Split Second by Sophie McKenzie Page A

fear – in her eyes. As she stared up at me, I had the weird sensation of falling through air. The dirty
estate around us vanished, the shouts of the men in the distance faded to background noise. It was like I was seeing her for the first time, really
seeing
her, from the stubborn tilt of
her jaw to those dark, fierce eyes that seemed to penetrate right inside me.
    It struck me that Charlie wasn’t just pretty, as I’d first thought. She was beautiful.
    I dropped her arm. ‘I asked you why you’re following me?’
    Charlie stuck out her chin. ‘Who says I’m following you?’
    I smiled. Her expression was just so ridiculously haughty. ‘Yeah, right. You’ve been behind me since the memorial. What are you, some kind of stalker?’
    ‘Of course I’m not.’ She was still sticking out her chin, but the shadow of embarrassment flickered across her face, presumably at the fact I had spotted her so easily.
    ‘It’s your hair,’ I said. ‘It’s kind of hard to miss.’
    Charlie shook her curls away from her face – a gesture of defiance. My pulse raced. What the hell was happening to me? I’d fancied plenty of girls before, but this . . . this was
completely different.
    ‘So are you going to tell me what you’re doing?’ I demanded, trying to make my voice sound hard and cross.
    ‘I wanted to see who you were meeting,’ Charlie said.
    ‘What makes you think I’m meeting anyone?’ I asked, genuinely astonished.
    Charlie put her hands on her hips. She was dressed in a black skirt and jumper, a red scarf around her neck and a red hat pulled over her wild curls. No make-up. No jewellery. Unlike Jas, I
didn’t normally take much notice of how people put together what they wore, but it struck me that Charlie looked cooler than anyone I’d ever met.
    ‘You’re going to meet people from the League of Iron, aren’t you?’ she said.
    ‘
What?
’ I stared at her. How on earth had she connected me with the League?
    ‘You’re a member of the League. You were there when the market bomb that killed my mum went off,’ Charlie said. ‘You were
part
of it.’
    ‘How can you think—?’
    ‘I know you belong to the League of Iron and they already said that they set off the bomb. Don’t deny it, I’ve seen what you write on their forum as AngelOfFire. It’s
disgusting
.’
    How the hell had she identified me from the forums? ‘What are you talking about?’ I said.
    ‘Don’t lie to me. I saw on your laptop. All that stuff about who to bomb and hating black people and—’
    ‘Ssh.’ I looked around, but no-one was near us, nobody was listening. ‘You sneaked into my room and looked on my computer?’
    Charlie nodded.
    A shiver ran down my spine. Up until now I’d thought Taylor’s request to replace my hard drive had been a bit over the top. But if Charlie had stolen a look at my laptop, then other
people might have too.
    Charlie looked up. ‘I’ll give you one final chance to tell me the truth,’ she said. Her mouth trembled slightly. ‘Did you set off the bomb that killed my mum?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘I don’t believe you.’
    We stared at each other. I felt torn. I had promised Taylor that I wouldn’t talk about our meeting, but if anyone deserved to know the truth it was, surely, Charlie. I had seen the hurt in
her eyes at the memorial service. She ought to know that someone, somewhere, was trying to stop the League of Iron.
    ‘It’s complicated,’ I said.
    ‘What is? Being a Nazi thug who thinks bombing random people in markets is a great thing?’
    ‘I don’t think that.’
    ‘So how do you explain being AngelOfFire
?
’
    I hesitated.
    ‘The League left your brother in a coma. Your
own
brother. And my . . . my mum . . .’ Charlie’s voice cracked.
    I racked my brains, frantic for a way to explain at least part of the truth. ‘I . . . I was just doing the forums because I need . . . I want . . .to understand why the League of Iron did
the bombing,’ I said.
    ‘You want