“It’s OK,” I say. “I’ll go with them. I’m sorry, Jonah. I didn’t mean to—”

Jonah’s voice softens. “It’s all right, lad. We’ll get through this.”

Benedict and Abi both give me questioning stares.

“Kyle?” Benedict says. “Are you sure?”

I nod, weakly.

“We need a moment to think about this,” Benedict says to Jonah.

But he doesn’t say it with any conviction. His decision is made, this part is just about making sure he can justify it to the others afterwards. The new kid moves closer, menacing. The long, thin kitchen knife that he used to stab Vikram glints in his hand. He’s a step away from Marcus’s line now. If they set off their trap, he’d probably be caught in it, maybe injured, maybe enough that we could get the better of him.

But in the same moment, Jonah steps forward to get a closer look at Vikram. Vikram lets out a small, terrified whimper in response. He tries to squirm away but Jonah grabs his hand and prises his fingers roughly away from his throat.

“Be careful,” Abi cries.

Woodlice pour from the wound in a tiny, silent, panicky swarm. Woodlice. Ants. Spiders. A millipede wriggles from under Vikram’s skin and drops on to the floor. Jonah seems mildly disgusted. He brushes a few stray woodlice from his hand.

“Yeah, you’ll want to keep pressure on that,” he says.

He heads over to the equipment. He’s a long way out of the kill zone now. “What is this place? A lab, right? That’ll explain all the fancy equipment.” Jonah squints into the microscope. “They were some pretty impressive pyrotechnics back there. Who’s the explosives wizard?”

“Be careful with that,” Marcus says.

Jonah flashes him a murderous look. All the pretence has gone now, the old Jonah is back. Cold, predatory. Benedict sees it as well.

“Last chance,” Jonah warns.

Benedict sighs regretfully. “OK. You win. Take the boy and go.”

I hold my breath, panic squeezing me. I know it’s the right decision, the only decision Benedict could have made. But I’m terrified.

Jonah smiles. “You didn’t answer my question though.” He moves back to the window and peels away a corner of the cardboard so he can peek outside. “Who’s the explosives wizard?”

Benedict tenses. “You came for Kyle.”

“Price just went up,” Jonah replies.

Benedict takes a breath. He knows he’s beaten but he’s willing to do anything to protect his experiment. “Fine,” he says, dryly. “Let’s talk terms.”

“Terms?”

Benedict’s nerves begin to get the better of him, his voice trembles. “I don’t know about you, but I always like to drink tea when I discuss terms.”

Jonah looks confused. “What?”

“Marcus, be a good chap and make us all a nice cup of tea, would you?”

THIRTY-EIGHT

The noise is devastating: like being torn apart, like somebody smashed my head with a hammer. It’s so sudden it doesn’t occur to me to move, let alone duck behind the sofa like I was told to. I close my eyes and for a moment everything is black and I think I must be dead.

Then I can see again, except I can’t understand why Jonah is still standing there, with Kevin, Levi and Ose standing next to him. Kevin has a knife in his hand, but a different knife to the one before. Smaller. Blunt looking.

Then Abi shrieks, “Marcus!”

I turn and Marcus is leaning back against the counter, a dumbfounded expression on his face. The hole in his chest looks like a crater on the moon and as I watch, its edges turn white and dry and start to crumble away. They fall in clumps of calcified dust. His mouth opens like he’s trying to speak, but then his jaw cracks and his eyes turn white and he stumbles forward and falls.

I turn back to Jonah and realize that the thing in Kevin’s hand isn’t a knife; it’s a gun and I can smell the gunpowder now, sharp and spicy, like bonfire night.

“Oh, I forgot to mention,” Jonah says. “Our new member has a trick or two.”

He eyes the crudely thumbtacked wires that lead from the switch to the floor panel with an air of contempt. We sit in silence, waiting to see what he’s going to do next. My ears are ringing. Next to me, Vikram groans. There’s no blood anymore, just woodlice that are pushing their way between his fingers, rolling down his neck and getting caught in his shirt collar and the lapels of his jacket. He struggles and chokes and a few waterlogged ants escape his mouth. Abi leans in close, soothing him, stroking his hair with a tenderness I wouldn’t have expected between them.

“He won’t last much longer,” she breathes.

“Enough, Jonah,” I say, standing up. “Let’s go; it’s me you want.”

A satisfied grin spreads across Jonah’s face. “Oh, ho. Squeaky gets brave all of a sudden!” He gives me an admonishing look. “You know, if you’d been brave five minutes ago, Kyle, your new friend here might not have had to die.”

“Let’s just go,” I say. “You don’t care about them. No one else has to die.”

Jonah shrugs. “That was my original intention, Kyle, honest it was. But you’ve all gone and piqued my curiosity now.” He turns to Abi. “A bunch of scientists like this, I bet you got some kick-ass skills, haven’t you? And then there’s this machine I keep hearing about.” He looks at me. “That’s what you’re here for, right? That’s what was so important you made me chase you halfway across London?”

“It’s a specialized MRI,” Abi says. “It can help you get back; it can save you.”

“Show me,” Jonah says.

“Vikram needs to go first,” Abi says.

Jonah smiles. “Then it’s a party. Let’s go see what this thing can do.”

Abi shudders with relief and starts to haul Vikram to his feet. Farah moves quickly to help her, taking Vikram’s other arm and looping it over her neck.

Jonah nods at Chiu. “Levi, stay here with the little one. The rest of you may as well come along for the show.”

“Benedict?” Abi says, a question edged with anger and blame.

Benedict stands. “Of course.”

Kevin gives me a smug, satisfied look as we follow Jonah back out into the corridor. Anger and hatred glisten inside him and I feel what I felt when I was in the street. That terrible, terrible blackness. It’s like a vision, an insight. I see it all too clearly. Jonah and his followers in control of this place. Organized. Ready to enslave or murder anybody unfortunate enough to find themselves here. There are worse things than dying, I think.

We come to another set of double fire doors, these ones framed with thick bands of black and yellow tape, with a sign over the top of them that reads: HIGH MAGNETIC FIELD – AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.

The sight of the MRI brings back unpleasant memories. It stands alone and severe in the centre of the room, something between an industrial tumble dryer and a giant plastic doughnut. White casing, grey panels, a kind of mechanized stretcher that feeds you in head first like it’s feeding you into the fire at a crematorium. It’s the noise I hate most. Loud and alien, like bones being ground up by steel teeth. I had lots of trips to the MRI in the run-up to my operation and in that jaw-grinding noise it’s not hard to convince yourself there’s something else… A voice. A sound like lots of people talking at once. Hell.