Furnace 3 - Death Sentence by Alexander Gordon Smith Page B

closer until it seemed as though they were right next door.
    ‘You okay? Quick, cut the straps.’
    A slurred response, followed by the grating of a serrated blade through leather. I heard more words that I couldn’t make out, then something pale and wraith-like pushed its way past the screen to the side of me. I snapped my head round and opened my mouth, letting loose a guttural growl that sent the face skittering back into the next compartment.
    Seconds later it returned, and there were two more with it. I knew them, although at the same time they were complete strangers. The first was half boy and half beast, one arm grotesquely muscled the same way mine were. His silver eyes were wide in disbelief and he shook his head as though I was a nightmare that had visited him in the flesh. The two kids standing next to him were tiny by comparison, and they looked unmarked.
    ‘Jesus,’ said one, smoothing a hand through his hair. He had turned three shades paler in the time he’d been standing there.
    ‘We’ve got to go,’ said the smallest kid. ‘Wheezers’ll be back any minute.’
    ‘Is that him?’ said the freak with the giant arm. The other kid walked forward and I wrenched at my chainsagain, growling at him. He had no right to look at me the way he was doing now, as if I deserved pity. He was the weak one, they all were. Weak and incomplete. If I could escape I’d show them what strength was. I’d show them power.
    All three seemed to recoil at the sound of my growl, but they didn’t leave.
    ‘Simon, what do we do?’ said the youngest. ‘Can we get him out?’
    ‘No,’ answered the bigger kid. ‘He’s too far gone. Look at him, for Christ’s sake. I’ve never seen that much nectar hooked into the vein.’
    ‘We can’t leave him,’ said the third boy. I studied his face and was surprised to see that every trace of weakness had gone. His expression was set in stone, a look of fierce determination, and it sent chills down my spine. I knew that look. I knew it because I had worn it once. A memory swam through the nectar like a whale trying to breach the surface of a frozen sea. I couldn’t grasp it, but I knew that I’d been in this situation before. Only … Only it had been different.
    The kid vanished into the next cubicle and returned a second later with something in his hands. I couldn’t quite twist my head round far enough to see what it was, but somehow I knew.
    It was a pillow.
    ‘What are you doing?’ said the small kid. ‘You’re not going to …’
    ‘Ozzie, shut up,’ snapped the one they called Simon. ‘It’s the only thing we can do. He’s gone.’
    The boy with the pillow took a step forward and I felt the terror wash through me. I thrashed against my chains but they were solid steel fingers that held me tight. Opening my mouth, I screamed at him, the sound like the roar of a jet engine. But he didn’t stop, didn’t take his eyes from mine.
    ‘Alex, are you in there?’ he asked. ‘Because if you are then you have to let me know, right now.’
    I growled again, throwing my entire body at him in the hope that my bonds would snap. There was nothing called Alex here, there was just me, and I was going to kill the child in front of me. I was going to kill them all. I was the powerful one, the predator. They were nothing but loose skin on bone, not even worthy of being prey. I felt my face split open at the thought, my grin like the sneer of a lion that knows it is about to feast.
    ‘Jesus, Zee, hurry up. I can hear them coming.’
    Zee . I knew the word, the name, although I couldn’t think from where. It floated before me like silk in water, surrounded by thoughts and images I could make no sense of. I had almost grasped one – the kid called Zee in a lift, alongside me and two others, being carried down into the guts of the earth – but by the time it had taken shape I felt the pillow on my face.
    I almost laughed at the thought that I could be killed by such a pathetic