Mind Blind (13 page)

It was a quiet journey.

Lucy was concentrating on not crying.

And I couldn’t think of anything to say that wasn’t a pathetic excuse for my behaviour. A pathetic excuse for my life.

We were starting to drive through bits of London I recognised from the telly.

Then I sensed a hunter. Focussed. Searching. Ready to attack. Patient, but burning with anger. Malcolm.

“Stop!” I slammed the plastic shutter open and screamed at the driver. “
Stop
!”

He slowed down. Slightly. “But I thought you had a train to catch? We’re nearly
at
Euston!”

“Turn round,” I insisted. “Drive away from the station.”

“He hates being early,” Lucy explained. “We can’t go to the station yet. Please, turn round.”

At last, as I felt my uncle’s rising spikes of interest, the driver U-turned on the empty street and drove away from Euston. Shaking his head, wishing we were out of his taxi.

Lucy looked at me suspiciously. “What’s going on?”

I moved to the back seat and whispered, “My family are at the station. Staking it out. Waiting for me. I sensed their concentration.”

“Did they… sense… you?”

“I don’t think I was near enough for them to sense me. But I’m not sure. This bloody driver drove on for at least a couple of blocks after I detected them, then hung about far too long…”

“We were near enough for you to sense them, but not for them to sense you?”

“Yeah.”

“Can you read minds further away than they can? Are you better at this than them?”

I choked on a laugh as the taxi stopped at deserted traffic lights. “Better? No one else collapses when they’re reading, so ‘better’ is not how I’d describe it.”

I moved back to the seat behind the driver. I could think more clearly when I wasn’t right beside Lucy. I asked her to check bus times to Edinburgh on her phone, while I worked out what to do.

“Bus times? But no one takes the bus!”

“Precisely. That’s why we’re going to take the bus.” I remembered what I knew about exit routes. “The buses go from Victoria, which is a nice long way from here.”

I took my own phone off silent and checked my messages. I ignored four from my mum, but opened a very recent one from Roy:

Keep moving. U came 2 close. They’re on to u.

Shit.

“Lucy. They know I’m here.”

She looked up. “The first bus from Victoria isn’t until nine o’clock.”

“You have to go to the bus station on your own. Buy our tickets.” I hauled out a handful of notes and gave them to her. “Then buy a book, something totally unlike our night, no chases or police. Buy a romance or something historical. Find a dark corner, get your head down and read the book. Lose yourself in the story completely. Don’t think about me or my family or being on the run.”

She was going to argue. I put my hands up. “Please, Lucy. I’m going to lead my family to Kings Cross as a decoy, then
I’ll get away and join you. Just do what I say. Please.”

She wasn’t convinced.

“Do we trust each other?” I asked.

We both shook our heads.

“But will you be there, waiting?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Then I’ll find you.” Which sounded more like a threat than a promise, but I couldn’t do any better.

I handed the taxi driver another note. “Take her to Victoria Coach Station. Thanks, mate.”

Then I turned back to Lucy. “See you there?”

She nodded, still surprised by the speed of our changing plans.

I jumped out of the taxi, to run straight back to my family.

I sprinted away from Lucy and her on/off hate, towards Euston, towards Malcolm and his constant anger.

My family knew the exit routes out of London too. They’d know that once I realised they were at Euston, the next obvious place for me to go was Kings Cross, not far away. So I’d lead them there, then run like a rabbit north, as if I was looking for another station on the route to Scotland. Then when I was out of range, when they couldn’t sense me, I’d circle south to the coach station.

And I’d try not to worry that I was on foot or paying taxis, and couldn’t get either a train or a plane, and that my family had unlimited cash, and cars.

He sprinted towards the station.

Running straight at danger, as fast as he could.

Idiot.

At least he was getting to do something.

I, on the other hand, had been ordered to sit in a corner
and read a book about corsets and tapestries.

What if his family caught him?

What if he changed his mind and joined up with them again?

What if he was planning to get the train to Edinburgh on his own and reach my uncle before me?

I had no idea what he was going to do. Which was unfair, because he always knew what I was going to do.

But I could find out what he was doing.

I wasn’t sure how his mindreading worked, but if he could detect his family and the police on the other side of buildings, he’d detect me if I followed behind him in a taxi.

However I knew where he was going. Or at least, where he said he was going. So I could get there first.

I wouldn’t even break my promise to him. I’d plenty of time before the bus was due to leave, so I would still get to Victoria before him.

I leant forward and spoke to the taxi driver, whose face, never mind thoughts, I could read easily. “Don’t take me to Victoria, please, take me to Kings Cross, but go the long way round.”

I wanted to know if I could trust this boy, if this family existed. So I’d go to Kings Cross and watch what happened. I’d even use his advice to hide my mind in a story. If it would work on his family, presumably it would work on him too.

The taxi driver was shaking his head. “You kids just can’t make up your minds, can you?”

“I’ll get out at Kings Cross and you can keep all that change.”

I couldn’t run straight at them. I had to give the impression of sneaking past, of fear, of incompetence.

From where I was now, getting to Kings Cross meant going right past the entrance to Euston.

So I walked slowly along the pavement towards Euston. Like I was uncertain about what I’d sensed. Like I was hoping the fright five minutes ago was a mistake.

I could sense them, waiting and searching, but they couldn’t quite sense me yet.

I was glancing around me like a rabbit in the middle of a field, looking for boltholes.

I had to be nervous, on the verge of panic, not checking my surroundings efficiently because I was too scared to concentrate. Then it might be plausible that I wouldn’t notice them. And when it became so obvious they were onto me that I couldn’t ignore it, then I could panic and bolt.

I let the questions I’d been forcing down all night crash to the surface.

What the hell was I doing?

Why was I disobeying Malcolm?

Why was I undermining Mum?

I allowed myself to be a mess of perfectly genuine doubts and fears. I was moving erratically, acting conspicuously, letting my emotions overtake my training.

I was that idiot boy, Bain, making a mess of it again, being exactly as useless as Malcolm always knew I was.

But while I walked I was also scanning for my way out.

I sensed a spike of interest from Euston. At last. They had noticed me. I tried to ignore it for as long as possible, giving off nerves and uncertainty. I sensed a hunter homing in, but I kept the panicked questions circling round my head.

Would I ever be able to go home?

Would I have to keep running all my life?

Then more hunters, a pack, all grasping after my trail of emotions.

When I reached the red circle of Euston Square Underground, I couldn’t ignore them any more. The spikes
of interest from ahead were too strong. They were starting to organise. They were coming for me.

So I acted like panicking prey, and decided that it was just as fast to keep running forward to Kings Cross as it was to turn round and run away.

I changed direction like that terrified rabbit, hurdled the railing and sprinted to the other side of the road, which wasn’t the direct route to Kings Cross but would give me a little distance from the hunters.

I ran faster than I’d ever run round our track at home. I ran for my life. I didn’t care if they knew it. I wasn’t pretending at all. I was being hunted. So I ran.

Of course, they could run too. And they could use their cars. But I had a headstart and I wasn’t faffing about giving orders like I could sense Malcolm doing.

So I ran at a hellishly fast pace along the wide road. The family hadn’t posted anyone on the outer perimeter, they all had to get out of Euston past a row of shops, the parked buses at the stances outside and a narrow park. Someone got tangled up. Roy was falling over again.

They were so close now I could even hear Uncle Paul yelling. Now I was past Euston and on my way to Kings Cross. But I was too visible, the only person on this early morning pavement.

I heard a car screeching round a corner. I didn’t look. I just kept running.

They were chasing me as I ran towards Kings Cross, which was the first part of the plan. But I couldn’t let them catch me, so I took the first right-hand turning and hurtled down it.

I’d got their attention, now I had to get away.

Kings Cross was quieter than I’d ever seen, because there
weren’t many trains this early. But the newsagent was open, taking delivery of papers, so I bought a book, just like I’d been told.

I didn’t read in a dark corner, because it isn’t good for your eyes. I sat under the edge of the curving triangles roof, where the boy would cross my eye-line when he came in. I couldn’t
think
about searching for him, I had to concentrate on the book, so that anyone reading my mind only saw glimpses of lovelorn maidens in inconvenient skirts.

I lost myself in a story and waited to see if he had been telling the truth.

I turned left, parallel to the main road, heading in the direction of Kings Cross. This was definitely the centre of London. Even the back streets were filled with curved white windows and black iron balconies, blurring in the corner of my eye as I ran.

Malcolm and Daniel were excellent at pinpointing the location of a mind, but I hoped I was running fast enough that I was hard to pin down.

I hurtled around corners, past posh shops and little cafes, sensing screams of mental annoyance behind me as my pursuers got snarled up in the maze of back streets.

I was also searching, under all the erratic rabbit running, for my real way out.

I heard a couple of cars screeching one block over, past the heaving of my breath and pounding of blood in my ears. I was in good shape, but I couldn’t keep up this pace much longer.

I was running towards a pub with flower baskets hanging over its windows, when I sensed them getting closer. Not the hunters on foot, they hadn’t a hope of catching me. But the hunters in the cars were ignoring one-way streets and
red lights, trying to cut me off.

Then I sensed the mind I had been hoping for, my way out.

But I also sensed…

Shit!

I also sensed what I should have anticipated.

I wasn’t just running from Malcolm’s team at Euston. I was running towards another team at Kings Cross.

Of course. They had both obvious boltholes covered.

The family must have sensed my genuine shock. Now I could legitimately turn and run north, like I was trying to run all the way to Edinburgh.

So I headed for the mind I’d detected a moment ago. A patiently waiting mind, a working but resting mind.

I could win on foot for a short distance, but for a race halfway across London, I needed wheels. I turned a corner and found the black cab of a taxi driver hoping for an early morning fare.

As I got in the taxi, Malcolm noticed my change of direction, my change of intention. He went into Sergeant Major mode, new orders exploding around him.

I told the driver to head north, on the same bearing as the train line, so the family would think I was searching for the next station any Leeds or York or Edinburgh trains would stop at. But as she drove off, I sensed one more thing.

A single mind. Past the chasing tail from Euston and the waiting ring at Kings Cross. A familiar mind, but not family. A mind muffled by second-hand emotions like someone reading a book or watching a film.

It was Lucy. Hiding in a story, but not at Victoria. At Kings Cross.

I yelled, “Stop!” at the driver.

What was Lucy
doing
?

I couldn’t go and get her. I had to get away myself.

She’d chosen to ignore my advice. She’d chosen to put herself in danger.

I had to leave her.

I nodded to the driver and repeated my instruction to head north.

Then I felt a jolt of recognition. Someone had recognised Lucy.

Was she sitting in the open?

Idiot.

So that was it. She was already dead. I couldn’t do anything. I had to leave her. I sat back as the taxi drove off.

I suddenly felt like an antelope being watched by a pride of lions, with warning tingles across my shoulders and up my neck. I kept my nose pointed at the book, but raised my eyes to glance round.

Was the boy here? He would probably be seriously pissed off if he’d seen me. But I wasn’t scared of his anger. He always calmed down pretty fast, and he hadn’t actually attacked me since I tried to stab him.

But it wasn’t him.

There was a line of people looking at me, over by the brick entrance to Platforms 0–8.

A line of people, moving towards me.

Striding forward, in the middle, was a slim woman in heels, with bright blonde hair and too much make-up for this time in the morning.

I recognised her. She was the Irish reporter who’d interviewed us about Nana.

“Lucy Shaw!” she called cheerfully. “What are you doing here, dear?”

They were spreading out like a net.

There was the reporter, a skinny man in jeans, a shorter woman and a couple of teenage boys, a ginger spotty one and a handsome darker pony-tailed one, both tall and muscly, both with the same sour scowl that the blond burglar had when he was trying to sense the surveillance team.

This must be his family.

I was caught in a trap meant for him.

I looked round in panic. The station was almost empty. No
police or rail staff, just a few sleepy passengers. No one who could help.

Could I run? His family were fanning out, blocking the nearest exit. They were walking towards me, staring at me. Were they reading my mind already?

I was shaking with fear and with anger at my own stupidity. They had
killed
Viv! What would they do to me?

The pony-tailed boy was reaching out his hand to me, staring at me with his dark eyes.

What could I do?

“Get up. Run.”

A voice, in my head. Could I get up? I was too scared to move. Anyway, what was the point? If they could recognise my mind, they could follow me, I would never get away.

“Get
up
, you idiot. Get up and run.”

I felt a fist punch my shoulder. It was his voice. The blond burglar. Not in my head. Behind me. I got up and I ran.

I ran round the back of the bench and followed him away from the train lines.

I glanced back. The Irish woman was falling behind, talking on a phone. The two teenagers, taller than us, with longer legs, were chasing us.

We sprinted towards the exit leading to St Pancras. But there was a man in the way, between two wide white pillars, arms spread to halt us. The photographer who worked with the Irish reporter.

I slowed down.

The blond boy kept going, launched a kick at the man’s stomach and muttered, “Sorry, Uncle Hugh,” as the photographer crunched to the ground.

I sprinted out of the station, and the boy grabbed my sleeve and pulled me into a taxi. He spoke fast to the driver and the taxi accelerated away as I was closing the door.

I looked back. The short woman was bent over the injured man on the ground. The teenagers were running after the
taxi, the dark one reaching out to grab the door handle.

“Don’t look in his eyes!” the boy beside me shouted.

But I already had. His cruel narrow brown eyes. Nothing like the failed burglar’s bright blue eyes. He laughed as he ran alongside the taxi, trying to get the door open. But the taxi was too fast, too heavy, and he lost his grip as we swerved round the corner.

The taxi driver said, “You’re in a rush, love.”

The boy said calmly, “Just a bit of family trouble. Nothing to worry about.” He slid the barrier shut.

I stared behind me at the pony-tailed boy as he waved his phone at us.

The blond burglar slumped into the seat beside me. “Did you look in his eyes just there, Lucy?”

“Em. Yes.”

“And when he was walking towards you in the station? Did you look in his eyes then?”

“Em.” I remembered noticing how dark his eyes were. “Yes.”

“Shit.” He slumped lower. “What were you thinking when you made eye contact?”

“What?”

“Were you thinking about buses? Or Victoria?”

“No. I was just thinking: How stupid am I? How scary are they? Are they reading my mind already?”

“Great. Now they know you know about the mindreading. And when we got in the taxi, were you thinking about where we were going?”

“No, I was leaving that to you, you were talking to the driver. I was just hoping he didn’t get in the taxi and thinking his eyes were a different colour from yours.”

“Why were you comparing our eyes?”

“Looking for a family resemblance.”

“So he knows I’ve told you we’re cousins. Great. Thanks.”

“You didn’t tell me that some of you read minds with eye
contact. That might have been helpful.”

“Eye contact, skin contact, voices. We do it all, between us. One great-uncle even used to walk into a room and sniff out vague thoughts from people’s B.O. My mum jokes that the next generation will be able to read by tweet and text.” He grinned, then looked at me seriously.

“Lucy, think back. Did you think the words ‘bus’ or ‘coach’ or ‘Victoria’ at any point from when you first saw Daniel until he was out of sight?”

“No. I didn’t.”

“Alright. It’s a risk, but we have to chance the bus…”

His phone buzzed and he pulled it out of his pocket, looking at it like it was a cockroach, the way he always did. Presumably he didn’t have friends who sent him invites to parties and rude pictures.

I grabbed it off him, suddenly, before either of us knew I was going to.

The newest text read:

She’s pretty but u don’t get to keep her. And she isn’t worth the thrashing u’ll get when I catch u, wimp. She knows 2 much. Does she know what my dad does to girls who know 2 much? C u very soon. Daniel

I handed the phone back.

“His dad kills girls who know too much,” I said quietly.

“Yes,” the boy said, dropping his phone on the taxi seat. “But you don’t know too much, do you? You don’t know anything at all, or else you wouldn’t have done something so…
stupid
! Why didn’t you go to Victoria like I told you to? Why were you sitting right there, right where I was leading them? Of all the stupid, misguided, ridiculous, dangerous, pointless…”

I let him rant at me for a couple of minutes, because I knew he was right. But I didn’t know why he’d arrived at the last
minute and saved me. I wonder if he knew himself.

He stopped at last and turned away. Then he turned back. “Ok. Just tell me what you thought you were doing, once, without excuses, and I’ll try not to mention it again.”

“I wanted to see if you were telling the truth, see if your family really existed and if you really are on my side rather than theirs.”

“I’m not
on your side
, Lucy. I never claimed to be.” He shook his head in amazement. “Were you just waiting for me to turn up, hoping I’d be pleased to see you?”

“I didn’t think you would see me. I was hiding in a book like you said. I just wanted to see what you would do at Kings Cross.”

“I wasn’t going
into
Kings Cross, I was only going
towards
it. I was leading the pursuit to a bolt-hole, I wasn’t planning to get trapped inside. You nearly got trapped there on your own.”

“But I thought it’d be safe, hiding in a book. I didn’t think they would find me. I didn’t even think
you
would find me. I didn’t think it was dangerous.”

“We’re not just mindreaders. We’ve got ordinary eyes too. They recognised you from photos in the files. My mum and uncle have even met you in person.”

“Oh. The reporter is your
mum
?”

“Yes.”

“But she’s Irish.”

“No, she’s not. She can do loads of accents. Teaching her to do accents is the only useful thing my dad ever gave her, she says.” He looked at his hands, clenched fists inside his gloves.

“You’re not useful then.”

“Apparently not,” he said.

“You got me out of there, so I think you’re useful. Sometimes.”

“Just as well I’m a mindreader or I wouldn’t know that was a thank you.”

He leant forward and spoke to the taxi driver, then leant back and spoke to me. “My family think we’re going north by taxi, so if we get out and hide now, they’ll drive right past us.”

As the taxi pulled over, he shoved more cash at the driver and we leapt out.

I was determined not to do anything else stupid until I knew more about this family’s powers, so I followed him up a side street, over a fence and down a ramp into an underground car park. He crouched in an oily corner behind a van, his back against the wall. I crouched beside him.

“We’ve hidden our bodies from them, now we need to hide our minds until they’ve gone past.” He pointed to the book, still clutched in my hand, my fingernails almost embedded in the girl’s face on the cover. “Read your book and that’ll hide you from them, just like it did until Mum recognised your face.”

“You don’t have a book. Do you want to share this one?”

“No, I don’t have time to get involved in the story. I’ll have to take a risk and lose myself inside… em… inside somewhere kind of dark. But it’s not easy to pull myself back out. So in… What time is it?”

I looked for my phone, to check the time. “I’ve lost my phone!”

“No, you haven’t. I took it out of your pocket and left it in the taxi. I left mine too.”

“You stole my phone!”

“Phones are easy to trace. You can buy a new phone. But if my family find you again, you won’t be able to buy a new life.” He handed me his watch. “In fifteen minutes, please shout at me. Like in the hospital taxi, be angry at me, hate me. But please wake me up or I might stay in the dark for ever. Will you wake me up?”

This was my best chance to bargain with him. So I folded my arms. “What’s your name?”

“What?”

“If I’m going to drag you back from ‘somewhere kind of dark’ I’ll need to call you by name.”

He glanced at the car park entrance.

“Are they near?”

He nodded.

“Do you trust me with your name?”

“My name is Ciaran. Ciaran Bain. Now read your bloody book.”

So I did. I glanced up once and saw him fall back against the stained wall, eyes closed. Then I flung myself passionately into the night before a battle. Even though I knew the English would win, I let myself care about which dashing officer the girl would give her lace hankie to, because obviously the soldier who got the hankie was bound to die…

I reached the end of a chapter, and realised what year this was and who I was. I looked at the boy’s watch. I’d been reading for twenty minutes. I hoped his family were out of range by now.

Ciaran Bain was collapsed in the corner beside me, eyes closed, breath fast and shallow.

I could leave him in whatever psychic coma he was in forever, or until the van driver came back.

I could tie him up with my shoelaces and call the police.

I could kick him black and blue.

Or I could wake him up. Like he asked me to. Like he trusted me to. Even though I’d made a right mess of the last thing he asked me to do.

If I woke him up now, I could take my revenge later. Somewhere less dirty and cold.

“Ciaran,” I whispered. “Ciaran Bain.”

Nothing.

I spoke louder. “Bain! Wake up! We’ve got a bus to catch.”

Nothing.

I touched his forehead. It was cold and clammy.

I curved my hand along the width of his smooth forehead
and I did what he’d asked. I hated him. It wasn’t hard.

“You are scum, Ciaran Bain. You are a creeping sneaking thieving piece of scum. You are a murdering lying sister-killing…”

He moaned.

I lifted his hand, I pulled off that stupid glove, wrapped my fingers round his palm and hated him.

He had taken everything from me.

My perfect sister.

My normal family.

My safety.

He gulped one deep breath.

I thought about everyone else hating him:

My mum and dad demanding justice.

His dyed-blonde mum screeching at him.

That long-haired cruel-eyed Daniel kicking him and laughing.

The police running at him with handcuffs, pepper spray and arrest warrants.

Viv’s voice haunting him.

All calling his name. Ciaran Bain.

“Whoa! Enough, Lucy, enough!”

He jerked his hand out of mine and sat up. Then he threw up under the van.

I moved out of range.

When he’d finished, I asked, “Are you ok?”

He coughed. “Do you care?”

I didn’t answer. I just gave him his glove and his watch. And we went to the coach station.