Days Like This (8 page)

There was no longer any doubt that teenagers were being harvested, though the exact nature and purpose of this harvesting was still unclear. She knew instinctively that Daniel was a victim like the girl in the case study. And Lily realised she’d have to be stupid to think it wasn’t going to happen to her, too.

Lily stared at the black computer screen, another terrible thought forming. Was it coincidental that Daniel had been taken shortly after he had accessed this restricted information? He hadn’t mentioned seeing a warning message, but their last conversation had been interrupted. The fact was, if the Committee had traced the breach back to Daniel, they would just as easily trace this one back to her.

Lily knew she would have to leave her parents’ house immediately. There was no way she was going to risk becoming Subject A-whatever like the poor girl with no name in the case study. She left Daniel’s room, closing the door quietly behind her, and went to find Alice.

‘How’s your head –’ Alice began, but Lily interrupted her.

‘I need your help, Alice,’ she said. ‘Right now. I want you to make smoothies for Pym and Megan. And I want you to put this into the mixture.’ Lily held out a small bottle.

Alice sat up, alarmed. ‘What is it?’

‘It won’t hurt them. Daniel gave it to me. Megan left it in the kitchen once, after supper. She used to use these drops before bed to help her sleep, remember? Put it all into their drinks and take it to them. Tell them, I dunno, tell them you wanted to make them something to cheer them up after I freaked them out yesterday.’

Alice nodded slowly. ‘It won’t hurt them?’ she asked.

‘I promise,’ Lily said, though she wasn’t entirely sure.

‘What’re you going to do then?’ Alice asked.

‘I have to find that remote control for the bracelets and then I’ve got to leave here. Straightaway, like I said.’

‘But you can’t leave.’ Alice jumped up.

‘Shh,’ Lily glanced at the door. ‘I have to.’

‘I won’t do it,’ Alice said. ‘I won’t help you do that.’ Her shoulders hunched and she wore the obstinate look Lily knew so well.

Lily took a deep breath. ‘Okay, there’s something you need to know,’ she said.

‘I don’t want to,’ Alice pressed her fingers into her ears like a toddler, but Lily pulled them away. ‘I’m telling you anyway.’

‘I’ll go, I’ll leave the room.’

Lily waited and Alice stayed put, though her face was red and furious.

‘Just listen, Alice, and don’t say anything until you’ve heard what I’ve got to tell you. Pym and Megan have allowed the Committee to hurt Daniel somehow They’re planning to do the same with me. I’ve hacked in to the Committee database …’

‘What?’

Lily held up her hands. ‘Just listen, will you? There’s no time to explain the hows and whys. I read a case study about a girl who was being harvested for something. Don’t ask me what exactly, but whatever it is, I’m sure it’s happening to Daniel too and I’m pretty certain it’s soon going to happen to me.’

Alice put her thumb in her mouth. Lily had no patience for her sister’s childish ways anymore.

‘Listen to me, Alice. And take your thumb out of your mouth. You’re not a baby. I was discovered doing the hacking, that’s why I have to leave straightaway. They’ll be coming for me.’

Alice removed her thumb. ‘Did Pym and Megan bust you?’ she asked.

‘No, worse. The Committee. The
Committee
, Alice. You realise what that means? They’ll send Blacktroopers to get me. I’ll be punished. There’s no question of that. I can’t wait for that to happen. I have to get out of this house. Then I have to get over the Wall and see if there are any people there who will help me come back and rescue Daniel.’

Alice stared at Lily, aghast. ‘Go over the Wall. Are you serious?’

‘I think there may be people over there who can help me.’ Lily paused. She wasn’t sure Alice was really getting it. ‘This harvesting business – it’s us they’re talking about, Alice. They want to harvest us.’

‘But what’s that mean exactly, harvesting?’ Alice said. ‘Isn’t it like gathering food crops?’

‘The Committee seems to be harvesting people,’ said Lily. ‘Young people. They are taking something from us that we probably don’t want to give. Maybe Daniel is being harvested right this minute. Maybe it’s killing him and it has been every single day I’ve been procrastinating here,’ Lily said.

‘I don’t believe you, Lily,’ Alice said, without conviction.

‘Don’t play dumb, Alice. it’s becoming pretty clear this harvesting has got something to do with Daniel’s disappearance. I think Pym and Megan sold him off for their own benefit. They’re going to sell me off next and then you.’

‘No.’ Alice covered her ears again. Lily wished she could brush away unpleasant things that easily. She waited. Eventually Alice took her hands away and opened her eyes. ‘They won’t do that to me because they love me. Oh, Lilla, I’m sorry, but they do. They love me and they wouldn’t hurt me, they wouldn’t,’ she said.

‘They do love you, Alice, but I don’t know how long that will last. I think you should come with me when I go.’

‘I won’t leave them, Lily. I can’t. Anyway, what about the bracelet and…’ She looked at Lily’s wounded wrist with disgust. ‘Don’t ask me again,’ she trailed off.

Lily knew she meant it.

‘Okay. At least help me escape so I can and find Daniel. Then we can come back for you,’ Lily said.

Alice looked down at her hands. She’d painted the nails pink with purple stripes. Now she was pretending to admire them.

‘You have to help me, Alice,’ Lily persisted.

‘All right, but …’ She paused, frowning. ‘What about the Blacktrooper pills if you leave?’ Alice said. ‘Without them, you’ll get sick with a disease. You’ll die.’

‘I don’t think those pills have got anything to do with preventing disease, Alice.’

‘Are these all right?’ Alice’s voice shook with fear and uncertainty. Lily wondered if she could really leave Alice alone with Pym and Megan, who no longer looked, let alone behaved, like their parents.

Alice had placed three smoothies on a tray. She’d obviously taken care making them, sticking berries decoratively around the rims of the glasses. The berries were small, but beautiful.
A bit like Alice
, Lily thought.

‘I added vanilla, to make them taste better. And this one with the chocolate sprinkles is mine. It hasn’t got any of that sleeping stuff in it,’ Alice said.

‘Good thinking. Thanks, Alice.’ Lily looked at her sister with new respect. She felt guilty that she’d had doubts about Alice being up to this.

‘Are you really going?’ Alice said.

‘I have to. I promise I’ll come back for you. Cross my heart, hope to die.’

‘I don’t know why I’m their favourite. I’m sorry, Lilla.’ She was trembling and the smoothies wobbled slightly on the tray.

‘Go on, take them then,’ Lily said, impulsively giving her little sister a kiss.

‘I’m sorry about that, too.’ Alice nodded at Lily’s wrist.

‘What’ll you tell them afterwards, about the smoothies?’ Lily asked.

Alice thought for a minute. ‘At first I’ll tell them I don’t remember anything because I feel weird. Then, after a while, I’ll say I suddenly do remember. I’ll say you really made the smoothies, even though I’d pretended to because they looked so beautiful and I wanted to take all the credit. I’ll tell them it was really you and it was you who told me to bring them. I’ll say you did it because you were sorry about going outside and that I honestly didn’t know that you put something in the drinks.’

‘Okay, that’ll do,’ Lily said, without conviction. She hoped it would be fine. ‘Come back and tell me when it’s safe,’ Lily said to Alice.

Just then, the power blacked out and she and Alice waited for the emergency generator to kick in. If only their lives could freeze like that, but in a happier place.

When Alice had left to deliver the drinks, her tongue poking out in concentration as she balanced the tray, Lily went to her room and threw some things in a bag. She didn’t want to take anything from her childhood, not that she had much. Her wrist throbbed and she examined the bracelet again. Lily wondered what she would do if she couldn’t find the remote control. When the bracelet had contracted yesterday, it had felt brittle, not like the more pliable looseness of now. Lily thought that it might have been weakened from the tightening. If she was right, maybe she would eventually be able to cut it off.

Lily packed food from the kitchen, things that wouldn’t perish. Then she went back to her room and waited. The pain in her wrist was still sharp, but the threat of more pain wouldn’t stop her. By the time the scar healed, it wouldn’t be the sickening squeezing she’d remember. Instead, she’d remember what it had been like to be outside the house. She’d remember how she’d opened the door and prepared to step away from her stilted life.

Eventually Alice returned. Her face was pale. She handed Lily the remote control.

‘Here it is, but I think they’re dead,’ she whispered, ‘Don’t let them be dead, Lily.’

Whatever Lily had wished for, this wasn’t it. She tried keeping her voice calm. ‘It’s okay, Alice, I’ll go and check on them. Do you want to stay here?’

‘Yes,’ Alice said.

Lily sat her down and got her a cold drink, trying to stop her hands from shaking.

‘If there’s anything wrong, I’ll come straight back. I won’t leave if they’re hurt. But if they’re all right, I’ll leave from the side door in their wing. Okay? So if I don’t come back, everything’s all right. Do you understand?’

Alice nodded. Lily gave her one last hug, grabbed her bag and ran to her parents’ wing, trying not to think about what she might find. She thought instead about Alice. It was possible Lily might never see her sister again. Was Alice also thinking that? Lily was still surprised by how readily Alice had agreed to help her. Lily suspected it meant that Alice understood more than she let on.

Lily found her parents in their kitchen. They were slumped on the floor with their arms spread out. The empty glasses that had contained Alice’s smoothies sat on the table. Lily dropped her bag in alarm. She could see why Alice had thought they were dead.

Lily went to her mother first. She was struck by how beautiful Megan was, with her face that looked far younger than was natural for someone of her age. Lily’s heart was beating so hard she could barely stand. She studied Megan for signs of movement and was relieved to spot the pulse of blood at the side of her throat. Megan’s lips were slightly parted so she almost seemed to be smiling. Lily leaned down and kissed her and then lay with her arms around her mother’s waist and her head resting on Megan’s shoulder. From there, Lily could also see the shallow rise and fall of her father’s chest.

‘Are they all right?’ Alice teetered in the doorway, tears streaming down her cheeks.

‘Yes, they’re all right, Alice. I’m just saying goodbye. Go back now, wait in your room. They’ll wake up soon.’

Alice didn’t move. She looked so miserable that Lily got up and hugged her. Alice clung to her.

‘Don’t leave,’ she whispered into Lily’s shoulder.

‘I have to, Alice. I’ve told you I’ll come back for you.’

Lily gently pushed her sister away so that she could see her face. Alice was trying not to cry.

‘Now go,’ Lily said, giving her sister a little push.

Alice wouldn’t budge.

‘Okay,’ Lily relented. ‘If you’re going to stay, you should at least lie there with them and pretend you fainted after drinking the smoothie. Then you can try to stall them here for as long as possible.’

Alice nodded, looking down at their parents.

‘They’re all right. They’re just sleeping,’ Lily reassured her again. ‘They’ll probably be a bit groggy, but they’re okay, I promise.’

It’s not as though they haven’t done the same thing to us. I’m sure that chocolate they gave us the night before Daniel disappeared was drugged
, she thought bitterly.

Alice was still standing there when Lily opened the door, blinking at the blast of hot air from outside. She turned for a last look at her parents and sister. Alice was lowering herself down beside her mother.

As soon as Lily stepped outside her bracelet began screaming and tightening. Lily gripped the remote control and pressed frantically at the red button. The noise was far louder than she’d expected and her father shifted on the floor.

Unbelievably, the remote control worked. The howl of the bracelet abruptly stopped and it remained loose around Lily’s wrist.

‘Go!’ Alice sat up and waved her arms frantically before laying back down.

Lily wasn’t prepared for the temperature outside. The sun spread across the sky in a river of bleached light and the whole world shimmered in a haze of heat.

She knew she didn’t have much time. Her parents would probably contact the Committee when they realised she’d escaped. Although Pym and Megan didn’t like her much any more, they still seemed weirdly passionate about keeping her.

They were obviously waiting for the best time to send me away, like Daniel
, she thought.

Lily had a fleeting urge to go back inside, get into bed and pull the duvet over her head. The idea of freedom suddenly overwhelmed her. She’d been trapped inside for so long.