All Sorts of Possible by Rupert Wallis Page B

up a dial. ‘This feels as far as we can
go.’
    Lawson wiped his nose with the back of his hand and there was a tiny stripe of blood across it, wet like paint. ‘Don’t panic, Daniel,’ he said. ‘You need to keep your
heart open. We need to see how much of a fit we can really make.’
    ‘Attaboy, Lawson,’ said Mason. ‘Keep working it. Tell me who stole my money.’
    ‘But something’s not right,’ replied Daniel, shaking his head. ‘It’s painful. It’s not like it was before.’
    ‘Don’t shut me out,’ shouted Lawson, his face waxing and waning, shining with sweat. ‘Don’t you want to know what we can really do? If we can help your
father?’
    There was a painful knocking in Daniel’s forehead now. Each time he blinked, he saw Lawson’s face inside him and it felt as though the man was trying to take over his body with his
very being, reaching deep down into him. He could sense how scared Lawson was of Mason. How desperate he was to find out what the big, bald man wanted to know.
    But, as the burning sensation in Daniel’s chest became more intense, he gritted his teeth and tried to ride it out because he wanted to know what the fit could really do too, whether it
might be powerful enough to bring his father back.
    ‘I won’t shut you out,’ he gasped. ‘I want to know. I want to see what we can do.’
    Mason whooped. He muttered and swore and wiped his brow with the back of a meaty hand.
    Daniel heard a strange sound starting up inside him, a clicking, like someone flicking a light switch on and off. Slow and regular at first, then steadily becoming faster and faster, until it
was just a constant buzzy sound, warbling inside him. It pounded his ears like an alarm. When it stopped suddenly, without warning, Daniel felt a jolt, as if a wire had been cut, and the pain in
his chest vanished immediately too, leaving just a hole again, filled with cold, gleaming dark.
    Everyone in the room saw Lawson’s fist explode like a grenade.
    The stump of his wrist was left raw and red and white. Like something still oozing blood on a butcher’s slab. The hand itself was nothing but mess on the walls and the ceiling.
    Frank picked a bloody finger out of his lap and held it up, making a face to Jiff, who was laughing hysterically.
    Lawson dropped to his knees and his head lolled forward on to his chest, the stump of his arm still outstretched as though being offered up for inspection. He began to shake and cough and he
raised his head, and, when he opened his eyes, he smiled, apparently unaware of his missing hand.
    But then, slowly, his smile reversed, becoming the mirror image of itself, and he began to shake, his cheeks draining whiter and whiter. He tried clutching his arm to his chest, cupping his
remaining hand round it, below the stump, and rocking it like a baby.
    ‘Help me,’ he whispered. ‘Help me.’
    But no one moved as Lawson’s stump pumped more blood down his arm.
    ‘Who’s got my money, Lawson?’ asked Mason calmly.
    Daniel
knew
that Mason’s white handkerchief was on the floor beside Lawson. He
knew
he was kneeling down and picking it up. And he
knew
he was wrapping the
handkerchief round the man’s arm, fumbling with both ends of what was to become a simple knot to try and stem the flow of blood.
    But he did not seem to own these movements. They just seemed to happen of their own accord.
    As soon as it was tied, the handkerchief was already soaked, leaking crimson drops on to the floor. When Lawson put out his good arm to try and steady himself, it collapsed at the elbow as soon
as he put some weight on it and he hit the carpet with a grunt. He lay on his side in the shape of a question mark, a fierce line pumping in his throat, looking up at Daniel through narrow-slitted
eyes.
    There was so much blood it was eating up the carpet.
    And sitting in all that red was the silver signet ring.
    When Mason crouched beside Daniel and touched the top of his shoulder, the boy