These two must have a history, he thought.
McNichol dropped her paperwork onto the desk and shuffled around it, unclipping her keychain from the belt around her waist.
‘Right, well, Abrafo, you’re going to learn how to behave in Dwight, I can assure you,’ she said.
Luke wondered what Abrafo had done to get himself kicked out of Thurston. He knew the place was full of hard-arses; he’d spent a long two weeks on remand up there on the Central Coast. It must’ve taken them two hours or more to get him out here to Windsor. Couldn’t they have waited until morning? And why wouldn’t they have briefed McNichol on what he’d done?
Ms McNichol moved around the desk, approaching the new guy, and her eyes narrowed.
‘I’ll just call Matron to come up here, I think, and then we can all escort you down,’ she said. ‘You’ll be in Dorm Four for now. I think you’ll find that Mr Holt will teach you some manners.’
She pulled her phone out of her pocket and thumbed in a code.
‘Yes, Matron, it’s McNichol,’ she said. ‘I’m over in Admin with the new intake. Would you mind coming over to escort him down there with me? Yes, yep… I know… Thanks, Joan.’
She rang off and dropped the phone into her pocket. She moved a little closer to Abrafo’s chair and stopped. Luke thought she looked as ill as he felt. She took a deep breath and shook her head a little. He suspected she’d be on sick report for the next couple of days. Just great, he thought: Holt would be happy. Four weeks into his sentence, McNichol had attended a week-long off-site training course, and Luke had been treated to Holt’s ‘counselling’ every day. For some reason, he’d been the senior warden’s pet project since he got here, and this woman was the only person who seemed to get in the way of his plans.
Ms McNichol coughed and bent to unlock the cuffs around Abrafo’s wrists.
‘You’ve caused a lot of inconvenience tonight, Mr Abrafo,’ she said.
Her face now seemed almost as pale as Abrafo’s, who watched her quietly as she released him from the handcuffs. He flexed his wrists, twirling them slowly.
‘And I don’t know why they’ve put you in these ridiculous things,’ she continued, moving awkwardly to kneel at his feet. ‘I haven’t seen ankle bracelets on children for years. Good God.’
Suddenly, Luke felt the wave of giddiness hit him again. And right then three things happened, and everything got real fuzzy, real fast.
This time he tried to stay on his feet.
Ms McNichol, however, did not, which was the first of the three things to happen. As soon as she’d snicked open the cuffs binding Abrafo’s feet, she slumped to the ground, her trench coat fanned in a puddle around her.
The second thing that happened was that Abrafo rose from the chair, his pink lips drawn back across his teeth in a wide smile. He seemed suddenly much taller than when he’d first walked in. His glowing, empty eyes locked onto Luke’s, and Luke felt a spear of agony shoot through his temple. His neck snapped back with the force of the pain and he raised his hands to his face. Vaguely, he wondered whether his eyeballs were melting.
And then the third thing happened. Maybe. Probably not. Well, what Luke thought he saw was Zac fly. One moment Zac was on the other side of the room, furthest from Abrafo. And then he blurred. Luke blinked, and Zac had crash-tackled the white-haired kid. The two thrashed about together like some double-headed monster on the floor. Half the size of Abrafo but twice as fast, Zac’s limbs flashed furiously.
Oh God, what do I do now? Luke wondered. He rubbed at his eyes, trying to clear them. Everything was distorted. Clearly, Nguyen had some sort of history with this Abrafo. He took a step closer to them, but they were almost fused in a frenzy of movement and he wasn’t sure he could get in there, even if he wanted to.
Zac seemed to be throwing a hundred high-speed blows a minute, but the new kid wouldn’t stay down. He blocked each of Zac’s moves effortlessly, soundlessly. Luke could hear his own rapid breathing over the sound of the fight – he felt as though he was watching a kung-fu movie playing on fast-forward with the mute button on.
He glanced down at Ms McNichol. She wasn’t going to be any help. He stretched out a foot and prodded at her arm. Nothing. Her rounded belly rose and fell. She was breathing, at least. But what had happened to her? Abrafo hadn’t touched her, he was sure of it. She must have had the same attack of the giddies he was having. Could there be a gas leak in here or something? Foster mother number three had told him about two kids in the next suburb who went to bed with a leaky heater on and never woke up. Yeah, a gas leak could explain this.
He turned back to the fight. Whatever it was didn’t seem to be affecting these two. And the quietness of the fight was so weird. No grunting, no swearing. Are they even breathing? he wondered. The only sound was the whir of Zac’s hands through the air and the dull thuds as Abrafo blocked them.
The rhythm of the duel became hypnotic – as Luke watched, the walls of the Admin room faded around him. Now there was only light and dark – the back of Zac’s black head and Abrafo’s ghost-pallor face.
Abrafo’s eyes suddenly locked onto him.
Luke felt his own eyes begin to stream as he fell into the frigid pools of light. He wondered dimly how Abrafo was blocking Zac’s punches. But somehow that didn’t seem important now. Luke swayed with Abrafo’s movements, his body following the taller youth’s actions. Abrafo ducked and blocked, his hands a blur, as Zac danced and spun ceaselessly, trying to find an entry point for a body blow.
Suddenly Abrafo stopped. His eyes still locked on Luke’s, he shot out an arm just as Zac moved in again to strike. Abrafo’s forearm smacked into Zac’s neck and the smaller boy dropped.
Luke knew he had to do something. Now. But he couldn’t move. He opened his mouth to shout out. And then, from the corner of his eye, Luke saw Zac fly again. In slow motion this time. From the floor at Abrafo’s feet, Zac sprang upwards, his sneakers suddenly head-height. His legs scissored, midair, and one heel cracked into the albino’s forehead.
The blue eyes closed and Luke vomited all over his shoes.
‘Move, Luke, now!’ yelled Zac.
Still bent double, stomach convulsing, Luke recognised the panic in Zac’s voice and threw himself sideways. He’d learned long ago that if someone warned him to move, he moved. Fast. He registered a blur of movement flashing past the spot where he’d been standing, just as his ribs cracked into the side of the desk.
‘Oh my God! What on earth is going on here?’ Matron stood in the doorway, her radio in hand.
‘Code Nine Administration building,’ she yelled into the radio. ‘Officer down! Inmate at large. Black, Nguyen, on your knees. Now!’
Luke was happy to oblige. He allowed himself to slide down the legs of the desk. He sat back on his haunches and bent his head forward over his lap. The stench from his shoes filled his nostrils and he lurched upright again.
‘You stink, Black,’ said Zac, kneeling next to him.
‘Kill me now,’ said Luke.
‘I don’t think you’ll have to wait long to die, dude,’ said Zac. ‘Holt should be here any minute.’
Pantelimon, Bucharest, Romania
Mirela blew a kiss to the middle-aged woman who was red-faced and screaming at them from the driver’s seat of her dilapidated Volvo station wagon. In the rear of the car, two children in school uniform pulled faces, their middle fingers raised.
Samantha tugged at Mirela’s bare brown arm.
‘Maybe if you didn’t just dawdle across the road, Mimi,’ she said, using Mirela’s baby name, ‘people wouldn’t be so mean to you.’
‘What are you, new?’ Mirela laughed. ‘The Gaje hate gypsies, and you know that as well as I do. They’d treat us that way even if I offered to wash that crappy car for them for free.’