Free Fractured by Teri Terry

have I done before with Free UK? Whenever I try to remember that life, with Nico, it is shy and hides away. Things seem to come when I don’t hunt and search. I try to relax, to let my mind drift. The training camp I can see – yes. But not much else. Did I go out on attacks? The Lorders caught me somehow, so I must have. But of that I remember nothing.
    Nico’s face floats into view and won’t go away. With him this afternoon, it was hard to think, to know what to say or do. I just was what he wanted.
    I shake my head, confused. No. That isn’t right. It is what I want, too.
    Though tonight, playing chess, I felt more like me , whoever that is. In my own skin. Like holding a rook in my hand somehow made things start to settle down inside, start working themselves out.
    I concentrate on the board, the carved pieces standing on their own squares. I chew my lip. Every move I can see will end in one of mine captured. I haven’t many left. I reach my hand out, then pull it back again.
    ‘I don’t know what to do,’ I admit, finally.
    ‘Want a hint?’
    I touch my fingers to one piece, then another. Watching his eyes.
    He winks when I touch the castle on the king’s side. But there is nowhere useful it can go, there are just a few open spaces between it and the king. The king is in an unguarded position, and will soon be under threat. Unless…
    ‘What’s that special thing the castle can do?’ I ask.
    ‘It’s called a rook, Lucy.’
    ‘It looks like a castle!’
    ‘It does, doesn’t it?’ He smiles. ‘It can slide up to the king. And then they swap places.’
    ‘I remember!’ I do as he said, they swap places, and my king is safe.
    The game continues: I finally win.
    I know he let me. I hold the castle in my small hand, take it to my room when I go to sleep. It stands on my bedside table when Daddy kisses me goodnight.
    I wake slowly; warm, happy, safe. Open my eyes. The rook is gone. I sit up in shock, the room folding and contracting, changing, to become Kyla’s once again. Not Lucy’s.
    How do I still have this memory? It should have been Slated away with the rest of her, like Nico said. Confusion twists and pulls inside. I’ve had dreams of Lucy before, but never anything this real.
    Never anything of her at home, safe and happy.
    I grasp at the dream but already it is becoming unreal, slipping away. I stumble across the room, switch on the lights. Find my sketch pad and pencils, and try, again and again, to draw his face. To hold onto him.
    But he is gone. I can’t. All that is left is vague and unsure, a sense of size and proportion. No details, no features anyone could recognise as individual.
    I give up on the hopeless task of drawing Lucy’s father. My father. And I start on Ben, instead. Now that Ben’s parents are gone, there is no one else left to remember him. I’ll look at his drawing every day. That way I can never forget him: I will always be reminded when I see his face.
    And there is something else I can do. Lucy reminded me.
    There is one last chance.
    One final way I can try to find out what really happened to Ben: MIA.

CHAPTER TWELVE
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    ‘Don’t you want to go in with Cameron?’ Amy smiles, more of a smirk, really. ‘He’s quite cute, don’t you think?’
    ‘No! I mean, no, I don’t want to go with Cameron.’
    ‘So you agree he is cute, then.’
    I roll my eyes and get into Jazz’s back seat.
    I’d told them yesterday not to wait, to go and I’d come home with Cam. Mum didn’t know and probably wouldn’t approve. Not necessarily of him, but of Amy and Jazz being alone: I’m their chaperone. Huh! I’d already explained this to Cam so he won’t think he is on regular chauffeur duties. Especially today, when I’ve got plans I don’t want him in on.
    We pull up the road before I ask. ‘Jazz, do you think we could visit Mac after school today?’
    ‘Sure,’ he says, and that is that. Mac is Jazz’s cousin; the illegal computer in his back room is where I