The Power of Five Oblivion

the first through and Pedro was sure that Matt and Jamie were immediately behind. Then there had been a moment of darkness, barely more than the blink of an eye, and he had realized that although Scott was still in front, there was now nobody else with them. They were alone in a corridor with a rectangle of light, a courtyard, ahead of them. From Cuzco to Hong Kong and now to wherever this was … it seemed that they were going to have no escape from each other.
    Scott looked back and saw what had happened. “Pedro?” There was anger in his voice. “Where are the others?”
    “They haven’t come.”
    “Jamie was there. I saw him. I stopped him being shot. He must have come with us. He was right there!”
    “There’s no one.”
    “Where are we?” Scott might as well have been asking himself the question. Pedro had no idea.
    “We should go back,” Pedro said.
    “No.” Scott looked ahead. “Let’s see where we are.”
    And that was the mistake they made. Pedro thought about it now as he had thought of it often. They could have turned round and walked two or three steps back through the door. How different things would be if they had returned to Hong Kong – or to anywhere else in the world! Instead, they had crept forward into a grey-lit courtyard, with weeds sprouting in what might once have been a garden and a cracked stone fountain, broken and still. He just had time to see that they were in the cloister of an old church but one that had been long abandoned by the priests.
    Scott had been about to say something – maybe to call out a warning – but then a group of men had rushed out of nowhere, dressed in black uniforms and carrying batons and canisters of CS gas, which Pedro recognized instantly from his years on the streets of Lima. They had no chance. He saw one of the men swing his baton and knock Scott to the ground and leapt forward to help him. Somebody grabbed him and he lashed out with his feet and his arms, even trying to bite whoever was holding him. Then he heard a soft hiss and felt something damp on his skin. A second later his whole face exploded in agony, tears streaming down his cheeks. There was a fire in his eyes and down the back of his throat. When he tried to breathe in, he sucked the fire down to his lungs. Blind and helpless, he felt his arms being forced behind his back and guessed that exactly the same was being done to Scott.
    Pedro knew very little more until the pain had ebbed away and he found himself on his own in a cell somewhere inside the building. He called out for Scott but got no reply. His hands had been freed and he wiped them against his eyes, working patiently until his sight had been fully restored. He had already guessed that these men had been waiting for them. The attack had been well planned and executed without any hesitation. But how could that be possible when even he and Scott hadn’t known they were going to arrive?
    Three days had passed. And then, while he was sleeping, they had come for him, tied him up, put a bag over his head and brought him here.
    Pedro had been glad to see Scott at first but that feeling had long since faded. He was worried. He had no connection with the other boy. There wasn’t even a hint of friendship. They barely spoke to each other any more. Maybe Scott was afraid – but Pedro knew that there was something else going on. It was worse than that. Scott had allowed them to get into his head. Maybe it was a result of everything he had been through. But he was changing. Gradually, day by day, he was becoming one of them.
    Pedro slept. It was his one escape. And when he was asleep, he found himself in the dreamworld where he had first met Matt. It was the same as it had always been – a desert empty of colour and life, where the clouds never moved and the landscape never changed. Despite the fact that everything was so dead, Pedro felt comfortable here. He was certain that in some way this strange world was on his side. He hoped he would find the others there, but no matter how far he travelled, he arrived nowhere and he was always on his own.
    And then, one night, he saw something.
    It was so extraordinary that at first he thought he was imagining it; a dream within a dream. It was a tree, growing quite by itself in the middle of a piece of barren land. There wasn’t anything else for a mile around, not so much as a weed – in fact it was the first sign of life that Pedro had ever seen in this world. The tree had no