All The Lonely People - David Owen Page 0,85

garages. Someone emerged from the office to yell at them, but they were past him in seconds.

‘Which one is it?’ said Jordan.

‘Keep going.’

Wesley could feel her strongly now, close enough that he could run aground. Every unit looked the same, but he knew it was further down the track. Wesley braced himself to fight. They would be outnumbered, and people like Tru would fight back with everything they had. It didn’t matter – he would do whatever it took.

‘There!’

The track curved slightly before it ended. As they came around, Wesley saw they wouldn’t be outnumbered after all. A small crowd of people was swarmed around the final unit. They beat their fists against the metal and tried to wrench it up from the ground.

‘What the—?’ said Jordan as he stopped the car.

The side door of the unit was flung open, and Luke and Justin came running out. The car doors blocked the track, stopping them short. Wesley didn’t hesitate – he took advantage of Luke’s surprise, tackling him hard and knocking the wind out of him.

‘You’re dead,’ Luke wheezed, but Wesley pinned his arms to the ground so he couldn’t fight back.

Jordan took down Justin without much of a fight. The crowd found the open side door and streamed into the unit.

‘I’ll call the police,’ said Jordan.

Luke wriggled under Wesley’s weight but couldn’t get free. ‘If you don’t let me go, you’ll go down for this too.’

‘You’re right,’ said Wesley. ‘And maybe it’s exactly what I deserve.’

He lifted his head to look for any sign of Kat.

The crowd, all the people she had inhabited the night before, filled the unit and trapped Tru against the back wall, grabbing his arms so he couldn’t fight his way out.

‘Help her!’ shouted Kat. Although nobody looked at her, the boy whose kiss she had stolen broke away from the group to retrieve the keys and began unlocking Tinker’s bonds.

Kat had done it. She had stopped the attack, with a little luck and a lot of weirdness. The crowd had followed her here, as they always would, whether she was in danger or not. Maybe they had sensed something was wrong, or had simply heard enough to intervene. She thought of the protesters at the march who had run towards the attackers instead of away.

Lightheaded, Kat stumbled out of the unit. A car was blocking the track, Luke and Justin pinned to the ground by two other guys. Wesley and his brother. He had received her message and come to help. Finally, he had done the right thing.

And now he looked right at her, mouth falling open with shock.

‘You can see me?’ she said.

His mouth closed, opened again, not finding any words along the way. Kat looked down at herself – she was every bit as faded as before. Stopping the attack hadn’t had any effect. To him, she must have appeared as a ghost.

She was near the end, and that made her remember.

‘Take my phone,’ she said.

‘Wha—?’

Moving closer, she jutted her front pocket at him. ‘I can’t hold my phone. I need to know if there’s a message.’

The thralls were exiting the unit, leading Tru with them like a prisoner of war. Now he was caught the bravado was stripped away, and he looked on the edge of tears. Tinker stayed inside. There would be someone here to take care of her soon enough.

Seeing how outnumbered they were, Luke didn’t try to take advantage when Wesley lifted a hand to take out her phone.

Kat told him the access code. ‘Is there anything?’

‘There’s a message.’ He looked up at her. ‘It’s from Safa.’

She wouldn’t have been able to touch her phone either, but there was nothing to keep her from dictating to it.

‘I can’t hold on any longer,’ Wesley read. ‘I have to go to her.’

Police sirens in the distance, growing closer.

‘When was it sent?’ said Kat.

‘Only twenty minutes ago.’

If it hadn’t happened yet, there was only one place Safa would go. Only one person she could need to find at the end of herself.

‘Can you drive me?’ she said to Wesley.

‘My brother . . . but he can’t see you.’

Indeed, Jordan was looking across at his brother – apparently talking to thin air – as if he had gone mad.

There were enough people there to hold all the attackers, and they took over gladly, faces fierce as they held the captives down. The police would be here any moment to take control.

Kat started towards the car. ‘So you tell him where I have