August (3 page)

Half-conscious, I tried to open my mouth and call out to her. All that came out was a
choking
noise–the kind you make in a nightmare. Blackness swirled around me. Crazy patterns scrambled in the blackness in front of my eyes. I knew the lights were going out.

Then I thought I heard Boges’s voice …

‘Winter! We have to call for help! We can’t do this, we have no choice. You can’t dig him out … not with your bare hands … Stop it! Winter! Go to that phone box we saw across the road … I think his … battery’s about to … about to die … Cal, if you can hear me,’ he said to me,
with a hazy voice like one from a dream, ‘I’m so sorry. We really need help. We won’t let you die. We can’t do this alone. Cal? Cal? Winter’s gone to call the police … I’m sorry, we have no choice. We need help … to get you out of there. But … if you can hear me and if you can manage it, somehow, try and lose the SIM card, Cal. Don’t let anyone get their hands on it. Hang in there. We’re going to get you out of there and we’re all going to get back onto solving the DMO. See you again soon, OK buddy?’

I tried to answer him but darkness was
closing
in. The SIM card! With its record of all my phone calls, it would lead the police straight to Boges and Winter. After all they’d done for me I couldn’t let them get caught. Any laws they’d broken, they’d broken for my sake only.

The phone cut out. Now I was completely alone. There was nothing but silence and the ghosts of the dead.

With every shallow breath I could feel myself slipping away. I fought to stay alert long enough to go over everything Boges had said. What could I possibly do about the SIM card? How could I lose the SIM card down here? There was nowhere to hide it. Unless …

I mustered all of my strength and
concentration
, and with weak fingers, I managed to fumble
open the SIM card slot in my mobile. Slowly, despite the blood pounding in my ears and the shrieking noises that seemed to be coming from the centre of my brain, I struggled to move my hand, carefully clutching the card, to my lips. I poked my tongue out and pulled the card back into my mouth, then sucked it to the back of my throat.

My mouth was so dry, I didn’t know if I could swallow it.

A whirlpool of blackness took me down.

2 AUGUST

152 days to go
…

I tried to move, but my hands wouldn’t obey me. I panicked, as the memory of being trapped
underground
in a coffin flooded back … was I still there? I suddenly recalled brilliant lights, and voices … Visions from a dying brain?

My sticky eyelids opened.

What?

I was no longer in a coffin! I was alive!

Grey light and mist surrounded me. I blinked, and blinked again. A foul taste filled my mouth; my throat felt swollen and raw.

I licked my dry lips and remembered
attempting
to swallow the SIM card. From the pain in my throat, I guessed it had gone down. I blinked again, squeezing my eyes to clear my vision.

The mist cleared. I spotted a glass of water beside me and instinctively went to pick it up. And that’s when I realised why I still felt trapped–my hands were cuffed together in front of me with tough, white, nylon restraints.

And I was hooked up to some sort of drip or monitor by the bed.

I was in a
hospital
?

I was alive–I’d been saved. But now I was in custody?

The glass I’d reached for beside my bed was empty. I was in a small room, with a cupboard and a chair beside me, and a laboratory-style sink in the corner. The pale green walls and green vinyl squares on the floor reminded me of the intensive care unit Gabbi was in when I last saw her. The door in the wall opposite me had a small window in it.

There was a strong mix of anaesthetic vapours and disinfectant–that distinct hospital smell. I flopped back, exhausted and confused.

I had no memory of being saved. I must have lost consciousness when all the oxygen was used up in the coffin underground. But how did I get here?

I looked up and saw the steel bars on the tall windows, just like Leechwood Lodge Asylum. Now I knew for sure I was in some kind of police
hospital or a locked ward in a normal hospital … for criminals.

Boges and Winter had somehow helped me cheat death, but by getting out of one terrifying situation, I’d ended up in another fix. I had no idea how I was going to get out of this one.

I hoped my friends weren’t in trouble with the police for aiding and abetting a criminal. They were the only reason I was alive. Without them, Vulkan Sligo or Oriana de la Force would have done away with me by now.

I carefully swung my legs over the side of the bed, to try and get a glimpse of what was outside the window, but all I could see was another wall with windows in it just like the one I was
looking
out from. If I peered upwards, I could see a small square of sky. Even it looked grey and grimy. I shuffled over to the sink, trying
carefully
to avoid dislodging any of the cords around me, and banged the cold water tap on with my elbow. As I turned my head sideways to lean in and get a drink, something glinted, caught in the drain fitting. It was hard fishing it out with my tied hands but eventually my fingers closed around a small piece of flat metal. It was the larger half of a broken scalpel blade. Something
like that could come in handy, I thought, so I took it back with me to the hospital bed, and slid it into a stitched pocket in the mattress.

I lay there staring at the ceiling panels, going over the last twenty-four hours. Who had tried to kill me? Who had leapt out of the coffin that I’d mistaken for a counter? And who had buried me? It was one thing to murder someone, but to try and take them out by burying them alive? What kind of monster was I dealing with?

That familiar scent I’d caught a whiff of when I was attacked was frustrating me … I couldn’t place it. Did it belong to Oriana? Was it her perfume? Or Sligo’s aftershave? My mind kept jumping from one question to the next, but I couldn’t find any answers.

My thoughts were abruptly interrupted by the sound of a heavy lock unlatching. The door swung open and two men walked in. One was dressed in the pale green clothes of a nurse, and the other looked like a detective, wearing a dark suit under a beige overcoat and carrying a briefcase.

‘God, the press was going crazy out there,’ he said to the nurse, while smoothing down his hair. ‘I’ve never seen so many photographers and journos in my life. It was like squeezing through a pack of wild animals. Bloody vultures.’

‘He’s conscious,’ said the nurse, dismissively.

‘I can see that,’ he replied, sternly. He spun the chair beside the bed around and sat on it, then pulled a leather-backed wallet out of his pocket, flipping it open to show me his ID. ‘Senior
Sergeant
Dorian McGrath,’ he said, before snapping it shut again. ‘Just so we both know who we are.’

McGrath had a narrow, shrewd face with wispy eyebrows above hazel eyes. Pale bristles shone on his jawline.

He stared at me while the nurse fussed and fumbled with a monitor nearby. McGrath seemed irritated, scowling in the nurse’s direction, then turning his attention back to me.

‘You’re a very lucky boy, Callum Ormond. The doctors say just another minute or two down there and you would have suffered brain damage.’

McGrath slid his chair back, making a loud grating sound, and stood up. He stepped close to the bed and loomed over me, centimetres from my face. ‘You’ve been one hell of a thorn in our sides, Ormond. You’ve done a lot of damage and you’ve wasted a lot of police hours. But now that we have you–’ he paused to make a crushing movement with his fist, ‘we want some answers.’

I kept my mouth shut. I wasn’t going to tell him anything.

He moved in even closer to me. I could smell coffee on his stale breath.

His next question dropped on me like a bomb. ‘What have you done with your sister?’

What?

‘What have you done with your sister?’ he repeated slowly and aggressively, spit flinging off his pursed lips.

Gabbi?
Fear gripped me.

‘You know, your sister, Gabbi Ormond,’ he mocked. ‘What do you know about her
disappearance
?’

Disappearance?

‘My sister?’ I whispered, shaken. ‘What are you talking about? What’s happened to her? She was at my uncle’s house, being cared for. What do you mean, she’s disappeared?’

The sergeant leaned away from me and frowned.

‘They told me you were a top-notch liar, but I never would have believed it if I hadn’t seen it for myself. They warned me you’d be
convincing
, said you can lie straight-faced and look like you’re telling the truth, but you really are
something
else. Look,’ he scoffed to the nurse who had been keeping to himself with a folder in the corner. ‘The kid looks like he’s going to cry!’

Anger surged through me. I jumped up, tried to rip my hands out of the restraints, but McGrath pushed me back, then sat down.

‘What has happened to Gabbi? Has she been kidnapped?’ I screamed at him. ‘Tell me what has happened to my sister! I need to get out of here and save her! She’s sick–what if the kidnappers don’t know how to look after her?’

‘Don’t move, Ormond. Just answer my
question
. What have you done with her?’

‘Listen to
me
! Answer
my
question! I know nothing! This is the first time I’ve even heard about it! I need to get out of here to save her. What’s happened to her?!’

I tried to keep my voice steady, but I couldn’t control it. The detective wasn’t taking me
seriously
.

Dorian McGrath shifted in his seat. ‘I can handle this,’ he said to the nurse, who looked uneasy, like he was about to call security. ‘Ormond. I know you’re not working alone. An anonymous phone call came in last night,
alerting
us to where you were. Emergency Services suspected it was a hoax, but they sped to the scene, located you, and dug you out. We’re very interested in the identity of the emergency
caller
.’ McGrath opened his laptop, and switched it on. After a moment, he looked up at me, and turned the laptop a little. ‘Listen to this.’

Suddenly a recording of Winter’s distressed, sobbing voice cut through my tumultuous
thoughts and into the grim air of my hospital room.

‘Emergency Services? Oh thank God! Listen, you have to help me! Please! My friend, he’s, he’s been buried alive! These people put him in a coffin and buried him!’

‘Calm down. Take a deep breath,’ said the operator. ‘Where is your friend? Are you nearby? Are you in danger?’

‘Infinity Gardens! The cemetery! He’s been buried here, in a coffin, but I don’t know where! I need help! I’ve been digging, but I can’t find him! There are a dozen fresh graves, and he’s in one of them! He’s going to die if we don’t get to him soon!’

‘You say he’s in a coffin?’ the operator asked dubiously. ‘Is this some sort of prank gone wrong?’

‘No, this is not a hoax! Or a prank! There are these people who are … Please, please just believe me! Please help! He’s going to die if you don’t come quickly! We need to dig him out! Send people with diggers! Fast! He’s running out of oxygen! Please–’

Senior Sergeant Dorian McGrath stopped the recording.

In front of my boiling thoughts, I forced my face into an impassive mask. Winter’s call had saved me, and I had to save her from being identified.

‘Do you recognise that voice?’ the sergeant asked.

I shook my head, trying to control my racing heart.

‘Who cares!’ I cried. ‘I need to find my sister! Isn’t that more important right now?’

‘Once you get out of prison,’ said McGrath, raising his eyebrows, ‘you should go to Hollywood. Won’t be for a hefty number of years, mind you,’ he said with a sly smirk, ‘but you sure are one convincing act.’

Fury and frustration spilled over. I tried to pull the restraints on my wrists apart but they seemed to just tighten, painfully.

‘You’re sitting there,’ I yelled, my voice
breaking
, ‘making stupid comments instead of getting out of here and searching for my sister! She’s in a coma, for crying out loud! She needs
twenty-four
-hour care! I know you’re not going to let me go, so
you
need to find her!’ I stared at the sergeant’s cynical face. He was convinced I was full of it. ‘As if I have her!’ I continued. ‘Where do you think I’ve stashed her? Under this stinking mattress?’