Everything goes muffled and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. The guard from canon stands before me, the one the Symp warned Rose about. He leads me to a separate chamber – an inspection booth with unpainted walls and a Perspex screen – and pushes me forward so my palms push into the plaster. Then, he grasps my ankles from behind and winds his hands quickly up my calves. I fight the instinct to kick out and run. His hands move to my front and he pushes his palms over my thighs, around the back and up the insides. I’ve never been touched so intimately by a man. And it doesn’t feel loving or tender. It feels brutal and quick. I think I might cry, so I bite down on my lip, so hard I can taste blood beneath the caustic tang of the chemical spray. Briskly, he stands and slips his hands up the sides of my chest and over my breasts. A scream catches in my throat.
‘Arms up,’ he says.
I raise my arms and begin to shake. At any moment he could notice my tattoo, still raw and fresh and irritated by the spray. But he spins me around so I face him, snaking his palms across my back.
Only now do I meet his eyes. The hatred there makes me gasp.
He grips my shoulders and pins me against the wall. ‘We’ve got ten minutes.’ His breath tastes of stale coffee.
I feel like a moth in a display case, pinned beneath a sheet of glass, totally exposed and unable to move. ‘I – I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Don’t act all innocent, Imp.’ He pushes my hair from my face. ‘There’s some Gem coin in it for you. Extra if you smile.’
Every one of his muscles pushes against me. I feel sick.
‘Come on, this can’t be the first time, a pretty Imp like you. Now step out of the overalls.’
‘But – but, you’ve already searched me.’ Tears well in my eyes.
In one sudden movement, he throws me into the Perspex panel – the breath rushing from my lungs. Beyond my ghostly reflection lies a vast dimness strewn with movement, shapeless figures forming a line. I squint into the gloom and realize the shapes are people, a line of naked bodies, clutching at each other’s hands so they look like one of those paper doll chains we used to make when we were kids.
‘Do as I say or I’ll put you in there,’ he whispers in my ear. ‘With the rebels and the wannabe slaves with fake tattoos.’
I hear the disjointed beat of gunfire, the sound of muffled groans. The chain crumples and bodies slump to the ground. I think I say Oh God, my breath clouding the pane.
‘OK,’ I whisper – the word stings my lips.
I begin to unzip my overalls with numb, trembling fingers. It feels like I’m removing my skin.
The door opens and a squaddie with eyes the colour of cornflowers appears. The Symp. I could cry with joy.
He examines me for a moment and scowls. ‘We’re about to load them on to the bus.’
Coffee-breath freezes. ‘Go ahead.’
‘We need all the Imps.’
They glare at each other for a moment.
‘Now,’ the Symp says.
Coffee-breath responds by taking a step back and lowering his head.
I follow the Symp down the corridor, my fingers scrabbling with my zip, tears leaking down my face.
‘Are you OK?’ he asks, his voice quiet and soft.
‘Yeah,’ I manage to say. I want to tell him he’s magical and mythical and brave and wonderful. I want to throw my arms around his neck and tell him thank you over and over. But all I manage is a weedy, ‘Thanks.’
By the time I re-enter the waiting room, I’m all zipped up and I’ve wiped my cheeks dry. Nate risks glancing at me, a terrified look hanging on his face. I offer a little nod – I’m OK, it says.
The guards march us outside on to an expanse of concrete, segmented by yellow markings and encircled with stone barricades crowned with loops of barbed wire. The sky may look drab, but it’s vast and limitless and the same as back home. The fresh air of the Pastures fills my lungs, carrying scents of roses and bark and pulling me back to holidays in the Lake District. I suddenly feel this huge sense of relief.
A line of parked Imp-buses vanishes into the distance, their uneven windows shimmering in the ever decreasing sunlight. We follow Saskia to a bay marked 753 and approach a rusting bus. The scent of bleach sends my heart into overdrive.
‘This bus will take us straight to the manor,’ she whispers as we climb the steps.
The driver is clearly an Imp, but two Gem guards sit on the front seat, pistols docked in their holsters. Panic takes hold again; each of my muscles tightly coil like a snake before it strikes. But the guards simply ignore me. I move down the bus and slump into an empty seat next to Nate. The seat feels hard and the stink brings tears to my eyes, but just knowing we’re about to leave the decontamination block and the guard with the steel-grey eyes makes my bottom lip quiver like a toddler’s.
Nate examines my face. ‘Jesus, sis. What did they do to you?’
‘Nothing,’ I reply, my breath tart in my mouth. ‘That guard, you know, the one with cornflower eyes, he kind of saved me.’
Nate gasps. ‘It’s like Baba said – the story’s dragging us along.’
‘It’s so much more than just a story now though, isn’t it?’ I whisper. ‘The poor Imps, I know we’ve read about it, watched it on the telly, but now it’s real –’ I get this mass in my throat which makes talking hurt – ‘I think it may be worse.’
We wait for about half an hour until the bus is full with Imps. The engine starts and we roll through huge metal gates into the Pastures. The world of the Gems.
It’s like entering Disneyland – that sudden injection of colour. I swear the sun shines brighter and the birds sing louder on the Gem side of the wall. The green stretches around us in all directions – trees, grass, hedgerows dotted with yarrow and clover and the deep purple of brambles. I was raised in the suburbs and I’m used to green – I’ve missed it, even after two days.
The Imp-bus trundles along the roads, far noisier than any vehicle I’ve ever travelled in. The Imps nap, including Nate, his head resting on my shoulder. I study his face. Normally, he looks like Dad, so animated and full of life, his face all pointed and excited, his sandy hair sticking up like he’s stuffed his finger in a power socket. But now he’s completely relaxed, he looks more like Mum – the same softness around his mouth. My stomach twists and that mass in my throat grows. I miss my parents, really miss them. The safety, the belonging, the way they always make everything OK.
The rhythm of the bus and the warmth of the sleeping bodies lull me into sleep. I know this because I dream – the seat has been replaced by something soft, a mattress perhaps, and my eyelids flicker, the walls of a darkened room throbbing in and out of focus. I see the outline of a man, feel the warmth of a hand wrap around mine. I smell this tinny, hospital smell that reminds me of the dentist and, weaving beneath, coffee and stale tobacco – the smell Dad gets when he’s stressed. He squeezes my hand. Wake up, Violet. Please, darling. Just open your eyes and wake up. But the silhouette loses form, blurring around the edges and growing dimmer by the second.
And suddenly, I see Rose, standing on the wooden stage, rope around her neck. A voice soars above the crowd. I love you. Her hair falls from her face, and I see that it isn’t Rose any more. It’s me. The hangman pulls the lever and I hear the crack of the trapdoor flying open, see the sudden jerk of my body as it pulls against the rope, watch my feet pirouette as they frantically search for solid ground. I hear Baba’s voice: A story is like a life cycle, Violet. You will be released only when the story concludes. Birth to death.
But it doesn’t release me. I feel the air choking from my lungs, the lines of the Coliseum dissolving, the sounds of the crowd fading. And yet still, it doesn’t release me.
‘Violet! Wake up,’ Nate says.
I wake gasping for air, like someone is squatting on my chest, crushing my lungs to the size of pockets. My skin feels raw – so raw I can’t place the sensation. I could be on fire, or trapped beneath a frozen lake, or covered in hundreds of tiny contusions. I know that I’m crying because I can hear my sobs, feel the tears dampening my cheeks.
‘It’s OK,’ Nate says. ‘Look, we’ve reached the Harper estate.’
‘What’s going on back there?’ a guard shouts.
I fall silent, biting my tongue with the effort of keeping quiet.
We enter the Harper estate the back way. We see no sweeping vistas of the manor, proud and watchful, nestled in acres of meadows. There’s just a load of privet hedges and the outline of an orchard against the evening sky. I can’t help feeling a little disappointed. The bus pulls to a halt and we file off.
Saskia leads us down a path. ‘We’re heading to the Imp-hut.’
Nate’s whisper is barely audible over the crunch of gravel. ‘Don’t worry, we’re only here for a few days.’
‘That’s what I’m worried about.’
‘What? Returning to the city?’
I sigh, insecurities eating away at my insides. ‘No – getting Willow to fall for me in a few days.’
‘Rose managed.’
‘Katie’s right, nobody falls in love that fast.’
Nate stops in his tracks. My gaze follows his and we stare at the Imp-hut.
‘Grim,’ he whispers.
I remember it so fondly from canon. A haven where Rose, Saskia and Matthew sat in their bunks, playing cards and plotting. It looked a little like a gingerbread house, nestled in greenery and sheltered by oaks. But the reality is a wonky shack, built from corrugated iron and rotting beams. And things only deteriorate inside. It smells of wet dog and human excrement, and the fine layer of hay dusting the floor barely hides the mud beneath. The quirky furniture and bohemian curtains from the film have been replaced by a few upturned crates and a rotting pine table.
‘Where’s the bathroom?’ I ask in a small voice.
Saskia laughs. ‘There’s a couple of lean-tos out back with toilets and a communal shower.’
‘The shower’s bloody freezing,’ Matthew says. ‘It’s better just to smell.’
‘Grab a bunk,’ Saskia says.
The bunks look more like shelves covered in straw. They line the back of the hut, divided by plain, threadbare sheets hung like curtains, offering little in the way of privacy. I take Nate’s hand and we wander towards the bunks, slightly shell-shocked.
The other slaves mill around us, making cups of tea, gathering up tools and heading out into the evening. They seem to take it in turns to scowl at us, and I figure there’ll be no card games. I find myself searching for Ash, for the palest blue eyes in existence. But he’s nowhere to be seen. He must be arriving on the next bus. I can’t help but feel a little disappointed.
Saskia plonks herself on one of the shelf-bunks. ‘We’ll sleep here instead of returning to the city in the day. It’s safer to stay put for a while, avoid the searches at the border.’
Nate yawns. ‘I’m so ready for a sleep.’
‘You’ll be lucky,’ Saskia says. ‘You’re Night-Imps now. You don’t get to sleep until morning.’ She turns to me, a malicious smile crossing her face. ‘And you’ll be taking that freezing cold shower tonight, girlie – I don’t want you stinking of the decontamination block.’
‘Why not?’ I ask, my brain still numb from it all.
She gawps at me like I’m an idiot. ‘Because when that sun sets, you’ll be meeting Willow Harper for the first time.’