I stood there, too shocked to even work out what had just happened. Rachel grabbed my hand and pulled me away. People were rushing past us, towards the girl, all crowding round to see what the screams were about.
‘Her dress, it—’
‘—just tore it right down—’
‘Did you see her b—?’
I caught snatches of excited conversation as Rachel dragged me to the back of the hall. Suddenly we were right by the fire door. The teacher who had been standing nearby had vanished, presumably investigating the screams like everyone else.
I turned round. A huge crowd had gathered on the dance floor around the spot we’d just left. No one was looking at us.
‘Come on.’ Rachel dropped my hand and tugged at the bolt across the fire door. Seconds later we were outside in the cold, dark air.
28
Rachel
I pulled the fire door shut behind us. Theo stared at me, his eyes round with shock.
‘I can’t believe you just did that,’ he said.
I stood, letting the cold air chill my burning face. I couldn’t believe it either. I hadn’t meant to. At least, not until about two seconds before I did it – when I caught sight of Jemima smirking at Theo. I’d looked down at her dress, at that front seam. And I’d just seen it ripping all the way down.
‘You needed a distraction,’ I said quietly. My ears hummed with the quiet of the playground. The dance music inside was a muted thump on the other side of the fire door. The only other sound was the whoosh of motor cars flying up the hill at the front of the school. ‘Anyway. That girl’s a toxic bitch.’ I shivered, imagining what revenge Jemima would plan for me.
‘Well remind me never to piss you off,’ Theo grinned. ‘Which way do I go now?’
I grinned back at him. This big, stupid grin. I couldn’t help it. Of all the amazing, gorgeous things about him, his smile was the most heart-stoppingly amazing and gorgeous.
‘This way.’ I pointed past the jutting wall of the Assembly Hall. We set off across the tarmac. Round the corner and the school gates were visible about thirty metres away, dimly lit by a lamppost on the pavement beyond.
Theo turned to me. ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘For everything.’
I opened my mouth to say I’d show him to the station. There was no way I was even pretending I was going back to the school disco now. Then I caught sight of two men strolling towards us from the school gates. They were wearing hoodies, the tops pulled right over their faces.
One was sauntering along casually, his hands in his trouser pockets. The other looked more tense. He was glancing round, his arm stiffly held against his side. There was something in his fist, something dark and pointed. I squinted, trying to make out what it was.
And then I realised.
It was a gun.
29
Theo
I turned round to see what Rachel was staring at.
My heart skipped a beat.
The man nearest us raised his arm. He held out the gun. He wasn’t pointing it at me. Just showing me.
I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move.
The man strode nearer. Right up to me. All I could see was the gun. It had a long barrel. Longer than I thought guns like that had. Some part of my brain registered that it was a silencer. I’d seen them in films.
My heart pounded.
‘It’s him,’ the man said.
‘Yup.’ The guy next to him seemed horribly relaxed. Almost lazily, he caught hold of Rachel’s arm. Whispered something in her ear. She froze, her eyes wide with fear.
I couldn’t take it in. It wasn’t happening.
‘Get down,’ the man with the gun hissed.
I looked up from the gun, into his face. I could only see his mouth. It was dark anyway, and the rest of his face was in the shadow of his hood.
‘Down.’ He cocked the gun with a click.
I sank to my knees. As I hit the ground my body started shaking.
No. This wasn’t real. Couldn’t be real.
‘Please . . .’ Rachel’s voice was a gasp. The man holding her arm slapped his free hand across her mouth. I glanced up at her. At her terrified eyes.
The man with the gun took a step closer to me.
‘You first.’ His lips twisted into a horrible smile as he raised his arm. The metal pressed against my forehead.
Cold. Metal. Cold. Gun.
My whole body was shaking. Every cell. But it was like I was outside my body, watching it shake.
I knelt in the darkness. The ground was hard under my knees. The gun metal cold against my forehead. Somewhere far away, the music thumped and the traffic swooshed.
The man with the gun was going to shoot me.
I felt nothing. I was going to die. I felt nothing.
No fear. No anger. No sadness. Nothing.
‘You freaks.’ The man stood right in front of me, his legs firmly planted on the tarmac. Like he was about to take a leak all over me. ‘You should never have been born. Either of you.’
I felt as if it was all happening to someone else, someone across the tarmac. Not me. Not here. Not now. The man straightened his arm. The gun pressed harder against my skin. Still cold.
Surely dying was supposed to be a bigger deal than this? Surely I should feel something now? I held my breath.
Waiting.
I closed my eyes. A second later this juddering ratchety noise filled the air. Then a loud thud.
My eyes snapped open.
The man with the gun was lying face down on the ground in front of me. The other man was kneeling down beside him, pressing his fingers into his neck. Checking for a pulse. Another gun – but smaller. Weird-looking. Some kind of stun gun. In his spare hand.
My mouth fell open. Rachel grabbed my shoulders.
‘Theo? Are you all right?’
I nodded. Too dazed to speak.
The man with the weird-looking gun turned to me, pulling his hoodie down.
‘Get up. Run. Back inside.’
I stared at him. He didn’t look that old – early twenties, maybe. He had dark olive skin, his chin covered in stubble. My mind seemed to have stopped working. I couldn’t make any sense of what was happening.
The man glanced at Rachel. ‘Take him inside. The head’s office. I’ll meet you up there. Hurry. There are more of them.’
I could feel Rachel’s hand tugging under my arms.
I stood up. My legs were shaky. Like they didn’t really belong to me. None of this was real. Not what had just happened. Not the world around me. Not me, myself.
‘Who . . . what’s going on?’ I said.
‘RAGE.’
‘How did they know we were here?’ Rachel said.
‘I’ll explain later.’ The man shoved his stun gun into his pocket, then picked up the real gun. ‘Now, hurry.’
Rachel grabbed my wrist. Started dragging me back towards the fire door. ‘Come on, Theo.’
Something about her voice pierced a little way through the numb wall around my mind. She sounded desperate. Like she needed my help.
I sped up. Rachel reached the fire door. She curled her fingers round the tiny slit of an opening.
I put my fingers next to hers. Together we hauled the door open.
The music hit me like a wave. How weird was that? Suddenly we were back with the disco. The DJ talking over a dance track. Groups of girls on the dance floor. Gangs of boys watching them. More couples now, I noticed.
Rachel shut the door behind us. The stern-faced teacher was standing next to it. She raised her eyes disapprovingly at me. I wondered vaguely what she thought we’d been doing.
‘Come on.’ Rachel set off round the dance floor. I followed closely behind her, my mind trying to make sense of what had just happened. The first man – a man from RAGE – had been about to kill me. Then the second man had . . . had knocked him out. Why?
Rachel sped through the Assembly Hall door and out into the corridor. Roy’s chair was empty. Where was h
e? The question floated uneasily at the edges of my mind but it didn’t feel real.
None of this felt real.
The entrance hall was virtually empty. A bored-looking woman was sitting beside the rows of coats and bags at the back.
Rachel stalked past her, towards the main staircase.
I followed.
‘Hey,’ the woman called out. ‘Where are you two going?’
Rachel turned round. ‘I’m just fetching something I left in my classroom,’ she lied, this slightly haughty expression on her face.
‘He should stay down here,’ the woman said. She glared at me.
Rachel leaned closer. ‘Wait till she turns round,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll be at the top of the stairs. Hurry.’ She set off, her heels clacking against the wide stone steps.
I stared after her. I still felt completely numb.
I sauntered across the hall, then turned and wandered back. As I reached the stairs again, a couple appeared, asking for their coats.
The woman on duty at the makeshift cloakroom promptly disappeared down a row of jackets.
I hurried up the stairs two at a time.
Rachel was waiting at the top, hanging over the bannisters. She turned away as I reached her, then led me silently down a long corridor, up another flight of stairs, down a few steps, along another corridor and into a carpeted area.
She opened a door marked Headteacher’s Office.
She shook her head. ‘I’m sure this is normally locked,’ she said.
I followed her inside as she switched on a bright overhead light.
I screwed up my eyes against the glare, then looked round the room. A big desk. A few comfortable chairs. And loads of framed school photos on the walls.
Rachel sat down on one of the chairs and put her head in her hands.
I turned away, not knowing what to do or say. It was like there was some kind of barrier between me and what was happening. Like I couldn’t reach out and touch any of it. I stared at the photos on the walls, not really taking any of them in.
Lots of girls in school uniform. That was all. Lots and lots of girls.
Across the room, Rachel started crying.
30
Rachel
I cried for several minutes. Great, big, racking sobs. The image of Theo kneeling on the tarmac with that gun against his head filled my mind. I could still feel that man’s hand round my mouth. Hear him whispering at me to be quiet. See him shooting at that other man with . . . what was it? Like a laser gun or something. Sparks flying out into the dark. Then the other man falling to the ground.
And the worst of it was that somehow . . . somehow Dad was mixed up in it all.
After a while, Theo walked over and sat down next to me. I felt his hand on my back, patting me awkwardly. I glanced round, looking at him through my wet fingers. He wasn’t looking at me. He was staring at the photographs on the wall opposite. Rebecca was in several of them, of course. Form-leader every year, sports captain of any sport, prize-winner of all prizes . . .
I sniffed hard, trying to stop crying, wishing Theo would hold me again. I felt his hand slide off my back. I wiped my eyes and sighed out the last of my sobs. He wasn’t going to hold me. Not now. Not ever.
I looked up, into his eyes. They were blank.
‘Why did that guy tell us to wait up here?’ I said, my voice all croaky.
Theo ran his hand through his hair. He sat back in his chair and shook his head. ‘Dunno.’ He stared at the floor. ‘I wonder why that other man wanted to kill me.’
I stared at him. He sounded like he was discussing a maths problem or something.
‘I mean it doesn’t make sense,’ he went on. ‘If RAGE wanted to use me to blackmail my dad, then why kill me seconds after finding me. And why did they want to hurt you?’
My mouth fell open. How could he talk about it so calmly? My own mind was jumping about like crazy, racing over what had happened, wondering if we were safe yet, wondering how we were going to get out of the school alive.
‘And why did he call us freaks?’ Theo mused.
I shrugged. Who cared what insults he’d thrown at us. He’d wanted to kill us. And now . . . now he was unconscious. Dead maybe? The image of his body on the ground flashed into my mind again. I felt sick.
Theo sighed. ‘I reckon my dad must have been working on some really freaked-out stuff at that clinic that got fire-bombed. Genetic experiments or something. Maybe trials using us, you know, before we were born.’
What on earth was wrong with him? How could he be talking like that? He’d just had a gun in his face.
‘Has your mum ever said anything about that? About when you were born?’ Theo leaned forward.
I shook my head.
‘Are you sure?’ he persisted. ‘Wasn’t there anything unusual about it?’
For Christ’s sake.
‘Only her age,’ I said. ‘She was forty-seven when she had me, which is really old to have a baby and she did have fertility treatment to get pregnant but . . . but, Theo, how can you even be thinking about—?’
‘Maybe that’s the connection.’ Theo’s eyes widened. ‘Fertility treatment. Maybe my mum had that too.’
I looked at his face. I could still see the gun there, the tip pressed against his forehead. I swallowed, trying to push the image away. ‘But . . . but I thought you said your mum and dad weren’t together that long?’
‘So?’
‘Well, people who hardly know each other don’t usually go for IVF and all that.’ I wiped my eyes. ‘And your mum’s young for a mum, isn’t she?’
Theo sighed again. He looked up at the photograph on the wall opposite.
‘Well, it must be something like that, or else—’
‘We can talk about it later,’ said a male voice.
I spun round. The man who had saved us was standing in the doorway. I hadn’t even heard the door open.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘There’s no time to explain now. Follow me.’
31
Theo
It all felt like a dream. Like it wasn’t really happening. And yet, at the same time, I was hyper-alert. Totally in control. I could see Rachel hesitating, not sure what to do.
I grabbed her arm and pulled her towards the door.
The man looked at me. He had blue eyes – bright blue against his olive skin. There was this weird expression in them, like he was looking for something in my face. Then he held up his hand to stop us walking out past him into the corridor. He glanced up and down, then beckoned us after him. I scurried right behind him, still holding Rachel by the wrist. Her skin was clammy. She was trembling.
I wasn’t. Not now. I wasn’t afraid at all. I felt nothing.
The man led us to the fire door at the end of the corridor. He glanced at our shoes.
‘Take those heels off,’ he whispered to Rachel.
She gawped at him, blinking rapidly.
‘Go on,’ he said, ‘they’ll make too much noise on the fire escape.’
Rachel still didn’t move, so I knelt down and started undoing the thin strap round her right ankle. Almost immediately she bent down and started working at the left shoe.
The man lifted the fire door bar and pushed the heavy door back across the top of the iron fire escape. How did he know his way round the school so well?
‘What—?’ I started.
‘Sssh.’ The man held his finger to his lips. He peered outside, his right hand reaching round and pulling out the gun tucked into the waistband at his back. I stared at it. It was a real gun.
He crept out onto the metal stairs, the gun in his hand, beckoning us to follow.
I could feel Rachel shaking beside me.
‘It’s okay,’ I murmured.
She nodded and tiptoed after the man. It was even colder outside than it had been earlier. Her bare feet must have been frozen on the iron steps, but she said nothing.
Slowly, carefully, the man led us down the stairs.
I lo
oked around. There was no sign of anyone or anything. But it was dark and there were many shadowy corners where people could have been lurking. I had the dim sense that this should have made me feel terrified. But it didn’t. I was a machine. My only sensation was one of admiration for the man leading us down the steps. The way he moved without making a single sound.
As we reached the bottom of the staircase, a boy and girl lurched round the corner, their arms wrapped round each other. The man froze. His arm whipped out and pushed me and Rachel flat against the wall. Rachel gasped. Her shoes fell to the ground with a light thud.
The couple didn’t seem to have noticed us. They wandered across the tarmac away from us, into one of the shadowy corners. I could just make out the girl leaning against the wall, the boy pressing against her. They started kissing noisily, their hands everywhere.
The man beckoned us forward again. He took us round the corner, down a narrow passageway, then across a wider space.
I had no idea where we were, or how far away the school exit was. Rachel was limping slightly now. I glanced down. Her shoes were no longer in her hands. She must have left them on the ground.
We rounded another wall and the dull thump of the dance music drifted towards us across the air. In the far distance I could just make out the school gates, their high, spiky bars silhouetted against the street lamps beyond.
‘Lewis?’A low growl.
The man spun round. ‘Sir?’
Another man stepped out of the shadows. He was dressed from head to toe in black, with a mask over his face. ‘You’ve got them, Lewis?’
The man we were with nodded curtly. ‘Yes, sir. Mr Simpson, sir.’
His voice was neutral, but I could see his hand tighten on his gun.
For the first time I sensed he was scared. I noticed this without feeling any emotion myself. I was just curious to see what happened next.
The masked man looked round. ‘Where is he?’
Lewis said nothing. I guessed the man was referring to the guy Lewis had somehow knocked out. The one who’d almost shot me.
‘Lewis?’
‘I don’t know, Mr Simpson.’