“Come out.” Clay’s voice is casual.
I back up and shake my head. They’ll have to kill me here. And I can’t believe my father is dead.
Then I hear a buzzing in my head—not Celia, a phone. And it’s not coming from the Hunters behind Celia; it’s closer. I feel something grab my right arm and go around my wrist, and the fourth Hunter materializes beside me. He’s as big and as ugly as I remembered. Kieran is holding my arm, the handcuff now visible. I try to strike his face with my free hand but he drops down, pulling me by the handcuff, and another of the Hunters has run into the cage and grabbed my left arm. I get a kick in to a female Hunter, but then I’m slammed into the bars, my arms are cuffed tightly behind me, and I’m slammed into the bars twice more.
“Move again and I’ll rip your arms out,” Kieran growls in my ear.
The great thing about hate is that it takes away everything else so that nothing else matters. So then the old trick is easy. I don’t mind about having my arms ripped off, about pain, about anything. I whip my head back and catch Kieran in the face, a cushioned scrunch of his nose on the back of my skull.
He squeals but doesn’t loosen his grip.
My arms get pulled up so I can’t move, but they don’t get ripped off, so I’ve got to wonder how serious Kieran really is.
Kieran drags me out of the cage and pushes me to the ground, but I roll and kick up so my boot makes contact with the side of his face. Roll again and get to my feet, but the two female Hunters are on me then and the punch to my kidneys is explosive.
I’m on my knees, my face on the path.
Celia is shouting at Clay, “This is unacceptable! I’m his guardian.”
Clay’s voice is calm. He says, “The orders are for us to take him.”
There’s a boot on my head keeping my face crushed against the ground.
Celia complains, argues, says she has to come, says she’s going to come, but Clay is good. He just says no.
In the end Celia says she has to take the choker off me. She asks permission.
As she unlocks it her hands are gentle and she says, “I’m going to follow you down.”
Clay says, “No. We’re going to have to borrow your van. He’s too dangerous to risk putting in the jeep.”
“Then I’ll drive your jeep.”
“No, Megan’ll drive it. If you insist on coming I suppose you could ride with her.”
There’s a threat in his voice; Celia must hear it. Megan couldn’t hurt Celia, but she’ll go the wrong way, get lost, run out of petrol. Celia won’t risk falling out with the Hunters; she’ll stay here. She’ll do what they want.
“Oh yes, I was supposed to give you this.” Clay’s voice is casual again now.
“A notification! When did this happen?”
He doesn’t reply.
“Two days ago? I should have been told. He’s my responsibility.”
Clay still doesn’t reply.
“It says that all Half Codes are to be ‘codified.’ What does that mean?” And I know Celia is saying all this for my benefit.
“I’m just providing the transport, Celia.”
“I’ll come down—”
But Clay cuts in. “I’ve told you the situation, Celia. He’s ours.”
“And when are you bringing him back?”
“I haven’t got instructions about that.”
Codified
I’m in Celia’s van, face down on the metal floor. It’s nearly two years since I was last here, and yet the rusting paint seems familiar.
Kieran has begun to heal his broken nose but it’s well mashed. He is holding a chain that is attached to my handcuffs and wrapped round my ankles, and he jerks on it to pass the time.
Clay is sitting in the passenger seat at the front, Tamsin is driving, Megan is following in the 4x4, and I guess Celia is still at the cottage.
The only thing to do is rest, but as soon as I doze Kieran yanks at my ankles or lashes my buttocks with the chain. When he’s fed up with that he shouts to the front of the van, “Hey, Tamsin, I’ve got another.”
“Yeah?” she shouts back.
“What’s the difference between a Half Code and a trampoline?”
She doesn’t answer and I get a heavy stomp on my back as Kieran says, “You take your shoes off to jump on a trampoline.”
His next joke he says quietly, just sharing it with me. “What’s the difference between a Half Code and an onion?” He lifts my shirt up. I feel his fingers scratch over the lower part of my scars, his scars, as he says, “Cutting up an onion makes you cry.”
After four or five hours the van stops. From the few voices I hear it has to be a motorway service station. They fill up with petrol and then sit around eating burgers and chips and slurping drinks. The smell would be tempting, but I’m desperate for a piss and don’t want to think about food and drink.
It probably isn’t going to be worth it, but I say it anyway. “I need to pee.”
The chain whips across the top of my thighs. I have to clench my teeth and breathe through my nose.
When the pain eases I say, “I still need to pee.”
The chain hits my thighs again.
The van sets off. Clay is giving mumbled instructions to the driver but I can’t hear them.
Twenty minutes later the van stops. I’m dragged backward by the ankles and out of the back of the van, which is backed up into some bushes. There is little traffic noise. They’ve found a quiet spot.
“Any trouble. Anything. And you’re dead.” Kieran says it so close to my ear I can feel the spray of spit.
I don’t acknowledge him.
He undoes my handcuffs and frees my right hand.
I piss. A long, long wonderful piss.
I’ve hardly zipped up and I’m back in the cuffs and shoved into the van again. I’m smiling inside at the relief, and because I’m thinking of Celia. She is tougher than these idiots.
The journey just keeps joggling along. Kieran must be sleeping ’cause he’s not bothering me. The nail is still in my mouth, but there’s no chance of escape with three Hunters round me.
The rust of the van’s floor scratches across my cheek as I’m pulled out of the back end of the van once more.
“On your knees.”
I’m in the courtyard of the Council building, the place where I was taken from just before my fifteenth birthday.
I’m pushed down. “Your knees!” Kieran shouts.
Clay has gone. Tamsin and Megan are by the cab of the van. Kieran is standing to the side of me and I squint up at him. His nose is swollen and he has one black eye.
“Your healing’s a bit slow, Kieran.”
His boot flies at my face, but I roll out of its way and up to my feet.
Tamsin laughs. “He’s fast, Kieran.”
Kieran feigns disinterest and says, “He’s their problem now.”
I look around as the two guards reach me, grab my arms, and drag me off without a word.
They take me into the Council building through a wooden door, along a corridor, then right and left and past an internal courtyard, through another door to the left. Then I am in the corridor I recognize and sitting on the bench outside the room where they do the assessments.
I heal the various scrapes and bruises.
It’s almost like old times. I have to wait, of course. My hands are still cuffed behind me. I stare at my knees and at the stone floor.
A long time passes and I’m still waiting. The door at the far end of the corridor opens; there’re footsteps but I don’t look up. And then the footsteps stop and a man’s voice says, “Go back the other way.”