The Burning (12 page)

Finally, the door opened and one of the nurses stepped in. She shouted above the relentless wail of the siren, ordering Kate back against the wall a second before she raised the needle.

Kate knew it was useless to fight – if she wanted the children to stay safe. Nothing was her choice any more, least of all the bogus calls from America every evening.

The siren continued to scream and suddenly the lights flickered, just the once. She wondered what was happening. It had to be something to do with the children.

Held as she was, deep underground in the Hope Project’s sick bay, she could only pray that Rachel and Adam were all right. Could only wonder when any of them would see one another again.

T
hey hid in the woods until the search was abandoned.

Gathered beneath an enormous pine tree, they watched as the lights of those looking for them moved through the woods like giant fireflies. At times the guards passed within a few metres of them, and on several occasions they heard the voice of Clay Van der Zee close by, marshalling his troops, and then later telling them that they would begin searching again at first light.

Rachel knew that it was Gabriel keeping them hidden; that when it suited him he could make himself, and those close to him, all but invisible in plain sight. At one point Gabriel had leant across and whispered to her, the shouts of the search party echoing in the darkness around her, “They can’t see the wood for the trees.”

Once the searchlights had been switched off, they broke cover and began to move cautiously through the forest. The darkness was almost impenetrable and the noises of unseen
animals caused the little ones to clutch each other as they followed Gabriel on a path that wound through the columns of tall trees. Rachel knew she would have been every bit as frightened as they were, had her head not been buzzing with a thousand questions. She could see the fear clearly enough on Adam’s face.

“We need to move faster,” Gabriel said.

After half an hour or so there was a break in the blackness ahead of them, a momentary sweep of passing headlights and eventually they stumbled on to a narrow country road.

“Where to now?” Adam asked.

Gabriel thought for a few moments, staring along the road in both directions. “Away,” he said.

Adam nodded. “Sounds good.”

Rachel was about to ask one of her many questions, but was distracted by the crying behind her. She turned to see Morag and Duncan sitting on the side of the road, the girl being comforted by her brother. Rachel asked if she was OK.

“I’m cold,” Morag said.

Rachel realized that it was only adrenalin keeping the chill from her own bones and that the temperature would continue to drop: none of them would be able to spend the night outdoors.

“There’s a car coming!” Adam shouted suddenly. Morag and Duncan climbed excitedly to their feet and the children gathered together as Adam stuck out his thumb in preparation.

“It’s not going to stop!” Morag shouted.

The headlights grew bigger and the growl of what was clearly a large truck got louder as it rumbled towards them.

“Course it will,” Adam said. “Who wouldn’t pick up a bunch of kids out here in the middle of the night?” He stretched his arm out, the hope tight round his mouth as the lights moved across his face.

“Come on, come on,” Rachel muttered to herself as the truck got closer, but could only watch in alarm when, at the very last second, Gabriel moved past her and stepped calmly out into the middle of the road: the screams of the younger children were lost in the roar of the truck’s engine as it bore down on him.

“Michael!” Morag shouted.

Rachel stared. Why did they keep calling him that?

“Michael” raised his hand and the light seemed to bounce off his splayed fingers, reflecting back into the truck driver’s face in a tangle of thin beams.

The truck driver
knew
he was in big trouble.

He knew too that he shouldn’t have been driving while he was tired, that he shouldn’t have been going as fast and that he
certainly
shouldn’t have had that pint of beer with his dinner. Still, running into a random police check on a road he’d driven down a hundred times before was unlucky. When he’d seen the policeman step out into the road and start waving him down, he could only curse his bad luck and wonder what he’d done to deserve it.

The policeman had looked deadly serious. The truck’s headlights had reflected off the badge on his cap and the buttons on his blue uniform. Big,
big
trouble…

The truck driver had slammed on the brakes, realizing that the policeman was closer to him than he’d first thought. Why didn’t the stupid idiot get out of the way? He’d closed his eyes, praying that he’d be able to stop in time and that, if he did, he’d manage to hold on to his driving licence.

As it was, he got away with it.

He sat there in the cab, holding his breath, and when he finally pulled away again he couldn’t help wondering why he’d been stopped in the first place. The policeman – and they were
definitely
looking a lot younger these days – had done nothing but give him a good telling off and kicked his tyres a couple of times before sending him on his way. What had been the point of that? It bothered him as he drove on, pointing the big truck east, towards the coast, wide awake now and watching his speed this time.

Didn’t the police force have better things to do?

Within a few minutes of the truck starting up again and rumbling away down the road, Morag and Duncan were fast asleep in the back. In the half-light from the driver’s cab, Rachel watched them curled up among the sacks of turnips and potatoes as though it was the most ordinary thing in the world, and envied their innocence.

She lay back against the side of the truck, Adam next
to her and Gabriel sitting opposite them. Gabriel smiled, pleased with himself, but Rachel resisted the temptation to ask how he’d talked the driver into taking them. There didn’t seem much point. She knew Gabriel could get people to do almost anything and besides there were other, far more important, questions she wanted answers to.

“Why didn’t you come and get us?” she asked. Gabriel said nothing. “When we were in there. I know you could have done it. You could have just come in and got us out of there. Why—?”

“I couldn’t just walk in there. I’m sure that’s what they would have wanted and … I was waiting for you.”

“What?”

“Biding my time until you made a move. Until you took the initiative. I can’t do this all by myself, you know. I need your help. I needed
you
to get the Triskellion. It’s stronger in your hands.”

Rachel thought about it. She remembered Gabriel’s face when she’d seen him – or
thought
she’d seen him – in the churchyard, the faraway look in his eyes. Waiting.

“So it’s like some kind of battery that needs us to charge it up?” Adam asked.

“It’s all sorts of things,” Gabriel said. “All sorts.” He looked far away again, closing his eyes and letting his head drop. When he looked up again, he was smiling. “You have
got
it, haven’t you?”

Rachel reached over and laid a hand on her backpack.
“In there,” she said. “I couldn’t leave it behind. Something told me we had to bring it with us.”

Gabriel nodded, satisfied. “Good. Now we can get out of here. Get the others.”

The last few words had been mumbled and Rachel couldn’t be sure she had heard correctly.

“What others?”

Adam leant forward. “Other
Triskellions
?”

Gabriel closed his eyes again and leant back as though going to sleep. After a minute or so he said, “You didn’t think there was just one, did you?”

The truck drove on through the night. Lights passed across the children’s faces as they moved on to bigger, better-lit roads. Rachel pulled an empty sack round herself when it got colder but, though it warmed her a little, she was still unable to sleep.

“Why do they call you Michael?” she asked. She nodded towards Morag and Duncan. The young boy moaned softly in his sleep and threw out an arm.

Gabriel shrugged, his eyes closed. “I’ve got a few names,” he said.

“What, like aliases?” Adam asked.

“Yeah, I suppose. Comes in useful, keeps people guessing.”

“Are you hiding your real identity then?”

“We all are,” Gabriel said.

Gabriel’s face was in shadow. His voice sounded no more
than a whisper, although they were shouting above the noise of the engine. The sacks piled all around them were dark, hulking lumps, and loose vegetables rolled and rattled on the bare metal floor as the truck swayed on the bumpy road.

“So where are we going?” Adam asked.

“I thought you were happy enough with ‘away’,” Gabriel said.

Rachel turned to her brother and looked at him like he’d gone mad. “We’re going home,
obviously
. We’re going to see Mom.” She turned back and stared at Gabriel, who was now sitting up, eyes wide open. “That’s right, isn’t it?” The look that passed across Gabriel’s face was like ice pressed against her skin.

“Your mother isn’t at home.”

“We’ve spoken to her,” Adam said. “She called every night from New York.”

“She’s not in New York,” Gabriel said. He glanced towards the road. “She’s back there.”

Adam moved across the floor of the truck. “Don’t be stupid!” he shouted. “She’s at home. We
spoke
to her.”

“She never left,” Gabriel said simply. “It was a trick, that’s all.”

Rachel got to her feet, almost falling as the truck lurched. She grabbed on to the metal rail that ran round the inside of the trailer.

“Turn the truck round.”

“It’s not me driving it,” Gabriel said.

Now, suddenly, Rachel was shouting too. “Do whatever you did before then. Get the driver to stop and turn round. We have to go back.”

Gabriel shook his head.

“You don’t understand,” Rachel said. “We can’t leave her. She’s our mother … she’s in danger. We
have
to go back.”

By now Adam was on his feet next to her. They stared down at Gabriel, urging him to move, to do something, but the boy looked calmly back at them as though unable to comprehend their panic.

Rachel glanced across to make sure that Morag and Duncan were still asleep, then lowered her voice. “Their parents were killed. I saw the whole thing in a dream. I guess I must have tapped into their thoughts, or memories, or whatever.” She was aware of Adam’s look. She hadn’t told him: had not wanted to frighten him. “Their car was driven off the road and there were frogmen waiting under the water. They took the children out and left their mother and father to drown.” She waited for a reaction from Gabriel, but did not get one. “I
saw
it. Those people back there are murderers.” She looked across at Morag and Duncan again. “They orphaned those kids…”

“Take us back,” Adam said. “Now!” His fists were clenched, as though he was a split second from falling on Gabriel and beating him into submission.

“I know exactly what they’re capable of,” Gabriel said, “and they won’t hurt your mother. I promise. She’s safe as
long as they’re still trying to find you.” Now he was the one who seemed desperate, and there was something like a plea in his voice. “We’ve got to keep moving; we’ve got to stay ahead of them.” He held out a hand to each of the twins but let them drop when neither Rachel nor Adam responded. “I know how you feel, really, but you’ll have to trust me.”