go. Certainly, she’s right in thinking I don’t want any more.
Keeping the clock tower in my line of sight, I find my way back to the mag terminal. Soon, a mag going to Zone M pulls up, bullet-nosed and incongruously sleek in the midst of the squalor surrounding it. I get on and flash my card at the kredzreader, waiting for the glass doors that lead from the vestibule into the pod to hiss open. As the mag begins to pick up speed, I grab a strap hanging from the ceiling near the doors and wonder, with a growing sense of despair, what I’m going to do if (no, face it, Jenna,
when
) Mrs Holloway realizes Cade’s not around. I guess I could say he’s got a family emergency or something, but with her links to ACID, she could check up on things like that.
When I get off, I scan my c-card again to deduct the right number of kredz for my journey. I decide to take the footpath along the river back to Anderson Court. As I’m about to turn onto the footpath, I see something out of the corner of my eye. A flash of bright green. I stop and turn. There’s nothing behind me except an empty alleyway.
But as I start walking again, I think I hear footsteps. I whip back round. Nothing. I walk a little further. Then I turn, and this time, I catch sight of a shadow disappearing down another alleyway.
It could be anything
, I tell myself.
A kid, a cat, a feral dog
. . . But unease is pricking at the base of my spine – a sixth sense which, in prison, saved my life a hundred times. Just because I’m not in prison any more, it doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to ignore it.
There’s a wall sticking out from the side of a building to my left, concealing a row of recycling hatches. I duck behind it and wait, peering round the corner at the entrance to the alleyway. Several moments pass. Then someone emerges. A boy in a stained green hooded sweatshirt with the hood pulled up and filthy, ripped jeans.
He stands looking up and down the street. Although the top half of his face is hidden by his hood, I can see his mouth, twisted in a frown. Clearly, he’s wondering where I’ve gone.
He starts walking up the street towards where I’m hiding. My first instinct is to jump out and challenge him, but as he gets nearer I draw back into the shadows so he won’t see me. If I cause a scene, someone might link ACID, and once they’ve arrested me, all they have to do is take a blood sample and I’ll be back in jail.
I wait until Hoody Boy is ten metres or so ahead of me, then slip out and creep after him. He stops, and I draw back into the shadows.
When I emerge again, he’s gone.
I walk slowly, trying to figure out where he went. But he’s nowhere. I finally reach the footpath and turn onto it; at the mag bridge, NAR has left a new lightffiti tag in glowing orange letters, almost too bright to look at. I frown at it – what
is
that? – but my thoughts soon return to Cade. The sound of my trudging feet echoes off the wall opposite, and I shove my hands in my pockets. Maybe I should go to Zone Q on Sunday and find out if anyone there has seen him. But where would I start? The closer they are to London’s periphery, the bigger the Outer zones get.
Then I hear them.
Footsteps.
I stop. So do they. I look behind me, but deep shadows pool across the path and the murky surface of the water, and it’s so gloomy that I can’t see anything.
‘Whoever’s there, you don’t scare me,’ I say, whirling round. ‘Come out and face me if you’ve got the guts.’
I fold my arms, waiting.
‘I mean it,’ I snarl. A familiar sensation is creeping through me, adrenalin distilling into anger, pure and sharp and cold.
Nothing.
Wrapping my arms across myself, I turn back round. I’m thirty seconds from home. Whoever it is can go jump in the river.
I’ve barely gone two steps when someone runs up behind me. They slam into me with full force, grabbing me around the waist and trying to pin my arms against my sides. ‘Give me your c-card!
Keeping the clock tower in my line of sight, I find my way back to the mag terminal. Soon, a mag going to Zone M pulls up, bullet-nosed and incongruously sleek in the midst of the squalor surrounding it. I get on and flash my card at the kredzreader, waiting for the glass doors that lead from the vestibule into the pod to hiss open. As the mag begins to pick up speed, I grab a strap hanging from the ceiling near the doors and wonder, with a growing sense of despair, what I’m going to do if (no, face it, Jenna,
when
) Mrs Holloway realizes Cade’s not around. I guess I could say he’s got a family emergency or something, but with her links to ACID, she could check up on things like that.
When I get off, I scan my c-card again to deduct the right number of kredz for my journey. I decide to take the footpath along the river back to Anderson Court. As I’m about to turn onto the footpath, I see something out of the corner of my eye. A flash of bright green. I stop and turn. There’s nothing behind me except an empty alleyway.
But as I start walking again, I think I hear footsteps. I whip back round. Nothing. I walk a little further. Then I turn, and this time, I catch sight of a shadow disappearing down another alleyway.
It could be anything
, I tell myself.
A kid, a cat, a feral dog
. . . But unease is pricking at the base of my spine – a sixth sense which, in prison, saved my life a hundred times. Just because I’m not in prison any more, it doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to ignore it.
There’s a wall sticking out from the side of a building to my left, concealing a row of recycling hatches. I duck behind it and wait, peering round the corner at the entrance to the alleyway. Several moments pass. Then someone emerges. A boy in a stained green hooded sweatshirt with the hood pulled up and filthy, ripped jeans.
He stands looking up and down the street. Although the top half of his face is hidden by his hood, I can see his mouth, twisted in a frown. Clearly, he’s wondering where I’ve gone.
He starts walking up the street towards where I’m hiding. My first instinct is to jump out and challenge him, but as he gets nearer I draw back into the shadows so he won’t see me. If I cause a scene, someone might link ACID, and once they’ve arrested me, all they have to do is take a blood sample and I’ll be back in jail.
I wait until Hoody Boy is ten metres or so ahead of me, then slip out and creep after him. He stops, and I draw back into the shadows.
When I emerge again, he’s gone.
I walk slowly, trying to figure out where he went. But he’s nowhere. I finally reach the footpath and turn onto it; at the mag bridge, NAR has left a new lightffiti tag in glowing orange letters, almost too bright to look at. I frown at it – what
is
that? – but my thoughts soon return to Cade. The sound of my trudging feet echoes off the wall opposite, and I shove my hands in my pockets. Maybe I should go to Zone Q on Sunday and find out if anyone there has seen him. But where would I start? The closer they are to London’s periphery, the bigger the Outer zones get.
Then I hear them.
Footsteps.
I stop. So do they. I look behind me, but deep shadows pool across the path and the murky surface of the water, and it’s so gloomy that I can’t see anything.
‘Whoever’s there, you don’t scare me,’ I say, whirling round. ‘Come out and face me if you’ve got the guts.’
I fold my arms, waiting.
‘I mean it,’ I snarl. A familiar sensation is creeping through me, adrenalin distilling into anger, pure and sharp and cold.
Nothing.
Wrapping my arms across myself, I turn back round. I’m thirty seconds from home. Whoever it is can go jump in the river.
I’ve barely gone two steps when someone runs up behind me. They slam into me with full force, grabbing me around the waist and trying to pin my arms against my sides. ‘Give me your c-card!
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