Such a fear gripped me. A wide, pink wet laughing mouth below me. Sharp cold blue eyes. My chest being squeezed. High up and the ground seemed so far away. And I went down, down. Up, up.
"Whoa, whoa!" The hands threw me up in the air. I screamed and they caught me again. I kept screaming. Up, up again. This time I wasn't caught. I fell, bounced on the soft mattress, my mother's bed. I knew that. I howled. The hands were gone, the face was gone, the shout was ringing in my ears. In my misery I remember seeing a familiar shiny thing laid upon a surface beside the bed. The sight of it gave me comfort. I had often played with it, thrown it, sucked it (its smooth coolness had soothed my inflamed gums). I wanted it. But the shouting continued. I grew hotter. I coughed, choked on acrid smoke. The screams. Again my hands were gripping bars. Arms outstretched came towards me and a beloved face swam into view. A pale halo of fine blond hair. Pale blue eyes, perfect pink skin. The eyes were not sparkling in that way that I trusted. They were red, wet, and red rimmed but still I could feel the love that shone through them.
"That's what he stabbed her in the face with," said Phoenix. "It went in her eye. I saw it."
"Jesus!" I said and I woke with a start. I turned to look in the back of the car.
"I saw it." said Phoenix,
"I saw you," I said.
"What? What's the matter?" said Katyia.
"What goes around comes around." said Phoenix.
"Ah, nothing, a dream, a bad dream, when I was little."
"I've been thinking," said Katyia.
"Where are we?" I interrupted her.
"No idea, but apparently we are about two hours from the city. Look, we need to make plans and you've got stuff to do. How are you feeling?"
"Dunno. What plans?"
"You need to phone your parents." I winced inwardly. "We need to tell the police about Bullimore."
"Tell'em what?"
"That he's going to be at the car park outside the mall in the multi-storey bit at 10 o'clock."
"How do you know that?"
"Skender got it from the gangmaster, Prentpalaj. He told me when you were sleeping. We are going to be there far too early. I think we should stop - you need some rest. Drive up a country lane somewhere. And we need time to look at those pictures. You got that laptop?"
"Yeah, in my bag."
"Well let's see if we can get into it."
I had chucked my bag onto the back seat. I turned round and leant over as far as I could.
"Here, can you pass me the bag?"
"Er, no, I'm driving. What did your last servant die of?"
Phoenix was grinning. She looked pointedly at the back of Katyia's head, and back at me and shook her head. I managed to grab the strap of my bag without dislocating my shoulder and pulled it into the front. The laptop booted up fine.
"Not a lot of charge in it," I said, "but fortunately..." I fished out the charging kit I'd spotted in the desk drawer and found the cigarette lighter.
The screen gave me two choices of user. One was labelled Peter the other as guest. I tried Peter, the thing asked for a password. I went back and tried guest and I was straight in to a new desktop.
YOU ARE READING
Phoenix and the Bag Man
Teen Fiction"The Bag Man did it," said Phoenix gently, "and we want revenge." I was staring into a face that I loved, tears streaming down my face, and in Katyia's eyes there was sorrow and pain too, she was feeling for me, matching my grief every step of the w...
