Frozen Read Free Page A

quite as much Hollywood appeal.
    And there's another lie in the movies too: that there is always hope, that we are in control, that we can make things better if we only believe we can.
    “She may regain some function over time, Mr. Waddell, but really, her injuries are very severe,” Balasubmaranian said carefully. “I wouldn't hold out too much hope. More than likely she'll need round-the-clock nursing for the rest of her life. I'm sorry.”
    And I suddenly felt like I needed to justify myself to him, to explain why I'd said something so idiotic.
    “Well, it's just—” I stopped, because I became conscious of Gabriel next to me. Why do I always shut up when it's just too late?
    “I am sorry, Mr. Hadley, Mr. Waddell,” Balasubmaranian said gently. “There really is nothing we can do. It was a very big fall. Most people don't survive it.”
    Most people. I wondered how many people fell from the cliffs here each year, perhaps each week. Verity was just another among hundreds, nothing special—except that she had reached the hospital alive.
    Gabriel let out a heavy breath and sat down, staring at nothing. The doctor looked at him for a moment, and then nodded briefly, muttering, “If you need me...” and left, white coattails cracking and flapping in his wake. I never did get the chance to show off my mastery of his name.
    I sat down next to Gabriel and stared at the same nothing as him. Perhaps it was the future we were looking at. Whatever it was, it was blank and uninviting.
    “Gone,” he said flatly. His voice was weak and breathy. There was no room for emotion, just horror. So I sat wordlessly with him, wondering which memories of her were haunting him, what he might be hiding behind those fierce, unblinking eyes. Eventually he slapped his knees softly, and stood.
    “Well, then. Best get it over with,” he muttered.
    In a darkened room beyond a glass wall, shrouded in linen and pale white light, Verity was motionless and silent except for the slow sighs of the machines holding vigil at her side, waiting for us.

CHAPTER 3
    “ARE YOU OUR new neighbour?” A head was poking through the hedge near the bottom of the garden.
    I didn't know how long she'd been watching, but it didn't really matter. All I'd been doing for the past half an hour was try to hook my old half-inflated football high enough for it to catch in a three-pronged niche in the upper reaches of the apple tree.
    I was bored and lethargic, not wanting to settle to anything. I had nobody to play with, and I knew that what my mother kept telling me was true: that it was my own fault. The village was full of children. I knew several of them from school. If I wanted company, all I had to do was go out to the front of the house and kick the ball around there. Sooner or later someone would come along. I didn't want that. I felt awkward. The prospect of making the effort to have friends and be sociable made me uncomfortable. I preferred solitude.
    (These days, I'm not at all bad with people. Most people think I'm charming and confident—at least that's what Mum says, and Verity, of course; but when you're thirteen the world's a more complicated place. I had only lived in the village for a few months, two school terms. Settling in had not been an easy process. Neither had my parents' almost immediate separation. Just being a thirteen-year-old wasn't much fun either. I didn't know quite who I was supposed to be, or to whom. So I played out roles in my head, notions of who I might be. This particular day, the character I'd chosen for myself was First Victim. It wasn't much of a speaking part.)
    “Huh,” I said.
    It was disturbing to know that this girl had been watching me, just blank-minded me, kicking a ball in a high arc towards an apple tree over and over and over again, saying nothing, thinking nothing. She must have thought I was more than a little strange.
    “Depends who you are,” I added, and hooked my toe under the deflated ball. I hoisted it