'You're gonna have to tell him, you know.' I put both hands back on the kitchen table behind me and leant against them.

I was sitting in the kitchenette in the A.R.C. Connor was circling me nervously on his skateboard. 'Really?'

'I know he's already mad. The whole thing with the stolen mercenary equipment–' It had only happened a few days ago so he hadn't had long to recover. '– but if we keep this from him it's only going to make it worse.' If Rex turned up somewhere, online, or in the news because someone had realised what he was then everything we were doing here could be exposed. And the blame would fall on him.

'I still don't get why she did it. Caroline hated Rex,' Connor responded.

'That's why she took him,' I replied. 'Get back at you for dumping her. By text.' I didn't like her, no secret, but even she didn't deserve that– I had hoped I'd taught Connor that women deserved more respect than that but apparently he had remained oblivious.

'Maybe she's so crazy about me that she's gonna hold him hostage until I get back together with her.'

I raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

He read my expression. 'Maybe not…'

I opened my mouth to say something, not wanting to make him feel discouraged about the whole experience but I couldn't think of anything to say to make it better, and not wanting to take a punt and make it worse I shut my mouth again.

'Okay, yes, yes,' he said, as though he was trying to convince himself about it, 'I will, I'll tell Cutter, just…' He stepped off the skateboard and stopped beside the fridge, opening the door to take out his bottle of doctor pepper. He took a sip through the straw he'd left inside. 'Not yet. I'll get him back, I promise.' He started to close the door.

'Hey!' We both jumped as Stephen appeared behind the fridge just as the door fell shut. Doctor Pepper fizzed up and spilled out across Connor's hand. He sucked it up. 'So, what's the secret meeting about?' Stephen asked. He raised the mug in his hand to his mouth and took a sip.

I could smell Stephen's coffee from there.

'Dunno, it's a secret, innit?' Connor replied. He took a step back from the fridge and within reach of me so I reached out to put my hand over his and pulled the bottle of doctor pepper closer. I wrapped my lips around the straw and took a long sip. It was a bit flat. I didn't really care; it was the sugar I needed.

'I'll jot that down,' Stephen responded with a smile.

I swallowed the mouthful of doctor pepper. 'He just told us to meet him here,' I added.

'–I wanted it to be somewhere we wouldn't be overheard.' I jumped again and whipped my head around in search for the source of Nick's voice. I found him standing by the lockers.

I had no idea how long he'd been there.

The mental image I immediately concocted of him eavesdropping on our conversation was a little bit amusing but mostly just creepy following the report I'd had from Jensen about him sitting in his car outside their house.

I hadn't asked.

I didn't think I wanted to know.

He came towards us, gathering us up around the table before he continued in a hushed whisper. 'There's someone working against us. Someone who has access to the detector and probably the same person who stole the headset from the Silurian.'

'You know you sound paranoid, right?' Connor responded.

'Someone?' Stephen repeated questioningly.

'Okay, look I know we all have our own ideas about who that might be, but this time we have to find out for sure.'

'Okay,' Stephen nodded. 'So… how are we going to do that?'

And it was at that exact moment that an alarm started blaring overhead. We all looked up.

'The A.D.D,' Connor said.

'Perfect,' Stephen groaned, Nick turned on his heel and walked off towards the hub without so much as another word.

Connor held out a hand to help me down off the table. 'Say what you like about these anomalies but they've sure got impeccable timing,' he said.

'Well, Connor, you did build the detector.'

We ran down the hallway after the others and came through the doors to the hub just behind them.

'What have we got?'

'My worse nightmare in one sentence!' Lester complained as he descended down the ramp from his office.

'Mammoth on the M25!'

'Columbian Mammoth,' I added even though it wasn't particularly helpful.

'The flavour is immaterial,' Lester responded. I shrugged nonchalantly.

'Columbian is a hairless beast, see, sir,' Leek pointed out from a few steps behind him.

'Look I don't care if it's shaved its legs and got a bikini wax, it's on a motorway in broad daylight!'

'Well, we better get down there quick then,' I suggested leadingly.

Nick brought his head around to me. 'No,' he said, 'no, I've still got whiplash from last week.'

'Oh come on!' I complained, 'I told you before, it wasn't whiplash, you just strained your neck muscles a little bit and you could have done that at any point when were on the other side of the anomaly. It has nothing to do with my driving.'

But at the thought of it he reached up to rub his neck. 'Sweetheart, unfortunately, it has everything to do with your driving.'

'Still a better driver than you,' I returned teasingly.

'You're quicker,' he said, leaning in.

'Same thing,' I responded.

He laughed before pressing a quick kiss to my lips. 'I'm gonna check the tranqs, you wanna grab a P.H.D and meet me out in the garage?'

I shrugged. 'Sure…'

'…and sweetheart, I'm driving.'

I turned, walking backwards across the hub as I made my way towards the lab to pick up a detector. 'Not if I get there first.'

When Connor and I got down to the garage, Nick was already in the truck. 'Where's Stephen?' Connor asked, as he jumped into the backseat behind Nick and I moved around the front to the passenger side.

'We need a bigger gun, there's one in his car, we'll pick him up on the way.'

When we got there he told us he'd left it inside and that he'd meet us at the anomaly site, so we went on without him.

Jensen was waiting for us at the police tape. 'Hey,' he said, as Nick slowed down to a crawl and started to weave between the lines of people and emergency response vehicles stationed around the road. Nick rolled down his window. 'I've shut down the motorway at the next two junctions,' Jensen explained, 'kept the camera crews out, shut down the mobile networks, there's a no–fly zone in place and the eyewitnesses have been debriefed.'

The truck moved under the tape. 'And all that with your trousers tucked into your sock,' Nick replied, 'well done.'

'I'm not gonna look,' he replied. From the backseat, Connor stuck his head out the window and glanced down towards Jensen's feet. I laughed. 'Mammoth,' Jensen said, 'go.'

We approached slowly up the hard shoulder.

I couldn't see it. There were a lot of large lorries around on the motorways early in the morning, and most of them it seemed hadn't made it very far before the chaos had started.

It blocked most of our view.

Nick stopped the truck. And as I climbed out I used the door for balance and foot a foot on top of the wheel to gain an extra two or so feet. From my vantage point I could just about make out two long white tusks poking out from behind a lorry, the trunk followed, then a noise echoed back like an elephant's trumpet before the creature emerged.

I hadn't seen one this close before. There was one occasion when I'd observed a huge heard travel across the Pleistocene plains from about 2 miles away and it was one of the best memories I had from being marooned. The sun had been setting behind them, the sky was completely orange and I'd built a fire up a cliffside, safely tucked away on a ledge, and just sat there all evening watching the migration.

'It's the biggest elephant that's ever lived,' Nick said, 'you know they were still running around north America until about eight thousand years ago.'

'Heard animal,' I added in explanation as I watched the mammoth crash into a HGV in the outside lane, 'probably just trying to find its mates.'

Nick opened his mouth to respond but the sudden bleep of a car horn nearby interrupted him. I brought my attention down from the creature and scanned through the lines of abandoned vehicles in search for the origin.

My gaze fell on a car that was facing the opposite direction to the others around it. The windscreen had been smashed in and I could just about see through to a woman trapped inside screaming and honking her horn to try and get our attention.

It wasn't a good idea.

It wasn't just us that had noticed her.

'Oh god,' Connor groaned as he appeared at my side, 'we've got to get her out.'

Having had the exact same thought, I jumped down from the wheel and moved to the back of the truck to grab a hold of my backpack.

'No,' Nick responded, 'if we go near her we'll make it worse.'

I nodded in agreement again but none the less swung the rucksack onto my back. 'She could be hurt.'

'The mammoths panicking because she's making too much noise.'

'First thing we've got to get her to do is shut up,' I said. Before I was even aware that I was thinking about how to do that, I saw something above our head. 'The AMI signs,' I said.

Nick looked up and nodded. 'Get Jensen to put you through to the highways agency,' he told Connor, 'tell them we've got to send an urgent message.'

'I'm on it.'

As Nick brought his attention back to me, he must have sensed something in my eyes that told exactly what I was thinking. He sighed, somewhat defeatedly before even saying a word. 'You wanna flip for it?' he questioned in a way that suggested he already knew my answer.

'Can't wait any longer.'

'Done it.' Connor stopped beside us and a moment later the woman fell silent. I looked up.

'Oh,' Nick noted as he read the words on the sign, 'tactful.'

Connor frowned at me. 'That's literally what you said, isn't it?'

'Not sure you needed three exclamation marks,' I noted. I brought my attention back to the car, eyes straining to see through the open windscreen in a desperate attempt to see from here if she was okay. My heart leapt, my pulse skyrocketing as I saw through to the backseat. 'Nick,' I said gravely, 'there's a kid in there.'

And it wasn't like I needed some sort of order or decision from him– that wasn't why I'd said it– I just needed him to know why I exactly I was about to take off towards the car and wanted at the very least to give an explanation. I was so quick off the mark that he couldn't stop me; there wasn't any point and within a second I was out of reach.

He said my name, a somewhat natural level of volume considering the panic in his tone, but it barely registered in my ears because I was too focused.

I skidded to a stop beside her window and ducked my head. 'Are you hurt?' I asked in a whisper.

'I'm trapped,' she responded through gritted teeth, 'please help Jake.'

'Don't worry.' I ducked back, pulled the back doors open and crawled quickly onto the back seat. 'Hey, Jake,' I said softly as I reached around him to unbuckle the harness on his car seat.

'My mum…'

'It's okay, I'll look after her.'

Connor appeared at his passenger side door, just as I reached across the boy to open it and he quickly leant in, grabbed Jake's hand in his own and helped him out.

'Come on, buddy,' he said, 'I've got you.'

I slipped back out the car, returning to the front window as Nick finally reached the vehicle and stopped beside me. 'Your legs,' I said to her questioningly, 'can you feel them?' As she nodded back at me I heaved a quick sigh of relief. So her spine and most probably both her legs were still fully intact and injured under there. 'No numbness or tingling?' I clarified.

She shook her head. 'No.'

'Good,' I told her, 'that's good. You're okay then. Have you got a jack?'

She nodded and gestured to the boot of the car. Nick stepped around me to go back to get it. 'What for?'

'We've got to get that steering column off your legs,' I told her.

Nick came back, opening the door on the other side of the car and climbing in. 'I've got this,' he said reassuringly, 'go on, go help Connor. We've got to get that mammoth back through the anomaly somehow.'

I nodded at him. 'Sure you're okay?'

'Yes, sweetheart,' he said. 'Go.'

I turned away from the car and ran after Connor.

'Connor,' I said, as I closed in on him further up the motorway lane and passed the anomaly, 'I have an idea.' I swung the rucksack down from my back and grabbed his free hand, posting it through the straps and hiking the bag up onto his shoulder.

'Oh my god! What have you got in here; it weighs a tonne!' he said. 'What's this for?'

'Emergencies,' I replied, 'you're in charge now. Look after him. I'll be right back.'

'What am I supposed to do with dumbo?' he asked.

I pulled a face at him and shrugged. 'Distract him?'

I needed a car. I ran up the middle lane in search for an appropriate vehicle before I finally spotted the bright yellow lotus in the inside lane. 'Oh, that'll do donkey,' I said under my breath, as I ran towards it and hurdled the door to jump into the driver's seat, 'that'll do.'

It was definitely my lucky day.

The keys had been left there right in the ignition and as I twisted them the engine burst into life. I put my foot down on the accelerator and took off up the road.