Noughts and Crosses, Malorie Blackman [types of ebook readers .txt] 📗

brown with silver chains just above the heel of each one. A bit too ostentatious for my taste but nothing special. So what was it about them that had caused such a reaction?

‘Be a good girl and you’ll soon be out of here,’ Andrew told her.

And still Sephy didn’t speak. If anything, her frown deepened. Andrew left without another word. I followed him out, locking the door behind me.

‘Make sure she doesn’t leave that room alive,’ Andrew said quietly. ‘Orders from the General himself. Understood?’

The ground started rocking beneath my feet. ‘Understood, sir. I’ll take care of it myself.’

‘Good man. Make sure you do.’ Andrew headed towards the kitchen.

I stood totally still, waiting for the earth to stop moving.

ninety-nine. Sephy

The moment Callum locked me in again, I carried on exploring my room. A forty-watt bulb gave the only light in the room. There were no windows and the locked door could’ve been reinforced steel for all the good it did me. The floor was cement and the walls were bricks and plaster. I thought again about shouting for help but logic told me that we had to be kilometres away from anyone who could help me, otherwise they would’ve tied me up and put a gag in my mouth. I tapped my way around the walls, not really sure what I was listening for, but listening for some change of note, a hollow sound that could rekindle some hope within me.

But there was nothing.

That man who’d come in with Callum . . . I’d seen him somewhere before. I knew I had and yet I couldn’t quite place him. It was frustrating the hell out of me. I pulled the bed away from the wall. It dragged across the floor with enough noise to wake the dead. I stopped at once and listened. I couldn’t hear anyone coming. I moved the bed more slowly. Was there anything behind it that could help me?

What was that scratched into the plaster behind the bed?

To my fellow Crosses, keep the faith.

The writing was jagged and uneven. From the look of it, it could’ve been written with a fingernail. Keep the faith . . . God knows there was little else to do in this hell-hole.

There was nothing in the room, apart from the bed with its one blanket and a bucket in the opposite corner. And short of standing behind the door and using the bucket to brain the first person who came in, there was nothing in the room I could use as a weapon of any kind.

Keep the faith . . .

I pushed the bed back and lay down again. I wondered what my family were doing at that moment – Minnie and Mother and Dad. Did Dad know that I’d been kidnapped yet? I hadn’t seen him in almost six months. How would he take the news? How much money did the kidnappers want anyway? How much was I worth to them? Maybe they didn’t want money. Maybe they were after something else, like the release of L.M. prisoners or something like that. I didn’t even know. How long ago was it that I hadn’t wanted to go home? A day? Two? It was hard to tell how long I’d been in this place.

A strange joke. I hadn’t wanted to be at home and now I’d got my wish. I would’ve given my right arm to see my family one more time. Just once more. And with that thought I knew that I’d given up on any chance of seeing any of them, ever again.

one hundred. Callum

‘We interrupt this programme to bring you a newsflash.’

We sat forward, all eyes on the telly. The atmosphere in the room was edgy as we waited to hear. I glanced at my watch. Kamal Hadley appeared at seven o’clock precisely, just as he’d been instructed.

‘I am here to announce that I shall be temporarily withdrawing from public office for personal family reasons,’ Kamal announced. ‘I don’t wish to say anything further at this time. Thank you.’

And then he was out of the press office like a rat up a drainpipe. Jude punched the air.

‘Yes! He’s agreed to our demands.’

‘I don’t trust him,’ I said, still watching the telly as the newsreader discussed Kamal Hadley’s surprise announcement with the channel’s political correspondent.

‘I don’t trust any of them,’ Jude replied. ‘But we’ve got him over a barrel – and he knows it.’

It was a crisp early autumn evening: the perfect evening to pick up our ransom money and let Kamal Hadley know we had further demands before he could see his daughter. At least, that’s how Jude had described it. The money would fund future L.M. activities but Sephy wouldn’t see her dad again until five L.M. members had been released from prison. The authorities didn’t realize that three of the five we wanted released were key members, not just the underlings they thought they were.

‘You’re all ready for the telephone relay?’ Andrew asked.

‘Of course,’ Jude frowned. ‘We’ve been through it a dozen times. Leila will stay here with the girl. Pete, Morgan and I make our relay phone calls from three different locations around town to stop them tracing the calls. Callum will drop off the second set of instructions, pick up our money and head straight back here. It’s all arranged.’

‘And you’ll each be in your proper places at the right times?’ asked Andrew.

‘Of course.’ Jude was getting annoyed now and not doing a very good job of hiding it. ‘This isn’t amateur hour, you know. We know what we’re doing.’

‘Good! Good! But I think it’d be better if Leila makes the pick-up,’ said Andrew. ‘That’s always the most dangerous part of a kidnapping and as a girl she’s more likely to go unnoticed.’

‘Then I’ll go in Pete’s place and make one of the phone calls,’ I volunteered.

‘No. Of all of us, you’re the one Hadley knows the best. We can’t take