February (2 page)

I sat back up to hear more laughter. The girl was laughing at me again!

‘You should see yourself!’ she said as I crawled away from the tank. ‘Believe me, it’s funny!’

I tried to stand up again and this time the girl grabbed my flailing right hand, with a surprisingly strong grip, and steadied me. As I balanced myself so I could stand without her help, one of my greasy sneakers skidded out from under me and down again I crashed.

The girl was still gripping my hand, so she came down too and fell awkwardly on top of me. At least that stopped her laughing.

She scrambled to her feet, and scrunched up her face in disgust. Her hands and clothes were covered in oil too.

‘Look what you’ve done!’ she yelled.

‘Just like a swamp monster,’ I jeered, ‘you should see
your
self!’

She looked down, unsuccessfully trying to rub the black muck off.

‘I’ve gotta get this off me,’ she said, turning and running towards a building behind the office where I’d been interrogated. I followed, squelching after her.

We were in some sort of laundry. The girl was washing her face over a big steel tub. A cracked mirror hung above the basin I was standing in front of and I was shocked to see my reflection: the whites of my eyes stared out of a messy black head, and oil crawled down my face in gluey streams and dripped onto the floor.

My heart rate started to slow down a little. I was alive, and I was out.

‘You’re not going to get very far looking like that,’ she warned, peering up at me with dark, smudged eyes. ‘You’d better be quick if you want to clean up, they’ll be back soon to fish your body out of the tank, and if they find you here instead of there, you’re not the only one that’ll be in trouble.’

She rushed around and kept looking past me towards the door. Although she had a pretty face, her eyes were cold and unsmiling. But, for some reason, she’d stuck around to save my life.

‘OK,’ I said, ‘but I have to grab my backpack, first.’

‘I’ve already helped enough. I’m getting out of here the second I’ve cleaned up. You’re on your own.’

I quickly washed some of the oil off my face. I knew I didn’t have long to get the answers I
needed but surely this stranger could tell me something …

‘What’s your story?’ I asked her. ‘What are you doing with Vulkan Sligo, and why did you help me?’

She wiped her face hurriedly with a towel. ‘You want to know why I helped you?’ she asked. Clearly she didn’t want to answer the first part of my question.

‘I helped because … I liked your piercings,’ she said.

‘You saved my life because of my
studs
?’ I quickly felt around to see if my fake studs were even still there. And then I remembered Gabbi’s Celtic ring and felt frantically for it on my hand. Relieved, I found it clinging on tight.

‘You got a problem with that?’ she threatened. ‘What does it matter, anyway? You’re alive, aren’t ya? Isn’t that enough?’

This girl was unbelievable.

‘You’d better hurry up if you want to
stay
alive,’ she added. ‘I’m serious, Sligo will be back any minute, and if he sees me—’ she paused and slung her bag over her shoulder, ‘he’ll know it was me who got you out. We can’t let that happen. He can’t even find out that I
knew
you were in the tank.’

‘I get it,’ I said. She didn’t need to warn me.
I knew all about danger. Sligo had just left me to drown. I knew what he was capable of. ‘But first we need to get back into the office to grab my bag.’

The girl brushed down her damp skirt. ‘
We
? I’m sorry, but like I just said, I don’t have time. I don’t want to end up in the oil tank like you. I don’t think I’d have anyone coming to
my
rescue.’

She grabbed her scarf from the basin and headed for the door.

‘Wait! Who are you? Why did you help me?’

She pushed past me on her way out, slowing briefly at the doorway. ‘Look, I can wait a few minutes for you down the road. But it’s too dangerous for me to hang around here any longer. If you do get away before Sligo comes back, don’t go through the main entrance; use the small gate in the back corner of the car yard.’ She looked at her watch then started running, turning briefly to yell back, ‘I’m only waiting a few minutes, got it?’

‘But my bag,’ I shouted, ‘the office is locked!’

Her voice drifted back. ‘There’s a spare key on top of the window frame!’

I ran around to the stairs in front of the office, leaving dark, wet footprints behind me. I hurried to the verandah and stretched up, feeling along the top of the window frame to my right.

Nothing.

There was the sound of an approaching car. It had to be Sligo or his thugs coming back to collect my body.

I launched up towards the top of the left window frame and my scrabbling fingers finally lucked onto a key. I almost dropped it—I was still slipping everywhere—but somehow I managed to unlock the door. My backpack was exactly where I’d seen it last—shoved in the bin. I lunged and snatched it, and in one move was outside again.

The sound of the approaching car had stopped. The yard looked deserted. Maybe it hadn’t been Sligo coming back after all.

I kicked off my oil-drenched jeans and pulled on another pair from my bag, struggling to drag them over my wet skin. I threw on my hoodie and began running, hoping this wasn’t the kind of place that had bloodthirsty dogs prowling around.

A powerful, automatic light suddenly flooded the area. I swung around and realised that I was
standing, startled stiff, in headlights! The car
was
right there behind me!

I started running again. Brilliant headlights shifted and followed me as the car drove further into the yard.

Two men jumped out and came after me on foot. I bolted away, counting on finding the gate that the girl told me to use. I kept low as I scrambled over rusty car parts, engines and other bits of machinery until finally I spotted the gate in the wire fence.

I broke cover and made a run for it.

The thugs shouted and thundered behind me. I put my head down and drove my legs as hard as I could.

When I’d made it a few hundred metres from the gate, I slowed down a little, scanning the street for the girl. She suddenly emerged from the bushes.

‘Run!’ I yelled. ‘They’re coming!’

Without a word she joined me and we both pounded along the road together, turning up and down streets without even thinking—anything to get as far away as possible from that place. Away from Sligo. Away from the oil tank. Away from danger.

Eventually the sound of our pursuers dropped off and we stopped running. I leaned heavily against a brick fence, trying to catch my breath. The girl had also stopped and was panting nearby. She looked down at the palms of her hands and I noticed, under the thin stream of street light, that they were red, swollen and blistered. She must have hurt them turning off the oil.

She suddenly looked up and caught me staring at her hands.

‘And you haven’t even said thanks,’ she snapped.

‘Believe me,’ I pleaded. ‘I’m grateful. Thanks … I don’t even know your name.’

She ignored me and started walking off. She
had
saved my life, so if she wanted silence I’d let her have it. For now.

We loped along together, and I hoped we’d put enough distance between us and the Slug for the time being. I was sweating from the heat of the night and all of that hard running. What a life.

‘I know
your
name,’ she suddenly said, raising her eyes and shifting her embroidered shoulder bag from one side to the other. ‘Everyone in the city knows your name. Sligo certainly does.’

Closer up I could see green-gold flecks in her dark eyes. I also noticed that her wild and wavy hair had little sparkles in it.

‘I know,’ I said. But what did she mean by that? Sligo didn’t seem the sort of guy who’d be interested in a teenage fugitive, and there was only one reason why he’d be interested in me—somehow, he must have known something about my dad’s life-changing discovery. Sligo already knew about the angel, the drawings, a jewel and the Riddle. Maybe something had been leaked to him from the conference in Ireland.