Prologue
September – Present day
Iam still on my knees when the gunshot ruptures the noise outside.
It doesn’t occur to me to stand, to move away from Ben, to conceal what sin we’ve just prayed at the altar of. Mainly because Isaac’s hand is still holding my hair, his fingers massaging my scalp as if he’s praising me for what I’ve just done.
If we were at war, I would’ve taken cover. Proper war, like what we were taught in history lessons, not this continual threat that’s an axe over our heads. But I’m in my hotel room, protected, two men my bomb shelter.
But this isn’t a bomb.
There are screams outside. Shouting. The sharp screech of tyres against the asphalt. Nothing unusual for a big city, but this isn’t a usual day and something in the air has changed, switched. Particles have stilled, the city has become a paused movie, waiting for the thunder. Then there’s a knock at my door from the adjoining room next door and my name is being said.
It isn’t a prayer. It’s agitated, just like it was said when I was a small child and then a teenager, sneaking in from parties where I should never had been. The voice of the man who has been my guardian since I was a tiny child.
Isaac’s hand leaves my head and Ben yanks up his trousers. He’s in a suit today, trying to blend into this world that I know he hates because he is the desert or the arctic or the seas, not a rally in a northern English city with the royalty he’s never understood.
“Blair, we need to get you safe.” Franklyn sounds just the same as he did when I was fifteen and we had an intruder. He doesn’t even blink at what was going on in the room.
Isaac’s hands pull me up off my knees and he guides me out of our bedroom through rooms and suites and corridors, Ben next to me, the three of us and Franklyn who’s still not judging. There are hotel rooms, all empty, all booked out for the few people staying in this large building swept for bombs and bugs, every member of staff screened along with their grandmothers and relations they never knew existed. I’ve been here before as a child with my parents, then for a tour of the university – where I was never going to go – and again as a woman without my parents knowing. Just Franklyn. It’s an old building, historic. It’s seen much more than what I’ve just done, lived more than I ever will. He opens a door to a room I never knew existed, one that is windowless but with the door open, the noise from outside can still be heard, even if it’s just a cacophony of whispers.
I can feel the roar from outside and it feels red, a commotion that I don’t know the reason for, and then a door closes and the silence becomes overwhelming.
“What’s happened?”
Franklyn shakes his head, his glasses balancing on the end of his long nose. He is ageless, never changing. If I believed in such things, I’d imagine he was an eternal creature.
Isaac is at the door, looking at Ben. He might be trying to communicate something, but even though we’ve just shared an act that is more intimate than most, I know they haven’t developed the art of telepathy yet. I’m not sure if they ever will.
“I won’t let anything happen to her.” Ben is quiet, his words a muted cold blue. Any closeness that there was minutes ago has evaporated, water in the sun.
Butterflies on the breeze.
“I can send…”
“I’m not a thing.” My voice is calm, steel that will never move. A tone I taught myself when I needed something other than my chime.
Ben turns me to him, his hands on my hips now. “That was a gunshot.”
“Could’ve been friendly fire.”
We all know it wasn’t.
There’s nothing friendly about today. Or this place. We shouldn’t have come. Should’ve let Lennox come here alone with his entourage and speak his pretty words to people who thinks he’s either a god or a devil.
I turn to Isaac, seeing his hands in his pockets. I’ve known him three months. Known Ben fifteen years. Known myself even less.
I don’t know this girl who gets on her knees for one man, while another holds her hair and whispers sweet dirty words to her.
“Where’s my brother? What was his schedule?”
There’s no real reason for Isaac to know, except that he knows everything.
“He gave his speech in the square and then he was heading into the Town Hall.” It’s Ben who answers. He will have memorized the itinerary.
But I’m not thinking about how he recalls everything he’s read, can recall details that the average human wouldn’t even have noticed. I’m thinking about my brother with his enthusiasm and vigour and passion; his desire to somehow unify our country with this one through trade agreements and free movement of people. Desires that others don’t share. Desires that others will kill to extinguish.
Before I can say my brother’s name there’s a piercing ring and Franklyn moves to the corner of the lightless room with his phone in his hand. We all watch him, the bare bulb making us all appear as strangers.
