Every Second Counts by Sophie McKenzie

kiss her. Jas beamed up at him. Man, she was totally in love.
    I looked away. It wasn’t just that it felt weird seeing Jas with someone, but couldn’t she do better than Aaron? Even if he wasn’t secretly working for Riley, he was still
– well, he was a bit of a prat.
    The three of us sat on the mattresses, discussing our situation. Aaron – his arm around Jas’s shoulders – claimed he’d been drugged and that, like me, he’d had his
phone taken from him.
    ‘Riley questioned and questioned me,’ he whispered. ‘I told him I was an IT geek, so he’d believe how I tracked your phone. Luckily, he knows I couldn’t have said
anything to my dad about coming here, so my dad’s cover is still intact.’ He paused. ‘Which means he won’t hurt us.’
    ‘It means he won’t hurt
you
,’ I said. ‘It’s
your
father Riley’s all bessie mates with, not ours.’
    Aaron looked shocked. Jas squeezed his hand, then looked up at me.
    ‘What d’you think they
are
going to do with us?’ she asked.
    I shook my head, not wanting to speak out loud my belief that the only possible reason Riley could have for keeping me here was to kill me. Jas too, now she’d become involved.
    ‘Maybe he’s going to try and use Nat to run another mission for him,’ Aaron suggested.
    ‘I don’t think so,’ I muttered.
    Jas gasped. ‘Suppose Aaron’s right? Suppose he wants to use
all
of us for a mission?’
    ‘He won’t,’ I said. Again, I didn’t want to say it, but the idea that Riley would want to use either untrained Aaron or anxious Jas on any kind of mission was
ridiculous.
    ‘You don’t know that for sure,’ Aaron said, sitting forward. ‘He might want us to set off a bomb like he got you to do before.’
    ‘I didn’t
know
it was a bomb,’ I snapped, irritation rising inside me. ‘He won’t use us if he can’t completely trust us and as he
can’t—’
    ‘He might force you somehow,’ Aaron interrupted.
    ‘I’m telling you there’s no way I’d do anything for Riley, not even if he says he’ll kill me.’ I stopped at the sight of Jas’s horrified expression.
    ‘
Kill
you?’ she gasped. ‘For not doing what he says? Oh, Nat,
no
.’
    I stared at her helplessly.
    ‘Hey, hey . . . shh . . .’ Aaron hugged Jas to him. ‘I won’t let
anyone
hurt Nat.’
    ‘Is that right?’ I said, feeling riled. How on earth did Aaron think he was in any position to protect me? Jas sniffed back her tears, then gazed up at him adoringly. Aaron grinned
back at her and a dimple appeared in his cheek.
    I rolled my eyes. That smile of his was just about the most annoying thing I’d ever seen. Still, at least Jas had stopped crying. I stood up, walked over to the window and gazed out
through the bars. With both door and window locked, there was no way out of this room. No way to escape what I was more and more sure Riley had planned: our murders.
    ‘I think Nat’s a little uncomfortable with us going out together,’ Aaron said lightly from across the room.
    I said nothing.
    ‘No, Aaron, Nat likes you,’ Jas insisted. She looked up at me. ‘Don’t you, Nat?’
    ‘Mmm . . .’ I stared out at the fields below.
    An uneasy silence fell. Aaron came over and stood beside me at the window. He took a deep breath.
    ‘Is there a problem?’
    I turned to face him. ‘Jas says you’re sound, but I don’t know if I can trust you. I think maybe you were in on this whole thing.’
    ‘No, Nat,’ Jas insisted. She was hunched on her mattress, hugging her knees and looking up at us with big eyes.
    Aaron spread his hands. ‘I’m locked up, same as you,’ he said. ‘Doesn’t that count for anything?’
    ‘Not really.’ I looked away.
    Aaron moved closer, lowering his voice, so Jas couldn’t hear. ‘Are you sure this isn’t mostly about me being with your sister?’ he asked.
    ‘No,’ I muttered, also keeping my voice low. ‘But now you mention it, I’m not sure you two seeing each other is a good thing,