A/N: Hey there guys. I'm back! So this is my novel that I started to write in August Camp NaNoWriMo; I stopped at the beginning of chapter six, so I am now continuing it so that I know where to begin Part II for NaNoWriMo in November and such. Basically, this is one of my favourite works and I would really appreciate some reviews to tell me if and where I'm going wrong and such. Thanks and hope you enjoy!
Chapter One
Location: The De Morville house
Maybe it wasn't the smartest thing to do, but on the day of my eighteenth birthday, I was arrested for breaking and entering and robbery.
On the day in question, I was lying awake in bed, looking at the ceiling in my bedroom. The night time glow from outside painted it a dark grey- orange colour, making it a whole different ceiling; in the daylight, it was white and patterned. Usually, I lay awake for hours watching the stars twinkle in the sky through my bedroom window, sometimes staying awake on the weekends to watch the dawn work its way into being. It was always a beautiful sight, one which I always tried to catch when I could.
I checked the clock that was on my bedside table; it showed that the time was twenty past two in the morning. I exhaled somewhat nervously, I had ten minutes to get there, or else another opportunity would be lost, and I couldn't bear that thought after all these years. So I slid out of bed and decided that tonight would be the night. It was now or never, and I was determined to make tonight 'now'.
Plaiting my hair around my neck and over my shoulder, I pulled on my thick leggings; unlike the modern material that people usually wore that made a noise whenever you made the slightest movement, my leggings would not only allow me to be agile, but also to be silent when I needed to be. And tonight was a time when I definitely needed to be silent. After that, I put on a dark green vest top and my favourite black leather jacket. My old leather boots went on next, as my new ones squeaked.
I took a glance around my room and then went to my window, sliding across the latch carefully; pushing the window up, I climbed out of it. Standing on the kitchen roof, I could truly see the whole of Birmingham to my right. I paused for a second to watch the lights twinkle before jumping across the gap and onto a wall. From there, I dropped onto the cobbles of the alley behind my house, happy that I wasn't wearing the new boots which clicked every time the soles came into contact with a solid surface.
Making my way skilfully through the familiar streets, I finally came to my destination. The house. I counted windows; third from the left on the second storey... Third from the left on the second storey... There it was! Open, as promised, and a huge tree right next to it. Grinning, I carefully shielded my body from the windows as I climbed up the trunk to the branch that was next to the window and began to carefully shimmy across it, being careful to balance my weight out so that the branch didn't snap. Finally, I was there, one leap... I landed like a cat on the mahogany floor and praised Jose in my mind. You genius!
A vase, which had been sitting on a small table beside the window, wobbled ominously and fell onto the floor with a dull thunk! Thankfully, it didn't break, but it rolled out of the room and onto the landing. I scurried after it, holding my breath in horror as it teetered at the edge of the landing, a millimetre away from falling down the stairs, and therefore alerting everybody in the house that i was there. I picked it up and hurried back into the drawing room, putting it safely back on its table. From this point, it was easy to make my way through the drawing room and towards the landing. There were many rooms in this house, and I was in the east wing, which meant the third staircase would be the one that would take me to my true destination; I hastened towards it silently, praying that there would be no creaky floorboards along the way. I didn't think there was, but one could never be too sure.
When I finally got to the staircase that I needed, I began inching my way down the steps. Here was where it would be easiest for me to be caught, and I needed to conserve my energy for if I needed to run.
The sixth stair creaked beneath my boot- clad foot and I froze in my steps, glancing down at the staircase beneath me in horror. Please please please don't let that have woken them up! I strained my hearing to its fullest, waiting to hear the telltale sounds of people stirring in their bed chambers, or of the servants coming to investigate what had made the noise.
I heard nothing, however, and continued to creep down the stairs, trying desperately to remember the blueprint of this area of the house; I had memorized the blueprint in its entirety weeks previously, but now that I was actually in there, it was completely different.
When I got to the doorway at the foot of the stairs, I flattened my body against the ornately gold plated wall and inched my head around the doorframe. Peeking around the corner and seeing no guard or security measures, I slipped through the doorway and sprinted across the room on the very tip of my toes. After reaching the other side of the room, I plucked a rope off a peg on the wall that a friend of mine had managed to get there; he was an employee for the De Morvilles, the most influential family in the country. They were practically British royalty, and here I was, sneaking around in their house.
I wasn't there for no reason, though. I was going to steal something, something that was vital for my survival, and my family's. I had spent six years of my life preparing for this one moment. There had been a lot of false starts in the past, chances for me to get in that weren't taken, or times where I'd been so close to that safe that I could almost touch it, and a servant or a guard had appeared out of nowhere.
When you lived in the time I lived in, running for your life wasn't all that uncommon.
There was another set of stairs through the doorway, these ones smaller and carpeted. Good, that would make it easier for me to get down them without being heard. I took each step carefully, knowing that this staircase was older than the one I had just come down. Each one squeaked or groaned, but not too loudly, so by the time I had made it to the next doorway, I wasn't worried about that any more. Focus on the present, Laurel.
The doorway in front of me posed a problem; six padlocks, all combination locks, an electric retina scanning device and then a massive turn lock. I pulled out a sheet of paper and slowly, unfolded it so that the rustle was almost silent; there on the sheet lay the combinations and a code and instructions to override the retina scanner.
I got to work on the first lock, twiddling the dials until the correct numbers came up: 1638. It clicked and I pulled it off, hanging the lock off my belt for safekeeping. The next lock came away too - 3427 - and then the next - 6984. When all of the padlocks were hanging from my belt like weird charms, I consulted the sheet. On the scanner, I pressed the symbol that looked like a keyhole and punched in the numbers quickly and silently. So close. 837691011284. There was a vibration in the scanner as the options screen came up.
I could taste it.
I clicked on the manual override button and waited as the code screen loaded.
The freedom was almost there.
11698454tfl5gs3. The screen glowed green for a second or two before coming to another screen. A personnel screen came up and I keyed in the next code. D3ashh6668743hilo.
The possibility of a new life.
An almost silent beep and then I had one obstacle to face: the spin lock. I used my full strength up spin the wheel around and then pulled the door open. Pulling a small canister out of my jacket pocket, I sprayed it around in the air in front of me, illuminating red laser beams. Aerosol disinfectant was really a great invention.
I crawled underneath the beams for about three metres and then hopped between a few before edging towards the prize. A small leather bag. I pulled its drawstring around my neck and turned, hopping and sliding my way out of the safe before shutting the door, spinning the wheel back into place, re-initiating the retina scanner and hastening up the stairs, the paper clutched in my hand.
It could all be mine now.
I made it as far as the landing by the drawing room before anyone saw me. I tensed, ready to fight, but then saw it was only Jose. Thank god!
"Laurel, what are you doing?!" he whisper shouted, looking pale and sickly. "Get out of here before the guards come! The retina scanner override showed up on their system!"
I only had time to think 'shit' before two guards rounded the corner. The only had to take one look at me to know that I shouldn't have been there. Not thinking, I broke into a heavy run towards the drawing room. So close. One of them huffed behind me and something wrapped around my ankles.
I came down on the floor hard, ankles wrapped in a whip. 'Holy shit, a whip? Since when did guards carry whips?' my confused brain screamed. I twisted, trying desperately to get away, but it was no use. They had me trapped. I was pulled upright by my hair by the burlier one and the padlocks dropped from my belt, hitting the floor with a defiant tinkle- thud, a noise that only solid metal could make when hitting mahogany floor boards.
"Well, what do we have here?" he breathed as I struggled. The pain from the roots of my hair was excruciatingly sharp but I tried to ignore it and think clearly. 'Shit, Laurel, you're dead now.' my brain supplied. I told it sharply to shut up and keep its opinions to itself.
There was a noise from along the hallway as Mr. De Morville entered the room, a plush velvet and woollen dressing gown in rich maroons and golds. He looked tired and angry and, when he saw what was going on, angry beyond belief. He practically sprinted up to me and snatched the tiny leather pouch from around my neck quickly.
"Ring the L. E. O," he said in a low voice. Panic swept through me at his words. No, not the L. E. O, anything but the L. E. O! I struggled harder than ever, a moan escaping my lips when my movements caused the guard's hold on my hair to tug even more painfully at my scalp.
"You thought you'd get away with this? Stealing from the most influential man in the entire Commonwealth?" Mr. De Morville scoffed angrily. "Do you know what they'll do to you? You'll go to the Island, and you won't come back."
I was horrified that he would threaten me with this, threaten anybody with this. I struggled harder than ever to break the grip of the guard that was still clutching my hair in his fist, but it was no use. I may as well be trying to move a mountain.
The guard dumped me in an ornate dark wooden chair that was hard and uncomfortable, cuffing my wrists behind me with black plastic cable ties. They were unyielding and made my wrists hurt as they chafed against the skin there. No doubt I was going to have cuts there before too soon.
I had been so close.
It only took the L. E.s six minutes to get to the house, and two and a half for Mr. De Morville to explain what had happened. Luckily, nobody seemed to know who I was and Jose had miraculously vanished from the scene of my capture. It seemed that the guards hadn't noticed him in their attempts to catch me, for which I was grateful. I didn't want Jose to be in trouble as well, that would only make things ten times worse.
I, being my usual rebellious and overly prideful self, refused to say a word. The L. E. O. was scary and the prospect of being put on the Island was terrifying, but I didn't say a word to any of their questions. In the end, they pulled a member of staff in that used to go to school with me and she identified me. I glared at her through the gap between the door and the doorframe that her voice was drifting through.
So close to changing everything.
"So, Laurel Hayes," the tallest L. E. asked me triumphantly. "You are under arrest for breaking and entering and theft. You do not have to say anything but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something you later rely on in court, anything you do say may be given in evidence." With that, he hauled me out of the chair and they dragged me out of the house and into the street. Dawn was coming, red, muted sunlight blooming slowly over the horizon. It was the time of day that I loved the most; it was fitting that it would be the time when I was arrested.
The few people that were in the street on their way to work gawped at me being pulled along by two L. E.s The van was close enough that they could more or less just throw me into it from the front door, but they walked me to is, cutting the cable ties from my wrists before cuffed me to the railing inside the van. After slamming the doors shut and locking them, they walked up to the front of the van and climbed into the two front seats.
"… A day's work, I guess. Why these kids feel the need to steal, I'll never know," One of them was saying; I thought that it was the shorter man. The engine purred into life and we started to move forward, cutting onto the road quickly.
"You never know, she could live in the Slums," the taller one replied. His voice came from the right hand side of the van, so I deduced that he was driving.
"We subsidize their wages though!" the shorter one exclaimed; I had the mental image of him throwing his hands in the air in exasperation.
"Maybe she doesn't think like that," tall guy said and they both went quiet. The sound of the wheels bouncing over the potholes in the road echoed around the roomy back of the van. It was unnerving and disorientating, not being able to see where we were going, but my brain reasoned that I knew my way to the station anyway, so it didn't matter that I couldn't see the road; I knew exactly where we were without needing to see it.
Ten minutes later, we pulled to a stop outside the station. The sound of the doors slamming shut in front of me were like gunshots to my ears, and then light was streaming around me as the back doors were pulled open. The tall guy stalked into the van and unlocked the part of my cuffs that was attached to the railing, holding onto it as he walked me into the reception of the station.
It was sterile white in colour, a nondescript, plain white bench on the side where he deposited me. The short guy, who I noticed now was balding slightly, spoke in a low voice to the lady behind the counter and then walked back over. They searched me quickly, getting rid of my headband, shoes, the aerosol disinfectant and the piece of paper with the codes on; the two last objects were bagged as evidence. Then they threw me into a cell.
I looked around just as the door slammed shut. Damnit! This hadn't been what I had wanted to happen. The plan had been to get in, grab the money, and get the hell back out of there, get home and then, in the morning, put my big girl pants on and bargain for my family's immunity to the Trials.
The Trials are a yearly sort of census, in which every person in the Commonwealth undergoes a physical test to see how fit they were. If they were deemed fit, they had to work in the Public Sector, which are low- paid jobs that nobody wants to do. If they were unfit, they were put into the Group Home, a truly gigantic hospital where all of the unfit people lived. If you failed the mental test, you were also put there. However, if you had enough money or a good enough reputation, you could bargain your way out of the tests and live happily. The money would have gotten that for my family.
I screwed my face up in frustration. Why hadn't Jose told me that the system override showed up on the guards' computer?! Didn't he know, or had he just forgotten? No, he couldn't have just forgotten such an important detail. We had been planning it for years. Maybe he didn't know, then. I refused to believe that he had screwed me over.
I sat down heavily on the foldout bed that was attached to the wall of the cell, face in my hands. Pull yourself together, Laurel. After a minute or two, I reached up to undo the plait that was still in my hair, even though the hair band was gone. Waves of golden brown hair fell past my shoulders, curly from the way I had plaited it.
So close. So amazingly, terrifyingly close. And now I have blown it.
I already knew what was going to happen; I would go to my trial with a state lawyer as my only defence, knowing that I could only plead guilty because I had tried to steal the money, I had broken in (kind of) and I had been intending to use it to blackmail the De Morvilles. There wasn't a reason for what I did that would actually stand in my favour in court. I would be found guilty for definite, and the sentence would be this: I would be going to the Island. For how long, I didn't know, but most people who were sent there… they didn't come back.