At last she capitulated. ‘Fine. Let’s get to a safe distance and call for back-up.’

They both started to rise.

Hawkins took one more look back at the tower, hearing the rustle of disturbed undergrowth behind and to her right.

‘Shhhh!’ she hissed, warning Maguire to stay quiet.

The heavy thud made her jump.

A startled grunt broke the air as she started to turn. Then the crunch of something large landing at her feet. Her senses spiked.

‘Mike?’ She spun, blinded by darkness. Another rustle of disturbed foliage jerked at her attention. She looked left.

Too late.

A brilliant flash arced across her vision, joined by a split second of agonizing pain, then the impression of falling.

She lay still, sensing nothing in the kaleidoscopic darkness but the sound of carefully placed footsteps coming near. A low moan escaped from her throat.

Then there was nothing at all.

56

Consciousness crept over her, a drip feed at first, senses rebooting themselves at different rates in the fuzzy blackness.

For a moment, she was racing along a deserted carriageway. Taking corners, building speed. But the feeling receded as a chill reached her skin, coaxing viscous limbs into existence.

A yawning ache emerged at the base of her neck, and spread slowly down her spine. Her shoulders were hunched, her head inclined. A rocking motion skirted the brink of her awareness. There were noises, too: intermittent thuds interspersed with scraping sounds that came in protracted bursts, like waves on a shore.

Cold air probed her lungs. Her eyelids flickered, reluctant to lift as she lolled with each surge.

At last stillness came, an isolated thump that pulled at her shoulders and neck. She groaned quietly, aware that she was lying on her back. She strained to roll over, seeking comfort. Except what should have been yielding resisted; the surface below her rigid and sharp. Her thoughts froze.

You aren’t in bed.

She jerked awake, her eyes opening. But there wasn’t time to make sense of the swirling blacks and yellows before vivid pain burst at the back of her skull, forcing them closed.

What the fuck was going on?

She tried to move her arms, feeling a jolt of panic when they disobeyed direct instruction. And when she tried to sit up, her legs refused, too. She slumped, breathing hard.

Blankness.

She stopped struggling and became still, her eyes screwed shut against the agony emanating from the back of her skull. Her breaths came in short, heavy spurts, intake and expulsion almost running into one another as her heart rate climbed. But her senses were sharpening.

She had been with Mike.

Her mouth opened and she tried to call his name, but her throat seemed to close up, strangling the sound. There was a dank weight to the air, and she could taste the heavy particles lacing each breath. She swallowed, summoning the strength to try again.