“Leave him!” Ollie screamed.

“I can’t!”

A grown-up lurched into Freak from the side, knocking Deke out of his hands.

“Deke!”

The name stuck in Freak’s throat as he watched Deke being dragged quickly away, face down on the hard tiles, leaving a long, bloody smear. Freak chased after them, sobbing and screaming insults, but it was no good. There was nothing he could do.

The grown-ups pulled Deke under the water, and he was gone. The last Freak ever saw of his friend—the boy he had grown up with, shared six years of school with, played soccer with, watched TV with, laughed with, argued with—the last he ever saw, was his bright yellow hair sliding into the sludge.

“Get out of there, now!” shouted Achilleus. “I’m not coming back for you this time.”

No ...

Freak was going to go after his friend. He knew it would be suicide, but he hated to leave poor Deke at the mercy of the grown-ups.

There was a reason these boys were still alive, though. Something made them stronger than the other kids, the ones who had died in the early days, who had simply lain down and given up, unable to cope with the terrible things that were happening in the world. These boys were survivors. The will to live was stronger than any other feelings.

Freak turned on his heels and sprinted out of there.

Callum was in the crow’s nest. He loved it up on the roof; it was his favorite place. He couldn’t wait for it to be warm enough to sleep out here. You could see the whole of Holloway spread out beneath you. Like Google Earth. The kids had built the crow’s nest around the dome that stuck up from one corner of Waitrose. They had used scaffolding poles and planks and ropes and any useful bits and pieces they could find. A ladder at the back led to the sloping roof of the supermarket. From there you could climb down across the tiles to a small tower they had constructed at the edge of the courtyard. The courtyard was a rooftop terrace in the center of the building, enclosed on four sides but open to the sky.

The lookouts could communicate with other kids in the courtyard through a speaking tube. More speaking tubes linked the courtyard with other parts of the supermarket. The system was based on what they used to use on ships to communicate between the bridge and the engine room. It wasn’t much more than a series of long metal pipes that had been slotted and bent through the ventilation and cabling ducts of the building, but it was surprisingly effective.

Callum felt safe up here. He and Josh were the main lookouts and could normally tell if there were any grown-ups around. The only blind spot was the parking lot at the rear of the building from where Small Sam had been snatched. Those kids should never have been out there without a guard. Callum was ticked off that he had missed the grown-ups sneaking through the gardens, and since the attack he had spotted loads more of them about. He kept a pile of ammo on a specially built ledge—rocks and stones to use as missiles, mainly—and he was itching to have a go at any grown-ups stupid enough to get too close.