Slawter by Darren Shan

me suspiciously as I approach. Though he doesn’t openly carry any weapons, it wouldn’t surprise me if he had a gun hidden on him somewhere. I smile politely and don’t stray any closer. Walk to the eastern end and turn left. The door on this side is shut too, and although the guard’s in his hut, he isn’t asleep — I spot him through the window as I walk past, leafing through a magazine with pictures of tanks on the cover.
    I reach the northern end and turn left again. The guard here is standing next to the door, leaning against the wall. He smiles as I go past. I think about stopping to chat, maybe try to smooth talk my way inside, but his smile isn’t
that
inviting.
    Back to the western end again. Heading south, thinking about where Bill-E might be. As I come up to the guard’s hut, the door to the workshops opens. I hear Tump’s voice and stop behind the hut, where he and Chuda can’t see me, to wait until they pass.
    “. . . not going to like it,” Tump is booming.
    “They’re not supposed to like it,” Chuda replies, in a much softer voice.
    “But the boy will be hard to keep quiet. They’re so close to each other. Maybe we should take them both.”
    “One will be enough,” Chuda says. “Now all we have to . . .”
    Their voices fade. I remain where I am, frowning, wondering who and what they were talking about.
    The next day, Kik is missing.
    Kuk turns up for class by himself, looking lost. “Have any of you seen Kik?” he asks, eyes darting around the room as if his twin sister might be hiding behind a desk. “I can’t find her. I don’t know where she is. Kik? Are you here?”
    Miss Jaun sits the agitated Kuk down, tries to soothe his nerves, and coaxes the story out of him. It’s not complicated. He awoke this morning and Kik’s bed was empty. He couldn’t find her. Their dad wasn’t too concerned — said she’d probably gone for a walk — but Kuk smelled a rat immediately.
    “We don’t go anywhere without telling each other. She wouldn’t have slipped out without saying anything.”
    “Maybe she just needed to be alone for a while,” Miss Jaun suggests.
    “We don’t like being alone,” Kuk says, shaking his head vigorously. “Alone is bad. Alone is scary.” When Miss Jaun fails to calm Kuk’s nerves, she calls security and asks a guard if he can put the word out to look for Kik. “It’s no big deal,” she tells him. “We’d just like to know where she is.”
    Class proceeds as normal, except for Kuk, who fidgets behind his desk, eyes wide and searching, staring out the window. He unnerves the rest of us. Even Bo is discomfited by him and remains quiet, no jokes or digs.
    Towards the end of class, Miss Jaun summons the guard again. He says nobody has seen Kik but they’re still looking.
    I raise a hand. “Have you tried the D workshops?” I ask innocently.
    The guard frowns. “She wouldn’t be there.”
    “She might have snuck in.”
    The guard grins. “Into the D? I don’t think so. Even I haven’t been inside — I don’t have clearance.”
    “But she
might
be there,” I insist. I’m holding a steel ball-point pen, gripping it tight, remembering the conversation I overheard yesterday, Tump saying that “the boy will be hard to keep quiet.”
    “I’ll check with the guys who were on duty this morning,” the guard says, rolling his eyes slightly. “If they’ve seen her, I’ll let you know.”
    “Thanks.”
    The guard leaves. Class ends. Kuk hurries out to search for his sister.
    “What was that about the D warehouse?” Bill-E asks, hanging back.
    “Nothing. I just thought they might not have looked there.”
    Bill-E squints suspiciously. “I know you too well, Grubbs Grady,” he says in a bad Bela Lugosi accent. “You wouldn’t have said something like that without a reason. What are you hiding from me?”
    I consider telling him what I heard Tump Kooniart say. But I’m still smarting from my previous humiliation. I don’t want to reveal