“I guess.”
Farah considers this. “It’s a more useful trick than always winning at Uno.”
I laugh tiredly and let her haul me to my feet.
“Let’s get Chiu and get out of here,” Farah says. “I’m done with this place.”
I nod, I’m OK with that plan. But there’s still Ose and Levi.
And Jonah.
In spite of everything, I know that Jonah is still very much alive and very much not happy with me. I can feel him downstairs, the same blindsight that showed me what Kevin was doing. Not as clearly though: just moments, disconnected freeze-frames.
He heard the explosion. He’s coming this way.
“I’ve got an idea,” I say.
It’s not much of an idea as ideas go, but it’s as good as I can think of right now. I take us back down the staircase on the opposite side so we can avoid Jonah. Pain roars inside my head like a waterfall. I can see them all.
Ose in the MRI room. Levi guarding Chiu. Jonah coming up the stairwell.
Abi kneeling over Benedict… Something is wrong with Benedict.
But I have no time to worry about that now.
We have to get Chiu first, I think. Then we can make a break for it.
We stop outside the common room where Levi is still watching Chiu. “Go around through the sleep lab,” I whisper to Farah. “Go in with the golf club but stop as soon as Levi sees you. Don’t go past the doorway.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Just … just don’t go past the doorway,” I say.
She nods. I can feel Chiu and Levi in the common room. Now that I know what I’m looking for, blindsight is easy.
Levi has heard the explosion and he’s standing tensely, listening, caught between his own burning desire to be in the fight and his fear of getting in trouble with Jonah if he doesn’t do what he was told. Chiu is on the sofa, inching closer to the red plug socket every time Levi looks away.
I wait. My arm feels like a white-hot boulder that has been chained to my side. I watch with my mind as Farah moves soft-footedly through the sleep lab, careful not to make a noise as she picks up the golf club.
She steps through the doorway.
Levi sees her. His mind is filled with violence and murder as he moves towards her. But his path takes him right across the square of taped-up floor to Marcus’s trap and I’m running in through the other entrance.
Chiu sees me and understands what I’m planning to do and he lunges for the space behind the sofa. Farah is one step too far into the room but if I stop now, Levi will be on her and he’ll kill us all. There’s no time to think, no time to question myself, no time to be scared. The palm of my hand hits the red switch and I feel a spark and the ignition and I chase the current in my mind until I feel it flare in the floor beneath Levi’s feet.
Ears ringing. The pain in my arm, monstrous. The air so thick with dust and plasterboard and the smell of explosives it’s hard to breathe.
I’m tired of explosions and gunshots. They’re exciting in movies. In real life they hurt.
The first thing I see: Chiu staggering to his feet, plasterboard falling out of his hair. He grins and flashes me a thumbs up.
I lurch to my feet and see that Levi isn’t dead, but he’s not far off. He’s slumped in the corner of the room and one arm is hard and calcified, cracked almost in half. He’s starting to turn to dry white dust, ready to flake away at the slightest touch.
“Kyle!”
It’s part shout, part cry, all mixed up with anger and pain. I rush to Farah as she staggers to her feet. She’s leaning heavily on the counter and I can see from here that her ankle is smashed. I guess the blast pushed out low and she was too close. I catch her before she falls and my arm screams as she lands against it. I help her on to the sofa and she sits, squeezing her eyes tight shut in pain, lifting her head to the ceiling.
“Dammit,” she says through gritted teeth.
“You’re OK,” I say. “We’ll make it work.”
She shakes her head. “There’s no time. Jonah’s coming, isn’t he?”
He’s staring at the spot where Kevin died, but he’s heard the noise and he knows what I’ve done. The anger he feels towards me sparks inside him like a match head.
“We’ve got a minute or two,” I say.
“Take Chiu and go.”
“No way. I’m not leaving you.”
I know what she’s thinking. She’s thinking that I’ve killed his guns and I’ve killed his motorbikes and I’ve damn near killed him, so if Jonah catches up with me, he’s going to take me apart one piece at a time.
“I’ll be OK,” she says. “It’s you he wants. I’ll convince him to keep me as a hostage.”
“I’m not leaving you with him.”
She winces in pain. “Come back when he’s not expecting it. Kill him.”
