The Burning Read Online Free PDF Page B

than the irritation. There was no keeping a good girl down, she thought. Maybe she
did
need sedating a little longer.
    Like the others had.

R achel slammed the door behind her, furious at having discovered the spy camera, and angry at herself for not having discovered it sooner. She had felt for a while that she was being watched. It was no less than she had expected really, but still, to have it confirmed enraged her beyond belief. Could she trust no one? She was surprised to find that her room hadn’t been locked.
    She stormed down the corridor, rapped on her brother’s door and threw it open without waiting for an answer.
    “They’re spying on us, Adam!” she shouted, knowing full well that Adam’s room would be wired too. “Adam…?” She stepped into the room, but her brother was missing – his messy bed the only evidence that he had ever been there at all. Rachel slammed the door closed again and stamped off along the hallway that Laura had taken them down when they’d gone for breakfast.
    Turning right towards the older part of the building, Rachel suddenly found herself face to face with a womanin a white lab coat. The woman, who was no taller than Rachel, looked shocked and backed against the wall, fumbling in her pockets for a set of small earphones and trying to avoid eye contact.
    Rachel glanced at the double doors that led through to the kitchen and which could only be opened with a passkey.
    Her anger made her bold.
    “Open that door for me, please,” she said to the woman. The woman looked frightened. She tried to avoid Rachel and slip round her, but Rachel cut off her escape with her own body. “I said, open the door! I’m not a prisoner; I’m a free person!”
    The woman looked up briefly, her eyes darting left and right, trying frantically to avoid Rachel’s gaze. “We’re not… We’re not meant to talk to you.”
    She tried again to escape, but Rachel dropped her shoulder and barged the woman back against the wall.
    “Where’s Adam? Where’s my brother?” Rachel grabbed the back of the woman’s short, bobbed hair, pulled her head back and glared straight into her face.
    “Please! We’re not even meant to
look
at you,” the woman said.
    Rachel gave the short hair a good yank. “Open it.
Now!
” She pulled the hair again for good measure, talking close; looking hard into the woman’s eyes. Suddenly the resistance went from the woman’s body. She ceased struggling and turned calmly back towards the door, swiping her passkey in the slot on the wall.
    “There you go,” she said, pushing open one of the doors, before smiling weakly at Rachel and continuing on her original path as if nothing had happened.
    Rachel stood in the open doorway and watched her go. She was astonished at the sudden capitulation and felt guilty for the violence she’d used to make it happen.
    “Sorry!” she shouted. But the woman didn’t look back.
    Rachel walked on down the corridor and into the empty kitchen. Mr Cheung’s head appeared from behind the plastic curtains of the walk-in larder.
    “Hi, Rachel. Hungry?”
    “No, thank you,” Rachel said briskly. “I’m looking for my brother.” She continued past the breakfast bar and headed for the swing doors that led out of the kitchen on the other side.
    Mr Cheung tensed, and stepped towards her. “Rachel, I’m sorry … I don’t think…”
    Rachel held up her hand imperiously, silencing the chef, then pushed through the double doors.
    They led through to another part of the building, clearly older, with a thickly carpeted floor and pictures on the wall. Rachel could smell woodsmoke and hear faint classical music coming from somewhere at the end of the passage.
    She followed the sound to an open doorway. Inside, the room was large and comfortable, with a roaring log fire and huge, over-stuffed armchairs and sofas. On the mantlepiece over the fire sat several antique-looking clocks, theirworkings exposed beneath glass domes. Glancing around