Dangerous Games (15 page)

I
t was a week before Ben and I got to speak again.

While my mum was in charge he wasn't allowed to come round to watch the footy with me, but the following weekend Dad was home and there was a noticeable relaxing of the rules.

‘There's something I need to talk to you about,' I whispered to Ben during half time, while Dad was off making cups of tea. ‘Have you ever heard of something called the Citadel?'

‘No,' Ben said. ‘What is it?'

So I told him, very briefly, what Alice had told me.

‘Do you think it's true?' I asked. ‘Do you think we really have a headquarters?'

‘I don't know,' Ben said thoughtfully. ‘I've never heard of it if we have. Not that that means anything.' He paused. ‘She may have just been lying to you.'

‘Or wrong.'

‘Or wrong,' Ben agreed.

‘But if it
is
true,' I said, ‘it'd be great to find it. There's so much we don't know – about our powers, about this war, about everything.'

Ben was nodding slowly, his mind racing. ‘It'd be good to finally get some answers.' He looked at me, and his blue eyes sparkled with the thrill of the chase.

‘So how do we find it?' I asked.

‘I don't know,' Ben said. ‘But I think we need to start looking.'

He looked at me and I looked at him and I felt my heart tighten in my chest.

At that moment Dad came hurrying in with a clattering tea-tray, his eyes fixed firmly on the telly. ‘Why didn't you tell me the second half was starting?' he said. ‘Who wants an Iced Vo-Vo?'

And that was the end of that conversation.

But it wasn't the end of the story. Not by a long way.