We sit the next few minutes in silence, me staring at the huge spine of the trout that we are trapped inside, an expression of horror on my face, no doubt. Bea sits a few metres away, her face scrunched up in what I think is a scowl as she runs her hands through the pool of blood surrounding us.

I think back to the trip so far. First, it started off with Mum snapping at me to get in the car, then a long day at the digging site, and now here I am. In the body of a huge fish which probably won't let me go for a few days at least, until I rot in here inside it and die among its flesh and bones and blood.

I shake my head, trying to rid it of depressing thoughts. There will be a way out of here, I think. There has to be.

But, as much as I hate to say it, I'm beginning to doubt myself.

"Let's talk about things that'll take my mind off this," I say to Bea. She looks up, sighs, and shrugs.

"Guess we'll be here a long time... stuck together." She glances at the floor gloomily.

What's your problem? But I don't say it. Those glittering green eyes and sharp jaw make my throat tight.

"The rest of the diggers will probably be waking up soon," Bea says, glancing at her watch.

I don't want to think about the others. Mum will be coming out of her tent—I can just picture it. She'll see my empty sleeping bag and she'll walk outside, call my name and, when there's no reply, she'll head out the river.

"We left the metal detector behind," I tell Bea. "And the shovel."

There's a string of cussing that makes my ears pound.

"That detector was expensive," she hisses between her teeth.

"They'll find it and keep it safe," I promise her. "And it's not all bad because they'll know we were there recently, so maybe they'll be able to rescue us."

She barks a laugh, and it echoes around. "You're too fanatical for me. Think we're going to be rescued? I would rather die in here than be found by that creep."

My look must have said something because she smiles sardonically. "Guy doesn't give a shit about us; have you not noticed? He only cares about the fucking diamond. The fucking diamond."

"Please don't say stuff like that—"

Again, another laugh, but this time it's harsher. "I don't give a crap about what I say and what it makes you feel."

She pauses for breath. I don't let her take it.

"Why is Guy telling people to keep digging if they've already found the diamond?"

Her eyes are ice, locked on mine. "Because he's a greedy pig, that's why. The diamond isn't the only thing that's been found. There's been a record of artefacts there found by other diggers. But Guy wants to prove his worth, so the shithead gets us to dig in the scorching hot weather with only a few pennies in our pockets. You wouldn't believe his face when he found the diamond." She chuckles. "Absolutely delighted, he was. But then he got greedy. Wanted to keep digging, see what else he could find."

"And that's what you're doing now?"

She nods, swallowing down the last of her anger. "I hope he doesn't find anything. He doesn't deserve more than he already has."

I lean back, wrapping my arms around my bent knees. "Wow. I never knew he was a—"

"A moron?"

"Yeah."

"Tell me about it."

A few seconds pass, but I don't want the conversation to leave. I reach out for it, clinging to its last threads.

"And so who found the diamond?"

"Huh?"

"The diamond. Who found it?"

She blows air hard out of her mouth. "Rick, the muscly man who digs at one of the first holes. Him." She grits her teeth. "Every time it's him. Rick found this, Rick found that. Sometimes I wonder if Guy is actually in love with him."

I smile.

"And what about you?"

"I already told you." I can hear the beginnings of that cruel, sly tone again, and it surprises me how I haven't been hearing it for the past two minutes. "I found nothin'."

"You want to, though, don't you?"

"Enough about me." She cups the blood in her hands, voice warning.

"That's why you wanted to search the river, isn't it? So you could find something for yourself."

"Enough. About. Me."

Her tone is so warning that I shut my gob straight away. For a second, her gaze is so intense on the blood that it wouldn't surprise me if it began to boil.

Actually, nothing would surprise me much now. Not when a trout has gobbled me up whole.

I look around in my boredom, but there's not much to see of the insides of a fish. Just an appalling smell that seeps into every part of your nose.

If you're going to sit around, you might as well do something useful. Like trying to find a way out of here.

So I get up, feet squelching in the river of blood surrounding us. I survey the walls, the thickness of them. Wondering how hard it would be to break through the tough flesh and scales, I run my hand along the side, feeling the smoothness of the flesh, the solidity of the skin.

And then.

And then I'm in the air, flying. There's a second where I feel nothing, just empty space around me, but then I go tumbling to the ground so hard it knocks the breath out of me.

And then the floor moves, and I'm tumbling towards the opposite side again. A shout escapes my lips, but a metallic taste fills my mouth and I begin to choke on the blood, barely hacking it up in time before I hit the other wall, eyes closed, fingers clawing around for anything, anything.

There's a shudder that I feel right in the core of my bones, and then nothing.

It's stopped.

I lie in a heap on the floor, the horrid, warm blood trickling to the back of my throat. I blink my eye open, turn round on my stomach, and cough up red liquid mixed with phlegm.

"What the hell were you thinking?" comes a shrill voice from somewhere to the left of me. Head feeling like it weighs too much for my neck, I turn in the direction of the voice.

"What?" I mumble.

"You stroked the fish!" Bea exclaims as though this is the worst crime that could possibly be committed.

"And?"

"How would you like it if something inside you began stroking you from the inside out?"

"It would be... tickly?"

"Yes. Exactly. And that's what you did to the trout." She lowers herself down to my level. "Are you okay?"

Why, I think, is this happening? It's very unusual for her to ask about my feelings.

"Fine," I reply, bringing a hand to my cheek, where I can feel a slight sting.

"You took a nasty bump. Luckily I'd been there to stop it, otherwise it would have beaten you to the pulp."

"What did you do?"

"I stabbed it," she says nonchalantly. "With this." In her hands, there is a small pencil. In fact, it's the exact same one she was drawing with on the plane the first time I met her. I remember with awe the outstanding drawing she'd been creating—and now I realise what it was. She'd been drawing the diamond.

"Thank you, Bea," I say.

I don't know about the next bit. Maybe it's because of the situation, or the blood smeared across my face or the notion that I will probably die in this stinking cell. I'm not sure why, but the next part just popped out of my mouth.

"Bea," I repeat, chewing the word around in my mouth. "Bee. At first, I thought you stung but now... Now, you're more like a clumsy bumblebee."

"Shut up," she replies, almost cutting me off. "You're acting delirious."

But, delirious or not, I shall never miss the flicker of a smile on her face.