Free 1 Life 2 Die 4 by Dean Waite Page B

put my finger on any
particular flaw that I could use to disprove it once and for all.
If I was going to catch her out, I obviously needed to think of
some better questions that might reveal a more serious flaw in her
story. Before I had a chance to try, however, something about her
expression yanked me from my thoughts. When I focussed on her face,
the smile had disappeared and she looked utterly gutted.
    I’m not sure how I worked it out. Call it
intuition. Or perhaps my subconscious had already caught on but
hadn’t quite built up the courage to fill me in yet. Whatever the
reason, out of the blue I suddenly registered that her last
statement had talked about me in the past tense: we actually used to talk every now and then . I swallowed hard. Somehow,
I felt eerily certain that this wasn’t just because time-travelling
had left her confused over which tense to use.
    “I’m dead, aren’t I,” I stated flatly, and
then watched while her face slowly crumpled and tears appeared as
if by magic, streaming down her perfect face to cascade onto her
thin white cotton top.
    There was no need for her to answer. All of a
sudden every one of those sad, haunted looks she’d given me made
perfect sense. As I leaned over and she buried her face against my
neck, I felt a deathly chill run up my spine. For some reason, I
was now alarmingly certain that this was no ‘reality’ TV show. That
everything she’d told me – every single bizarre detail - was the
truth … and that before she had come to rescue me, she had learned
of my death in the future, no doubt at the hands of Sahissi’s
cronies.
     
    *****

13
    I’m not sure how long we sat there in silence with
Veronica’s head resting on my shoulder and her warm, wet tears
sliding down my neck. It felt like years; but it was probably only
a few minutes. Then we both jumped as a deafening explosion boomed
through the tiny room. Huge chunks of debris smashed against the
roof of our car as Veronica straightened and we peered up through
the obviously heavily reinforced sunroof.
    Above us, a gaping hole had opened in the
ceiling of our hidden room and bright sunlight was now streaming
through. My eyes were still struggling to adjust to the unexpected
glare when a silhouette appeared at the side of the jagged opening.
At the same time, I heard – and felt - our motor roar to life.
    “They’ve found us,” Veronica snapped
unnecessarily, her words a hurried blur.
    A stream of gunfire strafed across our car
while I listened to our tyres squeal and prayed this micro-machine
had a very thick skin. I looked ahead just as the wall before us
exploded outwards and we blasted forwards. The g-force slammed me
back so hard into the padded leather seat that I decided the car
must be rocket-powered. Except for the fact we were moving
horizontally, it felt like we’d just lifted off from Cape
Canaveral!
    Blasting out through the air, we easily
cleared a hedge growing beside the old bridge footing before
landing ten metres further on, in the middle of a long section of
lawn.
    “How’d we do that?” I breathed
incredulously.
    “Magnetic catapult,” Veronica replied
shortly, her attention focussed on the view through the windscreen.
When she steered sharp right, our wheels dug in, spraying huge
chunks of turf through the air like a breaking wave of brown and
green surf. Then we were off the lawn and onto a wide pathway
leading towards the Wheel of Brisbane, a massive Ferris wheel
filled with tourists who were now gawking down at us in
astonishment.
    I glanced sideways at Veronica and did a
double-take. Except for a faint sheen on her cheek and a slight
redness to her eyes, there was now no sign of her deep distress
just a few seconds earlier. I still remembered how devastated my
mum had looked for hours after Dad backed over our cat on the way
to their tenth anniversary dinner: her eyes blood-shot and swollen;
dark lines of mascara streaking her face. Even allowing for some
pretty