Vic snapped awake and sat up in his small room. He sighed, wiped a hand across his face, and fell out of bed. He looked around for Charlotte, but she was only ever in his dreams. The sound was something else. The sound was—
‘“Fuck me, it’s the alarm.” He stood and tried to shake the last remnants of the nightmare, knowing from experience that it would haunt his mood and mind all day. The nearest sounder was at the corridor junction a dozen steps away, but the sound was designed to penetrate every corner of Coldbrook. Already he could hear running feet outside. They’d rehearsed for this; it was one of the safeguards that Jonah insisted upon. What they’d never designed was any method of communicating just what the emergency was.
He looked around his small room. It was a stopover place, because his main home was up in Danton Rock with Lucy and Olivia. They had always been the most important things in his life, despite what Charlotte might have to say, and he’d die or kill to protect them. If necessary, both.
He groaned, squeezed his eyes shut and tried to shake off sleep. Dream and reality were still bleeding together, the nightmare tenacious, so much so that he expected to see Charlotte in front of him when he opened his door. But out in the corridor a technician ran by, dressed in boxers and boots and a scruffy Mot?rhead T-shirt.
‘Andy! What’s up?’
He skidded to a stop past Vic’s door and looked back. ‘Dunno. Alarm woke me so I’m off to my station.’
‘Yeah,’ Vic said, and Andy turned and hurried on. Off to my station. They all knew what to do should the alarm sound. It had been drummed into them enough.
Vic slipped back into his room and closed the door, searching through the mess of clothes on the floor for his satphone. He was one of several in the facility who kept them on their person at all times – him, Jonah, Holly, the guards’ captain Alex – and it was also a direct link to outside. His priority now was to find out what had gone wrong, and then decide what he should do about it. Gotta get to my station in Secondary, he thought. That was what procedure said – the alarm would initiate Control lockdown, and Secondary should be his aim. But that was not what his heart said, and never had been. He’d always promised himself that if things went badly wrong down here, his family would come first.
He dialled Holly but received an unavailable signal. What the fuck . . .? He cancelled, and dialled Jonah. It was answered in three rings.
‘Vic . . . something came through.’ The old man sounded breathless and panicked, and Vic had to close his eyes for a moment, sick at the knowledge that this was not a false alarm. He’d always had his doubts and fears, but even then he hadn’t really believed that something would go wrong. Not really.
‘Jonah, what was it? Where are you? Where’s Holly? I can’t reach her.’
‘I’m going for Secondary. Control’s locked down.’ He panted, running as he spoke. ‘Something came through.’
‘What came through?’ Vic asked again, cursing the continuing alarm that stole some of his words.
‘Don’t know . . . a creature, but . . .’ Gasping, coughing.
‘Where’s Holly?’
‘Control.’ Vic stared at the narrow cot where he and Holly had made love so many times, felt her breath on his neck and her fists squeezing his shoulders as she came, and his sister’s voice echoed from his dream. Right, yeah. At work.
‘How did something get past the—?’
‘Vic, it attacked Melinda.’
‘What? How?’
‘Bit her. Bad. But then she . . . I thought she was dead, but she . . .’
‘Jonah?’
‘Need to control this until we can . . .’ He was panting harder now, each breath a gasp. ‘. . . can figure out . . .’
‘Is Holly safe?’
‘Don’t know. Meet me in Secondary.’