Delete: Volume 3 (Shifter Series) Read online

  “He calls it the allotment,” I said. “A joke – they’re all vegetables, you see.”

  “He?” Aubrey said.

  “I mean me.”

  “But why?” she said.

  “This,” I said with a wave of my hand, “is the reintegration programme.”

  “I don’t understand,” Aubrey said.

  “They cut out the part of the brain that’s responsible for a Shifter’s power and put it in an adult’s brain. They lobotomise children.”

  Some of the kids who had been with Katie were crying. Aubrey covered her mouth with her hand as if she was going to be sick. Katie’s skin had gone the colour of off milk. She walked into the room and laid her hand on the cheek of one of the children in the bed. The girl couldn’t have been much older than Katie, and judging by the dark stitches in her cut, she’d had the operation recently. I wondered which soldier had ended up with her power. Did I know them? Had I fought alongside them? Had they been one of my men?

  Katie turned slowly to face me, a single tear cutting down her cheek. “They were going to do this to me,” she said.

  I shook my head, trying to stop the idea I knew was forming in her mind.

  “The man who took us here told me. He whispered in my ear, with his hot stinking breath, that they were going to cut me open.”

  “Don’t, Katie. Don’t think about it.”

  “But all these kids. Why didn’t you stop them?” she said.

  Aubrey was looking at me. “You knew about this?” she said.

  “Not me,” I said, desperately. “Him.”

  “I don’t know why you’re trying to deny this,” Marie said. “You’ve been coming here for years, Commandant Tyler.” She gave me a smile so bitter and dark, it made me shudder.

  Aubrey shook her head and turned away from me.

  I tried to think of something to say, something that would make her forgive me. But there was nothing to say.

  “I think we’d better get out of here,” a boy said, looking out through the window.

  “What about them?” Aubrey asked, pointing at the children in the beds.

  “I don’t think we can be of much help to them, do you?” he said. “But if we don’t go, like now, we might be joining them.”

  Aubrey reached out for Katie’s hand. My sister walked past me, her chin held high, refusing to look at me. I laid my hand on her arm and she yanked it away.

  She was right. I was despicable. I had done this. Me.

  What choices had I made that had turned me into this monster? What had I seen and done that could have possibly led to this? I didn’t know whether to pity him or hate him.

  We’re not so different, he said.

  “Go away,” I shouted, hitting at my head.

  I’m not going anywhere. I belong here. It’s you who has to leave.

  “Not without a fight,” I said, digging my nails into my palms, the pain reminding myself that I was in control.

  The children around me stared blankly ahead, mouths open, machines making their chests go up and down like waves. I spotted a mop of sandy hair resting on a pillow.

  I had known, even though I hadn’t been willing to face it, I’d known what really happened to Jake all along.

  I forced myself to look at him now. I brushed aside his fringe, remembering how he used to hate it when I ruffled his hair. His scar was smaller than a lot of the other kids and looked older, as if it had had a while to heal. Had I brought him here? Had he trusted me, believed me, when I fed him lies about valuable contribution to the war effort? His mouth drooped to the side, almost looking like the crooked smile I knew so well.

  Any strength I had left flowed out of me as I collapsed to my knees.

  They found me like that ten minutes later. Sobbing into Jake’s chest. Begging him to forgive me.

  When I felt the hand on my shoulder, I reacted, grabbing the man’s wrist and twisting so hard, his bones crunched and cracked. While he yelled in pain, a second solider crept forward, uncertain. He wore the S3 uniform. I wondered if he, too, hid a scar under that red beret. It was clear the man knew my reputation. There wasn’t a single member of the S3 who didn’t. He was right to be wary. But it wasn’t going to help him.

  I pulled myself to standing and took him out with two swift blows to his chest and throat. The remaining soldiers made the wrong decision in trying to attack me all at once.

  My scream of rage was louder than theirs of pain. I kicked, punched, twisted and jabbed till six men lay in a groaning pile.

  Then I turned back to Jake and combed his messy hair into place with my bruised and swollen fingers.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. I reached up and switched his machine off.

  One less bleep in the symphony of dying.

  “You can’t,” Marie shouted, stepping over the groaning men. Her instinct to protect her patients was overcoming her fear of me. “He’ll die.”

  “He’s already dead,” I said, pulling her hand away.

  I watched as Jake’s chest breathed in, shuddered, and then stopped. His limbs thrashed, fighting for life. This was the point where his brain would be searching for ways out. Where his power to Shift would find a decision to undo. Or it would have if someone hadn’t stolen it.

  He went still. It was over.

  I moved through the rest of the beds, flicking off switches, pulling out tubes, pushing machines to the floor. One by one, the bleeping machines stopped till the only sound was my broken sobbing.

  I closed my eyes and covered my face with my hands, allowing the agony of emotion to overtake me. Letting the pain I felt push him further and further away. Each tear marked the difference between us two. Him, who felt nothing. Me, who felt it all.

  I slumped next to the bed of a small girl, whose hand had fallen over the edge of her bed. I reached up and held it against my cheek. It was still warm.

  I didn’t see a soldier get to his feet.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Waking from being knocked into unconsciousness is not the same as waking from sleep. There’s no cosy transition as your dreams blend with your present reality. No disappointment at being dragged awake when all you want to do is fall back to sleep. One second you’re standing fighting with a bunch of men, the next you’re sitting in a cold metal chair. With, in my case, your hands shackled and a soft buzz of electricity passing through your body.

  I looked down. They’d bound me with the cuffs designed to stop a Shifter from using their powers. Who did they think I was? These things couldn’t stop me. Not if I wanted to get out of here.

  The room was almost pitch-black, although I sensed shadows moving in the far darkness. Two men. Perhaps the ones who had brought me here. I could hear them breathing. I could also make out a shape next to me. Someone else slumped in a chair.

  It smelt of river: damp, second-hand humanity. A cell beneath the Hub, I guessed. Perhaps even the same cell we’d interviewed George in.

  I was about to ask them what they thought they were doing, when the bolt clunked and the door opened, creating a rectangle of white light so bright, I had to turn away from it. When I looked back, a figure was outlined in the doorway. A small man, with his arms held stiffly by his sides.

  “Please remove the Commandant’s cuffs,” Vine said, stepping into the room. “And someone turn the light on.” He sounded tired, annoyed even.

  The heavy-breathing man flicked the light switch, and the room was illuminated with a dull orange glow. It was much easier on the eyes than the light from the corridor outside. The figure next to me was Aubrey. Her head lay on her chest, her eyes closed.

  “If you have hurt her…” I said, yanking on my restraints, leaving the threat unspoken.

  “Calm yourself, Commandant Tyler. She is perfectly well. See, she is coming to.”

  He was right. Aubrey stirred, a gentle groan escaping her lips. I watched as she went through the same process as I had, snapping her head up and trying to pull on her cuffs.

  “Where
am I? What’s going on?”

  “You are safe, Captain Jones. Both you and Commandant Tyler are under my protection.”

  Aubrey turned and saw me. Her face went from rage to relief. I tugged again at the cuffs, this time because I wanted to run to her and hold her. To tell her everything would be OK. But then something in her eyes changed. The shame and disgust she’d shown in the hospital returned and she rolled her head away from me.

  I went slack in my chair, wanting all of this to be over with.

  “Please remove their bonds,” Vine said again.

  The soldier hesitated before reaching out to undo my cuffs. There’s a general rule when it comes to cuffing someone: you do not want to be around when they are let loose. He twisted the key and stepped away as the cuffs clanked to the floor.

  I stood up, rubbing at my wrists and fixing him with what I hoped was my most terrifying stare. I was pretty sure I’d Forced Marie in the hospital. And this guy didn’t look half as smart as her. My mind flooded with all the images of things I would make him do.

  He shuffled away, unhappy about having to turn his back to me to undo Aubrey’s cuffs. She sprang up and he leapt away to be clear of her reach.

  “I apologise for this, Commandant. My men overreacted somewhat. But you did cause considerable damage to a government facility. Not to mention the damage to my men.”

  I glanced at the two guards and was not unpleased to notice the beginnings of a black eye on one, while the other held his arm at an awkward angle.

  “Would you care to explain?” Vine said.

  “That facility, that abattoir,” I hissed, “is a disgrace. Do you know what goes on there, Minister? What Project Ganymede really is?”

  “I had my suspicions, but Mr Abbott was kind enough to take care of the details so I didn’t have to…”

  “Get your hands dirty? Is that it? Plausible deniability? Well, excuse me if I call bullshit on that. Because your hands are dirty. My hands are dirty. Everyone in this goddamn place is covered in filth. We are bathed in the blood of innocent children.”

  Vine didn’t even flinch as I unloaded all my rage on him.

  “You want to know how the men and women of the mighty Special Shifting Service have their power?” I said. “It’s stolen. Kids have their heads cut open and their brains sliced up. How’s that for dirty?”

  “I see,” was all he said.

  “That’s it? You find out that hundreds of children have been killed and all you can say is ‘I see’?”

  “This war has forced us all to do terrible things, Commandant Tyler. I think you of all people understand that. After all, you ran the project after Abbott died.”

  I reeled at this, almost crashing into the chair behind me. “I… what? No, I couldn’t have done.” There was no denying I’d known about the place. But to have been actually running it… it was too much to take in.

  “Oh, I’m afraid so. I’ve been looking over all the paperwork on the project since I was alerted as to what had happened. And it is your signature on all the procedurals.”

  I collapsed into the chair and covered my face. I sensed him there, in the back of my mind, smiling.

  “Scott,” Aubrey said. “He’s lying. Tell me he’s lying.”

  I looked up at her, unable to find the words. How could I explain that it wasn’t me? I shook my head.

  “It certainly looks like your signature on these forms, requesting that the pass mark be changed.” Vine held a piece of paper towards me.

  Aubrey snatched it away and read it in shaking hands. “Why would you do that? Why would anyone do that? Not if they knew… ” She crumpled it up into a ball and let it fall to the floor. “Are you charging us?” she said in a flat, dead voice.

  “No, of course not, Captain Jones. You are dismissed.”

  She looked at me, confused and scared, and then ran out of the room. I went to follow when a large hand stopped me. The soldier with the emerging black eye smiled.

  “I would like a few more words with you, Commandant,” Vine said. He pulled down the edges of his jacket, attempting to straighten the crinkles and failing.

  I gazed out the door, listening to Aubrey’s hurried footsteps get gradually quieter. Would she ever forgive me? Would I ever let her? Was it possible that he would have raised the pass grade, sending even more kids into the programme? Was he really so willing to sacrifice so much?

  “Commandant?” Vine’s voice snapped me back to the room.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Leave us, please.” The two soldiers looked uncertain. Vine sighed. “Don’t make me repeat myself.”

  They stomped out of the room, slamming the door shut behind them.

  I waited for what Vine had to say. Was he going to fire me? Can you even fire people from the military?

  “I am worried about you, Scott,” he said. I noted the switch to my first name. But rather than reassuring me, the intimacy of it unsettled me. Now we were alone, his tone had changed. “I need to know that you are still focused on what matters.”

  “And what is that? Because I don’t think I know anymore.”

  “Winning this war.”

  “Don’t you mean ending it?” I said.

  “No,” he said, the strained kindness in his voice totally gone. “I do not. We must win this war, Scott. Win it at all costs.”

  “But then we become as bad as those we’re fighting,”

  “Oh, we passed that point long ago. Don’t look at me like that, Scott. I thought you understood better than any that there is no black or white in war. There is only victory or defeat. None of us are going to come out the other side of this war clean and without sin. You did what you did for the greater good.”

  I laughed bitterly at his twisted use of the ARES motto. “Don’t try and excuse what I did. I can’t.”

  “You will find a way. We all find a way.”

  “And if I can’t? If I don’t want to?” I said.

  “Then you bury it deep down inside you and you get on with your job,” Vine said, grabbing hold of my arm, his bony fingers digging painfully into my flesh. “You swore an oath, Commandant Tyler,” he said, still keeping his voice low. “To protect this country with your life. Your life!” His fingers dug in deeper. “And everything that comes with it, including your soul. So you can drop this childish pretence of a conscience and continue to do your duty.” He finally let go of my arm.

  I rubbed at where his grip was sure to leave bruises, suddenly afraid of the rage within this quiet man.

  “Everything stands on a knife’s edge,” Vine said, neatening his cuffs. “Tomorrow, the Emperor of China is coming here to sign a treaty of accord. With China as our ally, we will be unstoppable.”

  I wondered if Tzen knew that Vine wasn’t planning on signing the treaty, not to bring about peace but to ensure that Britain came out of this war on top.

  Vine continued, “And do you know why he is choosing to come here, to the Hub?”

  I shook my head.

  “Because he has heard about you. Our super Shifter. He wants to meet you, Commandant. He believes the future of our accord lies with you. I believe he wants you to rule this country as he rules his.”

  “I don’t want to rule. I just want to go home.”

  Vine ran his tongue over his teeth, making a soft squelching noise. “I am very reassured to hear this. And I suggest you make that quite clear to the Emperor when you meet tomorrow. There might be unfortunate consequences if he wasn’t to understand that.”

  “You’re talking to me about consequences?” I said with a laugh. I realised what was going on here. Vine wanted the job of ruling for himself. Minister of Defence wasn’t enough for him. He wanted to be Prime Minister. “You have no idea who you are dealing with.”

  “Oh, I think I am perfectly aware of who you are, Tyler. It seems recently that it is you who has forgotten. I think I know more about you than you know about yourself. Like your dealings with the Red Hand. Who do you think sanctione
d that? Did you think you were working alone, Tyler?”

  I felt the blood draining from my head, and the sound of Vine’s voice became muffled and distant.

  “I sent you to them. You are nothing but a pawn, Commandant. A powerful one, but a pawn nonetheless.”

  “Maybe,” I said, slowly recovering. “But you know what happens when a pawn crosses over to the other side, Minister?”

  Vine swallowed hard. “Defection, Commandant? You don’t have it in you.”

  I stepped closer to him. “Push me, Vine, and you will see what I have in me.”

  He didn’t flinch, but having someone within his personal space, breathing into his face, was clearly making him uncomfortable. “I hear your name whispered in these corridors. Scott Tyler.” He said my name in more of a hiss than a whisper. “The men and women of this division call on your name as they would a saint. You give them courage. With their powers, they could rebel at any point. Change their choices to join S3. Alter their past to ensure their individual survival. But with you at the head, they make the right choices. With you as their leader, they choose to protect the country over themselves. Do you know why that is?”

  I wasn’t going to tell him that there was no mystery to that. It was simply because I Fixed them, not giving them any choices. Like I’d done with Cooper. The idea that the soldiers in this unit took strength from that, that they thought I gave them courage rather taking away their freedom, sickened me.

  “You are a symbol, Scott. That is why we have not placed you in the Igloo, where we know you could do plenty of good.”

  He was threatening me. Toe the line or end up like Benjo. Challenge his position and he would destroy me. I was seeing now why this man had risen to power. Manipulation came as naturally to him as it had Frankie.

  “But perhaps your sister…” He stepped away, leaving the sentence hanging. Another warning. Threat upon threat.

  “Where is she?”

  “Oh, she is quite safe. She is here at the Hub, where she will sit the test again. And this time, I suggest she doesn’t fail. Will that suffice?”

  I was starting to understand: the key to victory was compromise. “For now,” I said. “But after the war is over…”