‘I know,’ he says, pushing past me. ‘Look lively, will you?’ The room is suddenly flooded with darkness as he flicks off the switch by the door.

Drizzle falls in a fine mist outside as we walk in step down the dark street. There’s no moon between the rainclouds, and the busted street lamp two houses down means it’s even darker. Jason keeps a step or so ahead of me, arms swinging by his sides like he’s marching. I stuff my hands deeper into my pockets. The bush is slick with rain as we duck into Victory Field.

‘So this is the way you go in too?’

He doesn’t answer, his boots marking a path in the wet grass.

‘Is Rach already there?’ I jog a bit to keep up. ‘Hey…’

‘Forget about her,’ he says, turning towards the track cutting across the middle of the fields, away from the barracks on the other side. ‘You’re with me, remember?’

‘But isn’t it across there?’

I jump as he stops suddenly, turning and glaring at me. In the dark, the only thing I can really see properly are the whites of his eyes.

‘We’re going in through a different unit. There’s someone I want you to meet first, OK?’

I feel wetness seep into my socks through my shoes as I notice his hands clenching and unclenching by his sides. 52

‘How come? I thought…’

‘It worked out alright for you when you met Matty and Tommo, didn’t it?’

‘Well, yeah, but…’

‘So come on, and you’ll see them afterwards.’

I wiggle my toes as we start to walk again. Maybe I’ll even get those proper thick boots with chunky soles and laces like everyone else soon. The park is so quiet that apart from the tap and scrape of our shoes on the path, I think I can hear the drizzle landing. On the far side of the field, another gate that looks like part of the fence until Jase pushes on it, two bars opening into a clump of tall grass. We pick our way to the edge of a low building and a single door at the end of a long row of closed windows. A small camera on the ledge above swivels towards us. He nods at it, before the door swings open in silence. It’s been quiet and dark for so long now that I feel like a ghost.

Inside, the light is still low, walls glowing down a long, windowless corridor. Jase doesn’t turn around but keeps walking until we draw up outside a door with a name plate. Captain Robert Leigh Parish, it says when I peer at it. Forewarned is Forearmed.

Jase turns and looks at me for a moment. ‘Carls…’ He hesitates. His eyes look funny; wet, even. ‘Just do as you’re told, OK? That’s all anyone needs to do when they’re in here.’