by Lari Don
“You used everything you know about me, all my weaknesses and my fears, to put the scariest stuff you could think of straight into my head, and you watched me shiver and sweat, and you would have kept doing it for hours if I hadn’t blown that hellish lab up in your face. You’d do it again if you weren’t scared of what I’d blow up next time. You don’t think that was torture? You don’t think that was monstrous?
“Don’t you dare call my mother a monster! Don’t you dare judge what my family do to survive in a world that would call us freaks and lock us up, until you look at what you’ve become.”
He grabbed a bottle of water, and as he drank about half of it in one gulp, I tried to think about his life, rather than my sister’s death or my revenge.
I whispered, “You have a horrible life with your family, don’t you?”
“No! No, it’s great most of the time. We have exciting jobs, real training not pointless exams, and we can head off into the hills or fishing or whatever when we’re not working. Where else would I be safe? Where else would I be happy?”
“But you’ve never tried anything else, have you?”
“This is trying something else.” He pointed at me and the rest of the bus. “And it’s making me quite nostalgic for the loving arms of my family.”
“So you think I’m worse than your family.”
“Oh yeah. Lucy, you’re my worst nightmare.”
He held up his book between us. Conversation over.
I moved to the empty seat in front, to give us both space.
Was I worse than his family? Was I worse than him? Would I have kept going with those experiments all the way to Edinburgh?
Would I have stopped if he had stopped breathing?
I didn’t know.
Which made me a potential killer, just like him.
Only he wasn’t a killer. Not really. It wasn’t a life he’d chosen. Was there a way to give him other choices? Not just a life of crime or a life in prison?
I was startled by a gentle voice from behind me. “Don’t feel sorry for me, Lucy. I’m not worth it. I’m not a stray puppy you can take home, it’s far too late to house-train me. But at least now we know you’re as vicious as me. This book is boring me. Wake me when we’re over the border, and I’ll check for hunters again.”
When I glanced back between the seats five minutes later, he was asleep.
CHAPTER 27
Ciaran Bain, 30th October
When Lucy woke me at the Scottish border, she was still feeling wretched.
Good. She deserved it.
Even after a rest, I felt rotten too. But I couldn’t let Lucy see that, because if she thought I could recover from her attacks easily, she wouldn’t try again.
But really, I was pretty shaken.
I was shocked by how stupidly I’d given her all the information she needed to attack me. I was shocked by how easy it had been for her to defeat me.
And I was appalled by what I had done to stop her. Getting into her head, pulling out her thoughts, then exploding her vision. I had no idea what I’d done, no idea if I could do it again, nor if I wanted to.
But I grinned and made out that I was indestructible, and she was so miserable in her new self-image as the most evil person on the bus that she didn’t notice I kept biting my cut lip open and couldn’t stop my hands trembling.
We even managed to be almost polite to each other. As we got closer to Edinburgh, I asked, “Can I have your uncle’s address now, please?”
“Not until we get there.”
I traced the bus route on the map. “I need to know if your uncle’s house is near this route, in case my family are already there. It’s going to be hard enough here,” I pointed to the city centre, “where we drive right over the train station, because my family will definitely be there. But our books should protect us, so long as the bus doesn’t get stuck above Waverley station for ages.”
“I thought your book was boring.”
“It’s alright really. So, do we need to be careful before the train station?”
She shook her head and jabbed her finger at the blue water north of the city. “My uncle lives in Leith. This bus won’t go anywhere near his house. We’ll have to get a taxi.”
“Let’s walk. I’m sick of sitting down.”
She glanced out the window, which had been streaked with rain since the Midlands, and made a face.
I was worried about the train station. But I was more worried about the bus station. I’d never been there, so we would be stepping off the bus into an unknown space, possibly surrounded by enemies.
I split the last of the water and chocolate between us. I stood and stretched, then walked up and down the aisle. I wanted to be limber enough to run.
“Nervous?” Lucy asked, when I sat down again.
I nodded. “I don’t know who’s there and I don’t know the terrain. Do you know Edinburgh?”
“Not really. My uncle usually comes home for visits, I’ve only been up three or four times. With… Viv…”
We both took a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” I said. “But we have to concentrate. And when we get off the bus, please do what I say immediately. I’ll sense my family before you can see them, and I’m trained at evasion and escape, so do exactly as I say.”
“Ok.”
That was too easy. But I couldn’t detect any duplicity. If she really did think I was good enough to get us past my family, she had more confidence in me than I did.
As we reached the city centre, I pointed to our books. “Read, we’re nearly over the station.”
Even past the excitement of a dragon-back battle, I detected my own hunters below as we crossed the bridge over Waverley. But they didn’t notice us.
Lucy nudged me as we drove into the bus station. I dropped the book and scanned the area. I sensed the hunters at the train station, only three blocks away. But I didn’t sense any familiar minds nearer. Malcolm must have thought that using one team to check the buses going north was more efficient than using three or four teams to watch all the exits at Edinburgh bus station.
So we got off the bus and headed through the station towards the main exit.
It was dark, windy and raining. The few people who were outdoors were walking fast under big umbrellas.
I jogged a couple of steps, then took shelter by a big department store window. Lucy joined me, and I laughed. “Welcome to Scotland.”
“What?”
“Well, it’s pouring with rain and they’ve put on a pageant of my family history. Look!” The bright window behind me had a fairground theme, with carnival booths, a big top, mannequins in ringmasters’ hats and a red rollercoaster painted in the background.
I used the light from the store window to read the map. “Let’s walk a bit, get a feel for the city, stretch our legs.”
“We’ll get soaked!”
“You soft southern girl. It’s just a bit of rain. But if we walk from here to the top of Leith Walk,” I pointed to our right, along the shiny wet pavement, “we can get a bus to…”
Then I sensed someone, watching, waiting. Much nearer than my family.
I stepped away from the bright window, to the middle of the pavement. In the shop doorway, I could see a man. He walked forward, and his thin grey raincoat was lit up by the garish light from another window, which displayed a bearded lady in a cocktail dress and a strongman in skimpy pants.
“Are you kids just off the London bus?” He asked the question in his posh English accent, but he already knew the answer.
“Lucy, run!” I sprinted off down the hill, the direction we’d just decided. But she didn’t move.
I sensed her fear and heard her voice at the same time. “Bain. He’s got a gun.”
I turned. He was pointing a handgun at Lucy’s chest.
He wasn’t going to shoot her. He wasn’t going to shoot either of us. The gun was just to scare us, he had no intention of using it in public, though none of the handful of people walking rou
nd the square had noticed anything beyond their wet feet and umbrellas.
I walked back towards Lucy. “Get behind me,” I ordered.
“Why, are you bullet-proof as well?” But she did what I asked.
The man was totally confident. He’d found who he was looking for and he thought he had us under complete control.
I knew he wasn’t a local policeman. Not because of the accent, because of the gun. Scottish police don’t use guns that casually.
Then he decided to contact the rest of his team.
I was concentrating now, so I could sense a wide ring of his colleagues outside every exit from the bus station. Now I could sense them. Five minutes too bloody late.
I had walked right into this.
When we had got off the bus, I’d stood there grinning at a stripy tent in a window and chatting to Lucy, so I’d forgotten to scan for police surveillance as well as family. Now this grey man was pointing a gun at me. But I wasn’t going to let him tell all his mates he’d caught me.
I stepped forward. He stopped patting for his phone and put both hands on the gun. I didn’t care about the gun. I cared about the phone. That’s what could harm me and my family. I took another step towards him. He sidestepped, towards a window with a fortune-teller’s rose-painted caravan.
“Back up, boy. I don’t want to shoot you. I just have a few questions.”
I lowered my head, like I was scared, took half a step back and waited, balanced over both feet. He was reassured at my retreat, so he let go of the gun with his left hand and went for his pocket again.
And I kicked.
I launched off my perfect stance and kicked the gun out of his right hand, then spun and kicked his left hand away from his body. He kept his balance, dropped to a crouch and got ready to fight.
I sensed his confidence. He was bigger, older and a professional, and I’d just got a lucky shot in…
But I was still moving and I was sick of being the bottom of the heap, sick of being chased, followed, questioned and punished. So I aimed a right-footed roundhouse kick at his face.
Finish it. Finish it, Bain.
My foot connected, his head flicked back, his legs crumpled and his head cracked into the sharp stone edge of the window behind. He slumped down.
And I felt his confidence flicker out. Everything stopped. His belief that he could beat this little London oik, his dependence on his mates, his puzzlement at my attitude to the gun. His existence. His life. It stopped. I felt it crack and drain and vanish.
Oh no. Oh no. That wasn’t what I meant…
I bit down on my lip, where it was already bleeding. I forced myself to concentrate.
I knelt down beside him, in the bar of darkness against the wall, in the shadow before the splash of light from the fortune-teller’s caravan hit the pavement.
I ignored the black endings gathering inside me. I ripped my gloves off, slid my hand into his pockets, found his phone and his wallet.
There was an outraged whisper behind me. “You’re not stealing from him, are you?”
I opened the wallet.
Ah. Shit.
He didn’t have a police warrant card. He had a Home Office identity card in the name of William Borthwick. It didn’t say what his job was at the Home Office, but I didn’t think their catering staff carried guns.
This card must mean security services. It must mean MI5.
The surveillance teams weren’t police. They were MI5.
Holy shit.
I sensed growing panic from behind me.
“Is he ok? Bain? Is he unconscious?” Now she was down on the pavement too, her fingers feeling for a pulse.
I already knew, but the shock of her discovery just about knocked me over.
“He’s dead. You killed him. Oh my god…”
We were the only ones who had noticed. His mates in the ring around the bus station were still bored and wet. The few folk walking past were in their own umbrella-shaped bubbles. And he was hidden in the dark shadow under the window.
But someone would notice soon. I got up and turned round once. Scanning for anyone I needed to worry about, looking for escape routes.
I saw the park across the road.
“Bain! You killed him.” Lucy wanted me to tell her it wasn’t true. She was going to lose it in a minute. So was I. His mind was switching off again and again and again in my head, like a drum roll. And it was getting louder.
I had to get us away from these bright windows with their caravans and freaks, and from his body in the shadows.
“The park,” I said. “Do as I say and it will be fine.”
“It won’t be fine. He’s dead.”
“Shut up, Lucy. Follow me.”
Lucy Shaw, 30th October
That was all he said to me.
“Shut up. Follow me.”
And I did.
I don’t know why.
I had just seen him kick a man’s head nearly off.
I had just seen him murder someone.
Then he said, “Shut up and follow me.”
And I did.
I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t want to stay with the body. I didn’t want to get arrested. I didn’t want anyone else to point a gun at me.
Bain seemed to know what he was doing. So I followed him.
I’d been calling him a murderer all day. Now he was one.
But I followed him.
He ran across the road and into the park. I followed. It was easier than deciding to go somewhere else.
He sprinted over the grass to a great column of stone, almost as tall as Nelson’s Column. It probably had some Scottish bloke at the top, but I didn’t look up.
Bain ran round the base of the column, to a door in the stonework. He’d unlocked it before I got my breath back. He didn’t tell me to go in, just held the door open and gestured.
It was pitch black inside. I hesitated.
I heard a police siren in the distance. I ran inside. He followed me into the cramped space, closed the door and locked it behind us.
He pushed a torch into my hand. He slid down the wall and he was unconscious before he hit the floor.
I switched the torch on, then panicked about light showing round the door, and switched it off again.
I sat down suddenly. And waited for Bain to wake up.
CHAPTER 28
Lucy Shaw, 30th October
He didn’t wake up.
I crouched on a narrow stone bench and listened to the police arrive outside with sirens and shouts.
As I sat in the cold dusty dark, my wet clothes sticking to my shivering skin, I kept remembering the kick, the crack, the smash. Had it all been one noise or lots of different noises?
The blow of Bain’s boot, a breaking bone in the face, a breaking bone in the neck, the smash of the skull on the stone, the thud of the body on the pavement. As I remembered it, sometimes it sounded like dozens of separate notes, sometimes it was one big explosion.
I saw the man’s face. Pale. Paler than Bain’s golden skin. Paler in that shadow than he had been thirty seconds before when he was pointing a gun at me.
Because he had been pointing a gun at me. If I was the damsel-in-distress type, I might believe Bain had killed him to protect me. But I wasn’t that stupid. Bain had killed to protect himself and his family. The family who were trying to kill me.
And I heard the blow. The blows. The thump and crack.
I saw the man’s face. I felt his skin under my fingers. No pulse, but still warm. No blood, not that I saw. Just like Viv.
These mindreaders were tidy murderers.
Was that Ciaran Bain’s first time, I wondered. Or had he killed before?
I wondered when he would wake up. Then I knew he wouldn’t. Not for ages. Maybe not ever. Unless I woke him.
Because I guessed what had happened. He was lost in the moment the man died. Like he lost himself deliberately in Viv’s death in the carpark. Like he lost himself unexpectedly when
he felt someone die in the hospital. If he felt that way outside a hospital when someone died several walls away, then how deep down must he be now, after killing a man and rifling his pockets?
If I didn’t wake him up, he might stay there.
His breath was shallow and fast and gasping. He wasn’t happy, wherever he was.
Should I wake him up?
I thought about the dead man out there. I wondered if he had a sister or a brother or a girlfriend or a boyfriend or a wife or kids.
What would they want me to do? Would they want me to let his killer rot here? Die of despair in his own head, starve to death in his own body?
What would happen to me if I woke him? I was a witness now. I had seen Ciaran Bain kick a man to death. That made me dangerous to him. And it made him even more dangerous to me.
But if I didn’t wake him, how would I get out of here? He’d locked the door with his lockpicks or skeleton key or whatever, and I’d no idea how to open it again.
I was locked inside a small stone room. In the dark. With a murderer.
I thought he was scary when I found him in the hall.
I thought he was scary when he kicked the knife out of my hand in the kitchen.
I thought he was scary when he blew that lab up inside my head on the bus.
But now I was truly scared of him. Because now I knew he was a killer. He could kill as fast and efficiently as a tiger. He might get wobbly and depressed afterwards, but that didn’t make the man out there any less dead.
And I was trapped here with him until he woke up or until I woke him up.
I heard sirens again. Just one siren, getting quieter. One police car leaving. But the rest of the police must still be out there.
And I realised I wasn’t trapped. If I made enough noise perhaps the police would hear me before he did, wherever he was.
Maybe now was the time to do what I’d always planned. Shout for help and let someone else punish my sister’s murderer.
Once the police broke down the door, they’d probably arrest me. But at least they wouldn’t torture and kill me. They’d offer me a lawyer and a phone, and probably even a toilet and a cup of tea.