Heart of Danger by Fleur Beale

were ferns trampled into the mud. After that the ground sloped down and I glimpsed the clearer roadway at the bottom.
    The going was easier once I got to the road, and I went more quickly, jogging when the surface was clear enough. All the time I expected to hear Aussie clopping along behind me – and more than half hoped I would hear Ivor call out to wait up, that he was sorry and of course he loved me and would go on loving me forever. But the day lightened to grey and I was still by myself.
    Ivor should have come after me. He shouldn’t have left me by myself .
    The other voice in my head answered. You did it yourself. You’re the one who left .
    Oh shut up , snapped the first voice. Keep your mind on finding Hera .
    Yes. The thinking and the rage and the fear – they weren’t helping. How could I get them all out of my head?
    Walk . The answer came from somewhere. Just keep walking . So that’s what I did, my thoughts on the road in front of me, on how I could pick the quickest path through the obstacles, on the speed I was travelling at. I walked without thinking, following where the direction felt right. I felt as if my dead were at my shoulder, pointing out the path to take.
    It must have been around mid-morning when I reached the sea. I stopped for a drink and made myself eat some of the food. My thoughts flicked back to Ivor. He hadn’t followed me. It was true: he didn’t love me. How could I have got it so wrong? Mother too. Though not Danyat. And maybe not Oban or Ginevra.
    This time when I started out again, it was easier to shove him out of my mind, mostly because the sense of danger sharpened the moment I started scrambling down to where the waves rushed up the beach. I paused. It was more than danger – there was urgency too, like a force at my back pushing me onwards.
    They meant Hera to die on Sunday. Sunday would come with the dawn of the next day.
    A faint track led down to the sea. The ground was slippery with some sort of clay made slick by the rain, and there was a stream to cross before I could start the journey along the beach. I stood still, looking down at the waves that rushed into it then back with a sucking noise. I could get across when they ebbed, but I’d have to make sure they didn’t swamp me as they roared in again.
    I shaded my eyes, looking north. The waves seethed out in the ocean. They hissed up the beach in a mess of foam right to the base of the cliffs. There wasn’t even a sliver of sand to walk along. I sank to my knees. I should have gone over the hills. Now I’d have to go back, and lose all that time. I crouched, my hands over my eyes, striving for calm, for a sense of what best to do.
    Nothing came to me, except that the desperate need to hurry pounded me as surely as the waves pounded the beach. I took my hands away and stood up, taking one last look along the base of the cliffs. For ages, I stood there, staring and wanting to believe what I thought I was seeing. The tide was going out. I watched for more precious minutes. And then made myself wait still longer, watching, judging when it would be safe enough to leave.
    Now. I must go now and hope I’d be safe.
    I watched the stream, choosing the moment when the water was shallowest between the ebb and the flow of the waves. I ran through without wasting time to take off my boots.
    The sea looked more menacing here, the strip of beach narrower. The feeling in my mind pulled me onwards.
    Have you heard? The police are looking for Hera.
     
     
Have you heard? Juno’s stratum are searching the web. They’re looking for anything to do with Taris. They’re also checking out anything they can find about that lawyer, Brighton Hainsworth.
     
     
Have you heard? Oban is searching for Hera too, but he’s going north and not south where the police have gone.
     

10
     

ALONE
     
     
    I stumbled towards the base of the cliffs. An incoming wave caught me, thumped at my knees and nearly knocked me flat. I was still