Noughts and Crosses, Malorie Blackman [types of ebook readers .txt] 📗

‘I didn’t rape her.’ I turned to Jude. From his expression, he obviously didn’t believe me either.

‘You shouldn’t’ve done it,’ he said at last.

I closed my eyes briefly and looked away. Talking to those two was like banging my head off a brick wall.

And the worst thing of all was, Jude was right. I shouldn’t have done it.

‘Morgan, I think it’d be better if we all went our separate ways for a while,’ Jude said carefully. ‘Together we’ll be much easier to track down. We should each fend for ourselves for say, six months and then meet at a prearranged time and place.’

‘That’s a good idea,’ Morgan agreed.

‘We’ll meet up on Callum’s birthday. And no-one is to go blabbing about Andrew Dorn in the meantime,’ Jude warned. ‘If he suspects we’re on to him, he could have other cells pick us off one by one before we could do anything about him.’

‘But we can’t just let him carry on betraying the L.M. to the Crosses,’ Morgan protested.

‘None of us has the ear of the General. We don’t even know who the General is. And if we tried to get a message to him, it’s bound to go through Andrew first. So we’re going to have to bide our time.’

‘So in the meantime more of our people will go to jail or swing from the scaffold at Hewmett Prison?’ said Morgan.

‘If that’s the way it’s got to be until we can expose him – yes.’ Jude replied fiercely. ‘We have to lose this battle to win the war.’

‘That sucks!’

‘Tough,’ Jude snapped. ‘I don’t like it any more than you do, but we have no choice. Morgan, could you go out and get us a meal?’

‘What kind of meal?’

‘I don’t know.’ Jude frowned impatiently. ‘Get a curry or a chicken wrap or some burgers or something.’

Grumbling, Morgan left the room.

‘You do know we’ll be lucky if we survive a month without being wiped out by either our own side or the police, don’t you?’ Jude said quietly. ‘Andrew has probably already got the word out that we’re to be . . . eliminated.’

I’d figured that out for myself.

Jude sat back on his single bed and rubbed his eyes wearily. ‘D’you want to hear something bust-a-gut funny, little brother?’

The last thing in the world I felt like doing was laughing.

‘D’you remember when Mum had to go to hospital because she broke a finger slapping Dad’s face?’

I nodded.

‘Remember when she asked you to disappear because she had something to tell me?’

‘Yeah, I do.’ I frowned.

‘You see her?’ Jude pointed to the photo of a smiling Sephy now being shown on the TV screen.

I looked away, unable to look at her for longer than a microsecond. Just that quick sight of her had my heart drumming.

‘She and her whole family have ruined our lives. It’s as if they’ve made it their business to mix up their lives with ours,’ said Jude. ‘They’ve always believed they were better than us and they weren’t.’

I frowned at him. ‘What’re you talking about?’

‘Mum’s grandfather, our great-grandfather was a Cross. That’s what Mum told me that day. We’ve got Cross blood in our veins.’

‘I . . . I don’t believe it,’ I whispered.

‘It’s true. Mum only told me because I joined the L.M. She said I was part Cross, so killing them would be like killing my own. Poor Mum! That backfired on her.’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘None of them ever wanted us. What has any Cross ever done for me except look down at me? I hated all of them even more after Mum told me the truth. Poor Mum.’

I was drowning in Jude’s words, trying to find something of sense to hold on to.

‘I had no idea . . .’

‘There’s no reason why you should.’ Jude shrugged. ‘We’re going to split up soon and I don’t even know if I’ll see you again. But I’ve got some free advice for you, Callum. Stay away from Persephone Hadley.’

‘I . . . of course I . . .’

‘Stay away from her, Callum,’ Jude interrupted. ‘Or she’s going to be the death of you.’

one hundred and five.

Sephy

Not again! I only just made it to the bathroom, collapsing with my head over the toilet bowl before I brought up what felt like most of the acid in my stomach. It was seven o’clock in the morning and I’d only just woken up, so my stomach was totally empty. And retching on an empty stomach was far worse than vomiting with a full one. My stomach acid stung my nose and made my mouth taste bitter and nasty. And this was about the fifth morning in a row that I’d woken up feeling like last Crossmas’s leftover turkey.

Only when I was reasonably sure that I could get to my feet without keeling over did I stand up. I cleaned my teeth and gargled for at least a minute with mouthwash. But I still felt wretched. I made my way out of my bedroom and headed downstairs, feeling very sorry for myself. As if everything that’d happened to me in the last five weeks wasn’t enough, now I’d caught a tummy bug.

The last five weeks . . .

After I’d regained consciousness, it seemed like every doctor in the northern hemisphere had prodded and poked me and given me test after humiliating test until I felt more like a specimen in a lab than a human being. And the police had asked me question after embarrassing question.

Especially about what my kidnappers had done to me.

‘Whatever happened, you mustn’t feel it was your fault. You were powerless. You can tell us everything that happened, we’ll understand . . .’ The policewoman had smiled and hugged and tried to get me to confide in her until all I wanted to do was slap her senseless. She interviewed me in a room with a huge mirror on one wall and kept stealing quick glances at it when I wouldn’t answer her questions. I