Slated (45 page)

Waiting?

And so I step towards him. We repeat this dance, again and again. Each time I halve the distance between us, he flies on, then waits until I follow.

This goes on for a while, until we are well into the woods, and I begin to realise that I am hopelessly lost. My usual map sense is gone. I haven’t been paying attention to where my feet travel as I follow the owl’s flight above. The sky rolls in, black and furious now, covering the sun. Rain will soon follow. He rests on a tree branch, this time; high enough up that he doesn’t fly away when I draw close.

‘Thanks,’ I say to him. ‘You got me, what do you want to do now?’

He stares intently, turns his head to one side. Looks behind me and then launches into flight, high above the trees. He vanishes from sight.

‘What do I want to do with you now? Well, well.’

I spin around.

It’s him: Wayne. The bricklayer.

I blink, unbelieving.

‘Did you follow me?’ I say, and start backing away.

‘Well, yes; I did. Seems you’ve stared at me often enough; thought I’d stare at you a while.’ He smiles, but it is all lips baring teeth, not in his eyes. He steps towards me.

I step back again, turn to run but stumble as my foot catches against a tree root.

He moves faster than I expect. Hands grab and twist my arm. Push me into a tree.

‘No one is here to help you this time,’ he says in my ear, and gropes at my clothes. I struggle.

‘Silly girl. Just go along. You know you want to. Besides, if you let yourself get all upset and angry, you’ll black out. You might even…
die
.’

He yanks my hair and pulls my head towards his.

Muscle remembers. Instinct takes over. I relax, stop struggling.

‘That’s the way,’ he says, and leans down and kisses me, bruising and scratching, forcing his tongue in my mouth until I want to gag. I twist slightly and jam my knee, hard, between his.

And something…
snaps
. Inside me.

Almost audible, a crack, a split. A glint of light shines through where none could reach before.

The wall.

He curses and falls, still holding tight to my hair, my arm, pulling me down with him.

‘Slater Slut. You’ll pay for that,’ he snarls.

I don’t think so.

He is a foot taller. Maybe twice my weight. But my arms and legs and muscles all know what to do.

I lash out.

It is over soon.

I stand back. This man who dared touch me now lies still, bleeding on the ground. Jaw smashed; blood pours from a cut on the back of his head. Is he…is he dead?

I step closer, afraid to know; afraid not to know. I lean over him, not wanting to touch him but trying to force my hand to his neck, to feel for a pulse.

His eyes snap open. I jump back but his hand grabs my ankle. A scream works its way up my throat and I pull away, hard. Kicking my foot again and again but his hand is a vice, clamped tight. I reach down and peel his fingers off one at a time, and
run
.

Headlong through the woods. Branches snap in my face and my feet trip on roots, but I push as fast as I can through trees and tangled bushes until they suddenly give way to a path.
The
path; yes. I came this way. I remember now. The logical, planned part of me takes charge of my feet, slows them down.

My Levo says 6.

How can this be?

My head begins to pound wildly, my hands shake, my feet stumble.

‘What have I done?’ I whisper to the trees. ‘How?’

Hush.

‘Who said that?’

I spin around, but I am alone.

Somewhere inside, I am calm. A new wall is being built, blocking that which connects my Levo to my thoughts and feelings, and it is strong.

‘What have I done?’

But my questions are quashed as soon as they form.

Let it be.

I spin around, once again; no one is here. The voice is in my head. The voice that has always been in my head.

‘
Who are you? Are you Lucy?’

No! That snivelling weakling is gone, forever. I am…you. The you that was.

‘What do you want?’

I want us to be together.

‘No.’

You have no choice.

‘No!’

I fall to the ground.

And this intruder inside me pulls a brick. The crack widens, cement crumbles and bricks shatter and fall. The whole tower collapses.

A kaleidoscope floods my mind, images first slow and then flashing fast through my brain, whirling and spinning. I’m dizzy, my head will explode, but I can’t stop it. My guts twist and I vomit, again and again, until there is nothing left in my stomach but still I heave on the ground.

How can this be? My memories should be gone. What has happened; what is happening, now?

I stare at the darkening sky, heart thudding wildly behind my ribs. Gradually my head stops spinning; the memories stop screaming for attention, and settle down. Scurry away and slot themselves in where they fit, where they don’t.

How can this be? What does it mean?

Pale, ice blue eyes; they know. They always know. His face appears in my mind: angelic when he smiles, when I do as I should. I shy away from thinking about when I do not.

I gasp out loud as I remember his name.
Nico.
That is how I knew him then, back when he was the centre of my life. He controlled it: pain, pleasure, how one can become the other. Much like love and hate. He taught me how to be two people at once: pathetic Lucy, and her alter ego. The wimp and the warrior. Lucy is gone; only the other remains. Nico is the one who smashed Lucy’s fingers with a brick when she resisted the separation. But he did it for me, to protect me: to make me safe if Lorders got their hands on my brain. And they did. I was Slated. So everything he did to Lucy saved me in the end.

How did he find me?

Not as Nico. But even in different clothes and a new role as teacher, his smile was the same. Just for me and me alone, ignoring the other girls in the room, finding his special one with his eyes. His slow wink.
What a bitch
, he’d said that day, about Mrs Ali. Still on my side. No matter that I couldn’t remember who he was, then. He tried to push me, I see now, being so horrible about Ben. He was trying to make my memories come out from where they were hiding.

However he found me, he or some terrorist friend of his must have put Miss Fern in hospital so he could take her place at my school. Nico – or Hatten, as he is now – has gone to a lot of trouble, and there could only be one reason. To be in Kyla’s world. My world. But why?

My eyes widen.

What does he want with me?

The question barely forms before the images begin, tumbling through my mind one after another, faster and faster. Death and instruments of death: explosives and blasting agents, guns and incendiaries, where best to aim a hidden blade. Nico taught me so many ways to end life. Even with my bare hands.

No!

Yes. Just ask Wayne.

I spring up and start to run through the trees, away from Wayne’s body and back towards the road. NO, NO, NO, NO, NO screaming through my brain, pounding with my feet. I won’t! I can’t. I’m not that person, not any more.

What about Ben?

Ben. My steps falter. I look down at my Levo, so like the one we cut out of his life; perhaps taking his life along with it. 6.2? I twist it, hard, on my wrist: nothing. It should at least cause pain. With what I did this afternoon, I should be dead, zapped in my brain by this
thing
that has ruled my life ever since I was Slated. It is still on my wrist, but somehow blocked by new barriers in my mind.

What Ben tried to do was be free of his Levo, so he could make a difference. Do something.

And here I am. Free of my Levo.

Goose bumps tingle up my arms.

I lean against a tree and close my eyes. There are his: warm and brown. The ones that cared for me, no matter who or what I once was. Would he feel the same if he knew the truth?

I can’t believe he is stopped, has gone forever. Still and silent like the metal owl.

I WON’T believe it.

Nico might think I’m here to do what he wants, but he is in for a surprise. There is a price he must pay. He will help me find Ben, or I’ll have nothing to do with him or his schemes.

I whisper a promise to the trees and the wind, to the rain starting to fall from the sky, to the owl whose flight brought me to this place.

‘Ben, I’m going to find you.’

Teri Terry has lived in France, Canada, Australia and England at more addresses than she can count, acquiring three degrees, a selection of passports and an unusual name along the way. Past careers have included scientist, lawyer, optometrist, and, in England, various jobs in schools, libraries and an audiobook charity. The footpaths and canal ways of the Buckinghamshire Chilterns where she now lives inspired much of the setting of Slated. She hates broccoli, likes cats, and has finally worked out what she wants to do when she grows up.

Say hello on Twitter: @TeriTerryWrites
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Website:
http://teriterry.com/

Big thanks to my agent, Caroline Sheldon, for taking a punt and getting
Slated
on all the right desks; to Megan Larkin, for taking it off her desk and running with it, and helping make it better; and to Thy Bui and everyone at Orchard Books who took my dream and turned it into something beautiful I can hold in my hands.

I owe a huge debt to all my Scooby friends at the SCBWI, and crit group buddies, past and present. Candy Gourlay and Paula Harrison were always there through the highs and lows: thanks for all the lunches and good advice! Candy, Jo Wyton, and Amy Butler Greenfield read and gave valuable comments on early versions of
Slated
. And thanks, also, to Lesley McKenna of the University of Bedfordshire, for asking so many really annoying questions, and making me look closer and deeper at what I was creating.

Stepping back, my high school English teacher, Cher McKillop, said I could be a writer. I didn’t believe her. Years later another friend, Kim Walsh, said the same thing. Other voices and circumstances along the way conspired to convince me to try, and then to keep on trying.

Before
Slated
there were all the other books: learning to write is a long and bumpy process, one where it is often difficult to see over the next obstacle. Anne Fine’s generous advice on my very first attempt went a long way to sorting me out. Jude Evans’ encouragement and input likewise.

I owe a special thanks to students at Lord Williams’ School in Thame, and also my Chatterbooks groups at Princes Risborough Library, for reminding me who I write for, and why I want to do it in the first place.

And, in the beginning, my parents: they put books in my hands when I could barely hold them. Libraries kept them full when they couldn’t keep up. I was that kid who was always falling asleep on her desk at school after reading all night with a torch so I wouldn’t get caught. Without libraries, could I have got to this place? I don’t think so.