‘Dadda! No! ’

‘You take her now!’

‘No! Not — ’

They heard a deep rumble and felt the floor trembling beneath their feet.

‘We have only seconds,’ said the old man. ‘Hurry!’

‘SALEENA!’ her father screamed. ‘YOU GO!’

‘Dadda!’ she cried. She turned to her mum. ‘ Please! I can’t! ’

The old man stretched forward and grasped hold of her hand. He pulled her towards him, but she found herself instinctively squirming and twisting her hand to escape his tight grip. ‘ No! ’ she screamed.

The deep rumbling increased in volume, the floor shuddering, and cascades of dust and grit filled the air around them, tumbling down from above.

‘This is it!’ the old man said. ‘Time has come! Saleena… I can save your life if you come with me!’

She looked at him. It seemed madness that he could, but, somehow, she believed him. ‘Your parents want this too.’ His eyes, so intense, so old.

‘Yes!’ yelled her father above the growing roar. ‘Please! Take her NOW!’

Beside his small frame, her mother was screaming, stretching out her hands to hold her one last time. Her father grabbed her, held her back. ‘No, my love! She must go!’

Mrs Chaudhry pushed her boys at the old man. ‘Please! Take their hands too! Take their hands — ’

The floor shook beneath their feet, lurching to one side.

Sal suddenly felt light-headed, as if she was free falling.

This is it, it’s falling!

Then the floor suddenly fractured beneath their feet, revealing an ocean of churning, roiling flames, like gazing down into Hell itself. And the last thing she recalled was seeing that one-eyed bear tumbling down through a large split in the stairwell’s floor into the fire below.

CHAPTER 2

2001, New York

Sal sat upright in her bunk — gasping for breath, feeling her cheeks wet with tears.