The Burning (17 page)

Rachel could feel the movement under her skin, as Adam prodded and pushed at whatever had been implanted in her back, and in his own. The skin was inflamed where he had tried to squeeze the lump to the surface, and a minuscule scar, where the incision had originally been made, had begun to pucker angrily.

Adam carefully adjusted the bedside light, as if getting more light to shine on the bump might suddenly make it disappear. His hand shook. He did not need telling that whatever Rachel was about to go through would soon be his to endure in turn.

“I can’t, Rach,” Adam said, finally. “It’s too deep. The pain would kill you.”

“I don’t care about the pain,” Rachel said, sounding braver than she felt. “Unless we cut these things out, they’re going to be on our tails all the time. Just do it!”

Adam shook his head. “I can’t believe Laura would just let them microchip us like dogs.” He sighed deeply and took out the disposable razor.

On the other side of the room, Morag reached for her brother’s hand.

Adam snapped open the body of the cheap plastic razor and removed the blade. He waved it through the flame of a candle to sterilize it, then laid it on the pillowcase next to a teaspoon, a pair of tweezers from Rachel’s wash-bag and a complimentary sewing kit from the hotel. He’d seen enough hospital dramas to know the procedure, but had no idea whether he could actually carry it out. He hesitated.

“Get on with it!” Rachel said.

Adam leant over his sister’s back. He wiped the reddened area with the damp tissue.

“Get ready…”

Rachel’s body tensed and her back arched instinctively
as she felt the first touch of the razor blade.

“You OK?” Adam said, pulling back his arm. Rachel nodded and gripped the pillow.

Adam took the flimsy blade between his fingers again and drew it across the raised bump on his sister’s back. A thin red line of bright blood flowered on the surface of her skin.

Rachel screamed before gritting her teeth and trying to suck back the coppery-tasting spit flooding her mouth. She forced her face hard into the pillow, muffing her cries. “It hurts, it hurts…”

Adam examined the wound. He had only just broken the surface and knew he would need to cut much deeper. The line of blood thickened along the incision and a trickle of deep red began to run down on to Rachel’s ribs. Feeling his sister’s pain, Adam began to cry.

“I can’t,” he said.

“You’ve got to.” Rachel’s voice was muffled by the pillow. “Come on!” She grabbed at the corner of the sheet and stuffed it into her mouth. She bit down hard to stifle her cries, then nodded for Adam to continue the torture.

Adam’s hand trembled and tears blurred his vision as the thin blade cut once again into the bloody mess smeared across Rachel’s back. Rachel bucked and snorted with the pain as more blood pulsed to the surface.

“Stop!” Morag squealed, jumping up from the bed, tears streaking her face. “I want to do something…”

Adam wiped the tears from his eyes with the back of his
hand, leaving a bloody stripe on his cheek. He looked at the little Scottish girl. He was willing to listen to anyone, to do anything that might get him out of this nightmare.

“I might be able to help,” Morag said. “Sometimes when Duncan’s poorly or has a sore knee, I talk to him and it makes it better.”

Rachel raised her tear-stained face from the pillow and looked at the little girl’s round face. She tried to summon a smile. “Talk to me,” she said.

Morag knelt at the head of the bed and took Rachel’s wet face between her chubby hands. Rachel was transfixed by the huge, ice-blue eyes and the halo of curls that glowed in the bedside light.

“I’m going to tell you a story.” Morag’s voice was soft and sweet-sounding. “We are going to a beautiful place far away where the sun is always shining and the sky is always blue and the sea is as green as the grass. We are flying there now, up through the air into the clear, blue sky…”

Rachel felt calmer suddenly as the sing-song voice lulled her, and her mind became full of the deep-blue sky.

“We are flying higher and higher until the earth is way down below, like a ping-pong ball … and we’re getting closer to the beautiful place where the sand is hot and the sea is as warm as a bath … and now we’re there, lying on that sand, feeling the sun warm our bodies, and as each wave laps over us, it washes it away the pain, and we go deeper … and deeper.”

Rachel sighed and felt the warmth creep through her bones, closing her eyes as the warm sea washed it all away.

As she went deeper … and deeper…

Adam removed the blade from the wound.

He held back the thin layer of flesh and fat with the teaspoon and inserted the tweezers. As Morag’s sing-song voice continued and Rachel’s body relaxed, he was himself lulled into an altered state; he felt a strength that guided his hand and focused his mind as the metal dug deep into his sister’s back.

“Got it!” he said. He pulled out a small, metal cylinder, the size of a headache capsule, and dropped it with a “
clink”
into the glass that Duncan held out for him. “It’s so
small
…”

Duncan looked away suddenly and smiled. “Michael!” he said.

Adam turned to see that Gabriel was standing silently in the doorway. Morag looked up too, taking her eyes from Rachel’s face and dragging her thoughts from her story.

From somewhere a million miles away, where she had been floating on a calm sea, Rachel came racing back to reality. The vision of the beach and the warm ocean was torn away from her subconscious, vanishing as she came hurtling back towards earth: down, down towards the planet, the continents coming closer, now countries, towns, streets…

Rachel hit the bed with a crash.

She opened her eyes and cried out in agony, instantly
able to feel the open gash in her back, the air moving against her exposed, raw flesh. As she tried to raise her head from the pillow a jagged stab of pain tore through her like a hot knife. She turned her head to one side and was violently sick.

Then she passed out.

“W
here
were
you?” Rachel asked.

Gabriel said nothing, continuing to stare off into space, deep in thought, as he had been for most of the time since he’d returned, since he’d been told about the tracking devices that had been implanted back at the Hope Project.

Morag finished applying the makeshift bandage to Adam’s back and nodded as she gazed down at her handiwork. “There,” she said. “All nice and neat. Rachel made a nice job of it. Like a proper surgeon.”

Adam shrugged, wincing a little as the wad of tissue tightened against his skin. “Yeah, well, it was more difficult for me. I had to go first.”

Rachel had cut out the tracking device from her brother’s back as soon as she had been able to stand. Morag once again provided the necessary pain relief with the soothing power of her voice. Now, the two microtransmitters lay on the bedside table; tiny capsules spattered with red,
next to the blood-stained razor blade.

Rachel had recovered quickly from her operation and the pain had eased almost as soon as Gabriel had returned. As soon as he’d handed the Triskellion back to her. She’d shoved the amulet deep into her backpack, surprised and concerned at the enormous wave of relief she had felt flooding through her. She had felt jittery without it – vulnerable – and now the realization that she was so connected to this ancient piece of metal, so
dependent
upon it, was starting to scare her.

She’d seen what it had done to others.

“Gabriel?” Rachel waited until she had eye contact. “I asked where you were.”

“I had something to do,” he said. “I’m sorry if I
forgot
to ask permission.”

“Yeah, well, we really could have done with you here, you know?”

“It was important.”

“Why did you take the Triskellion?”

Gabriel’s eyes narrowed to bright filaments of green. “It doesn’t belong to you. You do
know
that?”

“I just asked.”

“I needed to … get a signal.”

“Like a cellphone?” Adam asked.

Gabriel smiled, the anger seemingly gone as quickly as it had arrived.

“Maybe you
should
have a mobile phone,” Morag said.
“Then we could get hold of you when you’re not around.”

The smile broadened. “Never really seen the need for one.”

“It’s not a bad idea,” Adam said. “We should all get them, in case we’re ever split up.”

Adam and Rachel’s own phones had been taken away from them when they’d first arrived at the Hope Project. When Adam had asked, Laura had explained that they could interfere with the delicate equipment in the labs. He’d believed her, of course. They had both believed all sorts of things back then.

He glanced across at Rachel and she read his thoughts. “One of the
smaller
lies,” she said.

“No phones,” Gabriel said. He pointed to where the twin transmitters were lying. “If they can do
that
, don’t you think they’d be able to track us through our phone calls?”

Morag and Duncan nodded thoughtfully.

“I guess so,” Adam said.

“Besides,” Gabriel said, “we have our own way of keeping in touch.”

“I
tried
,” Rachel said. “I … reached out, tried to make contact, but you weren’t there.” Gabriel looked awkward, as though he were searching for the words to explain things in a way that Rachel would understand. “Because you were using the Triskellion, right?” she continued.

“I was … somewhere else.”

“I guess the line was busy,” Adam said.

Gabriel nodded. “Kind of.”

Rachel flopped down on to the bed, exasperated. She knew it was as much of an explanation as she was likely to get. She pointed at the bedside table. “What are we going to do with those?”

“I presume they’re still transmitting,” Adam said.

“Oh yes.” Gabriel walked across and looked down at the tracking devices, grinning like a naughty schoolboy who’s just come up with a great idea for a prank. “I’m sure they are.” He looked up as a foghorn sounded somewhere out in the Channel, then turned round, suddenly serious. “Right, we need to get moving.”

“What?” Rachel sat up. “It’s the middle of the night.”

“We haven’t had any sleep,” Morag said.

Gabriel picked up the two tiny capsules, held them out towards Rachel. “They know we’re here. We have to go now!”

Morag and Duncan immediately began to pack, throwing their belongings into their suitcases. Grudgingly, Adam did the same, but Rachel did not move. She sat where she was, staring at the transmitters between Gabriel’s fingers.

“Maybe they’re not really after us,” she said. Gabriel said nothing, waiting. “Maybe they just want to see where we’re going.”

Gabriel stared at Rachel for a moment. Her suggestion had clearly hit home. “I think you might be right,” he said.

“I mean … don’t you think we escaped a bit
too
easily?”
she asked. “What if they
let
us walk out of there?”

For half a minute Gabriel said nothing, but Rachel could see his mind was racing, as if he was reconsidering their options. And whatever conclusion he was reaching was not one he had entirely bargained for.

Adam looked up from his packing. “Where
are
we going anyway?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Gabriel said. “Either way we need to go.”

Rachel began to pack away her things, but kept one eye on Gabriel, as frightened by his uncertainty as anything else. Whatever her doubts had been, he had always seemed so … sure of everything. Now he looked disturbed. There was a sadness too that she was reluctant to acknowledge, but which gnawed at her as she thought about where he had disappeared to. Whatever it was that had been so important.

She looked across at Adam and sensed that he felt the same: they had both, finally, realized that Gabriel was not
theirs
.

Mr Cheung’s kitchen was crowded, but remarkably quiet. There had been a different atmosphere throughout the Hope Project complex since the children had escaped. There was still plenty to do, of course, but it was as though everyone was waiting for something to happen. For the next stage of the operation to begin.

Laura Sullivan carried her plate across to a corner table and sat down opposite Kate Newman. For five minutes they
sat in virtual silence, while all around them lab technicians, security staff and archaeological assistants ate their breakfasts and murmured to one another. Conversations were now a little easier, since there was no longer a need for dark glasses or inhibitors.

Mr Cheung bustled across to the table and stood at Kate’s shoulder. He pointed down to the plate of untouched scrambled eggs in front of her. “Something you don’t like?”

Kate Newman said nothing, waiting for Mr Cheung to go away.

“You should eat something,” Laura said. “You’ll feel better.”

“Will I?”

“The drugs were for your own good, Kate. To help with the depression, to keep you calm.”

Kate looked straight past Laura; her eyes everywhere. Anything but calm.

Laura pushed cereal around her bowl. “Why don’t you want to talk to me?” She waited, but got no reaction. “I understand how you feel, you know.”