Acid (8 page)

Hoody Boy doesn’t reply. He just lies there, shaking. I take my foot off his chest, reach down and rip off his hood.

And step back, my eyes widening, one hand plastered against my mouth in shock.

CHAPTER 11

NO
, I TELL
myself.
It can’t be
. How could that boy I saw this morning on the news screen, the one with the fashionable haircut and teeth so white it almost hurt to look at them, have turned into—

Into this?

But even though I only saw the picture for a few moments, and the boy lying at my feet has lost so much weight that the skin of his face is stretched across the bones like paper, his resemblance to the man who sacrificed his life to get me out of Mileway is unmistakable.

Hoody Boy is Max Fisher.

Oh God.

‘Max,’ I say softly. ‘Max.’

He looks up at me, his blue-green eyes clouded and unfocused. ‘How d’you know my name?’ he slurs.

I’m about to answer him when, behind us, I hear a call. ‘Mia! Is that you? Coo-ee!’

No. Please, no.

I leave Max lying on the ground and hurry up the path to Mrs Holloway before she can get too close.

‘Oh, Mia!’ she says. Her face is blotched and
tear-streaked
, her glasses crooked. ‘It’s my Sammie. One of the children took him out a little while ago and he slipped his lead!’

Sammie’s her dog, a skinny, shivery little thing that always bark-screams at you like he’s wishing he were bigger so he could rip your face off. ‘I’m sorry, I haven’t seen him,’ I say, desperately resisting the urge to glance behind me at Max.

‘Are you sure?’ Fresh tears well up in her eyes. ‘I’m so scared someone’s taken him!’

If only
, I think. I try to arrange my expression into something suitably sympathetic. ‘I know,’ I say. ‘Why don’t you go that way . . .’ I point down the river path in the opposite direction to Max. ‘. . . and I’ll go that way.’ I jerk my thumb behind me. ‘If two of us are looking, we’re more likely to find him.’

‘Oh no, I only came down here to wait for Dean. I’m not looking anywhere else until he’s home,’ she says. Dean’s her LifePartner, the only person in the building who makes her look intelligent by comparison. ‘And neither must you! You don’t know who could be down here now it’s starting to get dark!’

Behind us, Max groans.

‘Is that Cade?’ Mrs Holloway says, squinting into the shadows as I try to keep the panic off my face. ‘I’ve not seen him today. What’s he doing on the ground?’

‘He’s been teaching me some self-defence,’ I say quickly. ‘You know, what with it being such a dodgy area, and all. Only it went a bit wrong and he’s hurt his back.’

Max groans again.

‘Oh dear,’ Mrs Holloway says. ‘I do sympathize – I have such trouble with my back. Let me help you get him inside.’

‘No!’ I say. ‘I mean, it’s OK. It’s just a spasm – it’s happened before. If he lies still for a bit it’ll pass, and he’ll be fine. Honestly, moving him right now will just make it worse.’

Mrs Holloway frowns, her chins quivering. ‘Well, if you’re sure . . .’

I glance back at Max, relieved it’s so gloomy down here that you can’t see his face, or the state his clothes are in. ‘I’m sure,’ I tell her, trying to smile.

‘I’d better get back, then,’ Mrs Holloway says. ‘I need to put a page up on the kommweb for Sammie, and organize the search party – you and Cade are welcome to join us!’

‘We will if his back’s all right!’ I promise with as much fake enthusiasm as I can muster. I watch as she trots back up the path, and turn back to Max. His arms are clenched round his body as if he’s trying to stop himself breaking into pieces.

‘Thanks,’ I tell him. ‘Now I’m really in the shit. If I leave you here and someone finds you, Mrs H’ll remember seeing me with you and report me to ACID. They’ll find out Cade’s gone and I’ll probably never see daylight again.’

Max moans. His face is so pale that, in the gathering dark, it’s almost luminous, and his teeth are rattling
together
harder than ever. With a wave of pity mixed with disgust, I realize what’s wrong. He’s a niner – a CloudNine addict. A few of the inmates at Mileway were hooked on the stuff, blue granules you take by dissolving them under your tongue. The first time you try it, apparently, it’s awful – a short high followed by such intense sickness and dizziness you think you’re going to die. But after that the effects are completely different: it ramps you up, making you feel as if you have super-human energy. The comedown is brutal, though, and by the looks of it, that’s what’s happening to Max now.

‘H-have you g-got any—’ he begins, the rest of the sentence lost to the shudders racking through him.

‘Gear?’ I say. ‘No. Do I look like a niner to you?’

I push my hands through my hair. What do I do? I could carry him a bit further along the path, find somewhere to hide him, but what if someone sees me or a spotter comes along? And even if I manage it and ACID never find him, what will happen to him after that? I might not have actually killed Alex Fisher, but it was because of me that he lost his life. Whenever I close my eyes, I see him lying face-down on the incarceration tower roof, the charge from the ACID agents’ pulse guns slowly fizzling out as his life ebbs away with it. I can’t let his son die too.

Anyway, if I go back to Anderson Court on my own, Mrs Holloway’s going to want to know where ‘Cade’ got to.

‘Get up,’ I tell Max. When he doesn’t move, I lean
down
, yank his hood back up and scoop him onto his feet so he’s propped up against me. ‘Walk,’ I hiss, wrinkling my nose at his stale, sour odour.

‘I can’t,’ he says.

‘You can, or I’m gonna leave you here for ACID.’

He starts to move, a jerky shamble, stumbling against me every few steps.

‘Walk properly,’ I say. ‘Otherwise you’re gonna get us both arrested.’

He tries to straighten up. The improvement is negligible.

Slowly, we make our way to Anderson Court. The foyer’s empty, so I drag Max into one of the lifts and jab the button for my floor. As soon as the doors close, he starts to sag. ‘Not in here,’ I whisper fiercely. ‘There are cameras!’ I haul him upright, one arm clamped around his waist. A little voice in my head keeps asking me what I’m going to do when I get him up to my flat. I have no idea, so I ignore it.

When the lift doors open, I peer out, my heart thudding, but the corridor leading to my flat is empty too. Fumbling my c-card from my pocket, I haul Max down it. He’s barely conscious, a dead weight against me. I don’t even want to think about what’ll happen if someone comes out of one of the other flats and sees us.

I have to pass my card across the scanlock twice before the lights change from red to green, and it makes a horrible grinding sound as it disengages. As soon as I’ve kicked the door shut behind me, Max slides from my grip,
curling
up on his side with his arms clutched across his stomach. ‘Hurts,’ he groans.

‘Yeah, that’s what happens when you take Cloud-Nine,’ I snap. I’m more shaken up by my near-miss with Mrs Holloway than I thought.

‘I need some gear!’ he says. He looks up at me from beneath the hood, grimacing.

‘I told you, I don’t have anything like that,’ I say, thinking with panic of the neighbours beyond the flat’s skin-thin walls.

‘So find some,’ he snarls. His mouth twists in anger and he uncurls and hauls himself to his feet. I brace myself to fight, but as he lurches towards me his eyes roll back in his head and his legs fold underneath him like a puppet that has just had its strings cut. He lands face-down. I wait a few seconds, then cautiously approach him.

He’s not moving. I roll him over, pushing back his hood, and when I see his grey lips and greenish face, my heart squeezes in panic. Then his eyes fly open and he sits up, coughs, and vomits a stream of bile down his front and onto the floor, missing my feet by inches.

‘Great,’ I say. ‘Thanks.’

By the time I’ve bunched his hoody up, wrestled it over his head and thrown it into a corner, I’m close to puking myself. I go into the kitchen, taking deep breaths. Our building’s automated recycling system broke down last week, so ACID have given all the residents special boxes to sort our recycling into until the system’s fixed, and for some reason, I’ve ended up with two. I grab the spare one
from
by the fridge and wedge it between Max’s knees, then clear up the mess, dropping the hoody into the washing machine and pouring half a box of detergent pods in before setting it to the highest temperature it can go.

In the living room, I hear the unmistakable sound of Max throwing up again. When I head back in there to open the window and let in some fresh air, he’s curled around the box, his head hanging down. He mumbles something that might be
Sorry
or
Help me
, but his voice is so shaky I can’t be sure.

Eventually, he pushes the box away and I help him over to the sofa where he crunches up, shivering. I throw the box into the incinerator chute, then find a blanket to cover Max. Only as I tuck it around his shoulders does it occur to me to check whether he has a komm. To my immense relief, he hasn’t.

By the time he’s drifted off into an uneasy sleep, it’s completely dark outside. I pace around the room, wondering what the hell I’m gonna do. Max needs medicine, but I have no way of getting hold of the drugs to get him through CloudNine withdrawal safely. I can’t even look up any information on the kommweb, because it’d be flagged as a suspicious search and an alert would be sent to ACID. And I can’t ask Jon or Mel, because they’re away, and linking them on my komm would be way too dangerous.

I don’t remember falling asleep, but I must have, because I’m no longer in my flat but in the hallway of a
house
I haven’t seen in two years. Everything’s just as I remember: the high ceiling, the gold and white papered walls, the expensive paintings (real, never holocopies), the antique black and white tiles that I creep across in total silence.

I don’t know why I’m being so quiet, but a little voice in my head is telling me that something’s wrong, that I mustn’t let anyone know I’m here. My heart’s pounding and my palms are damp, my stomach churning with apprehension.

The living-room door is open, and I can hear my parents’ voices. They’re pleading with someone.
We’ll do whatever you want – pay a fine, go to jail, even. But please, not that – we have a daughter!

I peer round the door frame. Facing away from me is an ACID agent, wearing a helmet so that I can’t tell if they’re male or female. My mother and father – who, when I went upstairs to do my homework an hour ago, were sitting in their armchairs, watching the news screen and relaxing after a long day at work – are backed up against the fireplace, their faces masks of terror.

Then I see the agent has a gun, and is pointing it straight at my parents.

The agent eases back the gun’s charge switch. It fires up with a faint whine. I open my mouth to scream, but no sound comes out. I can’t move. I can’t do anything.

I have my orders
, the agent says in a gravelly, mechanical-sounding voice – it’s been disguised.

They pull the trigger.

BANG!

I jerk awake, gasping, for a moment unable to work out why I’m sitting in a chair instead of lying in my bed, or what that thrashing shape on the sofa is. Then I remember. I get up and hurry over to Max. At first, I think he’s having a fit, but it’s just a nightmare, like mine; the bang I heard was his flailing feet knocking over the table by the sofa. He quickly calms down, turning his face against the sofa back and sighing as he falls more deeply asleep.

I pick up the table, my heart hammering, then sit back down. The dream hangs in the air around me like smoke. What was
that
about? It wasn’t an ACID agent who shot my parents. It was me. And it wasn’t deliberate. It was an accident. All I meant to do with the gun was frighten Dad. If my mother hadn’t thrown herself at me to try and get it off me, it wouldn’t have gone off.

And if my father hadn’t grabbed her as the charge went through her, and it hadn’t arced across to him . . .

I grind my knuckles into my eyes.
Stop thinking about this stuff. Stopstopstop
. I need to decide what I’m going to do with Max, and quickly.

You could take him to Mel and Jon when they get back
, I think.
They’d help him, wouldn’t they? After all, he is Alex’s son
.

I mull it over. It
could
work . . . In Zone O there’s a free medicentre for Outer’s poorest residents, where Mel and Jon both volunteer: Jon as a doctor, Mel as a receptionist. We usually meet there once a fortnight so they can check
how
everything’s going, and to explain me going there so regularly, I’ve got documents on my komm saying I require ongoing treatment for a blood disorder. But of course, I can’t do that yet, not while Mel and Jon are away. And in the meantime, somehow, I need to keep Max away from Mrs Holloway.

Despair crashes over me.

Face it
, Jenna, I think.
You’re screwed
.

CHAPTER 12

I SPEND THE
rest of that night constantly checking on Max to make sure he’s breathing. By morning, he’s running a temperature. There isn’t much I can do except stick a medpatch on his neck and hope it helps. I change his filthy jeans and T-shirt for a sleeveless vest and some slightly-too-large jogging bottoms Cade left behind, and take the dirty clothes to the kitchen to chuck them in the washer. Just before I switch it on, I remember to check through the pockets of the jeans. All I find is a battered leather wallet. I’m about to look through it when I glance at the clock and realize, shock penetrating sharply through the thick fog of tiredness wrapped around me, that it’s almost time to go to work.

I have to go – I can’t call in sick without a doctor’s pass. But it means leaving Max here all day on his own. What if he makes a noise? Falls off the sofa and hurts himself? What if he gets worse?

But there’s nothing I can do. I stuff the wallet in a drawer to look at later, and, after checking on Max one last time, find some clean clothes for myself. Then I splash water on my face, clean my teeth and leave.