Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman (historical books to read TXT) 📕

best served cold – and they’re right. I served it icy-cold. And I lost more of myself as I did so. But that was OK. Because the Callum Ryan McGregor who loved to sit on the beach and watch the sun go down didn’t exist any more. He’d been taken and I’d been left in his place. A poor trade, but an inevitable one.

In the new cell, there were four of us altogether. Pete, Morgan, Leila and me. Pete was in charge. We called him the quiet one. He didn’t say much, but he smiled a lot. I was careful to watch my back around him. He was deadly with a knife and had at least four that I knew about always stashed on him somewhere. Morgan was twenty and the joker of the pack. He was our computer expert and the best driver in any L.M. cell for kilometres around. Leila was my age and knew everything there was to know about breaking into buildings and blowing stuff up. She’d been my call.

One evening, just a couple of months after my eighteenth birthday, I’d been sitting sipping a coffee outside a café in the city and surreptitiously timing the guards’ movements in the glass-fronted office block opposite when I first spotted her.

It was one of those cafés which likes to pretend it’s très chic by serving croissants at night and coffee that’s all foam and no flavour – or liquid for that matter. The evening was quite chilly so apart from me, there were only three other men huddled at another table about two metres away from me.

Leila came over to me first.

‘Spare some change for a coffee?’

I looked at her and shook my head. She moved on to the only other occupied table outside the café.

‘Spare some change please?’

‘Here’s five quid.’ One of the morons at the table waved it under her nose. ‘What will you do for it?’

I turned to watch, interested to see what she’d do next.

‘Well?’ The man winked at his friends and continued to wave the money under Leila’s nose.

I could tell from her tense stance that she was furiously angry, but the guy who was showing off to his mates was too thick-skinned to realize it. Or maybe he just didn’t care? Leila lurched forward to try and snatch the money from the moron’s hand, but he snatched it back.

‘Come on, you tart! You can do better than that.’

‘What did you call me?’ Leila asked softly.

I moved my coffee to the other side of my table.

‘If the shoe fits . . .’ The moron laughed and his friends joined in.

‘Stand up and I’ll show you what I’ll do for that fiver,’ Leila said silkily.

And like a jackass the man stood up. Seconds later he was doubled over after Leila’s foot made painful contact with his goodies.

‘You were right. The shoe does fit!’ Leila hissed at him, snatching the five pounds out of his unresisting fingers.

Moron number one collapsed to the floor, coughing his guts out. Morons two and three should’ve remained seated but they decided to go for it. Big mistake! It took less than fifteen seconds for Leila to sort out those two. By the time she’d finished, they were all rolling on the ground like human skittles.

I waved to one of the waiters inside the café who was watching the proceedings with horror.

He edged out, giving Leila a wide berth.

‘My bill, please,’ I told him. I turned to Leila. ‘Would you like to have dinner with me?’

Leila spun around, belligerence all over her face. ‘Are you talking to me?’

‘Yes. Would you like a dinner – somewhere away from here though. The police will be here in about five minutes.’

She looked me up and down – and more than once before she answered. ‘Yeah, OK then.’

I glanced into the café but my waiter was taking his time. So guessing at the price then doubling it, I put my money down on the table. We strolled off down the road towards a good meat restaurant I knew. I’d been poor for too long to be a vegetarian. And as we walked along, Leila never said a word. When we got to the restaurant, she sat down on her chair poised to leap straight on to her feet if the situation demanded it.

‘Two menus please,’ I said to the waitress. ‘I’m Callum,’ I told my new companion, holding out my hand.

‘Leila,’ she replied, digging her hands deeper into her pockets.

And that was the beginning of our friendship. It’d taken me a while to get to know her but it was well worth the effort. She and I had a similar sense of humour – which always helps. I was the one who recommended that she be taken under our wing. She’d been on her own for a long time before she joined our cell, so she was ridiculously grateful at belonging to the L.M. So grateful that she suggested becoming my lover. It was a couple of months later when we were held up in one of our safe houses, waiting for Pete and Morgan to return from a reconnaissance trip.

‘Thanks for the offer,’ I told her. ‘And I’m very, very flattered but I’ve only got room for one thing in my life now – and that’s my work.’

‘You’re sure?’ she asked.

I nodded. To my surprise, Leila put her hands on my shoulders and kissed me. It was nice too, but that’s all it was.

‘You’re sure you won’t change your mind?’

‘I’m sure,’ I smiled.

‘Well, the offer is always open,’ she shrugged.

‘I’ll remember that.’

And we’d both carried on cleaning our field guns. I didn’t want to get involved. In fact, I didn’t want any distractions, no matter how lovely they were – and Leila was lovely. She was as tall as me and super-fit with dark brown, short-cropped hair, cat-green eyes and a ready smile in spite of all the crap that’d happened to her. Of course, Morgan and Pete couldn’t believe the fact that