‘I’m sorry,’ Jamie said again. ‘I didn’t know she was your sister . . . It was an accident. I honestly never meant to hurt her.’ Those words felt so good. He wondered why it had taken him so long to say them. If only he had stayed after the accident. He could’ve said sorry back then. Saved all the nightmares and remorse.
Skye. The girl’s name had been Skye. It had suited her.
Had this war simply been about punishing a girl? About revenge? Jamie felt used. He realised Matthew hadn’t really cared about rescuing James Grey. He hadn’t cared about his warriors, who had trained for him and bled for him. Bled for their beliefs. For a way of life. In the end, it had all been about ego. About a boy’s self-importance.
Jamie hadn’t wanted to believe it. Had wanted to believe in a good way to live. In a higher purpose. But Grey’s church was a sham. A lie. The dream shattered around him like so much broken glass.
Jamie’s head began to pound. He let his dripping sword fall into the snow. Pulled out his pistol and held it to his temple. The cold metal barrel soothed the dull pounding in his head.
‘No!’ Skye’s sister cried.
She held his gaze as he squeezed the trigger.
Chapter Forty
Six Months Later
A heat haze shimmered off the ground, and dust swirled as the copter blades began to spin. In the cockpit, a notepad rested on my lap and I chewed on a pencil, ready to list out all the fence locations which still needed attention. The re-build was taking months, but it would be fantastic once it was done. Scrub that, it was already beyond everyone’s wildest dreams.
I couldn’t believe it was almost a year since Skye’s death. It felt like an eternity and also like no time at all. All those months I had spent dreaming of tracking down her killer and pulling the trigger. In the end Jamie had done it himself. But I hadn’t been glad or relieved. I’d only felt shock and sadness. I still saw his face sometimes. The haunted expression in his eyes. At least I knew Skye hadn’t been murdered in cold blood. That the whole thing had simply been a terrible accident.
On Christmas Eve, after witnessing the deaths of FJ and Jamie out in the snowy wilderness, Grey’s disciples had seemed lost. I had stood there, shocked and freezing, as their chanting ceased and they lowered their hoods. I had spoken to them. Reasoned with them and told them a ceasefire would be in all our interests. Told them I could broker a deal that would make everyone happy. They had been as stunned as I was by the turn of events and seemed almost relieved to have a solution handed to them. They took me up on my offer. Removed my chains and returned me to the perimeter.
When we got there, it was like everyone was waking after a dream. Grey’s soldiers had been driven out by the combined forces of mine and Reece’s people, a unifying moment that had not ceased since that day. The gypsies had helped us clear up, tend to the wounded and account for the dead. And we were forever in their debt. True to my word, we provided Lou, Reece and the gypsies with more than enough provisions for the winter and beyond. After all, without them we would have lost everything.
One happy ending was that we discovered Fred and Jessie tied up in one of the trucks. They were suffering from hypothermia and we weren’t sure if Jessie would make it. But being reunited with Liss and Annabelle gave them all the incentive they needed to get better.
In the weeks which followed, Grey’s church dissolved and his warriors scattered. They had no leader. We’d cut the head off the snake, literally. As word spread, more-and-more children were reunited with their parents. But there were also hundreds of orphans to be cared for and Reece was still searching for his missing sisters. Many people had been lost. Friends, families, allies. No one was untouched.
Here, now, in the sparkling sunlight, the whole thing seemed like a distant dream. A hazy nightmare of winter and destruction. I smiled at Luc and he grinned back at me as we took the copter up into the soft blue sky. Being reunited with my parents, Luc and the others was the best feeling I’d ever had in my life. Luc and I did everything together these days. Told each other our deepest thoughts. No more miscommunication and lies. He forgave me for leaving him in the underground stores. Understood why I’d done it. But at the same time I had to promise to never do anything like that again. I had to trust him. And I realised I did. I trusted him with my life.
We banked north, away from Talbot Woods. We would start by listing out the places which needed the least work and move outwards. Nothing like this had ever been attempted before, but Pa said it was time, and most people agreed. The perimeters and compounds were the places which had the most to lose, but Pa argued that we couldn’t go on like before. If we did, things would only get worse. The country would never heal. Would always stay fractured.
I peered down at the green lawns and the grey roads of my home. Construction was already well under way and the wide new road now ran from the old entrance straight out into the heathland toward Charminster. Our northern and western fences had been partly dismantled already, and we were making good progress re-building our new southern boundary, which would run for twenty miles from Bournemouth, here in the east, to Puddletown in the west. From there, the boundary would stretch northwards for forty miles, along the old A354 up to encompass Salisbury. The eastern boundary would complete the triangle, from Salisbury back down along the Wessex Way to Bournemouth. Many of Grey’s people had fled Salisbury, but the ones who’d stayed were offered the chance to be part of our new way of life. They accepted without hesitation.
My heart gave a leap of excitement as I looked down from the air to see new villages and houses without fences around them. To see rectangular fields of crops and animals, where once was only dangerous scrubby heathland.
This new region was to be called Wessex and would have its own government and its own police force, made up of representatives from each of the old settlements. No more perimeters, compounds or guards. No more lawless stretches of wasteland. We were going to aim for a new kind of civilisation with a new set of laws. A vast island of safety.
A few people from the perimeter said it was too ambitious. Too perilous. That all we needed to do was rebuild a stronger fence to hide behind. But thankfully, enough of us were ready to try a new way.
Maybe, if this worked, we could extend our boundaries further, and keep on extending until we reached the very edges of our nation. Then we would have no need of fences and no one would be left outside. We would reach a day when the whole country was free. When we could walk alone and unarmed, without fear of being attacked.
Wouldn’t that be something?
THE END
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Note from the author:
‘Thank you for reading my novel. I’m an independent author and rely on word-of-mouth recommendations. If you’ve enjoyed the Outside Series, perhaps you’d tell your friends about it and consider posting a short review on Amazon or elsewhere online. Thank you so much.’
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Other titles by Shalini Boland
Outside (Outside Series, Book 1)
The Clearing (Outside Series, Book 2)
Hidden (Marchwood Vampire Series, Book 1)
Thicker Than Blood (Marchwood Vampire Series, Book 2)
A Shirtful of Frogs – a ww2 timeslip adventure
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About The Author
Shalini Boland lives in Dorset, England with her husband and two noisy sons where she writes novels (in between doing the school runs and hanging out endless baskets of washing).
Connect with Shalini Online:
Twitter
http://twitter.com/ShaliniBoland
Blog
http://www.shaliniboland.co.uk/
Facebook
http://www.facebook.com/ShaliniBolandAuthor
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Massive thanks and l
ove to my husband, Pete, who has lived and breathed this series with me since 2006 when I first had the idea. Thank you for looking after the children while I ‘just finish this chapter’. Thank you for making dinner and getting me chocolate and making cups of tea and reading the scenes I wasn’t sure about. Thank you for your help with all the battle scenes and the complicated technical bits. But most of all, thank you for being my best friend and for making me laugh when it all got a bit much.
Thanks, Mum, for always been so enthusiastic and encouraging and for telling me everything is brilliant. Even though I know you’re my mum and you kind of have to say that, it’s still amazing to hear.
Recently, I was lucky enough to find a fantastic copy editor, William Donnelly, from Donnelly House. Bill, it’s been a pleasure working with you. Hope this is the start of a wonderful adventure in commas ;)
Thanks to my beta readers Julie Carey, Amara Gillo and Peter Boland. I’m so grateful for your eagle eyes. You never let me down!
I’m lucky enough to have an incredible author support network. People who will drop everything to help with writerly issues and dilemmas: B. Lloyd, Poppet, Suzy Turner, Amanda Cowley, Sarah Dalton, Reggie Jones, Robert Craven and so many more. I love you, guys!
While researching information for my novels, I sometimes hit a brick wall. Thank you to the following people for your solid advice: Weapons guru K.P. you’re a legend. And Poppet, you got me out of a hole. My snipers and I thank you!
Thanks also to the stupendously talented Simon Tucker for yet another awesome book cover.
To my readers: I absolutely adore you. I love it when you stop by online to say hi. I love it when you leave reviews. And I’m forever grateful that you choose to read my books. Thank you.
Check out this awesome new dystopian sci fi serial:
The Spiral Arm by Peter Boland
Who wouldn’t give up everything they owned for just one more day of life?
Chapter one
I don’t sleep. I never sleep. Every night it’s the same. Lying on my bed, staring up at the damp spot on the ceiling. I know it intimately now. Every dirty curve and tendril. Sometimes I think I can see things in it, like one of those Rorschach ink tests. Tonight it’s a grim-looking face with wings sticking out the side of its head. Maybe I’m going crazy. Perhaps I should paint over it and then I’ll get some shut-eye, but I know it won’t make any difference. Nothing does. Insomnia has been my unwelcome companion since I can remember. It’s a wonder I manage to function during the day. I’m so used to it now; it’s just something I am. A part of me; like having freckles or a tattoo.
Pity I’m not the party type. I’d be really good at it. I could go on night after night without any side effects. A hardcore party animal, I’d be the last person standing, calling everyone else a lightweight for succumbing to sleep.
But parties are the last place I want to be. Actually I’ve never been to one, never get invited to any. From what I can gather it wouldn’t be my scene; stuck in a place with all the beautiful, perfect people from my school, while I do my best to blend in with the wallpaper. No thanks.
The worst thing about not sleeping is the boredom. There are hours and hours of dead time to fill. Every night I become a ghost, invisible to the slumbering world, with an eternity of time on my hands. So I spend most of it reading, easily demolishing a book a night.
I squeeze the com chip in my left hand. A nanosecond later it projects a flat square of colored light inches above my wrist. The holographic touch-screen hovers in front of me. I check my message box – empty as usual.
Touching my book icon, I drag my index finger down the screen, scrolling through the massive library of literature I’ve downloaded. There are some novels, but mostly I like tech manuals. Yeah, I know, weird right? Most people use their com chip to chat or watch movies or post dumb stuff about what they’re doing at this precise moment. But me, I use it to read – call me old-fashioned but there is a method behind the madness; or there was.
I started reading tech manuals in the hope that the tedium would send me off to the land of nod. It had the opposite effect and I got hooked on reading about how everything with an ON button works. Tonight, it’s how to dismantle the propulsion system of a ground shuttle.
As you can probably guess, I don’t have many friends. It’s okay, don’t feel sorry for me; that’s the way I prefer it. Nice people say I like my own company; mean people call me a freak, a weirdo, or worse. Not many people are nice to me, so it’s usually the latter, which is mostly why I avoid people.
It’s so damn hot in here that I polish off a liter of water while reading. After an hour my bladder’s full so I swing my legs out of bed and walk across the apartment, although cubicle would be a more accurate description, it’s so tiny.
There are about four thousand of these little people-hutches in our block, and at the last count we had 217 floors. They keep building more floors on top to fit more people in, but it’s never enough. It’s overcrowded the second they’re finished. The top of the tower sways, it’s so high. Most people are frightened to go up, especially the ones who live there. The residents’ handbook says it’s perfectly normal for it to do this, and is part of the design. Being a geek, I checked all the physics calculations, just for something to do one night, and they all work. I think it’s kinda cool having a bendy building. Better than one that could snap like a twig.
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Shalini Boland, The Perimeter
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