She wanted to shout and tell them to get lost, but she knew that would make things worse and one girl didn’t stand a chance against five boys.
The traffic lights ahead were turning red, so she ran for her life while they were stuck in the queue of cars. She heard them shouting something, but she was sprinting too quickly to listen.
As she raced round a corner, she saw something that made her hope her luck had finally changed – the entrance to London Bridge Station. Hopefully, she could find a payphone inside and get a train home to East Dulwich too.
“Spare 50 quid, love?” a homeless man on the steps asked her.
“Fifty pounds?” she thought incredulously. “Cheeky devil. Do I look loaded?”
Then she looked down and realised there were at least 20 homeless people outside the station. She felt terrible.
“Sorry, sir,” she said, avoiding his gaze, then quickly made her way inside.
The station was completely empty. Scarlett looked at her watch – by her reckoning, it was 5.30pm on a Friday evening. Shouldn’t the place be hustling and bustling with eager commuters all desperate to get home? She usually felt claustrophobic and angry crossing this station, but tonight there was no one here. The concourse was eerily empty. Just then, she spotted a member of staff appear from one of the platforms.
“Excuse me,” she yelled as she ran over.
He growled and walked away.
“Excuse me!”
He was gone.
She trudged round to the ticket office, only to find it closed. Scarlett screamed in frustration. A bedraggled woman leaning against the wall pointed at a useless-looking machine a few feet away.
“Thanks,” Scarlett muttered.
The woman stuck her hand out, thinking that pointing out the obvious deserved a reward. Scarlett fumbled around in her jeans pocket, but all she could find was 50p. That was better than nothing, right? Clearly not. The woman snatched the coin, spat at her and stomped off.
“Well that was rude,” Scarlett grumbled before turning to the ticket machine.
Out of order.
“Argggghhhh!”
This was not her day. She dashed over to a payphone she spotted on the wall. Out of order.
“For goodness sake!”
Then she saw a cash point. “Well, I’d might as well try to get some money out,” she thought. But despite squeezing her eyes tightly shut and wishing intently that the machine would work, it swallowed her card.
“Account not recognised!” the screen flashed up.
Scarlett kicked the wall in frustration, then nursed her throbbing toe and walked back onto the street, darting past the people outside. She stopped and sighed wearily once she was away from the station. She had never felt so lost and, as much as she hated to admit it, scared.
Spotting a group of people staring at her, she figured it was best to keep moving and walked towards the river. Wandering beside the Thames always cheered her up, so she strolled along the South Bank until she reached the National Theatre. She was surprised to see that all the glass-fronted restaurants were closed, she was sure they’d all been open when she’d visited just weeks ago. The world had turned very, very strange.
Exhaustion suddenly washed over Scarlett, so she sat down for a second to gather her thoughts.
“Give me your money,” snapped a gruff voice behind her just seconds later.
“You have got to be kidding me.” She looked up to see a boy a few years younger than her holding a knife.
“Give me your money,” he said again, much more sternly.
“I don’t have any money,” she snapped. She’d had just about enough of today and there was no way she was letting this kid get away with mugging her.
“Don’t give me that,” he snapped. “You look rich enough.”
Scarlett stood up and emptied out her pockets.
“Look. Three pounds and a button. Take them.”
“Don’t lie, who comes out without money?”
“Look, I am not in the mood for this,” she yelled, while performing a perfect spinning kick that landed squarely on his chest and knocked him to the floor.
Scarlett was pleased her mum had made her take those self-defence lessons now. There was no time to stand around and bask in the glory of her expert ninja moves though. She realised it would be wise to put as much distance between herself and the mugger as possible, so she started running across London for the second time in as many hours. She snaked into a back street to make sure she lost him and several twists and turns later, she felt safe enough to pause for breath. Finally, she’d given him the slip.
“Alert! Alert! Alert!”
“What now?” she gasped. “For heaven’s sake, I can’t take any more.”
Scarlett looked up to see a small, spherical, robot-like machine floating towards her. It was about the size of a football and made entirely from metal and shiny wires.
“Alert! Fugitive number 3274 identified.”
“Now, hang on a minute… a number what?”
“Status: highly dangerous.”
“Damn right, buster.”
“Action: neutralise.”
“Neutralise? Neutralise what? Me?”
“This has got to be a dream,” she decided. One of those horrible, relentless nightmares that feel like they’re never going to end. She’d watched one too many sci-fi movies lately that was all. She just needed to wake up.
Scarlett pinched herself, then looked around.
Still here.
She tried a slap round the face.
No joy there either. She was still in the middle of her nightmare and, more worryingly, the weird death robot thingy was moving towards her and it looked set to fire.
Scarlett looked behind her to search for an escape route, but it was a dead end. Great. She ducked under the robot in a bid to run past it, but it was far too fast for her and it had her cornered against a wall within seconds.
“Neutralise!” it shrieked, before opening up to reveal a red laser. Scarlett covered her eyes.
Boom!
She peered through her fingers, which were very much still in touch and ‘unneutralised’.
“Scarlett!” a voice exclaimed from behind her as she stared at the death robot on the floor – she was relieved to see it had exploded into a million pieces. She looked up to see a very hot boy with short, wavy, brown hair smiling at her.
“Scarlett!” he repeated. “We thought you were dead!”
Chapter 2
“I can’t believe it!” said the boy, who Scarlett thought looked about her age. He ran his hand through his hair and stared at her in stunned disbelief.
She looked from him to the death robot, which was fizzling and whirring pitifully as its power died out, and back again.
“He knew my name,” she thought bemusedly. “And he’s staring at me like we’re old friends, but I swear I’ve never seen him before in my life. I’m sure I would have remembered if I’d met a boy this good-looking before.”
As he got closer, she couldn’t help but notice his gorgeous green eyes and, as he met her gaze, it felt like they were piercing right through to her soul. Scarlett blushed with nerves.
“Wh... what did you do?” she asked, struggling for something to say.
“I iced it,” he said matter-of-factly, like it was no big deal. “And that made it short circuit and explode.”
She must have misheard him. She could have sworn he said he’d “iced it”. What on earth did that mean? The hot boy didn’t notice the look of confusion on her face though, he was too busy waving to three other teenagers.
“Team, come over here,” he yelled.
Two girls and another guy ran down the alley towards them.
“Scarlett!”
They were gazing at her happily as though they knew her too, but she didn’t have a clue who they were.
“I can’t believe it,” one said.
“You’re alive!” yelled another.
“Oh my
goodness!” the third exclaimed.
“It’s so good to see you,” a beautiful girl with flowing blonde hair said as she raced forward from the group and hugged Scarlett.
Scarlett pushed her off and took a step back. She needed some space. She stared at the four teens suspiciously, trying to make some sense of the whole situation.
“We thought you were dead,” the hot boy said.
“Yeah, I’d kind of guessed that,” Scarlett replied as she peered at him shyly through her jet-black fringe. Her stomach was flip-flopping all over the place and her cheeks were burning with embarrassment. “Why do I always fall to pieces when I fancy a boy?” she thought, cursing herself. “Say something,” she urged herself. “Anything!”
“Well, I’m very much alive,” Scarlett mumbled as she looked down to avoid the boy’s gaze. She noticed a bit of death robot on her arm and brushed it off. It was freezing cold. She hadn’t misheard him – he really had iced it.
“Thanks for saving me from the death robot,” she added.
“Detectobot,” corrected a beautiful Asian girl with long, dark hair.
“Yeah, whatever,” Scarlett said shrugging her shoulders. “Look, I really appreciate your help, but I don’t actually know you.”
They all looked at Scarlett like she was crazy.
“Of course you do, you’re one of us,” the blonde said.
“Us? What were they exactly?” she wondered as she cautiously took a step away from them.
The friendly girl noticed that Scarlett was rattled and took a less intense approach.
“Let us take you for a coffee, you look like you need it.”
Scarlett paused to consider the offer. She didn’t know these kids and she knew better than to go off with strangers. However, the world had gone crazy and she had been attacked way too many times in the past hour or two, so where else was she going to go? These four seemed to think they knew her.
“Come on, Scarlett,” said the boy who’d saved her. “We’re your friends, we’d never do anything to hurt you.”
She turned to look at him and her heart started pounding. She didn’t know why, but she had a strange feeling that she could trust him. As she stared at his 6ft frame and broad shoulders, her mind started to invent sickeningly soppy fantasies of him being her strong hero, who would protect her from anything.
“Scarlett?” he said gently, jolting her back to reality.
She went bright red, hoping desperately that he couldn’t read minds as well as freeze things.
“Are you coming with us?”
“OK,” she reluctantly agreed. How could she turn down such a handsome stranger?
“Shall we go to Two Sugars?” the blonde girl asked the hot boy.
“No way, I’ve seen the cops milling around that place lately. Let’s try Frank’s Café. It’s pretty quiet there.”
The group started walking down the street, so Scarlett followed them.
“Why are you afraid of the police?” she asked. They all turned and gave her that collective look of disbelief again. “Everyone’s scared of them, Scarlett. They’re evil. You know that.”
Actually, she didn’t know that.
“My uncle’s a policeman. I always thought they wanted to help and protect us.”
“Scarlett, are you crazy?” the blonde asked. “Did you bang your head? Maybe she banged her head. Neelam, do you think she banged her head?”
“Lucy, go easy on her,” said the girl who Scarlett assumed to be Neelam.
“Scarlett, the police used to be good, but they’re not anymore. Don’t trust them.”
“What does that mean?” Scarlett thought to herself.
“I’ll explain later,” Neelam replied.
“What is she, psychic or something?” Scarlett thought, again without speaking out loud.
Neelam looked at her.
“Actually yes,” she said in her head.
Scarlett’s eyes opened wide with shock.
“Did you just speak in my head?” she yelped in horror.
She felt like her personal space had been massively invaded.
“Scarlett, I’m so sorry,” she said aloud. Please don’t panic. It’s so hard to adjust to you not knowing us. We used to be best friends.”
Neelam stared at Scarlett, her big, brown eyes begging her to trust her. For some reason, Scarlett’s instincts told her it was the right thing to do. At least, she hoped it was her instincts and not Neelam playing mind tricks. She was very confused.
“Here we are,” the girl called Lucy said. “We’re at Frank’s now. Are you going to come in and have a coffee with us?”
The two boys pushed the door open and the warmth from the heaters inside escaped onto the cold, autumn street. It would be nice to go in there for a rest.
“OK…” Scarlett said, as she followed them in.
“Scarlett! Come and sit down,” the hot boy said as he gestured at a seat next to him.
She silently cursed herself for blushing again. What was wrong with her? She’d never felt so giddy and nervous around a boy before.
“Go on,” Neelam assured her. “I’ll get you a drink. What would you like?”
Scarlett stared at the wall above the counter. This place needed to get some better signs – one said a cup of coffee was £17 instead of the usual £1.70 or so.
“Can I have a hot chocolate please?”
“Sure.”
Scarlett weaved her way through the plastic tables to join the others at the back, near a run-down old jukebox. She pulled a chair out and sat down. Everyone looked at each other awkwardly.
“So, do you really not know who we are?” asked the blond boy. He was cute, but not as good-looking as the dark-haired one.
“No. Not a clue,” she replied.
Silence.
“Maybe they wiped her brain,” the hot boy quietly suggested, while leaning into the table so as not to be heard.
Scarlett glanced around, wondering who might possibly want to overhear them, but the place was empty bar the waitress and a couple in the corner.
“I’m Dylan,” the boy said. “That’s Jay,” he said, pointing at the shorter blond. “This is Lucy,” he added, gesturing to the pretty, funkily dressed blonde girl. “And that’s Neelam,” he explained, nodding in the direction of the girl with long, dark hair at the counter.
Neelam gave Scarlett a friendly smile as she brought the drinks over and sat down on the other side of her.
“Hi,” Scarlett said. She realised she sounded a little too surly, but she was so tired she couldn’t help it.
“So, who are you?” she asked.
“We all have special powers,” Lucy whispered.
“Lucy!” Dylan scolded in a big-brotherly manner. “Don’t go round just announcing that.”
“And so do you,” Neelam added.
“Neelam!” Dylan sighed. “Cor, why do you two have to go right ahead and scare Scarlett by telling her everything straight away?”
“Don’t you remember?” Lucy asked, ignoring him.
“Girls!” Dylan was very cross with them.
Scarlett didn’t quite know how to respond to that. Sure, Neelam had talked in her head, but there had to be a rational explanation, surely? They were having a laugh, right?
She giggled.
“Scarlett it’s true,” Jay insisted.
She looked earnestly at Dylan, who seemed to be the group’s leader.
“Are they winding me up?” she asked him.
“Nope. Sadly not,” he replied. “Jay here can run faster than a high-speed train, Neelam is telepathic, Lucy can do some very impressive things with electricity and I can manipulate water, which means I can freeze things…”
Scarlett stared at Dylan as though she didn’t believe a single word he was saying.
“Watch,” he said. He placed his finger on Scarlett’s mug and instantly froze the hot chocolate inside.
“Hey!” she protested.
He smiled playfully and touche
d the mug again, this time heating it back up until it bubbled. “I can make them hot too.” He smiled and pushed the cup towards her, but Scarlett jumped back and screeched her chair away from the table.
“Don’t be scared,” Neelam urged.
“That’s how I saved you earlier,” Dylan explained. “I used the water in the air to freeze the Detectobot and that caused it to explode. That’s a trick I’ve learned recently,” he said proudly.
Scarlett smiled at him. “You can really do all this.”
Dylan nodded.
Scarlett looked around the group and hutched her chair back towards them a little to show she was warming to them.
“You guys have got to understand that you’re freaking me out a bit. You say we’re friends right?”
They nodded.
“And yet I’ve never met you. You tell me you have super powers and you thought I was dead? You did say that, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” Neelam agreed. “We thought you’d been killed in a collapsed building four weeks ago.”
“Four weeks?” Scarlett thought. That was how long the nurse said she’d been unconscious for.
“We’re so shocked to see you, but over the moon to have found you alive,” Neelam added.
“I’m sorry, but I really do think you’ve mistaken me for someone else,” Scarlett protested for the millionth time.
“We haven’t, we know you,” Jay insisted.
“But I don’t know you. And I definitely don’t have any fancy powers.”
They all started trying to convince her at once, chattering over each other. It was suffocating.
“I need the loo,” Scarlett said, making an excuse to leave the madness of the table. She needed time to take this all in. As she stood up, her eyes were drawn to a huge poster that was peeling off the tiles on the café wall.
“Wanted!” shouted its headline. And there below it was a picture of the four teens she was sitting with. They were criminals.
She pushed her chair aside, knocking the table in the rush, and ran out of the café.
“Scarlett, no!” she heard Jay shout.
“Let her go,” Lucy said.
She paused around the corner and considered going back. They seemed OK. Nuts, but OK. And Dylan was certainly more than OK. But then, you never could tell these days, could you? She started walking again.
Out Of Time Page 2
