CHERUB: The Sleepwalker - Robert Muchamore Page 0,71

boy. Run away, run away,’ Danny teased, twisting Gemma’s hair some more with one hand while brandishing the bat with the other. ‘Why don’t you come over and rescue her?’

James pulled out his mobile. ‘I’m calling the cops, you fat freak.’

‘Your word against mine, James,’ Danny said. ‘This little bitch won’t take your side if she knows what’s good for her.’

‘Hey,’ Kerry shouted, as she burst out of the restaurant. She was holding something purple, but it was only after she threw it that James realised it was one of the miniature Frisbees that came with Deluxe Chicken kids’ meals.

From less than two metres it smacked Danny in the forehead. While he was distracted, Kerry bounded forward and nutted him. Danny let Gemma go, then swung at Kerry with the bat, but she dodged before hammering his jaw with her fist.

As Danny’s two goons closed on Kerry, James ran forward and bundled them away, before letting go and knocking them down: one with a roundhouse kick, the other with a punch in the guts.

Meantime, Kerry had Danny down on the ground and she was screaming her head off. ‘You warped little bully,’ she spat, as she grabbed Danny’s tattooed wrist and twisted it behind his back until his arm snapped with a sickening crunch. ‘See how you like some pain.’

James’ well-aimed blows had been little more than a warning, but Danny’s goons had no appetite for more and they scuttled away on all fours as Kerry grabbed the baseball bat and whacked Danny in the shin.

‘Jesus Christ,’ James yelled, running towards her. This had nothing to do with self-defence. Kerry was out for vengeance.

‘You like beating women up?’ she shouted. ‘You like bragging to your mates about smacking her around? I’ll show you, you fat turd.’

A second two-handed swing blasted his other shin with bone-crunching force.

‘Happy now?’ Kerry screamed, looming over Danny with the bat grasped tightly. ‘The only reason I’m not breaking your other arm is that it’ll probably be some poor woman who has to wipe your arse.’

James pulled Kerry back nervously. She’d totally lost control and he thought she might swing at him. But James got his hands around the bat and she let him take it.

‘If you ever lay one finger on her again,’ Kerry warned, wagging her finger furiously, ‘I don’t care if you’ve moved to Mars, I will be there to make your life a misery.’

Danny wasn’t hearing any of this because he was flailing on his back and moaning in agony from a broken arm and two fractured shins.

James put his free arm around Kerry’s back and pulled her into a hug. She was trembling with rage. At the same moment Gemma glanced at Kerry, then hesitantly towards her boyfriend.

Gemma had always defended Danny by saying that he was basically a decent person who suffered from a serious temper. Hearing him brag about beating her up and then using her to lure James had shattered that illusion. She stepped forward and spat furiously on Danny’s leather jacket.

‘You’re an animal!’ Gemma screamed, close to tears. ‘Using me as bait. I’m not a toy, you know.’

James’ stomach churned as he stepped away from Kerry and surveyed the scene. Danny’s two mates were out of sight whilst a dozen customers gawped from inside the restaurant. Wendy, the assistant manager, had locked the door so that nobody could get in or out and she stood behind the glass with her cellphone up to her face.

‘She’s called the cops,’ James said nervously. ‘The police station’s only up the road.’

But Kerry had already seen the police car pulling up at the kerb behind him. Another was speeding through the car park to cut off the other end of the alleyway.

‘Run?’ James asked, looking at Kerry.

She shook her head as Danny continued to moan. They might have got away, but the news would get back to campus one way or another and their explanation would look far more credible if they stuck around to explain themselves.

What hadn’t occurred to either of them was what the four cops would see as they stepped out of their cars: two smallish females, Danny down on the ground almost passing out in pain and the powerfully built James standing in the middle of it all holding the baseball bat.

‘Put the bat down,’ the lead cop shouted, pulling a stun gun from his belt as he charged towards James.

‘It wasn’t him,’ Kerry shouted.

James didn’t fancy fifty thousand volts, so he obediently dropped the weapon and