‘What the hell is this?’ I say.

‘You should know,’ Shoulders says with venom. ‘You’re the ones that did it. And then you blame it all on us. You make me sick.’

‘I didn’t do anything,’ I say. ‘I mean I was in that Academy but—’

‘I don’t get it. I really don’t get it. How can you kill people and just not care?’

‘I’ve never killed anyone!’ A plunging sensation in my stomach reminds me that this isn’t true any more. There was that cannibal boy in the woods behind the Academy.

‘You’re Leadership. You’ve all got blood on your hands.’

‘I am not—’

‘Shut it.’ He knocks on the lock-up room door and Alrye lets us in.

Kay is shaking her head. ‘We’re Leader-hating too, we’re the same,’ she’s saying to Alrye.

‘I’m not so sure that we are on the same side any more,’ I say. ‘I’ve just seen a newspaper . . .’ King hell, Kay doesn’t know what a newspaper is. ‘Like the Info but on paper,’ I say quickly. ‘Not like your Info, not lies. Well, fewer lies. Maybe.’ Efwurd, I don’t know what is true any more.

‘What’s your point?’ Alrye asks.

‘It says you set fire to the Academy.’

‘Me?’ Alrye says.

‘They wrote “Terrorists”, but that means the Resistance.’

‘That’s completely untrue and you know it,’ Alrye says.

I don’t know it. I don’t know anything any more. ‘You’ve got it pinned up for all to see. You’re proud of it.’

‘We’ve got it pinned up so everyone can see the lies that are told by your lot.’

‘My lot? I am not from the Leadership.’

Shoulders sneers in disgust. ‘We know you are. We got tipped off you were coming. A boy and a girl pretending to be refugees from the burnt-down Academy and–’

Alrye shoots him a look that shuts him up, but finally I see why they don’t trust us; they think we’re Leadership spies disguised as Academy kids.

‘We really are from the Academy,’ I say.

‘We’re not saying we’re people that we’re not,’ Kay says. ‘We came to help you.’

‘You’re disgusting,’ Shoulders says.

Kay is angry. ‘Don’t you bad-word me.’ She squares up to him. ‘Do you want a fight? Stop your bad talking and fight then.’

‘Whoa,’ I say.

Alrye cuts between them, gently pushing Shoulders away. ‘Let’s all keep calm. Sit down, you two.’

I pull Kay down on to a chair.

‘I’m going to ask you some questions and if you answer them then we won’t need any unpleasantness,’ Alrye says.

There’s a look in his eye that gives me a horrible feeling about the unpleasantness that will follow once we get to the end of the questions anyway.

‘Tell me how you found the hospital,’ Alrye says.

‘We saw a light.’

Alrye tuts and shakes his head. I don’t think that light was supposed to be on.

‘So the Leadership don’t know the location of this hospital?’ he asks.

‘I don’t know. I’m not from the Leadership, so I can’t tell you,’ I say.

Alrye sighs.

‘Let me make them talk,’ Shoulders says.

Alrye shakes his head. ‘I’d rather do this without you getting hurt,’ he says to Kay.

‘If you were fair people and I had my hands then I would get you hurt,’ she says to him. ‘I would get all the lot of you hurt because you’re stupid. We are from the Academy. Ty sent us. Don’t you know Ty?’

Alrye looks at Shoulders. He’s obviously considering taking him up on his offer.

‘I want to talk to whoever is in charge,’ I say.

He opens his mouth to say no.

‘If I see the person in charge I will tell them everything. The truth. Everything that they want to know.’

Alrye stares hard at me. I hold his gaze.

‘I can’t just go waking important people up,’ Alrye says, ‘but I’ll speak to someone.’ He walks out and Shoulders follows, leaving his lantern behind him, but not before he has shot me and a Kay a look of disgust. The door closes behind them.

‘They’re not believing us,’ Kay says.

‘I know.’

She gets up and walks around the room. In the light of the lantern I can see the floor is speckled with paint flakes and some kind of droppings. The Resistance have let the hospital fall into a state of decay. I wonder if the roof is stable. I stare up at the metal arm. I think it’s some kind of imaging equipment.

‘We should go,’ Kay says after a while.

‘I wish we could, but I have no idea how to get out.’

Kay thinks. ‘Maybe we have to talk to them more,’ she says.

‘We’ve tried talking to them. It’s obvious that everything we heard about them is true. They’re ignorant, violent thugs.’

She gives me a long look. ‘That’s what you thought about me, isn’t it? You thought I was a stupid Special who was all fighting and nasty.’

‘No! I mean . . . well, I guess it took me a while to get to know you. But this is totally different.’

‘Just because you’ve spoken to a person it doesn’t mean you know them.’

If someone threatens to shoot me then I think I know enough about them, but I don’t say this because the door opens and the bossy young man who shouted at Paulo earlier walks in.

My heart sinks. ‘You’re joking,’ I say. ‘I asked for the person in charge. What are you in charge of – the department of sarcasm?’

‘That’s right, sunshine, and if you weren’t about to die I’d want you on my team.’

I give Kay a look. I know everything I need to know about this idiot. He’s an arrogant bastard. And we’ll be lucky if we can convince him not to hurt us.

‘My name is Ven,’ he says.

‘You’re not an adult,’ Kay says.

‘I see you’re the brains of this shambling duo. Well my genius friend, in a spirit of frankness I feel I should let you know that the best you can hope for now is a painless death. And the way to achieve that is to be completely cooperative.’

I think the only word of that Kay understands is ‘death’. She clenches her fists, but she can’t do what she’d like to with them; her hands are still bound.

‘Do you know what?’ I say. ‘I heard a lot of stories about how stupidly brutal the Resistance was. I was hoping that was one of the Leadership’s lies, but it turns out to be true.’

‘True, except the stupidly part.’

‘How can you call yourself a resistance?’ I snap. ‘Shouldn’t you be helping people?’

‘Although our acquaintance is going to be brief, I think it may still be useful for you to know that the only people I’m interested in helping are the Resistance. You know what would be in the interests of the Resistance?’

I shake my head.

‘Killing you.’

‘I want to speak to your boss,’ I say.

‘Your options are death now, or you can tell me everything you know before you die. I reckon that will buy you an extra three minutes or so. Three and a quarter, if you list your life’s achievements.’

I open my mouth, but Ven won’t let me get a word in.

‘Do the Leadership know the location of this hospital?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Are the Leadership planning an attack on the Resistance?’

‘We don’t know,’ Kay says. ‘We don’t know the Leadership.’

He takes a gun from his belt.

King hell. He’s not really going to kill us, is he? ‘This is ridiculous. We’re not the enemy.’

‘I’ve found it’s safest to make my own decisions about who’s on my side.’

‘We haven’t done anything wrong!’

‘You people have beaten, abused and manipulated everyone from babies to pensioners. And I’m not the merciful type.’

He lifts his gun and presses it to my temple.

Efwurding hell, he’s going to kill me.

‘Stop!’ Kay says.

Ven makes an exaggerated gesture of tiredness and turns to face her without taking the gun from my head.

‘I know a thing,’ she says.

‘We should all take pride in even the smallest of achievements, but hush a bit while I kill your little friend, will you?’

‘I know a thing you need to know.’

‘Well, it’s not how to construct a sentence, is it?’

Kay shakes her head at his unintelligible words and persists with, ‘You need to know it.’

‘Don’t tell me what I NEED!’ Ven roars. His anger flares up like a gas flame. The lazy-eyed sarcasm is gone. ‘What I need is a world where people like you don’t collude with a corrupt government that destroys lives. Do you know the answer to that? Hey? I’ll tell you the answer to that. We get the efwurding bastards who are responsible and we shoot them one by one.’

He turns his gun on Kay and I know that he is going to shoot her.

His finger flexes.

I spring from my chair; the movement causes Ven to take his eyes off Kay and in a split second she kicks out a foot and knocks the gun out of Ven’s hand. We all lunge towards the gun, but Ven reaches it first and turns it on me once again.

‘The Leader admitted it!’ I shout.

Ven is all composure again. He just looks at me.

‘He admitted how the Leadership works,’ I say in a rush. ‘All the bad stuff they’ve done, we filmed it.’

The gun is still on me.

‘Go on,’ Ven says.

‘When The Leader came to the Academy he thoroughly incriminated himself,’ I say. ‘He admitted that corporal punishment is used in Academies and that students are deprived of food and given electric shocks.’

‘Did he now?’

I’ve got his attention. If they really are interested in taking down the government then we could be of use to them and maybe he won’t kill us.

‘More than that,’ I say. ‘What would really shock the public is the crazy way The Leader was talking about sacrifices that have to be made. He sounded like a mad man who’d happily sell out any number of children to serve his purpose.’

‘Where is it?’

‘Where’s what?’

‘This recording.’ Ven says it as if he doubts it exists. ‘Have you got it?’

‘Well, not exactly. It’s in a safe place. I managed to engage the support of a journalist and—’

‘So they’ve got it?’ I feel his patience snap like an elastic band.

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘But . . .’

He extends his gun arm. Oh God.

‘No!’ Kay says. ‘No, she hasn’t!’

‘Hasn’t what?’ Ven says, without taking his narrowed eyes off me.

‘Janna hasn’t got the recording.’ Kay’s eyes flash with triumph. ‘I have.’