Numbers 3: Infinity by Rachel Ward Page B

shower. I lean forward to catch his words. ‘She had a flat on the twelfth floor of a block in West London. She saw Adam on the TV news and got out. Hers was one of the blocks that went. The whole lot came down. She’d have died if it wasn’t for Adam. So I owe him.’ He looks me straight in the eye. ‘I’ll help you, Sarah. I’ll do my best.’
    ‘Thank you.’ I put my hand on his arm.
    ‘I’m Adrian, by the way,’ he says.
    ‘Thanks, Adrian. Can you get a message to him?’
    Adrian sucks the air in between his teeth.
    ‘Please, please,’ I say. ‘Wait here.’
    I run back into the room, grab my sketch from under themattress and Mia’s crayon.
    It’s difficult to know what to say. Especially if it does fall into the wrong hands. In the end, I write: ‘Come back to me. Trust Adrian. xx’
    Adam will know what it means.
    Then I fold it over twice and hand it to Adrian.
    He hesitates, looking at Mia curled up, sleeping, on the bed. He takes the paper, and puts it in the chest pocket of his jacket.
    Back in the bedroom, he says, loudly, ‘Now let me see you take this. It’ll do you good, I promise.’
    He tips the pill out from the plastic cup onto my hand. I close my fingers round it.
    ‘That’s it,’ he says, giving me a brief wink. ‘Down the hatch. Goodnight, Sarah.’
    When he’s gone, I return to the bathroom and drop the pill into the toilet. It dances in the swirling water when I pull the flush, and then it disappears.
    Not long afterwards the striplight in the middle of the ceiling goes off and the room is plunged into darkness again, the only light coming from the grille and the two cracks above and below the door.
    I lie next to Mia, thinking of the people I’m missing. Adam, Marty and Luke. Will Adam get my message? Will he be able to read it if he does, or is he lying somewhere beaten to a pulp? Are Marty and Luke still with Daniel? Is Daniel still alive? All the time I’m thinking, my eyes are open, fixed on the grille in the door. It’s directly opposite the bed. We can be watched all night.
    We will be watched all night.
    I can’t lie there, in full view.
    I slip out of bed, sidle over to the door. I put my back toit, and slide down on to the floor. I can’t see the grille, and they can’t see me. The baby’s shifting around inside me. I lean my head on the door and close my eyes.
    I don’t want to sleep, to dream, but exhaustion washes over me anyway.
    I’m not alone any more. But it’s not Mia with me. It’s someone else. His face is close to mine. I can smell his sourness, see the stubble pinpricks on his jaw. He licks his lips, but misses a small bead of saliva at the corner of his mouth. He’s breathing almost as fast as I am. I have to get away. I look around for somewhere to hide, somewhere safe. There are hiding places everywhere – trees and stones and bushes. But I can’t run.
    I can’t even walk.
    Pain ripples through me, wave upon wave.
    My legs won’t work. I’m rooted here. Here with him. I’ve never felt such terror before. I want to scream but my voice is paralysed, strangled within my pain-wracked body.
    Instead, my screams echo round my head. ‘Help. Help. Won’t somebody help me?’

Chapter 24: Adam
    I ’m in a real prison cell now. Bare concrete walls, a mattress and a bucket. There are marks on the wall, dark smears. I don’t even want to think about what they are.
    I need to tell them this is a mistake. I’m not out for trouble. I don’t need to be locked up. I didn’t even kick off until after they ambushed me, so what the fuck am I here for? I know I didn’t help. I lost it again, but I was only defending myself.
    My brain won’t work in here. I can’t figure out what would get me out, how I can get back to Sarah. There must be a way out of here. There must.
    I don’t know how long I’ve been in here. The lights have been on the whole time, I’ve had no food or water. I hear the lock in the door. I sit up on the mattress, trying to