the better.’
Ewan had no idea what ‘touch and go’ was supposed to mean, but he found himself hoping that McCormick would have a very, very slow recovery. A whole week in the clinic would be worth it to keep the old man away from New London, from the thousands of clones that would try to kill him, and from Oliver Roth. Half a year in bed would be worth it.
He had not thought about that December mission since it had happened, but it had been bloody scary at the time. McCormick had left the house with Mark, Sally and Rachael, all of whom had been Oakenfold students, and none of whom Ewan had trusted to keep him safe. (As if to prove Ewan’s point, to date McCormick had outlived two of them.) Since Ewan himself was still recovering from an ammo raid, he had been left at Spitfire’s Rise with nothing but his fears to keep him company. McCormick had eventually returned, unharmed against the odds but in tremendous pain thanks to that cyst. And once he had arrived home, he had returned to the sight of Ewan smashing up the boys’ bedroom from anxiety.
Ewan brought himself back to the present. He had spent so much time dealing with his own reaction that he had not thought to look at his friends. When he lifted his head from his knees, he found Simon even shakier than normal, Raj’s hands clasped as if in prayer, Jack’s fingers buried in his dishevelled hair and Lazy Gracie actually giving a damn. No wonder Lorraine hadn’t turned up to the meeting.
‘What the hell makes you think Lorraine’s qualified to perform operations?’ asked Mark.
‘What makes any of us qualified soldiers? In these times, we take what we can get. Lorraine’s surgical performance may make the difference between us destroying the AME project and us losing the war, and I can’t think of anyone I’d trust with the task more than her. So on the nineteenth, barring any unexpected injuries, the strike team will consist of myself, Ewan, and at least two others… who I’ll decide later.’
Depending on who’s still alive after Oakenfold…
‘If I can bring more than four of us I will,’ McCormick continued, ‘but it looks doubtful given my entry plan. We can hardly use the water treatment centre again, so I’ve had to think outside the box. Any questions?’
Nobody asked a question. Not even about his entry plan. Ewan suspected nobody felt able to, and they were all as stunned as him.
‘Then I’m calling this meeting to a close,’ McCormick finished. ‘Oakenfold students, I know you’ll have a lot on your minds, but try to spend today in the most relaxed way you can.’
McCormick’s smile was warm and sympathetic as the room’s population started to gradually shift. Ewan sat still the longest, and was the only one to notice McCormick’s changing expression as his teammates left. The warm smile dropped, and his eyes grew wide.
McCormick was as scared as everyone else.
Chapter 4
McCormick opened the door to the cellar and descended the steps with a hand on the bannister. His feet were trembling too much for him to trust his balance. When he arrived in the cellar, which doubled as the Underdogs’ armoury, he saw Ewan already prepared. Clothes, weapons, everything. The assembly time was ten o’clock that night, another five minutes away. But knowing Ewan, he must have wanted some time away from the others. For a leader, he needed a lot of moments to himself.
McCormick could not see Ewan’s face as it fixated on the Memorial Wall, now twenty-one names long. The dead Underdogs had outnumbered the living for a while.
‘What was that thing you used to say to Thomas?’ Ewan asked without turning around. ‘You kept saying it to him after Beth died.’
‘I said plenty of things to that boy after he lost his mum. Could you—’
‘It was something about how missing her would be painful but not a bad thing…’
McCormick nodded, and made his way to Ewan’s side. Before he spoke, he took a look around the cellar for Ewan’s sake to make sure they were alone. No doubt the lad had established that nobody was in the farm next door or the generator room, but it was best to double-check. Finding nobody, McCormick repeated the words as he joined his lead soldier in staring at the Memorial Wall.
‘The pain of missing someone is always worth it for the joy of having known them. Always.’
‘Yeah… that was it. Where did you hear that?’
‘I have to admit,’ McCormick said with a smile, ‘I made it up myself. It was a lesson I learned after Barbara died. As much as it hurt to lose her, I’d take that pain all over again. If mourning is the natural cost of love, then it’s a cost worth paying.’
When he looked towards Ewan, he saw his disengaged expression. Maybe the lad couldn’t apply positive thought to the deaths of his family. Or Charlie.
‘Why,’ McCormick asked, ‘what are you thinking?’
‘Right now I’ve reached Ben Christie,’ Ewan answered. ‘I need to remember something about him.’
McCormick gazed at the Memorial Wall, and found Ben towards the bottom of the list. Only Rachael Watts, Daniel Amopoulos and Charlie Coleman had died after him.
‘How come?’ he asked.
‘Because a few weeks ago I watched my best friend become nothing more than a chiselled name in a slab of rock,’ Ewan said, pointing a twitching finger at Charlie’s name. ‘And once I saw it, I realised how easy it’d be to forget who these people really were. So now, every time I look at this, I read down the list and try to remember something about each person.’
McCormick knew that smiling wouldn’t be the reaction Ewan wanted, but he found his young friend’s attitude touching. He hid the smile as well as he could, as Ewan pointed to the top of the wall and reeled off some memories.
‘Sarah Best used to help Kate when she got anxious in French. They weren’t even friends but she helped anyway. Callum Turner came up with the Oakenfold Code… “the problems are not the person”. We all adopted it, and the teachers were proud of him for coming up with it at the age of twelve. Joe Horn always joked about being best in the school at chess club, even though he never reached a semi-final. Then there’s Elaine, Arian and Teymour… they deserve to be remembered for more than just dying on Jack’s generator mission.’
Ewan turned to McCormick, revealing the redness in his face.
‘Remember a few weeks ago,’ he snarled, ‘when I yelled at you for not adding the Rowlands? Three good people died in New London helping us get out of the Inner City, and they didn’t even become chisel marks. They didn’t become bloody anything. And I don’t want to forget them either.’
‘If they mean that much to you—’
‘It’s too late now. You’ve already added Charlie, and he died after them. I’m scared about what’s going to happen next.’
Scared. Have I ever heard him use that word before?
‘You’re taking a stupid risk,’ Ewan said with watery eyes, anger and love blending in his voice. ‘If Lorraine’s hand twitches at the
