Sister, Missing

  Jam looked up at me and the terrified look in his eyes told me the truth before my brain had even processed what the smoke meant.

  ‘Cooper’s set the building on fire,’ I said.

  29

  In Chains

  Shelby gasped. ‘Fire?’ she said.

  Jam nodded. ‘That’s why he lured us here . . . so he could kill us and make it look like an accident.’

  ‘No-one’s going to believe this was an accident,’ I insisted, rushing over to the door as another wisp of smoke blew underneath it and into the room. ‘I mean surely this smoke should be setting off an alarm . . . which means Cooper must have disabled the system.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Jam said. ‘Even if Cooper set the fire and stopped the alarms from going off there won’t be any proof it was him who did it.’

  ‘Just as without our evidence against him, there won’t be any proof that he stole the two million or kidnapped us to try and get more money out of Duchovny,’ Shelby said.

  ‘We have to break this door down,’ I said, squaring up to it.

  Jam looked doubtful, but he stood beside me. Across the room, Shelby struggled to her feet. The chain that bound her to the filing cabinet was only a metre or so long – there was no way she could make it to the door.

  ‘Don’t worry, Shelby, Annie’s outside. She’ll call the fire brigade,’ Jam said.

  He met my eyes. I could see he knew as well as I did that it was highly likely Cooper had already got to Annie . . . that there was no-one else who knew we were here . . . no-one to save us . . .

  My guts twisted into a knot.

  ‘Plus, there must be a phone in the next room,’ Jam went on, reassuringly.

  ‘Yes,’ I added. ‘If we can get out of here we can call the fire brigade ourselves.’

  I half expected Shelby to freak out about being chained up . . . to start shrieking that she was scared . . . but she said nothing, just offered me a curt nod then looked at the door.

  ‘Go on,’ she said. ‘Try and break it down.’

  On a count of three, Jam and I hurled ourselves at the door. The lock held.

  ‘Again,’ I said.

  The door shook, but it still didn’t open.

  ‘Let’s ram something heavy against it,’ Jam suggested.

  I looked round for something that was heavy enough to break down the door, but that we could manage to lift.

  ‘Here,’ Jam called from across the room. ‘Help me with this, Lauren.’

  He was lifting one side of a small filing cabinet. I rushed over and took hold of the other side. It was heavy. My arms strained with the effort of raising it.

  Grey smoke was curling under the door. As we positioned ourselves, ready to ram the lock, Jam coughed.

  ‘We need something over our mouths,’ I said.

  ‘In a minute.’ Jam steeled himself. ‘Ready?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Go!’

  We charged at the door, forcing the bulky cabinet against the wood. A huge dent appeared beside the lock.

  ‘Again!’ Jam ordered.

  Again we rammed the cabinet against the door. Another dent. We were both coughing now. Smoke was still seeping into the room – grey and acrid.

  ‘Again!’

  This time the wood around the lock splintered. We set down the cabinet and Jam shouldered the door.

  It flew open. Smoke billowed into the room. I turned away, choking, my eyes watering. I ripped off my jumper and held it over my mouth, but the smoke seemed to fill my lungs like acid vapour, stripping away at my throat. I was bent double, coughing like my insides were going to come right out of my mouth. At last I managed to stop. I looked up. Shelby was hunched against the wall, coughing into her cardigan which was stuffed over her mouth. She stared at me over the top of the material, her eyes wide and terrified.

  Jam was nowhere to be seen.

  I darted out onto the landing and nearly collided with him.

  ‘No phones up here,’ he panted. ‘I’m gonna go back to that one downstairs.’

  I watched him race down the steps. The smoke here was steady, but not dense. I couldn’t see any flames or feel any heat, though the smell of burning plastic filled the air. It didn’t matter. I knew that the smoke was every bit as dangerous as the fire. More, perhaps. If we breathed in too many noxious fumes we would collapse long before the flames themselves reached us.

  I took a step after Jam. I wanted to follow him . . . to run down the stairs and out of the building. But what about Shelby? She was stuck here. I glanced over my shoulder. She was still hunched in the corner, coughing into her cardigan.

  I took another step away, then stopped again.

  The argument raged in my head. Shelby didn’t care about me. I needed to get out of here for the sake of the people who did . . . Jam and Madison and Mum and Dad and Rory . . . even Annie.

  As I hesitated, a cloud of thick smoke rolled up the stairs towards me. Choking, I staggered backwards, my sore eyes squeezed tight shut against the sting of the fumes. The landing suddenly filled with heat. I forced my eyes open. From being relatively clear a few seconds ago, the staircase below me was now engulfed in flames. Panic seized me.

  ‘Jam!’ I yelled. ‘JAM!’

  ‘I’m here.’ Jam’s voice rose up towards me through the fire.

  He had made it down to the first floor. I caught a glimpse of his profile through the smoke which whirled, dirty and thick, all around him. The fire hissed and crackled up the stairs.

  ‘Can you get to the ground floor?’ I shouted.

  ‘Yes.’ Jam hesitated. He turned and looked up at me. ‘But what about you and Shelby?’

  I gazed down at him, my eyes watering from the smoke that whirled around me.

  The staircase between the second and first floors was now impassable.

  There was no way down for me and Shelby. I could see in Jam’s face that he knew this – but he didn’t want to leave me.

  ‘Go on,’ I insisted. ‘We’ll be fine. We’ll find another way.’

  Without waiting for his reply, I turned away and darted across the landing. In addition to the storage room, where we’d left Shelby, there were three other rooms. I opened each door in turn. One, the nearest to the stairs, was empty save for a stack of chairs and some ancient-looking computers piled in one corner. It contained no windows and was already filled with smoke. I left it and moved to the next room.

  A bathroom. Tiny, also with no window. There was less smoke in here, for some reason.

  I ran the water in the sink, holding my jumper under the tap until it was damp. As I put it up to my face, water ran down my neck, but it was definitely easier to breathe.

  Clutching the sodden top over my mouth I opened the door to the fourth and final room, praying that I would find a proper window inside.

  There was hardly any smoke here yet. I shut the door behind me and looked round. I was in another storage room complete with more filing cabinets, and piles of paper. A single dormer window was set into the sloping roof. Unfortunately it was, if anything, smaller than the one in the other room. I rushed over and pushed it open. A rush of cold night air – and the smell of burning – filled my nostrils.

  At least it opened more than a few centimetres. I dragged a chair beneath the window and shoved my head through. The roof below slid away at a dizzying angle. There was no way I could stand on this roof, but the opening did offer some relief from the smoke. My heart leaped. If I stayed here I would be able to breathe clean air until the fire fighters arrived.

  And then I remembered Shelby.

  I hesitated for a second, then turned and went back onto the landing. The fire was at the top of the stairs, flames starting to lick across the carpet. I raced through the smoke and into the room where Shelby lay. She was still coughing badly, her cardigan covering her face.

  I ran over and grabbed her shoulder. She looked up at me, her red-rimmed eyes registering shock.

  ‘Lauren, I thought you’d go
ne,’ she said.

  I took the jumper away from my mouth.

  ‘There’s no way downstairs,’ I said. Acrid smoke burned the back of my throat and I coughed. ‘But there’s another room where there’s less smoke.’

  Shelby held up her wrist, still attached by the chain to the filing cabinet. ‘I can’t move.’ Her voice was strangely flat and calm.

  ‘We’ll sort that.’ I brought the jumper back up to my mouth and took in a shallow breath. I was starting to feel light-headed. How long did we have before we passed out from the toxic fumes?

  Trying not to think about it, I examined the chain round Shelby’s wrist. It was securely and tightly fastened. The skin below it was red raw where she had obviously tried to slide it over her hand. Clearly there was no point trying to do that again. I felt along the chain to the point where it was fastened to the filing cabinet. It was threaded through a loop of metal at the cabinet base, then disappeared between the cabinet and the wall.

  ‘We need to move this out of the way,’ I said.

  Shelby turned round and, together, we wrenched the cabinet a few centimetres away from the wall. I bent down, my lungs stinging and my eyes watering. Trying to breathe as shallowly as possible, I peered at the chain. It had been wound through the bars of the air duct grille that was set into the base of the wall. I felt through to the end of the chain. It was padlocked.

  I sat back, my heart pounding, fighting the dizziness that filled my head.

  ‘Can you get it free, Lauren?’ Shelby sounded terrified.

  ‘Yes.’ I nodded for emphasis, but the truth was I couldn’t possibly see how I could get the chain out of the grille.

  The chain was too strong and the padlock too sturdy to break. Maybe if I’d had half an hour and an axe I might have done it.

  But I had neither.

  I stared at the grille. Well, maybe if I couldn’t get the chain out of the grille I could just get the grille out of the wall.

  I gripped both ends of the chain and gave the whole thing a yank.

  Nothing happened.

  ‘Here.’ Shelby shuffled back to give me more space. ‘Use the wall to push against.’

  I propped myself against the filing cabinet and pressed my feet to the wall above the grille.

  I pulled hard on the chain.

  Still no movement.

  Shelby swore, her voice rising in panic. ‘Oh my God, Lauren.’

  ‘We’re going to do this,’ I insisted.

  I got up. Holding my sodden jumper to my mouth I raced across the room. There had to be something here that would help me remove the grille.

  I yanked open the top drawer of the row of drawers that ran along the far wall. It was full of stationery. I flung it onto the floor, then moved onto the next. It was full of scraps of string and tacks and nails and rubber bands. I threw it onto the floor beside the first.

  ‘See if there’s anything there we can use,’ I said, shoving both drawers closer to Shelby.

  She bent over, still coughing into her cardigan, sorting through the contents.

  I went back to the chest of drawers: there were blocks of A4 paper, bundles of envelopes, boxes of staples . . .

  ‘Come on,’ I muttered to myself.

  The room was thick with smoke now. My eyes were stinging. I tried to take tiny, shallow breaths. Panicky thoughts sped through my head. How long had the fire been raging? Was Jam OK? I strained my ears, hoping to hear the nee naw of a fire engine’s siren. But I could hear nothing over the hiss of the fire and the soft thuds on the floor behind me, as Shelby ransacked the drawers I’d given her.

  ‘What about this?’ she said.

  I spun round. Shelby was holding up a small metal ruler. We both glanced over at the grille behind the filing cabinet. It was held in place by two screws, one at either end.

  Another burst of smoke filled the room. I bent double, eyes squeezed tight shut. I was coughing so badly it felt like my lungs were about to explode out of my throat.

  I forced my eyes open. ‘Let’s try it,’ I said, snatching the ruler off her.

  There was just enough room for me to fit the tip of the metal bar into the first screw on the grille. As I steadied it, black smudges gathered at the edges of my vision.

  No. I felt horribly giddy, like I had done when we’d got free from the cave earlier.

  I turned the tiny ruler, focusing everything I had on making sure it didn’t slip out of the screw. I reckoned I had less than a minute before I blacked out from the smoke.

  This was our only chance.

  30

  The Burning

  I twisted the ruler again. The screw was now jutting out from the grille.

  ‘It’s working,’ I said.

  ‘Good,’ Shelby croaked.

  Another twist and the first screw fell onto the floor. With trembling fingers, I set to work on the second screw. Around me the smoke was growing thicker. I narrowed my eyes, trying in vain to minimise the amount of smoke getting into them. They stung badly.

  I concentrated on turning the screwdriver. I was so dizzy I could barely keep myself upright, but I kept going. Another twist. Another. I lost all sense of time. All my focus was on this screw and this metal ruler and this moment.

  At last the screw fell out. Yes. Hope surged through me.

  I gripped the chain threaded through the bars of the grille and yanked hard. With a sucking noise, the grille came away from its setting.

  ‘Look!’ I held up the grille and turned to show Shelby.

  But her eyes were closed. She was lying, slumped on the floor. The cardigan which she had been clutching to her mouth lay on the ground beside her.

  Had she passed out from the smoke?

  I scrambled over. ‘Wake up, Shelby!’

  Her head lolled on her chest. I said her name again. No response. I reached back my hand and slapped her hard on the cheek.

  ‘Aagh!’ It came out as a low moan, but her eyelids flickered. She coughed.

  I shook her shoulders. ‘Get up!’ I ordered.

  Eyes still closed, Shelby stirred. She reached out her arms and I helped her to stand. I could barely stay upright myself. My head was spinning, my throat clogged with smoke.

  ‘Come on!’ I tried to yell, but all that came out was a hoarse rasp.

  ‘OK,’ Shelby muttered.

  Leaning against me, she shuffled forward. I pushed open the door to the hallway. A wall of heat and smoke smacked us in the face. Flames were spreading across the landing. We both turned away, coughing violently. I could feel Shelby slipping down my side and gripped her more tightly.

  Come on, come on.

  The dizziness in my head was building. Black smudges floated across my vision. We only had seconds to get to the relative safety of the second storage room before the smoke and the fire overwhelmed us. I pushed myself on, keeping tight hold of Shelby. She was moaning now, dragging herself across the floor. Another step and we’d reach that back room. Just one more, just one more.

  There. I pushed the door open and flung Shelby inside. She staggered across the room, collapsing in a heap at the base of the chair under the open dormer window. I slammed the door shut. The air was smoky in here, but nowhere near to the same extent as on the landing, or in the room we had just left.

  I followed Shelby over to the window, clambered onto the chair so my head was outside and took a few deep breaths of the cold night air. The black smudges at the edges of my vision smoothed away.

  I could see nothing except the roof tiles and the dark sky above – and hear nothing except the crackle of the fire. The smell of burning drifted up towards me. I tried to shout ‘help!’ but my throat was too sore. All that came out was a useless gasp.

  I got down off the chair, feeling dizzy from the exertion of attempting to shout. I leaned against the wall, trying to work out what we needed to do next.

  Smoke was still slipping through, round the sides and at the base of the door, but the fresh air from the dormer window would buy
us a little time. And, surely, even if Jam or Annie hadn’t been able to call for help someone would have seen the fire by now. Hope rose inside me. All we had to do was sit tight for a few more minutes. Sit tight and wait for the fire brigade. Not even Cooper could stop a whole emergency service.

  Shelby was curled up on the ground, her eyes tightly shut. The only sign that she was alive was the fluttering motion of her chest as she breathed in and out: shallow, panicky gasps.

  ‘Hey, Hog Girl,’ I said. ‘Don’t sweat it, the fire engine will be here soon.’

  ‘A fire truck?’ Shelby opened one eye and looked up at me. ‘Can you hear the siren?’

  ‘No,’ I admitted, ‘but the fire’s been going for ages now . . . somebody’s bound to have seen it.’

  Shelby sat up. ‘Lauren, it only started, like, about two minutes ago.’

  ‘Whatever, we’ll make it.’ I swallowed. My throat was still burning from the fumes I’d inhaled. I pointed to the chair. ‘If you stand on that you can get your head through the window. We’ll be OK until the fire fighters get here.’

  Shelby struggled to her knees and leaned against the chair, her face tipped to the window. Her skin was a deathly grey colour.

  ‘I feel dizzy,’ she said.

  I reached out my hand to steady her. ‘Let me help,’ I said.

  ‘Wow.’ Shelby turned to me, raising her eyebrows. ‘Who’d have thought . . . Nurse Lauren.’

  I stared at her. I couldn’t figure her expression at all. All of a sudden, words I hadn’t even consciously thought spilled out of my mouth.

  ‘You really hate me, don’t you?’ I said.

  I froze. Why on earth had I said that?

  Shelby stared at me. Several long seconds passed.

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  My stomach shrivelled inside me. Despite the naked honesty of my question, I hadn’t really expected Shelby to be honest back.

  Resentment rose inside me. Hadn’t I just risked my life to save her?

  ‘You’ve got no reason to hate me,’ I said, trying to keep my voice steady. ‘I’ve done nothing to hurt you. Ever. In fact, I’ve gone out of my way to be nice to you.’

  Shelby’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Nice?’ she said with withering scorn. ‘If the past two years have been you being nice then I’d hate to see what you being mean would look like.’