Testimony of Children (Alice Gray Book 2)

38

My head crashed against a hard surface, waking me with an unpleasant jolt. The disorientating throbbing in my skull meant it took me a moment to realise I was in trouble.

Murky darkness surrounded me. The floor lurched and bumped.

Crap.

I was in a moving vehicle. The back of a transit van, if I had to guess by the hard, plastic covered floor that I was currently bouncing on with no way to break each fall. My hands were secured behind my back in what felt like a tight plastic zip-tie. My ankles were similarly restrained.

It smelled like bleach – that wasn't good. What was this van used for that would require intensive cleaning?

All the macabre possibilities swam in my mind, mostly involving blood and body parts.

I had to get a grip.

Maybe it belonged to a regular cleaning service. Or perhaps the owner was just fastidious about their vehicle upkeep.

A heavy snore told me that I wasn't alone in the murky light of the vehicle. Manoeuvring with a combination of shuffles and rolls I finally bumped into Lucas's prone form. He was still sound asleep, and unharmed if the even breathing and warmth of contentment that he emitted were anything to go by.

That vodka had really done a number on us.

A couple of prods were rewarded only with a grunt and a shift away from my pointy finger. The movement was enough to topple him over, causing a similar head bump to the one that had woken me.

"What the hell!" Lucas exclaimed, straining against the zip-ties that restricted his limbs.

"Shhh, don't draw their attention."

"Alice?"

"Yes, shhh," I whispered.

Lucas stilled, the reality of our predicament filtering into his consciousness, just as it had mine.

A few seconds of silence followed as we both tried to pick up any clues to the identity of our captors and the direction that we were travelling.

It was impossible, all I could hear was the whoosh of the tires on a well tarmacked road. We were likely on the motorway, which meant that we could be going anywhere.

"How long have we been driving?" Lucas asked, lowering his voice so we wouldn't be heard in the van's cab.

"No idea. I only woke a couple of minutes before you."

"Shit."

"Exactly."

Lucas struggled against his restraints for a few minutes, until reaching the same conclusion that I had.

We were trapped.

And defenceless.

"I should be able to break these," he said.

Lucas closed his eyes and focused inwards. I could feel his power stir, wild and hot. A vein in his forehead bulged with the effort. His face went a deep shade of red.

Nothing happened.

"Give it up, you'll do yourself an injury," I said, worried that he would cause an embolism and leave me to face our abductors alone.

"They've done something to me. I can't change."

Change?

I had to swallow my questions. Now was so not the time.

Instead, I followed Lucas's example and tried to call my power. Focusing on unwinding it from the tight coils that I had formed around my insides to keep it in check, I realised that it wasn't responding.