It doesn’t matter. Benedict wants this over with. He wants to go back to his books and his theories. All he needs is an excuse to make everything OK.
“What do you intend to do now you’ve found him?” Benedict asks.
Jonah feigns a nervous laugh. The act is slipping now, he’s getting bored of it anyway. “Well … we have a situation, don’t we? I lost a good friend and I have a score to settle.”
Benedict looks down and stares thoughtfully at his hands. I can see him calculating, trading my life against the inevitable injury and death, the threat to his work.
“I don’t have any quarrel with you,” Jonah goes on. “Let me take the boy and we’ll get out your way. No foul, no harm. Forgive and forget and all that.”
Farah gives me a stark look, one that tells me she’s ready to launch herself at whoever’s closest the minute I give her the nod.
Jonah stands half in and half out of Marcus’s kill zone, one leg straggling the taped line on the floor. Levi is next to him, fully in. But Ose and the new guy are safe. Marcus is sitting on the very edge of his seat, waiting for Benedict to tell him what to do.
They’re scientists, I think. What would be the rational choice?
“I’d need your guarantee you wouldn’t harm him,” Benedict says, unconvincingly.
I don’t know why I’m important to Jonah, but if he cares so much maybe I have something to trade for everyone else’s lives after all. It doesn’t matter either way, I can’t let Benedict try to fight Jonah, even if he wanted to.
“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!”
