He took the folder from Scarlett and flipped through it.
“It’s a whole file about her,” he said. “Where did you find this?”
“In that cabinet.”
Dylan flicked through the drawer.
“There’s one about me too, and one on you. This must be where they keep all their information about us. Good find, Scarlett. Did you pick the lock?”
“No, it was just sitting there open.”
“Really? That’s careless of them. Well, it looks like we got lucky. Take a look at this.”
Dylan handed her a piece of paper. It read:
“Moving order. Date: 17 November 2013. Time. 10am.
Names: Aaron Watts and Maria Gomez.
From: Holloway Prison, north London.
To: Goring Secure Unite, Ealing, west London”
“That’s more than a week ago. This must be where they are,” she said.
“Exactly,” Dylan smiled. “Let’s see what else we can find.”
“Dylan, Scarlett!” Neelam shouted, her voice ringing through their heads.
“Ow! Easy,” she muttered.
“Someone’s coming your way!”
“What? Are you sure?”
“Yes! I was just listening to Sergeant Slater and some other official-looking guy arguing about some case from years ago. Slater said he’d go to the records room and find evidence to prove he was right.”
“Oh no!” Scarlett yelped.
“What are we going to do?” Neelam panicked. “What are you going to do?”
“You, Lucy and Jay subtly get the hell out of here and wait for us in the coffee shop round the corner,” Dylan said, springing into full-on leader mode.
“But…” Neelam began to protest.
“We’ll be fine. Now you leave and that’s an order.”
And with that Neelam was gone.
“What are we going to do?” Scarlett asked, feeling somewhat worried. “We’ll never get back down those corridors without them seeing us.”
“True,” Dylan said. He looked around and his eyes fixed on the window next to the cabinet. “We’ll climb out here,” he said, trying to pull the sash window up. “It’s stuck!”
He and Scarlett both turned as they heard footsteps and people talking in the hall.
“Allow me,” she said, pushing him to one side.
She summoned all the mental strength she had and pulled the window open. The voices stopped outside the door.
“Quick!” Dylan urged, forcing Scarlett through the window and onto the floor. He bundled out after her and, with the wave of a hand, she forced the window shut behind them.
“Stay down on the ground,” he whispered. “They might see us if we get up.”
They listened as they heard people enter the room, though their voices were muffled by the now-closed window.
“That was close,” she said, her heart beating fast.
“You’re not wrong. We’re not safe yet though, so don’t get complacent. We can’t risk being seen now we’ve left our masks in there. Follow me and keep low.”
Scarlett followed Dylan as they crawled along a dewy, grassy lawn until they were away from the room.
“This should be far enough,” Dylan said as he climbed to his feet, then offered Scarlett a hand to help her up.
“Do you know where we are?” she asked, brushing some grass off her dress. It was pitch black, but from what she could tell, they were in some kind of park area.
“Yeah this is the palace garden. I think if we walk to the end here, then turn left down the side of the house, we’ll get back to the front near where we came in. I’m not sure if we’ll be able to get out, but it’s worth a shot.”
“OK,” she whispered. “At least we got what we came for. You did you take the piece of paper with the information on, didn’t you?”
“Of course, I shoved it in my inside jacket pocket,” he patted his chest to indicate where it was hidden, then took Scarlett’s hand and started leading the way again. They walked to the end, then turned left, as Dylan had suggested.
“Wow!” Scarlett exclaimed.
Along the side of the building was a pretty, ivy-clad veranda that was decorated with small lanterns.
“So much for sneaking through the dark,” Dylan said. “This veranda is joined to part of the ballroom. The whole police force is just the other side of those windows. We can’t risk them seeing us and recognising us.”
“It’s OK,” she said. “We can walk casually to the end there. It looks secluded, so we can just find some way over the big gate and out onto the street and…”
Dylan stroked Scarlett’s face gently and stopped her mid-sentence. Then he kissed her. She froze for a millisecond before she kissed him back and ran her hands up through his hair as he pushed her against the wall passionately. Her stomach, head and heart were exploding with happiness. She didn’t want this moment to ever stop.
Chapter 12
Just as Scarlett was losing herself in the moment, Dylan pulled away from the kiss.
“Sorry,” he said, looking embarrassed and staring awkwardly at the floor.
Scarlett gazed at him until he looked up and his eyes locked with hers. Her stomach flipped. How did he have the ability to make her feel so giddy with just a look? With that kiss. The kiss… Oh my goodness… she felt dizzy with excitement at the thought of it.
“There were two men walking towards us,” Dylan said, interrupting her over-emotional thoughts. “I thought if I kissed you, they’d assume we were just a couple who’d snuck out here for some space. My plan must have worked because they didn’t bother us.”
“Oh.” Scarlett’s heart sank. So he hadn’t kissed her because he wanted too. Though it sure felt like he wanted to. Didn’t it? She was confused.
They both stood there silently. She should say something, anything… but what?
“Come on,” Dylan said, taking charge again. “Let’s get ourselves out of here.”
“How?” she squeaked meekly.
“The gate remember,” he pointed ahead. “I reckon we could both get over it.”
“Oh, yeah, of course.”
They ducked into the shadows and raced up to the gate, which was about 10ft high. She couldn’t fly over that, she couldn’t even get one centimetre off the ground. Had Dylan forgotten that she still hadn’t learnt how to fly?
“What’s wrong?” Dylan asked as he started to hover in the air.
“I’m not sure I can do it,” she explained, biting her lip with fear.
“Of course you can.”
Scarlett wasn’t so sure. “I can’t, remember.”
“Scarlett, you can.”
She looked at him, her eyes huge with fear as she silently begged him to help her out.
“Here,” Dylan said, scooping her up and flying them both over the gate.
She was grateful to him for helping her, but she did feel like she’d let him down by refusing to even try to fly.
As he put her down on the other side, Scarlett thought she saw disappointment in his eyes. She promised herself she would train harder once this mission was over so she didn’t need to rely on his help again. That would impress him.
As if reading her mind, Dylan tapped Scarlett on the back reassuringly.
“You’ve done a great job for your first real outing today, Scarlett. You handled your new powers superbly. I’m so proud.”
She blushed and gave him a little smile.
“Now let’s find the others,” he said.
A minute or two later, they ran into the café around the corner.
“You’re OK!” Lucy yelled.
“Thank goodness,” Neelam said with relief as she threw her arms around Scarlett.
“Good work, mate,” Jay said, shaking Dylan’s hand.
“Did you find anything?” Lucy asked, looking hopeful.
“We sure did,” Dylan replied. “Aaron and Maria are being held at a secure unit in Ealing. At least that’s where they
were moved to last week, which fits what you heard that policeman saying about moving some super-powered kids…”
“That’s brilliant!” Neelam said.
Lucy said nothing. It looked like she was fighting back tears. “Thank you…” she managed to say quietly, while looking at Scarlett and Dylan. “I really appreciate what you did to find this out.”
“So, what do we do next?” Jay asked eagerly.
“Go and get Aaron,” Dylan said with a determined look.
“But we don’t have a plan. We don’t know what we’re getting into,” Neelam argued.
“We don’t have time for a plan,” he insisted.
“But we’ll be running in there blind. You’re usually the first to think that’s a crazy idea,” Neelam protested. She turned to Scarlett. “Talk some sense into him.”
“She’s got a point,” Scarlett said. “We don’t know what security this place has, what the weak points are or anything. Just a few hours research back at the house could give us an advantage.”
Neelam gave her a thankful smile.
“And what if the cops notice we took this note?” Dylan said, waving the slip of paper. He was getting very angry and emotional for him. “They’ll suspect something and move Aaron and Maria before we can get to them, then we’re back at square one.”
“The dude’s got a point,” Jay said, shrugging his shoulders. “We gotta act quickly or we let Lucy’s brother down.”
“Or…” Neelam snapped. “We rush in there, get captured and we’re all screwed. What good will that do?”
Neelam looked to Scarlett for back up again, but she was too busy watching Lucy. The pretty blonde looked nervous and Scarlett realised no one had asked her what she thought they should do.
“Why don’t we put it to a vote?” she suggested. “So we all get a say.”
“Good idea,” Dylan said. “Who thinks we should act now?”
Jay and Dylan shot their hands up. Scarlett’s arm was twitching, she was unsure. If she said yes, that would be the deciding vote and Neelam would be cross with her. She looked around, trying to make her mind up, then Lucy slowly raised her hand. “I’m with Dylan,” she said. “We have a lead, let’s follow it, for my brother’s sake.”
Neelam folded her arms and sighed.
“I see their point,” Lucy said to her. “This could be an occasion where every second counts. I don’t want Aaron to get hurt.”
Neelam nodded her head. “OK. Whatever.”
“Right,” Dylan said. “Now we just need to figure out how to get there.”
Lucy pulled out a small handheld computer.
“What’s the place called?” she asked.
“What’s that?” Scarlett enquired. She felt rude interrupting, but she was intrigued.
“It’s my HandTop – I built it. It’s like a little mini computer. It’s got all the basics on it. You know, the internet, maps, satellite navigation, hacking facilities…”
“…games, music…” Jay said.
“Jay,” Neelam scolded. “It’s not a toy.”
Dylan coughed to silence the gossiping. “This says Goring Secure Unite, Ealing, west London,” he said.
Lucy concentrated while she tapped away on her little gadget.
“Hmmm. It seems that it’s where they hold the most high-risk prisoners. Top secret ones they don’t want the public to know about. It’s heavily guarded with lots of security.”
“Think you’ll be able to crack their system?” Dylan asked.
“Sure,” Lucy smiled, edging closer to him. “You know I’m the best and I’ll be trying even harder today. To help my little brother.” She gave Dylan her best sad eyes, which prompted him to hug her.
Scarlett felt a little bit of jealousy surge inside her, then she instantly felt bad for having mean thoughts about Lucy when her brother was in trouble. She sure was milking the situation at this second though.
“Shall we get going then,” Scarlett barked, deciding to break things up. “No time to waste.”
“About time,” a bored-looking Jay said. “How are we getting there? Flying? Running? Digging a tunnel? Please do tell…”
“He can be really sarcastic sometimes,” Scarlett thought as she laughed to herself.
“I dunno,” Dylan said, scratching his head. “Tube maybe? It goes to most parts of West London, right?”
Lucy tippy tapped on her machine again. The District Line doesn’t run anymore, so we’d have to go up to the West End to take the Central Line.”
“And that line is under surveillance,” Neelam said. “If the cops notice that you and Scarlett took this information, they might have their eyes peeled. Hardly ideal.”
Dylan stood silently thinking while they all looked to him for inspiration. Suddenly, Jay grabbed Scarlett’s hand and started marching her towards the exit.
“Come with me. I’ve got an idea. That boring lot will never approve of it though.” She quickly followed him as he dashed out of the café and across the road. He stopped in front of a sleek, silver car.
“Look. At. That,” he smiled.
“It’s a car,” she remarked.
“No, no, no. That’s not just a car. That’s an Aston Martin. And not any ordinary one either. It belongs to Michael Johnson, the rather nasty and despicable chief of police.”
“So, what are we going to do, let the tyres down?” she joked. She dreaded to think what Jay’s silly plan really was.
“Nope, we, well you, are going to steal it.”
“Me?”
Yeah. Do that witchy thing you do with your mind, pop the door open, get the engine going, we all jump in and away we go.”
Scarlett could see why he thought Dylan and Neelam would hate his plan. Stealing was a bad thing to do, but then Johnson was a pretty awful guy.
“Come on, Scarlett, it’s the perfect plan. This way, we stop Johnson following us, too. This team needs someone to be rash every now and then.”
She chewed her lip, cursing herself for being so terrible at making decisions.
“I’ll let you drive,” he said in his best convincing tone. “You can drive right?”
“Sure I passed my test last spring…” she looked at the gang in the café and saw Dylan and Neelam were still arguing. It hurt Scarlett to notice that Lucy was clinging to Dylan’s arm.”
“OK,” she said. She mentally clicked the lock undone and opened the door. Thank goodness there was no alarm. She hopped into the driver’s seat.
“Quick. Fetch the others,” she urged.
“If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s being quick,” Jay smiled.
Within less than a second, he raced into the café, grabbed the others and dragged them out to the car.
“What’s going on?” Dylan asked as he stared incredulously at Scarlett sitting in the driver’s seat.
“No time for questions,” she said. “Get in!”
“But….”
“In!” Jay yelled at the others as she started the engine up.
Jay opened the back door and shoved Lucy and Neelam in, while Dylan speedily jumped in the front. He had a thunderous look on his face as he stared at Scarlett, but she didn’t care, she knew she’d done the right thing.
“OK, gang, let’s get ourselves to Ealing!” she said, sticking her foot down and speeding down the road.
Chapter 13
“Lucy can you get a map up on your HandTop and pass it to me?” Dylan said, taking charge once more.
Scarlett concentrated on the road ahead and hoped that he wouldn’t give her one of his telling offs. He hadn’t said a word since they started driving and his rigid, closed-off body language indicated he was far from impressed with her.
“Do I keep driving straight ahead?” she asked in a bid to break the ice and force him to speak to her.
“Yeah,” he said. “Veer right when we get to Victoria Station.”
“Do we have to go past there?” Jay said. She could almost hear him shuddering. “It makes me
feel all spooked out, knowing.... you know, so many died there.”
“Well, we could take a detour, but I thought you were in a hurry,” Dylan said sarcastically.
“Hang on, you said we needed to hurry, dude, then you decided to stand around chatting. Someone had to do something.”
“I suppose this was your idea,” Dylan snapped at Jay. “How did you talk Scarlett into it?”
“Hey!” she yelled. “I have got a mind of my own, you know.”
“But it was Jay’s idea,” Dylan guessed.
“Yes, but I happen to think he was right. I know stealing is bad in most circumstances….”
“And stealing a dangerous enemy’s car is just plain stupid,” Dylan yelled. “How do we know this isn’t being tracked or bugged?” He glowered at Jay.
“It isn’t,” Lucy said. “I checked it out by scanning all the electrics. We’re safe. In fact, having this car should help us sneak past the security guards when we get there. They’ll think we’re Johnson and let us in.”
Dylan looked surprised at this news. His face relaxed a little as he warmed to the plan, but he obviously wasn’t about to tell Jay he’d done the right thing.
“Next time, just consult me first, yeah.”
“Whatever,” Jay muttered as he slouched back in his seat. Lucy sat back too and stared out of the window along with Neelam, who hadn’t said a word to anyone. She was clearly even more annoyed about the turn of events than Dylan was.
“Head left again here,” Dylan said gruffly. “Then keep going straight for a while. I’ll tell you when to turn again.”
Scarlett nodded a thank you as he stared blankly ahead. This was going to be one quiet, awkward journey.
“That’s it at the end of the road,” Dylan said 20 minutes later.
Scarlett glanced at the dank, concrete walls ahead of her, which surrounded a huge, grey, angular building with two imposing towers at either side. With its bleak and foreboding appearance, it looked like a prison from the Cold War era that she’d seen in her history class and she really did not fancy going anywhere near the place. Something about the Unit made her feel nervous, there was no way she was going to admit that to the group though.
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