‘Come on,’ she said, shaking him harder. ‘You’re not dead. You can’t just lie there. You’re too big for me to move. We have to get away from here. I need you to look after me. You’re only an ugly old grown-up, an ugly old thing, but you looked after me before and you have to do it again. I’ll look after you, I’ll help make you well, we’ll look after each other – how about that? You need to wake up, though, you need to listen to me: I won’t let you die. I can’t have anyone else die, even if you are just a freak, a sicko, one of them, even if you can’t talk and you’re no use as a friend. You’re just an ugly old hunter, a munter, a face-ache, but you’re my hunter. You’re my Face-Ache.’

A tear rolled down her face and fell on to Scarface, and she sniffed and wiped her nose. She hit his chest with her fists.

‘I don’t even know if you can hear me, but if you can hear me you can understand me, and if you could talk I don’t know what you’d say. I don’t know you, I don’t know who you are, so what would you say to me? You’d probably tell me to shut up and not be such a little girl. Well, I don’t mind what you think. I wouldn’t mind whatever you said as long as you’d just wake up and help me. Wake up, Face-Ache! Wake up!’

But he didn’t wake up.

It was no use. He was just lying there, slowly bleeding to death. Ella couldn’t help him. She couldn’t move him. All she could try to do was help herself.

She forced herself to stand up, turned her back on him and headed for the ladder. She might be able to see a way out of here without being killed by the dogs.

As she put her foot on the first rung, she heard a voice behind her.

‘I can talk,’ it said.

She turned round. Scarface had his good eye open and had raised his head enough to be able to see her.

‘What did you say?’

‘I said I can talk. And I’m not a grown-up.’

Chapter 16

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