Underground (5 page)

‘I might know somewhere,' I said. ‘But we'll need to wait until it gets dark.'

Chapter 5

F
RIDAY
, J
UNE
26
48
DAYS

‘Remember,' I said, ‘second block, fourth house on the right, up the right-hand side, and then –'

Jordan made an impatient noise. We'd been over this at least a hundred times today.

‘Okay, fine,' I said. ‘Just don't die, all right?'

‘You either,' said Jordan, eyes on the footpath ahead of us.
‘Go!'

We sprinted out from the bush, across one bike path and down another, weaving back and forth to stay out of the streetlights.

It was dark. Probably somewhere close to midnight.

Once the school day had started and Mrs Burke was back from the school run, we'd moved to the east side of town, getting some distance from the last place Calvin had spotted us.

We'd spent the rest of the day watching the town from between the trees, trying to get an idea of what else security might be doing to find us now that our suppressors were gone, Jordan grumbling at least once an hour about losing her binoculars to Kara and Soren.

‘Wait!' whispered Jordan, stopping at the end of the block.

I peered around the corner. A pair of security officers were coming up the cross street.

Jordan jumped the low picket fence of the nearest house. I vaulted over behind her, dropping to the grass as I heard voices out on the street.

‘– gonna put their hand up for that,' one of them was saying. ‘Not after what happened to Kern and Miller.'

I pressed closer to the fence, squinting through a gap in the palings, but all I could see was grass and footpath.

‘Course they will,' said the other guard. ‘Chance to hold a weapon? Chance to play soldier? Course they'll come.'

A chill cut through me as I recognised the voice.

Officer Barnett. One of the guards from out at the crater yesterday morning.

Two pairs of black boots stepped into my line of sight.

‘Don't even see why we need them,' said the first guard. ‘I know our numbers are down, but we've always had more than enough –'

‘Chief's got his reasons,' said Barnett.

‘What do you mean?'

‘I
mean
,' said Barnett, voice even lower now, ‘Chief's got his reasons.'

The other guard didn't say anything to this. His legs shifted. He was looking around. I shrank further into the fence, picturing Barnett jumping on top of me and snapping my neck. Both of them could be on us in three steps.

The other guard sighed. ‘All right, don't tell me.'

The boots moved out of sight.

I stayed frozen in the shadow of the fence until I was sure they were well away from us, then rolled over on the grass, getting my breath back.

I sat up, glancing over the fence. ‘What do you reckon that was about?'

I turned to Jordan and realised I was alone on the grass. I pulled myself up, whirling around in the darkness, but she was –

Jordan was slipping across the lawn toward me.

I gritted my teeth. ‘What are you
doing?'

She put a finger to her lips, like
I
was the one taking stupid risks. ‘Just getting this out of the recycling,' she said, holding up a battered copy of the
Phoenix Herald
.

‘Of course you were,' I said wearily.

I checked the street again. All clear.

‘Ready?' said Jordan.

‘No,' I said. ‘Let's go.'

We bolted down the block and then took a sharp right down the side of the fourth house, glancing over to make sure the lights were out next door.

I stopped at the first window. Checked behind me again. All clear.

I pushed it open, bracing myself for it to creak noisily. But of course, nothing creaks in Phoenix. The window slid silently open and we climbed inside. Into another cookie-cutter house.

45 Acacia Way.

The house next door to mine.

Theoretically, there were no empty homes in Phoenix. But, theoretically, there were no murdering superhuman homeless people either.

It had been twenty-two days. Twenty-two days since the horrific night we'd broken into the Shackleton Building and used a stolen phone to contact my dad on the outside. Twenty-two days of slowly losing hope that I would ever see him again.

Three security guards had died that night. Officer Reeve, murdered for helping us get inside. And two others who were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, mown down as they tried to keep Crazy Bill from escaping. I never even knew their names.

But I knew this house had belonged to one of them. A few days after he died, one of Mr Ketterley's maintenance teams had come around to empty out all the furniture and stuff. And apparently they'd left one of the windows unlocked, because a couple of times since then, I'd seen kids from school sneaking inside for a look.

Because there's so much to see in an empty house,
I thought, locking the window shut behind us.

I leant against the wall, feeling a tiny twinge of relief creep in. We'd made it.

‘This is so weird,' Jordan whispered, creeping across the barren carpet.

It was like walking into my own home and finding it completely abandoned. I remembered having a similar feeling every time my family moved house, when we still lived with my dad. Only back then it didn't have the constant-threat-of-death part mixed in.

I moved across to the hallway, and we started going through the place, room by room, making sure it really
was
deserted.

I felt around in the kitchen cupboards, in case Ketterley's guys had left anything edible behind. But it was like no-one had ever lived here.

We kept going. I opened the door to the ground-floor bedroom. Dim light spilled out of the room.

I panicked, slamming the door, but Jordan grabbed it before it could bang shut.

‘Shh!' she hissed, pointing.

I took a second look and realised that the light wasn't shining out of the room – it was shining
in
from next door. My house.

The dining room light was on. Sitting at the table, reading a newspaper with his back to us, was a blonde-haired security officer. I backed out of the doorway and closed the door, stomach turning.

We finished searching the house. I walked out of the last bedroom and stood on the upstairs landing, staring down at the front door. Jordan leant over the railing next to me.

‘We should stay here for the night,' she said, keeping her voice businesslike, trying to hide all the fear and exhaustion. ‘Here on the landing, I mean. It's away from the windows, and we'll get at least a bit of warning if anyone comes in.'

‘Yeah, good idea,' I said, too tired to come up with anything else.

‘And we should make sure one of us stays awake,' she said. ‘I'll –'

‘I'll do it.'

‘Luke –'

‘I'm wide awake now, anyway,' I lied. ‘Seriously, Jordan. Sleep.'

Jordan looked like she wanted to argue. But she just nodded and said, ‘All right. But wake me in a couple of hours, okay?'

‘Yeah.'

We looked at each other. And suddenly, things felt kind of awkward.

It was stupid. After all the time we'd spent alone together … But now I was going to watch her
sleep
, and I don't know why that felt so weird, but it did.

I sat on the floor and crossed my legs. Jordan lay on her side, a metre or so across from me, head resting on her arms. At first, she kept opening her eyes and looking at me, but eventually, her breathing slowed, and she slept.

I sat with my back against the railing, watching her.

And, dumb as it was, there was something calming about it, like things were okay, at least for a few minutes. I felt this sudden surge of – I don't know what. Protectiveness, I guess. Which was dumb too, because she was way more capable of looking after herself than I was. But here she was, all tired and vulnerable and – and it was just
us
now. Just her and me, at least until we got Peter back.

And I needed to step up to that.

And in that weird moment, sitting there in the cold and the dark, I actually felt like maybe I could.

Chapter 6

S
ATURDAY
, J
UNE
27
47
DAYS

I woke up, freezing, and groped around, wondering why I couldn't feel a blanket. Then I opened my eyes and remembered where I was.

‘Morning,' said Jordan, still sitting across from me. She was reading the newspaper.

The sun had risen, but only just, and so far it didn't seem to be helping much with the temperature.

‘Hey,' I said blearily, wondering how long I'd been asleep. It had still been pitch dark when Jordan had woken up and insisted on taking over the watch.

I sat up, arching my shoulders. I could see my breath in the cold air.

‘Here,' said Jordan, tossing me a slightly smushed chocolate bar from her pocket, wincing a bit at the movement. ‘Breakfast.'

I ripped it open and demolished a third of it in one bite. ‘Thanks. How's the shoulder?'

‘Fine. Wish I had another shirt to change into, though.' She twisted around, showing me the patch of dried blood where Tank had smashed her with a tree branch.

Jordan opened the last chocolate bar and took a tiny bite out of the corner.

‘Actually …' she said, like she was still debating whether or not to finish the sentence, ‘it's more than fine. I mean, it should be infected or something, right? It should've needed stitches. But look –' She grabbed her collar, pulling the shirt down over her shoulder, exposing a white bra strap and a partially-healed gash. The wound was still crusted with blood, but apart from that, it looked pretty healthy. Way better than it should have looked, not having been washed or bandaged.

‘Like Calvin,' I said without thinking.

‘Yeah,' she said, clearly not liking the comparison. ‘I think – I wonder whether this is connected to all the – you know –'

‘X-Men stuff?' I supplied, taking another bite of my chocolate.

‘Right. Like, what if the Co-operative has done this to all of us? Some kind of, I don't know, immune system boost or whatever?'

‘Pretty sure they haven't given it to me,' I said, taking stock of my various injuries again, all just as bad as ever.

Jordan looked thoughtful. ‘Yeah, but … Montag said you weren't a genetic candidate,' she said, almost apologetic, like it was some kind of club I'd been excluded from. ‘He said you and your mum weren't meant to be here. And maybe that's – I mean, what if that just proves what I'm saying? What if that's what a genetic candidate
is?
This – this healing stuff – what if that's what's meant to help us survive when Tabitha gets out?'

‘Then I'd better hope Tabitha never gets out,' I said, hearing a bitter edge in my voice.

Jordan's expression faltered. ‘
Luke.
Don't even – We're going to stop them. Okay? That's why we're here.'

I leant against the railing again, feeling the sun shine down through the skylight above my head.

That's why we're here.

Ever since Jordan had started getting her flashes of the future or whatever they were, I'd noticed this weird new attitude creeping into the way she talked about Phoenix. Like some outside force was overseeing it all. Like there was a
point
to all this, beyond Shackleton's desire to kill everybody.

Which was a nice thought, I guess. But it's kind of hard to believe in destiny when you're hiding from your would-be killers in a dead guy's house.

Jordan took another bite of her chocolate and closed the newspaper. She glanced at me out of the corner of her eye.

‘Meanwhile,' she said, holding out the front page. ‘I think I've figured out how Shackleton can justify putting guards in our houses twenty-four seven.'