He lifted himself up on to his elbows.
He was in a brick alcove, somewhere underground, perhaps. Beyond the pool of light comingfrom the bulb above, a damp concrete floor spread out from the alcove into darkness.
Where am I?
He sat up, feeling groggy and light-headed, and found himself looking across a gap of threefeet at a bunk bed. In the lower bunk, he could see a girl a few years older than him stirringin an uneasy sleep. He guessed she might be eighteen, perhaps nineteen. More a young womanthan a girl.
Her eyes rolled beneath the lids; her voice whimpered pathetically. Her legstwitched and kicked, making the bunk squeak and rattle with every lurched movement.
Where the hell am I? he silently asked himself again.
CHAPTER 4
2010, somewhere above America
Maddy Carter reached round awkwardly and hit the flush button. The toilet hissedwith a vicious suction and for a moment she wondered whether a person unlucky enough toaccidentally snag the button while still sitting on the seat might be sucked down the u-bendand blasted out at forty thousand feet to free fall amid a shower of turds.
Nice thought.
Maddy cleaned herself up as best she could within the cramped confines of the toilet cubicle.She stared down at the last of the vomit swirling round the toilet basin and down the hole,feeling better now that the aeroplane meal was out rather than still churning in her gut.
She wiped her mouth dry with the back of her hand and checked in the mirror for any telltaleblobs of puke caught in her hair. A tall, gawky, pale-faced girl stared back at her; nerdyfreckles she hated so much dappled across her cheeks beneath the frames of her glasses. Herstrawberry-blonde hair dangled lifelessly to her skinny shoulders, on which hung a drab greyT-shirt with the Microsoft logo stitched on the front.