‘What? What did you say?’ Maxie advanced on Sophie. ‘Don’t insult me.’

‘Why not?’ said Sophie angrily. ‘You insulted me. I understand about Arran. He was your boyfriend, and –’

‘He was not my boyfriend. Maybe if he’d lived he might have been. But we’ll never know, will we?’

Sophie struggled to say something, then gave up. She turned her back on Maxie and walked away.

Maxie felt a brief moment of triumph, and then it was swamped by black despair. Why was she such a cow?

She knew why.

She was tired and scared and miserable and still aching over Arran.

It wasn’t Sophie’s fault. She knew it wasn’t, but when she saw her pretty face she just wanted to lash out at her.

She swore quietly and left the main group, returning to the central well. She needed to be alone for a minute. It was quieter here. There was no one around – and no one keeping watch. She looked over the low wall. Shone her torch down, searching the floors below.

She caught her breath.

There was something moving.

She called out.

‘Hello? Anyone down there? Hey. We need to keep together.’

Nothing. No sound. No movement. Maybe she’d imagined it? She was so jumpy she was seeing dangers everywhere. She raked the beam over the area. It was still now.

She sighed and turned to walk along the balcony.

Sophie was there, about four metres away, her bow up to her face. The string was drawn back, an arrow glinting, ready to be fired. Sophie’s face was set into a hard mask. Her eyes wide in the gloom.

Maxie swallowed. The blood throbbed in her head. She really didn’t know this girl at all. Know what she was capable of.

‘Don’t move,’ said Sophie coldly, but Maxie couldn’t have moved even if she’d wanted to. She was welded to the spot. Her legs felt like they were made of lead.

Why had she been so stupid? Pushing Sophie like that. They were living in a different world now with different rules.

What would the girl do?

Maxie let out her breath.

‘Sophie,’ she said, ‘I…’

Sophie released the bowstring. The arrow sizzled through the air and swished barely a centimetre past Maxie’s right arm.

She had missed.

Maxie heard a thud behind her and she spun round.

A grown-up was standing there, a father, the arrow in its chest. He staggered sideways, flapping at the arrow and whining, then he hit the wall and toppled over the balcony. Maxie twisted round to watch him fall. He dropped all the way down to the bottom, turning slowly in the air, and landed with an almighty crash, splintering a table.

The sound was followed by complete silence. All the kids froze where they were, listening hard. What was going on?

Achilleus ran up to Maxie. She hardly recognized him. He was wearing a shiny new silvery-grey suit over a dark blue T-shirt.

‘What’s going on?’

‘Grown-ups,’ Maxie croaked, the words sticking in her dry throat.

31

Small Sam slept deeply. His chest rising and falling. Rachel was still sitting by his side, stroking his forehead and cooing to him.

‘Don’t he look peaceful?’ she said.

Nick grunted, went over to a chest and pulled out a drawer. He took a pair of handcuffs from it and walked back to the bed. He gently lifted Sam’s left hand and snapped the cuffs tight around it.

‘Almost seems a shame,’ said Rachel. ‘He’s a nice kid.’

‘Don’t get attached, Rachel, love. Remember how it was with the pigs? You should never have named them. Once you name them they become pets.’

‘It’s all right,’ said Rachel, pushing a lock of hair off Sam’s face. ‘I won’t get attached.’

32

The kids had been called together and a fighting party had quickly assembled around Achilleus, but they could see no sign of any more grown-ups.

‘Maybe there was only one of them,’ said Lewis, who was wearing a light blue v-necked cashmere sweater.

‘No,’ said Freak, pointing. ‘Look.’

‘Oh, my days!’

Shambling down the frozen escalator from the floor above in complete silence were about fifteen grown-ups. They were all wearing new clothes, festooned with hats and jewellery and belts and scarves and carrying expensive new luggage. But it was a mess, like some awful fancy-dress parade. They looked like children who had raided their parents’ wardrobes. The clothes didn’t match, or were the wrong size, or were simply being worn in the wrong way. One man was wearing two jackets but no trousers, another wore a dress, some of the women had things on back to front, and they had smeared their faces with make-up. One wore her underwear on the outside, like some freakish superhero, and had what looked like a lampshade on her head. An impossibly skinny old woman wore a flashy Nike tracksuit, a fur coat, a long blonde wig and several strings of pearls. She carried a camera on a strap over one shoulder and had only one shoe. High-heeled. Making her limp.

It was an eerie sight as they came down in a huddle, like a bunch of weird tourists.

‘Kill them,’ said Achilleus, and he raised his spear.

‘No, wait,’ said Maxie. ‘I don’t think they’re going to attack.’

‘Who cares?’ said Achilleus. ‘They’re grown-ups. Kill them.’

‘Look at them. They’re harmless.’

‘We’ll see about that.’ Achilleus walked over to the group, who had stopped at the bottom of the escalator. They cowered away from him. One father, who had several ties knotted around his shirtless neck, raised his hand defensively. Achilleus struck his spear into his chest and he fell back. The other grown-ups shrank further away. Achilleus advanced on them, herding them across the floor. They stuck together like frightened ducklings. Utterly bewildered. Achilleus started to laugh.

‘Look at the silly sods,’ he said. ‘They’re pathetic.’ He grabbed the old woman and shook her till her wig came off.

‘What do you look like? Eh?’ he said, throwing her into the others. ‘The lot of you. You’re freaks. Morons.’ He snatched a hat off one of the fathers and stuffed it on top of his own head.

‘Come on, you sheep,’ said Achilleus, steering the little group between a row of pillars. ‘Show us your stuff.’

The other kids were starting to laugh now and four of the older ones joined Achilleus, tormenting the grown-ups, chasing them around, tripping them up, until they were all crowded into a corner, shivering and gibbering.

The big kids prodded them with their weapons, and pushed a couple over. Then Achilleus and Big Mick grabbed one of the fathers and dragged him across the floor.

Achilleus sniggered. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s see if you like heights.’

Laughing, they took him to the balcony and before Maxie could stop them they’d taken hold of him by the ankles and hoisted him over the side. He dangled there, his arms clawing at the air.

‘Look at him,’ said Achilleus. ‘He’s trying to fly.’

‘Stop it!’ Maxie shouted.

‘Stop it? Why? These bastards have been making our lives hell. Killing us, eating us… well, now it’s our turn.’

‘Not this lot,’ said Maxie. ‘They’ve never done anything to you. They’re harmless. Look at them.’

‘They’re all the same,’ said Achilleus. ‘All guilty. If it wasn’t for grown-ups we wouldn’t be in this mess. They mucked up our planet. They caused the disaster. Every one of them is to blame. We should wipe them off of the face of the Earth.’

‘We don’t know what caused the disaster,’ said Maxie.