and her smile that sometimes a face just didn't fit. Especially not Grace's. She would have been too pretty, too dark-skinned. Rose could imagine how people might not have taken her seriously, even though they should have done. They were too stupid to see what they'd missed out on. Of course, there had been pockets of thinking and acting and organising and reacting all over the world. Her father had told her more, when she was younger. Instead of bedtime stories, there had been tales of the resistance. The way that they argued, unable to agree on anything. Some were violent, aggressive, reckless with the lives of those who didn't agree with everything they said, even more reckless with the lives of those who they didn't deem worthy or valuable in some way. Some were just closed shops, boys' clubs. And if you didn't see things exactly as they did, you were worthless to them.

For most people, the Wardens' grip had tightened so gradually that they didn't feel it. They didn't see the way it clutched onto others and squeezed them til their eyes bulged. When they did see, too often they turned away.

_But_, thought Rose. _There's always a way in._

They had done it to themselves, in a way, relying on the grand gestures of individuals, not even bothering to deal with the vast majority of people. Rose wondered if she herself were not perhaps inclined the same way. Perhaps it would catch up with her one day.

_No. You're doing your best. You try to help people. You just can't talk to them or be around them. You can't stand on a soapbox in front of town hall. It doesn't work that way anymore. It's not safe._

The temperature had changed gradually too. Slowly but surely it had driven people from their homes, away from desert and coastline alike, a long trailing exodus. New arrivals poured into the cities all the time.

New rivers had carved through the countryside. But up here, the canals, the city's arteries, ran dry and sticky in the long endless days of summer.

Most families went into the registered communities. That hadn't been an option for Rose and her mother. Just the two of them, without grandparents, siblings, or anyone else to share living space with. Added to her mother's fake name and fake papers, and the small matter of being wanted on multiple counts of cyberterrorism. There was that, too. That was how they'd ended up in the apartment building, full of runaways and singles and couples without children or parents to live with them.

Rose thought of one of the youngest members of their building. A girl around her age whose name she had failed to learn, a girl who snarled and spat at anyone who got close to her. She had seen her at college as well, though she never saw her winding her way through the city streets early in the morning.

"How do people like that manage?" she had asked Grace once.

"What do you mean, sweetheart?" came the dreamy reply.

"I mean, how do they contain themselves? Around the wardens. Where do they keep it?" Rose remembered feeling flustered, feeling that she wasn't explaining herself very well.

"How do they keep those feelings under control?"

Grace had smiled. "Maybe they stay out of the way. Or bottle it up and release it when it's safe to. How do any of us manage to stay sane? I don't know. I don't know."

That night Rose tossed and turned, battling against the relentless heat. The window was propped open with a tin full of old coins, worn smooth and thin and certainly enough to make one hell of a racket if someone tried to get in that way. But it didn't help. The night air streamed in, but even the breeze was hot. If only it would rain. Rose recalled the stories her mother had told her, stories of a city brimming with water, drenched in it. Rose drifted and dreamed of drops of rain pooling in the troughs and crevices of the old buildings, lashings of rain thundering against the tall glass facades of the shopping district. The woman with the gold bracelet danced in the downpour. Standing at her window, Rose watched a sudden rush of river, washing away the trickle of green and orange sludge that came out from under the bridge. The arch of the bridge was slowly subsumed, until, with a sudden roar, the water burst up and out onto the streets. The water rose and rose. The man in the window stood watching her from behind the glass. But he didn't see the water filling up the floors beneath him, carrying mannequins and office chairs and the dust and grime of the streets right up to his level. He stood impassive as it came up, as it lapped around his shiny black shoes.

Rose woke with a start. _They want us. That's why they've got Ash. They want us._

She jumped out of bed, caught up in sweat and sheets, and fell to the floor.

"Rose?" she heard her mother's voice, soft and anxious.

"I'm fine," she called. "I'm OK."

She untangled herself and sprung to her feet.

It was the only explanation really. As far as she could tell, and she thought she could, Ash wasn't involved in anything. He didn't have that shifty look about him. He sat in class, taking notes quietly. Yes, his pen would hover angrily over his paper when he was asked to write about how society had improved or why climate change was a myth, but who would notice such a small detail? And who would think that enough to justify wasting time and resources on him? He wasn't the kind of person who looked over his shoulder when walking to class, expecting to feel a warm fat hand clamp down on his shoulder at any moment. He certainly wasn't mixed up in anything overt. He had a few friends, maybe more like acquaintances. They ate lunch together, had gentle, quiet conversations, walked home together.

There was nothing sinister or creepy about him.

In fact, the only notable thing about Ash was his daily proximity to her and Jem, two of the most dangerous, most untraceable, most influential young terrorists in the entire country.

That was the only thing they could possibly want from him. Which meant they were in serious trouble.

Rose knew that Ash's quiet presence meant he often faded into the background. What might he have noticed? What conversations might he have overheard?

He was kind, she felt sure of that. He wouldn't want to get her in trouble. But he would. Once he was under interrogation, she didn't think he would last long before blurting out anything he could think of, any tiny sign, an overheard word.

She crept up to the curtains and peeked out through the gap. It was still dark. She couldn't see if anyone was watching. But she knew that Ash was somewhere out there, and she knew what they would be asking him.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

**Ash**

"Have you noticed anyone acting strangely?"

Ash bit the inside of his lip and slowly released his breath out through his nose. He felt like sighing. But the last time he'd let out an audible sigh, he'd paid for it. He could still feel a throbbing in his cheek, just below his eye, a swollen purple mound of flesh.

"No," he croaked.

"Getting thirsty? You might want to answer the question," the Warden offered. He sat down opposite Ash, opened a bottle of water, and took deep, deliberate gulps. Ash watched him, looking the cracked, bruised slabs of meat the Warden called hands, could feel them thudding into his body over and over again.

The bottle he held in his hand looked solid, like glass, and was completely transparent. The Warden's chin looked grotesquely enlarged, distorted, through the glass. There looked to be tiny bubbles in the water.

The Warden tipped back his head, and poured the water into his mouth, sticking out his tongue as if to create a funnel to get the water inside him more quickly. Ash watched him intently, his own tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth like Velcro. The Warden looked Ash straight in the eye and smiled, almost sweetly, before pouring the remains of the bottle over his own head. He shook his hair, and Ash watched the droplets scatter and split open all over the floor. A drop landed on his own knee and stayed there, looking up and mocking him.

Every day it was the same. Every day ended with the same beefy interrogator sitting in front of him, smoothing back his newly wetted hair, letting little trickles of it run down his cheeks and neck, his shirt collar covered in round, spreading splatters of water.

Ash reasoned that if he just held out they might give him water eventually. He might get a tiny cup of water on his tray. Maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow. Ash pushed one big toe against the concrete, letting the tension of the stretch spread out through his foot. It gave him something else to focus on. But it just reminded him that he had no shoes.

At first, he had been bewildered, angry that he was here. Hadn't he always done everything right? Kept his head down, worked hard, never asked too many questions? It hadn't mattered, and he had been a fool to think it would. He knew that now. He might as well have spent all this time doing something useful, going underground, fighting against the wardens.

"I should have at least spoken to Rose," he thought to himself. _I should have at least tried. Even if she had told me to get lost and leave her alone, at least I would have tried._

Ash had often wondered about people who said things like "Life's too short". He sometimes thought there might be something the matter with him, that his response to losing his parents had been to retreat further into himself, to take more care instead of less. Instead of living like life was short, he had not really been allowing himself to live at all.

"Are you sure?" the Warden asked with a grin. "Don't you think, on reflection," he continued, letting the syllables swirl around his still glistening tongue, "that you might have noticed something going on at school? Or what about at home. We've had your older brothers under observation for quite some time now. I'm surprised you didn't manage to notice that."

Ash smiled back. There was a part of him that was struck with fear at the thought of being under surveillance day in and day out, without having ever realised. But the question about school seemed so ridiculous, this giant of a man, who should be dealing with real criminals, interrogating him about what he might have seen on the playground. The mighty Warden group, scared of a couple of schoolkids!

"If you didn't notice, what makes you think that I would?" he offered.

The Warden's face changed in an instant, the corners of the mouth stretched down. Ash closed his eyes and waited for the blow to come. But it didn't. He opened one eye cautiously.

To his surprise, the Warden was standing in the doorway, putting his gloves on. "Take him back," he bellowed. A nervous looking guard appeared at the door. "He's no good," the Warden said lightly, as if it were of no consequence. "We'll have to dispose of him and move on to the next one."

"The next one?" The words had escaped from Ash's mouth before he even had time to stop them.

The Warden turned back, as if surprised to see him there, and fixed him with a curious look. "Didn't you know, son?" he said in a low, threatening voice. "There's nothing special about you, pet. You're just the first in the alphabet."

The guard had already gripped Ash's collar as the Warden spoke. Ash felt his arms twisted up and pressed against his spine, but didn't make a sound. He stood still, staring at the Warden. The guard kicked at his ankles impatiently to make him walk. Ash was pushed out of the room, half shuffling, half kicked along. But he felt nothing. His mind was completely blank.

Was it just a ploy? It might be. A way to get him to speak, to save his own life and maybe save someone else's at the same time? Ash looked at the dints in the metal walls, made by fists and fingernails. He could almost hear the others, their furious scrabbling at the door, their screams of anguish. If he gave them something, anything, maybe they would let him go?

He didn't know how he had slept, or how long for, but he woke with a gasp, as if emerging from water. The same blank walls stared back at him. Ash tried to stand, but something stopped him. Was something broken? His legs shook as he tried again.

_"It's to make you scared. Because when people are scared, they make mistakes. They can't work together."_

That's what he'd heard her say that day. It was barely a whisper above the noise of compulsory instruction, the mind-numbing films that blared out, recounting the history of the nation, the struggle to survive, all the people's problems eased by the new regime.

He didn't know anyone outside his own family who spoke the way she did. Some older people maybe, but older people were in short supply.

Ash tried to recall his grandparents, but it was no use. His head was pounding. He could barely even conjure up an image of his mother and father.

They had talked like that too, the way she did. But not as quietly. They were quiet now though, that was for certain.

He thought no-one else had heard her. It was as if she had breathed it and only to him. For a brief moment he let himself imagine her lips pressing against his ear, the soft hum of her voice speaking words for him only. He would turn to her, let his hand brush against hers, while a thrill of electricity shot through them both. She felt warm and solid and real, not like any of the others who had never been taught to dream such things, let alone to say them out loud for anyone to hear.

Ash held on to the thought for a moment, and then discarded it. That was part of the problem, wasn't it? Thinking that people like Rose were extraordinary, unique. Irreplaceable. For all he knew, everyone else was going about their daily lives with a small pulse of resistance. It suited the wardens to find one person to pin the blame on: that way they could pretend they were dealing with something out of the ordinary too.

He thought of everyone else he went to college with, his two close friends, the boys he sat and had lunch with. They would stick close to the shadows, avoiding the glare of the sun. Could either of them be up to anything? Ash didn't think it was likely. There was Ade, who was tall and awkward with it, always ducking to avoid being a nuisance. Then there was Moz, who was mischievous, but in a subtle way. Ash could picture him now, his dark eyes darting around, his lips moving as if always ready to make a joke.

Not that many people got close to their group. They were pretty quiet, always keeping themselves to themselves.

Although maybe they were involved with something. That would make Ash the obvious person to question. Except that he didn't know anything about it if they were. And why not just go directly to the source? Why bother with the middle man?

What about Rose's friends?

Ash thought about them for a moment. There was that big brute Jem. Ash had seen him on the estate, hulking about. And according to Sonny, Jem's father had been a friend of their parents, though Ash found this hard to believe. The father had certainly never showed any obvious interest in the sons of his supposed friends, although he was by all accounts the source of Jay's highly illegal phone.

The trick was to get close enough to an official building, then run a program that read off their access codes. You could get onto the internet that way, or so Jay had said, but it had better be for something important, because if you were caught doing it, it would be the last thing you ever did.

Ash had sometime wondered if Jem was Rose's boyfriend. They were almost always together.

They didn't touch one another very much, Ash thought to himself. At least he had never seen them do so in a way that suggested they might be romantically involved.

An image swam before his eyes, the image of the boy and girl from his dream. But now they stood in front of him, naked, bodies writhing together. The girl tipped her head back as the boy ran his tongue along her collarbone. And then he was grabbing her and pulling her legs up and around him and pushing her against Ash's locker and she was digging her nails into his back and crying out and Ash just stood there, frozen to the spot.

And then the image shattered.

Ash could feel his heart beating quickly and slightly out of time. He tried to force himself to think rationally. Who else was there?

There was a girl who lived in the same building as Rose, in the year below them. But they weren't friends. The girl was always biting her lip. Literally biting her lip, so her whole mouth had become one giant bruise. Ash had always wondered what it was she wanted to say, and what was so dangerous about her words that she had to fight so hard to keep them in.

There was a few girls in their class who spoke to Rose. Sometimes she sat with them at lunch. But she tended to nod and smile. She didn't seem to show the true side of herself, the side she showed when she was whispering with Jem. Maybe they were a couple after all.

Or maybe they're both up to something, Ash thought, and a very small part of him thought about giving Jem's name to the wardens.

Rose never ate anything when she sat with those other girls at lunch. He had noticed that. The girl from her building with the blotchy ring of purple bruises round her mouth never ate anything either.

His brother had tried to explain to him how poor the unregistered communities were. How their electricity was rerouted and stolen from the city. How, every so often, the wardens would kick everyone out of a building at a minute's notice, then raze the place to the ground. Ash hadn't really followed. His eyes kept wandering to the empty cupboards that ran around the kitchen. How could anyone have less than they had?

Now he cursed himself for being so stupid.

Why had he never spoken to her? Even just to offer her something to eat?

He could just imagine her response, the mouth turning into a sneer, the flash of anger behind the placid eyes.

It would be even worse if he ever saw her again, he mused. "Would you like to share my lunch? Oh, and by the way, I just grassed up your boyfriend to the authorities. I hope you don't mind." He chuckled in spite of himself.

Slowly, he drifted off into a sort of fitful rest, his limbs wrapped up close to his body. He rubbed his hands together to make them warm, then covered his eyes with his palms. It was an old trick his father had shown him, a way to induce calm and restfulness. It wasn't a technique that had been particularly designed with prison cells or torture chambers in mind, Ash thought as his body struggled to relax.

And then, finally, on the very edge of sleep, the idea came to him that his mother and father might both once have occupied a cell just like this one. It made him feel strangely close to them. Ash wondered if his father had rubbed his hands together to relax his eyes. He wondered if it had worked for him.

His sleep shattered here and here by the flickering of the light, Ash began to dream of his mother's face. He dreamed too of running through the city, shouting at the top of his voice about where he had been and what he had seen. Of his bruises on a big screen. The collapse of society, the crumbling of the well-constructed lie. A hungry crowd gathered to watch him, as baskets overflowing with bread were passed around. He was today's special announcement, the matinee.

He ran and ran. But there was a figure dressed head to toe in black, chasing him.

His image bounced off the big screen, and reflected off the tall glass buildings that guarded the city. Everywhere he turned, he could see his own face, giant and distorted, looking back at him. He was looking up, but the giant Ash in the glass was looking up as well, so he could never quite figure out how to catch his own eye.

Still he kept running. Still the figure kept chasing and chasing, getting closer and closer, until Ash could see it was a woman. Her image bounced up and off the glass towers too.

"No!" he yelled. "Go away! Get lost!"

There was a crash, so violent and so loud that Ash had no way of knowing whether it had happened inside him or outside him.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

**Rose**

"It's us. They want us," Rose whispered urgently to Jem. It felt like he had been avoiding her all day, and now this was the only place she could find him. They were both caught in the crush as people left school for the day.

"What?"

"That's the only explanation for taking him," she said, a little louder. A thin film of sweat had developed on her forehead. She ran her sleeve over her face, jabbing a boy in the chest as he jostled past. Jem looked over his shoulder nervously and lowered his head.

"We can't talk like this," he hissed.

"But we need to work it out. Or it's us next. Don't you get it?"

He turned and said through clenched teeth, "What's the matter with you? You're losing it over this kid. You keep doing this, you're going to get caught out." He looked up and frowned. "You know what Rose? Don't talk to me. Go away and come back when you've remembered how you do what you do."

"But..." she protested. It was useless. She could only watch him rush away from her. He disappeared into the crowd, hunching his shoulders until he became invisible. A mass of off-white and grey cotton shirts bobbed off into the distance, one big, hot tired mass of people. Rose stood still, letting people move and flow around her. She knew he had a point. Anyone could be listening here. But she had to warn him somehow. She would have to make him listen.

She shuffled home, tired old trainers kicking against the dust. She didn't bother looking for reflections in the glass, too lost in her own thoughts, and continued down along the main walkway. Shopfronts projected a hazy glow onto her path and low, monotonous music buzzed and bounced within. But still Rose didn't look up. They didn't have anything she could afford. Nor anything she wanted.

Rose reached into her pocket and ran her fingers over the bracelet the woman had rolled to her. It was probably the last thing she'd ever done out of her own free will. Rose slipped the bracelet over her wrist. It felt cool and soothing.

Suddenly she changed direction, her shoes filling with purpose. Before she knew it she was almost running. Not actually running. That would have aroused suspicion.

She turned a corner and started making her way out of the city centre.

Within half an hour she reached a tall wooden fence. You were supposed to go to the main gates and swipe in or sign in. But she knew a better way.

_There is always a way in. _That's what Grace said.

She trailed her hand along the wide boards, waiting to hear the one that would creak under the pressure. It swung under slightly, just enough for a small person to wriggle through.

Next, she walked along behind a row of identikit houses. They most mostly neat and compact, but under closer inspection, each had something that needed fixing. Yellow watermarks looped down from the flat roofs, windows were boarded up with cardboard and newspaper, cracks rose up from the dry ground into the walls.

Up ahead was Jem's house. It wasn't often they saw each other outside of college. But Rose desperately wanted to talk to him alone, to make him listen.

She skirted the outside of his house and tapped on the window of the ground floor bedroom she knew to be his. His father slept upstairs in a room full of half-finished electrical projects. He had been the one to give Jem and Rose phones to keep in touch. With a surge of guilt, Rose remembered that the point of this had been to stop them arousing suspicion by moving so freely around the city in search of each other.

Jem's father also owned the only computer on the estate. Most people knew about it. But he hadn't been caught yet. And as well as fixing things, he was a genius at subverting signals and encryption. Almost as good as Grace. He was known to all as the postman.

"But why?" Rose had asked, wrinkling her nose. "Was he ever a postman?"

Jem had only smiled and nodded in the direction of the history lecturer loitering behind them.

Later on, he had walked up beside her and said without turning his head, "They call him the postman because he always delivers." And that was the end of the conversation.

Rose tapped on the window again. A bead of sweat ran down her back as the sun bore down on her.

A face appeared. Some moments later she heard the front door creaking.

Jem greeted her by taking her arm and marching her to the back of the house.

"What are you doing here?" he hissed.

"We need to talk about this," Rose said, pulling her arm free. "You have to listen to me."

"You know you're not supposed to be here."

"We're in trouble Jem. I know it."

"Well, we're going to be if you don't sort your head out!" he yelled.

Rose took a step back. Jem had never spoken to her like this. She knew he could be hard, but this was different.

"You're turning into your mother," he said as he turned his back to her and went into the house.

She scuttled back under the wooden panel as fast as she could, her eyes stinging. She made her way back along the fence, striding at first, but then running. She didn't care if someone stopped her. She had to get away.

She ran the whole way home.

Early morning now. Rose put her binoculars away. A couple of weeks had passed, and the man had not been back. He must have been doing a routine scan of the building. Everything was fine.

Except for Ash. Rose found herself thinking about him all the time.

Jem hadn't spoken to her since the incident on the community estate. He had been avoiding her. Not that she had been eager to talk to him after what he had said.

He hadn't signed on to Witness either. Rose snorted to herself thinking about it. Of course she was careful, she had been taking extra precautions. But Jem was taking things too far. He was letting down all the people who needed the site. And all just to show he was angry with her, when he should be helping her figure out the Wardens' next move.

She could hear Caroline trilling in the kitchen, warbling to herself while the kettle boiled. It reminded her of the days when Grace used to sing. Rose and her father would sneak up on her, creeping down the stairs of the house they once shared, on the outskirts of the city.

Padding softly down the many flights of stairs, Rose felt her bag bumping against her back in a slow, steady rhythm.

She was early, so she went to watch the markets going up. The sound of metal slotting into metal rang out, the thin tarpaulin secured over the top of the frames with string. Rose slowed and watched as a young boy unloaded crates of fruit. No-one she knew could afford fresh fruit. She inhaled. The oranges gave off a sweet, pungent aroma. Rose felt a sudden urge to take one and run. But there were always eyes to see. Not worth it. Not today. She kept on watching as the boy stacked the crates neatly under and on top of the table until a neat stack of crates lay directly under the display crate for each different type of fruit. He began to arrange the fruit on top. Bananas rocking on their backs in orderly rows, peaches all showing their blushing side, the apples arranged in precarious pyramids... Rose felt the inside of her mouth fill with saliva. She looked at the boy. Something was wrong. His pale, drawn face was too thin, too long. Blueish smudgy shadows circled his eyes, and a thin line of tears made a glistening trail that almost sparkled in the heat of the early morning light. He was crying, Rose realised with a jolt of shock. He was so hungry that the fruit was making him cry. Rose wondered if he helped unload the fruit every morning. Did he cry every morning? She didn't want to know. A tall woman in a silky grey suit brushed past her and picked up an orange without even asking. Without looking at the boy, she put a crisp note down on the counter and walked away in short, sharp steps. The boy picked up the note with an inaudible sigh, then turned to lock it away in the money box on the counter at the back of his stall.

Rose looked back at the display. She saw that the woman had taken the wrong orange, one near the bottom of the front pyramid and she almost cried out as they began to tumble. The boy turned at the sound of the first one thudding onto the ground. His face was frozen with terror as another, then another, then another tumbled off.

She got to college early and made her way to the hidden computer, barely even caring whether or not she was spotted.

Finally she found the post she was looking for.

The poster continued: "First my mother and father. Now my brother. He knows nothing. He is completely innocent."

There were very few people who had been there all her life. But she realised now that Ash was one of them. She had never seen his parents, though. They must have been taken when he was small. That wasn't so unusual. But then why say he knows nothing? What was there to know?

Another post caught her eye.

Then another.

Something strange was happening.

Rose traced the pattern of posts. Something wasn't right.

_It was a chain_, Rose realised, her stomach clenching hard with horror. The posts formed a chain. She scanned through, looking again for the posts that she could trace to her city. There was Ash's brother. And this one? The other brother? Then his partner.

"They took my little brother-in-law two weeks ago. And his brother the week after. They left the rest of us alone. But then they came back for Sonny. It's just me and the baby. I don't want to leave the community. But I can't stay here. I don't know what to do."

Then someone else, describing a woman just like the partner.

Sonny? Was that Ash's brother? Did he have a nephew?

She needed more than ever to talk to Jem, to get some answers. Surely someone had seen something. Was Ash's house now empty? Where was the baby?

And… the biggest question of all.

Why were the posts in sequence? Why not just arrest the whole family in one go?

Unless.

Unless there was a link between the posts and the arrests.

Which meant that Witness wasn't safe anymore.

In the distance, Rose could hear a buzzer ringing. There was a strange urgency to it, like it was playing at a higher pitch. How long had it been going for?

Rose realised what it was. A warning sound. They were here.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

**Ash**

He was woken by another loud crash, closely followed by the sound of the tray skidding across the floor and almost hurtling into his face. He recoiled, though slowly, like he was caught in the slow swirling mud of the rivers that chugged their way through the city in a messy criss-cross.

Ash rubbed his eyes, feeling the swollen parts of his face tingle in a way that almost gave pleasure. A reminder of being alive.

What he saw on the tray startled him. Yesterday he had been served up with a crust of bread with suspicious green and white splodges lining one side. And a tiny cupful of water that had almost fallen on its side as the tray slid into the room. But today was different. The tray held a series of polystyrene pots of all shapes and sizes. They had been toppled and displaced by the crude way in which the tray had been flung into the room, but they were there all the same. Ash watched as one fell at an awkward angle and rolled towards the back wall. It didn't make it all the way. Its trajectory curved at the last moment, leaving it to wobble on its side pathetically and land on its lid.

Ash was wary of this apparent abundance at first. The pots seemed to smell of nothing. What if they were empty? But the sight of them had made his stomach groan and grumble. Cautiously, as if handling an explosive, he picked up the pot that had fallen over. It was warm to the touch. He thought back to the way they were using water as a weapon against him. Was this a different kind of trick?

He peeled back the lid slowly and as he did, was hit full force by a smell that he knew well. He could barely remember the taste. But the smell! He had been a tiny child with a precious slab held between his finger and thumb. He remembered his brothers scowling as his mother handed it to him. It had squished in the centre, a thin trickle running down his finger and his prints had been left embedded on the soft oozing…

Chocolate. That was its name. And here was a whole pot of it, with all different shades of brown and cream swirled into one hot mess.

Ash was stunned. He rotated the pot in his hand, watching the liquid chocolate swish and coat the sides of the polystyrene. The smell was intoxicating. Without stopping to think, his suspicion washed away, he brought the pot to his lips and let the sweet tangy chocolate fill his mouth.

When he had finished, he pressed his tongue into the polystyrene and lapped up every last drop. Then he turned his attention to the rest of the pots.

One contained buttered peas, small and perfect and green, something else he remembered from the earliest days of his childhood. They were salty and sweet at the same time and they burst in his mouth. The butter was as creamy as the chocolate had been.

The next pot was full of twisted shards of a sweet crispy orange substance he didn't recognise. One piece stuck in the bottom and he clawed at it, poking a hole through the polystyrene. The rest of the pieces scattered onto the floor and he scrabbled after them, ignoring the dirt and blood that streaked the ground next to his pillow.

His gut was starting to ache under the weight of the food, but he carried on regardless.

There was a pot of mashed potatoes dotted with fragrant, peppery flecks of green and purple that he couldn't put names to. He scooped it out of its container with his fingers. It stuck to the roof of his mouth and coated his teeth. His jaw moved furiously back and forth and side to side.

Ash caught a glimpse of himself in the metal wall opposite. It looked like a wild animal had taken his place, a panting, gurning thing tearing at the spare leftovers of a much greater predator.

But still he couldn't stop eating.

Another pot contained bread, not the scratchy bleached-white, chemical-tasting, mould-spotted bread of home, but a crisp honey-brown loaf, small and delicate and shaped like a rounded plait. The surface of the bread cracked when he bit into it. Inside were fruits and nuts and seeds.

Another had bruise-coloured berries mixed in with some kind of cereal and yoghurt. Another fried balls of rice and onion and cheese. Another contained nothing but slices of orange, a sweet perfume spraying Ash as he popped off the lid.

Before long, there was nothing left but a pile of empty pots and lids. Ash lent back and groaned, holding his sides. He felt his stomach bulging and a strange sensation that was both satisfying and strangely painful, like having his insides massaged by tiny needles. The thought that he might have been poisoned popped into his mind for the first time.

But why bother with the feast? Why not with the standard slop? To make sure he'd eat every last mouthful? To act as some kind of sick parting gift?

The strange sensation started to pass. Ash breathed deeply. His tongue explored every crevice of his mouth, picking up stray morsels of food. A grain of rice here, the skin of a berry. Soon the only pains left were those from the beatings he had received. His face still stung and throbbed, but his stomach just felt deliciously full.

Ash didn't see them coming. Or hear them for that matter. The first he knew about it was the sudden whooshing of wood past his ears and the dull thud of the first bat connecting with his bloated stomach. And again, and again, and again, until he could taste acid in his throat.

With the two guards standing over him, laughing, jeering and thrusting their bats into his midriff, Ash began to throw up violently. He threw up over his clothes, his bedding, the floor. They left him where he sat curled up, still retching, gooey strands of vomit dangling between his fingers.

Some time later, he found himself sitting down opposite Steve again. Ash was beginning to hate the sight of him as much as the nameless tormentor who drank water in front of him.

"They know," Steve said, under his breath.

Ash looked at him blankly. They were back in another giant room, optimistically referred to as a 'therapy room' by Steve, with pristine white walls and whitewashed concrete floor. _All the better for smashing you with_, Ash thought to himself grimly. He could still smell vomit on his own breath. His stomach still heaved. How long had passed before he had been thrown a towel to wipe himself down? An hour? A night? A day? Steve had come to pick up him soon after the towel, that much Ash knew. He knew too that he was in no state to make small talk, or pay even the slightest bit of attention to anything that Steve said.

"I wish you would listen when I'm trying so hard to help you," Steve went on. "I said, _they know_."

"Know what?" Ash asked, bewildered. He had given up being polite to Steve. He'd been polite to everyone all his life and look where that had gotten him. Snatched from his bed in the middle of the night. Taken away from his family, with no idea what had happened to them. Lying in a puddle of his own blood and piss and vomit.

"Oh, you're good," Steve chuckled. "No wonder you're driving them spare."

Ash jumped out of his metal chair and kicked it in frustration, a sudden burst of energy flinging his tired limbs into action. It hurt like hell but he didn't care. It made a loud noise and suddenly that seemed more important.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he yelled, pushing his face up close to Steve's. He could smell the sweet tea on the man's breath.

The echoing clang of the chair against the concrete kept on going. The sound bounced off the walls and settled itself, lodged itself hard, onto Ash's heaving chest.

Steve held his gaze for a moment. Then a glance away. He looked at the wall and shook his head. He held up his grey papery hand as if to hold someone back. It was a tiny gesture but Ash couldn't miss it. He took a step back from Steve and looked all around him for any sign, a lens, a crevice, a reflection. But he couldn't see anything beyond the four vacant walls and the thick metal door with its shutter pulled firmly close.

Steve settled back in his chair and chuckled to himself, shaking his head. He stood, slowly, and went to pick up Ash's chair. He took the trembling boy's shoulders and, without making eye contact, like he was dealing with a particularly dangerous animal, sat him down firmly.

"May we continue?" he asked in a sickly sweet voice. "Good. Now, as I was saying, the Wardens know all about you. They know that you're the one who calls himself the Phoenix."

Ash shook his head. "I never heard that name before," he offered in a hoarse whisper. His heart started going about a million beats a minute.

"I don't like working with liars," Steve said, keeping the sweet tone but pushing it roughly through now-clenched teeth. "If you don't tell me, I can't help you, can I son?"

The room seemed to fill with a rushing, heavy silence. Ash felt the back of his mouth creak slightly, dry and bruised. He looked up at the ceiling, noting the dazzling white, not a single spot or crack. He wondered where they had hidden the cameras in this room. Perhaps in Steve himself.

Looking back at Steve, Ash sought out the pale green eyes, trying to find some glimmer of the kindness he had shown in the first few days, the kindness he heard so often in the older man's voice. But his face was hard and cold now, the eyes full of ghosts and shadows. Ash swallowed. It felt like throwing sawdust down his throat. He tried for the words, but they weren't coming together in his head properly. Steve cocked his head and smiled, waiting for some response.

"Don't call me son," he spat out eventually, glaring. "I'm nobody's son."

"Except that's not true either," Steve sneered. "Is it son?"

They threw him back in. It always shocked, no matter how often it happened. His already bruised shoulders smashed into the back wall. He felt his body slump and fold up in ways that didn't feel right. A dull, slow ache spread out from the base of his neck. He closed his eyes.

The way Steve had spoken to him, Ash realised that they had made some kind of connection between his parents and the so-called Phoenix. He had heard the name Phoenix. Of course he had. It was one of those words that everybody knew somehow, caught on the breeze drifting from a hushed, urgent whisper in the dark. He had seen the long fiery feathers that people painted on the sides of buildings in the dead of night, idea that he could have inspired such brazen acts of resistance was, quite frankly, laughable. If the wardens really thought he was some kind of terrorist mastermind, then they were much more stupid than everyone was giving them credit for.

The name Phoenix was an old one, anyway. It had been around since before he was born. So he couldn't understand why they were chasing down the idea only now. Unless there was something else going on, something set up by some kind of copycat or apprentice of the original.

The original Phoenix had been a woman, he knew that much, from the snatches of back and forth he had heard between his parents, sitting up late in the kitchen, playing chess. His mother always won, but still they played every evening. Sonny and Jay had caught him sitting outside the kitchen door and put him back to bed often enough. But they always went back to sleep. Ash would shuffle out from between them, their giant hulking frames buzzing with snores, creep downstairs, and tuck himself up in a little ball outside the kitchen. His brothers always slept through in those days. But that soon changed.

Phoenix was a woman. Nobody outside a small circle knew her real name or her identity. But she was missing, long dead, long gone. That was what his mother had said. And just knowing her could be enough to make you dead and gone too, Ash thought to himself bitterly. At least for his mother and father.

Because no matter how hard he tried to place himself back in his spot outside the kitchen door, trying to listen in on his own memories, he couldn't get more than muffled whispers without hearing what had happened next. The slow creak of an opening window that came from the other side of the house. A huge man, as silent as a cat, padded down the corridor, coming straight towards him. Ash froze. He saw the man see him, putting a gloved finger to his lips. But it wasn't necessary. Ash couldn't say a word. He could only watch the giant take up position beside him and wait. He heard the screams as the kitchen windows shattered. He opened his mouth to scream, but no sound came out. The giant sprang into action. Ash closed his eyes.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

**Rose**

Routine inspection. Just routine, Rose said to herself. Don't worry. They hadn't given any notice, but that was normal enough.

Rose stood in line, trying her best to make her face look neutral, calm, expressionless in every way. Only the throbbing of her legs gave the slightest hint that she had just been hurrying, that she had taken too long to respond to the buzzer.

She had ended up in the worst possible position, standing in front of a thick glass window, the heat burning her back.

The Warden swept up and down the line, his face lit up a hideous red.

Rose replayed the posts she had read in her head. Lines of them ran in front of her deliberately blank eyes. If someone had managed to hack into their site, then everything could start going very wrong, very quickly.

It occurred to her that Ash might have given something away. He seemed like a nice guy, but under pressure… well, who knew?

She had heard stories about the interrogation methods used by the wardens. Very few people lived to tell the tale, but there was always a handful of people who made it out. If it was strategic to keep them alive. They were relocated, of course, usually to some remote location, their every move, their every breath closely monitored. But the more canny amongst them sometimes found ways to communicate with their old communities. There were traitors in their ranks too. If someone disappeared and then reappeared in their old community, then that was always a giveaway. Mostly they were acting under duress, the threat of harm to a loved one etched into their faces. But they were still shunned. They couldn't be trusted. And then there were those who were completely altered by their experience, who were turned so inside out that they started to muddle up right and wrong. They were the most valuable to the wardens. They could be of use.

Up the line the red-faced Warden came. He wore a suit that was too tight, not the long sweeping robes worn by the more important members of the group. Scanning faces and consulting his clipboard, he marked the students off one by one.

He paused in front of a tall boy Rose recognised from her class. Ade. His face was twitching ever so slightly, enough of an excuse for the Warden to give him a hard time. Ade was one of Ash's friends, Rose realised, and cursed herself for not talking to him. As soon as they got out of this line up, she told herself, she would strike up a conversation, casually, and try to get some information out of him. She willed the Warden to move on, not to linger too long on Ade, to leave him be. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the clipboard flickering. A video playing, perhaps. The Warden must have searched for visuals on Ade. Rose held her breath, hoping that he hadn't found anything out of the ordinary.

After standing in front of Ade gazing at his clipboard for what seemed like an eternity, the Warden moved on, checking the rest of the line. He went swiftly now, wiping his brow as he did so, his face growing redder and redder. _Amateurs_, Rose thought to herself.

But then the Warden stopped in front of her. He looked at his clipboard intently, while she tried her hardest to look completely normal. Without warning, he roughly grabbed her wrist and twisted it up towards his face. The thin gold band on her wrist flickered in the sunlight.

And then her own words came streaming through her brain.

"She wore a gold bracelet…"

"Where did you get this?" the Warden hissed, his nostrils flaring. Clearing his throat and planting his feet so that he was slightly too close to her, slightly too tall and looming. He made a show of checking his clipboard. "You're one of the poorest students in this line. And unregistered too. Are you a thief?" he asked. But there was a trace of amusement in his voice, as if he was asking a question to which he already knew the answer.

Rose suddenly knew the answer to her own question too. They had broken into her site. They knew exactly where the bracelet had come from. Hadn't she described it in excruciating detail? Thinking she might be helping someone who wanted to know what had happened to that woman?

Another Warden stepped forward. His face was pale and ran all over with lines. But his body was huge, his eyes cold. He put his fingers to his earpiece and gave a small nod.

Rose's legs began to shake. There were two options. She could stay and face certain arrest: for posting on the site, for stealing the bracelet, for making accusations about the wardens' conduct.

But sooner or later, perhaps suspecting something more, something, bigger, they would look into her background. They would discover that Grace lived in an unregistered community. They would bring her in too. They would ask her where she came from, who Rose's father was, why she lived in an old apartment building, how she had paid for her television.

And then one day, they would stand before her and smile as they asked her why she had changed her name. Rose pictured Grace, her face bruised, her mind wandering. The whole thing would start to unravel.

She was already running before she had even decided to run. She had to get to Grace first. She lost them for just a few seconds, just long enough to burst through the door to the back stairs. She heard it slam behind her and knew they would be following.

On the first floor there was a tiny opening that led into the ventilation system, a loose panel, its screws merely decorative, the threads underneath worn smooth. Rose squeezed through the gap. She got stuck a moment struggling to free a belt loop on her trousers from a jutting rusty edge.

But then she was inside, dragging herself forward on her elbows. She had traced the long tunnels with her eyes many times from the outside. Inside it was different, easier to lose track of distance and direction.

She knew that eventually the system would open up and lead out into a wider space behind the row of classrooms that lined the east of the building. From there, she wasn't sure. But there had to be a way out. Reaching a junction, Rose took a deep breath and tried to get her bearings. From the drum beat of running feet in the distance, she knew that they following. Not in the vents, but on the ground.

Inching forward on sore, scratched elbows, Rose took a left. She was almost sure it was the right move.

The chasing wardens kindly let her know that she had made the right decision, that now, wriggling frantically through the vents, she had at least made it as far as the classrooms. She could hear them beneath her, clattering around, turning over tables and cupboards, yellowing notepads and old bitten pencils scattering over the floor.

By the time she felt the man's breath on the back of her neck, it was too late to fight him off. She was enveloped in a pair of wiry thin arms, one thin bony hand clamped firmly over her mouth, the other pinning her arms to her side.

A strangely familiar voice whispered in her ear, "Time to go, Rose."


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

**Ash**

This room was nothing like the others Ash had been in. He felt like he was high up above the city, though there wasn't a window in sight. He felt as if the room would suddenly spring apart and expose him to the elements, like he was at the very top of a building. The room was clean and sleek, every part of the smooth curve of the wall covered in soft panels. Each one lit up and undulated gently under the Warden's touch, revealing responsive touch screens embedded in the wall.

The Warden touched a pad embedded in a smooth grey wooden table. A long screen slowly curved round from behind him and came into view. She let her fingers trail and hover over the pad, small causal movements. Ash stared at the woman, trying to stay alert. He didn't know why he'd been brought here. But he'd been given clean clothes and even a shower. He let a shudder move through his body in a slow electric pulse as he remembered the feel of it. The hot water running over his face, big fat streams of it, clouds of steam forming. It was like nothing he had ever experienced. As the guard, bored as ever, had watched on, Ash let his head hang forward. He felt the hot sting of water pouring into his injuries and let his tears fall just as freely.

Now he was here, in this soft cushiony room, his skin still raw and clean. His hair, still damp and growing longer every day, tickled his eyes.

The Warden looked up as if finally ready to register his presence. She had striking eyes, he noticed, her eyebrows arching up in a way that made him think of Rose. But that was where the likeness began and ended. The woman now sitting opposite Ash had a cruel sneer distorting the bottom half of her face. Her cheekbones looked like they might cut through concrete, given half a chance. Her waves and waves of glossy brown hair were pulled away from her face and kept under control with millions of mean little pins.

She stood and held herself with poise, as if posing for a picture. Her sleek silver robes were slit open at the front, giving a flash of the golden inlay. Ash looked down at the table. His hands had been tied, sharp plastic scratching at his wrists. The pressure under his shoulder blade hadn't gone away. The constant dull pain of breathing in and out made sure he couldn't ignore it, even for a second.

"You'll enjoy this," a sharp voice rang out, filling the room and suddenly making all its soft curves feel like jagged edges. He didn't look up.

Before he had time to register what was happening, she was over the desk, holding his jaw in a tight grip that forced eye contact, one stiletto heel held to his crotch, in the perfect position to start applying pressure.

"I said, you'll enjoy this."

He could almost taste her breath, a sweet spray of fresh citrus just centimetres from his face. A few strands of her hair had escaped and dangled in front of his eyes, shades of deep brown and orange and dark red. He could see, fastened tight around her long thin milky-pale neck, a necklace in the shape of a thin black ribbon. A choker? Part of him remembered the word. It looked like it might be holding her head on, as if he could reach out and pull an end with his teeth and her head would hit the ground with a sudden thud. She was still over him, breathing in his face. Close up, her face looked like a mask that could slip at any moment and reveal the true person underneath. Was she cruel or was she kind? Was she something in between? As she lingered over him, suddenly an image of this Warden wearing nothing but the choker flashed into his mind.

And then it was gone. He could feel the blood pulsing round his body, as if he had been suddenly jump started. The woman stood and smoothed her robes, looking pleased with the effect she had had on him. Coolly, she trailed her fingers over the velvety curves of the room, tapping out instructions.

The display of the curved screen behind the wooden desk flickered into life. Ash couldn't take his eyes away, completely absorbed as the image of his school appeared. It looked like the video had been filmed by someone walking down the corridors, with no attention to how clear or still the camera was. He could tell from the height and angle of the shot, plus the careless jumpiness of it all, that the footage must have been filmed on one of the tiny cameras Wardens usually pinned to their collars. They were usually easy to spot, but now he wondered if Steve had been wearing a camera too.

The Warden filming must have been tall, and as the camera swept past a row of his classmates, Ash caught glimpses of faces. Parts of faces mostly. Noses – crooked, big, small, flat, pointy, long, round. Chins, the flush of a pink cheek, eyes, eyes, eyes. And then the camera stopped in front of a girl. Ash felt his heart slamming against his ribs, like an angry prisoner rattling his cage. A smattering of freckles danced over the middle of her face, over her pale brown skin. She was wearing a headband, as she always was, and one that he had seen before. A sky blue strip of cotton dotted with pale pink roses, leftover material from her parents' wedding. He had overheard her telling one of the other girls and had never forgotten it. Was that creepy? Probably, he decided.

On the video, Rose's eyes looked ahead without betraying emotion, but there was the slightest twinge of something – annoyance? anxiety? fear? fury? – playing out in the twitching of her curling eyebrows.

Ash carried on staring as the camera looked down, as the Warden looked down, and glimpsed the flash of gold at her wrists. Her arm was grabbed roughly for inspection, and now for Ash's inspection too. He had never seen her wearing a bracelet before, he thought. Maybe he hadn't been paying attention. It suited her, he thought, thinking deliberately calm thoughts. The thin tendrils that broke away from the main central strand made the whole thing look like a long tightly-wound feather. Exactly like the kind of feather he had seen painted on the sides of buildings.

It's her, Ash realised, trying not to let it show on his face. She's the one they wanted all along.

But then, he thought, why would she have worn the bracelet? He couldn't believe she would be stupid enough not to recognise it. What was she thinking? Unless she was just an ordinary girl who had picked up some trinket. Or stolen it. Could that be true? Ash felt disappointed for a moment. Does it change anything? Does it change how you feel about her?

No, he said to himself.

His mouth opened when he saw her run, saw the Wardens take chase. He just stopped himself crying out. He realised, with a sudden sense of immense satisfaction, that they hadn't expected her to run. It was only the bracelet that had made them take notice. But why?

As the camera spun and shook with the tumbling, clumsy run of its owner, the screen suddenly went blank. He could feel the Warden moving behind him, felt the air turn to ice as she bent down behind him and whispered in his ear. "We've got your little friend. So maybe it's time you starting helping us out."

Ash's head began to spin. He had never mentioned Rose, of that he was certain. He had barely ever spoken _to _her. She only ever looked through him. So how did they know? A thought peeked out from some dark, damaged corner of his mind. Maybe they can read my thoughts, he said to himself. No, that can't be possible.

The Warden sat back down in her long, curved silver chair and ran her fingers lightly over her choker before gripping both arm rests as if imagining gripping both Ash's legs and crushing his bones with her bare hands.

"Your heart rate betrays you, of course," she finally said with unrestrained glee. "We are always monitoring you." She leant into the table as if telling him a secret. "Right now, especially. Do you know what your heart was doing when we played you that little film?"

Ash said nothing. In spite of himself, his heart began to pound. He took in long secret breaths, staring down Choker, while he brought his pulse back into line. Just when he thought he had a grip on it, his blood slipped away from him and beat a drum in rapid, confused time. The plastic tickled at his wrists. Ash felt a sharp pang of panic as the uneven chugging of his pulse slipped from his control completely.

The choker Warden sneered, white teeth flashing.

"So," she hissed, placing both hands on the table and standing. Her shoulders rose up as her head jutted forward. The lights seemed to go down, responding to the change in her mood, and deep shadows circled her eyes. She looked like a vulture, Ash thought, as she cocked her head to one side, eyeing him like a carcass she would soon be picking clean.

"So," she continued. "What do you want to tell us about your friend?"

Ash swallowed hard, his throat as dry and cut up as ever.

"Come on Ash," she said. Her voice softened but her expression remained the same. "The more you tell us, the less... " she paused a second, trying to pluck the right word out of the air. "The less _time _we'll need to spend asking _her_."

An image of Rose leapt into Ash's mind, her wrists straining against sharp plastic ties, her head plunged into ice water, the hard crack of a fist connecting with her jaw, of the guards pushing her up against the wall, the tears silently rolling down her face as they touched her, trails of tears intersecting with torn flesh, the sting of the salt, the shock of being thrown against a wall. The ripping of hair and the thin spool of spit falling into her eyes. But what could he tell the Choker? He could make something up. Could he? To help her he could. To save her he would tell them it was him all along. It was always him. And maybe then they would let her go, he reasoned desperately with himself. Except he knew they wouldn't.

There was something else, just out of view, rattling around in the attic of his mind, a screeching rewind of something just out of the corner of his eye. It rolled down like a marble in an old arcade game, flicked from side to side. And then it dropped.

They hadn't been looking for Rose. They had only even noticed her because of the bracelet, which wasn't even hers anyway. And they hadn't expected her to run. And what's more, they hadn't shown him any footage of her being caught. Because that's what would have made him talk. Seeing Rose pinned to a metal chair, stripped and beaten and hurled against the wall of a tiny cell. All the images that had just flashed past and assaulted his senses.

But none of that was on the film that had just played out on the sleek flickering curve of the screen that was swinging back around past his head and sinking back into the soft grey walls of the Choker's room. Which meant they hadn't caught her at all. And they hadn't expected her to run.

For the first time in a very long time, Ash felt a surge of triumph bubbling up from some long-forgotten place inside him. A manic cackle filled the room, bouncing up and off the wooden table, the panels of hidden buttons, the pulse monitors and covert cameras. It was only when he saw the smack of shock on the Choker's blood-drained face that he recognised the sound as his own laughter.

They hadn't expected her to run.


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

**Rose**

"She's coming round!"

Doors slammed, feet thudded closer.

"Quick! Get in here."

Rose blinked. Her eyes fluttered open, then immediately shut tight, in protest at the harshness of a light, which seemed to be hovering directly above her.

Was she lying down? It felt like it. She felt like she had been out for a long time, too. The noise around her continued as she slowly became aware of her arms and legs, a slow aching washing over her body, and a stubborn throb at the base of her skull.

"Rose?" one of the voices offered, almost tentatively.

Rose felt her heart wake up and start to beat faster. Who was talking to her? Where was she? And then she remembered. The Wardens chasing her down. A surge of adrenaline zapped through her and she sat bolt upright. The light was still too bright and made her squint. She tried to stand, and instead rolled onto the floor, colliding with a set of legs that were not her own. Her own squirming, wriggling body tangled itself into this other warm mass and was gripped, wrestled and pinned down. She tried to kick and let out a faint scream of protest, hot sliding ropes of panic pulling at her throat.

"Rose?" the same voice (a woman's?) sang again, close to her ear this time. "You're safe now, Rose." But the grip didn't loosen.

Blinking, Rose continued to squint as the blurred shapes in front of her swam in and out of focus. She leant back, and the woman's grip relented slightly. Faces flew in and out , all looking at her, all emerging slowly from the shadows. Rose gulped in giant portions of air and felt her legs begin to tremble. She became aware of a faint pressure on her bladder.

How long was I out? she wanted to say. But the words wouldn't come, though she could feel her lips moving stupidly, her jaw trying to work its way round the question.

She stumbled to her feet. Then suddenly, in a shock of swinging orange light, everything came into view. Then gone again. Rose felt her knees buckle as if in disbelief at the flash of clarity. As her legs collapsed out from underneath her, a pair of arms caught her, hooked around her, palms splayed across her shoulder blades. These arms, she knew as they cradled her gently, were not the same arms that had taken her away, that had dragged (carried?) her through the vents and hidden passageways of the old school building. The arms that had thrown her body, limp with shock – with a bang to the head? – over bony shoulders, that had gripped her knees so tightly the pressure had almost made her cry out.

No, these arms were different. They were slender, but strong too, Rose noticed. Soft, tender. They knew how to hold tight without hurting.

Rose blinked and looked up, as she now knew she would, into her mother's face. Grace smiled.

"You're safe, my love," she said. "We all are. For now."

"Jem," Rose mouthed, her cracked throat making the tiniest creak of a noise.

"He's here," Grace whispered with a smile, and – was that a flicker of hurt that crossed her face? Like a fleeting shadow, gone before it could be pinned down.

"Mum," Rose creaked.

"Yes," she said, her eyes filling, a soft glow appearing in her dark brown eyes. "Like the bottom of a well," Rose remembered her father saying, "and just as mysterious." And just as life-giving, and just as full of all the other things he didn't say out loud, but which were lit up in his face and made it warm whenever he looked at her mother.

Grace knelt down beside her, and slowly eased her back on her back, onto a thin mat on the floor.

"You hit your head," she explained, in a voice that sounded like a pillow full of feathers, burst in a moment of fury, but floating down gently all the same. "When we were getting you out. But it's ok now."

"That's enough, you'll tire her out," a male voice came in, thin but somehow made strong, like brushed steel.

Rose felt tired then, when he said it, a slow drawing down of her limbs into the mat, and a slide into sleep. She heard the shuffle of feet and the swing of a door. Grace stayed and stroked her hand.

When Rose woke, she reached for her mother and asked for her help getting up. Grace scooped her off the mat and gripped her tightly. She was surprisingly strong, Rose realised. Silently supporting her daughter, Grace helped Rose to her feet and held her steady until she felt stable. They exited the tiny room through a light and loosely swinging wooden door, with a glass pane down one side of it, almost like a school door. Grace helped Rose down a long dark corridor with one flickering strip light still working, and led her into another tiny cell of a room further down. This room was laid out differently to Rose's, with a long table taking up almost half the space. Rose gaped at the neat stack of medical supplies filling the table, mentally calculating the cost of the rolls and rolls of clean white bandages neatly boxed up.

"There's a little bathroom through here," Grace told her, pushing another door opposite the one they entered. This door had been clumsily painted a dark metallic blue, including the long glass pane. Long drips of paint had hardened and set, making the door look like running water.

Rose went in and emptied her bladder. She splashed her face with the thin trickle of water than ran from the tap. She caught sight of herself in a long cracked mirror.

They hadn't been joking about the bump to the head. There was a lump the size of a rock on the left hand side of her forehead, a splodge of dried blood at its centre. She could see tiny tufts of cotton wool where they must have cleaned it.

She went out to Grace, who helped her back to the tiny cell with the matt on the floor. A harsh yellow lamp hung from a makeshift hook on the wall, a long nail forced into a crack in the cement holding up the breeze block wall. The ceiling was a mess of air conditioning ducts, thin copper pipes, and dangling wires.

"Lie down, sweetheart," she heard her mother tell her. "Time to rest."

The old pipes gurgled and spat. A low rumble above caught Rose's attention. She curled up with her mother on the mat.

"Where are we, Mum?" Rose pleaded. "I feel better now. Please just tell me what's going on."

Grace held her daughter's shoulder, with a squeeze as nervous as it was reassuring. A moment passed when she said nothing at all, just clenched her jaw and drew her knees in close to her chest. Her long dark curls glistened in the flickering lamp light.

Rose snorted and retreated behind a pillow in the corner. She nestled into the concrete blocks as best she could. The mat was too thin and lumpy, but the sheets were soft and the room itself was almost cool. Rose leaned her cheek to rest against the wall. It tickled and she couldn't move for fear of scratching herself. But it was so cool. She watched as her mother tried to make herself small. But eventually, Grace answered.

"We're underneath our block of flats," she murmured quietly, as if talking to herself. "We're underground," she added pointlessly, looking up at the ceiling. She looked scared, Rose thought. Not just anxious, that was normal. But scared.

_Who is 'we'? Me, you and Jem? Who else is here?_

"Are we going to be ok?" Rose asked, addressing the pillow she had clasped close to her body as much as her mother.

Normally, Grace would say "Yes" without even thinking about it, even when it was evidently a lie. But all she did was turn to look at Rose and leant over to stroke her hands.

Rose had so many more questions. But her head was beginning to throb again and her eyes were closing against her will. She felt Grace pull her away from the breeze blocks and place her softly down in the centre of the mat. Sheets were draped over her, layers of forest green cotton that smelt of home.

"Sorry," Rose whispered.

She was dimly aware of the door opening, a muffled conversation, then a different presence landing next to her on the mat. But she was drifting in and out of sleep, too tired to question any more for now. From far away, she could hear a husky whisper close to her hear, but the words had all been dipped in glue. She couldn't hold on to any of them, but the low, considered hum of sound told her the whisper belongs to Jem. Her fingers fluttered, reaching out for him without thinking about it. His big rough hands slotted into hers, squeezing hard.

She woke up, too hot. There was the low, steady sound of breathing coming from the foot of her makeshift bed. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she began to trace Jem's outline, his feet stuck out before him, his chest gently rising and falling.

He was sleeping in a chair, she realised. He must have waited while she fell asleep. And he had stayed.

Rose peeled back the sheets and slowly started to undress. It felt like a strange thing to do, with Jem right there, but it was dark and he was breathing so deeply she thought he would be unlikely to wake up. She hurried to pull her t-shirt over her head, wriggling as her hair caught on the tiny buttons either side of the collar. Now for the trousers. Lying down, she stuck her hips up and took her trousers off, leaning forward to free her feet. Jem's hand dangled dangerously over the arm of the chair, making it almost impossible to avoid brushing his fingers with hers as she finished undressing. For a moment his breathing seemed to stop, then changed its rhythm.

Was he awake? Rose felt her body begin to tingle.

She sat there in the dark, free of the blanket, for what seemed like an eternity. She thought about whispering his name, taking his hand. She sat and waited to see what she might do. Part of her wanted him to speak, to let her know he was awake. Part of her wanted him to see her. Part of her wanted him to leave her in peace, so she could dress and undress at will, without worrying about what he might think.

Her throat was dry, she realised. But she couldn't get up and go for water. She didn't even know where the water was.

_You could wake him up. You could ask him._

Rose listened in the darkness. Jem's breathing still hadn't returned to normal. Maybe he was having the same conversations with himself in his head as she was. Eventually, she pulled the sheets back up around her shoulders and closed her eyes. She put one arm up over her head, keeping her curls away from the aching, raw bump on her head.

_Yeah, really charming, aren't you, with a giant bruise on your head. Irresistible!_

As she drifted off, she thought she could hear him saying her name, a soft croak reaching out in the darkness.

"Rose?"

But the face she saw as she passed over into her dreams didn't belong to Jem at all.

"Rose? Are you awake?"


End file.
