Mind Blind Page 15

  What could I do?

  “Get up. Run.”

  A voice, in my head. Could I get up? I was too scared to move. Anyway, what was the point? If they could recognise my mind, they could follow me, I would never get away.

  “Get up, you idiot. Get up and run.”

  I felt a fist punch my shoulder. It was his voice. The blond burglar. Not in my head. Behind me. I got up and I ran.

  I ran round the back of the bench and followed him away from the train lines.

  I glanced back. The Irish woman was falling behind, talking on a phone. The two teenagers, taller than us, with longer legs, were chasing us.

  We sprinted towards the exit leading to St Pancras. But there was a man in the way, between two wide white pillars, arms spread to halt us. The photographer who worked with the Irish reporter.

  I slowed down.

  The blond boy kept going, launched a kick at the man’s stomach and muttered, “Sorry, Uncle Hugh,” as the photographer crunched to the ground.

  I sprinted out of the station, and the boy grabbed my sleeve and pulled me into a taxi. He spoke fast to the driver and the taxi accelerated away as I was closing the door.

  I looked back. The short woman was bent over the injured man on the ground. The teenagers were running after the taxi, the dark one reaching out to grab the door handle.

  “Don’t look in his eyes!” the boy beside me shouted.

  But I already had. His cruel narrow brown eyes. Nothing like the failed burglar’s bright blue eyes. He laughed as he ran alongside the taxi, trying to get the door open. But the taxi was too fast, too heavy, and he lost his grip as we swerved round the corner.

  The taxi driver said, “You’re in a rush, love.”

  The boy said calmly, “Just a bit of family trouble. Nothing to worry about.” He slid the barrier shut.

  I stared behind me at the pony-tailed boy as he waved his phone at us.

  The blond burglar slumped into the seat beside me. “Did you look in his eyes just there, Lucy?”

  “Em. Yes.”

  “And when he was walking towards you in the station? Did you look in his eyes then?”

  “Em.” I remembered noticing how dark his eyes were. “Yes.”

  “Shit.” He slumped lower. “What were you thinking when you made eye contact?”

  “What?”

  “Were you thinking about buses? Or Victoria?”

  “No. I was just thinking: How stupid am I? How scary are they? Are they reading my mind already?”

  “Great. Now they know you know about the mindreading. And when we got in the taxi, were you thinking about where we were going?”

  “No, I was leaving that to you, you were talking to the driver. I was just hoping he didn’t get in the taxi and thinking his eyes were a different colour from yours.”

  “Why were you comparing our eyes?”

  “Looking for a family resemblance.”

  “So he knows I’ve told you we’re cousins. Great. Thanks.”

  “You didn’t tell me that some of you read minds with eye contact. That might have been helpful.”

  “Eye contact, skin contact, voices. We do it all, between us. One great-uncle even used to walk into a room and sniff out vague thoughts from people’s B.O. My mum jokes that the next generation will be able to read by tweet and text.” He grinned, then looked at me seriously.

  “Lucy, think back. Did you think the words ‘bus’ or ‘coach’ or ‘Victoria’ at any point from when you first saw Daniel until he was out of sight?”

  “No. I didn’t.”

  “Alright. It’s a risk, but we have to chance the bus…”

  His phone buzzed and he pulled it out of his pocket, looking at it like it was a cockroach, the way he always did. Presumably he didn’t have friends who sent him invites to parties and rude pictures.

  I grabbed it off him, suddenly, before either of us knew I was going to.

  The newest text read:

  She’s pretty but u don’t get to keep her. And she isn’t worth the thrashing u’ll get when I catch u, wimp. She knows 2 much. Does she know what my dad does to girls who know 2 much? C u very soon. Daniel

  I handed the phone back.

  “His dad kills girls who know too much,” I said quietly.

  “Yes,” the boy said, dropping his phone on the taxi seat. “But you don’t know too much, do you? You don’t know anything at all, or else you wouldn’t have done something so… stupid! Why didn’t you go to Victoria like I told you to? Why were you sitting right there, right where I was leading them? Of all the stupid, misguided, ridiculous, dangerous, pointless…”

  I let him rant at me for a couple of minutes, because I knew he was right. But I didn’t know why he’d arrived at the last minute and saved me. I wonder if he knew himself.

  He stopped at last and turned away. Then he turned back. “Ok. Just tell me what you thought you were doing, once, without excuses, and I’ll try not to mention it again.”

  “I wanted to see if you were telling the truth, see if your family really existed and if you really are on my side rather than theirs.”

  “I’m not on your side, Lucy. I never claimed to be.” He shook his head in amazement. “Were you just waiting for me to turn up, hoping I’d be pleased to see you?”

  “I didn’t think you would see me. I was hiding in a book like you said. I just wanted to see what you would do at Kings Cross.”

  “I wasn’t going into Kings Cross, I was only going towards it. I was leading the pursuit to a bolt-hole, I wasn’t planning to get trapped inside. You nearly got trapped there on your own.”

  “But I thought it’d be safe, hiding in a book. I didn’t think they would find me. I didn’t even think you would find me. I didn’t think it was dangerous.”

  “We’re not just mindreaders. We’ve got ordinary eyes too. They recognised you from photos in the files. My mum and uncle have even met you in person.”

  “Oh. The reporter is your mum?”

  “Yes.”

  “But she’s Irish.”

  “No, she’s not. She can do loads of accents. Teaching her to do accents is the only useful thing my dad ever gave her, she says.” He looked at his hands, clenched fists inside his gloves.

  “You’re not useful then.”

  “Apparently not,” he said.

  “You got me out of there, so I think you’re useful. Sometimes.”

  “Just as well I’m a mindreader or I wouldn’t know that was a thank you.”

  He leant forward and spoke to the taxi driver, then leant back and spoke to me. “My family think we’re going north by taxi, so if we get out and hide now, they’ll drive right past us.”

  As the taxi pulled over, he shoved more cash at the driver and we leapt out.

  I was determined not to do anything else stupid until I knew more about this family’s powers, so I followed him up a side street, over a fence and down a ramp into an underground car park. He crouched in an oily corner behind a van, his back against the wall. I crouched beside him.

  “We’ve hidden our bodies from them, now we need to hide our minds until they’ve gone past.” He pointed to the book, still clutched in my hand, my fingernails almost embedded in the girl’s face on the cover. “Read your book and that’ll hide you from them, just like it did until Mum recognised your face.”

  “You don’t have a book. Do you want to share this one?”

  “No, I don’t have time to get involved in the story. I’ll have to take a risk and lose myself inside… em… inside somewhere kind of dark. But it’s not easy to pull myself back out. So in… What time is it?”

  I looked for my phone, to check the time. “I’ve lost my phone!”

  “No, you haven’t. I took it out of your pocket and left it in the taxi. I left mine too.”

  “You stole my phone!”

  “Phones are easy to trace. You can buy a new phone. But if my family find you again, you won’t be able to buy a new life.” He han
ded me his watch. “In fifteen minutes, please shout at me. Like in the hospital taxi, be angry at me, hate me. But please wake me up or I might stay in the dark for ever. Will you wake me up?”

  This was my best chance to bargain with him. So I folded my arms. “What’s your name?”

  “What?”

  “If I’m going to drag you back from ‘somewhere kind of dark’ I’ll need to call you by name.”

  He glanced at the car park entrance.

  “Are they near?”

  He nodded.

  “Do you trust me with your name?”

  “My name is Ciaran. Ciaran Bain. Now read your bloody book.”

  So I did. I glanced up once and saw him fall back against the stained wall, eyes closed. Then I flung myself passionately into the night before a battle. Even though I knew the English would win, I let myself care about which dashing officer the girl would give her lace hankie to, because obviously the soldier who got the hankie was bound to die…

  I reached the end of a chapter, and realised what year this was and who I was. I looked at the boy’s watch. I’d been reading for twenty minutes. I hoped his family were out of range by now.

  Ciaran Bain was collapsed in the corner beside me, eyes closed, breath fast and shallow.

  I could leave him in whatever psychic coma he was in forever, or until the van driver came back.

  I could tie him up with my shoelaces and call the police.

  I could kick him black and blue.

  Or I could wake him up. Like he asked me to. Like he trusted me to. Even though I’d made a right mess of the last thing he asked me to do.

  If I woke him up now, I could take my revenge later. Somewhere less dirty and cold.

  “Ciaran,” I whispered. “Ciaran Bain.”

  Nothing.

  I spoke louder. “Bain! Wake up! We’ve got a bus to catch.”

  Nothing.

  I touched his forehead. It was cold and clammy.

  I curved my hand along the width of his smooth forehead and I did what he’d asked. I hated him. It wasn’t hard.

  “You are scum, Ciaran Bain. You are a creeping sneaking thieving piece of scum. You are a murdering lying sister-killing…”

  He moaned.

  I lifted his hand, I pulled off that stupid glove, wrapped my fingers round his palm and hated him.

  He had taken everything from me.

  My perfect sister.

  My normal family.

  My safety.

  He gulped one deep breath.

  I thought about everyone else hating him:

  My mum and dad demanding justice.

  His dyed-blonde mum screeching at him.

  That long-haired cruel-eyed Daniel kicking him and laughing.

  The police running at him with handcuffs, pepper spray and arrest warrants.

  Viv’s voice haunting him.

  All calling his name. Ciaran Bain.

  “Whoa! Enough, Lucy, enough!”

  He jerked his hand out of mine and sat up. Then he threw up under the van.

  I moved out of range.

  When he’d finished, I asked, “Are you ok?”

  He coughed. “Do you care?”

  I didn’t answer. I just gave him his glove and his watch. And we went to the coach station.

  CHAPTER 25

  Ciaran Bain, 30th October

  I didn’t want to pay another taxi fare, because I’d been spending money too fast and using a cash machine could reveal our location. We had enough time to take a red London bus towards Victoria Coach Station.

  We climbed to the top deck, sat on the line of seats at the back, one at each window, and ignored each other.

  Lucy’s levels of hate were subsiding. Perhaps she couldn’t maintain an absolute desire for revenge for long.

  Halfway to Victoria, Lucy swivelled round to face me and put her feet up on the seat. “So, how does hiding in a book work? Why did it hide me from your family, but not from you? Don’t you use the same tricks as them?”

  I didn’t answer.

  But she was determined to have a friendly conversation. “Were you trying something new? Something your family don’t do?”

  I shrugged. “Kind of. I’ve noticed people’s minds are harder to grasp when they’re reading a book or watching a DVD than when they’re listening to music or playing with their phone, because they’re lost in a story. I thought it was worth a go, to protect you.”

  “So you were guessing? You were experimenting on me?” She almost smiled. “Now I’m not a skinny stray cat, I’m a guinea pig.”

  “It was not an experiment!” What did she think I was, some kind of sadist, who would experiment on her? “I would never experiment on a person. That would be sick.”

  “But you did experiment on me. You had a theory, that your family wouldn’t detect someone if they were reading a book, then you tested your theory, by telling me to lose myself in the story, and now you have a result, because you detected me and your family didn’t. Your experiment worked. So you did experiment on me.”

  “No I didn’t! I was just trying to keep you safe!”

  “I know you were trying to keep me safe. I’m just saying it was an experiment.”

  “No it wasn’t! Experiments are torture, like rabbits with shampoo in their eyes or dogs smoking cigarettes. Experiments are scientists in white coats, with electrodes and flashcards. I would never do that.”

  Her family would though. Her nana experimented on Billy Reid, with wires on his head and chest. I bet her family would still experiment on me. I bet her Edinburgh uncle is a doctor or a scientist, wearing a white coat and cutting up frogs.

  Lucy was just as bad, with her constant curiosity about how my powers work. Curiosity leads to questions, to tests, to experiments.

  “I didn’t experiment on you. And no one will ever experiment on me!”

  “Calm down. It’s not a war crime. It’s only science. And that thing you did in the car park, was that more guesswork?”

  She just wouldn’t stop pushing me!

  “What was it? What did you do?” She leant forward eagerly, keen to find out more with her nasty scientific mind.

  So I told her. “I went into your sister’s death. I jumped into the last moment of her life, when her terror shut down, her thoughts broke off and her mind went dark. I hid in the shadows of her death. So Vivien kept me safe. Thanks, Viv.”

  I turned away. But I sensed Lucy’s shock and revulsion, I heard her sudden gasping tears.

  Served her right for asking too many questions.

  Lucy Shaw, 30th October

  He used her. He used her terror and pain to protect himself. He wrapped himself up in her death like an invisibility cloak.

  That’s so low. Almost worse than killing her. Like he was sucking up the last moments of her life to make himself stronger. What a disgusting slimy creep.

  We were nearly at Victoria. I had to decide. Was I travelling north with him? Was I going to sit in a bus for nearly ten hours with him, knowing he was keeping Viv’s fear and death like a trophy, knowing he was using her murder for himself?

  Could I even bear to be near him?

  I wanted to protect Uncle Vince and I wanted revenge on Ciaran Bain. And now I knew more about Bain, I had a clearer idea how to get revenge. Also I didn’t want to stay in London, near his brassy mum and scary cousin.

  So I’d get on the bus, but not as his travelling companion. I’d get on the bus as the devil on his shoulder, as my sister’s revenge, as his worst nightmare.

  Ciaran Bain, 30th October

  What an idiot! Telling her how I had hidden my mind, telling her how useful her sister’s death was to me.

  I’d wanted to punish her for going to Kings Cross, for pushing for answers, for winding me up about experiments. I’d wanted to shock her.

  I’d done all that and more. I thought she hated me before. But now she was boiling over with disgust and contempt.

  This bus journey was going to b
e fun. A whole day in a metal box with someone who would happily wind my guts round my neck and watch me choke to death. Also the toilets would probably smell and there would be old ladies talking loudly about their bladder problems. I should just have gone to bed last night and not got involved in this Shaw job at all.

  We didn’t talk when we arrived at Victoria. I checked for any surveillance teams or hunters, but apparently no one thought we’d travel by bus, because I didn’t sense anyone watching for us. So we walked together, still not talking, to the ticket office.

  I bought my ticket. A single to Edinburgh.

  She bought hers, with my money and not a word of thanks. She got a return. Optimistic.

  Then she headed round the station towards the gate, while I bought supplies at the newsagents. More chewing gum, because after throwing up, my mouth felt the way Roy’s dirty-washing heap smelt; water and chocolate to keep us alive; a few more books; an A–Z of Edinburgh. Then I found the right gate and sat at the other end of the bench from Lucy. No one watching us would know we were together.

  We weren’t together. We’d never been further apart.

  I should just leave her here. Right now, she was a danger to both of us.

  But before I could work out a way to leave her behind safely, the bus arrived and she was showing her ticket. I let the few other passengers get on, then I followed.

  Lucy was sitting a couple of rows from the front. She smiled like a hyena and patted the seat beside her. I shook my head and walked towards the back of the almost empty bus. I chose a seat far enough from the toilets not to be overpowered by air freshener, and far enough from Lucy not to be overwhelmed by her simmering hatred.

  As the bus drove off, I was checking the other passengers and the driver for problems and scanning as far as I could outside the bus for any hunters.

  Had we left the surveillance teams behind in Winslow? I caught the odd whiff of police pursuit as we drove through the city, but nothing that related to us.

  Where were my family? Were they still heading north? Would we be travelling on the same motorway as them? I had to stay alert.