Shift (23 page)

“Thank you, Scott,” said Commandant Morgan, appearing through the doors. He had a manic grin on his face. “You brought us right to them.” Morgan clapped his hands together, and started rubbing them.

I opened and closed my mouth, like a grounded fish gasping for air. “I… I…” was all I finally managed. Abbott threw me a pitying but warning look that said, “Keep your mouth shut.”

Every member of the SLF believed I’d betrayed them. That I had set them up. I was caught between wanting to scream the truth, and not wanting Abbott to think that I had anything to do with them. I looked at Aubrey who was being dragged to her feet, willing her to understand. To somehow read my mind. I hadn’t meant this to happen, I had come to warn her. She stared straight through me. I could do nothing to help, but I couldn’t understand why they couldn’t help themselves.

“Don’t bother trying to Shift,” said Morgan, looking at his fingernails. “You know how this works. I’m a Fixer and I don’t want you lot going anywhere.” He grinned.

I’d forgotten that Morgan was a Fixer too. But I still couldn’t believe that a jumped-up prat like this guy was really the most powerful Shifter here. Stronger than Aubrey? Than Zac? I’d never really understood why Morgan was the Commandant. I’d never seen him do any real work. And he can’t have been far away from entropy. But whatever I thought didn’t matter. He’d won.

Zac was being led away from the altar, his hands cuffed behind his back. He didn’t even look at me. Rosalie was next. She paused for a moment and then started screaming at me. “You bastard!” She twisted out of the Regulator’s grip and dove at me. I thought she was going to bite me. But it had all been a ruse. Before the Regulator pulled her off me she whispered in my ear.

“Look after Jake.”

She was pulled away before I had a chance to reply.

Aubrey was the last to be taken. Her eyes were like fire and she was hissing like a cornered cat as the men dragged her down the aisle.

“Stop!” I shouted, and the Regulators, trained to obey any command from a Bluecoat, stopped. I turned to Abbott. “Please, she has nothing to do with them. It’s a mistake.”

Abbott looked at me, shook his head sadly, and then back at his men. He nodded at them to continue. Aubrey was dragged past, pausing only to spit in my face.

“Well, that’s that.” Morgan brushed his hands. “Abbott, you finish up here. I better get back to base and start the report. A good day.” He dipped his fingers in the bowl of holy water and used it to slick back his hair. “Yep. A good day.” He sauntered away.

The doors slammed closed, and the silence in the nearempty church was like lead. What had I done? I walked the length of the aisle and stared up at the stained glass image of the saint I now knew to be Sebastian. Tied to a tree and riddled with arrows, and yet he was smiling up at the beaming sun. What an idiot. But I was the real fool here. I’d allowed myself to be used in a game I didn’t understand. And I’d betrayed my only friend in the process.

“I’m sorry we couldn’t tell you, Scott,” Abbott said after a while. “I wanted to. But I had my orders.” He looked genuinely uncomfortable.

“You followed me here?”

He nodded and joined me at the altar. “We’ve had this building under surveillance for a few months but their security was too tight. Any time we tried to get in, they’d Shift and we lost them. But when you were seen coming out of here the other night we thought we might have found a way in. We just needed to get Morgan through the doors and then we had them.”

“So, what Morgan said earlier, about the raid, that was all to get me to come here?” Abbott didn’t answer, but I knew it was true. “So how come I’m not being dragged off in cuffs? How do you know I’m not one of them?”

“Because I know you, Scott. You’d never betray ARES.”

“What do you mean I wouldn’t? I did! I should have reported the SLF as soon as I knew where they were.” My nails dug into my palms as I fought to control the rage.

“You would have in the end,” Abbott said. “But we couldn’t wait. The chatter we’ve been following led us to believe that the SLF had something big planned.” He turned over a piece of paper on the altar. “Looks like we were right. Come see.”

He pointed at the papers I’d seen Aubrey and Zac looking over as I came in. They were the blue prints for ARES’ HQ and marked in red pen were the entrances and offices of key personnel. Next to that lay a sheet of A4 paper with some names written on. Heritage and Warner were top of the list. Looked like I was right, Warner hadn’t been the bomber on the Tube, he had been their target. A third, large sheet of paper, was tucked underneath the blueprint. I pushed the other pages away to look at it. All I had time to see was a name written on the top in white pencil: “Greyfield’s”. Then Abbott pulled it away and started rolling it up. Another church they’d been planning on making their base, perhaps? Not that any of it mattered now. The SLF wouldn’t be going anywhere for a long time.

“Seems they had more than a Tube bomb planned this time,” Abbott said.

“Aubrey would never have stood by and let them hurt anyone. If we’d just waited she would have led you to them, I know it.”

“We couldn’t take that chance. Aubrey has a history of not playing by the rules. She might have been an undercover agent for SLF all along.”

“Never!” I shouted and my voice echoed around the dome. “She hated them. She only wanted to find out what they knew.” I stormed away from the altar and kicked over a brass candlestick. It clanged as it hit the stone floor.

“Scott, I can see how much Aubrey means to you. So I’ll handle her questioning myself, OK? If what you say is true, and if she’s willing to give evidence against the SLF then she’ll get off with just a warning.” He laid his hand on my shoulder. I looked up at him through clouded eyes. “Let’s get you home.”

The house was empty when I let myself in. I remembered with a cold, sinking feeling that today was the last Friday of the month. When Mum took The Tyler Friday Family Dinner out on the road. What I wouldn’t give to be sat with Mum, Dad and Katie right now. I wouldn’t even mind if Mum had chosen one of her “experimental’ places, like the one she took us to last year – Offally Good. I looked at my watch. 8.30pm. Wherever they were, they’d be tucking into pudding right now. I’d missed the past four Tyler Fridays. One when I was pretending to be in Leeds but was really in hospital. The rest, I fed them some crappy excuse about training. The worse bit was I got the feeling they had much more fun without me moaning and whining all the time.

Hugo had been really pissed at me for not making Seb’s party. I tried telling him about the explosion and how I’d been in hospital with a concussion, but he didn’t believe me. And I’d been so carried away with my new life as a Bluecoat I hadn’t bothered really trying to con vince him. So all round I was a terrible friend, a terrible son and pretty crappy brother.

I plodded into the kitchen, opened the fridge door and stared in. Nothing in there looked edible. My body ached, but not as much as my brain. In the space of two days I had found a dead body, been tortured by a psychopathic cannibal, been responsible for the capture of a terrorist cell and lost my best friend. As weeks went, this one sucked big time. I made myself some tea, pushed some bread into the toaster and broke down in sobs.

Becoming a part of ARES had given me a sense of belonging. Focus even. The very thing all my teachers had always banged on at me about. But now I felt totally lost again. I was caught between the two worlds of authority and friendship. And didn’t know which way to turn. I started to play over in my head all the decisions that had led me to running up those steps to the church tonight. There had to be a Shift I could make. When I’d finally got home and crawled into bed at five am that morning, I’d wanted to stay there. I’d wanted to hide under my duvet and let the world do without me for a day. So why didn’t I? If I’d not been at ARES, then Morgan couldn’t have played me like a puppet, and I’d never have led them to the church. But then, would the SLF really have attacked ARES HQ like Abbott believed? Would Aubrey have gone along with them? Helped them even? I knew she resented ARES for taking her away from her parents. But I didn’t believe she hated them. Not really. But was it a chance I was willing to take? Would I save my friend and risk the SLF hurting more people, even destroying ARES?

I lay my head on the granite counter top, trying to let some of the stony stillness flow into me. A knock at the door shook me out of my misery. I prayed it was Mum and Dad, home early after a huge row.

I threw open the door and looked down to see a sandy mop of hair. Jake stood on my doorstep. His usual grin was gone and his mouth was fixed in a thin, stoic line. His eyes were red and I could tell that he’d been crying too. The acid guilt bubbled in my stomach because I knew whatever pain he was in was all thanks to me. He spoke first.

“Rosalie’s been arrested.”

“Yeah I know. Come in,” I said, standing aside and pointing him towards the kitchen.

He walked in like a robot, as if it was taking all of his energy just to put one foot in front of the other.

“Do you want a cup of tea? The kettle’s just boiled.” My mother always made tea whenever things went wrong, as if it could cure all of the world’s ills. I think it would take more than tea to sort all this out.

We sat at the kitchen table, both staring into our mugs.

“I didn’t have anywhere else to go,” Jake finally said.

“Hey, no problem. But… how did you find me?”

“Hacked your files,” he said, like it was the most obvious thing ever. I didn’t bother asking him how. “What am I going to do?”

“I don’t know, Jake.” I couldn’t lie to him. His sister was a terrorist and that meant she’d be locked up till entropy and he would be left alone. “Do you have anywhere to stay?”

He shook his head. “I could go back into the dorms. But I used to get nightmares. That’s why they let me live with…” He couldn’t even bring himself to say his sister’s name.

“You can stay with me.” I tried to sound upbeat, as if it would be a great adventure. I’d always wanted a little brother who I could play with and, if I was really honest, win against, because it had been a long time since I’d beaten Katie at anything. I didn’t want to think about what my Mum would say when she came home to find a homeless kid in her kitchen. I’d deal with her when I had to. Worst case, I’d move out and find a flat and we’d both live there. Now I was a Bluecoat I was earning enough money. Maybe Aubrey could move in, too. That’s if ARES let her go and if she would ever talk to me again.

“Did you know Aubrey was arrested too?” Jake said, looking up at me from behind his shaggy fringe. Had he known what I’d been thinking about?

“I heard,” I said. “But Abbott said he’ll try and get her off.”

“That’s good. Aubrey’s cool.”

“Yeah, she is.” We both gazed back into our mugs. The tea had gone cold.

“I wonder if I’ll see her again,” Jake said, sadly.

“Aubrey? I’m sure you will, mate. Like I said, Abbott–”

“Not Aubrey. My sister.” His bottom lip started to wobble. “I might not even get to say goodbye.” Huge tears rolled down his face.

I hesitated for a second, and then decided to forget all the rubbish about manliness. I leant over and gathered Jake into a big hug. His tiny shoulders shook in my arms.

“Screw this,” I said after letting him cry for a bit. “They can’t stop you seeing your sister. I mean, prisoners have rights, right?”

He sniffed a bubble of snot back into his nose and his eyes brightened.

“We’ll go to HQ first thing on Monday morning and demand to see her.”

“Do you think we can?”

“Hey, I’m a Bluecoat. No one says no to a Bluecoat.”

As it turned out, everyone says no to a Bluecoat.

Jake stayed with me over the weekend. I told Mum and Dad he was a kind of IT Savant who was studying at ARES, which wasn’t exactly a lie. Surprisingly, Mum fussed over him and decided he needed feeding, while Dad got Jake fixing his computer, the one thing he never allowed me to touch. Katie pretended to ignore us but I kept seeing her glancing at Jake when they were in the same room. I teased her about fancying him and she threw an apple at my head.

On Monday morning, we’d started asking everyone we knew about Aubrey and Rosalie and were getting nowhere fast. They either acted as if they didn’t know what we were talking about, or they told us to shove off. I’d even tried Shifting a few times, taking different tacks, the least successful of which had been when I’d tried to flirt with one of the girls in Analysis and got called a creep.

We were sat in the canteen, poking at our breakfast, feeling exceedingly sorry for ourselves. News travelled pretty fast around here. The place was buzzing with the news that the SLF had been caught. Although, luckily, no one seemed to know about my involvement. That wouldn’t last long.

“I’ll try Abbott again,” I told Jake, pulling out my phone. Not that I thought it would do any good. I’d been told he was off site and he wasn’t answering. Yet another person stonewalling me.

I threw my phone on the table. “Nothing.”

“Oh,” said Jake, his zombie expression was back. It looked like his belief that he would see his sister again was fading with each minute. But I wasn’t even nearly ready to give up.

“We need to talk to someone who actually knows what’s going on around here.” I remembered something. “Come on. I have an idea.”

I dragged him up two flights of stairs to the IT department. Carl was sat at his desk, a computer tower in bits in front of him.

“Hey, Carl. How’s it going?”

He looked up from the tangle of wires and circuitry and squinted at me. “Sorry, do I know you?”

I tugged at my jacket. “I was here a few days ago. With Aubrey.”

Her name worked better than my supposed Bluecoat authority ever could. He smiled at me. “Oh, yeah. You were the one after the fat guy.”

“Yeah, that’s me.” I smiled and moved closer to him. Then I pulled up a chair and lowered my voice. “I need a favour. Well, not me. Aubrey. She told me that you were the only one she could really trust.”