Numbers 3: Infinity (11 page)

‘I did.’

‘What?’

I’ve never told him this before.

‘Well, I didn’t see her, but I heard her voice. I felt her hand.’

He leans towards me and grips my shoulders, hard.

‘Why didn’t you ever say?’

‘I wasn’t sure if it really happened. But I think it did. I was confused, disorientated in the fire, but someone grabbed my hand and pulled me round so I was facing the right way. I heard her voice, “It’s this way. Only a few steps more …”’

He lets go of me and flops back in his wheelchair, staring at me, mouth half-open.

‘She was there with you. She touched you. So why didn’t
you get her number?’

‘I don’t know. My number wasn’t that day, was it? Mia’s was. Maybe Val reached out to her, too.’

I’ve got tears in my eyes now, and so has he.

‘She reached out to you,’ he repeats. ‘I never thought … I never thought I’d lose her.’

‘I know. I’m sorry. It feels like my fault somehow. I feel guilty, I don’t know why. But we’re so lucky to have Mia. It’s a miracle we’ve still got her and we have to protect her, Adam. We have to keep her number secret, keep her safe.’

‘Yeah, you’re right. What she done, what happened to her – it’s dynamite. We got to keep it quiet, just you and me. And we gotta get her out of here.’

And that’s when the cell door blasts open.

Light floods in from the corridor as half a dozen soldiers burst in. They don’t look at us, they don’t speak. Before I can blink, they throw Adam out of the wheelchair and pin him to the floor.

He’s down, face pressed against the concrete. Someone’s digging a knee into the small of his back, pushing the air out of him. I can see he’s in agony. I’m screaming, Mia too.

‘Daddy! Daddy!’

‘Adam!’

I’m so focused on him, I don’t notice Saul coming in until a deep, sharp voice cuts through the shouting and screaming.

‘Take him away.’

He’s standing there, arms folded, but he’s not looking down at Adam. He’s looking at Mia and me. I can’t help thinking about the night by the fire, when he woke her up to look at her. I hated him then, and I hate him now. I draw Mia closer to me.

It takes half a dozen of them to carry Adam out. He
completely loses it after Saul comes in – shouting at him, kicking out, his anger blotting out the pain from his injuries.

I’m screaming, but it doesn’t make a blind bit of difference. I can’t believe I’m losing him again. I’ve only just got him back. I can’t believe I’m going to be shut in here.

But that’s how it is.

Mia and me. Locked in a room that’s five paces by four, with a bathroom that’s two paces by three. No windows, if you don’t count the grille in the door. No sunlight. No fresh air.

I lose track of time. Mia’s been on a rollercoaster today and it’s left her disturbed and upset, but eventually she’s soothed with a cuddle and a song. If only that would work for me, but awake on my own the thoughts spin in my head, round and round.

The same squaddie with the moustache brings food – I don’t know what meal this is meant to be. Soup and crackers. Milk for Mia. And there’s something else on the tray – a little plastic cup with a white pill inside.

‘I’d take it, if I were you,’ he says. ‘You’ll get some sleep. Especially after today. We all use them in here.’

‘No, thanks.’

The prospect of another sleepless night is horrific, but I won’t take pills.

‘Where’s Adam? What have they done to him?’

‘He’s in solitary, that’s all I know.’

‘I don’t understand why they took him away. We were just talking … How long will they keep him there? When can I see him?’

He shrugs, but there’s pity in his eyes as they flick to Mia, asleep on the bed. ‘I don’t know, I honestly don’t.’

If Adam’s lost to me, then I don’t think I can cope. I need
him. I love him. Why did it take all this to make me realise?

‘I actually have to see you take the pill,’ the squaddie says, nodding to the plastic cup on the tray. ‘Otherwise they’ll be in with an injection.’

I look at him, shocked. He shrugs, but I can tell he doesn’t like this.

‘I can’t,’ I tell him. ‘I don’t take pills and anyway, I can’t take anything that’ll affect the baby.’

‘They wouldn’t give it to you if it wasn’t all right.’

‘You really think so?’

He looks shifty for a minute.

‘Shall I put the shower on for you?’ he says, suddenly.

I frown at him, confused. What’s he talking about?

Then he beckons me to the bathroom. I follow him in. He turns on the shower, and we stand next to it.

‘We won’t be overheard here,’ he says, keeping his voice low despite the water thundering into the shower tray.

Overheard.

He looks at me steadily, waiting for the penny to drop.

And then it does.

They were listening in. They know about Mia. They know about her number swap and her seeing Val’s auras. And they know I want to get out of here. That’s why they came to take Adam – to get him out of the way, so there’s no one here to protect us. And now I realise, without a shadow of a doubt, that the next person they’ll take is Mia.

It means we haven’t got long. We’ve got to escape.

I look at the squaddie. Will the noise of the shower really block out our words? What if it’s a trick to get me to talk more? I have to trust him. I have no choice. He’s the only person I can ask, the only person in this place who has shown me any sympathy. ‘Look, I need your help – we need
your help – to get out of here.’

I’ve said it now. What will happen if they’ve heard? Even if they haven’t, I’ve put my life – and Mia’s and Adam’s – in this squaddie’s hands. For a heart-stopping moment, I wonder if I’ve misjudged him. Will he help us? We stare at each other for several long seconds.

‘It’s too difficult,’ he whispers. ‘If I’m caught helping you they could court-martial me.’

I allow myself a tiny drop of relief; he’s on our side.

‘What does that mean?’

He runs his finger across his throat. He looks nervous. If he’s acting he’s doing a good job of it.

‘Really?’ I say.

He nods.

‘I’m desperate.’ I’m close to tears now. ‘Otherwise I wouldn’t ask you.’

He bites his lip. He’s blinking rapidly, looking at me and then away again.

Then he says, ‘Adam saved my mother’s life.’ He’s talking so quietly I can hardly hear him over the sound of the shower. I lean forward to catch his words. ‘She had a flat on the twelfth floor of a block in West London. She saw Adam on the TV news and got out. Hers was one of the blocks that went. The whole lot came down. She’d have died if it wasn’t for Adam. So I owe him.’ He looks me straight in the eye. ‘I’ll help you, Sarah. I’ll do my best.’

‘Thank you.’ I put my hand on his arm.

‘I’m Adrian, by the way,’ he says.

‘Thanks, Adrian. Can you get a message to him?’

Adrian sucks the air in between his teeth.

‘Please, please,’ I say. ‘Wait here.’

I run back into the room, grab my sketch from under the
mattress and Mia’s crayon.

It’s difficult to know what to say. Especially if it does fall into the wrong hands. In the end, I write: ‘Come back to me. Trust Adrian. xx’

Adam will know what it means.

Then I fold it over twice and hand it to Adrian.

He hesitates, looking at Mia curled up, sleeping, on the bed. He takes the paper, and puts it in the chest pocket of his jacket.

Back in the bedroom, he says, loudly, ‘Now let me see you take this. It’ll do you good, I promise.’

He tips the pill out from the plastic cup onto my hand. I close my fingers round it.

‘That’s it,’ he says, giving me a brief wink. ‘Down the hatch. Goodnight, Sarah.’

When he’s gone, I return to the bathroom and drop the pill into the toilet. It dances in the swirling water when I pull the flush, and then it disappears.

Not long afterwards the striplight in the middle of the ceiling goes off and the room is plunged into darkness again, the only light coming from the grille and the two cracks above and below the door.

I lie next to Mia, thinking of the people I’m missing. Adam, Marty and Luke. Will Adam get my message? Will he be able to read it if he does, or is he lying somewhere beaten to a pulp? Are Marty and Luke still with Daniel? Is Daniel still alive? All the time I’m thinking, my eyes are open, fixed on the grille in the door. It’s directly opposite the bed. We can be watched all night.

We
will
be watched all night.

I can’t lie there, in full view.

I slip out of bed, sidle over to the door. I put my back to
it, and slide down on to the floor. I can’t see the grille, and they can’t see me. The baby’s shifting around inside me. I lean my head on the door and close my eyes.

I don’t want to sleep, to dream, but exhaustion washes over me anyway.

I’m not alone any more. But it’s not Mia with me. It’s someone else. His face is close to mine. I can smell his sourness, see the stubble pinpricks on his jaw. He licks his lips, but misses a small bead of saliva at the corner of his mouth. He’s breathing almost as fast as I am. I have to get away. I look around for somewhere to hide, somewhere safe. There are hiding places everywhere – trees and stones and bushes. But I can’t run.

I can’t even walk.

Pain ripples through me, wave upon wave.

My legs won’t work. I’m rooted here. Here with him. I’ve never felt such terror before. I want to scream but my voice is paralysed, strangled within my pain-wracked body.

Instead, my screams echo round my head. ‘Help. Help. Won’t somebody help me?’

Chapter 24: Adam

I
’m in a real prison cell now. Bare concrete walls, a mattress and a bucket. There are marks on the wall, dark smears. I don’t even want to think about what they are.

I need to tell them this is a mistake. I’m not out for trouble. I don’t need to be locked up. I didn’t even kick off until after they ambushed me, so what the fuck am I here for? I know I didn’t help. I lost it again, but I was only defending myself.

My brain won’t work in here. I can’t figure out what would get me out, how I can get back to Sarah. There must be a way out of here. There
must.

I don’t know how long I’ve been in here. The lights have been on the whole time, I’ve had no food or water. I hear the lock in the door. I sit up on the mattress, trying to be ready for whatever’s coming next.

It’s Saul.

He nods to the soldier guarding the door. ‘I’ll knock when I’m done.’

The door closes, and we’re alone.

He leans against the door.

‘Adam,’ he says, ‘how are you?’

‘Tired,’ I say.
Confused, angry, scared.
‘What day is it?’

‘Tuesday,’ he says. I must look blank because he adds, ‘The thirteenth. February.’

The twelfth, the day that guy got shot, seems like a year ago. And Saul’s number is staring me in the face now. 1622029. Three days to go. And I feel his final pain, like a punch to my guts. It’s excruciating, it’s obscene to be in that much agony. It makes me feel weak, breathless.

‘I want out of here,’ I say. ‘I want to get back to Sarah, to Mia. Why did you take me away from them? Why am I here? I don’t understand.’

He smiles cryptically. ‘That’s what you’re here for, Adam. To understand – and to help us understand your gift. We need your help.
I
need your help.’

He comes over to the mattress and squats down next to me. I don’t like him this close. I shift uncomfortably where I sit.

‘I don’t want to help if it means choosing who’s left to die,’ I say. ‘I can’t do that. It’s not right.’

‘You’ve got a very simplistic view of right and wrong, Adam. Life isn’t black and white. It’s full of difficult decisions. Sometimes everything’s the “wrong” choice – you have to choose the lesser of two evils.’

‘I don’t believe that. That’s twisted.’

He shakes his head. ‘You’re so young. How old are you?’

‘Eighteen.’

The smile fades from his face. ‘I can hardly remember being eighteen.’

He puffs his breath out, looks down at his feet.

‘If only you knew …’ he says. Then he turns and looks directly at me. I get the full force of his number and it makes me gasp. I want to look away but I can’t. He’s got me in his headlights. I feel the pain, only a couple of days away now, and I’m terrified. My heart’s racing. I don’t want him this close. I don’t want him in the room.

His number, shimmering. Shimmering like Mia’s …

Then, finally, I get it. It hits me with the full force of a sledgehammer.

Saul has someone else’s number. There’s no other explanation.

‘You asked if I wanted to know my number,’ he says softly, watching my face. ‘But I already know it.’

I stare at him. I can’t speak. The little muscles in his face are twitching, like the surface of his skin is alive. His black eyes are still burning into mine and deep inside them there’s a flicker of madness.

‘I’ve never told anyone,’ he says, then gives a little laugh. ‘Well, nobody I wasn’t just about to kill.’

The hairs on the back of my neck are standing up. Is he going to kill me? Is that what he’s saying?

He puts one hand on my shoulder, leans even closer. His breath is sour and there’s a bubble of spit in the corner of his mouth. I want to shrug him off, but I can’t move. I’m paralysed with fear.

‘I’ve been looking for you for a long time, Adam Dawson.’

‘Why?’ I ask the question, even though I don’t want to hear the answer. My voice sounds far away, tinny.

‘Because I want you to be my eyes,’ he says.

‘You what?’

‘I want to see what you see. I want to see numbers.’

‘But I thought … Don’t you know your own number?’ 

‘I do see them, Adam. But …’ He grits his teeth. ‘I only see them at the very last minute, the very last second.’ There’s an edge of anger in his voice, a hint of the frustration he’s bottling up inside. ‘At the moment when they leave one soul and just before they enter mine.’