Noughts and Crosses (43 page)

Stop weeping . . . Just stop . . .

But I couldn’t. More tears for the impossible. My sandals were on the wrong feet. I didn’t know what I was doing. I kicked them off and tried again, still weeping.

‘
Sephy, please . . .
’

Callum tried to put his arms around me. I pushed him away. He pulled me toward him again, which just made me cry harder and push against him more frantically.

The door of my prison cell was flung open and in ran Jude and Morgan, only to stop abruptly when they saw Callum and me together on the bed. Callum leapt up, but it was too late.

Stop crying . . . If only I could stop crying . . .

It’s not what you’re thinking . . . It’s exactly what you’re thinking . . . Someone say something. Anything.

Nothing.

‘What’s happened?’ I asked at last.

‘You tell us,’ Jude said with quiet menace.

He kept looking from me to Sephy and back again.

‘Where’s Leila?’

‘Arrested,’ Morgan replied.

‘Where’s Pete?’

‘Dead,’ said Jude. ‘They had undercover police everywhere. They must’ve been monitoring every phone box in town. Either that or they knew exactly where we’d be. Morgan and I changed our locations at the last moment otherwise they might’ve captured us too. We were lucky to escape in one piece.’ Jude looked at Sephy, his face sombre. ‘I thought we could take the girl and move out of this town to somewhere safer, but now . . .’

He turned to me, the rest of his sentence clearly spoken but unsaid.

What have I done? Sephy, forgive me. I’ve killed us both
.

‘I’ll pack up all our equipment . . .’ I said.

‘I don’t think so,’ Jude replied. ‘Morgan, go and pack up everything essential. Leave the rest. We’ve got to get out of here.’

Morgan left without a word.

‘Why is she crying?’ Jude indicated Sephy.

My face began to burn. I kept my mouth shut.

‘And her jumper is inside out.’

Jude and I glared at each other. What was I meant to say to that? Nothing. Jude had already made up his mind what had happened in his absence.

‘You stupid, stupid berk. You’ve put a noose around all our necks.’ Jude grabbed me by my T-shirt. ‘We could’ve got what we wanted and let her go, in spite of what Andrew Dorn said. They’d never have found us.’ He punctuated each half-sentence by backhanding me around the face. ‘But not now. You raped her and now it’s her or us. You stupid, stupid . . .’

I clenched my fists and the next thing I knew Jude was flat on his back with blood trickling down from his nose.

‘Don’t you ever hit me again as long as you live,’ I hissed at him.

He sprang up and swung at me. I blocked his arm easily and hit him again. And then we were at it. A vicious, scrappy brawl, with each of us determined to hurt the other more than we were hurting. Something rushed by me but I barely noticed.

‘Stop her! Stop!’ Jude pushed me away. ‘She’s escaping. Get her.’

We both sprung to our feet. I looked around, confused. Where was Sephy? I looked towards the open door and realized. Jude and I both took off after her. We raced out of the front door.

‘Morgan! Round here!’ Jude yelled. ‘She’s escaped.’

I looked around but I couldn’t see her. It was nighttime now, almost midnight, but we had a full moon on our side and there were no clouds, so that was something.

‘There she is!’ Morgan pointed over to the left towards the trees.

I turned, just in time to see Sephy disappear into the darkness of the wood. All three of us chased after her. I had to find her before the others. I needed to find her.

God help me if I didn’t.

Run, Sephy. Just keep running
.

The shadows were long and ominously silent all around me. I ran round tree-trunk after tree-trunk, the moonlight dappling through the branches and leaves above me.

And still I ran. Whatever happened I couldn’t let them catch me. Something sharp dug into my right foot. I cried out, biting my lip a moment later – but too late.

‘Over there!’ A voice cried out from behind me. Too close behind me.

I darted to the right. Where was I? I couldn’t tell. I couldn’t see where I was going. It was just – away.

I could hear leaves and bracken crunching behind me. Getting closer.

Hide, Sephy!

I made out the outline of some undergrowth between a clump of trees. For a second, I considered hiding in it but I didn’t want to have to lie down. If I did that and I was discovered, I’d never get away in time. Footsteps approaching. I made for the nearest, darkest tree and hid behind its trunk. I leaned back against it, trying to merge with it, desperate to disappear.

Please, God . . .

The footsteps slowed then stopped. And they were so close. I stopped breathing. I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t dare.
Please, God . . .

‘Persephone, I know you can hear me . . .’ Jude’s voice. ‘We’re kilometres from anywhere here. You’ll wander around this forest for days without seeing another soul. With no food. No water. Come out now and we won’t harm you – I promise.’

Silence. Moments later, a muffled curse fractured the silence. I drew a hasty breath before my lungs could burst and held it. The night wind rustled through the leaves all around, making them sound like they were whispering, commenting on what was happening on the ground below them. I opened my mouth and exhaled softly, feeling the warm air dance across my lips, terrified that what I could feel the others would hear. I closed my eyes.

Please, please God . . .

‘Sephy, come out now and nothing will happen to you.’ Jude’s voice seemed further away.

Or was that just wishful thinking.

‘But if you don’t show yourself and we find you . . .’ The threat hung in the air like the very darkness around me.

Footsteps sounded, getting further away. I opened my eyes, my feet already moving to head in the opposite direction only to stop abruptly. I gasped. Callum stood right in front of me, less than a metre away. And the fear I felt then was like a moment spent dying.

‘Callum . . .’ I breathed.

‘What was that?’ A voice I hadn’t heard before asked.

Callum put his finger to his lips.

‘It’s only me,’ he called out. ‘I tripped.’

‘We’ve got to find her.’ The other man’s voice was getting closer.

‘
I SEE HER
!’ Callum yelled suddenly.

I shook my head, my eyes pleading with him, my heart about to crack.

‘She’s trying to double back on us. She must be heading back for the cabin,’ Callum shouted out.

‘Blast!’

The immediate sound of running. Away from me. Away from us. Callum stepped towards me. He took my unresisting hands in his. He looked up.

‘D’you see Orion’s Belt?’ he said softly.

I looked up and nodded.

‘Always keep it immediately behind you. When you reach the road, turn left on to it and keep going.’

‘Callum . . .’

‘Just go, Sephy.’ He let go of my hands and turned away.

‘Callum, we have to talk . . .’

‘No. Just go.’ He turned away again.

‘Callum . . .’ And then I remembered what had been bothering me about the stranger since I’d first seen him. I grabbed Callum’s hand. ‘Wait. That man with the blond pony-tail, the one who came in with you to see me?’

‘What about him?’

‘He works for my father. I saw him a couple of years ago at our house.’

‘You’re sure?’ Callum frowned.

‘Yes. I’m positive. It was him. He works for Dad. He wore the same boots with the silver chains. I recognized them. It’s definitely him.’

‘Thanks.’ He pulled away from me and a moment later he’d melted into the shadows. I tried to train my eyes to see him but he’d gone. I turned and ran.

Reporters surrounded Kamal Hadley. And there were so many cameras flashing around him that it looked like a firework display. Kamal Hadley raised his hands and immediately the clamour around him died down. The firework display didn’t.

‘I . . . I will make a short statement and t-that’s it.’ Kamal Hadley wiped the back of his hand across his cheeks before continuing. ‘My daughter is still unconscious after being found this morning. Her doctors describe her condition as critical but stable. The police are present and will interview her the moment she regains consciousness. Acting on information received, we captured one of the kidnappers and another opened fire on the police and was killed as a result. No ransom was paid. That’s all I’d like to say at this moment.’

‘How many kidnappers were there?’

‘Where was your daughter held during her ordeal?’

‘What are the extent of her injuries?’

Kamal Hadley turned without another word and headed back inside the hospital. Jude pressed the mute button on the TV remote control just as the newsreader’s
face appeared on screen. I slumped back in my chair, dog-tired. We were hundreds of kilometres away from the cabin in the woods, having got out of there in a hurry once it became clear that we’d lost Sephy. We were holed up in one room in a seedy bed-and-breakfast hotel, with twin beds for Jude and Morgan and a sleeping bag for me. The walls looked like they hadn’t seen a lick of paint in at least three generations and the windows and fittings were caked with grease and grime. There was a carpet on the floor which I think had a pattern once, a long time ago, but it was so worn it was impossible to tell what the pattern might’ve been or even its original colour. Not that I had much time to dwell on our surroundings. Morgan and Jude were all too ready to beat the crap out of me – at the very least – until I told them what I’d learnt about Andrew Dorn.

‘Where did you get this information from?’ Jude asked.

‘Sephy,’ I replied.

‘And it never occurred to you that she could be lying.’

‘She wasn’t.’

‘How can you be so sure?’

‘Because I know her. If she says she saw Andrew Dorn with her dad then she did. Besides, she volunteered the information.’

‘Because she wanted us to be paranoid about each other,’ Morgan said scornfully. ‘Andrew Dorn isn’t a traitor. He’s the General’s second-in-command for God’s sake!’