Chapters (96)

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
Chapter 93
Chapter 94
Chapter 95
Chapter 96

What if he’d done it himself? Stabbed his own hand with the knife.

He looked down at the awful mess he’d made of the girl. Started to cry. Threw the knife down and ran out of the room. Up the stairs, out through the window and on to the roof outside. Leant out over the wall, looking down at the road far below.

‘Now look what you’ve made me do,’ he sobbed, but who was he accusing? Boney-M? The kid downstairs? God? Those other voices that drifted in on the wind like fog?

For a moment he thought of climbing over, throwing himself off. Ending it all. It would be so easy. He wouldn’t have to deal with all of this any more.

He belched, felt acid rise in his throat. He wished he hadn’t eaten now; the girl’s flesh had stopped the aches in his belly, but it had woken him up, brought awful clarity. He turned his face up to the sky and howled.

He knew he wouldn’t jump, though.

Not this time.

Not yet.

Chapter 33

‘Shut up and listen. I’m changing up the way we’re doing this. Here on in, only the best fighters and any other kids who definitely need to be there are going on.’

Ollie had been up on the church steeple and had walked in on Blue making his announcement. He’d hoped it would all have been sorted, but it obviously hadn’t. For a few minutes he’d almost been able to forget about their problems. Forget about all the frightened kids down below. The body on the altar …

He’d climbed up to get away from them and to get a proper idea of where they were and what they could expect when they left the church. It had been dark when they’d arrived last night and, in the confusion, strung out and desperate for shelter, nobody had had much time to take in the view.

The church was ancient, built from red brick sometime in the Middle Ages probably. The motorway must have only been about a hundred metres to the north, but it was screened by trees, so that now, without the noise of traffic, you wouldn’t know it was there. The church was almost completely surrounded by trees. Past them to the south he could see parkland and to the west there was a narrow road going over an old stone bridge. They might have been deep in the heart of the countryside. Somewhere out there, though, was Heathrow Airport, which had once been the fourth busiest airport in the world. What a crowded, bustling place England had been before all this.