The Vanished by Sarah Dalton Page B

tents or their children drenched from head to toe with mud up to their knees.”
    I laughed. “Maybe I’ve scared the rain away.”
    “I don’t think you’re scary,” he said.
    I pulled him close to me. “I don’t think you’re scary either.”
    “Daniel wanted to come.”
    “Why didn’t he?” I asked.
    “He was needed to calm Sebastian down.”
    “Oh,” I said. “I didn’t do a very good job of that. Did I? Is Mary still mad at me?”
    “No, I don’t think so – just disappointed that everything ended up like it did.” He paused. “I don’t like Dr Woods. He thought nasty thoughts about you when you were using your power.”
    I shifted round on my side to look at the little boy. “Like what?”
    “It wasn’t clear.” He frowned. “It wasn’t words, more like a strong feeling, like he was really, really bitter. I think he’s jealous of you and he sees you like a science experiment.”
    I shuddered. “He creeps me out.”
    “Me too.”
    “Hiro?”
    “Yeah.”
    “You spend a lot of time with my dad.”
    “He looks after me in the trailer,” Hiro replied.
    “Is he a good person?” I asked. “I just don’t know what to think anymore. He hides things from me. He disappears. I can’t… trust him. Why does he train us to fight?”
    “Because of the war.”
    “What war?”
    “The Clan war,” Hiro said. “The Compound is under threat from the other Clans in Scotland and your dad is worried we’ll get hurt. He also thinks we are a good weapon, like we’re joined together to create an army or something.” Hiro’s eyes narrowed as if he was concentrating. “But then he can act strange too, sometimes. He sees a woman’s face and tries to block it out. She’ll pop up in his mind and then he’ll go for a walk to get away from me or start singing a song in his mind. It’s like he’s trying to hide something.”
    “What does she look like?”
    “She has dark hair tied back in a bun and she wears a white coat. Like a doctor’s coat.”
    My mother had dark hair but why would she wear a doctor’s coat? It had to be someone else.
    “Do you think he’s a good man, though?” I asked. For some reason I had a jitter in my stomach. I was afraid of the answer.
    Hiro paused as though weighing up all the things he’d plucked out of my dad’s head. “Yes. He’s a good man.”
    I exhaled. “Your opinion really matters, Hiro.”
    “That’s because I can read people’s minds!”
    “No, not just because of that.” I paused and then pounced on the boy, tickling him under the armpits. “Because you’re so wise!”
    He giggled and squirmed under my fingers. “Stop it!” He shouted in between giggling. “No, it’s too ticklish!”
    He squealed in delight, and I jumped up and picked him up off the floor. I grabbed hold of his arms and swung him around while he squealed my name.
    “Well, at least some of us are having fun.”
    I put Hiro down and turned around to face the speaker. I already knew who it was. “Angela. We should talk.”
    She wasn’t alone. There were two heavy women stood on either side. They were tall, with bulging arms and dirty fingernails. One covered her hair with a grotty green scarf, and the other had eyes which bulged from her head. I guessed that they were both farm hands. Angela seemed different; taller. Her puppy-fat had hardened into muscle. She wore practical, dirtied overalls, and her hair was tied back and wrapped up with a red scarf. Her expression was one I’d never seen on Angela’s face before. It was pure determination.
    “No, the time for talking is over now. At least, not by you. It’s my time to say something and you are going to listen.” She shuffled her feet, planting them far apart and straightened her back. “Your kind is not welcome here. You, and Daniel, and that… thing .” She pointed at Hiro and I held him close to me. “None of you are welcome here. You are disgusting creatures who shouldn’t exist.” She sneered at