Free The Killables by Gemma Malley

with a strong heart and the desire to start that wonderful future right here, right now.’
    ‘Yes! Yes!’ people called out. ‘Hail the Great Leader!’
    Evie’s father turned to her, his eyes shining, and he wrapped his arm around her, then wrapped the other arm around her mother, who reached out across his back and squeezed Evie’s shoulder, a rare display of emotion that caught Evie by surprise. She felt tears fill her eyes as she reached out herself to squeeze hands, arms; to show her parents how much she valued their guidance, how much she wanted to make them proud of her.
    As the Gathering finished, Evie followed her parents as they shuffled out of the Meeting Room; there were people everywhere, cheeks rosy, mouths upturned, friendly smiles exchanged between acquaintances as they passed each other.
    Evie stayed close to her parents, kept her gaze straight ahead to make sure that she didn’t see Raffy, didn’t catch his eye. But at the door, her parents saw some friends – a man her father worked with and his wife – and they moved to the side to talk. Evie tried to follow them but was swept up by the throng of people moving forward, and before she knew it she was a few metres from the door, on the path, on her own. She tried to walk towards her parents but there were too many people moving in the other direction; she was trapped. Instead, she waved at them, but they didn’t notice; they were laughing, talking.
    And then Evie felt someone behind her, standing still, not moving like everyone else, and she knew it was Raffy. Every instinct in her told her to reach out her hand, to touch him, to forget everything she had told herself she would do.
    But she knew she had to fight her instincts. She knew it was their only hope.
    ‘You have to come. I can’t live without you.’
    His voice was low, urgent; she felt it in the base of her stomach.
    She shook her head, desperately seeking out her parents, whose strength she needed before it was too late. Raffy’s body was pressing against hers. ‘I have to go,’ she managed to say. She could hardly breathe, barely think. ‘Don’t do this again. Never look for me again. It’s over, Raffy. It has to be over.’
    ‘No,’ he said, a note of desperation in his voice that made her want to turn, hold him, put her lips to his as she had so many times before. But instead she pushed her nails into her palms.
    ‘Raffy? Come and look after Mother. Evie, what are you doing here on your own?’
    Evie looked up with a start to see Lucas approaching, his expression unreadable as always. Had he seen anything? Did he know? Evie shook herself. He couldn’t have seen anything.
    ‘I . . . I got separated from my parents,’ she managed to reply. ‘I was just looking for them.’
    ‘And here they are,’ Lucas said with a tight little smile. ‘Your mother, anyway.’ He turned back to Raffy, the smile disappearing. ‘Go. Now,’ he ordered. Raffy slipped away.
    ‘Evie, there you are,’ her mother called, appearing through the crowd, her cheeks flushed, a rare smile on her face. ‘We’re with Philip and Margorie over there. I was just telling them how well you’re doing at work. Come over.’
    ‘Yes, of course,’ Evie replied, allowing her mother to take her hand and lead her back through the crowd.
    As she approached Philip and Margorie, she turned, in desperation, to get one last look at Raffy and to somehow let him know that she was doing this for both of them, that there was no alternative; but the only eyes she met were Lucas’s, staring at her quizzically before he turned and walked in the other direction.

6
    Evie couldn’t sleep that night; she tossed and turned as the evil within her fought with her desperation to be good, to be pure and strong just as the Brother had called for her to be at the Gathering. She wanted to renounce evil, wanted to have only good thoughts in her head, and yet all she could think about was Raffy, the devastation in his eyes and