Family Ties

By Natalie Hibberd

In a divisive world of mistrust and murder, there’s only one thing that matters growing up: you’re either in The Inside or The Outside. In a desperate attempt to regain control of a flailing society, the Inside government have deployed an unlikely spy, sixteen year old Layna, to work her way into the heart of Outside resistance group – the Freedom Fighters. Having ingratiated herself with the top-ranking soldiers, Layna is discovering that the hardest part of her job is only just beginning.

Back on The Inside, the teenage residents are learning to juggle jealousy, heartache and potentially explosive secrets. Little do they know, the pangs of adolescence are about to be joined by far more adult concerns. Storm clouds are gathering on the horizons of this fractured world, and when lightning strikes, nothing will ever be the same.

In the long-awaited sequel to the award-winning Inside Out the stakes have been raised and all those involved are about to learn that danger is closer to home than any of them can imagine.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Release date: Oct 28, 2022
• ISBN: 9781803133621

Natalie Hibberd

Natalie Hibberd has wanted to be an author since she was two years old and wrote the first draft of her debut Inside Out before she was fourteen. Her own challenges such as Cerebral Palsy and Depression haven’t prevented her from continuing to publish. She lives in Hampshire. Her first book, Inside Out was also published by Matador.

Book preview

One

She was breaking all the rules.

From her very earliest infancy, Arabella Knoxwood’s ears had been forcibly tuned to the sinister undercurrents of the world she lived in. Like generations before her, she had been raised on a diet of cautionary tales told in the direst of whispers whenever opportunity arose. Everyone, from her parents to perfect strangers, had impressed the same truisms on her day after day. ‘Never stay out after dark’. ‘Only fools walk alone’. ‘Death waits on lonely roads’. When you lived on The Outside, and in particular, if you were a woman, it was dangerous to be nocturnal.

Of course, years had now passed since the days of those childhood warnings, and it had been a long, long time since Arabella had been a vulnerable little girl in need of hearing them. Her dedication to the Freedom Fighters’ (FF) cause had brought many rewards with it, not least a formidable physique and the requisite knowledge to expertly wield the dagger currently lodged in the lining of her jacket. Nonetheless, it was with a sense of relief that she caught sight of her destination, and as she ducked through the doorway of the greasy, anonymous dive bar and began immediately to rake the scant clientele for the man she had been bidden to meet, she was hard put to supress a sigh of relief.

‘Hello, Knight,’ she said quietly, spotting her quarry and seating herself opposite him. ‘It’s been a long time.’

For just a moment, the beginnings of a smile flickered across Luke’s face. Though it was gone in less than a second, a certain warmth pervaded his voice as he greeted her. ‘It has indeed. Nonetheless, I’d recognise that face anywhere.’ Suddenly, all flirtation was dropped from his voice, and his expression lost its conviviality as completely as an extinguished candle. ‘You took your time getting here. I was beginning to think you’d lost your nerve.’

Arabella’s lips pursed, and her own smile withered at once. ‘I had a long way to come. So, this had better be worth it.’

Luke laughed humourlessly, and his eyes were instantly hard, as though her words had frozen them. Chilling as the effect was, it did not drain his eyes of emotion. In fact, it made them more intense than ever. ‘That depends,’ he told her, every word as cold as his expression. ‘Do you want to spend the rest of your life beholden to a man whose only claim to power is an accident of birth? Or would you prefer to pull our organisation back from the brink of disaster, so we can finally take our place at the top of the food chain? You’re an intelligent woman, Arabella. It seems a pretty clear choice to me.’

Knoxwood’s eyes widened, the suspicion with which she had regarded him thus far giving way to stunned incredulity. ‘What?’ she spluttered, suddenly fearful that she had been lured into a trap. ‘That’s heresy! If someone hears you, you’ll get both our heads blown off!’

To her astonishment, her companion threw back his head and roared with laughter.

When Arabella remained nonplussed, he reined in his amusement and waved a hand in a gesture encompassing their dilapidated surroundings. ‘Don’t worry your head about that. What happens within these walls stays firmly in its place; they trade on it.’ Dropping his voice, he leaned in closer as his face grew serious again. ‘Besides,’ he continued, ‘if anyone decided to let their mouth run away with them, they’d learn to regret it soon enough.’

His fingers brushed hers across the table, in a way that could almost be taken as casual, yet it sent a frisson of surprise and pleasure coursing through Arabella’s system. Nonetheless, she pulled her hand away from him, folded her arms defensively and, with more effort than she would ever admit, kept a bourgeoning smile from her face. ‘Luke,’ she told him at last, ‘get to the point, if you’ve got one. I’m a busy woman. I mean it; it’s now or never.’

Again, Luke laughed, the sound completely at odds with Arabella’s show of hostility. ‘Indeed, you are – although perhaps not as busy as you ought to be. Not as busy as you deserve. Still deputy commissioner at Training Camp, aren’t you?’

‘So what if I am?’ Arabella demanded hotly, wincing involuntarily as his words struck a raw nerve. ‘What the hell has it got to do with you?’

‘Nothing at all. I meant no offence. I’ve just always thought that sidelining you was one of Nicholas Cookson’s most damaging mistakes. That’s saying something, believe me. He’s made more than his fair share. Still, in this instance, his stupidity may be turned to our advantage. If I’ve put my faith in the right person.’

For a second, the anger remained present on Arabella’s face. As Luke’s words hung between them, however, her expression slowly mutated into a sardonic half-smile. ‘You really hate Cookson, don’t you?’

‘Yep. Though, God knows, it took him long enough to figure that out. He’s got less intelligence in his whole inflated head than you do in one fingertip. Anyway, as I remember it, you were never his biggest fan either. Or has that changed since our initiation days?’

Arabella snorted. ‘Not likely. That was a long time ago, and as you’ve so helpfully reminded me, I’ve never left that bloody building since. Not one poxy promotion.’ Her face darkened, as if a thundercloud had cast a shadow over her brow.

Witnessing her long-supressed anger bubble unstoppably to the surface, it was Luke’s turn to supress a smile. The grudge that Knoxwood was still harbouring against the Freedom Fighters for her lack of progress in the organisation was one he had suspected for a long time – a key factor in his decision to use her as a central player in his scheme. Bitterness such as hers could, when nurtured properly, be developed into a hatred with the potential to be useful in the not-too-distant future. They’d been talking for less than ten minutes, and he could already sense that she was bending to his will. Now, he mused, his ice-blue gaze boring into her. Time to press the advantage.

Leaning forwards in his chair, he met her gaze with calculated intensity – a look he had used to draw many a malleable counterpart into something with the appearance of his confidence. ‘I need your help, Arabella. I need something that only you can give. I need allies.’

‘Allies?’ His companion’s voice had now taken on a breathy quality, her excitement and flirtation now impossible to conceal entirely. ‘What d’you mean?’

‘How d’you suppose anyone makes their bid to overthrow an opponent? Alone and unaided? No, I cannot do this without help. That’s where you come in.’

At this, a hint of Arabella’s old sourness returned. ‘What do you want me to do exactly? I thought we’d established I have no clout. Thanks to our beloved top brass.’

‘He might have overlooked your talents, but I’m not that dense. You’re deputy commissioner at Training Camp. I need you to rally the troops. To topple Cookson without incurring the wrath of those stupid enough to respect him, we need to find a challenger to the top position. One whom those lemmings are even more willing to follow.’ He saw the bewilderment on her face and barely stopped himself rolling his eyes in exasperation. ‘We’ve got to get Salina Cookson back into the picture.’

It was as though his final words were a bomb secreted under Knoxwood’s seat, suddenly awakening her to the danger of their conversation. ‘Jesus, Knight!’ she hissed, her face rapidly blanching. ‘You’re mad. Absolutely bloody mad!’

For a second, Luke was worried that he had made a mistake in letting her in on his plot. His entire initiative relied upon cooperation within the Freedom Fighters and if Arabella got spooked now and ran squealing to Nicholas Cookson, eager to protect herself by spilling the secrets that had been divulged to her, the whole thing would implode. Trying his utmost to plan his next move sensibly, despite the raucous distraction of blood thundering past his ears, he spoke in smooth, reassuring tones. ‘Don’t panic; there’s no need for you to participate in the breakout personally. I just need assistance recruiting the right agents for the job, that’s all. I’d never dream of putting you in danger.’

Arabella relaxed slightly, but her brow was still furrowed in a lack of understanding. ‘What d’you mean breakout? She’s locked in a top-security Inside prison cell, isn’t she? You can’t just waltz right into the visitors’ hall!’

She was treading on thin ice now, and Luke knew he had to be more cautious than ever if he was to avoid revealing too much to her. The slick, flirtatious note was dropped from his voice as completely as if it had never existed outside of Arabella’s imagination. With a disappointment she couldn’t stop herself from feeling, she watched the intensity fade from his gaze, sitting in silence as he went on – focused and authoritative once more.

‘Don’t worry about that; it isn’t important. All I need you to do is give me support. Find me an internal collaborator. I intend to parachute them into my unit, so they can assist me in my endeavours without arousing suspicion by continuously contacting me externally. They’ve got to be an all-round elite soldier – but also someone who Nicholas Cookson doesn’t know well. A secret weapon of sorts. Can you get me someone like that?’

His final question posed an unmistakeable challenge, and it provoked in Arabella the exact amount of indignation he had been hoping for. ‘Course I can!’ she replied immediately, ‘I reckon I’ve got just the girl. She’s on the fast-track programme; a real diamond in the rough. I’ve only been assessing the fast-trackers for a few weeks, and I’m already dead impressed with her work. The Training Camp leaders were planning to have her placed high up in the organisation anyway, so I could easily pull some strings to get her in with you.’

The haughtiness in her voice made Luke smirk inwardly, though he was careful to keep his face unreadable. ‘Oh, yeah?’ he asked steadily. ‘Sounds perfect.’ Purely for the entertainment it brought him, he let his fingers graze hers a final time. ‘This agent got a name?’ he breathed at last, his lips millimetres away from hers.

Arabella, still smiling, toyed with a strand of hair before finally giving him a response. ‘James’, she said. ‘Katali James.’

Luke raised his eyebrows and gave a shameless snigger. ‘What?’

‘Katali James,’ Arabella repeated. ‘The name’s another thing that sets her apart. It’s kind of a hard one to forget.’

Luke nodded. As absurd as he found the name of his soon-to-be counterpart, he had more pressing concerns. ‘How long before you can have her sent to my unit?’ he enquired, his skilful smile thinning ever so slightly as he spoke.

‘Two days, I think, so long as I get things moving quickly,’ she replied.

‘Brilliant.’ He sensed that just a little more playing would encourage her to, as she put it, ‘get things moving quickly’, and so he forced his voice to become husky, just one more time: ‘I knew I could count on you.’

Two

‘Will you just give it a rest?’ Bliss Cookson snapped, glaring at Zack McGregor and folding her arms irritably. ‘We’re supposed to be relaxing – and all you’ve done since we got here is harass us non-stop about the stupid exam revision. It’s doing my head in!’ She sighed heavily. ‘Dunno why you’re so bothered anyway; you’re not even taking the dumb tests, are you? Lucky devil.’ Looking bored, she fiddled idly with the wooden pendant hanging around her neck, rolling her eyes at the others in an overdramatic, long-suffering fashion.

Zack returned her reproachful look, but did not answer, recognising in exasperation that he was fighting a losing battle.

The rest of their friends, Nerrisia Simons, Sherona Hamilton, Liam Smith and Lucy Brand, looked between the bickering pair, irritated.

‘Can’t you two just be nice to each other for the next ten minutes?’ Nerris pleaded. ‘You’re acting like a couple of five-year-olds!’

Zack’s intention to drop the subject wavered at this jibe, and he turned back to face Bliss with a pointed, withering look on his face. ‘Well, I guess some people never grow up!’

‘Yeah!’ Bliss spat back, her voice rising furiously. ‘And some people never learn to let their hair down and get a life!’

‘I’ll have more of a life than you when you leave school without a single qualification!’

‘Who says I’ll be unqualified when school’s over? I might not be a complete geek like you are, but I’m not totally stupid!’

‘Oh yeah? Well, by wasting your time when you could be studying for your exams, you’re doing a pretty terrible job of showing it!’

‘What d’you know about it? You’re not even in school! I know what I’m doing with the exams, OK? I’ve got everything under control!’ With another roll of her eyes, Bliss turned her back on Zack and reached for the notebook on the floor in front of her. ‘Now, are we gonna try to finish this song or not?’

With immense relief at the argument ending, Liam wriggled across his attic floor towards the beanbag on which Bliss was sprawled, craning his neck to examine the lyrics on the page. ‘We were working on the bridge, weren’t we?’ he asked. ‘I’ve had a couple of ideas for it. What d’you think?’

The others leaned forwards eagerly to hear him demonstrate his suggestions, but before he could begin to play, his mother’s head bobbed into view through the attic’s trapdoor.

‘Liam!’ she called as she hauled herself through it. ‘There’s somebody downstairs asking for you; a girl by the name of Rebecca.’ Her lips twitched and she seemed to be struggling against the urge to laugh. ‘She seemed… umm… very keen to speak to you.’ As she spoke, her eyebrows rose, and she eyed her son teasingly. ‘If you want my advice, you’ll hurry up and get down there.’ The look of horrified embarrassment that appeared instantaneously upon Liam’s face was too much for her, and she could no longer refrain from chuckling. ‘Hurry up,’ she repeated, vanishing from sight again.

No sooner had she disappeared than the others begin to rejoice in Liam’s misery, nudging each other and making a string of sarcastic remarks. Even Zack and Bliss managed to put aside their earlier row for long enough to give Liam a suitable amount of grief over the fact that he and Rebecca Bamforth were still in a relationship, in defiance of Liam’s ongoing vows to terminate it. Once he had fended off his friends’ jibes and managed to plaster a smile on his face, he made his way to the trapdoor, a sinking feeling in his stomach. ‘This won’t take long, if I can help it,’ he told them grimly. Then he added, in a distinctly less confident voice, ‘Wish me luck.’

‘Good luck!’ came the jovial chorus of replies, and as soon as Liam