The Rescue

by Sophie McKenzie

  We left the Madelina just before midnight. Fernandez, again, was in a great mood. I was exhausted.

  ‘We’ll be back in a few days,’ Fernandez announced as we drove off in the dark.

  ‘Right,’ I said, feeling helpless. I remembered the rusty bars and the locked window. ‘Er, I was wondering if I could take someone with me next time – another kid from Camp Felicidad – you know, to help with the performance side of things.’

  Fernandez frowned. ‘You mean like one of the Spanish girls, to help translate?’

  ‘No,’ I said quickly. ‘Someone like Nico – someone who doesn’t mind people looking at him.’

  Fernandez’s frown deepened. ‘The kids you came with,’ he said slowly. ‘They know what you can do, don’t they? I saw you and Ketty talking telepathically the other day. Can the others do your mind-reading trick too?’

  ‘No,’ I said, emphatically. ‘No, they can’t. They just know that I can. I just think, er, I’d feel better about what I was doing if I had a friend with me.’

  It sounded pathetic. I stared at the floor, expecting Fernandez to laugh, but instead he murmured thoughtfully.

  ‘Maybe it would make sense to have someone with you,’ he said. ‘But not Nico. One of the girls.’

  I held my breath.

  Fernandez slapped his hand on the desk. ‘Dylan,’ he said. ‘She’s the obvious choice.’

  I stared at him. ‘Dylan?’ How was she going to be any help at getting hold of a phone to call Geri with?

  ‘Yes.’ Fernandez grinned. ‘She’s got the looks and the personality to help with the show. And her Spanish is better than the other two.’

  This was true, though not what I wanted to hear. Given the choice, Dylan was the last person I’d have taken with me. On the evidence of her digging efforts, I couldn’t imagine she’d be strong enough to help pull out the bars on the window – and she was certainly unsympathetic to my concerns for Luz and the other kids.

  But Dylan it was who, two days later, drove with us to San Juan.

  We talked about it beforehand and she was confident she could find some way out of the bar.

  ‘And once we’re out on the street,’ she insisted, ‘we can mug someone for their cell phone if we have to.’

  San Juan appeared as deserted as ever, but the Casa Madelina was heaving. The crowd was twice the size it had been last time. Most people were drunk, or getting there, and clearly having a good time. Dylan was immediately surrounded by men trying to get her attention.

  Jorge stood at the back, happily drunk again. He whispered to me in broken English that he’d told a local journalist to blog about my mind-reading skills and the result was even more punters than before.

  ‘Estupendo, eh?’ Jorge said with a drunken grin.

  I gritted my teeth. A bigger audience was the last thing I needed, but there was no time – or way – to explain this to Jorge.

  Fernandez extricated Dylan from the men at the bar and beckoned me over to the front of the room. As I walked towards him, I noticed a tall thin man at the edge of the bar watching me intently. He gazed at me all through Fernandez’s introduction, then melted into the crowd.

  I did some mind-reading. It was nerve-wracking, but Dylan helped, doing most of the talking while I just looked up when instructed.

  After three ‘readings’ I told Fernandez I had a headache and that Dylan and I needed to get out of the bar for a bit. He locked us in the storeroom I’d been in before.

  As soon as we were on our own, we went over to the bars on the window.

  ‘Maybe if we pull on these together?’ I suggested.

  Dylan whispered a countdown and we heaved at the bars. As I suspected, nothing shifted. After five or six goes, Dylan turned away in disgust.

  ‘It doesn’t matter, anyway,’ I said, feeling dispirited. ‘I’m sure the window behind is locked.’

  ‘We’re not letting this beat us.’ Dylan’s eyes flashed. ‘Let’s try again. That middle bar’s a tiny bit wobbly. Come on.’

  I put my hands on the bar next to hers. ‘One . . . two . . . three . . .’

  I squeezed my eyes shut and yanked on the middle bar as hard as I could. To my amazement, it shifted, then came away in our hands.

  ‘Yes!’ Dylan whooped.

  Five minutes later we’d managed to yank out the other two bars. My heart sank as I stared at the locked window that remained.

  ‘If only Nico was here—’

  ‘. . . he’d be no use whatsoever,’ Dylan interrupted. ‘This window’s swollen and stuck. No way could anyone open it, with or without telekinesis.’

  ‘Then what can—?’ I stopped as Dylan swung her fist back.

  With a swift movement, she punched her arm through the glass. It broke, the shards smashing to the ground on the other side.

  I raced to the door to see if anyone had heard. Music was still playing outside – a low rumble of drums and guitar drifting down from the bar. No yells or footsteps.

  Dylan was now breaking off the shards of glass that remained in the window. She was using bare hands but her Medusa ability protected her from getting even the tiniest scratch. She finished, then glanced round at me and raised her eyebrows.

  ‘No one’s coming,’ I whispered.

  ‘Come on then.’ Dylan already had her leg over the windowsill. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

  Heart beating fast, I followed her up onto the chair and climbed outside.

  8: The cellar

  As we ran down the street I wondered what Fernandez would do when he realised we were gone.

  ‘How much time d’you think we’ve got before anyone starts looking for us?’ I said.

  ‘Not much.’ Dylan scanned the road. There was no one else in sight. ‘Come on, let’s try down here.’ She pointed down a street to the right and raced off. I followed, my heart thumping. We ran down several streets. I checked the names as we passed. Calle San Pedro . . . Camino de Vicente . . . Calle de las Almendras . . .

  Where was Calle Norte, the road that the Escondite was in?

  Halfway down the next road, Dylan stopped. ‘Where is everyone?’

  We turned a corner and nearly banged into an elderly couple. Dylan immediately started clamouring in Spanish to borrow their phone, but the old man waved her angrily away and the couple scurried off.

  We jogged on.

  ‘Shit,’ Dylan said as we turned the next corner. ‘Suppose everyone refuses?’

  ‘They won’t,’ I panted. ‘Someone will help us.’

  ‘Really, Chino Boy?’ Dylan glanced at me contemptuously. ‘And what makes you so freakin’ sure of that?’

  ‘Because people are basically good,’ I said. ‘They care about each other which—’ I stopped in mid-sentence, my eye caught by the road name we were about to pass. It was painted on an old sign, tacked to a wall with rusty nails.

  Calle Norte.

  My heart leaped. ‘Down here!’ I said, running on before Dylan could stop me.

  I pounded down the road, looking out for house numbers. There were a few stone cottages where I couldn’t see any numbers, then suddenly there it was: 173 – a paint-chipped door next to a window with a red frame. I pushed at the door as Dylan panted up beside me. It was locked.

  ‘What the freakin’ hell are you doing?’

  ‘I have to look in here. I think it’s where Luz and those police van kids from the first day are being kept. You keep looking for a phone. If I see one in here, I’ll call Geri myself.’

  Dylan frowned. ‘But—’

  ‘It makes sense if we split up,’ I said. ‘Less chance of both of us getting caught.’

  Dylan hesitated. I could tell she was torn between wanting to pour scorn on my latest suggestion and seeing the sense in it.

  ‘Okay.’ She pointed at the lock on the door. ‘How are you going to get inside, though?’

  I shrugged. ‘Ring the doorbell?’

  Dylan shook her head. She smashed her fist through the window next to the do
or, then reached round and clicked open the lock. The action had taken seconds and produced remarkably little noise.

  ‘There you go. Make sure you find a freakin’ phone and call Geri.’ She rolled her eyes and ran off down the street.

  I pushed open the door. The corridor inside was dank and gloomy. It smelled of damp. The glass from the window Dylan had broken had landed in a huge plant pot just inside the door. The earth must have cushioned its fall, which is why it had made hardly any sound.

  I tiptoed inside, listening for anyone in the house.

  Nothing.

  I walked further down the corridor – it had a stone floor, and doors leading off it into empty, wood-panelled rooms on either side. At the end of the corridor were two wooden doors, both ajar. One opened into a brightly-lit room. I could hear the men inside talking in Spanish, their glasses clinking as they laughed at some joke. I pushed the other door further open. It led to a flight of stairs. Light from the hallway flooded the top steps, but I couldn’t see where they ended. Voices floated up from the darkness beneath. I held my breath, straining to hear what was being said. I couldn’t catch any words but the voices sounded fairly high-pitched . . . children’s voices.

  I crept down the stairs. As I got closer to the bottom, a thin seam of light glowed under the heavy oak door opposite the final step. That was where the children’s voices were coming from.

  I tiptoed on. Sweat trickled down the back of my neck. The final stair creaked as I touched it. The voices on the other side of the door were suddenly silent.

  I tugged at the large rusty door handle. This had to be the Escondite. Luz must be inside this room.

  The handle resisted. Another locked door. For a second I wished Nico were with me. The thought reminded me of Dylan, outside somewhere – had she already reached a phone and called Geri? I’d pushed that part of my search to the back of my mind.

  Small movements on the other side of the door. I took a deep breath and moved closer.

  ‘Hola?’ I whispered.

  Silence on the other side. I wiped my hands on my chinos. Suppose I’d got it wrong? Suppose this was just some hangout room for Fernandez’s friends? Or other random men who weren’t going to appreciate me barging in on their drinking or card-playing or whatever it was they were doing?

  Well, I couldn’t turn back now.

  ‘Hola?’ I said again.

  ‘Hola.’ A young voice on the other side. A boy.

  ‘Soy Ed,’ I said quickly. ‘Por que estas aquí y los otros por aqui?’

  More bad Spanish, but I couldn’t think straight in my panic and at least that got my point across: Why are you and the others here?

  The boy spoke so fast I couldn’t follow exactly what he was saying at first, though I caught the word: prisio . . . prisoners. I asked him to speak again, more slowly this time, which he did.

  What I heard sent a chill right through me. From what I could understand, there were six children inside the room. They had come from various parts of the region and were all, as far as I could make out, in trouble with the police. They had originally been destined for some kind of detention centre, but the police had dumped them at Fernandez’s camp, and they’d ended up here.

  ‘The men say we are leaving in the morning, first thing,’ the boy gabbled in Spanish.

  ‘Estoy buscando una chica que se llama Luz,’ I said. I’m looking for a girl called Luz.

  ‘Quien?’ Who?

  I repeated her name. ‘Do you know her?’ I asked. ‘Is she here?’

  ‘No.’ The boy’s voice rose. ‘Dejo aquí ayer.’ She left yesterday.

  My heart sank. I asked the boy if he knew where Luz had been taken.

  The boy made a clicking sound with his tongue. ‘No se,’ he said. I don’t know. He paused, then his voice grew pleading. ‘Ayudanos, por favor.’ Help us, please.

  At that moment the cellar door above banged open. Footsteps stomped down the stairs. I shrank back into the shadows as a large man lumbered into view. He fished out a key and undid the door. As he walked inside, I caught a glimpse of the room – it looked sparse, but cleaner than I’d expected. Two camp beds were pushed against the far wall. A row of scrawny kids sat on each one.

  Jesus, what a place. And what were Fernandez and Jorge planning on doing with all these children?

  I took advantage of the fact that the man was barking at the kids in Spanish, his back turned to me, to slip out of the shadows and race up the stairs. I listened at the top before creeping out into the corridor and along to the front door. The air was much fresher and cooler up here than down in the cellar. I glanced at the front door. Clearly no one had noticed the broken glass from the window beside the door yet. Good. That would make it easier for me to get away.

  My spirits rose. I still hadn’t managed to find Luz, but there was nothing more I could do for her right now. In fact, now I knew that children were definitely being taken to the house on the Calle Norte, the best thing I could do was turn the whole thing over to Geri. She could tell the authorities to investigate . . . to find Luz and save her . . . I just had to get to a phone.

  I was about to gently twist the catch on the door and slip out, when footsteps sounded on the pavement outside. I ducked back behind the huge plant next to the door, my stomach twisting into knots.

  And then the door opened and Jorge – the guy from the bar – appeared, a body slung over his shoulder. It was a girl, dressed in shorts and a halter-neck top, with long red hair falling down the sides of her face . . . Dylan.

  Oh no. My breath caught in my throat as my brain took a few seconds to catch up with the evidence of my eyes. As Jorge disappeared down the corridor, puffing under the weight of his burden, I stared at Dylan’s face. Her eyes were closed, her body hanging limp. She was unconscious.

  Muttering a string of Spanish swear words, Jorge pulled open the cellar door I’d just emerged from, then stomped off down the steps, Dylan’s head bumping against his back as he disappeared from view.

  9: Andrew Stanley

  I stood behind the flowerpot for several seconds, frozen with fear. What the hell did I do now? Panic ricocheted around my head. If Fernandez’ men had caught Dylan, then Fernandez must himself be aware I was free by now – and be searching for me. What was I going to do? I felt sick as the image of Dylan’s head bumping against Jorge’s back flashed into my mind. She must have been attacked from behind, otherwise she’d have been able to stop the blows with her Medusa powers.

  I had to get her out. I took a step across the hallway, then stopped.

  It was crazy attempting to rescue Dylan by myself. I’d simply get myself trapped down in the cellar along with her. I thought it through. Dylan had been trying to find someone with a phone so she could call Geri to rescue us. That was the number one priority – everything else followed on from that. And I had to assume that Dylan had failed . . . which left calling Geri up to me.

  I turned on my heel and crept back to the front door. I sprang the catch and peered carefully outside. An old lady was shuffling along the pavement opposite. She glanced round at me with cloudy, unseeing eyes. I was willing to bet my life that she didn’t carry a mobile phone. I glanced further up the road, towards the Madelina. That was the most likely direction Fernandez would appear from. I ran the opposite way, towards the crossroads about one hundred metres down. A car zoomed along the intersecting road as I ran. Then another. I’d flag one down if I had to. I gritted my teeth and raced on, slowing only slightly to cross a shadowy alleyway on my left. As I reached the other side, a tall, male figure strode out of the shadows, almost bumping into me.

  He was wearing a suit. He was sure to have a phone.

  I grabbed his arm, my heart pounding. ‘Ayudame, por favor,’ I said, the words suddenly tumbling out of me. Help me, please.

  The man’s eyes widened with surprise. He looked vaguely familiar. It took me a second to place him. Then I remembered. This was the tall, thin man I’d seen earlier at the back of the Madelina.


  ‘Ayudame,’ I said again. ‘Telefono.’ Damn. What was the word for ‘borrow’? Dylan had used it earlier, but in my panic I couldn’t remember.

  The man smiled. ‘I think we’ll get on better if we speak in English,’ he said smoothly. ‘Now, what’s the problem, kiddo? How can I help?’

  I blinked, letting go of his arm. The man was English.

  I swallowed, uncertain what to do. The man’s smile seemed genuine, but I was in such a state I couldn’t be sure he was really offering to help me. I stared at his face, half-tempted to mind-read him and make sure. His eyes were dark and intense, but I didn’t get the sense he was hiding anything from me. What struck me more forcefully was how thin he was, the gauntness of his face accentuated by the way his dark hair was cropped close to his skull.

  ‘Let me introduce myself.’ The man held out his hand. ‘I’m Andrew Stanley, European sales and marketing director for Electrical Security Solutions – here on business.’

  ‘Ed.’ I shook his hand, still feeling wary. I glanced over my shoulder. The street behind was empty.

  ‘So, what are you running from, Ed?’ the man said.

  ‘Er . . .’ I hesitated, torn between my desire to ask for help and my anxiety about giving too much away. The obvious thing was to carry on with my original plan and ask this man if I could borrow his phone. And yet I’d seen him up at the Madelina. For all I knew he could be in league with Fernandez and Jorge. ‘I saw you earlier, in the bar,’ I said, scanning his face for any signs of guilt or complicity.

  ‘That’s right,’ Stanley said evenly. ‘I was on my way to Madrid, but my helicopter had to put down just outside San Juan because one of the instruments was faulty. My pilot’s an excellent engineer but we won’t be able to take off again until first thing tomorrow morning, so I thought I’d head out for a drink.’