Legion Lost (16 page)

“You’ve
been here since the System raided and took away your people?” he asks.

Vinesh
nods with such a helpless fervour that I feel like I’m choking back my tears.
Out of nowhere, I can feel Lucrece’s hand suddenly slipping into my grip.

“How
have you survived here for so many days?” she asks Vinesh. Her voice is much
louder than her usual croak.

“My
brother, Mukesh,” Vinesh explains. “He used to hide extra food in his bed. He
thought we didn’t know, but we all did.”

The
way he smiles at Mukesh’s memory is the final dagger that cleaves my heart in
two. Circling Vinesh carefully, I approach Apryl and Goddie from my brother’s
deaf side.

“Apryl,
find him something for the pain,” I demand, “and Goddie, you and Lucrece help
him get onto one of the bunks through there to rest.”

I
turn to see Stirling watching me, open mouthed, but I make straight for him and
hook him by the elbow. Half dragging him back out of the chamber, I lower my
voice as I meet his curious eyes.

“Right,
let’s think,” I begin.

“Excuse
me,” he interjects, “but who died and made you captain? I’m pretty sure it
wasn’t me.”

“We
have to help him,” I say.

It’s
not a plea, or a question, and it’s the most sure I’ve felt of myself since my
life got turned upside down. Stirling stares me down. I know he doesn’t like to
be challenged, but I stare right back, even though it makes me feel like my
heart is on fire.

“Tell
me honestly,” I demand. “If we take him back to the Legion, will anything good
come of it? Would he be safe there?”

Stirling
holds my gaze barely a moment longer. Defeat crosses his face and he hangs his
head, looking at me from under his low, red brows.

“No,”
he admits. “But how else can we help this poor guy? It’s not like we can sneak
out of the Legion to feed him scraps. Plus, he needs serious medical aid. That
wound on his ear’s turned septic.”

I
don’t like the implication behind what Stirling’s saying, but I know that his
reasoning is right. I find him studying my face again, and his next words seem
to hover on his lips for a long moment before he dares to speak them.

“Helping
this guy would be a direct contradiction of Legion orders,” he begins with
care. “If we don’t return him as a prisoner, we’re going against the System
itself. Are you sure that’s what you want, Raja?”

We’ve
skated around this moment before, but now the question of my allegiance is out
there in plain English. This is the moment when Stirling will discover whose
side I’m really on. Under any other circumstances, I’d avoid answering, or turn
the question back on him, but this moment will decide Vinesh’s fate. I can’t
let him down.

“To
hell with the System,” I reply. “He needs help, and we’re the only ones here to
help him.”

Stirling
takes a deep, thoughtful breath.

“In
that case, I may just have a plan,” he says. “Back in two shakes.”

The
smallest echo of a grin twitches on his lips before he runs back up the
corridor of earth. Surprised and content that my defiance of the System doesn’t
seem to have upset him, I return to my former living quarters to see if my
fellow rejects have managed to reduce Vinesh’s pain. On rounding the doorway
into the room, however, I’m horrified to discover that my big brother is
crying.

“What’s
this?” I demand in a strained tone. “What have you done to him?”

Before
I can really begin my rant, Lucrece has her tiny hands on my shoulders and
she’s pushing me out of the door again.

“It’s
fine, it’s fine,” she insists quietly. “Raja, he’s fine. He’s happy.”

“Happy?”
I ask.

Lucrece
nods. In the brief silence that follows, I can hear Vinesh’s sobs, and I have
to agree that they aren’t from anguish or pain.

“Why
is he happy?” I stammer.

“When
Goddie was dressing his wounds, Vinesh told us that he has a sister. A sister
who escaped the Underground just as the raid happened.”

I
watch Lucrece speak and I hear her words, but nothing makes sense yet.

“And?”
I press.

“And
I whispered something in his ear,” Lucrece tells me, a soft sheen of tears
welling in her eyes. “I told him that his sister got free of the System, and
that she’s looking for a way to rescue him, and all the others from the
Underground.”

I
want to hug her for all she’s done, but I try to keep a calm expression as I
answer.

“You
shouldn’t have done that,” I say. “You might be giving him false hope. His
sister might be dead.”

“But
she isn’t,” Lucrece insists.

A
spark of fear and hope ignites inside me.

“How
can you be so sure?”

Lucrece
smiles faintly, crossing her thin arms and cocking her head to one side.

“Raja,
how long do you want to keep pretending that I haven’t figured you out?”

When
I said before that Lucrece was clever, I didn’t realise how much of an understatement
I was making.

“Don’t
worry,” she begins, “the others didn’t hear me, and I told Vinesh to keep quiet
about it.”

“Does
he know that I’m here right now?” I ask.

Lucrece
shakes her head. “If you want to tell him, that’s up to you.”

It’s
what I want more than anything right now, but I’m still fearful of the danger
it could put both of us in.

“Did
he say how it happened?” I ask in a quivering voice. “His ear, and
. . . the blindness?”

The
light in Lucrece’s eyes fades a little.

“It
was a stun cannon,” she explains. “I don’t really know what they do, but they
must be loud and extremely bright. Vinesh said he was too close to it when the
soldiers set it off. I’m sorry Raja, but it looks like it’s all permanent
damage.”

I
swallow against the dryness in my throat.

“He’s
alive, that’s all that matters.”

“What
are we going to do with him?” Lucrece asks.

“Stirling
has a plan,” I tell her.

A
silence follows, and I see Lucrece’s familiar melancholy sinking back into
place. Her sad gaze droops toward the earth beneath our feet.

“How
long have you known about me?” I ask.

“That
you’re a girl?” Lucrece whispers. I nod in reply. “Almost from day one. You’re
very convincing though. It took me a good few days’ observation before I could
be sure. I didn’t realise you were from the Underground until just now. Vinesh
was the last piece for it all to make sense to me.”

It
saddens me to think that Lucrece could have been my confidant through all the
awful days I’ve had since leaving home.

“Why
didn’t you say something sooner?” I ask her.

Lucrece
bites her lip, a grave seriousness transforming her looks.

“It
was safer,” she explains. “If we’d said the wrong thing at the wrong time, we’d
have let the cat out of the bag. It’s so brave, what you’re doing, Raja. I
couldn’t stand the thought that I might have given you away.”

I
furrow my brow.

“So
what’s changed, then?” I press. “Why tell me now?”

Lucrece’s
face may as well have turned to stone. Once again, it looks as though she’s
bottling something up, and it’s now that I remember her meeting with Sheila
yesterday morning. I lean towards her, ready to ask about the verdict on her
illness, when the sound of thumping footfalls interrupts me. Lucrece and I turn
to the sight of Stirling bounding towards us, his face flushed and his hair glistening
with sweat. The lanky boy puffs out a few breaths as he comes to a halt beside
us.

“I’ve
fixed everything with the ropes,” he huffs. “Come on, we’ve got to hoist the
Undergrounder up to the surface.”

Lucrece
obeys immediately, and my chance to ask her anything is gone. When I re-enter
the old chamber where my brother is resting, my whole mood is lighter than it
was before. I follow Stirling’s orders silently, acting as a crutch for Vinesh
to lean on as we guide him slowly back toward the Atrium. Amid his pained
panting, I can hear him muttering numerous thank-yous under his breath. I hold
him tightly, feeling his weak grip on my shoulders. I hope that somewhere in my
protective hold, he’ll get the message that I want him to feel safe, and to
know that things are going to be all right from now on.

In
the Atrium, Stirling has fitted a harness to our ropes, which will hold
Vinesh’s upper body whilst Goddie and Apryl pull him up toward the surface.
Because of his fragile state, one of us needs to hold onto him as he’s hoisted
up. Stirling nods right away when I volunteer, and I strap myself in next to
Vinesh’s bonds as Apryl and Goddie make the first ascent.

“I’m
so grateful, you know,” Vinesh tells me as he grips my biceps for support. “You
guys are my salvation. I . . . I thought I would die down
here. Alone.”

I
can tell by the hitch in his voice that he means every word. Before I can
respond, Stirling arrives to clap a hand on Vinesh’s back gently.

“Okay,”
he soothes. “Raja’s going to go up with you. Hold on tight to him, and we’ll go
slow and steady to get you to the top.”

Stirling
pulls on his lip with two fingers, emitting a loud whistle that Apryl and
Goddie will hear. On the first heave, mine and Vinesh’s feet suddenly leave the
ground, and we swing like a pendulum as each tug brings us closer to the sun. I
can tell that Vinesh is frightened by the strength of his grip on me, and I
hold him close to help him feel safer.

“Raja,”
he says. “That’s an Indian name.”

“It
is,” I reply, finally brave enough to speak now that we’re several feet away
from anyone else. “I took it from a story that my mother used to tell me.”

Vinesh
is straining to hear me, recognition flooding his face as his mouth drops open
with surprise.

“The
story of the king and the monkey?” he asks me. “My mother told it too.”

I
take a deep breath before I dare to carry on.

“I
know she did. And Pranjal always made the noises every time the monkey
appeared,” I tell him.

Vinesh
takes a sudden, sharp breath, exhaling the words: “And Bhadrak always spoke in
the voice of the king.”

“You
can’t tell anyone it’s me, Vinesh,” I say immediately. “Nobody must know where
I’m hiding, not until I find Mumma and the others.”

Vinesh
nods, and it chokes me to see tears falling from his cloudy, blinded eyes. He
reaches a shaking hand up to touch my face, then runs it up over my
close-cropped hair.

“They
think you’re a boy,” he muses. “My clever little sister. I hoped against hope
that you were still alive.”

“As
I did for you,” I answer, “and look: we were both right.”

Vinesh
grins with overwhelming relief. Our strange reunion in midair seems to have
alleviated my brother’s fear of the hoist. Above me, I can make out the
features of Goddie’s cheeky face as he comes into view.

“We
don’t have much more time to talk,” I tell Vinesh. “Please, tell me anything
you can about the raid. What happened to Bhadrak?”

I
watch my brother’s features soften back to sadness.

“I
don’t know,” he croaks. “I ran to get the medics and crashed straight into the
stun cannon. It knocked me out when it exploded. When I woke up, everything was
white and blurry. I was buried under some rubble and my leg had snapped. I . . . I
tried to feel around where Bhadrak lay when he was bleeding, but there was
nobody there.”

I
nod as Vinesh talks, even though he can’t see me.

“We’ve
seen no bodies here,” I tell him. “The System must have taken the sick and the
dead away with them.”

“Who
are you with now?” Vinesh pleads. “This team you’re part of. Did you find the
surface rebels?”

“Not
exactly,” I begin.

Before
I can say any more, Apryl’s voice comes into earshot overhead. I shush Vinesh
with a finger to his lips, then prepare myself to help pull him up over the
crater’s edge. When we’re back on solid ground, we throw the ropes down for
Stirling and Lucrece to climb up and join us.

“So
much for reconnaissance,” Goddie says as he helps Stirling to his feet, some
moments later. “What are we gonna tell Sheila about dis trip, boss?”

“We’ll
tell her everything was normal here,” Stirling answers simply. He meets my eyes
across the group.

“Then,
where are we taking Vinesh?” Lucrece asks.

“North,”
Stirling answers with a more serious look. “We’re going to give him to the
Highlanders.”

*

I
don’t want to alarm Vinesh with my concerns about the Highlanders, so I have to
wait for a good moment before I can talk to Stirling alone. Once we’ve crossed
the river, by way of a fallen log bridge, Apryl, Goddie, and Lucrece all help
to carry Vinesh. Stirling and I lead the way a few paces ahead of them. On the
north side of the river, it isn’t long before the trees take on that menacing
atmosphere, the one where I begin to feel like unseen eyes are staring at me.
The nightmarish memory of Malcolm Stryker starts to play on my mind once again.