‘Gas! Gas! Gas!’ screamed Ant. She flew across the level as first glass and metal fragments, then great clouds of tear gas, were blasted from the roof. She had a few seconds’ advantage at most. She ignored the pain from her wound. She didn’t look up. She didn’t look back. Ant leaped through crowds of bewildered strutters, all staring at the rapidly expanding shroud of gas.

‘Inside!’ she shouted as she passed, but no one was moving. She took a sharp left past the middle cells and glanced over her shoulder. The spot where she had been standing was enveloped in a thick, white, churning pall of gas. Expanding rapidly but forced into the narrow space between level eight and the ceiling, it was moving fast. Ahead she saw Mattie in the doorway of cell 87, his eyes flicking between her and the cloud.

‘Run, Abi, run!’ he yelled.

Suddenly everyone was running for the smashed-up cells, criss-crossing in front of her, slowing her down. She hurdled a man who had fallen, and felt a rush of blood from her wound. A column of gas tumbled between the middle cells, coming straight for her. Ant had no option. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes and ran faster. A few steps, Mattie’s call of, ‘Abi, here!’ and she was through.

She vaulted into the cell and collapsed on the floor as Mattie and Jimmy Noon slammed the door shut.

‘Barricade!’ she shouted. ‘No one gets in now! No one!’ She turned to see who else Mattie had persuaded to take cover – it wasn’t many. Daisy was there, Jeffrey Blakely, Amos Shah and the three Durrows, Lena, Tilly and Sam.

‘No one else would come . . .’ began Mattie.

‘Doesn’t matter now,’ Ant said, embracing him. ‘Nice work anyway.’

‘That’s a bad cut, Ant.’ Jimmy was staring at the blood seeping through her shirt.

Lena Durrow passed over a strip of bed sheet. ‘We have a few left . . .’ she said, and Jimmy folded it in four. Ant peeled her shirt away from the wound.

‘I should clean it—’ began Jimmy.

‘Just stop the bleeding!’ snapped Ant. He nodded and gently placed the makeshift gauze on her stomach. ‘Push harder,’ she said. ‘I’ll tell you if it’s too much.’ He pressed until she winced, then eased off. ‘Fine.’ Ant replaced his hand with hers and breathed deeply. ‘And thanks.’ He nodded, wiping Ant’s blood off his hands onto his trousers.

Daisy came next. ‘Thanks, Ant,’ she whispered in her ear. ‘Sorry he got me like that . . .’

Ant shook her head. ‘Daisy, he’d have killed you,’ she said. ‘Then he’d have killed someone else.’ She shrugged. ‘He’d have seen me sooner or later.’ She changed the subject. ‘We need the cell to be as secure as possible. Whatever is left in here – which isn’t much – we need against the door.’

‘Are the walls damaged?’ wondered Jimmy. ‘We don’t want that stuff to get in.’ Outside, the gas cloud had enveloped the cell; visibility was reduced to just a few metres.

Everyone inspected the patch of cell 87 that was nearest to them, looking for any crack or hole. Cries of, ‘OK here!’ ‘All fine,’ and ‘Think we’re OK,’ eased the tension.

‘Everyone look out,’ Jimmy ordered. ‘We need to know if anyone is coming.’

‘Can we let in friends?’ The tiny voice belonged to Sam Durrow, and Lena hugged him closer.

‘We’d be letting the gas in—’

‘What does the gas do?’ interrupted Tilly.

‘It makes you cough and cry. A lot,’ said Lena.

‘It makes you blind, makes you vomit,’ interrupted Ant. ‘We need to keep the door shut.’

‘Too harsh,’ whispered Mattie.

‘They need to know . . .’

‘Too harsh,’ he repeated.

Ant turned and eased herself down onto the floor, kneeling next to the Durrows. ‘We need to stay well,’ she said. ‘If we open the door, we’ll get sick. Very sick. OK?’ Sam and Tilly nodded, their eyes wide.

‘You think the rioters will still come for us?’ asked Daisy.

‘If the gas is everywhere,’ said Jimmy, ‘maybe we’ll be OK for a while . . .’

‘Did you know about the gas, Ant?’ asked Lena, arms tightly wrapped around her children.

Ant considered her answer. ‘Well, Brian MacMillan told me that Spike had a final line of defence against “the mob”, as he called it.’

‘Mob is exactly right,’ muttered Blakely.

Ant ignored him. ‘And he mentioned “skyrockets”, and I think – if I thought about it at all – I assumed they’d be fired from the ground. Like that useless water cannon they tried. He said something about it being a “showstopper”, so my guess is the whole of Spike is gassed up.’

‘That’s good, isn’t it?’ said Daisy, linking arms with her.

‘It’s better than being killed by Villagers and Ladies high on whatever they’ve stolen, yeah,’ said Ant. ‘But it was Mattie who saw the lights in the ceiling. He said “skyrocket”. Suddenly it made sense.’

‘Why didn’t they use it sooner?’ growled Blakely. ‘How many had to die before they decided to take pity on us?’ There were murmurs of agreement.

‘Who knows?’ said Lena. ‘Maybe poor Neil was the last straw . . .’ Her words tailed away and they worked in silence as they remembered seeing Osbourne being executed. Most of them had jumped over his body to get to the cell.

‘Well, everyone will know what’s happened,’ said Jimmy eventually. ‘Loads of cons had phones. I saw one stuck in a headband. If they were streaming pictures, then the whole world knows about the riot. And if that Scottish guy’s phone was working, they’ll have seen the attack on Ant. And the gas.’

‘Good,’ said Daisy. ‘Maybe they’ll be on our side for once.’

‘Are you kidding?’ said Amos. ‘They wouldn’t care if we all burned to death. If anything, they’d have been on the side of the fire.’

When the cell had been stripped for the barricade, the door still looked far from secure. Jimmy took half a space back and pulled a face. Four bent table legs, some beaten-up drawers and two mattresses were rammed against the door; it wasn’t enough.

‘I’m staying here in case,’ he said, finding a space where he could lean against the door. ‘We’ll need some more muscle if it comes to a contest.’ He slid down till he hit the floor, then rearranged the drawers and table legs behind him.

Daisy shouted, ‘There’s someone coming! Straight ahead!’

Everyone but the Durrows and Jimmy ran to the main window. Through the billowing clouds of gas, four figures were staggering towards cell 87.