“No you don’t!” Whitney bellowed, and she punched him so hard that his boils exploded and half his face fell away as he let go of the girl and flipped over backward.

Maeve, Ben, and Whitney picked up the stunned father and dropped him over the railing, where he landed with a smack on the pavement below. Meanwhile, Lewis shoved his way through the crowded kids and back out into the road, yelling at the other grown-ups.

“Stay back!”

The grown-ups froze.

Lewis would keep them away for as long as he could. He prayed that the main fighting force would hold out, or else the chances of any of them getting to the palace alive would be very, very slim.

Maxie was next to Arran now, fighting almost back-to-back. The kids kept in a tight pack, and it was hard for the mostly unarmed grown-ups to get at them. Some were breaking through, though. Arran saw two of his fighters go down, swamped by numbers. Then one of the Morrisons crew screamed as three big mothers grabbed hold of him and dragged him off. The grown-ups were chipping away at them. At this rate it wouldn’t be long before they were overwhelmed.

Arran looked around. Jester was nowhere to be seen. And where the hell was Blue? When the fighting kicked off he’d disappeared.

Had he run or had he been taken out?

Arran hated grown-ups.

His neck was throbbing, and it reminded him of what they had done to him. Anger bubbled up inside, almost like a physical thing, something hot and writhing, waking up and struggling to get out. His blood sang in his ears and boiled in his veins. He wasn’t going to let any more kids die.

He gripped his club tightly in his hands, swatted a mother out of his way, and stepped forward.

“We’ve got to break them!” he shouted. “Take the fight to them!”

“I’m with you, boss,” said Josh. “They don’t scare me!”

One by one the other fighters joined him, hacking through the massed ranks of the grown-ups.

Ollie was still behind the fighters, loosing off a shot whenever he got the chance. He had lost track of the other skirmishers, who had either picked up fallen weapons and joined the fighters or dropped back to the rear. The only one of them still with him was the Morrisons kid who had laughed at him earlier for worrying too much. Ollie couldn’t even remember his name. The two of them were firing off shot after shot, but the other kid was running low on ammo.

Arran and the others had moved forward, but Ollie could see that they’d gotten bogged down. The grown-ups would soon have them surrounded. There wasn’t much more Ollie could do to help. He was doing his best, but it was like throwing pebbles into a raging river.

He wondered if this was the end. If they were all going to die here.

And then there was a roar, and a BMW thundered around the corner from Royal College Street. It plowed into the grown-ups, knocking them flying.