Split Second (31 page)

‘Let’s try here,’ I said, turning back to the others.

‘Wait.’ Aaron pointed at Charlie. ‘I’m not going anywhere with her. She
kidnapped
me.’

‘Whatever Charlie did, she was tricked into,’ I said, peering back along the way we’d just come. Riley’s men would surely be here any second.

‘I don’t care.’

Before either of us could stop him, Aaron had run out into the road. He raced across the roundabout, towards the road that led to the motorway. I gasped as a car swerved past him, almost
knocking him down.

‘Aaron!’ Charlie called.

But Aaron didn’t look back at us. He darted to the side of the road, then flung out his hand in an attempt to flag down the next car. It zoomed past him. So did the next and the next. I
started to run towards him, but before I had even got across the road, a large grey estate pulled over. I watched as Aaron bent down and talked to the driver through the window. A second later he
opened the door and got in. The car drove off towards the motorway.

I ducked back behind the trees where Charlie was waiting, open-mouthed.

‘I can’t believe he just ran off like that,’ she said.

‘He was scared.’ I blew out my breath, trying to control my own rising panic. ‘Come on, let’s head for the town at the bottom of the hill.’

‘Okay,’ Charlie agreed. ‘We can find a police station. Explain what’s happened.’

I said nothing. Taylor’s words about the police being sympathetic to Riley were echoing around my head. Could we really trust the police force? Could we trust anyone?

It took about ten minutes to reach the centre of Hilmarton. We talked as we ran, telling each other everything we had found out this evening. Charlie was as shocked as I had been that Taylor and
Riley had been prepared to let me die.

‘Me and everyone else caught up in the bomb,’ I said. ‘Which makes the EFA just as extreme as any of the groups it’s supposed to be against.’

Charlie shook her head. ‘Even if my dad was alive, there’s no way he could be involved with terrorists. My mum used to talk about him . . . I’ve seen film of him. He just . . .
he wouldn’t be capable of bombing and killing innocent people. I mean, my mum died in the market bombing and he loved her, I
know
he did. Riley must have been lying about all
that.’

She sounded like she was trying to convince herself. I didn’t say anything. After Taylor and Riley’s betrayal, anything seemed possible.

We kept a careful lookout for EFA soldiers as we left the shelter of the trees and followed the signs to Hilmarton High Street. Neither of us had a phone and both of us were starving hungry so
when we came to an internet café offering five minutes free online with every pizza, we decided to grab some food and take the opportunity to work out exactly where we were. Charlie logged
on while I went to the counter to fetch our pizza. When I came back to our booth she was staring at the screen, her eyes wide with horror.

‘What is it?’ I said.

‘Look.’ She pointed at the news website on the screen. It was a piece about the Parliament bombing posted ten minutes ago. I followed her finger to the third line.

In a statement issued earlier tonight, protest organisation the League of Iron has claimed responsibility for the bomb attack, naming north London teenager Nathan Holloway as their
‘hero at ground zero’. Holloway, 16, who attends a local private school, was seen leaving the scene by several members of the public. All witnesses claim Holloway was heard boasting of
his successful detonation of the bomb.

I gasped. Why was the League claiming responsibility? And who on earth had come forward telling lies about me boasting I’d killed all those people? There was a video immediately under the
text. I clicked to play it, the pizza I’d bought growing cold on its plate.

The screen showed the sights and sounds of the bomb aftermath: people running about, sirens going, lots of shouting and bright lights. I could clearly be seen, an intense look on my face,
heading past the cordon, then ducking past the policeman who’d tried to stop me. The way the thing had been edited made me look as if I was trying to run away from him. The shot changed to a
head and shoulders view of Roman Riley. He was standing on the street outside his own house.

‘Yes, the boy, Nathan Holloway, came up to me,’
he was saying sorrowfully.
‘I couldn’t make out what he was saying at first, then I realised he was actually
claiming he had set off the bomb. I led him away from the crowd. I was looking for a police officer. But before we’d gone very far, Nathan ran away again. I’m afraid he’s a very
troubled young man.’

I turned to Charlie who was watching the screen, openmouthed, beside me.

‘I can’t believe Riley’s done this,’ I said, my voice hoarse.

Charlie refreshed the screen. A new post had already superseded the one we were looking at.

The police have issued an arrest warrant for Nathan Holloway, 16, who is wanted for questioning in connected with tonight’s Parliament bombing. This follows their earlier arrest
warrant for Charlotte Stockwell, 16, a friend of Holloway’s.

A picture of both of us followed the post, with a warning to the public to approach us with caution and call the police if they saw us. Charlie’s hands flew to her mouth.

‘Why do they want to arrest me?’ she breathed.

‘Kidnapping Aaron Latimer, I expect,’ I said.

Charlie swore. ‘But he’s free. We rescued him. Surely he’ll tell them I was tricked into kidnapping him?
I’ll
tell them. Let’s go to the police ourselves.
Right now. Surely if we explain they’ll
have
to believe us.’

I shook my head. Taylor’s earlier words about how much support Riley had among top-level police officers echoed in my head. We couldn’t trust the police, just as we couldn’t be
sure of what Aaron would say or do.

Right now, we couldn’t be sure of anything except the need to hide. I let the reality of this knowledge settle in my stomach, a dead weight.

I turned to Charlie. ‘We need to get away from here and think it all through.’ I pulled my trouser pockets inside out, showing her what was left after I’d bought our pizza.
‘I’ve got three quid on me,’ I said. ‘You?’

‘About thirty pounds.’ Charlie made a face. ‘It’s nothing. Where are we going to go? What are we going to do?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said, ‘but thirty-three pounds is a start. We’ll just have to work out everything else as we go along.’

I can’t tell you where we are, but we’re safe.

We’re still together, Nat and me. Life is hard, but we have each other. We’ve even talked about how we feel. That scares me. A lot. But the truth is Nat means everything to me. I
don’t know what I’d do without him. I certainly wouldn’t have made it this far.

We are getting some help, though I can’t tell you who from.

It isn’t from the police. That’s for sure. We are public enemies as far as they are concerned. Nat knew we would be, right from the start. I was all for turning ourselves in,
attempting to prove our innocence in person, but Nat was more cautious. He suggested that we waited a bit, maybe gave our side of the story at a distance to see how the cops responded.

In the end we got hold of a phone, made our own video and posted it online.

The response was unbelievable.

And not in a good way.

Our faces were plastered across every news programme and website in the country. Commentators were calling us
‘a Bonnie and Clyde for the iPad generation’
, whatever that
means. Roman Riley was widely filmed, shaking his head sorrowfully and saying how sad it was that young people like us felt so desperate that we turned to violence. Soon afterwards CCTV footage
appeared showing me shoving that gun in Aaron’s face. He and Jas look terrified and I look like some mad, evil teen.

Just like Riley planned.

Nat and I waited for news to come out that Aaron was no longer kidnapped. But, again, it was all twisted. Two days after the kidnapping the Mayor of London did an interview with Aaron at his
side. They both claimed that I kidnapped Aaron for the League of Iron and that he managed to escape without any help from either me or Nat.

‘Why are they lying?’ I asked Nat. ‘Aaron
knows
he wouldn’t have got away if it wasn’t for us.’

‘He’s probably lying because his dad’s told him to,’ Nat said. ‘Because they’re scared that if they don’t blame us, Roman Riley will come after them
again.’

The League of Iron posted another statement claiming responsibility for both the Parliament bombing and the kidnapping of Aaron Latimer – and naming Nat and me as the people they used to
carry out the crimes. This post also included broadcast footage of us doing combat training with the EFA, though the way it was presented gave the impression we were learning to become League of
Iron terrorists.

At first we wondered why the League kept saying we had been working for them. And then we saw Riley on camera, telling the world about his stand against fraud. He looked right into the lens and
said,
‘I pledge to expose tax crimes wherever they
take place.’
It’s the kind of thing you often hear politicians say but, when Nat heard him, he remembered the
folder of accounts he’d sneaked a look at during the League of Iron meeting.

‘Riley must be using the accounts to blackmail someone in the League,’ Nat explained with a groan. ‘That’s why they’re keeping quiet.’

It seems that Riley set us up from the beginning.

He ordered Taylor to make us break into his own house, even planting that photo of Aaron to make us believe we were discovering a League of Iron plot. And – again through Taylor – he
fed us lie after lie about what the EFA stood for.

Riley lied. Taylor lied.

It was all lies.

Almost all, anyway. I often think about what Riley said about my dad being alive. I’m sure that was yet another lie. Well, ninety-nine percent sure. There’s always that little bit of
doubt inside me.

But then, as Nat points out, that’s how Riley operates: making you believe him, then shifting the ground underneath you, just as you start to feel secure.

We’ve been in touch with Nat’s family. They’ve been brilliant, actually, really supportive, though Jas was a bit weird at first until Nat explained how we’d both been
tricked.

I tried not to let that hurt me. It wasn’t Jas’s fault. It was Riley’s.

Everything is his fault.

My own family haven’t been anywhere near so helpful as Nat’s. In the first week we went into hiding one of the news stations did an interview with Brian and Rosa. Brian was clearly
deeply shocked that I’d kidnapped Aaron. At least he kept saying I must have been brainwashed into doing it. Rosa, on the other hand, was happy to be digging the knife in.

‘Yeah, Charlie’s always been a bit odd,’
she said, a fake-concerned expression on her face.
‘She’s a loner . . . never made much attempt to get on with
me or anyone else at school.’

The worst news of all we only learned last night. Parveen got in touch using the old draft email technique. It was good to know she was okay – and her advice was helpful: she was adamant
that we should stay in hiding, that we would never get a fair hearing with the League and the Mayor of London and half the police force in Roman Riley’s pocket. And then she told us the
devastating information that George was dead, killed after acting as fake decoy down in the tube station.

The news has hit both of us hard. It’s impossible to believe that George, with his powerful fists and easy charm, simply doesn’t exist anymore.

At least Parveen also gave us some hope. She told us about a resistance movement based in a secret location which is working against Roman Riley and his allies. We’re heading to find them
now. Neither of us have said as much, but we’re both aware that becoming part of a bigger protest against Riley is our only hope for survival. We know that if we go home the evidence against
us will send us to jail – that’s if Riley doesn’t get us first.

And we are determined to resist and defeat him, whatever it takes.

It’s going to be a battle. The latest polls show that the Houses of Parliament bomb has sent the Government’s ratings plummeting. There’s going to be an election soon.
Everyone’s predicting yet another coalition – with Riley’s Future Party expected to win the most seats.

In a few weeks, Riley will probably be Prime Minister.

He’s got everything he wanted.

Except us.

Except our lives.

And we intend to keep those for as long as we can.

Thank you to Molly Harcourt and, of course, to Moira, Gaby, Julie and Melanie. Particular thanks to brilliant author and feedback queen, Lou Kuenzler.