Split Second

  “From what?”

  Brian shrugged. “Responsibility. Like I said, it was a long time ago.”

  Gail joined us and we drove off. I stared out of the window, turning what Brian had said over in my mind. I didn’t understand—how was fighting for your country running away from your responsibilities?

  It took just ten minutes to drive to the hall where the memorial service was being held, then another ten to find a parking place. I looked out for Aunt Karen and for Jas and Nat as we approached the hall, but the crowd on the pavement was too thick. Were all these people here for Mum and the other victims? As if to answer my question, a black car pulled up. Brian and I were slightly ahead of Gail and Rosa and we had to stop as the crowd surged forward. I peered past the heads to see who was getting out of the car. It was a singer from a TV talent show. Some relative of hers had been left in a wheelchair after the blast and I knew she had been widely interviewed immediately afterward. She was followed out of the car by the mayor of London and his wife and son.

  Brian tutted beside me. “I don’t know why they get special treatment,” he muttered.

  I shrugged and pushed my way through the crowds. I was sure Nat would be here and I wanted a chance to see how he behaved when he had to come face to face with so many people who, I was still certain, were related to those he had helped kill and maim.

  “Charlie, wait!” Brian’s voice behind me sounded faint among the hubbub. He was probably hanging back, waiting for Gail and Rosa to push their way through the crowd.

  I kept going. I’d rather be alone.

  I reached the external doors. Two men in suits were standing guard, checking people’s official invitations. I drew mine out of my pocket and showed it to one of the guards. He waved me through a small anteroom. Glass doors led into the hall. I took a deep breath and went inside.

  The hushed atmosphere inside the hall couldn’t have been more different from the chaos outside. People were still milling about, talking, but their voices were low and their heads bowed. The whole place felt subdued yet expectant.

  I walked to the front of the room, wondering if Aunt Karen was here yet. A row of photos had been set out on the stage, just in front of the lectern. Mum’s picture was at the end on the right. I knew it would be here, yet the sight of it still hurt. The photo was one of my favorites—Mum was looking into the distance, a proud smile on her face. You couldn’t tell just by looking at it, of course, but I knew that this picture had been taken as she watched me winning a gym competition when I was at elementary school years and years ago. For a moment, the pain of losing her was as raw as it had ever been. My throat felt swollen and tears pricked at my eyes. Not here. Not in front of all these people. I turned around, intending to look for Aunt Karen again.

  And walked straight into Nat.

  He was standing right behind me. Had he been watching me? I looked up and, for a split second, I saw the same pain that I felt reflected in his eyes.

  “Charlie . . . ,” Nat started.

  My heart lurched into my throat. But before Nat could say any more, Jas was there, looking thinner than ever in a long, floaty black dress.

  “Hi Charlie,” she said.

  “Catch you later,” Nat grunted, and walked away. I watched his back disappear into the crowd. What had he been going to say?

  “This is weird, isn’t it?” Jas’s forehead creased in an anxious frown. “Will you come and meet my parents? They’re waiting by Lucas’s photo.”

  “Sure.” I let Jas lead me along the edge of the stage to where a middle-aged couple was peering down at a picture of a boy with twinkling dark eyes. It was hard to imagine the same boy lying unconscious in a hospital for the past six months.

  “Charlie, this is my mum and dad,” Jas said.

  “Hello, Charlie, it’s a pleasure to meet you at last.” Jas’s mum gave me a warm smile. She looked exhausted, her eyes sore and lined.

  Jas’s dad reached out to shake my hand. He was tall, with the same shaped mouth as Jas—and looked as tired as his wife.

  We talked for a moment more. Jas’s parents commented on the hall and how attractive it was with all the soft lights on the walls. The conversation felt surreal with none of us talking about why we were actually here. I was glad when the ushers appeared and asked us politely to find our seats.

  I spotted Aunt Karen in the second row from the front, talking with Brian and Gail. As I hurried over, I passed the mayor and his family. The mayor’s son caught my eye and smiled. Despite his formal clothes—a stiff blue blazer and gray trousers—we were about the same age. He was maybe a tad taller than me, with rosy cheeks and a shock of thick, fair hair.

  I sat down next to Aunt Karen. It flashed through my mind that she might still be angry with me for all the fights we’d had when we’d lived together. But then we hugged and she whispered that she loved me and I could almost feel all the bad stuff between us melting away into the past. The hall was full now, the noise of hushed chatter filling the air. Nat was across the aisle with his parents and Jas. I stared at him, but he didn’t look up. Jas and her mum put their arms around each other. Another wave of longing washed over me. It was good to see Aunt Karen again, but I would have given anything to have been able to hug Mum like that.

  The service began as a man I didn’t recognize read the names of the four people who died in the bomb, then went on to list those severely injured—a roll call that included Lucas. Aunt Karen held my hand, weeping quietly. She was sitting next to Gail. On Gail’s other side, Rosa was crying too—with plenty of ostentatious sniffing and eye-wiping. It was drawing a lot of attention. People probably thought she was the bereaved daughter, not me. For a second I felt angry with her. She hadn’t even known Mum. What was she so upset for?

  The service moved on to short talks on each of the people killed. Aunt Karen went up to the front to speak about Mum, how dedicated she’d been as an elementary school teacher before she’d lost her job in the cuts, how much she had loved life and her friends and her family, especially me.

  After feeling so raw earlier, I was numb now. I watched as Mayor Latimer stood up to speak. He was trying to sound concerned, but the hushed and humble tone he used came over as phony to me. He talked for ages: firstly about the process of grieving, then how we mustn’t let it stop us loving, or else we let the terrorists win.

  At last the mayor finished speaking and the music part of the program began. Rosa was still crying noisily. The service went on for another fifteen minutes or so, then we all filed into the back room for wine and chips and fancy canapés. I vaguely wondered who was paying for everything. The TV news this morning had announced another pay cut for all public sector workers and said that the mayor’s budget was to be severely reduced too.

  I stood in the corner. The mayor and his wife were in the middle of the room, talking with Jas and her parents. I watched Jas take a bite of a cracker then put the remainder on her mum’s plate. No wonder she was so skinny. It struck me that though we’d shared snacks together many times I’d never actually seen her eat a full meal.

  I sighed. The service had just turned into a drinks party and Nat was nowhere to be seen. The least I could get out of the whole stupid experience was a bit of information, something I could properly use against him.

  I headed to the drinks table wondering if he was somewhere in the crush. The mayor’s son was standing on the edge of the crowd. As I walked over, he smiled.

  “Hello,” he said.

  “Hi.” I looked around. No sign of Nat here.

  “Are they your parents?” the boy asked, indicating Nat and Jas’s mum and dad.

  “No,” I said.

  “Are you a friend of the family?”

  Irritation flickered through me at his persistence. “I’m their daughter’s friend,” I said. “We go to the same school. Why are you asking?”

  The boy shrugged. “It’s just nice to see people my age. Girls especially.” He grinned and a dimple appeared in his left cheek.
“I’m Aaron by the way.” He held out his hand.

  I shook it, feeling even more annoyed. Aaron seemed to be treating the whole event as some kind of flirting opportunity. “Charlie,” I said.

  I turned away, determined to find Nat.

  “Nice to meet you, Charlie,” Aaron said.

  “Whatever.” As I stomped off, it occurred to me that I’d probably been a bit harsh. After all, it couldn’t be much fun for Aaron to spend his Saturday morning at a ceremony with a bunch of unhappy people just because his parents had to. And there was no way he could have known that I was the daughter of one of the blast victims.

  I walked on, still looking for Nat. I might have failed to steal his laptop, but if I could just get him talking, I was sure I could force him to let something slip about his involvement with the League of Iron, some detail I could use to start building evidence against him.

  There he was, hunched over his phone, crossing the room. He was heading for the fire door in the corner. My jaw dropped as he looked around—a quick furtive glance—then pressed down on the bar. Was he leaving the memorial service? A moment later he slipped outside and out of sight.

  Where on earth was he going?

  I hesitated for just a second, then I sped across the room and followed him outside. He was still studying his cell phone, walking purposefully up the road. Before I knew what I was doing, I was hurrying after him. My pulse raced. Rationally this was crazy: Nat was probably going somewhere completely unconnected with the League of Iron. On the other hand, why would he walk out on the memorial service like this if it was for some innocent reason? In my bones I was sure that whatever he was doing was linked to the bomb and to his brother and to that disgusting League forum he had written on as AngelOfFire.

  The wind pinched at my face, despite the bright sunshine. I hurried along, tugging my scarf around me. Nat turned right at the end of the road. He was walking fast. I sped up, almost having to run in order to keep him in view. He took a left, then two rights in quick succession. He stopped for a moment, as if deciding which way to turn next, then headed toward the canal. I followed him past a pair of homeless women arguing over the contents of a bin. A moment later, Nat reached the water and the first of the three low-rise public housing buildings that ran along its banks. I lost sight of him as he walked through the entry arch.

  I sped up again, racing under the arch myself, out to the other side. Two men in the distance were shouting.

  Without warning, a hand grabbed my arm. Nat swung me round, his eyes blazing in the bright sunlight. “Why are you following me?” he snapped.

  My breath caught in my throat. I tried to pull away, to run, but Nat held me fast.

  NAT

  I gripped Charlie’s arm. There was shock—but no fear—in her eyes. As she stared up at me, I had the weird sensation of falling through air. The dirty public housing around us vanished, the shouts of the men in the distance faded to background noise. It was like I was seeing her for the first time, really seeing her, from the stubborn tilt of her jaw to those dark, fierce eyes that seemed to penetrate right inside me.

  It struck me that Charlie wasn’t just pretty, as I’d first thought. She was beautiful.

  I dropped her arm. “I asked you why you’re following me.”

  Charlie stuck out her chin. “Who says I’m following you?”

  I smiled. Her expression was just so ridiculously haughty. “Yeah, right. You’ve been behind me since the memorial. What are you, some kind of stalker?”

  “Of course I’m not.” She was still sticking out her chin, but the shadow of embarrassment flickered across her face, presumably at the fact I had spotted her so easily.

  “It’s your hair,” I said. “It’s kind of hard to miss.”

  Charlie shook her curls away from her face—a gesture of defiance. My pulse raced. What the hell was happening to me? I’d liked plenty of girls before, but this . . . this was completely different.

  “So are you going to tell me what you’re doing?” I demanded, trying to make my voice sound hard and angry.

  “I wanted to see who you were meeting,” Charlie said.

  “What makes you think I’m meeting anyone?” I asked, genuinely astonished.

  Charlie put her hands on her hips. She was dressed in a black skirt and sweater, a red scarf around her neck and a red hat over her wild curls. No makeup. No jewelry. Unlike Jas, I didn’t normally take much notice of how people put together what they wore, but it struck me that Charlie looked cooler than anyone I’d ever met.

  “You’re going to meet people from the League of Iron, aren’t you?” she said.

  “What?” I stared at her. How on earth had she connected me with the League?

  “You’re a member of the League. You were there when the market bomb that killed my mum went off,” Charlie said. “You were part of it.”

  “How can you think—?”

  “I know you belong to the League of Iron and they already said that they set off the bomb. Don’t deny it, I’ve seen what you write on their forums as AngelOfFire. It’s disgusting.”

  How the hell had she identified me from the forums? “What are you talking about?” I said.

  “Don’t lie to me. I saw on your laptop. All that stuff about who to bomb and hating black people and—”

  “Shh.” I looked around, but no one was near us, nobody was listening. “You sneaked into my room and looked on my computer?”

  Charlie nodded.

  A shiver ran down my spine. Up until now I’d thought Taylor’s request to replace my hard drive had been a bit over the top. But if Charlie had stolen a look at my laptop, then other people might have too.

  Charlie looked up. “I’ll give you one final chance to tell me the truth,” she said. Her mouth trembled slightly. “Did you set off the bomb that killed my mum?”

  “No.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  We stared at each other. I felt torn. I had promised Taylor that I wouldn’t talk about our meeting, but if anyone deserved to know the truth, it was, surely, Charlie. I had seen the hurt in her eyes at the memorial service. She ought to know that someone, somewhere, was trying to stop the League of Iron.

  “It’s complicated,” I said.

  “What is? Being a Nazi thug who thinks bombing random people in markets is a great thing?”

  “I don’t think that.”

  “So how do you explain being AngelOfFire?”

  I hesitated.

  “The League left your brother in a coma. Your own brother. And my . . . my mum . . .” Charlie’s voice cracked.

  I racked my brains, frantic for a way to explain at least part of the truth. “I . . . I was just doing the forums because I need . . . I want . . . to understand why the League of Iron did the bombing,” I said.

  “You want to understand them?” Charlie folded her arms. She sounded incredulous. “I want to kill them.”

  “Yeah, I know.” I bit my lip. “Like I said, it’s complicated.”

  “You’re lying.” Charlie scowled. “It’s written all over your face, like the way you snuck out of the memorial service so no one saw you. You’re going to meet League of Iron people, aren’t you? You’re planning who to bomb next.”

  I thought of the text on the phone in my pocket.

  “You’re wrong,” I said truthfully. “I was actually going to visit my brother in the hospital. You can come with me if you don’t believe me.”

  “Fine,” Charlie said. “Let’s go.”

  CHARLIE

  I was sure Nat was lying. At the very least, he was holding something back. I mean he said the text he’d gotten was irrelevant and that he was really just going to see his brother, but how did I know either of those things were true? As we walked to the hospital, I was still sure he had been behind the marketplace bomb.

  It didn’t occur to me to be scared. All I could think about was how on earth I was going to get Nat to admit to what he’d done. And, as we reached the hosp
ital and crossed the parking lot, I made my plan.

  Harassed-looking people were bustling in and out of the hospital’s glass doors. The NHS had been strained to the breaking point this year because of all the cuts. Even though I didn’t follow politics, I’d still heard the summer heat wave horror story about the three elderly women who died on the same day—in different hospitals—because they had been left, untreated and forgotten, by busy nurses in crowded hallways.

  The elevator stopped at the third floor. We got out and I followed Nat along the hallway. A couple of the nurses glanced over as we passed. They seemed to recognize Nat. He led me into a room on the left. The boy from the picture at the memorial service lay on the bed. This was Jas and Nat’s brother, Lucas.

  I gasped, shocked by the sight of all the tubes and wires running out of his body. It was hot in the room. Nat took off his jacket and laid it on the end of the bed, then he walked around the bed and sat down in the chair. He looked at me.

  “This is why I left the memorial service: to see my brother, okay?”

  I stared at Lucas, distracted momentarily from my plan. I was still sure Nat had been lying about coming here, but even so it must be awful to have someone you loved strapped to machines like this. What if it were Mum lying in a coma for six months, in this limbo hell between living and dying? No wonder Nat’s mum was always in the hospital and his dad kept himself busy with work; no wonder Jas had stopped playing the piano and only picked at her food. For a whole year I’d envied everyone who’d survived the blast—whatever their circumstances—but now, for the first time, it occurred to me that losing Mum as I did might have been better, after all, than losing her like this.

  Nat leaned forward in his chair, his eyes intent on his brother’s face. I glanced at his jacket, still lying at the end of the bed, and remembered my plan. I edged closer until I was perching on the end of the bed. Nat didn’t look around. Pulse racing, I reached for the jacket. Slowly, carefully, my trembling fingers felt for the outline of Nat’s cell. There. Silently, I drew the phone out of the jacket pocket. I stood up, hiding the cell behind my back.