As soon as Jenna could not open the door, Jack knew that they were in trouble.
“Now what?” Sparky said. He stood and rattled at the handle, as if his own strength could undo it when Jenna's could not.
“It's locked, Dumbo,” Jenna said.
“Yeah? Watch this.” Sparky took two steps back and braced himself, ready to shoulder-bash the door and probably break a bone in the process.
“Sparky!” Jack said. His friend paused, then relaxed.
“They've probably got a guard out there,” Jenna said.
“So what the hell's going on?” Sparky asked.
“Me,” Jack said. “Breezer wants to see what's happening to me.”
“And what is?” Jenna asked softly.
“A change,” Jack said. He searched for something else to say, to explain, but he could not. Tears threatened. “I'm really scared, guys.”
“Still a *,” Sparky said. But he clapped Jack on the shoulder, then ruffled his hair like a parent comforting a kid.
“So how do we get out of this one?” Jenna asked.
“Yeah,” Sparky said. “Can't you, like, magic the door open, or something?” Jenna nudged him in the ribs, and he feigned hurt. He pinched her rump, she slapped his face.
Jack turned away, pursed his lips, thinking. He felt a flush of anger at Breezer—he'd taken them in to protect them, now he held them prisoner—but the man was only doing what he thought was best. That didn't mean he could be reasoned with.
And there was no guarantee he would not use physical force to keep them there.
“This is an office block, not a prison,” Jack said. “Thin walls. Plasterboard. We know there's probably someone watching the door out there.” He turned around and pointed at the wall behind him. “So we go that way.”
“Huh?” Sparky asked.
Jack pulled the folding knife from his pocket and flipped open the blade. He scored a long, deep line down the wall from face to waist height, and a drift of fine plaster fell out onto the bare concrete floor. He glanced back at Sparky and Jenna, grinning.
“Won't take long.”
Jenna pulled her own knife and started two feet along the wall from Jack. They worked gently and deliberately, until Jack held up a hand and bent to look through the cut he'd formed. It was pitch back, but he realised it was a double-sided partition.
With a soft shove, Sparky pushed out and pulled away the section they'd outlined and set it aside, exposing metal studding and the back side of the opposite wall surface.
Twenty minutes later he pulled out a second square of plasterboard. Let this be easy, Jack thought, and they all held their breath.
The room beyond was much like the sparse office they had been locked into, except that the door stood ajar. Beyond, the sunlit corridor.
“Quietly,” Jack said.
“Slowly, slowly, catchee monkey,” Sparky whispered, lifting himself up through the hole.
Moments later they were in the second office. Jack felt time ticking by. Breezer will be waiting to talk to us, persuade us to his way of thinking. He'll be keen to see me again, because it's me he's interested in. He felt a flush of pity for Breezer, but he was more and more determined—his mother and Emily came first, and Reaper was the only sure way to rescue them alive.
London, the survivors, the Choppers, the lies being fed to the public, even his own strange, growing powers…they all came second.
Jack peeked into the corridor. A man sat on the floor outside the door to the room they had just left. He had no weapon, and looked harmless. But the longer they avoided detection, the better their chances at escape. So far Breezer had only locked a door; there was no saying how much farther he would go to keep Jack from fleeing.