Page 125 of Drift

It fell quiet, and Gray watched him for a moment. “At some stage they acid-burned your fingers, no doubt Ava’s too,” he said eventually. “You were taken at ten, with the others, as a recruitment drive?”

Drift nodded. “I don’t remember much about the acid-burning. I get these memories sometimes. Just flashes. I was awake when they did it, but not at the same time. But they fucked up. They sent Jackson pictures of me and Ava, two kids literally sleeping with the enemy. Only they put me and Ava in a bed. Both of us always opted for underneath it no matter who offered one our way.” He shrugged. “Just safer.”

“But they drugged you both with something.” Gray knew these questions would hurt. “Something that made you sick.”

Drift nodded again. “Sick games. Survival of the fittest.” He frowned. “I think we met your virus back there, or a version of, and just by luck, me and Ava survived.”

Light quickly got up and headed into the hall as he tugged out his mobile. Gray knew where his head was going. He didn’t need to hear his conversation with Raif to know he requested items for bloods and swab tests to be send over to the UK Health Security Agency.

“Why take talent only to kill half of it?” That came off Simon as he looked Gray’s way.

“Profit,” said Drift. “With those kids who fail, they sell the kids’ organs on to hospitals and the black market.”

Simon slowly looked his way.

Drift eased forward, elbows on knees. “Jackson told me and Ava that we’d been there a week, and during it, I’d keep waking, seeing kids not much older than me on a table. One had his stomach ripped open, and a transplant carrier close by. Maybe that could have been blamed on what shit they gave me, but the kids I’ve seen since…?”

Light came back in and nodded Gray’s way.

“You ever heard of them syphoning bone marrow off victims?” Gray stayed with Drift. “Did you stay around in Wales long enough to see them do it there?”

Drift stilled.

Ah. He had, but which had it been: heard or seen? Gray worded this so very carefully now, because he got a very strange feeling when it came to what Drift had said about only sleeping with their own. “They don’t sell the bone marrow on, do they.” It wasn’t even a question.

Drift wiped a hand over his face. “I didn’t hang around in Wales to see if they still do it, no. But the lad on the table with his stomach ripped open…? I saw that.” He seemed to fight throwing up. “The skin on his knee joint had been stripped, exposing the bone. The young woman working on him, she started to carve something into it, this intensity about her like a graffiti artist to wall. After she finished, she broke the bone, and something was taken from inside…”

“Bone marrow.” said Gray.

Drift nodded. “Only she didn’t do anything with those samples. She put them in a case, then pulled out some othersthat looked the same. Maybe.” He frowned. “Either way, we were held down and it was injected into our knee.”

Light snapped a look Gray’s way. “She couldn’t use raw bone marrow. Drift’s body would have recognised it as a foreign DNA and destroyed it.”

Gray gave a brief nod. “DNA splicing,” he said distractedly. “Some form of. But she couldn’t use those raw samples. Which gave her access to specialist lab and equipment back then.”

“Doesn’t really matter,” mumbled Drift. “She topped it off with mixing bits of skin and blood into some kind of broth, then sipped at it. Then she forced it down our throats.”

Simon wiped a hand over his face.

“Oh… Modern-day Cannibals.” Martin called it out.

Drift looked over his shoulder at him. “I don’t know. I was out of it, it could just be part of a fucked-up dream, but…?” He looked down at his hands. “I was there for the best part of a week, and I don’t remember eating anything else but broth. So I guess that makes me a cannibal too, right?”

“No, it fucking doesn’t,” said Martin.

West hadn’t taken her look off Drift, like she heard this part for the first time as well.

Sixty Dinner Sid… all the drive to eat food, to try and erase nightmares and the taste of… humanity in the most basic form. It was in her eyes, Gray’s frown too.But why the transferal of bone marrow prior to that?

“They didn’t come for you?” Gray said gently to West.

She eventually tore her look off Drift. “Grant and Jackson, they’d handed me over to another crew before they went in.They’d gotten me and all his other kids off the street, out of the way.”

Gray eased back. “Okay,” he said gently, conscious of how quiet Drift had fallen. “That’s enough for now. Just one last question, though. Do you remember the names of the officers Jackson tried to speak to? The station you went to.”

“Yeah,” said Drift. “I made a point to remember every fucking detail after that. Just be aware nametags are just that: they might not be real. I don’t even know if they were real rozzers.”

Gray twisted his iPad over to him. “Write it down for me anyway.”

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