The Three Most Wanted Read online

  PRAISE FOR I AM MARGARET

  Great style—very good characters and pace.

  Definitely a book worth reading, like The Hunger Games.

  EOIN COLFER

  An intelligent, well-written and enjoyable debut from

  a young writer with a bright future.

  STEWART ROSS

  This book invaded my dreams.

  SR MARY CATHERINE BLOOM OP

  ***+***

  THE

  THREE MOST WANTED

  CORINNA TURNER

  US Edition

  Copyright 2014 Corinna Turner

  ISBN: 978-1-910806-09-8 (ebook)

  Also available as a Paperback

  (ISBN: 978-1-910806-08-1)

  ***+***

  US Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favourite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  ***+***

  Table of Contents

  Partial Map of the EuroBloc

  Chapter 1 – Not Really Here

  Chapter 2 – The Stable Door

  Chapter 3 – Prime Real Estate for Happy Campers

  Chapter 4 - Kittens

  Chapter 5 - Scapegoat

  Chapter 6 – Weird Chatty Brits

  Chapter 7 – Strange and Wonderful

  Chapter 8 – Cold but Satisfied

  Chapter 9 – A Distinct Lack of Buttered Parsnips

  Chapter 10 – Never Look a Gift Deer in the Mouth

  Chapter 11 – Stabbing a Melon with a Needle

  Chapter 12 – Rabbits in the Headlights

  Chapter 13 – The Major’s Confession

  Chapter 14 – Not Guilty

  Chapter 15 – A Deal with the Devil

  Chapter 16 – Friends in High Places

  Chapter 17 – High Voltage

  Chapter 18 - Surrounded

  Chapter 19 – Dead Men Tell No Tales

  Chapter 20 – Kakistocracy

  Chapter 21 – Crossing the White Line

  Chapter 22 – Indefinite Leave to Remain

  Chapter 23 – Three Choices

  Chapter 24 – Gift Wrapping

  Chapter 25 – The Alternative

  Other Books by Corinna Turner

  About the Author

  Connect with Corinna Turner

  Book 3 Sneak Peak

  Boring Legal Bit

  ***+***

  I will lead the blind by a road they do not know,

  by paths they have not known I will guide them.

  Isaiah 42:16a

  ***+***

  1

  NOT REALLY HERE

  We were free—and comparatively safe.

  For now.

  Mist hung thickly over the trees. No helicopters would be flying today. Thank you, Lord. No one was looking for us here, anyway—they thought we were off with the Resistance...

  “Is the weather going to hold?”

  “Forecast’s mist for the next week.” Bane climbed carefully over a fallen bough. “We had our month’s sun the day before yesterday.”

  The latest painkillers were beginning to work. I hung there contentedly in Bane’s arms. Bane. Bane was here. I was with Bane. Free. Nothing else really mattered right now...

  Swing. Swing. Swing...

  ...The misty forest just the same. Everything the same, except it was Father Mark carrying me. The pain was getting back up to full strength, but the thought of what he’d risked... for me...

  “You shouldn’t have gone in there, y’know,” I mumbled.

  “Oh, hush,” said the young priest, a smile softening his hatchet-face. “I can go where I like.” His eyes raked briefly over me. “Want some more pills?”

  “Is it safe?”

  His attention returned to the path ahead. “Not ideal. But I wouldn’t get too excited.”

  “Okay, then.” I couldn’t think straight. “Where’s Bane?” Failing to keep panic from my voice...

  “At the front. We need someone who knows what they’re doing at the front and his arms needed a rest.”

  “Right. Of course.” I clamped my lips together. I will not scream for Bane. I’m okay here with Father Mark.

  “We’re stopping, people, pass it on,” called Father Mark. Soon I was swallowing pills. Again. Bane came loping back along the long line of (former!) reAssignees. He brushed hair from my face and kissed me tenderly. “Okay with Father Mark for a bit?”

  “’Course,” I lied. “Fine.”

  “I’ll just leave you to confess, then.” He kissed me once more and hurried back to the front.

  “Could I confess?” I murmured, speaking to Father Mark in Latin out of habit.

  Father Mark rolled his eyes. “Have you committed a mortal sin since your last confession?” He also used Latin—but spoke quietly. Some of the others had probably guessed by now that Father Mark was a priest and that we were Believers, but no need to be reckless.

  “No...”

  “Then go to sleep.”

  I tried to think of a reply...

  ...My cheek rested on a familiar chest—my insides plummeted sickly—I’d dreamt it all, I was still back at the Facility... But... why was I being carried? I struggled to lift my aching, pounding head...

  “Jon...?”

  “Hello, Sleeping Beauty. How d’you feel?”

  Everything echoed in my ears. The sun was rising above the trees, a brighter patch in the mist. I’d no memory of night. I squinted against the cruel light, focusing on the flat dirt track along which my companions were moving. Oh. Not a dream. Bane and Father Mark both exhausted? Or Jon taking advantage of this flat track to do his share? He never let his blindness stop him from pulling his weight if he could help it.

  Sarah walked beside Jon, raising a hand and touching his arm when he veered slightly to the left. “Hi, Margy. You feel better?” Proud in her little job as Jon-aimer.

  “I’m fine...” I tried for a reassuring smile and Sarah stared worriedly at me. But getting words out was like lifting lead to my lips.

  “It’s too early for more pills, Margo,” Jon told me after a while. Had I mumbled something? He looked worried.

  “M’fine,” I muttered. Another lie. Major Everington was walking alongside with his empty eye sockets turned towards me, blood trickling down his calm face like tears. He held out a hand, palm cupped as though to receive something. Eyes…? I shuddered.

  “I do think it’s very decent of you.” I could hear his well-bred voice. “But if you’re not going to need them anymore...”

  “Go away! You’re not really here...”

  “Am I not?” He raised an eyebrow, making one empty socket gape horribly. I shut my eyes tight.

  “Sarah is here, Margy. I is...”

  “It’s okay, Sarah.” Jon’s voice. “I don’t think she’s talking to you.”

  “Then who Margy talking to?”

  “Someone who’s not there.”

  “A ghost?”

  I whimpered. Not a ghost, please, Lord?

  “No, no, not a ghost, Sarah. She’s running a temperature, that’s all. It makes people... see things.”

  I dragged an eyelid up and risked a peep. The Major was gone. For now... I sunk slowly back into a daze of heat and pain...

  ...Kept hoping my head would clear, but it just seemed to get worse. People were talking, but I could hardly concentrate on what they were saying.

 
“She needs more pills.”

  Bane’s voice. Anguished. I dragged my eyelids up and tried to focus on his face.

  “It’s too soon.” Father Mark. Very firm.

  “But...”

  “No. Taking that many pills too often would really be pushing it.”

  “We’ve got to do something about the fever. Can you put more solution on?”

  “No. Every time we unwrap those wounds to add more antiseptic, we also get more bugs in there. Tonight, maybe.”

  “Well, what can we do?”

  “For now, nothing. Give her more pills in an hour.”

  “Can’t you do anything else?”

  “I’m a priest, not a doctor.”

  “Much use that is! There’s got to be something!”

  Father Mark opened his mouth, exasperated—paused. “Well, now that you mention it…”

  He fished out a case from around his neck, taking out a familiar proCamera—or something that looked like a proCamera. He opened the battery compartment and slid out a little battery-shaped vial full of golden liquid. “I can give her the Sacrament of the Sick. It might make her feel better.”

  He held out the vial towards me and Bane batted it away.

  “Isn’t that for dying people?”

  “No. It’s for sick people, as the name might suggest.”

  “Seriously, Bane, it might make her feel better,” put in Jon.

  Father Mark turned to me. “Margaret?”

  Perhaps it was worth speaking. “Yes, please...” Certainly felt sick enough...

  Vaguely aware of Father Mark sliding a second ‘battery’ out and shaking a few drops of Holy Water over all of us... Jon crossed himself but my hand went all over the place—Bane put his hand around it and moved it for me....

  “Penitential rite,” Father Mark was trying to catch my eye again. “Do you confess your sin?”

  “Umhmm...”

  ...Father Mark’s cool hands rested on my pounding head as he prayed over me... then his thumb was running lightly over my forehead, damp with holy oil, marking a cross beside the bandage-covered one Major Everington had cut into my flesh.

  “Through this holy anointing may the Lord in His love and mercy help you with the grace of the Holy Spirit...”

  “Amen,” Jon said and Bane mouthed. Father Mark took my hands gently, one at a time, to anoint my palms—finished by reaching out to silently anoint my eyelids—I closed them helpfully, giving wordless thanks that they’d rescued me when they had.

  ...Father Mark was tracing a cross over us and putting the vial away. The disguised Mass kit disappeared back inside his shirt. “All done.”

  “I’m sure she feels a lot better,” said Bane, rather sarcastically.

  But I did. Not any more with it, but a whole lot calmer. Like I’d had a spiritual infusion.

  “Except I bet you do, knowing you...” Bane pressed a gentle kiss onto my cheek and picked me up again.

  ***+***

  2

  THE STABLE DOOR

  I woke with a jolt as the bus went over a pothole.

  “Okay?” Bane looked strange in the unfamiliar school uniform.

  “Yeah. It’s not hurting so much now.”

  “It’s been almost six days. The skin on your legs should be re-attaching.”

  “Can’t be too soon.” I eased up to sit on the bus’s rear seat instead of lying along it, Bane’s hands hovering around me against the assault of another pothole. “Are we on schedule?”

  “Yep. Should reach the Channel Bridge in about two hours.”

  A knot of icy fear twisted in my belly. The Channel Bridge. Far, far more dangerous than going to a private school on the outskirts of York, changing into uniforms and boarding a bus for a supposed school trip. Marian Forbes, a teacher who said she wanted to get into the Vatican State anyway and wasn’t this an easy way to do it, was with us on the bus.

  Bane and Father Mark had filled in all the forms themselves, but the headmistress, Mrs. Clayton, had told them exactly what to write. She’d even donated the cost of the bus rental. In cash. But even if she could prove the travel application had been forged, if the government asked her to make the Divine denial... Lord, protect that brave woman!

  “How much money have we got left, come to think of it?” I asked.

  “The Resistance donated the ration packs and the foil blankets, I just had to pay for the camping stuff, the admin fees and a few other things. I sold your laptop and anything else we had that was worth a bit—we’ve enough to get us to Rome, especially walking.”

  I shuddered—looked out the window again. I’d been determined to see all the counties we’d passed through, since who knew if we’d ever be back, but I’d still slept through quite a few. Huh. Another factory farm. A square concrete building all too like the Facility. Happily our meat back home came from the Fellest, stored in the butchers’ freezers after each yearly roundup and cull. But the big cities of the south didn’t have our huge forests and couldn’t waste crop space on animals, or so they said.

  “Don’t you dare let me miss the Channel Bridge,” I told Bane.

  “You’ve only said that a hundred times.”

  “Okay, sorry, but I’ve only seen the sea once. And I’ve never seen the largest bridge in the world.”

  “Me neither. But I’ll be waking you so you can pretend to be asleep.”

  Excitement at the thought of the mighty bridge washed away in a wave of terror. I swallowed hard—he saw it in my eyes and gathered me close, cupping my face between his hands. Spoke low and intent.

  “I’m going to be sitting in the row ahead, okay? And I here and now swear on... on my life I will not let them take you again, okay? I will do whatever it takes to save you from them.”

  I think I know what you mean by “whatever it takes” and it’s not something I can condone... But my cowardly mouth stayed shut.

  “Don’t you go overreacting to anything,” said Jon from the other end of the seat.

  “I’m not an idiot,” retorted Bane.

  “No, just hot-headed, which in this case is almost worse.”

  “Oh, shut up.”

  They bickered fairly good-naturedly—like the best friends they were—for a while...

  ...Huh?

  “Everyone back here had better get organized.” Father Mark stood in the back of the bus. We were pulled over to the side of the road, but I didn’t remember the bus stopping. Must’ve dozed off.

  Bane promptly moved to the row in front and several other girls joined me and Jon on the back row. As—arguably—the two most recognizable faces, Jon and I sat in the two darkest corners of the bus’s solid rear wall. During our brief visit to the school Bane and Jon had, with equal reluctance, allowed their hair to be cut very short, to make the distinctive coal black and autumny russet less noticeable. My own brown hair had been dyed blonde.

  ‘It’ll start growing out quite quickly,’ Bane had said, ‘but it’ll be so much less noticeable. You’ll just have to wear a hat.’

  Now Rebecca peeled off the bandages on my forehead, Harriet carefully applied makeup over the cuts and Caroline arranged a bit of hair casually over that, spraying it with hair spray to try to make it stay—then Father Mark was calling for everyone to get in their positions.

  Jane sat down beside me and crossed very long bare legs. She’d taken off her school socks and rolled up her skirt until it was little more than a belt. Her school blouse was unbuttoned to a dangerous depth, her dark hair flowing around her shoulders. I’d always assumed she was a nonBeliever—and I’d been right. Even in the few days since she’d found out about my faith, she’d made it clear she thought it was dangerous and silly—but she understood what was at stake.

  “Don’t you worry, Margo,” she told me. “They won’t be looking at you.”

  “No, they’ll be looking for an excuse to impound the bus for the day,” said Bane. “Don’t be too obvious, right?”

  “I’m not going to throw myself on the
m,” sniffed Jane.

  “Couldn’t imagine that.” Jon’s dry comment earned him a scowl from Jane. He’d not forgotten how she’d tried to get him into her bed, not realizing he was a Believer like me.

  My body was beginning to shake uncontrollably. Surely the bridge guards would take one look and recognize me as the girl who had authored a subversive bestselling book and masterminded the breakout of seventy-odd teenage non-persons from a government facility?

  Father Mark bent to look me in the eye. “Hey, Caroline and I are at the front with the two remaining nonLethals, okay? Any trouble and we’ll shoot our way out. Just relax and enjoy the view.”

  Lying through his teeth. Shoot our way across the Channel Bridge in a bus with just two nonLees? The Resistance, who scorned nonLethal weapons, had allocated fast trucks, five bazookas and an arsenal of small arms for this mission, along with a coordinated strike by the French Resistance on the Continental checkpoints.

  But I smiled and nodded at Father Mark. He straightened and headed back up the bus, calling, “Places, everyone. If you’re supposed to be sleeping, start doing it now...”

  Bane climbed half over the back of his seat, kissed me hard on the lips and got back down into his sleeping position as the bus moved off, cap pulled low over his face. I did the same, half concealed against the curtain.

  Jane adjusted my stiffened hair and laid a jacket over me, further shielding my face. “Now, don’t move!”

  I was still not used to her being so nice to me!

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw Emily stop fussing with Jon and drape herself on his shoulder. Also showing a lot of leg. Was I feeling a faint stab of... jealousy? Oh, for goodness’ sake, Margo! It would be nice if he and Emily did get together.

  Okay, keep breathing. Just say a Rosary. Concentrate on that. Hail Mary... My fingers twitched slightly as I tried to keep count. Hail... hail... what came next?