‘I told you,’ The Kid said to Sam. ‘Don’t push your luck up a hill. It might roll down the other side. We made it here against the odds and ends. Let’s count our blessings and our blisters. Leave the hard stuff to the experts now, eh?’

Sam looked at Ed, tears in his eyes.

‘She’s not dead, is she?’

‘No.’

‘And you will find her?’

‘I will.’

Ed hoped he sounded more certain to Sam than he actually felt.

Chapter 2

2

Ella wasn’t dead. That was the first thing she thought when she woke up.

Not dead. Alive. Not dead.

And the second thing she thought was, Why not?

Why aren’t I dead?

She was lying on her back, in long grass, looking up at the stars. They were a mess. She’d never been able to make out any constellations. She couldn’t see any pictures there, just a lot of random dots.

So why wasn’t she dead?

She closed her eyes. Felt for any pain. There was none. Only a slight tiny soreness in one wrist. It was more like the memory of pain than an actual feeling. Someone must have held on to her by the wrist, pulled her. She couldn’t remember that. The last thing was …

Ella opened her eyes in panic.

The grown-up. The ugly one with the chewed face. Where was he? She was too scared to move anything except her eyes. She rolled them around, trying to see where she was.

‘It’s all right.’

She turned towards the voice without thinking. There was someone next to her. Lying on the ground. She recognized the voice. It was Monkey-Boy.

‘Are you alive?’ Ella asked.

‘Yes … But it hurts.’ Monkey-Boy said this very quietly, and he sounded sad. ‘Are you hurt?’ he added.

‘I don’t think so.’ Ella thought of mentioning her wrist, but decided not to. It wasn’t really important.

Monkey-Boy was just a dark shape on the ground. There was a faint line of starlight across his cheek. The last time she’d see him the grown-up had been holding him and they were still inside the hotel. Nothing made any sense to her. How had they got out here? Ella wasn’t sure she wanted to know. She was quite enjoying just lying there not hurting. Not knowing. In the dark.

‘He saved us,’ said Monkey-Boy.

‘Who?’

‘The grown-up.’

‘What? You mean the one with the mashed-up face?’

‘Yes. He wasn’t with the other ones.’ Monkey-Boy’s voice sounded croaky, wobbly, weak. ‘He attacked them. He saved us.’

‘Why?’ asked Ella and immediately wished she hadn’t. The grown-up had probably captured her and Monkey-Boy to keep them both for himself. Like a lone wolf fighting off other wolves to get to a killed deer or something.

And now she heard herself asking the question she never wanted answered.

‘What happened?’