Resurgence Read Online Free Page B

couple.’
    She seems even shyer, although it isn’t as if she has done much to hide it. ‘He’s been talking about sneaking me away to see his parents.’
    They both live in Martindale. It is only a few miles but there are too many Kingsmen around.
    ‘That’s a really bad idea,’ I say.
    Pietra touches me on the arm. ‘I know. It’s nice to dream, though.’
    She tails off but I can’t deny her that. When Imrin and I thought we would never escape from Windsor Castle, we spent evening after evening talking about the things we would do when we got
away, knowing it would likely never happen.
    I am about to tell her that we’ll try to think of a way to do it when a low droning noise sounds in the distance. Everyone goes quiet, all eyes shooting towards me.
    ‘Is that one of your bird things?’ Pietra asks, but I shake my head.
    The humming begins to get louder and I edge towards the open doorway, staring up to the sky. Instinctively I begin rubbing my arms as a shadow creeps across the clearing ahead, dropping the
temperature by a few degrees. The roar is directly overhead, booming so loudly that I have to cover my ears. The ground is shaking.
    As it skims away, I hear Imp’s voice, excited and scared. ‘What is it, Mummy?’
    I answer for her: ‘It’s a plane.’

3
    The adults turn to each other in confusion. They are old enough to remember planes from before and during the war. I have never seen an aeroplane in my life but they are in all
of the war videos we have grown up with. Xyalis told us that he had been on the side that ordered a bombing raid on one of the rebellion strongholds in Lancaster. Now it is a flattened mass of
rubble and destruction.
    As Imp and Eli run around with their arms outstretched trying to replicate the noise, I catch my mother’s eye. We both know what this means. Within a few seconds we hear the sound of
something whirring through the air and the roar of an explosion in the distance. The ground rumbles, stopping the children’s game as they look to us for an answer about what has just
happened.
    Opie is standing closest to me. ‘Didn’t Xyalis say they used the last of the fuel?’
    ‘Maybe they had some stored, or managed to buy some from another country?’
    ‘Why would they use it now?’
    The only answer is one barely worth thinking about – that they think they have a good reason to.
    None of us seems to know what to say until Colt’s voice cuts through the sound of something else hitting the ground. ‘Silver!’
    He is sitting by himself in the corner watching the thinkpad I fixed for him that allows him to watch programmes. On the screen is a breaking news graphic with a picture of me holding
Opie’s hand, staring at the sky with the other hand shielding my eyes. The silver swish of hair billowing across my face makes it unmistakably me as the words ‘home town’ and
‘Martindale’ scroll across the bottom of the screen.
    They know where I am – and that Opie is with me.
    Another growl rips under our feet and Jela stumbles from the impact.
    ‘That was closer,’ Opie calls.
    I tell Colt he has done a great job being vigilant and ask if I can take the thinkpad, which he hands over. The danger isn’t just from an explosive being dropped on us. Because of the
haphazard way many of the objects in the gully have been dumped, anything exploding nearby could cause a chain reaction that sets everything falling in on itself. Even the structure we are in is
made from three cars holding each other up.
    Everyone seems to be looking to me as if I know what to do. It is when I see my mother’s eyes expectantly asking the question that I realise I have to do something.
    ‘Quickly – pack everything you can,’ I say, looking around the space. ‘Don’t overdo it. If you aren’t going to need it, leave it. Clothes and blankets are
priorities.’ When I realise no one is moving, I clap my hands. ‘Let’s go!’
    Everyone shifts at once, grabbing what they