Every Second Counts (34 page)

The house was still so silent and there was something soothing about being here, in Nat’s old room. Where was he? Why wasn’t he here? I closed my eyes, exhaustion overcoming me.

There was no way I could sleep.

I would just rest my eyes for a moment.

The train stopped. I could almost feel the adrenalin pumping through my veins, pushing back the weakness that threatened to creep through my limbs. My vision was still blurry
but I could see the door, then the platform, then the stairs. I raced up to ground level. As I tore out of the tube station I glanced down at the countdown.

02:16

02:15

02:14

Only two minutes until the bomb went off. I had no phone, no way of warning them. All I could do was run.

I pounded along the street, fighting the weakness that dragged at my lungs and filled my bones with lead. I saw home in my mind’s eye: Mum and Dad and Jas talking in the kitchen. And
Charlie, smiling, her beautiful eyes intent on mine.

01:33

01:32

01:31

I pushed myself on. On to my own street. My house was just a few doors away. Another few steps and I saw the path. The door.

I ran up and hammered on the wood, pressing the doorbell at the same time.

‘Hey!’ I yelled. ‘Mum! Dad! Charlie!’

00:59

00:58

00:57

There was less than a minute. I yelled out again. Where
were
they?

And then the door opened. Charlie was standing there, dark shadows under her eyes. Her mouth rounded into a shocked ‘oh’ as she saw me.

‘Get out of the house!’ I shouted, pushing past her and into the hall. ‘There’s a bomb in here. ‘Out! All of you, out!’

Nat stumbled along the hall, almost tripping over the shoes stacked by the living-room door. His mother appeared at the top of the stairs.

‘Nat? Is that you?’ she said.

‘Get out!’ Nat spun around, waving his arms wildly. His eyes squinted up the stairs as if he was straining to see her.

‘Nat, what is it?’ His dad appeared next to his mum.

Nat held out a piece of black plastic. ‘There’s a bomb. No time.
Hurry.
Get out!’

I raced up beside him. Over his shoulder I could see that the black plastic was a watch. It showed a countdown.

00:40

00:39

00:38

I gasped, the full horror hitting me. Nat sagged against the wall. He looked completely spent. I glanced up the stairs. Nat’s mum was standing, frozen to the spot. His dad wide-eyed beside
her.

‘Get Jas,’ I ordered. ‘Bring her down. Outside.’

Nat’s parents stared down at me, shell-shocked.

‘
Move!
’ I yelled. I grabbed the watch from Nat’s hand and raced up the stairs.

Nat’s mum burst into tears. ‘I don’t—’

I shoved her towards the stairs. ‘Get out of the house. Get Nat out.’ Without waiting to see if she moved, I gripped Nat’s dad’s arm and forced him towards Jas’s
room.

‘Come on!’ I ordered.

00:29

00:28

00:27

Nat’s dad picked his daughter up from the bed and rushed to the stairs. Down in the hall, Nat looked barely conscious. His mum was steering him to the front door. Mr Holloway was halfway
down the stairs now. They were going to make it.

As I took a step towards the stairs, I glanced at the countdown again.

00:18

00:17

00:16

Then I remembered the last vial of antidote in Nat’s bedroom, lying where I’d left it on the bed.

Nat needed that antidote. Needed it badly. He might die before we could get any more.

I turned and raced into his bedroom. Blood thundered in my ears. I grabbed the vial. Tore back to the stairs.

‘Charlie!’ Nat’s cry came from outside the house. ‘Hurry!’ I pounded down the stairs.

00:09

00:08

00:07

I was going to make it.

00:05

00:04

00:03

Nat was waiting at the front door. I shoved the vial into his hand. Pushed him out, on to the path.

BOOM!

The ground shook underneath me. The roar filled my ears. Darkness and stone slammed me down. The world crashed around me.

And above the explosion, Nat’s yell.

‘
Charlie!
’

Debris fell everywhere. Charlie disappeared beneath falling brick. A hand reached out and pulled me back, away from the house. I turned. It was Dad, his face filled with
horror.

I stumbled back, to where Mum and Jas were waiting. Jas was awake and leaning against Mum, her hands over her mouth. The four of us watched through an eternity of seconds as our home collapsed
in front of our eyes.

Dust settled on to the heap of rubble where the house had once stood. Our home was now just bricks and mortar and bits of twisted metal and burnt plastic. The sight seared itself into my vision.
Then darkness blurred the scene in front of me.

‘Charlie!’ I wrenched myself away from Dad, stumbling towards the spot where she had been standing.

‘Nat!’ I heard Mum’s desperate shriek but I barely registered it.

‘Charlie!’ I yelled. ‘
Charlie!’

Dad rushed up beside me. ‘No.’ He grabbed my arm. ‘It’s not safe, Nat.’

‘Get off me.’ I shook his arm away, fury and fear swilling in my guts. ‘We have to find her.’

As I pulled at the pile of rubble in front of me I registered that there was something in my hand. The thing Charlie had pushed at me, before the house had fallen. I glanced down. It was a small
plastic tube.

‘It’s the antidote,’ Dad said.

I stared at it in horror. Charlie must have wasted precious seconds to fetch this.

For me.

Numbly, I snapped off the top and drank the liquid. It was sour, with a sweet overlay. Like cough medicine I’d once had.

I reached again for the rubble.

‘It’s no good,’ Dad said. He put his hand on my arm. ‘Nat, I’m so sorry.’

I looked at him blankly, then gazed over my shoulder. Mum and Jas were still huddled together on the pavement. Around them, our neighbours were emerging on to the street. Shouts filled the
air.

I turned back to the fallen masonry.

‘She could be alive.’ I shook Dad’s hand off and tugged a large piece of brick from the pile. ‘She was right under the door frame, it could have protected her.’

I knew as I said the words, that there was only the slimmest of chances that Charlie could have survived the house collapse, but it was enough. I pulled away another piece of stone. Then
another.

‘Nat, please.’ Dad sounded desperate.

‘I have to find her,’ I insisted.

‘She couldn’t have survived that,’ Dad said softly. ‘No one could.’

‘People
do
.
Charlie
could
,’
I persisted. ‘Charlie could survive anything.’

I pulled at another piece of brick.

‘Nat, for pity’s sake!’ Mum was here now, Jas still beside her, pale and terrified.

Ignoring them all, I pulled at the stones. A wave of nausea washed over me. I bent over, breathing deeply, willing the sick feeling to pass. How much time had passed? If Charlie was under here,
how much breathable air would she have left?

I straightened up and redoubled my efforts.

My parents stood, helplessly on either side of me.

‘Charlie!’ I yelled. ‘
Charlie!
’

No reply. Tears filled my eyes. I tugged at another, larger piece of rubble. It fell, narrowly missing my feet. And suddenly Jas was beside me, pulling at bricks, her small hands grabbing and
dragging stones off the pile.

‘Jas?’ Mum said weakly.

‘Come on.’ Dad strode forward, put his arms around a huge piece of masonry and hurled it to the path beneath.

I moved another stone. ‘Charlie!’ I yelled.

Now Mum joined in. The four of us worked together. Behind us, I could hear voices rising, shouts and demands to ring the fire brigade. Gritting my teeth, I worked on.

‘
Charlie!
’ I yelled into the silence.

And then, through the dust and the stones came a small, muffled cry.

‘Nat?’

I gasped, hauled another brick out of the way, just as Dad moved a large bit of concrete. A tiny gap appeared in the rubble.

I leaned in close. ‘Charlie, are you alright?’

No reply. My heart thudded.

I pulled at more bricks. Beside me Mum and Dad and Jas worked furiously.

After a few seconds the hole in the stones was large enough for me fit my hand through. As sirens sounded, faint, in the background, I reached inside.

‘Charlie?’ I shouted. ‘Can you see my hand?’

Still silence.

‘
Charlie?
’ Fear filled me, a sick, terror worse than any I had ever known.

‘
Charlie?
’

And then I felt Charlie’s warm fingers, linking through my own. Her whisper was barely audible.

‘Don’t let go,’ she said softly.

I leaned in close, my mouth right over the hole in the rubble. ‘I’m not letting go,’ I said. ‘I love you. I’m not ever letting go.’

Two hours had passed since Nat, his family and the fire service had pulled me out of the rubble. Apart from a few cuts and bruises, I was remarkably unharmed. It had been scary
with the brick all around me and the dust in my nostrils and the air close and hot, but the door frame I’d been standing under had kept the weight of the fall from crushing me, and Nat had
been there so quickly and I’d been rescued so fast that the whole thing now felt like a bad dream.

All except for the touch of Nat’s fingers and his soft whisper.

I’m not ever letting go.

Those words slid, deliciously, around my brain. Nat and I hadn’t spoken about them since we’d been brought, in an ambulance, to the hospital. But something had shifted between us. I
knew we were tight, now. That no one could separate us.

For the first time since we’d been together I truly felt safe. Which was kind of crazy, since it was pretty obvious that the hospital staff would soon realise we were fugitives and send
for the police. And although Riley had been arrested, that didn’t mean we were in the clear yet.

Nat – who had clearly spent the past few hours running on adrenalin – was in worse shape than I was, almost collapsing as we walked to the ambulance. However, now the antidote
he’d drunk had started to take hold. His strength was returning and I was hoping that soon we would be able to leave.

We sat, side by side, on a hospital trolley. A doctor had examined us both and Nat’s mum had just left. She was in a total state, flitting between us and Jas, who was being checked over in
another cubicle. Nat’s dad was at the police station, making sure that Lucas and Parveen were given the antidote too. The hospital had notices up, urging anyone experiencing symptoms of the
virus to contact their doctor or come to A&E for the serum that would cure them. At least they had access to plenty of stocks now I’d told the hospital staff about the boxes stored at the
Silvercross Institute.

Through the curtains we could see the TV over the nurses’ station. The words ‘breaking news’ flashed on to the screen, then a picture of Roman Riley. The newsreader was
explaining, in hushed, horrified tones, that a film had been broadcast at this evening’s rally allegedly showing Riley in the act of murdering an unknown man.

At this, Nat and I glanced at each other.

The newsreader went on, explaining that police were now examining the evidence, that the body of a man had been found at Riley’s house, identified as the figure in the video, and that
Riley was under arrest for his murder. A moment later, he added that politicians and others were coming forward to speak out against Riley and – most shockingly of all – that Riley had
himself organised the development and release of both the Qilota virus and its antidote, which was at present being administered to the scores of people already believed to be showing signs of
infection.

‘It’s all out in the open,’ I said, a huge wave of relief washing over me. ‘We did it, we showed people what Riley was really like. Nobody will vote for him now. Lucas
and Parveen will be released. And we’ll be cleared of everything.’

Nat looked sceptical. ‘Hopefully,’ he said. ‘It depends what Riley admits to. If he doesn’t confess to everything, some people will see him as a martyr.’ He pointed
at the screen. ‘Look, there’s Mr Latimer.’

Charlie and I watched the screen as Latimer announced he had a statement he wanted to read. His face was badly bruised but relief shone from his eyes.

‘I was beaten and my son and I were held captive by Riley for hours earlier,’ Latimer explained calmly. ‘Worse, Riley was prepared to murder scores of people and risk the
deaths of thousands more in order to gain power. If it wasn’t for the actions of a few brave souls who risked their lives to expose him, many of those under threat would have died.’

‘They’ll have to release Lucas and Parveen now,’ Charlie whispered.

‘Too many people stood by while Riley committed crime after crime, for far too long,’ Latimer went on. ‘He was allowed to make contact with terrorists who had developed illegal
bio-weapons and, through his own secret army of young recruits, set about staging bomb blasts around the capital and beyond.’

‘See?’ Charlie nudged me. ‘The truth’s coming out now.’

‘Some of it will,’ I said with a sigh. ‘And some things will never be known.’

I looked at Nat. ‘We’ll be okay, won’t we?’ I hesitated, wondering what ‘being okay’ would mean for me. Nat had his family, but I belonged
nowhere. The thought of going back to live with Uncle Brian and Aunt Gail appealed to me as little as the prospect of leaving London to stay in Aunt Karen’s spare room again.

Nat squeezed my hand. ‘We’ll be okay,’ he said. ‘I won’t let us not be.’

Soon after that, the police came and we were taken away, separately, for questioning. I told the officer who interviewed me everything that had happened.