The room I’m to share with Maks contains a double bed, a couple of nightstands, and a dresser. He closes the door, locks it, then runs his eyes up and down the length of my body. Whatever I’m expected to do isn’t going to happen, so I turn my back on him, take off my robe, and stuff it into the trash can. “Anything else you’d like to take off?” The floor creaks, and when I wheel around, he’s so close, his breath is warm against my forehead. “You don’t have to be frightened,” he says. He pushes my hair away from my face, and I shudder. I don’t want him near me. I push him back and try to look tougher than I feel.
I do a quick scan of the room in case there’s anything I could use as a weapon, and hone in on a clock with a stone base. If he tries anything, he’ll get it to the back of his head. “Stay on that side of the room,” I say, pointing. He rubs his mouth, and before I can get anywhere near the clock, he grabs the back of my head and pulls my face close to his.
“You think I’m going to pop your cherry without permission?” he says. With his free hand, he untucks his shirt from his pants.
Is it that obvious I’m a virgin? I stay very still. “I don’t want
“Oh, come on. I’ve noticed the way you look at me.”
I hold his stare. “Where’s Jo?” I ask.
He licks his top teeth and sucks on them. “You heard Vanya. She’s a benefactor now.”
“Her
He releases me, goes to the window, and throws it open, breathing in the night air like I never have. “You think you’ve got us figured out. Well, you don’t. If anything, you’ve got us all wrong.” When he looks back at me his eyes are watery, but I don’t buy it. I saw him manhandling Jo. And Silas and I saw his lackeys burying a body. It’s impossible we’ve got them wrong.
“I’m sleeping on the floor,” I say.
“Fine,” he says. “Jo did that for a year. Eventually she jumped into bed with me, and it had nothing to do with the cold.” He pulls his shirt over his head and reveals his chest. Maybe he thinks I’ll be won over by his body. I look away and lie down on the floor.
We should never have come here.
And the only thing to do now is to get back to the pod and make it the home it might have always been.
37
RONAN
Niamh isn’t at home, and I manage to smuggle Bea through the garden unseen. When Wendy opens the annex door she smiles and waves us inside, and within minutes of getting to know Bea, she offers up her own bed. She was the only person I could turn to.
I try to convince Bea to rest for a few hours, but once she’s eaten and showered, she’s back in the steward uniform and ready to find the Resistance. “I’ll sleep when I don’t have to do it with one eye open,” she says. She might not have trained with the Special Forces, but she’s as fired up to fight as I ever was.
Bea presses the buzzer on Old Watson’s door. “You stay hidden or he won’t let us in,” she says. She takes off the steward’s jacket and hat and stands back from the peephole so he’ll get a good view of her.
“Watson,” Bea says, as he opens the door wide and grabs her hands.
“What in Mother Earth’s name are you doing here? And what’s with the bloody uniform?” Old Watson says. He’s about to pull her inside, when he spots me. He lets go of Bea’s hands and tries to close the door, but Bea has her foot wedged in it.
“He’s on our side,” she says.
We follow Old Watson as he retreats into his dingy flat and sits on a lumpy couch. I peer into the room’s dark recesses and gasp. He has rows and rows of what look like real plants growing in his living room. “What are those?” I ask, stunned he’s managed to achieve something like this right under the Ministry’s nose.
“They grew from clippings from the biosphere,” Bea says matter-of-factly. And she never thought to mention it? I go to the plants, pull a leaf from one of them, and rub it between my fingers. It’s waxy and green on one side, rough and gray on the other.
Bea sits next to Old Watson and gives him an awkward, sideways hug. I clear a stash of cups and glasses from a side table and sit on it. “Do you know where the Resistance is hiding?” Bea asks.
Old Watson scratches his head. “No idea what you’re talking about,” he says, and looks at me.
“The Grove’s gone,” I say. “The only option for people now is to fight back.”
Old Watson’s chin trembles. “What about . . . Silas and Alina?” he stutters.
Bea takes his hand. “They made it out. And Quinn’s bringing them here. Together we’re going to free everyone, Watson.” She sounds certain, but before he even hears the plan, Old Watson drops his head in his hands and groans.
“You haven’t been here since the riots, Bea. It’s pointless trying to win.”
“We have Ronan now, and Jude Caffrey,” Bea tells him.
“Jude Caffrey? Why would you trust him after what he did to Quinn?” Bea swallows hard. There’s no need to remind her about Quinn or what Jude Caffrey’s capable of. “And why would you trust Cain Knavery’s son?” he says like I’m not in the room.
“Caffrey’s going to recruit auxiliaries as soldiers,” I tell him. “The Ministry’s going to arm people who will turn around and destroy it.”
Old Watson stares at me and then at Bea as he digests this plan. “You serious?” he asks. Bea nods.
Old Watson breathes through his nose loudly and hobbles to the balcony doors, where he opens a pair of threadbare curtains and looks down into Zone Three. “If Lance Vine finds out you’re plotting against him, you’ll wake up with your guts wrapped around your throat.”
“Are you willing to take a chance like that, Ronan?” Bea asks.
“I am,” I say.
Old Watson snatches up a tattered cardigan hanging on the back of a dining chair. “I’m getting too long in the tooth for this,” he says.
The existing Resistance members are scattered through the pod to prevent them all being captured in one lucky raid, but Old Watson knows where Harriet and Gideon are hiding. He guides us through the alleyways of Zone Three to a particularly dilapidated block of auxiliary flats. The winch is broken and we have to climb twelve flights.
Old Watson wheezes and raps on a door three times, then rings the bell twice. It’s immediately opened by a tall woman with her hair slicked back into a bun. Right away she spots me and pulls a handgun from a belt at her waist.
“He’s with me, Harriet,” Bea says, stepping in front of me.
“Bea?” Harriet says, lowering her gun and taking in Bea’s uniform.
“It’s a disguise,” Bea says. “Can we come in?”
Harriet leads us to the kitchen, where we sit and explain. Harriet and Gideon listen patiently. They wait for us to go through everything at our own pace, and when we’re through, Gideon goes to the sink and fills a pot with water from the boiling tap. He throws in a few teaspoons of dark brown powder, stirs, and plunks it on the table along with a few chipped mugs. Old Watson pours himself a helping and sips. Like his place, the flat is packed with plants and cuttings steeped in water. All other available space has been used to store sleeping bags and pillows.
Gideon sits down and leans back in his chair. “Jude Caffrey is a scumbag who finished off his own son.”
“Quinn’s alive,” Bea says, and lowers her gaze.
Harriet folds her arms across her chest. “Well, we can’t apply,” she explains, “we’re wanted fugitives.”
“But you can persuade others to apply. It shouldn’t be hard to find auxiliaries willing to rebel,” I say, speaking up for the first time. Bea and I have discussed the plan, but maybe we’re being delusional. Bea nods
