The Burning Read Online Free PDF Page A

and narrower, going nowhere
.
    The lights come closer and the man drives faster, then swerves. There are rocks on the road, suddenly vivid and jagged in the headlights. The car skids and, as if in slow motion, careers over the edge and down the bank towards the dark lake
.
    The woman cranes her neck round to look at her terrified
children for the last time, her mouth fixed in a horrified “O”. The twins’ mouths mimic their mother’s, but opening and shutting like those of baby birds about to be torn from their nest; their howls drowned out by the scream of rock on metal and the shattering of glass
.
    The car turns on its side, then on to its roof, the front wing hitting a huge boulder, and the vehicle flips nose to tail into the blackness of the water, making barely a splash. Beneath the surface, the mother’s screams fall silent; her voice no more than bubbles. In the darkness, lit only by the car’s headlamps, strands of hair swirl across her face like seaweed. Blood streams from the man’s head: mushrooming red clouds in the water. Four small fists pummel silently against the back windows, desperate to live
.
    Flying high above, Rachel sees the silver shape of the car as it slips into the depths like a slow and heavy fish. Two bubbles burst through the water like globes of mercury, and she sees two small bodies kicking and thrashing, floating to the surface, spotlit by the headlights of the black car that waits on the road above
.
    Rachel sat bolt upright.
    She was soaking wet and shaking as she ran her fingers through her hair, which was thick and sweaty. She must have drifted off. She had felt so sleepy after that bellyful of food, and the room was so warm.
    Laura had told her she must rest, that it would take hera few days to get back to normal. Normal? Rachel wondered if she would ever feel normal again. She looked round the familiar bedroom with its unfamiliar feeling, searching in vain for something that might control the temperature. She realized that, although she still couldn’t hear her brother’s thoughts, she had started dreaming again.
    It was nothing to be grateful for.
    The dream, with its nightmarish images of drowning in dark water, had left her with a cold, sickening feeling of panic.
    Who were the twins in the car?
    They certainly hadn’t been her and Adam; they had never been in a crash, and the man and woman in the car hadn’t been their parents. Maybe the twins
represented
her and Adam? Rachel thought. Maybe it was just a nightmare about being torn from your parents? She screwed her eyes shut and strained to recall the images from the dream. She had felt as though she’d been in the car
and
high above it, watching each terrible moment like the slow-motion replay of a film. She recalled the faces, the inside of the car, with its scuffed leather seats and the green lights on the dashboard. She could smell the damp. She could see purple flowers sprouting among the rocks.
    Then she remembered a curious detail. The little girl on the back seat had been wrapped in a plaid blanket, held together by a large, gold brooch.
    A brooch in the shape of a Triskellion.
    *  *  *
    Laura Sullivan sat in her office, staring at the screen of her laptop and wrestling with her conscience.
    She had never questioned her own motives before, but it was becoming increasingly difficult not to. Surely she had done the right thing in bringing the kids here? They wouldn’t have been safe in Triskellion after all, and going back to the States would certainly have been dangerous for them. Laura instinctively felt that something was wrong in the US. Van der Zee was certainly under pressure from his bosses to send Rachel and Adam over for more “invasive” testing, but so far he had backed Laura by keeping the twins in the UK. Laura had argued that they needed to be observed at close quarters, to be allowed to relax and develop in this safe environment with their mother near by. But was it right to be medicating