The Vanished (Blemished #2) (Blemished Series) Read online

  He giggled and squirmed under my fingers. “Stop it!” He shouted in between giggling. “No, it’s too ticklish!”

  He squealed in delight, and I jumped up and picked him up off the floor. I grabbed hold of his arms and swung him around while he squealed my name.

  “Well, at least some of us are having fun.”

  I put Hiro down and turned around to face the speaker. I already knew who it was. “Angela. We should talk.”

  She wasn’t alone. There were two heavy women stood on either side. They were tall, with bulging arms and dirty fingernails. One covered her hair with a grotty green scarf, and the other had eyes which bulged from her head. I guessed that they were both farm hands. Angela seemed different; taller. Her puppy-fat had hardened into muscle. She wore practical, dirtied overalls, and her hair was tied back and wrapped up with a red scarf. Her expression was one I’d never seen on Angela’s face before. It was pure determination.

  “No, the time for talking is over now. At least, not by you. It’s my time to say something and you are going to listen.” She shuffled her feet, planting them far apart and straightened her back. “Your kind is not welcome here. You, and Daniel, and that… thing.” She pointed at Hiro and I held him close to me. “None of you are welcome here. You are disgusting creatures who shouldn’t exist.” She sneered at me.

  My heart seemed to fall through my stomach and down to my knees. Who was this stranger? Where was my friend, the most positive and optimistic girl I’d ever met? The girl who took my hand and led me through the corridors at St Jude’s?

  I turned to the women behind her. “What venom have you been spreading? What have you done to her? You’ve poisoned an innocent girl!”

  “The lass knows her own mind, eh. And she’s knows pure evil when she sees it.” The woman with the scarf spat on the floor.

  “This is a warning, Mina,” Angela said. “The Compounders agree that your kind should leave and we’re going to see to it that you do.”

  “What happened to you?” I whispered. “We were best friends. I saved your life so many times on the way here. You helped us escape from Sebastian’s farm. Why are you being like this?” Tears escaped, rolling down my cheeks.

  “That was before you ripped out my heart and stomped on it with your boots. That was before I realised what you are. That was before I realised that Daniel is just as bad as you. The past is over now, Mina. I’m telling you your future, and it won’t be here.”

  The three women turned and walked away, and I watched as my former best friend turned her back on me. If it hadn’t been for Hiro’s tiny hand in mine I think I would have crumbled to the floor.

  “I don’t like her, Mina,” Hiro said. “She scares me.”

  16

  Things continued as normal, but they would never be normal again. My best friend had turned her back on me and I was expected to just deal with it. So I threw myself into training, almost taking Mike’s head off more than once. Dad was fearful to partner me with Kitty in case I pulverised her. Daniel remained in recovery from his bullet wound, sticking to light exercise and meditation. He called me lioness because I spent so much time prowling round the Compound like a caged lion. I took up jogging, circling the perimeter, wondering why I couldn’t leave. People kept telling me it wasn’t safe to go out there, that we were locked up for our own safety. I didn’t believe that. Hiro said there was a war coming and it felt like it was coming from within.

  This was a place where the army lived in a castle and many others in flimsy tents. A place where conception was worshipped in the same way as genetic engineering in England. I would pass the crèche on my run, and there was always a new pregnancy or even a baby. The mothers were never much older than me, and they always looked tired. The children were scruffy little things who made the most of having lacklustre parents by running around the Compound like wild things. Some of the older children would run alongside me until their mothers relented and called them back. I was a step too far. They could roll around in dog poo or eat worms, but they couldn’t talk to the freak girl with the scary powers.

  What I wanted to know was where were the fathers? After living on the Compound for three weeks, I had never seen any of the men living with their children or even helping to raise them. What I did see was men living in tents, staying awake after dark drinking and eating until they either passed out or climbed back into their tents, burping as they went.

  The sun rose above the Compound, glinting against the metallic trailers and filtering through the tent fabric, making it glow like lamp bulb through the lamp shade. Beneath my feet, the ground was hard and dusty from the unusual lack of rain. There was a smell of morning – beans and bacon cooking on camp stoves; charcoal burning; dirty nappies; the body odour of sleepy manual workers. I jogged past the crèche and it all blurred into one disgusting reek. It reeked of stale claustrophobia – cabin fever. I needed to get out.

  But it was the day of the fete and Daniel had been working hard on his creations and rebuilding some of the relations between us and the Compounders. He’d helped to put together some extra tables for the food, made some simple stools, and even whittled a large game of stacking blocks for the children to play with. He was proud of his work and I was proud of him and looking forward to supporting him at the fete even though I wasn’t looking forward to the fete itself. I had to speed up to stop myself thinking about it, running so hard that my chest burned and beads of sweat ran down my forehead. I laughed to myself when I thought about what I’d said to Angela just a few weeks ago about making a new life here – settling down. There was no way I could do that now.

  I stopped by the farm. There she was – Angela, tending a vegetable patch, her back to me, on her knees. She turned and stood. She knew I was there. We stared at each other for a few seconds, and for one a brief moment I thought I saw a glimmer in her eye, something to say that maybe the old Angela was in there somewhere. Just maybe. Then it was gone. I ran away from her, unable to keep the chill out of my chest no matter how hard I ran.

  *

  It was my turn to climb the tree. I was with a group of people who were avoiding talking to me at all costs. I sighed, grabbed the end of the bunting and stuck my foot on a gnarl of the bark, pulling myself up onto the first low branch. It wasn’t high enough. I balanced myself on the branch, standing upright in order to find a handhold, followed by a foothold. It took some effort, but I grabbed hold of the second branch with the same hand clutching the bunting. It was more to my right and I had to twist my body and perform a little leap of faith whilst holding my breath and hoping for the best. I smiled with relief as I caught the second branch with both hands before swinging my legs up. When my feet were firmly planted I got a huge rush of adrenaline. I’d climbed my first tree. I felt fit and strong and ready to take on the world. That was until something tugged on the bunting.

  “Hey, don’t do that, I’m up here,” I called down to the ground. Leaning over the branch I tried to see who had hold of the bunting but whoever it was had angled themselves so that they weren’t visible through the thick thatch of leaves. There was another tug, and I pulled back. “Can’t you hear me? I said there was someone up here.”

  The mystery person tugged harder and I fell to my knees on the branch, which was thick enough to withstand some jostling, but not wide enough for me to land without losing a lot of balance. In the scramble to keep myself on the branch I tried to let go of the bunting. Instead, it became wrapped around my wrist and pulled me towards the ground. I ended up with one leg and one arm clutched to the branch almost twenty feet in the air, dangling like a monkey on a rope. There was nothing I could do, and the bunting tightened around my wrist, cutting off the circulation.

  “Help,” I yelled. Blood ran to my head, making it hard to think clearly.

  I pulled back on the bunting but the damn rope was too thick to snap. My fingers lost grip on the bark and I had to tense my leg muscles to stay under control. I took a deep breath, trying to calm down
and steady my heart beat, but I knew that falling upside down from a branch twenty feet up would not be good.

  “I don’t know who you are but stop it!” I shouted. There was a catch in my throat. “Please stop it.”

  The rope tightened around my wrist. My legs slipped and I tried to wrap my arm around the branch, but it missed, and I was hanging my just one hand, the other hand pulling me towards the ground.

  Hiro, I shouted in my head, Hiro I need you! I’m up the tree by the market. Someone is trying to kill me. Bring Daniel. Help!

  I yanked on the bunting, trying to pull the attacker off balance. My arm hanging onto the tree burned with the effort of keeping myself on the branch. If I fell there would be no one to catch me… and then I realised. I might not be able to see my attacker, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t use my power on them. Did it? I knew they were there and a rough idea of their location. If I imagined lifting them from the ground it should work.

  I had no other options. My wrist had started to bleed, working at the blisters of my old handcuff injury, and my hand was turning blue. I didn’t have much strength left to hold myself on the branch. I needed to use my last bit of strength with as much force as I could, so I took a long, deep and cleansing breath. I closed my eyes and focussed my anger, thinking about the way Angela had spoken to me, the inequalities in the Compound and the horrible circumstances that had led to someone trying to pull me out of this tree. The anger seared through my mind and there was a gasp below. I was drained and weak, but I felt the bunting loosen until it was slack. I had no idea who was trying to kill me and how far I had lifted them, the leaves were too thick, but I mentally threw them somewhere before climbing back onto the branch with aching arms.

  “Mina? Mina are you there?”

  It was Daniel. “Yes, up here. Second branch.”

  I untied the bunting from around my wrist and rubbed it. Almost begrudgingly I tied the stupid bunting around the branch of the tree, thinking about how I would never climb another tree for the rest of my life. When Daniel appeared I’d never been so happy to see his mop of blond hair.

  “What happened?”

  “The bunting caught on my wrist and someone tried to pull me down.” I took a deep breath and tried to quell the shake in my voice. “Did you see anyone? Anyone running away?”

  Daniel climbed onto the branch next to me. “Nothing.”

  “I don’t know how far I threw them. They could be long gone by now.” Maybe I would never know who it was, especially seeing as there was such a long list of suspects.

  “Hiro fetched me in a panic.” He pulled me into his arms. “I was so worried. But I’m here now. You’re going to be okay. I’ll never let anything happen to you again.”

  He helped me down the tree, steadying my shaking legs as I went. When I felt the grass beneath my feet it was the sweetest sensation I’d ever experienced. Hiro was there waiting, and I pulled him into my arms. Thank you.

  “That’s okay, Aunty Mina.”

  I pulled Daniel into the hug, so grateful for the two people I trusted the most in the world. I just had to figure out who wanted to kill me.

  17

  I left the rest of the bunting group, who hadn’t even realised anything was going on, to finish the decorations. As far as they were concerned the bunting was tied to the tree and the job was done.

  Daniel showed me his handiwork for the fete – beautifully carved children’s stools and games. I ran my fingers along the smooth, sanded wood.

  “There isn’t much varnish in the Compound, so I’ve had to leave it without a finish,” he said. In typical Daniel style he had been almost silent while showing me his work, nervous and shy.

  “Stunning as always.” I grasped his hand and squeezed it.

  “Looky-looky here.” Ali strode up to us, grinning. “If it in’t the two love-birds – reunited at last.” He carried a sack tossed over one shoulder.

  “What’s in the sack?” I asked, poking the material. It was soft inside.

  “A few things I’ve scavenged over the years, bits o’ material.” He dumped the contents of the sack on top of a trestle table and out rolled luxurious wads of fabric in the most vibrant colours I’d ever seen. There was sheer satin with beading framing the edges, and pieces of the most delicate silk or sturdy taffeta. I ran my fingers over a section of soft magenta cotton.

  “What is all this?” I asked.

  “Asian fabrics. Most are used in saris or as throws and curtains.” Ali shrugged, fingering a beaded corner. “They remind me of ma parents.”

  “These are far too fine to use for the fete,” I said, shaking my head.

  Ali sucked in a deep breath. “No they aren’t. The nicest ones are in ma trailer, I can spare these fer table-cloths – if ye’ll help me set them out?”

  “Sure!”

  Daniel kissed me on the forehead. “I need to finish off these stools. There’s still sanding to do.”

  “Okay, I’ll call Hiro.”

  He squeezed my hand and disappeared behind a stool, his hands working over the curves of the legs with a piece of sandpaper. I realised I could watch him work all day, the concentration on his face and the way his skin wrinkled just a tiny bit between his eyebrows.

  “Oi, lover girl.” Ali snapped me out of my thoughts. “Ye helping or what?”

  “Yeah, sorry.” I looked around for Hiro. He was playing with Daniel’s garden building blocks. “Hiro! Want to help us with these fabrics?” He ran towards me, and as I watched him come to me, I felt a strange and intense sensation in my stomach. It was the sort of sensation that woke you up to something, a piece of knowledge. I knew that I would protect this little boy with my life. I loved him. I’d never realised that before. I really did love him.

  There was quite a gathering in the space usually used as the market, and the sun shone down on us. It pricked at the skin on the back of my neck and I realised that I would have sunburn soon. Sebastian and Ginge appeared to help Mary and Stevie move the trestle tables into position whilst my dad and Mike helped out a group of farmers shift the hay bales. The air began to buzz with excitement and for the first time I was looking forward to the celebration.

  We followed Mary’s instructions, pushing the tables together in one long line and moving the hay bales up as seating. We draped the exotic fabrics over each table, weighing them down with plates and cutlery gathered from the Compounders. There were children running all around us, whipped up with anticipation of a change to the norm. Everything was exhilarating when you were a kid – especially when it was bright and colourful like the fete. Plastic toys had been spread out on the grass to help keep the children entertained, the bright blue, red and yellow items dotted around in the green. The tables and hay bales were coated in luxurious shades of magenta, turquoise and emerald while patterned crockery held them in place. The bunting, made from tent fabric, flapped in the soft breeze; waving green and blue triangles. I inhaled and relished the smell of the roasting pig, spitted by the farmers, as well as the aroma of freshly baked bread, straight from the old-fashioned ovens in the castle kitchen. Large piles of apples picked from the farm orchard and gooseberry pies were laid out, tempting me. My mouth-watered.

  “This is what I call a welcome.” Dr Woods sauntered over to us and clapped me on the shoulder. “You guys are lucky, eh?”

  My dad answered for me. “Very lucky indeed. This is fantastic, Stephen. What a great idea.”

  I shared a look with Hiro. Mike appeared at my side, his nose scrunched up. He wanted to know more about this man, just like me.

  Dr Woods grip tightened on my shoulder, just for a fraction, not long enough for me to cry out but long enough for me to get the message. He was strong. “You’re welcome, professor. It really is just a privilege to get to know you and your… unique team of children. Perhaps we could get together later for a cognac? I have some in my office. I would just love to pick your brain.”

  “Absolutely,” Dad replied, grinning. “I would love
that.”

  Dr Woods smiled at us all and with a flick of his coattails, and a strange glare in my direction, he disappeared. I watched him leave, so intrigued that I didn’t notice Daniel appear at my side.

  “I saw him touch you,” he said, breathless from running. “I do not trust that guy.”

  “Me neither,” Mike joined in. “He stinks like a festering old house. There’s something rotten but I can’t figure out what it means. I’ve never come across this emotion before. Usually bad guys are just mad or frustrated or trying to forget something terrible. But this guy is different.”

  “What are you talking about?” Dad interrupted. “You don’t like the doctor?”

  “Do you?” I blurted out. “You seem pretty chummy.” I folded my eyes and looked away; worried I was glaring at him.

  “It’s nice to have a man of science to hold a conversation with, yes.” I felt my dad’s eyes staring at me but didn’t look up to see them. I wondered if he’d removed his glasses yet. “But if you kids think there is something awry…”

  “He tried to hide his thoughts around me,” Hiro said. “But I don’t think he likes Mina. He says things like ‘that’s the girl’ and ‘wrong, so wrong’ around her.”

  Daniel moved closer to me. “That sounds creepy. I don’t want him around Mina.”

  I scoffed. “I could take him.”

  “You shouldn’t have to,” Daniel retorted.

  “He could just be unnerved by us. Mina does have an usual talent which can frighten people,” Dad said.

  “I am here you know,” I snapped. “There’s no need to talk about me.”

  He ignored my outburst. “Perhaps it would be good for me to get to know him better, keep an eye on him.”

  “Or maybe we should all just ignore him and hope he ignores us,” Mike suggested. He seemed quite rattled by this man.

  “We can’t ignore him, he’s in the Council,” I pointed out.

  “I’m going to tell Kitty about all this,” Mike said. “I don’t want her anywhere near him. I feel it guys. I feel it in my stomach that there is something really wrong with that guy, but I don’t know how to express it.” He backed away, his face pale and tense.