Logan clenched his own fist tighter. If they tried to take Alice, he’d make them pay for it. Maybe he wouldn’t win the fight, but at least they’d know they’d got into one. That someone tried to stop them.
Even if he couldn’t save his sister, he could still discourage them from trying to take other girls from the street.
Grey-Hair picked up his case, and strode out of the kitchen, into the living room. Muscles followed, looking back over his shoulder, keeping an eye on Dad.
They passed the bottom of the steps where Logan sat, their shoes tapping on the hard floor in the hushed silence. They didn’t even look at him as they passed by.
Dad stood in the kitchen doorway, and raised his fist. “And don’t you come back.”
Alice pushed herself up from the steps. “Stop.”
Dad turned to her. Sweat glistened on his red face. “Keep out of this, girl, if you know what’s good for you.”
Grey-Hair stopped beside the sofa, and looked toward her. “Let the girl speak, Mr McCoy. Shouldn’t your daughter have a say in her future?”
“She doesn’t know what she’s doing.”
Dad stepped into the living room, with fists ready. Mum grabbed his arm. She leaned closer to him and spoke softly. “Let Alice say what she has to say.”
Grey-Hair stared at Alice. “Go on, girl.”
Alice glanced at Logan, then lowered her face. “I’ll do it.”
Dad raised his fist toward her. His face grew even more red. “Listen to me, girl…”
“They’re right, Dad. You know it’s best for all of us.”
Dad opened his mouth to yell, but Mum pulled his arm, and he glanced at her. Logan grabbed Alice’s hand. How could he just let her go like that?
“You can’t leave.”
She smiled a sad smile at him, and her small fingers wrapped around his own. She squeezed his hand for a second, then pushed it away. “I’ll be fine. Just don’t forget me.”
“I’ll protect you.”
She nodded toward Muscles, and whispered. “You see that bulge in the suit under his arm? It’s a gun. I saw it when they came in. He’ll shoot you.”
“I’ll move fast.”
“If they don’t kill you, they’ll cut you off from UBI and make sure you never get a job anywhere in England. They’ll throw you out onto the streets, and you’ll spend the rest of your life begging and stealing every penny you need to stay alive. I can’t let you do that.”
She glanced toward their parents. “Besides, what else am I going to do? Stay here, and end up like Mum? What could happen that’s worse than that?”
“It’s not that bad.”
But he knew he was lying even as he said the words. Of course it was bad. He hated the thought of ending up like Dad as much as she hated to imagine ending up like Mum. Neither he nor she had a life to live there in that little apartment in Hastings. Not a real life, one that was worth living.
Muscles approached them. Alice smiled one last time, then took a deep breath, and crept down the stairs.
Grey-Hair adjusted his tie, then held out his hand toward Alice. “Really, this is for the best. You’ll all come to accept that in time, after you get used to your new life. One day, you’ll thank us.”
Dad pulled away from Mum, and lunged toward him. Muscles stepped forward, grabbed Dad’s arm, and pulled it away. He twisted it behind Dad’s back, and pushed him down to the floor.
Stacey shrieked, and hid behind her teddy bear. Logan jumped up, fists raised. But Alice glanced at him and shook her head rapidly. He stopped at the bottom of the steps, clenching and unclenching his fists, and imagining slamming them into Muscles’ face. Punching Muscles until his nose broke and he collapsed to the floor. Gun or no gun.
Grey-Hair smiled.
“Let’s not let this goodbye get ugly. I’m sure your daughter would like to leave you all with good memories.” He nodded toward Muscles. “Help Mr McCoy onto the sofa, please.”
Muscles pulled Dad up, and pushed him to the sofa. The springs inside creaked as Dad slumped down on the worn brown cushions, and Mum sat beside him.
Grey-Hair put his hand on Alice’s shoulder. Her body shook visibly at his touch. She tried to smile, but her lips quivered. Muscles watched over Mum and Dad as Grey-Hair pushed Alice toward the door.
She glanced back toward Logan.
Her eyes met his, and hers were wide, as though suddenly unsure of what she was doing. Then she glanced at Mum.
“I need to pack…” she said.
Grey-Hair slid his hand to the small of her back, and pushed her towards the door. “Everything you need will be provided for you. There is no need to take anything.”
“But I need some clothes…”
“Everything will be provided. Everything.”
Grey-Hair pushed on her back. She glanced at Mum and Dad as she took a step toward the door. Mum put her arm around Dad as tears ran down his red face.
“You can get your things when you come back to visit,” Mum called after her.
“No.” Grey-Hair said without looking back. “I’m afraid she won’t be coming back.”
Muscles followed Alice and Grey-Hair downstairs, glancing back over his shoulder to keep an eye on Logan as he followed a few metres behind them. Grey-Hair pulled the front door open, and pushed Alice out into the street. Muscles followed, keeping his hand near the bulge in his jacket.
Logan stopped at the door, and peered out into the rainy street. The car door slid open, and Grey-Hair motioned Alice toward it.
Morgan stared out at her. “Welcome, my dear. I’ve been so looking forward to seeing you again.”
He patted the seat beside him.
Alice took one last look at Logan, and the apartment where she’d lived all her life. Her long, auburn hair flicked behind her back as she turned away. She stepped into the car, and slid onto the seat next to Morgan. She flinched for a second as he slid his arm along the back of the seat, and around her shoulders.
Then he looked up at Logan, and smiled.
The door slid closed, and Alice left his life. She didn’t look back again as the car rolled away.
CHAPTER 3
1st Company shuffled into the improvised command bunker, two hundred and fifty Legionnaires moving in single file through the narrow doorway from the bright sunlight to the dim, windowless interior.
Like the Legion’s sleeping quarters at the spaceport, the command bunker had previously been used as a hangar, with a fifty-metre-square concrete floor beneath a curved concrete roof that supported dirt piled on top of it to block the radiation. The hard surface of the roof reflected back the echoes of the Legionnaires’ murmured conversation, and the constant thumps of their boots on the floor.
A dozen rows of roughly-made wooden chairs faced a knee-high stage of ragged wooden boards near the doors on the far side of the hangar, doors that looked big enough to roll a shuttle through if they were open.
Logan crept across the floor, slowing any time he began to feel the world wobbling around him from lack of oxygen. His lungs were a little more used to the thin air of New Strasbourg after three hours of waiting for the radiation storm to subside, then an hour of exercise carrying the bags and cargo from the shuttles to stores and the sleeping quarters.
But not enough yet to rush around the spaceport without feeling light-headed. He shuffled across the uneven floor until he reached a chair near the end of the middle row, far enough from the stage to be inconspicuous, but not far enough to look like he was trying to hide.
Volkov was already sitting in the far corner of the room, studying everyone who entered. Logan had learned not to draw the platoon sergeant’s attention to himself without a very good reason. It usually hurt.