Blemished, The (9 page)

I
t wasn’t just Dad who heard the noise – they
all
did. Oh crap, this is bad, I thought to myself. I had seconds before they found me and had to move fast. On the other side of the warehouse I saw several boxes piled up high in one of the stacks. If I concentrated hard enough, maybe I could move them like I did with the trestle table at school. But first I needed to conjure that same anger, the kind that flashed through my muscles and made my fingers tingle. It was easy this time. I just thought of my dad.

The boxes tumbled to the ground and the Resistance turned away, distracted. Making the most of my opportunity I ran towards the exit
, but in my haste I knocked over an old gas stove which clattered loudly against the concrete. A man with sandy hair and glasses saw me as I darted through stacks. 

“There’s someone getting away! Look!” he shouted and pointed.

I felt their eyes on me. All I could think about was how much trouble I would be in if Dad found me. I had to get out. I kept moving.

“Stop!” someone shouted.

They were pursuing me – I heard their footsteps. My breath came out ragged and my heart pounded. But I was still fast.

“Matthew, follow her. Don’t let her leave.” A different voice this time.

Another push and I was only feet from the door.  The footsteps gained. I forced myself to move faster; my lungs complaining, my legs like lead. The sliding door loomed ahead. As I approached I slid onto my knees and shimmied through, catching my shirt on a nail. I gasped. The Footsteps were louder now. The shirt was caught fast. I ripped it free.

“Hey! Stop!” called the man.

I scrambled to my feet and set off at a sprint, feeling the breeze on my face and tugging at my hair. Behind me the door rattled and I turned and saw the man emerging from the loading bay – the man in the leather coat. He chased me and I put everything I had into getting away. I ran so hard that my calves screamed out in pain. The courtyard blurred past – whores a smear of red and yellow. The huts became a jumble of confused faces, music and the stink of smoke. I twisted and turned. Weaved and ducked. I ran and ran until I was certain he had lost me. Then, with sweat pouring down my back, I stopped and hid behind a hut. After a few moments I peeked out and looked around me. The man was gone.

Just as I breathed a deep sigh of relief and wiped the sweat from my forehead I heard Daniel’s voice, raised and frustrated. Another voice replied and it was muffled as though through a helmet. I groaned. Daniel was arguing with an Enforcer. Now I had to go and deal with something else. We really should have gone back, like Angela said. I made a note to listen to her in future. I hoped Daniel wasn’t in any trouble and moved out from behind the hut, following the raised voices.

“I don’t know why you don’t believe me,” I heard Daniel say. “Me and my friend just wanna make some cash, like.” He had put a hard inflection into his voice, imitating the accent of the Slum people.

“Name,” the Enforcer insisted. “You are clearly Blemished not Slum.”

I moved quietly through the huts. Daniel and the Enforcer were face to face. Angela nervously hid behind her adoptive brother’s body, her eyes wide and pensive. I looked around for something to move to distract the Enforcer; if I could create a disturbance hopefully it would give us enough time to run away.

“Name,” the Enforcer repeated. “If you do not provide your name I will arrest you both.” The Enforcer took hold of Daniel’s wrist.

“Get the hell off me,” Daniel said between gritted teeth. His face turned a shade of bright red. He pulled back but the Enforcer kept a firm grip.

Daniel hid it well but I knew he was in pain. The thought of him being hurt sent a flash of anger through my mind and I felt my fingers tingle with anticipation. For a split second I actually
enjoyed
that feeling, the freedom of being able to do what I wanted. I focussed on the tin roof of a hut belonging to a drunk man slumped over a bottle of gin, my eyes narrowing with concentration. The roof began to shake, its foundations rattling. The tin jangled, sounding like a hollow metal drum. I concentrated harder, focussing on the searing heat in my mind and letting it take over, waiting for the release.

The drunk man woke from his slumber just in time to see his entire roof fly from its foundations. He rubbed his eyes and watched it spin through the air and land three huts down on top of a dancing woman’s bonfire. He swore in disbelief, rubbing his eyes with grimy hands. I clapped my hands together as the Enforcer let go of Daniel. I heard him swear into his helmet and move away from my friends and towards the commotion.

Daniel took his cue and ran, taking Angela with him. I turned to follow him but suddenly my legs wouldn’t work. They trembled all over and I looked down at my hands, which were shaking violently. I felt empty, as though I hadn’t eaten for days and I doubled over, completely exhausted.

“Daniel, wait,” I mumbled to no one.

“All right there sweetheart?”

The sound of the man’s voice chilled me to the bone but I collapsed to the floor, unable to get away. As I looked I saw leather clad legs and huge hobnailed boots followed by the leering face of the man as he leaned down towards me and smiled. His face came close enough for me to smell his rancid breath and his lips parted to reveal black gums and only two or three yellow teeth. I retched.

“Get away from me,” I said my voice barely louder than a whisper.

He ignored me and reached out with a filthy hand. I tried to swat him aw
ay but my limp and shaking limbs barely made an impression on his large paws.

“You’re a pretty one, in’t yer?” He grinned and stroked me with those dirty hands, nails filled with grease. I shuddered. “Look at her pretty hair.”

He ran his disgusting fingers through my hair, slowly, moving down passed my shoulder so that his hand moved towards my elbow. There he gripped me, thumb and fore-finger digging painfully into my skin. I tried to pull my arm away from his grip but I was too weak. His free hand gripped the other elbow, pulling me closer to him.

“Now, now, pretty,” he said. “No need to struggle. I won’t hurt yer then.”

I felt bile rising in my stomach. I had to stop him. I had to get out of there. With every bit of energy left in me I kicked him between his legs. He grunted in pain and released me, folding over in agony. I turned to run, trying to make my shaking legs work but I tripped and fell to the floor. The man grabbed my ankle and pulled me towards him. I looked around for someone to help but no one seemed to pay any attention, they all pointedly looked away and I couldn’t call for an Enforcer because they would know I was Blemished.

“Come on now, sweetheart, stop playing games,” the man said, reeling me in like a fish on a fishing rod.

I struggled against him, shaking out my foot. He reached to grab the other ankle but I swung back and kicked him straight in the face, putting every bit of weight behind it. He fell back, clutching at his nose and I ran away for the second time.

“Oh no you don’t.” The man got to his feet to chase me and I knew I couldn’t outrun him – I was too exhausted. Then, just as the man reached out to touch my shoulder there was a splintering noise and a thud. A bottle smashed over his head and the man slumped to the floor unconscious. Daniel stood before me, fury in his eyes.

“Come on,” he said, grabbing me roughly by the arm.

He almost dragged me through the huts. My feet tripped as I followed and the world around me became a blur. Eventually Daniel lifted my arm over his shoulder and put the other around my waist, half carrying and half dragging me. When we got back to Angela she took my other arm and carried me. All I could think as we moved was that Daniel was angry with me and I’d messed things up. I’d gone after my dad and nearly got us all in trouble.

“Angry,” I mumbled. “Angry… at me?”

Daniel turned his head to me, our noses almost touching. “Why would I be angry at you? You just saved us! I’m angry, no, furious, that I let that man touch you.”

“Let?” I mumbled again, my lips only just able to move.

“I should have been with you. I shouldn’t have let you run off like that.”

“My fault,” I said.

Daniel shook his head but didn’t say anything more. Instead the two of them focussed their energies on getting me back to Angela’s. I drifted in and out of consciousness, each time opening my eyes to something that looked more like home. Finally I opened my eyes to find myself laid out on a sofa. 

“Are you feeling better?” Angela asked, bringing me a milky tea.

“I could have taken that sleaze if I’d been at full strength,” I muttered. I still smelled his breath and when I closed my eyes I saw his rotten teeth. I shivered. It would take days to rid myself of the filth of the Slums.

She grinned. “I’ll take that as a yes! I’m glad you’re okay.”

I laughed. “I guess I’m as okay as you can be. I mean
… you know… on a day when you go into the Slums and then find out your dad is secretly plotting with the same Resistance who got your mum killed. And you get attacked by a greasy weirdo.”

T
he next morning I woke to the sound of Theresa banging pots and pans in the kitchen below Angela’s room. I pulled myself out of the makeshift floor bed and rubbed sleep from my eyes, the night in the Slums seemed little more than a bad dream.

“Mum’s cooking,” Angela said, leaning over the bed and smiling down at me. “She must be feeling better today. I can hardly believe what we did last night. It was mad!” She paused. “Hey, you never said where your dad went. Was it the…?”

“No,” I said sleepily. I still felt exhausted. “No, he didn’t. He went into a warehouse. I think it was the Resistance meeting.”

Angela’s eyes widened. “Wow, really? What was it like? Did they have guns?”

“No,” I answered. “It was––”

“––disappointing?”

I looked up. Daniel stood in the doorway in his pyjama bottoms and no top. I pulled a blanket around me, even though I was in a long nightgown, and tried not to stare. But I couldn’t pull my eyes away. The woodwork had made his muscles strong, his chest broad. He looked like a man, not a boy just one year older than me. Daniel noticed my expression and smirked. I forced my eyes to the ground.

“Yeah,” I said, staring at the floor. “You thought so too?”

“It looked disorganised, like a rebellion in tatters,” he said. “I thought about joining when I went. But what I saw wasn’t worth joining. Did you hear anything?”

“I overhead my dad.” I fumbled with the blanket between my fingers. “He was talking
to this man in a leather coat, someone I’ve never seen before. They kept talking about time, and whether things were ready. They mentioned a boy and said ‘she’s not ready yet.’ That’s all I heard.”

“Do you think they were talking about you, Mina?” Angela asked.

“I don’t know. And I don’t know what they meant about the boy either.” I didn’t say that I suspected they had been talking about Daniel. What it all added up to, though, I couldn’t guess. “I know Dad wants me to start training on my power today.” I shrugged. “Maybe it’s linked.” Talking about everything just made me feel even more tired and worn out. I decided to change the subject. “What are those Slums, Daniel? Why haven’t any of those people been marked Blemished?”

Daniel shook his head. “They live outside society. They… serve a purpose for adults.”

“You mean men who want to get drunk and see women?”

“Yes.” He swallowed dryly. “Like I said, the Enforcers turn a blind eye because it suits them too. The only thing they do is monitor the violence and take away new born babies.”

“But there were children there, teenagers like us,” Angela said.

Daniel didn’t answer; instead he looked down at his toes. I shivered. “I’m never going there again,” I said.

“I should never have taken you.” His voice sounded wracked with guilt. “I’m sorry. I should have told you how pathetic the Resistance is.” He kicked at the carpet. “I guess I was just showing off.”

I watched him, noting how in a flash he could turn from confident to vulnerable again. I
t made me want to hug him. “It’s okay. We wanted to see it. We wanted to see what the world was like,” I finally met his eyes. “Thank you for letting us make that decision.”

Daniel looked at me in surprise. It was the first time I became aware of how beautiful he was
. Not GEM beautiful of course – his eyes were too big in proportion to his lips, and there were large pores across his nose. But there was something about him that over the weeks I’d grown to really… well…
like.
I blushed and look away. Sebastian’s face popped into my mind and I was aware of my cheeks growing even more coloured with the guilt and shame of my feelings.

“Breakfast, children!” Theresa’s voice called from the bottom of the stairs. She sounded cheerful and happy and we all piled down for scrambled eggs and bacon. My feelings were soon forgotten and instead we all enjoyed a rare moment where Theresa looked after us all.

*

After breakfast I made my way home. The food had replenished the lost energy from using my powers but I could not take away niggling nerves tickling at my stomach. In the Slums, when Angela asked me what I planned to say to my dad, it made me think about whether I really was going to confront him.

I waved goodbye to Angela, Daniel and Theresa through their kitchen window and stepped into the early morning sunshine. The cold weather of winter was finally turning into a warmer spring, and bright sunlight and clear sky put some extra bounce in my step. But that didn’t mean that I wanted to go home straight away. When it came to the turning towards my road I walked in the opposite direction towards the fields. Impulsively, I ripped away my headscarf and let the breeze take my hair. At the edge of the field I closed my eyes against the wind, enjoying how it felt against my skin. I relaxed there for a few minutes when I heard my name being called.

“Mina!” shouted a man’s voice from somewhere in the field. “It’s me, Sebastian!”

I smiled and hopped over a stile in the wall. Sebastian had on his jogging clothes. In one hand he held his Plan-It but slotted it into the pocket of his shorts as I approached.

“Jogging?” I asked.

“Yeah.” He smiled up at the sky. “It’s a beautiful morning for it.”

I could tell from the sheen of sweat on Sebastian’s skin that he had been working out for a while. He spoke between long breaths with his hand on his hips and the sun behind him, lighting him up like a halo.

“I know, I’m meant to be going home but I couldn’t resist a walk.” The wind whipped up my hair and I pushed a few strands behind my ears. It didn’t seem worth it to replace my headscarf but I cautiously looked around for people. “Do you jog in the morning
and
night, then?”

He laughed. “I’m not stalking you, I promise. I guess we both just like to be outdoors.”

We walked together through the straggly weeds. “I really do like the outdoors. In Area 10, where I grew up, the ghettos backed out into this forest. It was beautiful in the mornings with the sun glinting through the branches. I used to go for a run before breakfast. It felt nice, you know, to be undercover like that, where you can just be yourself. Everywhere in Area 14 seems so… exposed. This field, the school, the town – there isn’t anywhere to hide.”

“What do you want to hide from?” he asked.

I paused, realising I’d said too much. “I don’t want to hide… I mean I just like privacy. You know?”

He laughed. It was a lovely musical laugh. “And I keep getting in the way of your privacy.”

“Oh! No, I didn’t mean…” I laughed too. “Sorry, that’s not what I meant.” I fiddled with the headscarf in my hands, wanting the ground to swallow me whole. My cheeks flushed. Why was I such an idiot?

“It’s okay, I know what you meant. I was just teasing you. And I know exactly how you feel, except for me it was kind of the opposite growing up.”

“Oh yeah?” I said, encouraging him. I wanted to know more.

“My family lived in London before we moved here and in London you are never alone. There aren’t any fields or forests anymore, just streets and shops and shopping centres and buildings everywhere. The streets are full of people, and the tube is crammed with even more people, so vast that you just get lost. You become nothing but a face in the crowd.” He turned to me and smiled. “That’s how it’s opposite to you.” He paused. “You know I’m jealous?”

“Of what?” I said.

“Of you! Of your running through a forest like that. I would love to do something that cool. That’s why I love the field here.”

I had never thought about it like that. I thought back to the night before in the Slums with all those people crammed into the tiny shelters. Then I remembered something else, something that I wanted to ask Sebastian. “Hey, you grew up in London, right?”

“Yup.” He grinned.

“Do you really have big film-stars there? Do they make all those films and stuff that they say they do?”

“Well, I wasn’t expecting that question,” he said with a laugh. “When I was a young boy, I remembered lots of fancy processions on the street. There would be men announcing winners over the Tannoys and people cheered. There were films. We watched them on the screens. And then there were loads of soaps, which my mum got completely addicted to. She used to cry when it finished.” He laughed, but it wasn’t his usual laugh, there was a bitter edge to it. “Eventually it just became competitions.”

“I knew it,” I muttered.

“What?”

“Oh, nothing.” I smiled. “Actually, that wasn’t my real question.” I admitted.

“Somehow I didn’t think it would be.” He flashed me a smile, white teeth aglow.

“What you said about your dad… And Elena not hurting me anymore.”

“I
was
expecting that question,” he said with his smile growing wider. “And I wish I could tell you more.” His Plan-It beeped from his pocket. He took it out, a small white rectangle, and pressed some buttons. I looked closely and saw the tiniest speck of something flash across his eyes and he frowned. “Mina, I am sorry. All I can say is that you are not ready yet.” He put his hand on my arm. “And you have the most beautiful hair I’ve ever seen.” My body tingled. “But I have to go.”

He turned to leave and my eyes instinctively followed him. I just wanted to talk to him more, get to know him. There was something about Sebastian that made me want to be around him. But then there was something about Daniel too, and I found that I couldn’t be around one of them without thinking about the other.

“Stupid, stupid girl,” I chastised myself.

“What did you say?” Sebastian asked, turning back.

“Oh, nothing,” I replied, mortified.

“Okay,” he said. I watched him begin to wa
lk away but then stop and turn sharply on his heel. “Why don’t we get coffee tomorrow?”

I nodded. I shouldn’t have, but I did. He told me a time and a place and assured me it was safe before leaving me with yet more unanswered questions.