Read Soul Storm for Free Online Page B

Don’t worry, Mum. I won’t get lost with your satnav to guide me. And the instructor says I am
very
safe.’
    I reverse out of the driveway and take the corner out of our close, turning to the passenger seat to check whether my instructor is happy.
    I jump when I realise I don’t have an instructor any more, because I’ve PASSED MY TEST!
    The thrill is soon replaced by nerves. The satnav is programmed to take me further than I’ve driven before, way beyond home territory. I’m trying to get used to the unfamiliar
controls, the slight creak as the car goes over speed bumps, the ticker-ticker-ticker sound of the indicator. I don’t turn on the radio, because it’s taking all my concentration not to
crash.
    I catch sight of myself in the mirror. My jaw is tight. I unclench it, but the rest of me is still wired. This is the first time I’ve driven on my own and I’m about to hit central
London for the first time, too. It’s not what my driving instructor would have recommended. Even Cara didn’t take such a mad journey so soon after taking her test.
    But I can’t wait any longer.
    I’m going to Greenwich, to ask Sahara the questions I should have asked months ago. It’s too good a chance to miss. She said Ade was going to his parents – probably to avoid
helping her move. But with him out of the way, she’s lost her bodyguard, and I might stand a better chance of getting some answers.
    Mirror. Signal. Manoeuvre.
    I drive perfectly all the way to the dual carriageway. It’s muggy today, and as I see the elevated road looming above me, and the cars zooming past, the temperature in the car seems to
rise by ten degrees.
    It’s now or never.
    I put my foot down, and the engine growls and the speedo needle heads further and further to the right.
    Forty.
    To my right, cars and lorries are an intimidating blur.
    Fifty.
    Stop hesitating. Go!
    Sixty.
    A lorry with foreign lettering down the side races past and I know I must go after it.
Now.
I steer right so sharply I almost veer into the middle lane. But the car –
my
car – responds quicker than the tank-like driving-school one, and I correct myself with a light touch to the wheel.
    I did it. And now no one can tell that I’ve never done this before.
    The satnav tells me it’s five miles to Clapham, fourteen to Peckham. Busy, unfamiliar places. But the thought of what I have to do when I reach my destination is scaring me more than the
journey.
    The entrance door to the halls of residence is propped open with a box full of text books.
    I lean down to check, sweat from the long drive making my t-shirt cling to the clammy skin on my back.
    History
text books. That’s not Sahara’s subject, which means there must be other people moving out today. Knowing I won’t be alone inside with her makes me feel
slightly less breathless.
    Though, of course, there were dozens of other students asleep in this building the night Meggie was smothered and none of them heard her. Or helped her.
    I step inside. It was here that I first understood that evil had a presence, when Sahara took me up to my sister’s old room. She’d kept Meggie’s spare key after the forensics
team had left. The tiny bedroom had been stripped of everything – carpets, furniture, even the washbasin fittings – but what remained was a darkness that overwhelmed me. Except now I
realise it wasn’t the room, was it? It was Sahara herself.
    So much has changed since. Tim’s died. Zoe is trapped in a living death. Perhaps that’s what the darkness was trying to tell me back then: that Sahara killed my sister. If I’d
realised, I might have saved the others.
    ‘You’re not supposed to be here, are you?’
    A girl is coming out of the lift with another box of books.
    I smile at her. I already have my story straight. ‘Oh. Well, not till next term, anyway. This is where I’m going to be living. When
I
start.’
    She frowns. ‘What, have they already allocated you your hall? Weird. Didn’t