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  But Malcolm wasn’t arguing with me. He was simply telling me how it was. “Too late, Bain. She’s seen you. You made such an impression, she could draw the police a perfect picture of you.”

  Mum turned round from the keyboard, her frustration and disappointment cutting into me. “Malcolm’s right. It’s too late. She’s too dangerous. Especially to you, Ciaran.”

  I could keep arguing, but once Mum and Malcolm agree on something, it’s inevitable.

  There was nothing I could do. It was too late.

  I didn’t see her again.

  I didn’t even open the door into the inner room. What would be the point?

  I walked away. From Malcolm ordering me to stay, from Mum ordering me to come back. I just walked away.

  Her name was Vivien Mandeville Shaw.

  She was sixteen years old.

  And I killed her.

  CHAPTER 8

  Ciaran Bain, 28th October

  I walked away from her fear and from its inevitable end.

  But I couldn’t go far dressed like this. I’d leapt off my bed in nothing but jeans, t-shirt and socks. I didn’t even have shoes on. I rushed into the changing rooms beside the dojo and gym, to grab a pair of running shoes from my locker.

  I was lacing the left shoe when I sensed someone approaching. Someone radiating bewilderment, someone without the business-like certainty of the group in the Q&A.

  Roy pushed through the door, looking like a rugby player who’s been kicked in the head once too often, all big shoulders, squint nose and confused face.

  He’s not as dumb as he looks. He’s the only one of my cousins who bothers to sit proper exams and he passes them all. But he’s such a useless mind reader that he spends a lot of time confused about real life.

  “What’s going on? There’s a horrible feeling and I can’t pin it down. Have you done something stupid again, Bain?”

  “They’re going to kill her.”

  “Who?”

  “The girl we just grabbed. They’re going to kill her, any minute now.”

  “Why are they going to kill her? She’s only sixteen. She can’t be a player. Isn’t she a hostage, someone’s daughter or something? Why do they need to kill her?”

  “It’s my fault, Roy. I let her see my face in the van.”

  “You idiot. You absolute idiot.”

  “I know. I was practising blocking emotions and I got it right for once, so I didn’t notice her working up the courage to attack me. She pulled my mask off and got such a good look at me that everyone in the Q&A saw me in her head. And my face in her head is a death sentence. I’m getting out of here before it happens.”

  Both shoes were laced now. I stood up.

  “You can’t just walk away,” said Roy. “Can’t we stop them?”

  “I did try, but Mum and Malcolm both agree she has to die.”

  “Can’t we go in there, grab her and get away?”

  I was shaking my head, when Malcolm’s distorted voice boomed through the intercom: “Boys, boys. If you’re thinking of doing something heroic, stop it now. I can sense your plotting from here, so you should know that the Q&A door is locked, and all my loyal family are around me. Settle down and get used to it.”

  Secrets are hard to keep in my family. Conspiracies are difficult to hide.

  The intercom buzzed and went silent. Roy and I looked at each other. I shrugged. He sat down and put his head in his hands. He’d been happier when he was confused.

  I banged out through the door. I probably still had a few minutes to get clear.

  I’d never actually been responsible for anyone’s death before, but I’d been on base during a couple of deaths. I’d responded much worse to the targets’ terror than anyone else in the family.

  So even though I hate being on the streets surrounded by people, I knew it would be better than the moment of someone’s death. Especially someone who was so strong in my mind.

  As I ran out the side door, I wasn’t sure who I hated most.

  I hated myself, obviously, because I’m useless. If I hadn’t taken my focus off her in the van, she wouldn’t have to die.

  I hated Vivien, for pulling my mask off. Everyone knows you don’t look at your captors’ faces if you want to live. Stupid suicidal girl.

  I hated my Uncle Malcolm, because he treats me like some crap he’s stepped in.

  I hated Mum, for giving me this horrendous genetic gift.

  I hated Daniel, because he’s the kind of son my mum should have had.

  I hated Roy, for being so reasonable all the time.

  At that moment, I hated pretty much everyone.

  So I ran. I just ran away. It’s the only thing my dad gave me. A good strong running away gene.

  I didn’t even know who was going to kill her. Or how. I didn’t want to know.

  I put as much distance between us as I could, but I didn’t have time to run far enough. So I sensed the moment she went from simple fear to spiralling highs of panic.

  She had been afraid before, but she’d been keeping it under control, because she hadn’t been afraid enough. She probably thought she’d been as scared as it was possible to be in that van with that weird screaming boy. But now she knew she was about to die.

  I didn’t know exactly what my family were doing. Perhaps they’d opened the door and she could hear them talking about disposing of her body. Perhaps they’d walked in with a body bag.

  I don’t know what she heard or saw. But I know what she felt. I sensed all her confusion burn away in the white heat of the one thing that matters. Life, and losing it.

  I was walking now. I couldn’t run any more. Her terror was making my knees weak. I was reeling all over the pavement, trying not to bang into other pedestrians. I was aware of their emotions, but they barely registered above the terror in my head from the girl in the warehouse.

  Then Vivien Mandeville Shaw stopped.

  Her terror just cut out. It didn’t fade. It didn’t stutter. The volume didn’t slide away. It just stopped.

  She had been the loudest, strongest, most violent emotion for miles around. And then she wasn’t. She just wasn’t there any more.

  I’d felt her die.

  For a moment, I felt the freezing silent nothing of death. Just as she felt it, just before her mind switched off.

  I wasn’t walking any more. My legs had given way. I was sitting on the pavement, propped up by the greasy corner of a chip shop.

  Now her terror was gone, I could sense everyone on the street.

  I could sense the disgust and curiosity of people staring at me as they went past, probably assuming I was on drugs, or drunk on a Monday afternoon.

  I should go back to base now. She was dead. I wouldn’t have to feel like that again. Not until next time we found a mole in a people-smuggling chain, or an undercover cop in a drugs gang, or next time someone we questioned started to guess how we knew so much, or I made a mess of my job and condemned someone else to that sudden complete end.

  The chip shop wall was digging into my ribs, and I was struggling to breathe, sinking into the river of critical emotions around me. So I dragged myself up and started to walk.

  I didn’t walk back to base. I staggered towards the nearest peace and quiet, which turned out to be a golf course. I walked past the clubhouse, followed the boundary fence behind a screen of trees between the course and the road, and climbed over a dragged-down section of wire the local kids must use to get in.

  Then I headed for a wide tree in a patch of smooth grass. I crouched against the trunk and tried to calm down. A few gently competitive golfers were wandering round the course, but it was less stressful than a busy street.

  I took a few deep breaths, and tried to work out what had gone so appallingly wrong with my day.

  It wasn’t a surprise that my family weren’t law-abiding citizens. I’d known that for years.

  My family’s been in this business since the Second World War. It was my great-grandfather Bil
ly Reid who took us out of the fortune-teller’s booth, stopped making an exhibition of himself and started using his skills in other ways. He offered information gathering, bodyguarding and identifying his clients’ enemies. Even, for a higher price, getting rid of those enemies.

  Spying on the mindblind, for the mindblind.

  My family didn’t worry about breaking laws that weren’t written for people like us. We never explained our methods to our clients. We kept it in the family and trained our own staff, from the nursery up.

  But I’m crap at it.

  I’m not crap at the reading. I’m stronger and more accurate than any of my cousins. I’m not crap at lock picking, martial arts or any of our other basic skills, either. But I am crap at using those skills in the field, because I can’t get close to the targets.

  I can’t stand being attacked by people’s feelings, being ground down by their thoughts. I can’t keep my mind on the job when I’m being assaulted by other people’s fear and pain. It’s not like I care. I don’t care. I just can’t help being crushed by it.

  I was trying to learn to handle it, to stop it distracting me at the time or destroying me afterwards. That’s what I was practising in the van. Building a wall against Vivien’s emotions, so I didn’t sense her fear.

  So what went wrong?

  Easy. I shouldn’t have done my homework in the van, and I certainly shouldn’t have taken my gloves off.

  But no one else in the family would have freaked out like that when she touched them, no one else would have started screaming at the terrified thoughts crashing about in her head: her worries about her family, and had she dropped her phone, and sorry to her gran, and grit on her empty fingers, and a maths test she wouldn’t need to revise for if she really was being kidnapped.

  I had kept her feelings out, which let her attack me; I had let her thoughts in, which stopped me defending myself. I’d made a total mess of it. But she was the one who died.

  Uncle Greg says I can learn to control my overreactions. It’s not that I’m useless, he says, it’s just that I’m more sensitive.

  I’ve asked him not to say that in class though. The first time Greg said I was ‘sensitive’, Daniel bought hypoallergenic mascara and sensitive skin make-up remover, and left them on my pillow.

  Most of what Uncle Greg says in the classroom is no use to us anyway, because he won’t get involved with the illegal aspects of our business.

  I already knew I was too sensitive to operate in the real world. People thought I was on drugs when I was out on the street. I had to sit on a golf course to breathe properly.

  No one could show me how to cope. Mum found reading easy and enjoyable, so she couldn’t understand why I hated it. Uncle Greg saw our skills as a gift and wanted me to share that optimism. Roy was such a useless reader that he couldn’t grasp why it affected me so much.

  If I couldn’t learn to control my overreactions, then I would never be any use to my family. But even though I was useless, I knew I should head back to base. I didn’t have anywhere else to go.

  I was about to stand up when I was suddenly aware of sharp and dangerous emotions, newly arrived outside the golf course.

  This wasn’t honest competition between golfers. This was the intense concentration of a hunter.

  Someone was hunting near the golf course.

  Who was the hunter? And who was the prey?

  CHAPTER 9

  Ciaran Bain, 28th October

  Who was the prey?

  I was the prey. Of course.

  Who was the hunter? Daniel. Of course. He was here to catch the little runaway and take me home.

  But I wasn’t going to let my family use me as a training exercise.

  I may be crap at some of this stuff, but I’m not as useless as the mindblind. I was not prepared to be the target in a grab.

  Daniel and I are technically the strongest readers in the fourth generation. I can sense emotions over longer distances, but Daniel is better at pinpointing location, which makes him a more efficient hunter. We’re both very accurate thought-readers too, but Daniel edges it on points again, because he doesn’t scream, faint or throw up when he reads someone’s mind.

  Also he’s taller, bigger, stronger and fiercer than me.

  But I’ve got my dad’s running away genes, and I hoped that would help in a chase.

  Daniel hadn’t sensed my exact location, he was checking out the golf course because I usually run to the nearest green space.

  He’d brought a team with him, but I couldn’t tell who yet − probably his wee sister Martha, and his sidekicks, Kerr and Sam. Would he have all four Patersons with him too? Would he really expect Roy to join in with the inevitable end of the hunt?

  Because I knew what Daniel would do if he caught me. The senior readers wouldn’t mind one of us coming home with a few bruises and minor broken bones, if we all learnt a useful lesson. Especially not if I was the injured one. Efficient violence is a skill our family teaches, rather than discourages.

  So I needed to get away before they worked out where on the course I was. If I played this right, I might manage to avoid a kicking and get back to base before them. I could be lying on my bed like a good boy doing my essay when they all trudged in, having failed today’s test.

  But I didn’t get up and run right away. Once they were closer, I could tell how many cousins were there, and which way I should run.

  I might even be able to work out if I could cheat. Because I was unlikely to beat Daniel and the rest of the fourth generation if I played fair.

  As they got closer, I counted eight minds, most of them relishing the excitement of the chase. But one familiar mind was anxious and uncomfortable. So Daniel had brought Roy.

  Now they were at the clubhouse. Was I worth the cost of eight teenagers playing 18 holes? No, they were going to break in too.

  There was a moment of focus as Daniel instructed his troops, then they moved around the fence towards the trees.

  I got up. They would find the bent wire soon, and by the time they got in, I needed to be hiding in the tall grass at the edge of the course, not out here in the open. I sprinted towards the fence.

  This was a risk: I was running towards cover, where I’d be hidden from their eyes, but I was also running towards their minds, and the nearer I got, the easier it would be for them to sense me.

  However, I had a plan. I was going to try an experiment. No, not an experiment, just an idea I’d been considering recently. We can’t cover our emotions like we can cover our thoughts, but I’d been wondering if I could deliberately change the emotions I gave out.

  Daniel and his team would be searching for prey feelings, victim feelings, possibly even fighter emotions, and the familiar mind of their pathetic cousin.

  So all I had to do was pretend to be someone else.

  All I had to do was feel like a golfer.

  As I ran, I imagined myself starting a round of golf, grasping the club, swinging it. I felt a bit bored, slightly frustrated, mildly competitive.

  I made it to the rough without any of my cousins recognising my mind. I dropped to the ground just inside the fence, 100 metres from the broken section. I lay in the long dry grass, feeling smug. I was trying to feel smug like a middle-aged golfer though, not smug like someone getting one over on his cousins.

  They were so close now, I could hear Daniel’s voice as he bossed them about.

  I concentrated on mild golfy thoughts – a ball curving away from me, hole in one, checked trousers – as Daniel sent Martha, Kerr and Sam away from my hiding place, past the clubhouse, and announced he would lead Laura, Becky and Josh in the other direction, towards me. He left Roy, the one Paterson he never trusted, to guard the exit he was sure I was nowhere near.

  Then Daniel strode towards me, with three Patersons behind him. And I realised I’d made a massive mistake.

  I couldn’t stay in the grass feeling like a golfer, because golfers don’t lie down when they’re playing. If Daniel
sensed someone in the rough grass, he’d come over to investigate. Then he’d beat me to a pulp.

  So I had to make my mind invisible. I had to stop thinking or feeling at all.

  I’m not sure how I did it, but I found the nearest nothing in my head: the dark quiet nothing of Vivien just after she stopped being afraid. Just after she stopped feeling anything. Exactly when her thoughts and feelings switched off.

  I dived into the moment of her death.

  I joined Vivien in her dark nothing.

  So I didn’t feel the earth under me, the danger passing me, the grass tickling my nostrils. I didn’t feel anything.

  Eventually I became aware of just one sensation. The feeling of grit under my fingers. Hard poky dry cold grit.

  But my fingers were touching the earth. Soft, slightly damp earth. Not gritty at all.

  That tiny difference between Vivien’s memories and my surroundings pulled me out of her death.

  Then I was lying on the ground again, brutally aware of my heaving stomach and thumping head.

  I flexed my mind cautiously. All the good readers – Daniel, Martha, Kerr, Sam − were now too far away to sense me. I’d been hidden in Vivien’s death for as long as it took them to walk to the other side of the course.

  I could sense other readers too. Further away, outside the fence.

  Bloody hell. My uncles. At least three of them.

  What were they doing here? Were they judging this as a field exercise? Marking Daniel on his leadership? Or assessing me, to see if I’d lost control completely? I hoped they hadn’t detected me trying out forbidden new techniques.

  I double-checked. The family were too far away to sense me, as I shivered and retched.

  I lay in the grass, wondering what I had just done.

  Did I think myself dead?

  I’d better not do that again. If the sensation of grit on Vivien’s fingers hadn’t woken me up, I might have shared her death forever.

  But it had worked. Daniel had walked right by me without sensing my emotions at all, because at the time I was feeling nothing.