'Go! Do it. I can't; I'm half blood-tranced.'

'No.' She pulls me to my feet. My legs wobble underneath, but she puts a determined arm around my waist, and we start to hobble into the woods.

Then Tori bursts out of the house. Drops the first aid kit and dives for her gun.

But before she can reach it there is a loud bang, and wood splinters over our heads. 'The next one won't be in a tree,' a voice says. A voice that makes me tremble.

We stop. Turn around.

And there is Nico, gun pointed at my head. 'Now. Would somebody like to tell me what the hell is going on here?'

CHAPTER FORTY THREE.

'I'm feeling rather angry,' Nico says. His eyes and voice are ice; not just cold, but glacial. 'Someone must pay.

'You.' He glances at Tori while still holding his gun trained directly on me. 'You did one right thing, at least. Calling me. I was nearly here anyhow, so came up quietly to see what was the emergency, and what do I find? You let our prisoner out,' he says to Tori.

He turns and trains his gun on her.

She blanches. 'No, Nico; no, I-'

'You deny that you unlocked the door?'

'No, but-'

'It was my fault,' I say.

He spins back to face me. 'And who is that?' He gestures at Cam, bleeding and still on the ground.

'Just someone from school; but I don't know. Something else, too. He followed me. He shouldn't have been able to do it.'

'You let someone follow you here?' He shakes his head in disgust. 'Such stupidity I am surrounded by! Who shall pay?' He sighs. He cocks the gun at me, and Dr Lysander steps forward and raises a hand, about to say something, but I pull her back.

He pulls the trigger; it rings out loud in the woods. Over our heads again.

I stand frozen. Fear. Shock. Eyes turned as far as they can be from Cam, from blood on the back of his head, from my blood also, but I cannot collapse now, I can't. Breathing deeply, blanking it from my mind. Holding it away, to one side, so now can be dealt with.

'And you, Rain. Such deceit; it wounds me. Why aren't you at Chequers right now where you should be?'

'I couldn't do it. I couldn't hurt her, of all people. She's done nothing to deserve getting shot.'

He shakes his head. 'Stupid girl. If she'd made her speech as we wanted, that would have been icing on the cake. But you needed to be there at 4 pm! You idiot.' He is shaking with fury.

Yet...why did I need to be there at 4? The seconds are ticking along. 3:50 pm now. What was going to happen there at 4? I'm confused. I was supposed to kill her at the first ceremony, inside.

Unless he always knew I wouldn't be able to do it.

The rage in Nico's eyes is absolute. 'After all I've done for you.' He shakes his head. Steadies the gun again. 'I should do this, right now, but I will not. There is a reason, you know,' he says, conversationally. 'You must live to die another day. Your death can still have such impact! It would have been the perfect occasion for it today. But no matter. Another time. If we have to drug you and prop you up, we'll see to it you are on film and screen for evermore: the angelic-looking little blond Slated girl who kills people, and takes her own life.'

I shake my head, not understanding. Too horrified to move, too scared to speak.

'Of course. It makes sense now,' Dr Lysander says. 'You want to publicly prove a Slated can be violent, to strike at all the Lorders are doing in one swoop. But what about all the Slateds? What would happen to them?'

Realisation seeps through my numb fear. 'The Lorders would see us all as a risk. They wouldn't know who might turn. What would they do about it?'

'Any atrocities the Lorders commit further our cause. Give us more supporters.

'Tori,' he barks. 'Lock these two up together.'

She stands there, staring at him. Confusion on her face. 'But what will happen to all the Slateds?'

He rolls his eyes. Raises his gun and points it at her. Then her eyes focus behind him; I see it as he does. There is a split second where he wonders if she is misdirecting him, but before he can decide his gun flies through the air, kicked out of his hand. By Katran.

'You bastard,' Katran snarls. Nico feints, spins round and knocks Katran off his feet.

'Tori!' Nico shouts. 'Choose sides.'

Tori picks up Nico's gun, stares at it in her hand.

She looks to me and then back at the gun. I walk over, feet still faltering but stronger now. 'Give it to me,' I say. Hold out my hand.

Nico and Katran grapple on the ground. There is a flash of silver and Katran cries out: Nico has sliced into his arm with a hidden knife. Nico scrambles to his feet, knife out. Lunging. Katran rolls away and pulls out his knife. Gets to his feet.

'Ben is alive!' Nico yells. 'She knows it.'

Tori's face contorts. She raises the gun. I dive and a shot ricochets behind.

Dr Lysander is frozen. 'Run,' I scream at her, and this time, she does, into the trees, me following behind, my muscles working again enough to stumble along behind her but not keeping up. Crying inside with each step with fear for Katran: Nico can't win that fight. Can he?

But then there are new sounds: shouts. Feet thudding.

I look back, and there, through the trees: Lorders. Half a dozen of them at least, converging on the house on foot.

RUN.

'Stop,' a voice says in front. A voice I know.

And I do just that. Instead of diving, attacking, anything, I just stop.

Facing me is Coulson.

'You could have made things much easier on yourself if you'd just told me what was happening here. Luckily young Cam called us in and tracked you here.'

'Tracked me...? How?'

He taps his forehead, half smiles. An unnatural movement of his facial muscles. A gun has appeared in his hands and is pointed at my head.

After everything, is this it? There are shouts, fighting and noise behind us that gradually fade away, until all there is, is here, and now. My eyes, and his. My legs are jelly. I half fall to my knees.

'Let me go,' I whisper.

'I can't do that.'

'Please.'

He shakes his head. What happens beyond us is still dim, a distant other place, unconnected to this moment. Yet some persistent sound intrudes, nears. Until- Coulson steadies the gun in both hands and pulls the trigger.

CHAPTER FORTY FOUR.

Instead of being thrown back, pinned by a bullet to a swift death; instead of this, there is a thud and cry behind. I spin around.

'Katran?'

His hands are clutching his chest. Red red red spreading out as he falls to the ground, and inside I'm spinning, everything going grey, about to disappear and take me from this new horror, and- No. I fight inside as much, as strong, as I can. NO. I crawl to him, take his hand, wrap my arms around him. His body shudders, and red red red...

'Sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry,' I'm saying over and over, and his eyes are mirrors of the shock in mine. Katran is invincible; we can't believe this. Then a slight shake to his head, his eyes change, he tries to speak but coughs, and there is more blood, more seeping red. The words won't come, but his eyes speak. Love's eyes. 'No, Katran, no. Don't go!' I say, shocked but knowing the truth of how he feels at the same time. How he has always felt, and the anger he hid his feelings behind. The anger that tried to push me away, away from Nico and Free UK. To keep me safe.

His eyes go blank, his body stops shuddering.

No.

NO NO NO and I'm screaming inside and outside, and then, all at once, I am remembering. Another place and time, too like this to hide from any longer. One I never want to go, but get dragged back to, again and again.

THEN.

I didn't know him, at first. Not with my eyes.

The changes were marked, his face so forgotten. Consciously, at least. Yet something almost chimed, inside: a confusion of terror and longing, tangled together. I didn't understand, but stared whenever I could.

He was there, at that place, delivering food and other supplies. But not just a delivery person; he was one of them, that was plain. I saw him through the bars at my window, talking with the guards. From the room that was mine and had been for two years now.

Once a week he'd come, stay one night in the building next door, and then be gone. One day, he saw me looking out the window, and something crossed his face. Some marked desperation, in a flash replaced by a gentleness that didn't belong. I dived back in my room, shaken and confused.

Every week he came he'd have a special look for me if he found my eyes. A kind look in a place without them.

He started bringing a bottle and other things for the guards, slipping them out of his coat and into theirs. Then one week, most of the guards got very ill. Food poisoning; but no one else got sick. And he stayed the week, filling in, and I saw him more, not just through my window. He was there when I was coming and going to sessions with Doctor Craig; to weapons training under watch of the cold one with the strange eyes who led the guards.

Then one day he slipped something in my hand. I almost cried out: a slip of paper. A note. I tucked it away, read it later. Lucy, I know I look different: I'm in disguise. But it is me: it's Daddy. We'll get you out of here and I'll take you home as soon as I can work out how. I love you.

And I tore it up into as many little pieces as made it dust. I don't have a family any more. Doctor Craig has said so, over and over. And even if he is my dad and my thoughts tripped over themselves to even think the label he gave me away. He didn't want me.

I didn't believe in him in my mind, but some other part of me did, and I'd catch myself: hoping, feeling. Things Doctor Craig didn't like, like remembering things I must forget.

Then one night I was asleep, and then, somehow, the one who gave me the note was in my room. Talking in a low voice with such sadness of other times, other places. And it made me want to cry out, to scream. Get the guards and make his voice stop and go away and never be heard again. But I didn't.

He was making plans. We'd go next week. But I shook my head no; scared of what, I don't know. Of leaving a place I hated? Confusion and longing mixed in together. Then he held out his hand. In it, a small bit of carved wood, like a castle.

When I tucked it into my left hand, there was something, some memory. And all at once others tumbled inside.

'Daddy?' I whispered, and he smiled, with such joy.

He took the rook back. 'I better keep this safe for now, so no one sees it. But if you find it tucked hidden on your window ledge, that is the night we go. Be ready.'

And every night, I checked. Then finally it was there: hidden against the side and a bar where it could not be seen, only felt and rescued by small fingers.

That night the house was quiet when he unlocked my door and took my hand. 'Quiet,' he breathed, and we slunk down the hall and out the door. But what of the guards? None were there, but as we crept down the side of the house I saw feet sticking out behind a hedge.

He whispered in my ear of a boat waiting at the beach, that we had to be quick to get the tide. We crept through the outer dunes that led to the sea when it happened. A distant noise. Voices.

'Time to run, Lucy.'

And we ran. He held my hand and we ran and ran. There were voices, sounds behind us, getting closer. 'Faster!' he said, and we ran.

Over and over my feet pounded on sand that slipped and gave way.

Then I tripped, fell. He tried to pull me to my feet but exhaustion, terror fixed me to the spot. 'I can't,' I cried.