The Fearless (32 page)

Damn you, get out of my head
, I think, as memories of Myo threaten to surface yet again. I wish I could wipe him from my mind for ever. The reason I’ve thrown myself into the training so hard – that I’m forever in the medics’ tent, having scratches and bruises and muscle strains tended to – is so, when I go to bed at night, I’m too exhausted to dream. Otherwise, I dream about Myo, and when I wake up, there are a few moments when I forget that he lied to me, and then I remember, and it crushes me.

After breakfast, everyone who’s going out on a mission fetches their packs and then our unit – minus Sol, who Andrej says is still in his tent, looking for something – heads to the training field, where a truck is waiting.

Corporal Jonasson’s standing beside it with Nadine. ‘You’re coming with us?’ I ask her, surprised.

She nods. ‘Is that a problem?’

‘No, of course not,’ I say, although I can’t help wondering if she made sure she was assigned as our medic because she wants to keep an eye on me.
I hope Jori’s OK while I’m gone
, I think, with a sudden pang. Since recovering from his ordeal at the Torturehouse, my brother has been living in one of the Portakabins with the other young children at the camp, some of whom were rescued from Sheffield, some of whom belong to the Magpies. He’s been attending the camp school, and I see plenty of him in the evenings, but the thought of having to leave him again gives me a pain in my stomach. What if something goes wrong while we’re up there and I never see him again?

‘Is everyone here?’ Mikael asks, opening the truck’s passenger door.

‘We’re still waiting for Sol,’ Marissa says. Then we hear a shout. Sol jogs up to the truck, sliding his pack off his shoulders and placing it gingerly on the ground.

‘You bringing your best china or something?’ Andrej jokes. Sol gives him a thin, humourless smile and glances at me, only for a second, but long enough for me to get the message: he’s still angry about last night, and he’s going to stay angry for a long time.

Maybe for ever.

Oh, screw him
, I think.

The truck is one of the big ones with a cover over it. In the back, between the seats, is a large cage.
Oh, God
, I think. If we catch Myo, I’m going to have to travel back with him right next to me the whole way.

I shove my pack under my seat. Our weapons – shotguns and trank guns – are strapped into some webbing above our heads, and we’ve all been given pairs of high-resolution night-vision goggles. The plan is to go to the bunker in the small hours of tomorrow morning, well before it gets light.

‘Want a hand with that?’ Andrej says. I look up and see Sol trying to get into the truck with his pack hugged against his chest.

‘No!’ he snaps. ‘I mean, I’m fine. Thanks.’

He takes the seat furthest away from me, still hugging his pack. Marissa shoots us a puzzled look, but I ignore her. I don’t have the energy to explain.

Mikael twists the key in the ignition, and the truck shudders into life. The vehicles here all run on a modified form of diesel, which the Magpies make themselves; I’m not sure how.

The trip is long, cold and uncomfortable. Every time the truck jolts over a pothole, Sol clenches his teeth. The others tease him about it, until he starts to get a spot of colour high on each cheekbone. He looked the same last night when he punched the climbing wall.

‘Everything OK back there?’ Nadine asks.

‘Fine,’ Sol says with a tight smile. But the spots of colour on his face remain, and I’m glad when the others get bored and leave him alone.

Even though we only stop for half an hour that day, to eat and relieve ourselves, it’s almost dark by the time we reach the moors. It’s much colder up here, patches of snow still clinging to the hills. Mikael leaves the truck under some trees at the side of the road, next to a dry-stone-walled paddock with a tiny hut at one end where we set up our camp. All around us, the hills loom up into the dusk. I get a jolt when I turn and see we’re right beside the two-pronged ridge Myo and I rode the horses over all those weeks ago, when it was snowing and I thought he was just a normal boy.

Once we’ve put up our tents – one for the boys, one for the girls and a small one each for Mikael and Nadine – we light fires to cook the evening meal. Sol picks up his pack.

‘Where are you going?’ Halim asks him.

He points at the hut. ‘I’m putting this in there. The tents are tiny.’

Halim frowns. ‘Why do you not keep it in the truck?’

‘The building’s closer.’

‘OK. Maybe I put mine there too.’

I notice a strange look flash across Sol’s face, but he says nothing. In the end, all of us take our packs over to the hut. Then we eat, decide who’s taking first watch, and retire to our tents. I’m so tired that I fall asleep almost immediately.

Some hours later, I’m woken by something brushing against the side of the tent. ‘
Shit
,’ I hear Sol mutter. He must be going to do his turn at watch duty. As I lie there, I realize that despite my thick sleeping bag, I’m cold. I decide to fetch the spare jumper from my pack.

Being careful not to wake the others, I crawl out of the tent. I can’t see Sol anywhere, but when I reach the hut, I see a flashlight beam moving around inside.

I frown. Is Sol in there? I creep to the door and peer round.

It
is
Sol, crouching over his pack with a torch wedged under his chin to keep his hands free. He has his back to me; it looks like he’s fiddling with some wires.

‘Sol?’ I say. ‘What are you doing?’

He jumps, dropping the torch. ‘Jesus Christ, Cass, don’t startle me like that!’

‘What are you
doing
?’ The wires spill from the top of his pack in a great, tangled mass, and when I go closer, I see some blocks of a yellowish substance that looks a bit like clay. ‘What’s that?’

Sol picks up the torch again. ‘It’s the explosives. Mikael told me to bring them.’

‘In your
pack
?’

‘Any other questions?’ Sol says in a bored tone, going back to fiddling with the wires.

‘Yes. Why have you got so much? I thought we were just blasting the main entrance door.’

Sol looks up again and grins at me. The torchlight makes his face look skull-like and ghastly. ‘You really wanna know?’ His grin widens. ‘I’m going to give those freaks a surprise.’

I stare at him. ‘How?’

‘I’m going to destroy their food supplies, and rig up the entrances so that if they try to leave, they’ll get blown sky high.’

‘But – but we’re supposed to take them back to the camp.’

He shrugs again. ‘And?’

‘
And?
Sol, you can’t do this! What will Corporal Jonasson say? And Colonel Brett?’

‘They’ll think that the freaks found out we were coming and set a booby trap, which detonated early.’ Sol stuffs the wires back in his pack, then looks at me with his grin fading from his lips. ‘As long as you keep your mouth shut, that is.’

I stare at him, wondering what happened to the freckle-faced kid I used to climb trees and read comics with – who I used to chase through the Shudders – and it finally hits me that the Sol I used to know hasn’t been around for a long time.

‘No,’ I say. ‘No way. I won’t let you do this.’

‘Oh?’ Sol sounds surprised. ‘Why not?’

‘Because it’s not what we’ve been sent here to do. It’s—’

‘Cut the crap, Cass,’ Sol sneers. ‘Why don’t you just admit you’re in love with that Fearless boy?’

Shock stabs through me. ‘What? No! That’s not it at all! I’m not—’

He gets to his feet. ‘Bullshit. I can see it in your face every time you talk about him. Every time you
think
about him. What’s he got that I haven’t?’

I glance behind me at the door, but Sol sees and steps round me, blocking my way.

He folds his arms. ‘I’m waiting.’

I lick my dry lips, cursing myself for not realizing that Sol was jealous of Myo. An image of Myo’s face rises, unbidden, in my mind, and I feel something squeeze inside my chest. ‘Nothing happened,’ I say, but my voice is shaky, and it comes out sounding like the lie it is.

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘Why
not
?’

‘Because I saw the way you looked at him when he turned up on Hope. You begged us not to hurt him. And you helped him escape. For God’s sake, Cass. D’you think I’m
stupid
?’

My throat is dry. I’m all too aware that, only inches away from me, is the pack loaded with explosives.

Sol grabs me around the throat, pushing me against the wall. ‘What happened?’ he says, his voice a growl.

‘Get off me!’ I try to twist free. His fingers dig into my windpipe, slowly cutting off my air supply. I think of the guns we brought with us, but they’re all in the tents. And with Sol’s hand around my neck, I can’t even draw enough air into my lungs to scream.

‘Did you kiss him?’ he says, shoving me back against the rough, damp stone again. I try to bring my knee up into his groin, one of the self-defence moves we were taught in the Patrol, but he shoots out his foot, blocking me.

‘
Did you kiss him?
’

Choking, I nod.

‘Did you do anything else with him?’

I shake my head.

‘You’re lying,’ he hisses. ‘I bet you were all over him.’

‘Please, Sol, let go of me,’ I wheeze, spots of light starting to dance in front of my eyes. I claw at his hand. My lungs are burning.

Suddenly, he releases me. I slide to the ground, gasping, still feeling his fingers around my neck.

He crouches down in front of me. ‘You’re disgusting. I should take you up to the bunker and trap you in there too.’

I draw in a great, hitching gulp of air, and glance round at the door, thinking,
if I can just get past him – warn the others—

‘Don’t even
think
about it.’ Sol whips something out of his pocket and pushes it into my neck, just under my ear. I feel a sharp sting, and then a spreading coolness. A trank dart.

My muscles go slack, the scream that’s still inside me fading to a whisper. Everything begins to spin, and I sag sideways. The last thing I remember before I lose consciousness is seeing Sol snatch up his pack and walk out of the hut.

When I wake up, I feel a burst of panic, thinking I’m back in the Torturehouse in one of those cages. Then I feel the ache in my throat and a sharper pain near my ear, and everything comes back to me in a rush.

Dizzily, I try to sit up. The torch is on the ground nearby, but the beam is much fainter now. Next to it is the trank dart Sol stuck in my neck. How long have I been out?

I pick the dart up, my hand shaking with the cold and the lingering effects of the tranquillizer still in my bloodstream. The tip of the needle is broken; it must have snapped when I slumped over, preventing me from getting a full dose. Otherwise, I’d have been unconscious until the morning.

Clinging to the wall, I haul myself upright and stagger to the door, calling for Mikael, Nadine, Marissa,
anyone
. Torch beams bob through the darkness. Nadine’s the first to get to me.

‘Cass? What the hell’s going on?’ she says, shining her torch in my face. ‘Why is there blood on your neck?’

‘Sol’s gone crazy!’ I say. ‘He’s going to blow up the bunker!’

Mikael comes up behind her. ‘
What?
’

I tell them about the explosives, and Sol trying to throttle me, then knocking me out with a trank dart.

Mikael swears. ‘What the hell does he think he’s doing? Our mission was to bring the people up there back alive, not murder them. Hollencroft, you have the maps and the bunker plan, don’t you?’

‘In my pack.’ I point, and Mikael goes to fetch it.

He swears.

‘What wrong?’ I say.

‘He’s been through it. The plans and maps are missing.’

‘Shit . . .’ I go over and see it’s wide open, the contents strewn everywhere.

‘How long ago do you think he left?’

‘I don’t know. I have no idea how long I was out for.’

Mikael swears again. ‘I’ll go after him. Maybe he won’t have got too far. You take the watch,’ he tells Halim, and runs out of the hut.

The others help me gather up my things. Then Nadine takes me back to her tent to look at my neck. ‘Those are some bruises you’ve got there,’ Nadine says as she pulls the broken end of the needle out with a pair of tweezers and puts a dressing over the wound. ‘Are you sure you’re OK?’

I nod, even though, inside, I feel like screaming. How will Mikael find Sol? These moors are huge. I’m the only one who knows where the bunker is without looking at a map. I have to get up there and warn Myo and the others they’re in danger.

I stand up, trying to hide the fact that my legs are shaky from the after-effects of the tranquillizer. ‘I’m cold,’ I tell Nadine. ‘I’m going to get an extra jumper from my pack.’

She gets up too. ‘I’ll go.’

‘It’s OK. I could do with some fresh air, to be honest. I feel a bit sick.’

She nods. ‘All right. Come straight back. I want to keep an eye on you for a bit – those trank darts are strong, and I don’t know how big a dose you had.’

Promising her I’ll only be a couple of minutes, I duck out of the tent. The only other person outside is Halim, sitting cross-legged in front of the boys’ tent.

When I get to the hut, I pull my jacket out of my pack and put it on. We’ve each been issued with a small torch and a stick of camouflage paint; I tuck the torch in my pocket and streak the paint across my face. Then I pull on my night vision goggles. When I switch them on, the interior of the hut swims into focus in lurid shades of green. I wish I had a gun, but I don’t have time to get one. This is all my fault. If I hadn’t told Colonel Brett where to find the bunker—

I push the thoughts away. No time for that now. Tiptoeing to the hut door, I peer out. I can see the tents across the field almost as clearly as if it was daylight. When Halim is looking the other way, I slip around the back of the hut, climb over the wall and drop into the bracken, where I lie still for a few moments in case Halim heard me. Then I scramble forward on my hands and knees until I’m far enough away from the paddock to stand up.