When he was finally able to, he surveyed the world around him from his vantage point on the floor—his gaze finally coming to rest on the wall behind him—and realized it was the same cracked wall that he had been scrambling up. How long ago had it been? They were on the other side of it now, obviously. He could still see the huge crack from here, but everything else on the other side was invisible, hidden behind the piles of rock crammed against the crack. Just like the other pile in front of him.

He turned back to Theo.

‘We’ll find a way out,’ he said, sounding far more confident than he felt. Behind the bravado, his mind was racing furiously, trying to think of something, anything, they could do. To have gone through all those ordeals, to have survived everything, only to be trapped alive like this, like specimens in a lab! It couldn’t be. No, there had to be a way. There just had to!

He looked around, still disoriented, trying to recall what had happened. He’d been climbing the wall, but who else had been there? Colby and Kieran and the others had been below him, so had June until she’d run off, and Theo had crossed over with—Marcus! Where was Marcus?

As if on cue, he heard a quiet voice. ‘Finally, you are awake.’

He swung towards his left, in the direction of the voice. There he was, on one knee at the edge of the shadows, his black clothes rendering him almost invisible against the darkness.

Albert looked at June. ‘What about the others?’

She shook her head again. ‘Gone,’ she said, with a catch in her voice. Then she turned away, staring into the gloom.

Marcus got to his feet and came over to stand next to Albert, his movements lithe and graceful. Albert looked up at him. ‘Well? Isn’t there anything we can do?’

Marcus glanced at him, then shifted to look at Colby and the others. ‘Be calm. There is another way.’

The relief was overwhelming, like someone had shot large quantities of happy directly into his bloodstream. ‘You mean you know a way out of here?’

‘That is what I just said.’

He hadn’t even bothered to look around. Albert felt a faint stab of annoyance. Perhaps this was an average day at the office in these tunnels, but the least this fellow could do was look at him when he spoke to him instead of behaving like he, Albert, barely existed!

June turned around to face them. ‘I don’t want to stay here any longer. Marcus, what are we doing here?’

‘Waiting for them to finish,’ he answered, jerking his head towards where Colby and his companions were still murmuring excitedly to each other.

‘What are they going on whispering about?’ said June, the annoyance on her face clearly visible.