Free Num8ers by Rachel Ward Page B

go on the ride, but Jem, she”—he hesitated, looked at me quickly — “she said we should come away, it didn’t matter. We were on Hungerford Bridge when it went off. We saw it, Nan, we saw it.”
    “So you saved him. You kept my boy safe.” She held both my hands in hers now, looked deep into my eyes. “Thank you. Thank you for bringing him back to me. He’s a naughty boy, but he means the world to me. Thank you.”
    I didn’t know what to say. “We were just lucky,” I mumbled, but Spider wasn’t having it.
    “No, it wasn’t luck. She saved me, Nan, just like you said.” I flashed him a warning look, but the shock of the day and the relief of getting back home was loosening his tongue. “She’s like you, Nan. She knew something was going on.”
    I went to get up, but Val tightened her grip on my hands. “You felt something? What was it?”
    I shook my head. “I just had a feeling, that’s all. I knew something bad was going to happen.” Her eyes were boring into me as she sat there, just waiting. My heart was beating like mad, the blood pumping through me, deafening me. “I knew people were going to die.”
    Val made a little sighing noise, like she’d been holding her breath. “I knew there was something,” she said quietly. “I knew you had a gift.” She was still holding my hands, shaking them gently up and down, a gesture of comfort. “You’re here for a reason, Jem. You saved Terry for me. Thank you.”
    Her eyes were glistening, and I thought,
You’ve got it wrong about me. Spider could have stayed where he was, and he wouldn’t have died today. I only protected him from getting hurt. He wouldn’t have died today. I can’t save him. I want to, but I can’t, and soon he’ll go, and you’ll think I’ve let you both down.
    But I couldn’t say any of this, I could never tell them what was coming up for Spider. So I just sat there; and Spider, Val, and I were all quiet, as the reporter on the TV broke the news that police were putting out an urgent call to trace two youths seen running away just moments before the explosion, both in hoodies and jeans: one black, very tall; one shorter and white.
    I felt my stomach lurch. Whatever trouble I’d been in yesterday fell away. Spider and I were up to our necks in it now. We all looked at each other, and Val held on to my hand with one of her hands and reached out to hold Spider’s with the other.
    “You’ve done nothing. They’ve got nothing on you,” she said firmly. But we’d both had run-ins with the police before, and they weren’t going to swallow any stories about second sight, were they? Spider looked at me over the top of his nan’s head, and I knew what he was thinking. We couldn’t stick around waiting to be picked up. It was time to run.

CHAPTER ELEVEN
     
    “Listen, I’ve got to go out for a bit, like I said, do a bit of business, and then when I get back, we’ll get going.”
    “But—” I started to object, but Spider wasn’t having it.
    “We’re gonna need money, aren’t we? You get a bit of food together while I’m out, yeah?”
    “OK, but what if they pick you up now?”
    “I’ll be fine.” He put a jacket on over his hoodie and crammed a beanie over his unruly hair. “There, don’t worry, Jem. Safe.” He formed a fist and held it out to me, and I did the same. Our knuckles touched. “Safe, Jem. I’ll be back soon.” He sloped out the front door.
    All this time, Val had been watching us and hadn’t said a word. Now she got up from the chair.
    “You’d be alright here, you know. They’ve got nothing on you. You didn’t do nothing.”
    I shrugged. They’d been heavy enough about the knife — this was something completely different.
    “I’m not going to stop you, don’t worry. You’ll have to do what you think best. Look,” she said, making for the door, “if you are going, you’ll need some different clothes. Let me havea look in my room. You go through cupboards in the kitchen,