Chapter 1

Ash

"Everyone's a kid that no-one cares about."

They came in the middle of the night. They always do.

Ash was asleep, a loose kind of sleep, kicking against the sheets and the mosquito net hanging above his bed. The heat woke him from time to time, but he soon drifted off again. He was dreaming of a girl's face. She was smiling at him, waving at him. She walked towards him slowly. He was frozen to the spot, waving back at her. Her round, dark brown eyes seemed to seek him out; she quickened her pace, and took big bouncing strides towards him, a little unintentional wobble in her hips that made his lips quiver. She looked self-assured, calm and fresh as a spring day. But when he looked closer he could see there was something else. Something sad about the way her shoulders drooped. Something guarded in the way her jaw was clenched. Ash could almost see her back teeth grinding.

She came closer and closer. He felt his blood start to pump harder and faster. His guts twisted and knotted. He held out his arms, ready to greet her. But she slid past, her shoulder brushing callously against his, without even glancing at him. She ran straight into the arms of another boy. She punched the other boy's arm playfully, her long arching eyebrows rising in pleasure at a private joke shared. Her gentle round face suddenly lost its sadness and lit up with a grin, the corners of her mouth curling slightly downwards even as she smiled. She looked Ash's way for just a second. But she looked right through him. He turned and sighed.

There was a smell caught up in the dream, the smell of fried potatoes. It could have been part of the dream, or just a lingering smell left over from tea.

It's better to eat very little and eat well. That's what his father had always said. He didn't believe in powdered foods. So every week they bought a sack of potatoes or a sack of rice and spent the leftovers on fresh herbs. Ash sometimes idly fingered the hollows between his ribs and wondered if perhaps they wouldn't be better off with powdered food after all.

You could forage, at the outskirts of the city where patches of green still lined the canals, despite the painfully low water levels. There was food out there for those who knew what they were looking for. The plants had adapted much faster than the people to the rapidly rising temperatures. Chives and wild garlic grew huge and chunky and almost towered over Ash. Fat brambles and grinning sunflowers were good sources of food too.

You couldn't get caught. That was the catch.

Ash groaned and cradled his rumbling stomach. The girl was still there, standing with her back to him. He walked up to her and reached out to tap her on the shoulder. But his hand got stuck, froze midair.

Some nights this was where the dream ended. Every so often, when she turned to look at him, her expression changed. Lifted. A smile of recognition crossed her face as she stepped up to him, as she took his hand in hers, like they had always known each other. Then he would trail a finger down the side of her face, gently slide his hand round the back of her neck and into her hair. And then they would press into one another, their lips meeting at the last minute.

But it didn't end that way this time.

As she turned away from him, her body shook and fractured. Everything around her started to shake. She cried out for him as the ground split beneath her feet and swallowed her whole. Ash reached out for her, but it was too late. His ears were filled with a screaming noise. The walls around him started to crack and crumble. A cloud of dust billowed up, stinging his eyes.

And then the real world started to scream too. The picture Ash had put up in his mind was ripped away as a crash woke him, a crash so loud it shook the house.

For a second, nothing happened. Lying bolt upright in his bed, Ash felt the blood drain from his face. For the first time he understood where the expression came from. It felt like all the life was simply pouring out of him, his stomach a swirling, gurgling drain.

He could almost taste the stillness of the second between the crash and the scream. A baby's scream

He leapt out of bed, tearing the sheets and net away from him. His older brother was already up, sat bolt upright on the bed between Ash and the door. They looked at one another. They knew the baby's scream. And they knew it hadn't come from another house, another street. They knew that scream belonged to their nephew downstairs.

Voices snaked their way through the house, high, low, gruff, shrill, a mixture. The baby's wail could be heard loud and clear above them all. A sudden animal shriek tore through.

Annie, Ash thought, his heart pounding. He gripped the edge of the bed, frozen with terror. He could feel the wood splintering under the pressure of his grip. But Sonny seemed to know just what to do.

"Get under the bed brother," he whispered, standing and pulling on his baggy linen trousers.

Ash nodded mutely. But what about Jay, he thought. What about Annie. What about the baby. He opened his mouth to speak but no sound came out.

"Do it now," Sonny said as he pulled the door back just a little. Ash saw the light from the hall fall softly on his brother's face, creating a brief flicker of dancing shadow. He crouched down, stubby nails still digging into the bed frame, feeling the pressure in his shoulder joints as his arms bent back. He became aware of his heart again, pounding and thrashing against his ribs like an angry prisoner. His feet seemed planted to the floor.

Get under the bed, he repeated to himself.

Then another huge crash, closer to him this time. It took Ash a moment to realise what had happened, to connect the noise with the twitching figure of his brother, thrown back from the door and smashed against the back wall. He replayed it in his mind later, the sudden jump, the almighty crack of electricity. But now there was no time to let it sink in, just a sudden scoop, giant thumbs digging in to his armpits, the gasping pain, a blow to the chest, one to the jaw. The howling, that started far away, then got closer and closer until Ash realized that it came from his body. He had never heard anything like it.

In a blur his mother's face swam before him, baby Jaz's screams getting further and further away. Then the sudden shock of bare feet on dry, crisp grass. The shockingly warm hit of the night air. A huge spotlight. The whopping thud thud thud of a helicopter overhead.

And then nothing.