Acid (18 page)

‘Are they paying
you
?’ I say. ‘These
associates
of yours? Have they offered you money to bring me to them?’

‘That’s not important,’ Jacob says, but I can tell from the way his gaze momentarily flicks away from mine that I’m right.

‘You’re insane,’ I snarl at him, getting to my feet. ‘Let me out of here.’

I try to shove past him to the door, but he blocks my way again. ‘Aren’t you even going to consider my offer? Think about it, Jenna. Money, safety, the chance to be a hero – you’ll have none of those things if you walk out of here now.’

‘I don’t give a shit about those things,’ I say. ‘There’s nothing heroic about murdering people, even if they are ACID. Let me past.’

But he doesn’t move.

I relax my body, looking away from him, trying to make myself appear submissive. Then I lash out, aiming for his groin and his eyes. Just as quick, he whips his hand out and grabs my wrist, clamping his fingers around it in a steel-hard grip. He twists my arm behind my back and slams me face first against the wall, pressing his knee into the backs of mine so I can’t wriggle free.

‘Nice try,’ he says in my ear. ‘Who taught you that move, I wonder?’

I try to strike out with my other hand but he grabs that and holds it against the wall too, pinning me there like an insect on a piece of card.

His strength is frightening. He’s more powerful than any of the guys who tried to corner me in prison, even though some of them were bigger. For the first time ever, I’ve met my match.

‘You were right, Jenna,’ he hisses at me, and now all the charm has gone from his voice. ‘There has been money offered to anyone in the NAR who found you. A
lot
of money. As much as ACID’s reward, if not more. You’re valuable to me, Jenna, so don’t think I’m just going to let you leave.’

After remaining still for a few more moments, I buck violently, hoping to catch him off guard. It doesn’t work. He wrenches my arm further up behind my back and I go still, stifling a cry of pain.
Stop trying to fight him
, I think.
Otherwise he’s gonna break your arm
. I relax as much as I can, trying to hold myself in a position which will lessen the pressure on my shoulder joint.

‘If you don’t do what I want,’ he says, his voice still soft, ‘I’ll tell Max who you are, and I’ll shop you both to ACID. Understand?’

I close my eyes. I don’t answer.

‘
Understand?
’ He bends my arm up even further, until it starts to feel as if he’s ripping it from the socket.

Clenching my teeth against a moan, I nod. He lets me
go
. I keep my face pressed to the wall and my eyes closed, gasping at the pain in my shoulder.

‘Go,’ Jacob says. He sounds bored now. ‘Go back down there and tell your boyfriend you’ve decided to stay.’

‘What am I supposed to say to him?’ I say, not turning round.

‘You’re good at lying, I’m sure you’ll think of something,’ Jacob says. He reaches past me and opens the door. I stumble through it. My ears are ringing, and pain pulses through my shoulder in sickening waves.

‘And Jenna?’

I turn back. The glolamps behind Jacob create a halo effect around his hair, making him look like some sort of terrible angel. ‘Don’t even think about trying to escape. The others don’t know who you really are yet, but they know I want to keep you here. They’ll be watching you very closely from now on, especially Elyn. She has that gun you brought with you.’

I want to spit in his face, but the ache in my shoulder is a reminder of what might happen if I do. In a haze of horror and rage, I turn and head back along the corridor.

CHAPTER 27

BACK DOWN IN
the children’s library, the others are sitting in a little group outside the dens. As I walk past them, Elyn locks gazes with me, and I wonder if Jacob was being truthful when he said he hadn’t told the others who Max and I really were. No wonder she’s been so attentive, so
kind
. She’s been keeping an eye on us for Jacob.

I duck into our den with a shudder, glad I can talk to Max in relative privacy. But what am I going to tell him?

The truth
, I think.
You’re going to tell him the truth
.

He’s sitting at the back of the den, legs crossed, reading a book without any covers. ‘You OK?’ he says, seeing my face as I sit down too.

I shake my head.

He puts the book face-down on the floor, its pages splayed so he doesn’t lose his place. Then he scoots closer to me. ‘What’s up?’ he says. When I don’t answer, he lays a hand gently on my arm. ‘Mia? What’s happened?’

I motion for him to keep his voice down. His eyes are full of concern, and I feel my stomach turn sour. First, I get his dad killed; then he nearly gets arrested and ends up on CloudNine. And now I’ve delivered him straight
into
the hands of a group of terrorist lunatics who think that, somehow, we’re going to help them topple ACID.

I’m the worst thing that ever happened to him, and yet here he is
again
, worrying about me. Shame pours hotly over me, and for a moment I’m tempted to
really
tell him the truth – about who I am; about everything. I don’t want to keep lying to him. It’s too hard.

‘I saw Jacob,’ I say quietly. ‘He isn’t going to let us leave.’

Max frowns. ‘What?
Why?
’

As I tell him, his eyes get rounder and rounder. ‘And if we don’t do it, he’ll hand us over to ACID,’ I finish, not quite able to meet his gaze as I think about the bit I’m leaving out:
And he’ll tell you who I really am
.

Max snorts. ‘Not if we leave now,’ he says. ‘We can be well away from here before he even realizes we’re gone.’

I shake my head. ‘The others know all about it. They’ve been told to keep us here.’

‘
Them?
’ Max says.

‘Jacob says Elyn has the gun,’ I say.

‘He could just be saying that,’ Max says. ‘I mean, c’mon.
Elyn?
She doesn’t look as if she could even lift the thing.’

‘I wouldn’t be so sure,’ I say. ‘She—’

Without any warning, the sheet at the entrance to our den is pulled back, making us both jump. ‘Hi, Sarah!’ Elyn says, sticking her head inside. Although she’s smiling sweetly, her eyes are hard. ‘You’ve talked to Jacob?’

I return her gaze, determined to show her I’m not scared of her. ‘Yes.’

‘So what are you going to do?’ She’s wearing her dress over a pair of jeans today, and as she waits for my reply I see her casually but deliberately move her hand to her waist. Following her gesture with my gaze, I see a shape through the thin fabric: the gun, tucked into a holster on her belt.

‘We’re in,’ I say. She narrows her eyes slightly to check I’ve understood, and I give her a small nod.

‘Oh,
fab
.’ Her smile widens into a grin. She takes her hand away from her waist. ‘If you guys want tea or coffee, I’m about to make drinks for everyone.’

‘We’ll be out in a minute,’ I say, finally managing to give her a sickly smile.

As soon as the sheet’s dropped down across the entrance, Max grabs my arm. ‘Are you
crazy
?’ he hisses. ‘I’m not
bombing
people!’

‘I never said we were going to,’ I hiss back. ‘But you saw the gun, didn’t you?’

‘Yes, but—’

‘Listen,’ I whisper. ‘
This
is what we’re gonna do.’ I try to sound confident, like this isn’t just something I’m thinking up as I go along. ‘We go along with it, pretend we’re part of the gang and travel with them to Manchester. OK?’

‘But—’ Max is still looking at me like I’m insane.

‘
Think
about it,’ I whisper. ‘If we try and escape from here, even if Elyn doesn’t shoot us, we’ve got to get out of
Clearford
somehow – then what? If we’re in a big city, it’ll be easier to give them the slip. We might even be able to find somewhere decent to hide out. And we can warn someone about the bombs.’

‘How?’ Max says. ‘And who? You tell ACID, they’ll arrest us on the spot.’

‘I’ll think of something,’ I say. I let out my breath in a sharp, unhappy sigh, closing my eyes.

After a pause, Max lays a hand on my arm again. ‘This isn’t your fault,’ he says. I open my eyes, look up at him.
But it IS
, I want to tell him, only, of course, I can’t.

‘Let’s get that coffee,’ I say, gently moving my arm out from under his hand, then crawling past him. I look at him over my shoulder. ‘I think we should act like we really want to do this, OK?’ I add quietly. ‘The less suspicious they are, the better.’

Max nods. His face is white and unhappy, but he follows me out of the den and we go and sit with the others. They all grin at us, so I’m guessing Elyn’s told them that we know about them and that we’re joining their cause. I smile back and, after a surreptitious nudge with my foot, so does Max.

‘So what did Jacob tell you?’ Amy says, passing us each a mug of coffee. We both set them down on the floor.

‘Oh, pretty much everything,’ I say. ‘About Manchester and the rally and all that.’

‘And you’re really OK with it?’ Shaan says. Her eyes
are
narrowed with the same suspicion she regarded us with when we first arrived.

‘Of course,’ I say, forcing myself to put some passion into my voice and plaster another grin onto my face. ‘I hate ACID as much as you guys do. It’d be great to teach them a lesson.’

Obviously, I’ve said the right thing, because the suspicion fades from Shaan’s face and she smiles.

‘We should have a toast,’ Elyn says, holding up her mug. ‘To the NAR!’

‘To freedom!’ Jack chimes in.

Max and I pick up our mugs and clink them against everyone else’s without looking at each other. I’m afraid that if I do catch his eye, I’ll see my own horror at what we’re getting ourselves into reflected there, and that the smile on my face will drop off and shatter like glass.

CHAPTER 28

THE NEXT DAY
, Jacob calls another meeting to ‘welcome’ me and Max into the group, this time down in the children’s library. He’s holding the deactivated bomb in his hand, moving it from palm to palm as if it’s nothing more than a beach pebble. I stare at it. In the flickering light from the glolamps on the tables around us, its silver casing gleams dully. Elyn’s already explained to me how the devices work: there’s a pad on the back that allows them to be stuck to any surface – metal, plastic, even stone – and they have a blast radius of almost twelve metres sending out a deadly cloud of superheated shrapnel as they explode.

Even the thought of it makes me feel sick.

Jacob looks straight at me. ‘So,’ he says. ‘Jen—’

My heart stops beating. My chest constricts, and I forget how to breathe.

He clears his throat. ‘Sorry.
Generally
speaking, I think we’re ready. But we’ll keep going over the details right up until the day. It’s important we don’t leave anything to chance, especially now we have some additions to the group.’

My heart starts to thud, and I’m able to draw air back
into
my lungs. But as the others murmur their agreement he catches my eye again, and winks, and I know that he just did what he did on purpose, and I hate him for it.

‘I’m sure you’re all as thrilled as I am that Declan and Sarah have decided to join us,’ he goes on. ‘It’s very
gen
erous of them to accept our offer to continue sheltering and feeding them in exchange for their help. I’m sure they’ll be a
gen
uine asset to the group. They will help us achieve
gen
esis into something truly great as, together, our actions
gen
erate renewed interest in removing ACID from power.’

My heart stop-starts, stop-starts. I want to get up and punch him in the face.

‘So, I think that for their benefit, we should go over the plans from start to finish, in case there’s anything we haven’t told them. Is that OK?’

The others nod.

‘Elyn,’ Jacob says. ‘Would you do the honours?’

She nods enthusiastically. ‘The rally starts at oh-eight-hundred,’ she tells us. ‘Jacob’s arranged for us to hide away in a van which is taking a delivery into Manchester that morning. There’ll be some empty crates in the back which we’ll get inside, and if everything goes to plan, we’ll be taken straight into the city centre without being stopped at any checkpoints. Once we’re there, we’ll wait until oh-eight-thirty to let the rally get going. Then we’ll plant and arm the bombs. There’s a thirty-minute delay on them, which will let us get back to the van. After that, in all the chaos, it should be easy to slip away.’

Everyone nods.

‘What if we get caught?’ Max says. I glance at him. His mouth is set in a thin, flat line.

‘Set off your device,’ Elyn says immediately.

‘What?’ Max says. ‘But that’ll—’

‘So you’d rather get arrested and thrown in jail?’ Elyn says. She sounds shocked. ‘How will that change anything? If ACID lock you up, they’ve won.’

I see Max opening his mouth to protest further and nudge him to stop him saying anything more. But inside, I feel sicker than ever. So Jacob expects us either to kill hundreds of people, or, if we get intercepted, kill ourselves.

What a lunatic.

By the time the meeting finishes, I realize I’ve been clenching my hands into such tight fists my fingers have gone numb. ‘Does anyone want a drink?’ Amy asks when Jacob’s gone.

‘I’ll make it,’ I say, getting up. I need a few minutes away from them to compose myself, otherwise I’m going to scream, and now Max and I are supposed to be part of the group – and willingly – I can’t just hide away in our den any more.

‘Want a hand?’ Max says.

‘I’m OK. But thanks.’ I try to smile at him, searching his face for signs that he might have picked up on the hints Jacob was dropping like hand grenades into his little speech at the start of the meeting. To my relief, I don’t see any.

‘What does everyone want?’ I say with a brightness
I
couldn’t be further from actually feeling. Once they’ve told me, I go into the storeroom where, out of sight of the others and Max, I lean my head against the wall and close my eyes. I feel like I’m at the start of a tightrope which has a thirty-metre chasm underneath it, and no safety net. Somehow, I’ve got to get myself and Max across.