to speak freely, but they still couldn’t even stand up without asking permission first. This was what had most struck Jamie about life at Silent Creek. They were no longer people. They were objects. At no point in the day could they do anything for themselves. The man watching them was the most senior – and the toughest – supervisor. He was a bulky, round-shouldered man with thinning hair and a moustache. His name was Max Koring. If anyone was looking for trouble, it would be him. He seemed to enjoy humiliating the inmates, carrying out strip searches for no reason at all, taking away a month’s privileges simply because it amused him.
Baltimore leant across the table. He had been named after the city where he’d been born. He was a tall, handsome black boy who never spoke about the crime that had brought him here. “You want to know about the other side, you need to talk to Koring,” he whispered. “He works both sides of the wall.”
“How do you know?” Jamie asked.
“I’ve seen him come in through the medicine wing.”
The medicine wing stood right up against the wall. Everyone knew that it served both sides of the prison. At least, that was what they said.
“He’s one of the only ones who’s allowed,” Baltimore went on. “They’ve got guards working the whole time on the other side. Armed guards. They don’t have nothing to do with us.”
“You want to visit the other side, just ask Max,” DV said. He smiled briefly. “The only trouble is, he’ll have your brain wired up to a computer and the next time anyone sees you, you’ll be a vegetable like all the others.”
The meal came to an end. The boys handed in their trays and plastic forks, then turned out their pockets and stood with their legs apart for the pat-down before they were returned to their cells for an hour’s rest. As they left the room, walking slowly through the blinding sunlight, Jamie noticed Joe Feather standing on the edge of the football field, examining him. It seemed to him that the Intake Officer had been watching him from the moment he had arrived. Did he suspect something? If so, Jamie would have to move quickly. He might be running out of time.
He remembered what Feather had said when he was processed, almost a week before. He had seen the tattoo on Jamie’s shoulder and he had asked, “You have a brother?” There was only one way he could have known that. He had seen Scott. And that meant that Scott had to be here, at Silent Creek.
Jamie was sure of it. After all, it made sense. Silent Creek was the only privately run prison in Nevada and it was part of the Nightrise Corporation. According to Alicia, Nightrise had been responsible for the disappearance of not one but many boys with paranormal abilities. What better place to keep them than within a maximum security prison, miles from anywhere, surrounded by the Mojave Desert? He had seen the name in Colton Banes’s thoughts. And what else could there be, concealed on the other side of the wall?
Jamie took off his trainers (it was rule number 118 or 119: no shoes inside the cell) and left them neatly in the corridor. The other boys had done the same. He went into the cell and a few seconds later there was a buzz and the doors slid shut electronically. His room, painted white, measured ten steps by five. There was a bunk that was actually part of the floor, moulded out of it. The cement simply rose up to form a narrow shelf with a thin, plastic mattress on the top. Opposite the bed he had a metal shelf which acted as a desk, with a chair bolted into the floor. A stainless-steel unit stood beside the door – a toilet and a basin combined. There was a mirror made of polished steel. And that was it. The room had a single window: a long strip no more than a few centimetres wide. There were no bars. Even if he had been able to smash through the industrial-strength glass, he could never have slipped out.
The other boys had told him that the door was electronically sealed and whenever he was alone, locked into the cell, Jamie had to fight back a growing sense of panic. Alicia knew he was here. At the end of his second week, he would be allowed to telephone her. But she was his only link with the outside world. What if something happened to her? Then he would be stuck here as Jeremy Rabb – or Indian. How long would it be before he went crazy and either had to be locked up in isolation or drugged?
But that wasn’t going to happen. Jamie still had his power and tonight he was going to use it. There would be a guard on duty in his unit and that guard would take him to the other side of the prison. He would find Scott and together the two of them would walk out.
Except…
It was only now, when it was much too late, that the first whispers of doubt came. Scott had the same powers as him -so why hadn’t he used them to break out himself? Was there something Jamie didn’t know? Why was he so certain that Scott was even there? A sickening thought occurred to him. Scott could be dead. He could have escaped and got lost in the desert. Anything could have happened.
Sitting alone on his bunk, Jamie opened his mind as he had done every night since he had arrived. He was sending his thoughts along the corridors, into the different blocks, trying to feel for any sense of his brother being near by. He concentrated on the other side of the wall. But there was nothing. Why was that? Jamie refused to accept that Scott wasn’t here. He had to be somewhere. Inside the secret compound. And if he wasn’t responding there must be a reason. Maybe it was simply that he was asleep.
Somehow the next hour crawled past. Then there were more lessons, an hour in the gym, dinner. The day finished with a wrap-up session in the unit’s living area – an open space with four circular tables where they were allowed to play cards or board games. The boys were supposed to talk about the day and how it had gone, but of course there was never very much to say. A guard sat watching them from behind a bank of television screens which showed different views of the corridors. There were no cameras in the cells. Tonight, Max Koring was on duty, which meant that the lights would snap out at exactly ten o’clock – or perhaps fifteen minutes earlier if he felt like it.
They were sent back to their cells at nine o’clock. They were given nothing to wear in bed – it was too hot anyway – so the boys just slept in their shorts. Each of them was given a toothbrush to use but it was collected and locked away again before the doors were shut. The handle of a toothbrush, sharpened, could make a lethal weapon, and the supervisors weren’t taking any chances. Jamie had no watch. It had been taken away from him along with anything else that might give him any sense of identity or independence. Eventually the lights in the cell blinked out. Although it still wasn’t truly dark, there were arc lamps all around the prison perimeter and they would stay on all night, the white glare seeping in through the window. Jamie lay on his bunk for about half an hour. Then he got up and dressed. It was time.
He pressed the call button next to his cell door.
A few minutes later, there was the rattle of a key and the door slid open. Max Koring stood there, his stomach rising and falling, his face half hidden in shadow. He had opened the door manually, overriding the electronic control. And he wasn’t pleased to be here. None of the supervisors enjoyed the graveyard shift, but being bothered by the kids just made it worse.
“Yes?” he demanded.
“I want you to take me to the units on the other side of the wall,” Jamie said.
The supervisor stared at him. He looked puzzled.
“You will do it now,” Jamie continued – and pushed, projecting his thoughts into the man’s head. He knew what he was doing. He had done exactly the same thing when he had come face to face with the policeman at Marcie’s house in Sparks.
Max Koring didn’t move.
“We’re leaving now,” Jamie said. And pushed again.
“You think you’re being funny?” Koring muttered. “What the hell d’you think you’re doing?”
Jamie felt a shiver of bewilderment – followed by panic. It wasn’t working! But it had to. “Take me to my brother!” he demanded. He was still pushing, burning a hole in the man’s brain.
Now Koring was examining him as if seeing him in a completely new light. He smiled – but there was nothing warm or pleasant in it. “You have a brother?” he asked.
Desperately, Jamie changed tack. He couldn’t make the man obey him – but he could still use the moment to get information from him. He no longer cared about the consequences. He had to know about Scott and so he concentrated and jumped into Koring’s mind, just as he had with Colton Banes.
Nothing happened. His power wasn’t working. Jamie just had time to absorb the shock before Koring grabbed hold of him and backhanded him – hard – across the face. The room spun. Jamie tasted blood. Then he was thrown backwards, crashing into the bunk.
“I don’t like my time being wasted,” Koring said. “And you don’t give me orders. You may be new here, but
