Contact by Chris Morphew Read Free Book Online Page A

Pryor, don’t look back, don’t look back …
    I leapt back down the hall and jammed my foot in the doorway.
    Don’t look back, don’t look back, don’t look back …
    Half a second later, I felt the metal door crush into the side of my shoe.
    I gritted my teeth against the pain of it.
    Don’t look back, don’t look back, don’t look back …
    At the end of the hallway, Freckles pushed the glass door open to let Pryor out. Pryor stepped through the door, turned towards the quad, and for a second I was sure she’d spot me out of the corner of her eye.
    No! Go! Get out of here!
    And then she was gone.
    I let out a breath, heaved the door open again, and stepped into her office.

Chapter 7
    F RIDAY , M AY 22
83 DAYS
    The door clunked shut behind me.
    I dashed to the back of Pryor’s office. Dived behind her desk. Stopped and listened.
    Still plenty of noise outside, but I knew it wouldn’t take Pryor long to put a stop to that.
    I looked under the desk.
    There was a single, heavy-looking drawer on the right-hand side. I was about to pull it open when I noticed Pryor’s computer screen.
    Her recording program was still running.
    I grabbed the mouse, hit pause, and deleted the last thirty seconds of audio.
    â€˜ What is going on here?’ Pryor’s voice exploded behind me and I nearly hit the roof.
    But it was coming from outside, blasting over the mayhem in the quad.
    Stop. Breathe.
    I stared back down at the drawer. Grabbed the handle. And pulled.
    The drawer didn’t budge.
    I glanced up at the metal door, panic rising in my stomach. The noise outside was disappearing fast.
    I pulled at the drawer again. Nothing. It was locked.
    And then the panic turned to rage and I started wrenching at the handle as hard as I could, rattling the drawer up and down, clunking and smashing and not even thinking about all the noise I was making, ready to tear the whole desk apart if I had to.
    Still nothing.
    I swore, kicked the leg of the desk, and then swore again as pain shot through my foot.
    Then I realised I couldn’t hear Pryor’s shouting anymore. I stepped back, fists clenched in my hair, staring furiously at that stupid bloody drawer.
    And then the drawer rolled open.
    It just unlocked all by itself and slid out from the desk, like someone was working it with a remote control. And there, sitting on top of a stack of white Shackleton Co-operative notepads, was Pryor’s phone.
    I stared around the office, adrenaline surging, suddenly positive that I was being set up.
    What the crap just happened?
    The bell rang.
    Just grab it! Just grab it and go!
    I took the phone, switched it off, and shoved it down into my sock. It was an older model. Would’ve been top of the line maybe five years ago. There was a weird bulge at the back of it, where the battery pack should be, like someone had modified it.
    I slammed the drawer shut again and ran for the door.
    I was halfway round Pryor’s desk when I remembered that the recording on her laptop was still paused. I leant across and set it going again.
    Across the room. Into the hall. Still deserted.
    Good.
    Out in the quad, Pryor was restoring order. The crowd of students was slowly moving off to their classes, talking and laughing and glancing back over their shoulders at the scene of the crime.
    The bin that Jordan had set on fire was still sending up clouds of black smoke and the occasional piece of smouldering newspaper. Even better, a couple of Year 7s were up against the office wall, getting busted by Pryor. Both of them had long, blackened sticks lying at their feet. By the look of things, they’d been using the sticks to pull flaming garbage out of the bin.
    Idiots.
    Good for us, though. Couldn’t have found a better way to shift the blame if we’d tried.
    I crept around behind Pryor, searching for the others.
    Jordan was at the other end of the quad, waiting in the doorway to the English