 
# THE SHADES OF NORTHWOOD 2:

# CIRCLE OF ARMS

Wendy Maddocks

©2011 by Wendy Maddocks

Smashwords edition

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This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

### Other works by Wendy Maddocks

### Stand alone novels

Twisted evil

Into the darkness

### Short story collections

The thrill of the Chase

A Shade too young

### The Shades of Northwood series

Running shoes

Circle of arms

Unfinished business

Kiss at midnight

### Circle of the Fallen series

Angels of America

### Poetry collections

When I was young

Before the dawn

###  Screenplays

RISK

###  Non-fiction

Student: dazed and confused

# Where we left...

"Give 'em hell, honey!"

Katie waved to her father from the start line. The half of the town that wasn't' running in the race had turned out to watch and were chucking loose change into buckets on street corners for the parent and toddler group.

"Such a healthy, trusting place," Mom had cooed first thing that morning. "What a lovely town to live in."

"Yeah, it's great." Katie made herself smile way the tiredness inside. The week had been exhausting but a day of undisturbed sleep yesterday had cured most of her aches and pains; a six o'clock wake up at the weekend was just too much. Things would shake out once that old adrenaline started flowing. "My friends are all lovely and the academy – I haven't been in yet, classes start Monday – but it looks so nice."

"I'm so glad you're happy, Katie. You are happy, aren't you?"

"Yes, Mom. I'm happier than I've been in ages." And, surprisingly, that wasn't a lie. Even being so close to death all the time didn't seem so bad. I think I needed the fresh start."

"You will come back home won't you? Dan wanted to come but she has that sicky bug going round but she'd love to see you when she's well."

"I'll call her soon," she said, dodging the first question. _And tell her she can have my room._ "Oh, there's Marcie. We're running together."

"But-"

An official looking man blew a whistle and Katie lost herself in the ranks. Some-one shouted out, "I'll see you at the finish line!"

# Chapter one

"I'm so proud of you, Katie."

Mr Cartwright stood in the corner of the open car door and held his arms out for a hug. Katie only hesitated for a moment before going to him, knowing her friends were crowding the front window and watching her. It didn't matter though, Katie loved her parents and she wasn't planning to cover it up to save face.

"It can't have been easy to race when you hardly know the place and we didn't mean to come and put more pressure on you."

"Dad, you couldn't."

"We were trying to be supportive," Mom defended from the passenger seat of their Fiesta. "We tried to call but when we couldn't get through..."

"Flat battery," she explained quickly. Lainy had fielded a call on the house phone and told them to come up. "I've loved having you up here today. I just wish you didn't have to go so soon." There must be a guesthouse or something around here somewhere.

"We should really start getting back for Dan. Mrs Ricci won't have her forever."

Katie rolled her eyes. Even she used to get sick of her little sister after a couple of hours and looking after her when she was ill... her former neighbour deserved a medal. "It's a long drive. Make sure you stop for a rest."

"When is the daughter supposed to take care of the parents?"

"Dad, I mean it. It's getting dark and the lights aren't that great around her." She had actually surprised herself by telling her own parents to take care. It had been just under two weeks ago when they had said that to her before leaving her in this old house and driving off. Taking care of herself had become natural over recent times so it wasn't too much of a leap to extend that to the people she cared about. Moving/ to a new town to share a house with a bunch of strangers had been a huge step and one none of them had expected Katie to take for at least two more years. But take it she had and her housemates had hardly stopped gushing about how well she was getting on.

"Honey, you're coping okay aren't you?" asked Mom. It was a mother's job to worry about her children and even leaving home couldn't erase that instinct. It made it worse because Katie was no longer under her watchful eye. "Because there's still time to come home."

_I am home._ This was the only place she had felt like she belonged for months. A few months ago, something had happened to her old city and she no longer felt safe walking the streets she had learnt to ride a bike down, sleeping in the room she'd been born in, even reading in the library before it closed. Too many dark places, too many corners bad people could hide behind. It had stopped feeling like home. "I'm fine," she didn't quite lie. "I told you, this was the fresh start I needed."

"But-"

"Mom, I can't come back with you. College starts Monday and I'm really looking forward to it. I have friends, I'm not starving and I'm wearing clean clothes. The survival of the family name is assured."

Her father lifted his eyebrows so high they almost flew off his face. _Uh-oh._ Katie had not meant to say that.

"Not like that!" she promised her father, counting herself as the luckiest girl alive that the comment had completely blown over her mom. "Just 'cos I can look after myself now doesn't mean I can do it for a little living thing too. Remember the flour baby thing at school?" Not something anyone was likely to forget. The cookies had been delicious though.

"I'll cancel the Christmas puppy then," he grinned and gave her one final squeeze before getting into the car and giving the ignition a few violent twists. It choked a couple of times and then turned over, not sounding very happy about it. "We should get going."

"Oh, honey," her Mom piped up, looking up from the street map on the new satnav. "We meant to ask. The letter from the police... anything we need to worry about?"

It took a few moments to remember exactly what letter she was talking about. Katie could imagine the blank look she was wearing but she honestly couldn't – oh Christ, how had she forgotten about that?

"No, nothing. Just wanted the new address."

"It's the worst thing in the world to have happened, Katie. Please tell us if anything changes."

"I will. But I'm fine. Honestly." Katie tacked a smile onto the end and hoped her mother believed it more than she did. But her parents wanted to rush home to look after the sick daughter they still had at home. "I just want to look forward. Which-" she glanced pointedly at her watch and tapped the luminous dial at her father. "You need to be doing now. Thanks for a great day. Now, go!" And it had been a good day. Well, if great meant exhausting in this universe. She'd come 12th in her race this morning and second in the Under 18 group – which was amazing in itself, considering just getting to the start line had been only a distant possibility – then her parents had taken her to the shopping centre to buy a new laptop and then a greasy chemical takeaway. Back home to meet her friends, set up the new computer and then eat a huge house meal before hanging her old cloudburst curtains and then saying goodbye. Katie wondered if she might not fall asleep standing up.

"Love you, honey!"

"Ditto, kiddo."

"You're really gonna make me say it."

"Not leaving until you do!" Only the car was already halfway down the road, coughing and growling like all motor vehicles seemed to do in Northwood. The few that made it in town anyway.

"I love you!" she called after them, hoping that they were too far away to hear and close enough to do so. Teens never liked to tell their parents they loved them but somehow Katie didn't feel like the average teenager any more.

"Be good!" one of them shouted. Mom, probably.

Behind her, Katie heard the front door open and heavy soles stomped out to stop next to her. A hand extended itself and she grabbed for it, twisting her fingers in. Not a word passed between them but Katie closed her eyes, breathing deep of this familiar smell – old leather and straw and something she had decided was the stench of death – turning her head to one side and resting her cheek on his shoulder, watching her family leave once more and imagining the look on Dad's face. Mom was probably trying to calm him down right now, and convince him not to turn the car around and save his baby girl from this... this _man_. She grinned and let herself relax against this hard body beside her. Even though she had not looked around once, Katie knew who she was leaning on. Jack. He was the only person who could make her feel this safe – safe enough to let her guard down.

"How do you do it?"

"Do what?"

When the car was out of sight, Jack curled his arm around her face and stroked her cheeks. "Keep smiling."

She straightened and looked him straight in the eyes. "Do I look like I'm smiling?"

It depended which part of Katie you looked at. Her mouth was smiling but it didn't touch her eyes. In fact, if you looked closely there were tears glistening in the corners of her brown eyes. "You look happy and sad all at the same time."

"That's actually not a bad description. Is confused available?"

" _I'm_ confused if it helps."

Katie shook her head and went to sit on the low wall that edged the front garden. Or the three square feet of gravel and grass she liked to call it. "You're the reason I'm confused, Jack. I mean, how can you be here? Last time I saw you, you were dying. Scrap that – you were dead. I cried over your body and you were dead."

"You can't kill a ghost. Well, I guess you can but we come right on back."

"I watched that man flay you alive!"

"I started healing the minute you got him away from me, Lady Katie."

"You heal fast then. There's not a mark on you."

Well, nothing that wasn't there before. But she didn't need to know about any of that yet. "We all do. It takes energy for us to stay in human form – to stay solid I mean – and keepin' all these cuts would be even harder. You remember when I punched the seats down at the stadium to prove I was real."

"Not really," Katie admitted. Most things to do with Jack in their first week of knowing each other were all fuzzy. She knew something had happened but only because there was a gaping black hole where those memories should be. It was one of those paradox thingies the scientists were always going on about. "But I kind of remember seeing you in the hospital and thinking there was something wrong with your hand."

"Well, it was too hard to keep up that image. So I just took a little more energy than usual from Adam and made it go away. You thought my unbroken skin felt wrong 'cos your brain somehow remembered me hurting myself."

"Why? You took all my memories away, didn't you?"

"Your memories, yeah. But I can't do nothin' about your senses or feelings." And that was one of the few things he was grateful for.

Katie was glad too. She didn't quite know how she felt about Jack but she was pretty sure she might start to hate him if he ever tried to manipulate her emotions. She wanted to work out how she felt on her own and in her own time. God only knew what was rushing through her body right now but she was content to just ride this wave of feeling comfortable with him. "You can't just play with my head, Jack. If I forget you again... if you take away any of the seconds I get with you..."

"Katie, I only did what I did to protect you."

"I don't need protecting. I need to remember the good times, the bad times, I need to know you. I need to... Jack, I just want to be in charge of my own mind."

"And I never wanna take that away from you." He fell silent then and just held Katie the way she liked to be held and wished with all his heart he could kiss away all those tears and fears. It would do more harm than good. But she leant into him and closed her eyes. Just a minute to think of nothing. No-one had ever warned her that thinking all the time was so exhausting. The silence was absolute, just the stirring of the autumn breeze disturbed the peace. There was a flat surface below her – namely, the ground – and a lifesize teddy bear by the name of Jack to provide comfort. What was to stop her just sinking to the floor and sleeping here? Definitely tired enough. Bed was so far away.

Then it hit her. For a couple of days there had been this odd feeling inside and she couldn't remember why she had it. But now... now it came back like a brick dropped from heaven. Katie lifted herself away from Jack, squeezing his hand hard enough to grind bones in anyone else, and took herself off into the old house, unsure whether she wanted him to follow or not.

Turning right beyond the front door, Katie slid her trainers off and kicked them into the pile, found her bunny slippers from another heap and walked past the kitchen where three of her housemates were pretending not to have been watching the action from the window. The person she was looking for wasn't among them. That person was in the front room, flicking through a sports science textbook to fast to be reading it. Katie walked a little closer and saw the familiar white wires of earphones trailing the arms of the settee. Whether anything was playing through them was another matter – certainly there was none of that tinny beat overflow that drove her parents mad. She yanked the earphones away, kissed the top of the studiers head and tried to vault over the back of the settee and land on the empty seat like on TV. It ended badly.

"Hey Jaye!" she squealed down the tiny girls ears. They had seen each other just a few minutes earlier but they hadn't really spoken in a couple of days. There had been this huge distance between them, it seemed.

"Ow! I hope you're happy about making my ears bleed."

"Umm..." Katie pretended to think the question over. "Yeah, I think I'm okay with it."

"So glad to hear it." Jaye snapped her book shut and tossed it to the floor. "Think I've read the same sentence a hundred times. Your parents seemed nice?"

"You'd love my sister. She's as hyper as you." Katie dodged the implied question. Her family were just that – family. Blood and name. No need to discuss how she felt about them. That was a minefield she had no desire to wade through just yet.

"How was it?"

"Too short."

"Always is."

"Do you ever see your family?"

Shadows flicked over Jaye's delicate face. The look was instantly recognisable to Katie – which was disturbing on levels she hadn't even known about. It was something all the Shades she knew did when there was something they didn't want to talk or think about.

"My parents..." Jaye began and stopped. "They're staunch Catholics. You know, when you're gone, you're gone. They think that going to my funeral was their last chance to see me. Don't answer the phone, letters get return-to-sendered. I was the oldest of eight, if you can believe that, and they mostly believed I was still around but my parents convinced them I was just in their heads."

"Jesus!"

"Brings a whole new meaning to the words you're dead to us."

"I can't imagine my parents ever saying that to me." Of course, she couldn't predict their reaction when Katie died – which, one day, would happen. Knowing what she knew – the idea didn't really scare her the way it had done. "They're just..." shrugged, unable to find the right words. _They're just Mom and Dad._

"Just because I pretty much hate them now for that doesn't mean I don't still love them. Don't look at me like that, I can't explain it either. And stop feeling sorry for me."

The thing was, Katie didn't feel pity for her friend. It was easy to assume everyone who knew your secrets was going to feel sorry for you – she knew that well enough and mostly because it was true. She was doing her damned best to feel some sort of empathy but there was nothing there. Giving up on any attempts to form words, Katie shifted in her seated and wrapped Jaye in a hug, wishing she could pour all of her emotions out of her arms and into her friend. After a minute, the smaller girl flapped her arms and slapped blind hands all around, trying to connect with flesh. Katie loosened her grip but didn't let go, suddenly certain that if she let go then Jaye would fall away from her. She had to hold on. _You must find a way._

"Being dead doesn't mean I don't need to breathe," Jaye gasped, finally realising she was short enough to just duck out of the circle of arms.

"Seriously?"

"Deadly. Wait. Seriously what?" Adam came onto the front room and started rummaging through the mess of board games on the bottom shelf of the bookcase.

"Seriously going to bed."

"Not joining us for-" he grabbed a box and yanked out a classic. "Snakes and ladders? Okay, who brought this?"

"Not unless you want to be carrying me up."

Adam looked her up and down and then shook his head, passing the game to Jaye to set up. "No offence but I don't think my back'll take it."

"No offence," Katie shot back, "But I don't think so either."

"Meaning?" Jaye leaned across and whispered something in his ear, grinning wickedly. Adam suddenly looked hurt. "Right, you two are heading for smacked bums."

"Promises, promises."

"Yeah, Ad, don't make promises you can't keep."

It was best to leave Jaye to the shameless flirting, especially since Lainy was clinking mugs outside the door. Katie held it open and tried to get past without knocking everything to the floor.

"Night."

"Sweet dreams."

Upstairs, Katie grabbed a pair of clean pyjamas and headed for the bathroom. When the bath water had run hot and was inching up the side of the tub, Katie kicked her dirty clothes under the sink to deal with tomorrow and climbed into the bubbly water. The quick post-race shower had barely touched the soul-deep aches and pains. Not that many of them actually stemmed from the exertions of the morning. Most of the fatigue she was feeling came from nerves, not enough sleep and nearly dying far too many times lately. As she started washing herself, Katie reminded herself how lucky she was not to still have any of the scars and marks she should have. A few days ago, she had been covered in cuts that would have made her look like some kind of monster had they scarred. Explaining those away would _not_ have been fun. Interesting, but not fun. _What did it cost?_ Katie vaguely recalled the streams of dark energy, the overwhelming power, she had touched that night, and lay back, wondering. _What if it changed me?_

But her brain wasn't quite ready to process any of that just yet. Some kind of spongy wall had sprung up in her mind and all the sharp, fine details were kept safely behind it. How long would it hold back the flood?

Katie stayed in the water until it began to cool, drained the tub and shivered into her PJs. She squeezed a ling stripe of toothpaste onto her clear brush and stared at herself in the tiny mirror on the sink. There was a large mirrored panel propped in the corner of the bathroom, ready for Adam to fix to the medicine cabinet next time he went on a DIY rampage, to replace the old shattered one. The girl in the reflection looked sleepy but fresh and bright. That _cannot_ be Katie, who felt about as fresh as a month old banana. Bruised, wrinkled and way past its' best.

She jammed her feet back into bunny slippers and padded out. Voices were drifting up the stairs as Lainy, Adam and Jaye were squabbling over their game. A quiet beat sounded through the door next to her room. Not loud enough – the front row of an Aerosmith concert would not be loud enough – to disturb her sleep tonight.

But Katie didn't get her silent wish and she dreamed. But she dreamt of just five words –

You must find a way.

# Chapter two

"Are you ready to say goodbye?"

"No. Not yet. Can I have a little longer?"

"Of course, but you should really go get some rest. She'll be here when you come back, I promise."

"I don't see her much, you know. It's just hard to leave her for even a minute."

"I understand."

"Every second could be her last. I don't want to risk it... missing it, I mean."

"The machines are working hard to keep her alive, Mr Bayliss. She's not going anywhere without your say so."

"Just a minute or two more."

The door to the side room opened wider and a nurse walked out and straight past Katie, too engrossed in her blue files to notice her.

"Dina, please. Why did you do this? Is it because of the divorce? Did you think it was your fault? Is it having to fly ten hours to see me? Please. If I had any part to play in this, I'm truly sorry."

Katie blinked and took a deep breath before entering the room. "Excuse me. Sir?" She touched the older mans arm and he twisted his head to her, grasping his child's thin hand in both of his. Unashamed tears were rolling down his face. "I was – am," she corrected, "Dina's housemate. Katie. I just dropped by to sit with her for a while."

"She never mentioned you."

"I'm new to town. We only knew each other a few days before..."

"You didn't know her very well then?"

"No but she was part of my college family."

"You have any idea why she did this? She came out to America with her friend Jaye – you know Jaye, right?" Katie nodded and stayed silent. Mr Bayliss looked as though he were having enough trouble speaking about Dina without her interrupting and making it harder. "She seemed fine then. Never stopped talking about the academy and all her friends. I don't know how this could have happened... not without anyone noticing. I don't think we ever will now."

"Don't speak like that."

"These machines are breathing for her, pumping blood for her. She's dead."

She felt her own tears start battering at her eyelids and touched his shoulder, trying to be comforting. Inside, a huge shock hit her. Dina was dead. And she hadn't come back.

"I need a walk and some coffee. Real stuff, not the mud here. I'll e back later, baby girl." Mr Bayliss bent down and kissed Dina's head, watching her for long moments afterwards to see if he had magically provoked some kind of response. Katie could tell by the awkward set of his body that he felt uncomfortable showing such affection with an audience. Sweet to watch as it was, Katie turned her back and faced the window to give him some privacy until he left. When the door had creaked half shut and footsteps had faded down the hall, Katie sat in the seat he had vacated and thought for a moment. What good was it going to do, her being here? What did she hope to achieve sitting here and feeling sad? The logic of her visit seemed irrelevant as she looked over at Dina – her pale but still brown skin almost paling into the off-white bedsheets. She looked thinner than she had before. The first time she had come down here had been so hard, that was before it had nearly been her lying in the net bed, but she had learnt to just ignore the machine that beeped and display jerky lines. Something important was happening in those noisy boxes. Something she needed to think of. Something she filed away for later.

The list of things to think about later was already getting long and how much longer would it be tomorrow when she had lessons and homework to think about? It even sounded scary. There was a library somewhere downtown – Leo had already found it and she could stalk him there in the week – but there was bound to be one at Levenson Academy for Sports and Action. At least a quiet place to do her homework was sorted. And her student ID gave her access to the academy network. Katie vowed not to say it out loud but this new freedom made her finally feel like a grown up. No longer was she relying on other people to tell her what to do or to put a plaster on a scratched knee. Maybe, just maybe, and the thought came like a door slamming in her face, that was what Dina had been craving, what she had failed without. Everyone needed a hand to hold sometimes. _If I'd known... I could have been that hand to hold._

Could you though? Would you have been there to stop her when you were dying yourself?

Logic again. Damn thing! No, she wouldn't have been there. Maybe it was selfish but hey... she shuffled forward in her seat and took her friends cold hand in hers. She could, at least, be here now. "Everyone thinks of you. Every single day. Jaye goes one better, she thinks of you every minute. We miss you. I know you did some stupid stuff but we all do. Just... God, this is hard... just come back to us and stop everyone being sad." Katie sat back again and let the stillness in the room wash over her.

You have to find a way. You must.

"How? What? Dina?" She looked at the girl in the bed and frowned. That voice. Had it been in her head? Or had Dina woken up, said those words, and then slipped back into unconsciousness in less than a second? Because that had definitely been her voice. "I wanted to thank you for saving my life last week. I think you can hear me. I wish you could just talk to me and tell me to stop worrying - that where-ever you are, you're fine."

"You think she is?" Mr Bayliss was drinking from a polystyrene coffee cup and running his hand through a birds nest on top of his head. The man looked as though he had been sleeping in the hospital room for the past two nights – maybe he had, time had seemed to blur into one since Thursday morning – and no less refreshed for his short walk.

"I don't know." Thinking was getting to be a bad idea as most of the thoughts she had were of dark, cracking energy, blood and people saying goodbye. "I hope so. Look, one of the others will come soon – go to ours, shower, rest. I have to go."

"Thank you for coming. I know she appreciates it."

Katie gave him a smile so thin and tight it might break, shrugged her baseball jacket back on and hurried out of the medical centre. She didn't even know where she was going until she got to the reached the tiny gym at the sports stadium. There was a large one in the college building which was open but it was pretty much packed out when she peeked in on the way past. Being trapped in a room that many heaving, sweaty bodies – pass. To the tiny arena gym it was. The place was big enough for three bikes, two rowers, three treadmills, two cross-trainers and a set of free weights. It was more than enough to keep Katie occupied for an hour or so and work out her frustrations. A couple of male students were finishing up with the weights when she entered so she had the place to herself.

The gym was too close to other people to put her MP3 player on and start singing her head off but Roy, the caretaker, had left the radio on and she couldn't help humming along. It was almost noon on a Sunday – there was school to get ready for tomorrow, a computer that needed sorting out and Lainy was making a proper roast dinner. What was she doing down here? The answer was obvious – she had come to thinking – but she was too busy trying not to think to notice. The events of Thursday morning were pushing at her brain but to let those memories rush back would force Katie to realise things she didn't want to know. Like how close she had come to dying, how close she had come to losing Jack, how she had watched Dina walk into the arms of death and ask for her help, how she had refused to be the victim for one more minute. And she had saved Jack, hadn't she? It made her shudder to remember that stormy night.

"Hey Roy," she said to him as she went outside and reached for his book to sign out. "Sorry I didn't speak earlier. Bit zoned out."

"That's awright. Me and Bernice watched you run yesterday. Not surprised you pooped."

"Pooped? Right, that's a pound in the swear jar."

"I hear what all you stew-dents say. I'm an angel!"

She glanced at his mad-scientist grey hair, the face so wrinkled even a steam iron would have given up on it. "Yeah, I guess you are," she sighed. Realising that sweet old Roy was either dead or dying hurt almost as much as losing Grandad had. How she could feel this deeply about so many people she hardly knew was quite a shock. "So, what you got for me today?"

"You been watching the news? Some darn freak storm the other night. Louder'n a jet over my house, I reckon."

"Must've slept straight through it. When was it, again?"

"No-one was hurt, they say. S'pose that's the main thing."

"Yeah, no lasting damage. Always good." Would Roy be upset if he knew Katie had died? Would anyone be upset? Maybe grief was a defunct emotion in Northwood – there was no point in feeling sad for the dead because they'd be back at your side in... how long did it take? "You came to watch me?"

"We likes to watch all the stew-dents when we can. Course, we can't get about like we used to..." He slid his signing in sheet back behind his little hatch and waved her past.

"I guess I better go see if Lainy's managed to blow the house up yet. And if she has... you and the missus have got yourselves a lodger." It was meant as a light-hearted threat but Roy looked at Katie like he was deep in thought. Then his face dropped.

"Sorry, the landlord says maximum occupancy is two. Though I don't see as how you'd take up much room."

"I was only joking Roy. See you soon."

"Are you inviting Jack?" asked Jaye when Katie got home and dumped her things. "Lainy's used to cooking for six so there's plenty."

"Can I? I mean, I don't know if I should."

"I don't have a problem with him being here." There was conviction in her voice but the kind that was deliberately put there.

"If you're sure. I'd like to ask him but, you know, I don't want things to be awkward."

The last time Jack and Jaye had seen each other, there had been some kind of confrontation and, she thought, a promise to fight. Jack had taken the last bit of life Dina had left in the hospital so he could materialise and be with Katie. That had sent her into flatline and she had been in a coma ever since. From Jaye's guarded expression, the tension had not faded away but nor had it grown. Hmm... if they could get through a dinner perhaps it would put the two of them on speaking terms again. "Everything'll be fine, babe. Trust me."

"Trust you with what?" Lainy came into the kitchen brandishing a potato masher and began attacking the spuds in one of the pans on the stove.

"Katie's inviting Jack for dinner. I was saying how cool it'll be to have six people round the table again. Even if it's not the right six."

"Sweetie, don't you think it might be a little short notice?"

"I showed him a short cut."

Lainy nodded and the shooed both girls out of her kitchen. Jaye made a beeline for the bathroom and the shower started a minute later. Katie sat herself in the chair furthest from the kitchen, right in the corner of the living room. Just in case she made any noise. Then Katie closed her eyes and reached down inside her for a ball of – well, she didn't want to be dramatic and call it her soul but whatever it was that kept her going. Essence? When she called for him, he would need to draw on that.

Jack? I want you to be part of us for today. You know you can come through me if you want to.

She felt an invisible hand stroke hat knot of energy inside. Just the slightest tug in her stomach, slowly creeping up and then finger writing words in her head. _You must find a way._

_Jack, is that you?_ But she knew it wasn't. And just as this gentle touch reached for her ball of whatever in her stomach again, another hand grabbed for it and the gentle one left. Like losing an unborn baby or phantom limb syndrome, she just felt her body empty out. The tender touch had left. And it had torn of a string of her life source and it was unravelling behind it. The other hand, the rough one, snapped at the thread but it was strong as steel and thin as hair. Katie closed her eyes and tried to let herself see this internal scuffle but it seemed that she had missed most of the action.

"Lady Katie." A cowboy with green eyes tipped his hat to her with his free hand – the one that wasn't currently looping itself around a running thread of silvery energy.

"Where's it all going?"

"Your guess is as good as mine."

"Please hurry. Before it runs out. It's all I have left." Katie was tired from her workout and needed a change of clothes before dinner.

"It shouldn't be like this." The cowboy shook his head and closed his hand around the silvery thread. "It was never this way before."

"Jack, come on. I'm tired and I can't give you anything else." Katie clenched her fists and stared at the shrinking ball of life before her, holding on to it with all her might – willing it to be just enough. Her outside body probably looked stupid – her concentrating face had her tongue out and her fingers in rigid ET positions – but inside was all that mattered. "We can talk about this later."

"What if this is important though? It's all going away, running away from whatever I grab onto."

"There's enough." _I hope._ "Just... ow!" She stumbled in her concentration as Jack grabbed for a strand with both hands and pulled.

Katie tried to open her eyes but the sudden pain of her insides being pulled on shocked them shut again. Breathing deep, she tried to let herself relax and let the pain wash over her. It wasn't pain really. It didn't even hurt if you didn't fight it. The theory sounded good on paper but in reality... yeah, it hurt. Not the oh-my-God-I-think-my-guts-are-about-to-explode kind of pain but the good kind, the oh-my-God-I-think-I'm-gonna die kind. Instead of focussing on Jack and his process of coming into the real world, Katie put everything she had left into strengthening that silver string inside. For a split-second, the thread shimmered purple-black but it was so brief she might have seen nothing more than a strange bend of the light.

You have light in your head? Wow. Cool head.

The tiny voice that only ever pointed out problems was right though. A trick of the light inside her mind. _Maybe I saw something._

As she puzzled that, Katie opened her eyes and looked up to see her green-eyed cowboy smiling down at her. She had barely felt him coming through her this time so making that ball of energy stronger seemed to have worked. Of course, she felt even more tired and drained than she had before.

"I don't like this. I hate using you to come here."

"You're here now and I'm fine." Well, she would be when she had slipped her PJs on and emptied a can of Red Bull down her throat.

"There has to be a better way."

She had been hearing that a lot lately. Best not to mention it. Not yet anyway. The last thing Katie wanted was another emergency situation in which she found herself running for her life. She hadn't really recovered properly from the last one... any of them, honestly, but taking time off from life would be bad. She just felt it. Her body had come through with no scars or breaks – a miracle in itself – just a bone-deep exhaustion that only time would get rid of. Her brain was wilfully blocking out too many memories but she remembered blood and violence and a man with hate in his eyes. Recovery took routine and pushing yourself and convincing everyone you were fine because then it might be true.

"One that doesn't hurt," he went on.

Katie blinked and shook the thoughts from her head. She had been right on the edge of something else, something that was going to be important but it was gone the moment Jack's voice touched her ears. Nothing else mattered for a few hours. They would eat a Sunday lunch together, fall asleep in front of the TV when they were full together.

"Lady Katie, have I ever told you you're amazin'?"

"Yeah, most of the last week. But I'm not stopping you from doing it again."

"After what you been through, I think it's incredible you can even stand, let alone bring me across. And you still look like Lady Katie, not some haunted, hollowed out wreck of a girl." But that was exactly how she felt. "You're beautiful. You're strong. You're-"

"Taller than you in heels!" singsonged Jaye, as she danced into the living room, dragging her hairbrush through her chin length black tangles. "Or she would be if she ever let me take her shopping.

_If you were about to say special, I will kill you with my bare hands!_ she silently warned him, earning a cheeky but very disturbing grin from Jack. Duh! She knew he could read her thoughts – they had spoken like this before. How could she have forgotten that? Did he know everything she thought about? There were definitely parts of her mind that were strictly for her eyes only. "Nice try Jaye."

"I'm not giving up on you yet, babe."

"I need to get out of these." Katie peeled her sweat-sticky t-shirt from her back, aware that not all of it had come from her gym session.

"I'll get you looking like a real girl one of these days."

She traced her fingers across Jaye's palm as she headed for the door and shot a look back to Jack, fearing what would happen when she left the room. "Play nice."

Little more than an hour later, six people were sitting around the dinner table finishing up the roast lamb dinner Lainy had made. It wasn't the selection of housemates it should be but enough laughter and happy bitching buzzed around that Katie felt just as comfortable with Jack and Mr Bayliss as she had with Adam and Dina, whom they had temporarily replaced.

"I want to thank you and your husband for having me in your home."

"Oh, we're not married," Lainy said quickly. "We can't get-" she caught herself before she said more than she wanted to. "We couldn't let you find a café and eat all on your own. Not when you have friends here."

"You're not married? But you have the same name. I just assumed..."

"Just a hell of a coincidence, I guess."

Katie knew it was a lie but she just smiled and carried on chasing peas. Lainy had conveniently forgotten about everything Katie had said the day she woke up. That or she was pretending it had never happened. She knew, though, that the mysterious disappearing injuries had not been so easily glossed over and was dreading the shit hitting the fan.

"Are you two looking forward to your first days?" Lainy asked. "Be honest."

"Just school ain't it? Only you're a bit older," grumbled Leo. "I thought I left all the homework crap behind in college."

"Why the fuck are you here if you don't want to work?" That earnt Jaye a sharp watch your language look from Lainy and the table shuddered as she sent a light kick her way. "Seriously? I mean, you want to doss around, the academy is so the wrong place to do it."

"I'm excited. I'm nervous too though." Truthfully, Katie was crapping herself about it. It was probably the anticipation that was sending butterflies through her stomach.

"It's understandable. You're hours from home, it's all new, you're on your own."

"I have all these worries. What if the classes are too hard? What if the other students hate me? What if-"

"Katie, Katie," Mr Bayliss interrupted. "Am I right thinking you're the youngest here?" She nodded. He continued. "You must be a very talented young lady to gain early admission."

"On a full scholarship too," Jaye added sounding proud.

"If I keep my grades up."

"Which you will." Jack squeezed her hand under the table – just a bit of pressure on the back of her hand, hardly a touch at all. "No problem."

"I'm sure all your friends here will help you with any schoolwork."

The idle chatter carried on for a few more minutes and then Lainy piped up once more. "Sorry, gang, no dessert."

"Elaine, dinner was lovely and I thank you for letting me join in. Dina always told me you were all so kind." Mr Bayliss glanced down at his plate and looked sad for a moment, then he raised his head with a determined sigh and started piling the dirty plates. "You and the girls go have a nice rest in the front room. Katie, take your young man with you. This gentleman and I will clear up." He jerked his head towards Leo who did not look at all happy about it but, for once, didn't grump about it. In fact, he looked a little bit frightened by Mr Bayliss. Being parented when he thought he had left it all behind. His childhood coming up to bite him in the arse. Brilliant!

"Jack, I'm upstairs when you're ready. We need to talk... in private." Katie bolted off upstairs and left the other three to it. When she had come downstairs in her PJs and slippers Jack and Jaye had been deep in a conversation that had ended the moment she had entered the room. Mysterious sure but they hadn't torn each others' throats out so Katie was assuming the little chat had been civil with possibilities of friendly. No bloodshed – always good. She pulled the chair out, sat down and switched on her new laptop, ready to start work installing software and registering programs but all she did was stare at the shiny screen. The old one was scratched, battered and cluttered with games – probably the real reason Dan had wanted it.

There was a knock at the door. How long had she been sitting there doing nothing?

"Yeah?"

"It's me."

"I know who it is. Are you coming in?"

The door opened a crack and Jack slid in, leaving the door open an inch or two. There was something about having a parent in the house, even when it wasn't your own, that made everyone act on their best behaviour. It was kind of funny.

"How do you feel?"

"Seriously? My whole world's basically turned itself inside out this summer and you ask how I feel? Unbelievable." It was rare for a man, dead or alive, to show interest in female emotions so she was definitely holding on to that one but wow... they knew how to pick their moments. "Okay, here's the rundown." Katie swivelled around on her chair and started counting down on her fingers. She took a deep breath and got to "stressed" before Jack circled his arms around her waist and pulled her down to the bed with him.

"Bad Jack. Very bad Jack. Would you have done that if it was _my_ dad down there?"

He snorted. "No. Your dad treats you like you're made of glass. And I'd definitely be payin' damages if he knew how I handle delicate objects."

"Cool. I'm delicate."

"Yeah. I wanna take care of you if you'll let me."

Oh, Katie wanted that more than anything. But he'd tried that before and look at what had happened there. Being taken care of didn't work.

"Give it a try, Lady Katie."

She twisted in his arms and looked up at him. The only thing she saw in his eyes was this burning need for her to trust him. Lying in his arms was the best place she knew. It didn't matter that somehow, he was always linked to whatever trouble she found herself in-

You must find a way

  * This was the one place she felt safe.

And then the dam broke.

Memories came cascading into her head and she screamed. _No! Don't let me drown. I can't die like this._ She didn't know if she had yelled the words out loud but she really believed it. And it was all too much. The wall in Katie's mind had finally snapped under the weight of the last few weeks of memories but somehow, the ones in which she nearly died weren't half as scary as the ones she had buried much deeper. Jack sprang off the bed and bent down next to the girl, rubbing her back, unsure how best to help. All he could do was stand there and let Katie scream it all out... then footsteps pounded up the stairs and Leo shoved the door open.

"Get your hands off her!"

"I'm helping her. Katie had... a shock. She'll be alright soon."

"And you had nothing to do with this shock."

Katie could practically see the air quotes on shock and, if she looked up, he might well be making them, but right now she couldn't seem to stop screaming and crying. Her breath was starting to run out and agonised gasps were making their way out instead. In her mind, though, a hundred days of hurt was pouring out of her mouth. And then everything stopped – feeling, seeing, remembering – it all stopped and left her lifeless and sitting on the floor.

"Who's to blame for this is not the problem. I don't know what to do."

Leo popped open one of the cans of Red Bull Katie had stashed under her bed and tilted it to her lips. She drank the amber liquid that formed on the lid but didn't move. Jack looked on not understanding. "Sugar rush," Leo explained. "I used to do it for my mom. Cures a lot of things. Sometimes it makes things worse." He put his arm under her shoulders and nudged her back onto the bed, still keeping the drink by her lips so she could sip, slowly – very slowly – coming back to earth. "I don't suppose they taught any of this when you grew up. Katie said you're about 150."

"A little more if you count my age when I died."

"Whatever. Let's just say you're real old. What did you do?"

"Nothin'! We were just sitting here and she just... broke?"

"I ain't kidding, Jack. If you've hurt her... You know how easy it is to hurt people without realising it. I've lain awake in there," he jerked his thumb towards his room and held Katie more tightly, "listening to her nightmares for the last time. I don't know what she dreams about but it's your names she shouts when she wakes up, so I'm guessing you have something to do with them. Right?"

"Okay, I s'pose I owe you - hey, she's startin' to come round. Is she okay now?"

Leo glared at Jack. He had seen Katie in a drugged out stupor last week, lying unconscious in this bed last week, all slashed and torn just hours before that – was there even an okay after that?

# Chapter three

"Where'd he go?"

Katie blinked and the world lost it's safe, blunt edges, becoming lethal corners and angles again. There was a sticky sweet coating on her lips and she sucked at it desperately, not quite sure why. She was aware of an arm holding her up against her head board – a human arm, with the bulk and weight that not even Jack could emulate. She turned, saw it was Leo and instantly tensed every muscle in her body. It was an unconscious reflex she had to being touched by any man who wasn't her father or Jack. It had come as quite a shock to find herself relaxing completely with Jack so quickly but that was the effect he had. Leo on the other hand...A few inches taller than her but quite wiry in build, he had some air of danger about him. Although he was helping Katie now, she couldn't help but feel a tiny bit afraid of him.

"Where's Jack?"

Her words hadn't yet gained the accusing air they would do later; this was more of a sleepy and mildly curious question. But Leo had already felt her go hard next to him and eased his arm from under her head, moving to the other side of the room to give her space. "I told him to go."

"Why? Why does my mouth taste like I just drowned in syrup? Why are you sitting here with me?"

"Slow down." Leo put his hands up and heaved himself up onto the desk. He glanced down at the laptop. "You need to do a reboot. What's this?" Something silvery glinted from the mess of black wires and program user guides written in just about every language but English. He held up a seven pointed star and twisted it to catch the soft evening light.

Katie shrugged. Something, a memory, was trying to fight its' way out of the jumble in her head. She tried to squint at the star but the way it was catching the light was too bright to make out much.

"You got some weird shit, bitch," he said, tossing it onto the bed as he yanked the door open.

"Leo, wait!" He paused. Katie wondered why she had just said that. It wasn't as though she wanted him in her room any longer than was necessary. And yet, something tugged at her. "Everything I told you last week... it's all true. All of it. I hate it, I really do, and I know you probably don't believe it but it's going to happen. You're going to die."

"Yeah?"

"Fight it, run from it, ignore it, do what you want. But it's real Leo. And I think I figured something out."

"What? Two and two is twenty two? Fetch the engines, bitch is on fire."

"Fine, get out."

He just stood in the doorway, not moving, not saying a word, just staring at her with those hard blue eyes and knowing she would crack under his glare.

"I'm not playing stupid games. Get out of my room!" She opened her mouth, getting ready to scream, and he bolted out. Katie threw a pillow at the closed door in frustration and threw herself forward on the mattress. After a minute of just lying there and refusing point blank to think about anything, Katie stood up and stumbled around, half-asleep already, filling her new messenger bag with stuff she thought she might need for her classes tomorrow. Giving the bag a test lift, she decided against about a third of the books and notebooks she had planned to take, doubting she would be asked to handwrite a novel on her first day. Was it seriously only the first proper day tomorrow? Katie felt as though she had lived a lifetime in Northwood.

Over the course of the first morning at Levenson Academy of Sports and Action, Katie found herself in a group of ten students her age with another group of teenagers a year older taking over the other half of the classroom. They were given their timetables which gave them English, maths and science lessons together, four elective classes with lower ability but older students and then an hour and a half each day given over to sports. Not counting the time people might want to put in before or after hours. She spent the morning puzzling over her schedule and trying to figure out how she could get from drama to psychology when one finished as the other started on the other side of the building. By some amazing stroke of luck, that Friday afternoon clash was the only overlap in her classes. The group she was in spent the rest of the morning doing team-building exercises and ice-breakers. None of which Katie had the least bit of interest in. Not while her head was crammed with the memories she had unlocked last night. God, there were so many things in her head this morning. Remembering her tutors' name – Mr Conroy – five minutes after he had finished speaking was a minor victory. The afternoon would be some tests in their three core subjects to get their levels and make sure the work set wasn't too easy or too hard. Although Katie usually did quite well under pressure, she wasn't looking forward to them today. She didn't like things she hadn't had chance to prepare for.

Yeah, like anyone gives a crap what you want.

It was a harsh truth, but a true truth. Okay, the English exam was going to be a fail! Nearly dying hadn't been on her to-do list, nor had killing a man to avoid it. Watching a girl walk into the open arms of death – not on the list. Being raped, treated like a criminal, leaving home when she needed her family most – not there either. But those things had happened whether she liked them or not. And that wasn't even counting the things she had found out this weekend.

"Hey, wakey wakey! Don't make me touch."

Someone was waving a tanned hand in front of her face and talking as if they had been trying to catch her attention for a while. Katie had taken advantage of the lunch break to find a quiet corner of the cafeteria and let her brain switch off for a few moments. Being a college full of teenagers and barely-out-of-their-teens, hush was impossible but the constant chatter was rhythmic enough to ignore.

"Huh?"

"Earth to planet Katie. Y'in there?"

"What do you want Leo?"

"Answers."

"Yes, you're a shit. Get lost."

"How's your morning?"

"Probably the same as yours."

"You're not worried about anything?"

What was she meant to say? _Yes, I'm worried Dina really is dead and my boyfriend was the one to kill her; I'm worried that I'm so tired because my life is running out and not because I'm still getting my strength back; I'm worried that I murdered a man and I'm worried about... I'm just worried about me._ So she grinned and hoped none of those thoughts were showing in her face. "Screw the civilities, Pointer. Not in the mood."

"I'm trying to help you. You looked terrible last night. Jack said it was nothing to worry about but you look worse today. I might be able to help if you tell me what's going on."

"Very Christian of you."

"The Bible tells you to help the weak and the stupid, not that you gotta like 'em."

"It's - it's hard to explain here. Later, okay?" She had less than zero intentions of talking to him about anything later. "Jaye!"

A tiny girl with a backpack that looked as though it weighed more than her waved at Katie and started moving through the crowd, shouldering through the people she could and melting through the rest in that supernatural way she had. No-one seemed to notice. "Hi!"

"Glad to be back?"

"Oh, yeah. First day exams – what every girl dreams of."

"At least you knew they were coming."

"So did you. It was in your student starter pack." Katie glared at Leo. "It came Wednesday and I thought you were a bit too busy to bother reading it. I was trying to help."

"Help?" She laughed, a little too high and loud to be genuine. "Man, that's a good one."

"Seriously, if you can spell your name, count to ten and know the formula for water, you'll cruise them." Jaye reached over to her food tray and stole a handful of spicy wedges. "Why does food always taste better when it's someone else's? Anyway, you two looked knee deep in serious thought – anything interesting?"

"She won't say."

"I told you... later. It's too public here."

"So there's something to tell?"

"Maybe." Who was to decide if her thoughts were even worth talking about? Perhaps she was just imagining problems where there weren't any.

"I'll tell you what's wrong," snapped Leo. "Thursday morning, I found you lying in this patch of waste ground at the edge of town... soaked through, shivering. I had to carry you home – you were a dead weight and I couldn't even tell if you were still breathing."

Jaye elbowed him in the ribs and hissed, "A little louder next time, Leo!"

"She should know this. It wasn't your hero, your cowboy, it was me. Well, us. I've known you a fortnight and you're going to use yourself up by Christmas if you carry on this way. So sharing your next suicide mission before it gets you killed would help."

"What do you want me to do- thank you? Yes. I _am_ grateful. But I really don't have anything to tell right now." Just a bunch of theories and thoughts and potential problems. "I'll visit Dina on the way home," Katie said, ending that conversation.

"Her dad thinks they should turn the machines off this week."

"And..."

"I hate the idea, to be honest. While the machines are on, she's still with me, still alive."

Katie felt something land hard in her head and she could see two jigsaw pieces in her head that she knew fitted together but could she fit them? Puzzles were never her forte. Later. Everything would work out later.

"You gotta remember – she wanted this. It might not be the way she imagined but she cut her wrists, Jaye. She wanted to die."

Jaye picked her bag up and lost herself in the crowd, leaving behind a half-eaten lunch and a heavy silence.

"Nice one, genius!"

"How did I know she was so sensitive? She was telling us the other day how Dina chose this for herself, how she had to be okay with her own decisions. I thought she was okay with it too."

What was it with boys? Maybe tact and sensitivity were just missing in male DNA. "Saying she's coming to terms with it doesn't mean she means it."

"Huh?"

Man, this was so the wrong time of the month for this crap.

"Time's nearly up people. Just ten more minutes."

Mr Conroy was watching over his small group as they finished their maths papers – thankfully the last of the day. Jaye had been right; the questions hadn't been overly taxing and Katie had got through most of them without two much trouble. But whilst she was drawing a Venn diagram on the last question, her mind began to wander and the mental jigsaw pieces suddenly crashed together. It was so simple. One circle was Dina, the other was the life support. The question had morphed from percentages of blue aliens, red aliens and then aliens who were half and half, into one asking why Dina hadn't come back.

She scribbled her answers and checked her paper through until the bell rang, tapping her pen impatiently. And then she slapped her test down on the front desk and bolted for the door. Not even the call to write down the reading could slow her down. The first chapter of every textbook she owned had been skimmed over last week – therefore, homework pre-empted and done. It wasn't far to the medical centre from the big building and she didn't want to lose a second getting there. Lugging this sack of books she wouldn't need until tomorrow would only slow her down so Katie headed for one of the banks of lockers in the common room and checked the number on her key. 101. Well, that bode well, didn't it? She stashed her bag in the metal cupboard, taking out what she needed, and took a quick look around the common room. Groups of students chatted, laughed, danced to the radio. They all seemed so happy and carefree. Katie wished she was one of them. "One day," she promised herself. "One day I'll be like you."

Just not today.

With one final glance, she left the academy behind and headed across the grounds to the medical centre.

"Miss Cartwright." Dr de Rossa was standing by the vending machine in the reception area. "You look a little unwell. Are you feeling okay?"

"Nothing an adrenaline jab to the heart wouldn't fix. Can't help me out, can you doc?"

"Now, Katie. Be honest with Uncle Alejandro, are you keeping okay?"

"Your name's Alejandro? Filing that away for blackmail purposes. Pray I never have to use it."

"Evidently, your wicked streak is all present and correct."

"Alejandro?"

"My parents never got very far through the name book. Either that or they had your sense of humour."

Dr de Rossa had parents? Grown ups were just... grown ups. Remembering they had lives too just weirded Katie out. The doctor was the doctor. It was so much simpler when people were only one thing.

"You're not suffering any after effects from last week are you?"

Oh, right, last week when she had fainted at least twice, been drugged with Rohypnol, nearly taken her Uncle Billy's eye out with a spoon – which made her feel like laughing when she thought of it, and then feel guilty about it – and had a long, this slash across her arm.

"Or anything else?" He looked at her with the detached and professional gaze she had come to know well this year.

Oh. Dr de Rossa had taken up the challenge she had joked about last week and read her file. "No, nothing at all. I'm feeling fine." There was a crinkle to the doctors' mouth which made Katie want to curl into his arms and give him the entire confession.

A nurse pushed through the double doors, stripped off a pair of blue latex gloves and started shuffling through files on the desk. It reminded Katie of why she had come here in the first place – not for a chat, pleasant as that sounded. "Has Dina's dad been to speak to you yet? Mr Bayliss, I mean."

"We had rather a long discussion earlier today actually but, without his permission, I don't think I can tell you any more."

"No, that's okay. Did he make any decisions about... you can't say. Sorry."

"Katie, you seemed flustered." Flustered? Did anyone even use that word this century? "More agitated than normal."

"Considering your knowledge of me goes as far as crying or unconscious..."

"Point taken. I really don't know you that well yet but I have a feeling I will. You sound... what's the word you kids use... wired?"

"Red Bull and nerves," she said, neatly explaining away her erratic behaviour.

"Mr Bayliss just left if you want to speak to him. I can't help you, I'm afraid."

"No, but I'd like to talk to you soon if that's okay. Tomorrow morning before school if we can. Until I've said my piece, don't do _anything_ to Dina." Dr de Rossa looked uncomfortable which was enough conformation for her. "Please!" Time was already running out if she wanted to save Dina.

"If Mr Bayliss makes a request then I have to respect that."

"Dina is almost twenty. More than old enough to make her own decisions right?"

"If she is of sound body and mind and she is clearly neither."

"Believe me when I tell you she doesn't want this. Just, please, don't do anything yet." Not until she had a chance to do a little investigating.

First stop – Room 3. The two bed room where Dina lay hooked up to the machines that were performing her vital functions for her. Katie edged in, made sure nobody else was inside, then shut the door quietly behind her. Sitting on the very edge of the seat by the bed, she grasped the skeletal hand as gently as she could suddenly sure that the bones would crumble into dust under any weight as they had doe so often in her dreams. "Dina, I know you hear me. I know I can hear you in my head all the time. Please, tell me what to do."

_Find a way_.

Helpful. Very helpful. "I'm trying to but it's not easy. Just tell me where you are."

They call it The End Place. None of should be here.

"I... I don't know where that is. 'Can't you even tell me how to get to you?"

We don't know either. We don't know how we got here or why we stayed. But it's better than the Other Place.

The Other Place? "Oh God, Dina, can you give me some real answers? I haven't got the head for riddles."

Send him. Tell him to find me. He'll know where to go. Just like you know what to do.

"What? I don't know anything. Should I-?"

But Dina – and the buzz of voices she remembered from her night on the waste ground – was gone. The waste ground! That's where she had last seen Dina. It was the edge of town – maybe it was The End Place for all these spirits too. But when she jogged down to check, no ghostly voices or apparitions appeared there, not even when she reached out for the dark pulse she knew lingered here. It was still here, Katie could almost feel it sparking against her skin. Only, it felt as though it was pushing her and pressing against her, trying to force itself inside her and she knew that was wrong. It wasn't the benevolent gift Dina had poured into her. This felt like something alien and familiar all at the same time. She ran from it.

# Chapter four

The front door was opening just as Katie jogged up the path feeling as though every step was dragging through rice pudding. Which made her crave the dessert. Adam was heading out of the old house with a gym sack slung across his chest and shouting his goodbyes behind him as he headed for one of the bikes lying in the front garden. "Leave the door!" she called before he closed it without seeing her. "You off out? How come I never see you at the gym?" Surely those muscles didn't come for free.

"I teach self defence at the community centre. Tonight's enrolment."

"I'm guessing the classes have a lot of women in them."

He blushed at that and pulled the bike upright, wheeling it to the path. "You should come one week. I give family and friends discount."

"Sorry, I'm more a private tuition kind of girl."

"Been hanging around Jaye _way_ too much." Adam looked as though he was about to go and Katie let her smile drop and her shoulders fall into a comfortable and tired hunch. "You doing okay?"

"It's hard, you know. Trying to be okay every day."

"I can't imagine what it's like for you. We're all here if you get tired of being alone."

"All this... it's not me. I'm trying to be the old Katie but I don't even remember who she was. There's so much going on, it's like I don't know what to do first."

"Bad first day?"

"No, it was fine."

There was quiet for a few seconds. A thousand words hung between them, loud enough that it seemed the whole world should hear. Neither of them wanted to speak though. But saying nothing was hard.

"Katie, if there's a problem, you need to speak to us. Not just because we want to help but because we're responsible for you. If things happen and we don't know about it... like the other day, you had bandages on your arm, a cut on your head – yeah, we both noticed that – and you didn't tell us how they got there."

"Not that it matters now but there was a weird dream thing. You know when you fall off a cliff in a dream and you've really fallen out of bed?"

"Hell, yeah. See this scar?" Adam pointed to an inch-long scar running down his chin. "Dreamt David Haye knocked me out."

"Really?"

"Promise you won't laugh." Katie crossed her fingers behind her back and tried to keep a straight face. If Adam had sought a promise not to laugh, it was obviously giggle-worthy. "That coat stand in the hall."

And then she left and skipped into the house already feeling lighter and happier. It was amazing how just a funny mental image could make the day seem a little bit better.

"No, she's not back yet. She probably went straight to the – oh, hang on." Lainy took the old Bakelite house phone from her ear, covered the end with her hands and held it out to Katie the very second she made it through the door. "It's your mother."

Lovely. A worried parent checking up on her. _Can't think of anything I want more._ She rolled her eyes and earned a knowing grin from Lainy, then took the phone and sat on the stairs, holding her fingers up and counting down from five. Five, four, three, two, ah hah! Interrogation begins. A few assurances of okayness and promises to call if she needed anything and her daughterly duties were done.

"Where's Jaye?"

"Lifeguard training. Leo's at the library. It's just us for a while, sweetie."

Uh-oh. Why didn't Katie like how that sounded? She took as long as she could pouring juice and washing some fruit and then, when it would definitely seem suspicious to take any longer, she jumped up to sit on the sideboard with her back to the window and started munching away.

"Fruit is not an after-class snack. Cake, biscuits, that's where the yummy stuff is."

Katie took the apple away from her mouth and tried to chew double fast to answer. Apparently, a new law said hurrying meant everything took twice as long to do. "Good for you. Slow release of energy, full of vitamins, essential for an athlete. You were a nurse – you should know this."

"Not a practise what you preach person."

"Tasty too."

"You keep telling yourself that. 5 a day?"

"I try. My medical records may be all kinds of colourful but poor diet is not on them. Gotta count for something, right?"

"Adam said he'll bring pizza back tonight. Few hours away though. Want something until then?"

"No, I'm okay with my fruit."

"Fair enough. I'm not hungry either." Lainy looked down at her nails and started picking at her chipped peach nail varnish. "Got much homework?"

"Just reading which I've already done. Not much else to do when the house mommy confines you to bed for a day." Katie was pretending to be pissed off about it but she was having a hard time keeping a serious face on. "I thought leaving home meant I was too old to be grounded."

"You'd think so, wouldn't you?"

"I-"

"I hate to ask, Katie, but are you sure you're ready for this? I mean college and running and being here and everything? You seem to have been having trouble coping."

"The last week was just a blip, Lainy. I'm much better now."

"A blip? Talk to me, sweetie."

"Please, I just want to forget the last week ever happened." Now, there was a thought. "I'm ready for my new life now and anything that happened before... well, it's over now, isn't it?"

"I hope so. I really do." Lainy played with the long braid running down her back and then, chewing her lip, got up and wrapped Katie in her arms. There was something about this young girl that really made her believe that she would make a success of this new life. "Oh, wait, while I remember. Here." She fished a white mobile phone out of a drawer and held it out. "Yours was completely fu- bust. So I put your SIM in one of my old ones."

"Cool. You didn't-"

"Not that I tried but I don't think yours even turns on any more. Anything that was on there, probably never getting it back."

"Nothing important really. Just number for people I used to go to school with." It wasn't as if she was ever going to need any of them. And now she had a handy excuse for not getting in touch.

"It hasn't got any of the bells and whistles but it makes calls and it holds a charge. If you knew the amount of abuse I put these things through, you'd be impressed."

"So... two hours.... Cards?" Katie ducked next door and fetched a deck. Her brain wasn't up to anything more complicated than snap or two person patience. "I signed up for athletics team trials. You know, not expecting anything, but just to see if I can run with the big boys."

"Don't get your hopes up. They run you pretty hard I've heard."

"Thanks for the encouragement, Lainy."

"I just want to warn you not to mistake this for running when you were at school." No danger of that. The race on Saturday had not been a serious competition but she had needed to run almost a 23 minute race to get her place. The next under 18 was about three minutes behind her. "These guys are professionals with a year or more of training behind them. When are try outs?"

They spent the next half an hour chatting about this and that and Katie was glad of the time to do nothing but play and talk about nothing in particular. Then the front door rattled as a key shuddered in the lock and it squealed open. Jaye and Leo entered together locked in a whispered conversation that stopped almost as soon as Jaye clocked Katie through the open kitchen. She decided not to get paranoid about it – perhaps it was a totally not-about-her conversation that had just reached its natural conclusion at that very moment. The god of coincidences evidently was not playing though, and Jaye shoved Leo towards the stairs and beckoned her over, frantically waving her arms and holding a finger to her lips. Katie rose from her seat and put her juice glass in the sink.

"Leave it. I'll wash up later."

Katie took the stairs three at a time to see what all fuss was about, her long legs taking the steps like they were one.

"In here!"

Jaye was propped up on her bed, Leo had taken over the chair and desk, so Katie plumped for perching on the edge of Jaye's bed too, feeling awkward about taking up position on the empty bed about a foot away. It was Dina's after all. "Okay, this looks suspiciously like an intervention."

"I'm hoping it doesn't get that far."

"Okay, what's going on then?"

"Ain't that your job?"

Katie frowned and replayed the day – as much of it as she could remember – to see if she had said or done anything to make this her responsibility. She had the feeling she had promised something but the specifics were just gone. Poof. Right out of her head. No matter though, there were plenty of other things to say. "The other night... the storm and then me being hurt and everything... I don't know what Jack told you, I'm not sure what I told you actually – I know I started to tell Leo – whatever good that did...."

"Hey, the good that did was you're not still lying out there."

"Yeah, you're a real hero. We're all proud."

"As I was saying..." Katie shot them both death stares and carried on. "There was this guy and he was hurting me."

"The one who-?"

"No." Katie spat the word out before Leo could finish the question. That was a whole 'nother problem she didn't want to get into. She would have to start that story right from the beginning for Jaye. It didn't seem very important at the moment. "Not him. It was the man who killed Jack but I didn't know that till later. Every time I closed my eyes I woke up with a new cut or a bruise. Wednesday night, the night you stopped me drowning, I didn't want you to because somehow I knew what was coming."

"Which was?"

"Jack was trying to keep him away from me for as long as he could but it had to happen."

"What did?"

"Shut up. She's getting there."

"There was a fight between me and this guy and I know I would have lost if I hadn't had help. There are loads of spirits down on that waste ground. It's so powerful down there. They gave me all this energy, fixed all the cuts and stuff, took all the marks away, and I sort of screamed it out of me and into him. He died, I lived."

"I get the feeling that's not the end of the story."

Of course it wasn't. All three of them knew there would be comebacks from this but not what they might be. There was never any getting away from consequences – even when you thought things were over, they never were. "This darkness they put in me... I felt empty when I got rid of it – I mean, I saw it coming out of my mouth."

"Babe, you're giving us a story, not a problem. And we know there's a problem."

"I think I'm different now. I think I touched death and it saved my life." Katie dropped her head to her hands and pulled at her long hair. "God, this is so fucked up!

"And I saw Dina there."

"What? How? When? What?" asked Jaye again.

"I'm with her," Leo agreed. "Don't get it at all."

"And I do? There's so much in this town that I don't understand, don't even want to understand, and trust me when this is all over I'm going to be hitting denial big style."

"Might join you."

"Look forward to it," she bit back. "Just what I've always wanted."

"Don't get possessive."

"Yeah, 'cos you're so worth my affections."

A tiny hand waved tentatively in the air and attentions dragged back to Jaye. She looked even paler than usual, if that was even possible, and swallowed hard, getting ready to say something she didn't want to. "You must have seen some-one else. It can't have been Dina. She's dead."

"No, she's not. She's still alive and waiting for us to bring her back and that's why we can't let her father turn the machines off yet."

"But the tests?"

"Mean nothing, not really. They say her brain is dead but it's not, it's just somewhere else. The life support is keeping her alive and-"

"As long as she keeps breathing, then there's the chance to find her." Man, he had caught onto this idea faster than any of them. It didn't make much sense to either of the girls and Katie was the one putting the theory forward. Maybe that was why; maybe she was overthinking the whole thing.

"Right."

"So, why didn't she come back and tell us this. That's how it works – you die, you come back and carry on like it never happened."

"Jaye, listen to me." The pair took a hand each and squeezed to make her get the point. "Dina's not dead. The living can't turn into ghosts."

"Brain dead."

"Doesn't count," Leo repeated. This compassionate side of him was completely different from the one that had been showing earlier. College was a time for change, personal growth and all that, but just one day... damn, further education worked fast. "Katie, are you sure about this?"

_Well... are you?_ "We just need to get Mr Bayliss to hold of on the switch off otherwise there'll be no chance to get to her."

Jaye really had gone paper-white during that conversation. Now, she threw back her bed covers, curled into a black-haired hedgehog and flipped the duvet back over her. "Wake me when things are normal again."

"This is Northwood, Jaye. How much faith you got in that?"

"At least it's not Millford!"

"What's so bad about Millford anyway?"

"It's a shithole."

Katie got up and wrenched the duvet back from Jaye and hauled her up. "Wait there," she instructed the two of them. "I need to show you something." An idea had been brewing in her mind. She ran from the room and into her own, tearing through the drawers of her desk. Where had she put that thing? If it was a Shade thing then maybe Jaye would know something about it. And even if not, it never hurt to have a fresh pair of eyes on a problem. Her hand closed around something sharp and metal cold. Her finger caught on one point of the star and as she took her hand and the object out, a tiny drop of blood had gathered there. Katie wandered back into the bigger room sucking her injured digit and cursing it for hurting more than it should. "Look- Where'd she go?"

There was a distinct lack of feisty girl in the room. Leo shrugged. "Gone."

"What do you mean gone? Gone where?"

"How the fuck should I know? She just vanished. Kapoof. You know, like she does."

"Great. This is shaping up to be the best night ever."

"It didn't look like she was being taken or nothing. She just... faded away."

This could be completely normal and she just had to go into the Shade world – there had to be a proper name for it – to recharge her batteries every so often, like Jack did – and the time just happened to be about thirty seconds ago. Only Jaye hadn't left once in the last couple of weeks which led to the only other logical conclusion – something horrible was happening. That was Plan B. "Fine. Okay. We can't do anything if she went, right? We have to assume she went of her own free will and she'll come back when she feels like it."

Doubt clouded Leo's dark blue eyes. "And how are you going to explain this to the other two?"

Oh crap. She hadn't thought of that yet. No, thinking about it still was not tempting. "Me? You were here too."

"True, but I've never been part of this crap before. You have."

"Please let's bring that up as often as possible. It never stops being fun."

"Okay, not willingly but you know more than me what's going on."

"Hell no, Leo. I know nothing about this – what's happening, _why_ it's happening. But I'll figure something out."

"Care to let me in on that plan?"

Yes. As soon as she figured a plan out.

Katie touched her bleeding finger to her mouth and frowned. She looked down at the thing she held in her other hand – the silver star that had cut her. There was something scratched onto the flat circle in the middle but the silver was age-tarnished and scuffed. The word SHERIFF was visible and below that, she assumed, was a name. This had been playing in the back of her mind for days. Even when Katie had locked her memories away –

  * _Oh God, the memories._

Tears filled her eyes and she ducked her head until her hair fell over her face so Leo didn't see her cry.

"Hey, I can see you under there."

Not the teardrops tracking down her cheeks or them dropping off the end of her nose, but he could see the unnatural stillness of her shoulders as Katie struggled to control her silent sobs. The quiet catch of her breath as she gasped for the air her weeping was using up.

"Whatever you're upset about now is not helping," said the king of sensitivity. "The attack – or one of them at any rate – it's over now, yeah? Go clean yourself up and we'll work something out to get Dina back. And when we do, I reckon Jaye'll come back too."

"That's not the only problem."

"Oh Christ help me, what now?"

"You really believe that? That God will help you?"

"I ain't got nothing else to believe in. Nothing else to justify anything that happens in this crappy world."

"Nothing makes this right. Nothing makes being raped anywhere near okay. I want to find the man who did this to me, bring him here, kill him, wait for him to come back and then do it all over again." She stood up and wiped her eyes with a closed fist. Something dark was creeping into her mind, making her wish for revenge where she had only wished to forget. Katie stood up and pressed something into his hand as she passed, whispering, "Google this thing till it overloads."

The door hadn't even closed when Katie felt a familiar cold pressure around her stomach. She'd known Jack had been lingering in the other room for the last few minutes – not long enough to hear the nervous meltdown though. There had been a low hum of energy in the room, too low to be heard. But she could feel it vibrating over her skin.

Are you okay, Lady Katie? You're cryin' again.

And she didn't know quite why she couldn't stop. "Do I look okay?"

I'm coming. Don't worry.

Something twisted deep inside. An invisible hand held her body still, super cooling flesh Katie was sure would burn right off. Sweat was sheening her skin. Everything would go back to normal when she had calmed down a bit. Katie took a couple of deep breaths and waited for her heart rate to dip below the hundred mark. The next few minutes put it right back up. Katie scrunched her eyes shut and threw herself forward on the bed, twisting onto her back as she fell-

\- to the ground. Huh. Floor was meant to be two feet away from the bed, not millimetres away from her skull. Then she realised that the chill presence had gone. There was nothing inside that she wanted so badly to be there - no promise of Jack, no ghost of a cowboy with green eyes. "Jack?" The question was all squashed into that one word. Behind her eyelids, Katie saw his hand grasping in the emptiness and getting nothing. His fingertips brushed a thread of something shiny and she zoomed in as you can in daydreams, on a silver string that darkened to thunder grey and then black as she watched. She saw it running through his fingers and then suddenly, the effort of living inside herself became too much and she dropped back into her body with enough physical force to bump her head off the carpet. She wondered if she was bleeding, and then about how lucky she was too have this maroon carpet where no-one would be able to see. Why on Earth was she being so morbid? Shaking the dark thoughts away, Katie heaved herself up to a sitting position and waited for the pain to begin. Jack would pull on what little energy she had left to give and that hurt like her vital organs being ripped apart and then filled with ice and fire in equal measure.

_Close your eyes and go to that place you feel safe,_ Jack whispered so close he could have been sitting next to her. _This is gonna hurt._

And oh God it really did. It took Katie all the will power she had not to scream the house down. Pain was whipping through her body, swirling a tornado in her head. Her eyes fluttered closed and she redded out for a moment, lost in flashes of memory and burning hot pain, blood and skin and searing flesh. The next thing she felt was a cool hand pressing her shoulders down as she bucked against it. She opened her eyes and saw Jack standing over her in a dusky blue haze and looking concerned. He wasn't as solid as she had seen him before but he was real enough to be worried and brave and beautiful. Katie wanted to reach up and touch him, trace his cheekbone and that perfect round scar on his forehead but her arms were lead weights attached to a body that was so empty it might float away. All she could think of was the pain, the endless hurting that was still digging away inside her.

"Shhh. You're okay. I'm here now."

"Sorry, Jack, but you're not God. You don't make everything okay by being here. I wish you could, I wish it to hell and back, but you can't."

"Lady Katie, look at me. Just look."

She didn't want to but the patient silence went on so long that she couldn't help herself after a while and instantly felt herself being sucked into those green pools as though they had a gravity all their own. She was drowning in them. And everything was going to be fine. The rest of the world fell away. None of the other problems had ever existed. Pain was a dull and distant tingle in the body she was no longer part of. It was just the two of them. Katie. And Jack. And these few moments that were theirs and theirs alone. He got down on the floor next to her and tugged the girl until she was half lying in his lap. Which was prime view of her smile and shining eyes but close enough to see that they were shining because of the tears in them and that the smile, though genuine, was fitted onto a pale and lightly lined face. Her tan was covering most of the pallor of her skin – nobody would notice unless they were only inches away from her. Jack brushed her hair away from her face.

"What's happening?" Katie sat up without touching him, putting her toned abs to good use, knowing that to touch him would be to never let go. She scooted away and braced her hands on the splash of water on her dolphin duvet and hauled up. "Jack, I'm so tired."

"How was the academy?"

Not the thing she wanted to talk about right now. Small talk had never been a strong point and it seemed even less useful now. What good was discussing the weather or sharing their day's activities going to do? Would that- "What do you do all day?"

"Stuff you don't need to know about."

She was prepared to take his word for it. "Jaye's gone missing. We need to find her."

A pause of a few seconds and then Jack pulled himself up to his full height – the exact same as Katie – only Katie had another couple of inches in her, whilst Jack would never grow again. Never grow or get fat or start losing his hair or get wrinkles. He was over 150 years old and the boy still looked like a teenager. "You never stop running, do you? Never give up, even when it seems hopeless."

"That's what we do."

"Yeah, I 'member," he muttered, those fleeting shadows Katie reluctantly recognised rushing behind his eyes. "I think that's the best thing about you."

"Great. A guy who only loves me for my dog-with-a-bone attitude. What happened to men who want me for my body?" The words sounded natural and careless as they spilled out, or at least she hoped they did, but this front was hard to keep up. The edges were crumbling already.

"True, your body adds weight to the argument..." further words flew out of his head as Katie dropped flat onto her back and stretched out, making curves and dips move in exactly the right ways. What was even better was that Katie had no idea she was doing anything more than a purely functional act. "Yeah, I'm convinced. I want your body."

That got him an accurately thrown (for once) pillow to the face. "Where have all the gentlemen gone?"

"Cowboys came first."

Katie grinned up at him and squirmed over so he could sit beside her. She hooked a finger in the back of his shirt and pulled him close, closer, close enough to kiss. But neither of them made the final move to touch. Jack glanced away when he thought the pressure was going to be too much. _This is a bad idea._

"No, this is the best idea I've ever had."

There's no coming back.

Whether the thoughts were her own or Jack's, Katie didn't care. Jack might be speaking in her mind and making her believe his words were hers. He did that. They _were_ going to talk about that. One day when she wasn't so... so... so _tired._ "Jack, how come you didn't take my memories when we kissed last week? I slipped into your head for a minute. I didn't know it worked like that."

"Neither did I. At least, I wasn't sure it did. There were stories that you can give memories as well as take them away if you concentrate. It's not an easy thing to do."

"But you showed me stuff I don't want to have in my head. I know things I know I'm too young to know. Stuff that'll drive me crazy."

"Lady Katie, look at me." She did, without hesitation. "Whatever happened to you, whatever's gonna happen, you got me. I'll be right here whenever you need me and I won't let anything hurt you." Every time Katie looked at him or was even near him, she believed him that he was going to protect her. And when he touched her, curled those strong arms around her, the world was magically a little brighter. "Right, I just heard Adam come back. Pizza time for you, missy."

"But-"

"Go. Eat."

"What about Jaye?"

"I'll think, okay. Now, stop worryin' yourself and be a teenager for the night," he said and shooed her out of the room. There was something wrong in this house and he needed time to work out what it was. Time he wanted so badly to spend with Katie.

Explaining Jaye's sudden disappearance was easier than expected and Lainy and Adam easily believed that she had just taken off for some alone time. Evidently the chances of her running out without warning were quite high. The chances of most things in this place were higher than average, to be honest, and Katie had to work hard not to spill her theory on Dina and pretend not to notice the looks passing between them. Not that any of her thoughts were fully formed yet. None of them seemed like solid ideas that might be right. But thoughts were all Katie had and she was damn sure she was going to follow them until the end. Leo sat opposite her at the kitchen table, not joining in the idle conversation and looking lost in thought. Maybe he was. God knew there was enough to think about. He had seen Jaye fade out and, so far as any of them knew, he had never seen that before. There was the partial fade when Jaye had misted right around his hurtling fist but that had been so fast it had been almost a non-event. He looked so lost and confused that Katie nearly reached out and put a hand on his, just so he knew he was not alone in his mystification. It wouldn't do any good though. It was obvious he wanted to shoulder his burden alone. Katie knew enough about trying to force people into dealing with problems in a way that wasn't theirs, not to bother trying. The caring/sharing approach was over-rated.

"Didn't know what you liked so I brought you a piece of each."

"I don't like asking but have you been feelin'... bad lately? Like you got no energy."

"No more than expected." Katie slid the plate of pizza – a slice of ham and pineapple, a slice of cheese, tomato and sweetcorn – onto the dresser. "I nearly died just a few days ago, Jack."

"Apart from that? Like when I took energy from you to cross over. I felt something break and then I saw you lying there an'..." he tried to get off this track. He didn't want to worry Katie any more than she already was. "I jus' think you need to get your strength back before you start out on another mission."

"Pity we don't live in think world. Sounds such a nice place."

"Think world?"

"Uh-huh. You should visit."

"I might at that."

"You don't want pizza?"

_I want to invade you, possess you, kiss you and leave you gasping for breath. I want to protect you and love you and never let you go. I want to save the world for you and hand it to you._ "No thanks."

Katie blushed having caught, if not the exact words he was thinking, then the general feeling of them. The red raw desire in Jack; the hot, dark, desperate need.

"What are we going to do about the girls?"

"When I go back, I'll see what I can find out. If Jaye went into my world, I'll find her."

"It must be a huge place. How will you find her?"

"We all have this kind of energy around us, like different degrees of Shade. There are dark ones and there are light ones. Jaye's one of the lightest. It mos'ly means she can live in this world all the time and ever have to go back, never have to draw off another living person. So I'll just look for silver sparks."

Silver like the thread she once had so much of. More ideas sparked in the back of her brain but they slid right out of her grasp when she tried to bring them into focus. "What kind are you?"

"Somewhere in the middle, I guess." He turned his back after Katie glared at him and showed him her PJs. He couldn't resist getting a cheeky glimpse of her bare back in the mirror as she wriggled out of her clothes but kept his cracking voice as even as possible as he carried on speaking. "The darkest can't come through at all, only make you hear them. But we can do that and come here too. It just means some-one has to give us a helping hand. And sometimes that costs."

"Okay, you can turn back now." Katie had scraped her hair back and held it away from her face with a hairband and was rubbing a face wipe over her skin. Baby wipes had loads of intensive moisturiser in – much more effective than creams which were usually full of chemicals. "Yeah, not my best look ever."

Jack didn't care. "You need to sleep." He shrugged his leather jacket off, flipped the covers back and slid onto the edge of the single bed, holding his arms out for Katie to come and join him. "I'm not going anywhere," he promised.

Katie was so wired that she didn't think she would sleep for days but ass soon as she curled herself into the bubble of safety in those arms, the exhaustion came crashing back into her, threatening to overwhelm her and drag her under. She was too used up to fight it, barely managing to mumble "tell me a story" before soft darkness wrapped her up and spirited her away.

_The story Jack told was one of sand and silver, of bullets and blue skies. It was the story of his life – his short, carefree life. A mother who loved him and a father who died before his birth and was replaced by a faceless man who had no love in him. And then, just after his sixteenth birthday, he ran from his home to escape a life of being the dead man's son, to a place where he became the dead man. To survive, he stole and begged and borrowed never knowing he would never get to give it back. Because then he took the wrong things; money and a horse to get away and find a second chance. And then there was a storm and lashing rain, lashing whips. And so much anger. But he didn't cry. Jack screamed and tried to run but he looked this man in the eyes every second he was able. Every moment until his eyes filled with blood. He felt drops of red find paths down his cheeks but, remembering the words his uncle had been drilling into him for years_ – cowboys don't cry – _no tears mixed with them. He looked this man in the eyes and, although the oil lamp lit the barn, the light was too dim to make out features. A silver badge gleamed at the mans waist. Sheriff. He knew a sheriff. Somebody close to him had a badge like that. Killing a kid was bad but a lawman doing it..._

Everything got jumbled up as the whipcracks came again and again, splitting skin and spilling blood, and just when it was all too much and Jack knew he would cry- it all stopped. The pain stopped, the relentless attack stopped. His heartbeat stopped.

When Katie awoke early the next morning, it has to be admitted that she was more than a little surprised to find Jack asleep next to her. She spent a couple of minutes just lying in the bend of his elbow and enjoying the sensation of closeness. Her alarm clock buzzed for the second time and the temptation to roll over and slap another five minute snooze out of it was practically irresistible. But resist it she would. This morning, Katie felt better than she had in days. How much of that had to do with Jack and being able to fully relax and sleep without fear?

She eased out from under him and rolled off the bed, glancing back at him every few seconds as she buzzed around the room getting clean clothes. Somewhere during their night together, Jack's beige t-shirt had come off. There was no sign of it anywhere on the floor but he no doubt could get another one. Katie did not remember him taking it off or getting frisky enough to do it for him – but she wasn't ruling it out – but she was hardly complaining. Waking up to a half naked man with sun-golden skin and muscles that told of years of manual labour, not an addiction to weights, was definitely a good thing. He looked just like any other teenage boy as he slept. Peaceful. It was easy to believe he was just any other boy but Katie felt a rush of... pride? Passion? As she reminded herself of the difference between Jack and everyone else. _He's not any boy. He's mine._

And then he ruined the moment – the beautiful, delicious silent moment

Jack muttered something in his slumber, threw his other arm out and rolled over until his face was half-buried in the pillow. Katie had to swallow back a sob as she looked at his scarred, rutted back. As if somehow sensing her horror through the barrier of sleep, Jack woke up and sat up.

"I got no shirt."

"He did that to you?" Meaning the man who had murdered him and relished every second of it. "You can't heal from mortal wounds, can you? Just the ones you pick up in your..." afterlife didn't sound right, "...you pick up now."

"It's all over now, Katie. All that's left is scars and memories."

At the word, Katie retreated into herself, feeling the ghost of that whip arcing down on her skin; she remembered being afraid to close her eyes, him chasing her around the waste ground, thinking this would never be over, this would go on forever and one way or another the lawman would kill her, whether she had to watch Jack suffer for eternity or if he stripped the skin from her bones.

"Don't. Just don't think of it."

"I can't help it." She inched over to him, held his shoulders and turned him so she could see the grooves across his back. Not so long ago, she had watched his killer carve these marks into his flesh and, because she had hijacked his mind, she hadn't been able to do anything about it. Maybe she could do something now though. "I wish I could take them away, Jack. I can't do that. But I can turn them into good memories." She put her lips to the scar nearest his shoulder. He shuddered as cold lips touched skin that hadn't known intimacy in so vey long, and felt her lips curve into a smile against him. She climbed back onto the bed, her busy morning wilfully ignored. "I'm done with thinking. With self-control."

"Katie, we shouldn't."

"No, but we will anyway."

"When you're near me, it's difficult not to..."

The end to that sentence was unnecessary. She dipped her head lowered down his back, blowing air kisses as far down his spine as she could decently go without removing clothing. Which, even in her hot and bothered state, Katie knew would be a step too far.

Jack shivered against her, his spine arching just the tiniest fraction. The controlled stillness of his body told her how much he wanted to give in, give back. Words were meaningless. Body language was everything. If he could only touch his girl... if he could give her the same chills she was giving him – ones that ran up and down his spine, radiated out to his extremities, made them tremble and quake, itching to feel her warm flesh under his. Why hadn't he realised that just being kissed and caressed like this could feel this good? For so long, human affection had seemed too dangerous.

"What am I doing?" she muttered into the small of his back. The few minutes she had mentally blanked out and listened to her heart – the heart that told her to jump on every moment she had with Jack, just be _near_ him – had been wonderful and far too fast. She put a hand on his shoulder, surprised at how solid and strong he now felt, and dragged her face up to rest on his shoulder, breathing a trail of dry, warm air as she went. She lingered over the curve of his spine to feel him stiffen against her; his own breathing becoming ragged and urgent. She found she enjoyed having this much power over a man. The vengeful part of Katie that had woken up yesterday decided this was what her rapist had felt when he had her pinned to the ground with his merciless grip and his body weighting her down and motionless. Yes, this feeling was good.

Jack took her chin and lifted it up to face him. No longer were his eyes the calm green pools they had been last night. They were fever-bright and jumping with wild excitement. "It's getting late and you have things to do," he growled, trying and failing to remain in control. "It's not that I don't want you."

"I think my hormones are speaking louder than logic anyway. Don't want to do something we regret, right?"

With the promise that she would call if she needed Jack and he would come straight across, he faded out and left Katie frowning and listening to the war in her head. The devil half was telling her she should be happy that she had found a way to take their relationship further. The angel half was insisting on blushing and feeling guilty at the morning's activities.

"Some-one looks happy." Adam tore open a packet of Reddy Brek, poured it into a tub with milk and slammed it in the microwave. "Good night?"

"Feel like I've actually had a proper sleep. Which is novel."

"Haven't you been sleeping well?"

She shrugged and sat down. "I sleep for an hour or so and then I wake up wondering where I am and what's going on. Stress, probably."

"Right." He opened the microwave door, stirred in a little honey and shut it to finish nuking. "You sign up for early classes?"

"Hell no. Do I look like a lunatic? Don't answer that!" Her mother had always said she could never take in new information before coffee – with Katie it was before food of any description. Once there was something solid in her belly then the world could end and she could probably think her way out of it. "Not if you ever want to have children." An indescribable look flitted over his face and Katie had to duck her head to her Reddy Brek to hide her face. Strangely for a man who was surrogate father to a houseful of teenagers, he had a pathological fear of babies. It was the though of all those dirty nappies. "I need to go for a run before classes. Get the juices flowing. Ooh do we have any juice left?"

He grabbed it from the fridge and got a glass out. "So. What exciting things you got planned for today?"

# Chapter five

Pleasantries had been exchanged with Carol, the lady on reception at the student medical centre – which also served as hospital for the entire town – and she called Dr de Rossa over the intercom and pointed her into his office. It was a small room, looking out into the leafy grounds and an internal window on the corridor leading to the treatment rooms. Mercifully, it was empty today. Katie hated to think of ever more innocent people being sick and injured for no reason. A kidney bean shaped desk – how appropriate – was littered with papers and pens. An unloved looking computer sat in a corner gathering dust, wires snaking out all over. Obviously, updating to high, wireless technology was not high on the doctors list of priorities. With people to help, illnesses to cure, children to make cry with vaccinations, keeping on top of digital advancements probably seemed unimportant. She shifted more papers off a chair and sat down to wait for her meeting to begin, suddenly aware of how quiet the hospital was. Had she not known at least two other people were around, the building could easily have been completely empty other than Katie.

And Dina. She's still here too.

Of course. That was the entire reason she was here. She had, at some time, begun to associate Dina with being part of the spirits on the waste ground. Only the physical body was here, hooked up to machines and surviving on drugs and drips, and that was not the important bit. Not the part that needed to be saved. It was just the shell that her spirit would be slid back into.

"Miss Cartwright. I had almost believed you would miss our little visit today. I know what teenagers are like with early starts." Dr de Rossa closed the door behind him and sat down behind the desk, hands clasped on top of all his papers. "Are things okay?"

Katie's definition of okay was changing by the hour, getting broader and encompassing ever more degrees of not okay, but she just nodded.

"Is Elaine coming to see us today? We could always use another good nurse around here."

"I don't know" she answered honestly. "She's got her hands pretty full with us lot."

"It's such a shame she had to leave us. Such a good little worker too." A wistful look came over his face as if suddenly realising how important Lainy had been to them. To him. "Ah, well. These things do happen."

"What things?"

Perhaps Katie was questioning too close to home, asking him things he knew he shouldn't discuss; maybe he just didn't have a clue what she was angling towards though that seemed unlikely. In any case Dr de Rossa shrugged, tried to find an uncluttered piece of desk to set his mug down and changed the subject. "Now, I forget, what was it you wanted to talk to me about?"

"Dina. Dina Bayliss."

"Ah, yes, I remember now."

"Has there been any change? Anything at all?" Because she was still clinging to the (shrinking) hope that she could wake from her coma alone.

"I'm afraid not."

"Not a shock actually." A question lit up the doctors' face but Katie cut him off before any words made it out. "I don't think she can come out of this thing without help. And I don't mean drugs or shocks or just more damn time, because the life support is keeping her alive... technically, anyway... and that's the important bit. The longer you keep her on that support, the longer we have to save her."

"I'm sorry, Katie, I don't understand you."

"It's simple. If you let Mr Bayliss turn the machines off, then Dina will be dead. And because this was a suicide gone horribly, horribly wrong, then she'll never come. Not as a Shade. Not as anything."

He looked blank for a moment; the information she had just dumped on him slowly filtering through and into his brain where he did that freaky doctor thing of assessing it all and making a decision in little more than an instant. "It would be unwise of us to remove treatment so early."

"Can you just say that to her dad? Nothing about me coming here. He doesn't know what we know and I think we should keep it like that for as long as possible."

"What we know."

Remembering she was not supposed to know anything about the ghostly nature of the town, Katie quickly backed herself up. "What she knows."

"Did you know – no I suppose you wouldn't have noticed, Elaine would..." That far off glaze smeared his eyes and Katie was sure she heard a quiet catch in his breath as he continued. "It wasn't a real suicide attempt."

"It looked real to me."

"Wrist cutting is primarily a method for troubled women. Maybe it's the thought of just a second of pain and then you bleed out painlessly, nobody knows for sure. But a serious attempt would have meant she cut vertically down the wrist, or even _here_ , in the radial artery much further up in the arm."

"She probably didn't know any of that though."

"Having lived a year in a house full of medical knowledge, I think she knew exactly what she was doing."

"You mean Dina was playing around?"

"I believe, confidentially of course, that she was calling out for help the only way she knew how."

Woah. The implications of that were going to change everything and they were already hurting Katie's head. Or maybe they wouldn't change a thing. And that left her right back at the start, trying to figure a way out of this mess. "A cry for attention."

"Perhaps. I certainly don't think she meant for any of this to happen."

Okay, she checked her watch and grabbed her kit bag, already weighty enough but when she got to her locker and added her rucksack of books to it... at least she could give the weights a miss at the gym. Problems later, college now. "I've got to go to the academy but please don't mention our chat to anyone."

Dr de Rossa rose from his comfy-looking chair and opened the door to show her out. "We never had this conversation."

Once she had gotten the necessaries out of her locker, Katie made a beeline to her tutor room to register as all first years had to, then headed across campus to the sports stadium. The first part of the morning had been allocated to their chosen sports so she and another girl headed to the track and the others drifted off to their spiritual homes; the pool, the gym, football pitch, where-ever. Any attempt at small talk with her new training buddy were put paid to when she ran straight off and shut herself in the changing room. Katie took a moment to find a few empty pegs together and started pulling things out of her kit bag. Years of changing in a room full of bitchy teenage girls who were obsessed with who was flat-chested and who needed a bikini wax had made sure she learnt to change in roughly a minute. She snapped the elastic band off her wrist and twisted in into her hair, vowing once more to get some new scrunchies soon, and replaced it with a sweatband before heading out. It was warmer than she had anticipated and Katie found she had to strip her jacket off in the middle of her warm up. She preferred to run in the warm. You could work up a really good sweat that way and feel as though this was an actual workout.

"Hey."

A deep voice called her from stretching and Katie lifted her head, looking frantically around for the source of the voice. The track was completely empty as far as she could see. Strange considering this was a sports academy. It made her feel suddenly vulnerable and alone. Why had she taken that jacket off? Her hands itched for something to pull tight over her chest, for all the good it would do. If someone was going to attack her then a piece of cloth was almost worse than no defence at all. No, the best weapon she had was the decibel level. Her mouth was already open and the first sound of a scream was out when

"Hey" came again, closer now. Katie didn't dare move or turn towards the voice even though she could practically feel his breath tickling her neck. "You could look pleased to see me, little girl." A large, work-roughened hand snaked around her shoulders and suddenly they were at her throat, closing around it, crushing her voicebox, choking off her breath and the scream that was still on her lips. "Mm mm mm, even sweeter than I remember."

How could he be here?

"I came a long way for you little girl. Damned if I'm goin' back now." Still standing behind her, the man lifted and Katie kicked her feet, trying to touch the ground.

And then without warning, the squeezing hand disappeared, Katie hit the hard track and bent over it coughing and drawing in raggy breaths that felt like they were dragging over splintered glass in her throat. A passing runner slammed on the brakes as he went and then backstepped and offered his hand. She took it gratefully, and pushed herself up trying to blink away the spinning stars she was seeing.

"You're one of the new kids right?"

"Katie," she confirmed. "What happened?"

"You've been running fast laps for over an hour. Not surprised you passed out. Maybe you should go see the nurse, get yourself checked out." Now that the sun had slipped behind them, she could see that the young man who had offered his help was almost familiar. Tall and lean, just a step away from gangly, with tinted glasses over a sweat-shiny face and sun-faded red hair. He was the first boy that had ever made Katie feel _short_. It was a nice feeling. Being taller than her former classmates and almost as tall as others, as some adults, made some people forget there was still a small person underneath. "Just in case, like. You're probably okay. I mean, you look fine."

Was there just a second longer than necessary spent on that last word? No, it must have been her imagination. Even Katie doubted she would lust after Katie in this state. She probably didn't even look human! "Thanks for the hand. It must be warmer than I realised."

The red-haired boy shrugged, unconvinced but not worried enough to press further, and pounded off down the back straight until he looked like a bobbing matchstick in the distance. Katie looked around her at the dozens of students racing around, jumping, throwing, and wondered how she had missed all these people earlier. She rubbed sweat away from her face, picked up her jacket and headed for the changing rooms for a quick shower before Mr Conroy gave test papers back to the group.

What had happened out in the stadium? A freakish daydream? Did her sub-conscious hate her that much? If there was a straight choice between her own life – the one that she had come to Northwood to start on her own terms – and that mans' when he would only use it to find a new helpless victim to stalk, then Katie was always going to choose herself. And if some part of her brain had a problem with that and tried to make her feel guilty about it then tough shit. That bastard had killed Jack so many times she was amazed – and really quite glad – he still found things to smile about. He had been working his way around to killing her too, stripping away everything she thought she knew first. She had thought people in dreams could never hurt a waking person. A man who should have died 150 years ago couldn't still be committing the same crime. But then again, Katie had never dared imagine that she would survive their fight, much less emerge the victor. And she still couldn't quite bring herself to believe in that.

At lunch, having decided the food in the cafeteria didn't look like anything edible and bathing in the autumn sun, Katie let her eyes flutter shut and saw the sunlight strobe a neon spectrum behind her eyelids. Allowed herself to reflect on the last two or three days. It was hard to forget the things that had happened before now- the drugging, the fight to the death, the strange death wish of a friend, but she forced herself to do it. Even the reason she had escaped to Levenson Academy in the first place would have to take a back seat while she concentrated on the issue at hand. Which was...? There were so many things that needed her attention right now and each of them was differently urgent as the next. They had to keep Dina alive and then bring her back to live out the rest of her life at home. Jaye was missing and there was the chance they might need to rescue her. Katie herself flitted between completely used up or buzzing with a cold, unnatural energy that felt as though a little more of it remained in her blood every time. Leo was (or should be) looking for any clues to that silver badge because it just stuck in her head as being important. Then there were her surrogate parents to keep in the dark, a grade average to maintain and – and Jack.

You must find a way. You will. Everything you need to know has been given to you and now you must use it.

"Why does it have to be me?" she muttered.

It was always going to be someone.

"What am I meant to do first?"

You have to save us. Then your world will begin to mend. It will start to heal, though there will always be scars.

"Story of my life." Katie fumbled her phone out of the bag at her feel, thinking how heavy and bulky Lainy's old handset felt in her hand, and held it to her ear thinking the other students wouldn't think she was a nutjob who had conversations with the voices in her head.

Only, that is exactly what you are doing, correct?

Point. She couldn't really deny them that but even when the voices were real there was no way of other people knowing that. Or of believing her if she told them that. "So, how exactly am I meant to save you? I mean, why you think I'll be able to beats me but okay. I'm listening."

You know where to find us.

"The waste ground? I tried there the other day and-" she drew a quick line threw the air. "Nothing happening down there."

_No, not there. That's where we were last time but we have to keep moving so they don't find us. We're in the End Place, Katie, and we don't want to stay here. The longer we're here, the more chance they will force us into-_ the sentence cut off as though some other force had simply cut the rope that fed her these cryptic lines of information. As hard as Katie tried to reach for the tiny threads of purple-black tickling her brain she couldn't seem to get a hold of anything for even a second. It was almost as though the darkness didn't want to be touched. Or someone – some _thing_ even – didn't want her to renew the lines of communication.

And then, just as she had resigned herself to packing her things up for class, a dark spark jumped into life, latched itself to her brain, let a message zing across it and then fell, dangling and twitching, dying because the message it carried was so important. So critical.

You know where we are. Just look inside yourself. You feel the pull already. And be careful, Katie. Good luck.

The words didn't sort themselves into any sensible order until later, while she was listening to her maths tutor lecture his students about the stupid mistakes they had all made on their test papers. One kid had been so nervous he had spelled his name wrong and another had forgotten to look for the questions on the backs of pages. For the most part though, the group had done reasonably well and the trick graduate questions they had chucked in... well, who the hell knew what degrees of freedom were? But she was glad to learn that she had got quite a good mark in the exam as she had in English and science. Maths had been one of her worst and least favourite subjects back at Arthur Claymore High. It was pretty hard to get enthusiastic about mental arithmetic and algebra when the only counting you wanted to be doing was how many circuits of the Astroturf you could run in one lunch time. Katie sighed, found a red pen and started copying down the correct answers next to her wrong ones, also noting down a reminder to herself to try and figure out how to actually get those answers. The tutor gave out more books – half of the group got yellow books and the other half got white ones. She got a yellow one – it said HIGHER, which was wonderful. No pressure.

"Now," the teacher droned from the front of the room. "Some of you have advanced books and some have middle level ones. I want you to read and complete the first exercise. That way, I can better see who can keep up with the advanced syllabus and can move on alone and who needs proper tuition."

Katie could already tell this was going to be the kind of class she was bound to sleep through. Flicking through the first handful of pages, Katie discovered she had already covered most of this material at her old school. Positive and negative correlations on scatter graphs. It was probably the only thing she was going to thank her final school year for. Okay, that wasn't strictly fair. The school hadn't been the problem – it just kind of symbolised everything she had wanted to get away from.

"Sir?" piped up one timid voice from the corner. "Should I handwrite it or can I use my computer?"

"Do you find it easier to use your computer?"

"Oh yes, sir."

"Then use it. Just don't cheat and use the calculator function."

"Oh I would never cheat. It's just hard to read my writing otherwise."

"Very well then. Now, any more questions?"

Katie raised her hand. "When is the next class? I pinned my timetable to my locker but I assume you want it for the next class."

"A very good idea. You'll never skip anything if you put your timetable where you can see it every morning. Next class is Thursday morning and yes, I want your work by then. If you get stuck, just have a go."

A further15 minutes went on finicky little queries, everybody jotted down the homework, and then the bell rang. Freedom! She dawdled her way behind the charging crowds and, as soon as she was out of the building, leaned back on the wall and rested her head on cool brick. She hadn't expected college to be so much like school. Jaye had been telling her that it got a lot better once the first couple of weeks were over and done with and the overprotection had worn off. Young people were drifting off in groups and on their own, a busload were crammed around the bus stop. How many of them had noticed there was only one bus to pick any of them up? How many of them were here for the express purpose of getting run over by that bus? Katie hiked her bag up on her shoulders and headed of down the street. It was just after four in the afternoon and she wanted to get this homework done before tea, and look on the internet for a decent pair of trainers. The ones she was wearing were suffering the effects of last Thursday, heavy and streaked with rain, mud and – oh, eww – blood. Why the parents hadn't interrogated her about that was a wonder. Or maybe there was something else at work here; something keeping their secret from outsiders?

"Didn't think I'd be seeing you this week."

"Hi Marcie. Sorry I didn't call yesterday like I said but-"

"Lost your phone?"

"Not far off, actually," Katie said, wincing on the inside. She knew how cliché that story sounded and she really couldn't protest the disbelieving looks her friend was speeding through. "I've just been wicked busy."

"So I see," she said, eyeing the bulging bag of books Katie was carrying. "I hated school. Education further than the law demands. No thank you."

"It's easy when you know how."

"I'm hoping you're not going to tell me you're some kind of genius child who knows all those books back to front."

Wouldn't that be something? "I wish. You just get into this pattern of taking everything in and you don't understand any of it and then, when you're not even thinking about it, it just all clicks. And then it's like, oh yeah, I get it now."

"I'll take your word for it, Katie." Marcie clipped back the mass of blonde ringlets she was sporting today. "Give me a hand with this would you? I hate having curly hair."

Katie caught the escaping curls and pushed them back into the claw grip. "Lesson of the day. Sraighteners."

"I know, I just never seem to get round to buying any and when would I have time to use them? Hey, Freddie! Where you been hiding? Not been bothering Mrs Daeburn have you?"

"She gived me sweets." Freddie, a fair-headed boy of six and with the boundless enthusiasm of one, ran up to them both and brandished a tube of Smarties. "Can I eat them now, Mommy?"

"I suppose so as long as you promise to eat all your tea tonight."

"Want some Aunt Katie?" he mumbled, trying to get more than one out at a time.

"Think you can find me an orange one? They're my favourite."

After a few seconds of Freddie trying to work out whether individual Smarties were truly orange or had a slightly reddish hue to them, he found an orange one he was happy with, held it out to Katie and they began walking up the slight slope. "Are you okay Aunt Katie? You haven't cuddled me yet. I like your cuddles – they feel fuzzy and nice."

She stopped, slid her bag to the floor then wrapped the boy in her arms. It felt nice to be hugging a real human body, sharing their body heat, real heat, not just simulated to further the illusion. And Freddie gave great hugs too. Proper childish bear hugs because young minds always had the innate fear they would never see you again. "There. I'm all cuddled out now."

"I'm sorry," he said tearfully. "I didn't mean to take them all away."

"Freddie." Katie crouched down to him and braced one knee on the ground, automatically scanning for broken glass and used needles. Years of growing up next to Heroin Heights meant it was a hard habit to break. She put on her most serious face and watched how the little boy mirrored her sober expression almost instantly. "I need you to be very big for me. Have your teachers told you what responsibility is? Well I need you to take responsibility for all those cuddles and keep them very safe for me. You think you can do that?"

His eyes flew wide and his jaw dropped about a yard but he nodded gravely

"Wow," Marcie whistled when they started walking again, Freddie on his tiptoes in case he bumped one of the delicate balls of love he was in charge of. "That'll keep him quiet all night." They carried on in almost silence, occasionally mentioning the weather which was getting a degree or two cooler each day, or the race they had run together. After the first kilometre Marcie had sensed Katie was holding back on the speed to keep pace with her and had encouraged her to carry on as fast as she wanted.

"I got a new phone and I _will_ call. Get together for dinner or something."

"It'll have to be a family place though. Finding a sitter I'm happy to leave him with... nightmare!" She mimed tearing her hair out. "I'm pretty sure there's somewhere decent in that shopping centre."

"Hopefully. I only went there once and that was only to computer shops." Of which there were surprisingly few. She gestured at Marcie with the strap of her bag. "Homework. No rest for the wicked, right?"

"Freddie, come say goodbye to Aunt Katie."

"Bye Aunt Katie. Come see us soon okay."

Freddie kissed her cheek and waved her all the way to the corner of Newton Street. She passed the five or six houses to her own thinking how strange it was to be called Aunt. Kind of nice but still freaking weird. The house key was hiding right at the bottom of her bag, as things always do when they are wanted, but it eventually found its way to the top. Katie twisted it in the lock, shucked her bag and jacket on the bottom stair and headed for the kitchen for a cold glass of juice. "Hi!" she shouted out to whoever else was home. "I'm home." _And in one piece._

"In here," a jagged male voice whisper-called back from the front room. She had never heard Adam sound so unsure, so desperate. What the hell could make him sound like that? With the intention of finding out and then cheering him up – because any weakness in strong Adam just rocked her to the core, Katie grabbed her glass and walked up to the door of the front room, hesitated a second before opening it, and then-

-walked into a warzone.

Whatever she had been expecting to see this side of the door it was not cushions scattered over the floor, some torn and spilling fluffy innards, a splintered coffee table with one leg jutting from the front of a sparking television set, the contents of the bookcase here, there and everywhere or the diamonds of glass sprinkled on the dark carpet beneath the light. Correction, beneath the light _fitting_. Because the bulb had been blown to bits. She quickly surveyed the destruction in the room and then her eyes came to rest on something that made all that chaos fall away. The wreckage of one single room wasn't the be all and end all and it had already happened, was done and gone. This scene of turmoil was still going on and it wasn't one Katie couldn't do anything about. She took a step back, swallowed her juice in one long, painful gulp, and busied herself finding a temporary home for her glass. It felt wrong to be witnessing the tender and torturous moments on the front room. It was way too personal for to be watching. She hadn't been in the least bit prepared to see Lainy locked in Adams arms, silently crying her heart out as he stroked her hair and whispered soothing words in her ear.

"It's okay, it's okay, it's okay. Ssshhh."

And Lainy just kept weeping into his chest, shaking violently with the need to scream, shout, panic, do something. Anything.

"Everything's okay, everything's better now. You know that."

Lainy looked up at him and smiled thinly as he used his thumbs to rub the tears away from her face.

"Feel better now?"

She shook her head, not even glancing at the wreck she was standing in. For that one instant, that one beautiful/terrible and too short instant, the pair were the only ones in the room. Katie, watching them from the doorway, didn't matter. She didn't even exist. But there was a tremendous weight of guilt and grief and helplessness the whole world should feel. But locked in each other Lainy and Adam glowed golden where they touched.

The world catapulted back into sharp reality and sound came back to speak the words bubbling under the mini-tornado that had hit inside their house. "They were our girls, Adam. And we lost them."

"I know, Lainy, I know."

"No, you don't. _I_ lost them."

Adam pulled her close and smoothed her tear-frizzed hair down and kissed it lightly. It didn't help. Lainy fell inhumanly still, occasionally spasming as her remaining sobs ran through her body. She stopped – just stopped. Her stormy eyes didn't see anything around her, her breathing no longer hitched as she gulped down oxygen, her body calmed and the vibration in her stilled. Just one step back and her foot cracked down on the shattered light bulb glass. That brought Lainy to her senses and she slowly looked around her and the chaos she had caused slowly registered. He brushed her hair away from her face, breathed deeply a couple of times and put her hands to her tear-flushed cheeks. "I didn't mean to."

Katie huffed and walked into the room. "Okay, here's the plan. We clear up, you feel better, things work out."

Lainy just looked at her like she had lost her mind. Maybe she had. All Katie was sure of was this was just one more thing that needed to be sorted out. And, as petty as a bit of tidying up sounded, it had jumped straight to the top of her list because she was damned if she was going to let this town take away another of her friends.

"Step one – getting rid of the useless man. Really," she gestured at the ruins, "you ought to get him house-trained." That at least earned a smile. A wobbly and uncertain smile but a sign of happiness nonetheless. Thrusting her arms out, Katie zombie-marched Adam out of the room. "What the fuck happened?" she hissed when they were out of earshot, though she doubted Lainy would have paid them the slightest bit of attention if they had been right next to her.

"Erm..." He was racing through explanations in his head and trying to find a plausible sounding one. It didn't take Katie more than a few seconds to work it out. Something similar had occurred in her bedroom just a week ago. God, was it really only a week? Jaye had been bottling up so much rage and confusion that the cork had popped and Katie had barely escaped from a broken window, smashed glass and a fun new carpet of papers and pens. Not fun and even less so when the cause of the windstorm was holding sizzling hot hair straighteners. The front room was that same unseeable but undeniable power, but on a slightly larger scale. That stood to reason – Lainy was an older Shade than Jaye by, she reckoned, a year or two. That must give her a bit more strength. Even now, with the event having been finished even before she got through the door, Katie could virtually see things whirling around the front room on an imperceptible current.

"Never mind." She waved a dismissive at Adam who shrugged and offered her a sheepish grin. "I can guess. She had her two girls up and leave on her. The two she's known for the longest, got closest to. She feels somehow responsible for it and she went on a rampage rather than talking it out. Understandable. Stupid, but understandable. Just make sure you don't end up the same, okay." And with that, she made to chase him off down to his room and then turned back to the ruins.

Lainy had already started picking things off the floor but was doing so in a very slow, careful, almost-a-trance way. Katie threw a hand out and grabbed the door frame for balance. Tiredness washed over her for a second and the world dimmed to a shiny darkness and jumped with sparks and she felt as if she was falling falling falling and the end was never coming. There was a never ending black and sparks of blue and purple. The surface was so far away it was invisible. Gravity, wonderful gravity, pulling her further deeper down, weighting everything down, beautifully down and fighting the drag seemed more than pointless. It was meaningless. It was a distant notion that didn't deserve thinking about.

It's not time for you to join us. We can save you but you must save us. We're-

The hand that had been reaching down suddenly flexed and blinked out of existence. But it had been close enough to draw Katie close to the surface of this vacuum she was floating in. But, as her mind fought for control, she floundered to stay under for just one more second and strained to hear the end of the sentence. Echoes – why could she see echoes? – drifted as a lilac haze near the top and Katie reached for them with a hand that was sure it could touch sound and-

  * still waiting.

And then Katie was herself again – impulsive, determined and without a clue what she was doing. She charged forward with a confidence she hoped Lainy believed in because Katie certainly didn't, and picked up a dustpan and brush to work on the worst of the wood splinters and broken glass.

"You okay, sweetie?" asked Lainy, coming to full and frightening life at the prospect of losing another of her charges. Of missing the warning signs and just... losing her.

"Wrong time of the month. I'll be fine after disgraceful amounts of ice cream and a good nights' sleep." Not that either of those things seemed to be too high on her list of things she was going to get to do in a hurry.

"Oh, I got you. Sorry. This isn't exactly helping is it?"

They sank back into a hush, working in a near-silent buzz of action. Lainy was picking bits of cushion fluff from the floor and didn't see Leo slink past the open door, nod at Katie and incline his head upstairs. "You okay to finish off here? I mean, it's practically done."

"You're leaving me?"

"What time's dinner?"

"Seven. Sausage casserole." The older girl said the words in robotic fashion, flat and emotionless. But at least she was talking about normal things, slotting back into her mundane human life of being house mother.

Katie left her working on the carpet, pounded on Adams door and yelled at him to go to his girlfriend as she passed and bounded up the stairs, her long legs taking them two at a time and not even noticing. She passed Leo's room and stuck her head through the door but he wasn't there. Which meant there was only one Other Place he could be – sitting in front of her new computer, happily working his way through her stash of Red Bull and Doritos. "Why are you in here?"

He held up a silver pointed disc, dying sunlight glinting off the edges and making her squint. "Gratitude..."

"I forgot about that."

"You forgot about it? Even though this has your blood on it." Leo sounded doubtful and Katie couldn't really say anything.

"How do you know it's my blood and not Jack's or his own?"

Leo reached over and grabbed her hand, picking at the tiny red scab on her index finger. There was a smear of fresher blood on the end of one of the points and some dried flakes of – decades? Centuries? – old blood worked into the grooves. "A name's under all that crap. I couldn't make it out but I wanted to see if I should clean it off to see."

"Yeah, I guess," she shrugged. "It's definitely a sheriff shield, though?"

"Well you got up close and personal with it. But I googled and yeah, it's pretty old too. Mid 1800s I think, something like that."

Well that fit with Jack and the man who killed him.

"You ever gonna tell me what really happened out there? I mean, you kinda cheated death and... is that what you wanted to tell me? You lived when you should've died."

Katie shrugged, not knowing quite what she had been trying to say a couple of days ago. There wasn't time to tell him the whole story, didn't have time for all the questions that he would ask or any answers for them anyway, but the highlights and lowlights were plain to see. They were written in the marble hardness of her face, the constant trembling of muscles under her skin, the dark smudges around her eyes that never went completely. "The spirits on the waste ground, where you found me – saved me actually, I know. I was so tired I think I might have cried myself to death and I wouldn't even have cared." It would have been like a scene from Romeo and Juliet, Katie thought suddenly; dying to be with somebody you thought was dead only to have them awake and cry themselves red tears over you. "Where was I? Waste ground. Right. All those cuts and stuff I had when Jaye brought me home, remember, the spirits took them all away. Or I thought they did. I think they just buried them because I can feel everything wriggling around inside me. It's itchy really deep down."

"I also met the man I stole that from. He tried to kill me."

"But he didn't."

"He wasn't meant to." _Not then._

"Whatever. You're giving me brain ache, bitch."

"Stop helping me then." Although she knew he wouldn't give it up. Even if researching the badge was for some convoluted twisted reason of his own, Leo would keep working on it until he got answers. "Dinner's at seven." Not even waiting until the boy had left the room – didn't want to give him the satisfaction of still being of any concern to Katie when, even now, there was a volatile streak in him she did not entirely trust – she set her alarm for 6:45 and tried to get an hours' sleep in.

There were voices in the darkness. Whispering voices, screaming voices, singing voices, broken voices, lonely voices. Lonely but oh so many of them. And Katie couldn't make out a word they were saying.

She was lying on a cold floor, not stone or tiles but almost glassy to the touch. Maybe some kind of Perspex or that UPVC stuff they used for windows. It was cool and ultra smooth to her fingertips. She could touch. That was something, at least. Katie experimentally stretched every muscle she could to see what worked and what didn't, all the while trying to make the smallest movements possible. Anyone might be watching and she didn't want to give this anyone the idea she was awake and ready to play. Who knew what freaky games they might have in mind? Fear was great at minimising things like that desire to get up and try to work out where the hell she was. She rolled onto her back. Nobody came. Stretched her legs out. Nobody came. Rose into a crouched, poised and ready to run. Nobody came. Nobody even moved. All there was was those eternal, infernal voices. They sounded close but muffled as if caught behind a door or wall. And Katie knew that she needed to find them.

So. This was doable. Find who- or whatever was making that awful wailing sound. At least there was a plan now – or a goal, at any rate. The plan was still a work in progress. Katie allowed herself to sink back to the floor and had a quick think.

Objective one – find out where she was. Easier said than done. It was too dark to see much of anything but as she scrambled to her feet, Katie noticed that more light hazed into the room. The floor was cool beneath her hands and feet and there was a ridge a few inches in front where the smoothness stopped and thick industrial carpeting began. And suddenly a figure walked right up to her, not even glancing down out her.

" _Watch out!" she yelled. Not that it did any good. The figure appeared not to hear the panicked voice and walked through her. She looked up, following the line of the carpet forgotten and locked her gaze on the man who had gone through her like she wasn't even there. The man, she saw when she squinted, was clutching a beer bottle and was swaying slightly as he walked over to join another group of people at a high table. There were quite a few of these tables dotted around her and all crowded either with people or empties. A yard or two in front of her was a dimly under-lit square where people moved to a beat only they heard. Perhaps the wailing voices were the cause of the movement but Katie knew somehow that no-one could hear the voices but her. More bodies were standing around her, drinking and chatting and not paying the slightest attention to the under-age, barefoot girl standing in their midst. No sound came out of their mouths, no boom, boom, boom of a driving dance beat shook the walls, no unlikely DJ yelled out dumb lines while pretending to be cool. It was seriously creepy, watching all this activity going on and not hearing anything other than that awesome/awful keening._

Katie dusted her white gym trousers off and put her hands on her hips. She was in a club. Nobody could see or hear her. Okay, cool, that was one mystery solved.

Objective two- where were those voices coming from?

We're over here. All of us. So many of us, someone's going to have to go. We don't want to lose anyone but we will if you don't hurry.

" _Tell me where you are." She stepped forward, closer to the mass of heaving bodies, grinding and dancing that didn't really look like dancing with no music. The voices seemed to be leading her to the other side of the dancefloor and she was powerless to resist. Even so, Katie apologised her way through the crowd, remembering a little too late that they couldn't hear her sorries or even feel her bump into them. "If you can't tell me that, then tell me how I'm meant to find you."_

You will. We know you will.

" _How do you figure that one?" But she was just filling time while she picked her way out._

We've been calling out for so long. Time means nothing here. A second ticks past in your world; here, it freezes and becomes eternal. It seems forever since we learnt to cry and you heard us. Just you."

" _You helped me against that man, you kept me dry and fit, you gave me something dark and powerful and you saved my life."_

We gave you a link to us, a way to save us.

It seemed like forever but Katie was finally at the other side of the club looking at a fire exit to her left and a long corridor stretching of to her right. The corridor had a few doors set into it and, the scarier it seemed, the more likely it was this was the direction she needed to go. Closing her eyes, Katie wiggled her fingers at her side, feeling for the tickle of dark power that meant she was close. There. Why did it have to be there? Air kissed her just behind her left ear. She turned her back on the corridor and stood in front of the green fire door, staring it down as if it would crumble under her gaze.

"Okay, I'm here now. What do you want me to do?"

BEEP BEEP BEEP

Katie automatically threw a hand out and slammed the annoying alarm onto snooze mode. Why was she waking up to the dark? It took her a second to remember that she had taken a mid-evening nap before dinner. Dinner. She also realised that she was absolutely starving.

Downstairs, she asked Lainy if there were any clubs in towns.

"A couple. There's the student club not far from here called Shimma."

Very eighties. "Does it have a navy carpet and a long corridor going out to the back?"

"Yeah. We used to send the ambulance there on Fridays because drunks were the only calls we got then." Lainy grinned, remembering her old life, then continued dishing out casserole. "Anyway, don't be getting any ideas sweetie. You're too young."

It wasn't like Katie wanted to go. She just didn't think she had much say in the matter. "I heard some of the others talking about it. I didn't actually realise we had anything fun in town."

"Define fun."

"This is good," Katie said about the casserole and breathed a sigh of relief when Adam changed the subject to the new things he needed to buy for the living room. Dinner was in definite danger of going on too long. Leo shot her a look as she kept glancing at the clock. Watching every tick and tock would not make time go any faster. She returned his glare and challenged him to say something.

"What are you planning?" he whispered when the other pair were taking the dishes into the kitchen.

"I'm going to that club."

He shrugged. "Your funeral."

"What d'you expect me to do? I can't ignore these voices."

"You're hearing voices. Fantastic."

"Look, come with me and I'll explain on the way."

"You two are getting on better," said Lainy, sitting down at the table. The four of them were crowded around the kitchen table, one on each side, there not really being enough of them left to warrant using the large dining table. She looked happy to see the two teens in peace talks and not trying to throttle each other. "Let's have some peace and quiet in this house for the rest of the week. We've got a smaller gang now. All the more reason to look after each other."

"Speaking of which, Marcie just phoned. She's had a nightmare day. I'm going to see her, have a girly night. Don't wait up." Katie didn't think either of her guardians believed a words she said and not least because she wasn't the girly night type, but then Leo spouted off his escape to the club to 'check it out' and they started doubting that one even more. So much so that nobody noticed them look at each other in silent agreement or leave and walk off together.

"I can only tell you what you need to know and I don't think even _I_ know all of it." And then she fell silent. What could she tell him apart from theories and mysterious voices and things that had come to her in dreams? He couldn't put any faith in those things. He believed in God and the Bible, sacrifice and resurrection, not Shades and never-ending life.

Never-ending suffering.

"And that's why I have to help them."

"Where do we go then?" Leo asked. He must have had a hundred questions or more buzzing around his head but he didn't ask any of them. Maybe he didn't want to know the answers because knowing the truth would make it harder to deny.

"Shimma." She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and raised her arms crucifix-style, feeling for the dark pull of energy in town – it was stronger, more tangible where-ever ghosts gathered. But, right now... nothing. "Sorry," she murmured to Leo. Then, just as she was about o open her eyes and look around for some clue of where to find the club, a rush of words flooded into her head, words she couldn't make out but which she realised she already knew, and she stumbled over her own feet, throwing her arms out for balance. A tug on her stomach, perhaps even deeper than that, made the oxygen whoosh out of her lungs. And then she knew. "It's inside me." Katie turned her gaze inward and allowed her focus to soften enough that she could see the ball of energy she had always mustered and called upon to manifest Jack. It was no longer a glistening ball with a thread running from it to his invisible hand; it was a mess of threads and tangles, all shrinking and all straining to get out of her. Nor was it the silver and white vision it had always been; it was the black and purple shine of dark Shades, the darkness that had just flickered through her just like the silver was doing now. "It's always been inside me." She reached down further and fell the dark wisps all prodding at her skin, all trying to escape through the same patch.

We're trying to show you. Just watch and follow.

Oh God, how could she be so thick? They weren't trying to claw their way out of her – they were showing her the way to go.

Katie kept half an eye on the threads inside her and let them tell her which way to go to the club. She had forgotten all about Leo until he put his hand on her shoulder to keep her from walking into the road in front of a gang of preteens on bikes. No energy to thank him.

A large building rose up before her, on the near side of campus. The classy sign above the door said SHIMMA in red gothic lettering on a glossy black and white background. Like most of the new academy buildings, some parts of the club were just painted breeze blocks, but the main part was done in classic red brick. She surmised the breeze blocks were some extension work... like the corridor opposite the fire exit. The closer she got to the place, the stiller her wriggling insides grew. At the door, they fell limp and lifeless. Katie wanted to stop moving too.

She wanted to drop to the floor where she stood and just stop. Not an option. Leo grabbed her wrist as she stood before the club, staring at the sign and yanked her with him to join the end of the line. It was mercifully short. Tuesdays were really not the busiest night for clubbing. Or maybe that first rush of scholarly discipline was still in force. The bouncer on the door – tall, shiny headed, built like a brick, the whole cliché – let Leo in after a quick glance at his student photo ID and was soon lost in the crowds behind the door. Katie dug hers out of her back pocket and handed it over. He took much longer over her photo. Biting her lip seemed to swing the deal though and he waved her in, mistaking the gesture for a cute flirt and not a nervous habit. Katie thanked her parents for giving her the tall gene which seemed to always add a couple of years. There was a hatch to her left where people were receiving wrist stamps from a bored-looking girl and stashing jackets and bags. Katie quickly scanned heads for a black buzz-cut as she pushed her way through to the main room. The sound proofing on the doors and walls must have been amazing because her ears were immediately assaulted by a rapid bass beat at levels so low and intense her head felt like a speaker. That was nicely overlaid with the clinking of glasses and a symphony of a hundred or more people all trying to be louder than those next to them. She glanced down and saw bare feet ghosted over her trainers on the dark blue carpet. At least, it looked navy – it was hard to tell exactly with the light blue and green spotlights swirling over them. When she glanced over at the people dancing in a tight huddle she knew she was in the right place. These were the same people that had been in her dream. They were wearing the same clothes. Drinking the same drinks. Making the same movements. There were no voices to be heard over the life of this nightly party, but they had to be back there. Where life couldn't touch the dead. She stepped off the carpet and moved towards the knot of people, trying to find a tiny gap in them so she could work her way through.

I wish I could just fade my way through them all.

The bodies were an impenetrable force. Round the outside then. It took a bit longer to skirt the edges of the floor, trying to dodge the stumbling students who had already drunk one too many. Katie found herself standing a few yards down the breeze blocked corridor n the cool air that meant she was either near an outside wall or the A/C was on. It was only now that Katie realised how hot she had gotten.

A door slammed shut further down the corridor and she stared down.

"Hey, you!" shouted a man with platinum hair that made his espresso-dark skin look even darker. "Cass could do with a hand on coats!"

"Erm..."

"Come on, chick. Get to earnin' your pay. Are you new?"

"I'm Katie. First night."

"Not surprised. Blink and they change the entire payroll."

"Oh."

"You look like a rabbit when the dog's been let out. You come see Shimma tomorrow night, okay. Full induction. Provided everything's where I left it."

"Thanks."

"No worries, chick. Think they can chuck the new girl in and just expect her to know what to do. Not when Shimma's around, chick. Not on my watch. But seriously, my girl out there could do with a hand." The man heard one hell of a crash of glass from the main room and hared off to investigate. After a moment, she cursed her rigid moral compass and half-jogged off after him.

What's the point of finding a whole bunch of spirits if innocent people out there are just going to replace them?

The MC paused mid-shtick and scratched a dance record to a ruining halt (a marked improvement on the original track) and conversation either stopped or turned into angry shouting just to the side of the dancefloor as all hell kicked off. None other than Leo had smashed into a group of friends, all slightly the cockier for alcohol, and was now engaging in a pushing and shoving match. Some people screamed, a handful piled into the ruckus. It was to dark to see what was going on. That was probably for the best as she heard the words 'glass 'im, mate' somewhere under the din. She edged over to the man she thought was Shimma and squeezed his hand. The panic must have shown through the gloom because e waved at the man standing by the electric deck that controlled the lights and a pantomime of pointing got him to focus as many tiny spotlights as possible on the fighting group.

It threw gently pin points of light on to a red and raw bottle fight.

Two young men were sprawled on the floor and moaning for the mommies. Well, not quite but Katie quite liked the idea. Another young man and a woman were holding Leo still by gripping one arm each and a third person, the dyed spiky hair and army surplus clothes gave no clue as to gender, was holding a broken bottle in one hand and pointing it over his stomach. The scene froze when the lights showed them all up and the one with the broken bottle had the stupidity to look round, almost in slow-motion, to see who had done that.

"Leo, I don't have time for your pissing contest."

He hadn't exactly caused this fight – hey, it took two, or six, to tango – but he hadn't hesitated in getting stuck in either.

Katie turned and let her eyes find the man who had moved the lights and made a slicing motion across her neck. Every light in the main room cut out and pitched the building into blackness. Screaming, perhaps agony, perhaps abject terror, filled the air. Whatever happened now, she didn't need to see it.

# Chapter six

It was alarming how quickly her eyes adjusted to the pitch darkness of the club. People were still yelling about being dumped into darkness but the DJ had tentatively put some chill-out music on, very quietly but insistent enough to mute the mass panic to a kind of collective confusion. She left the chaos, slowly returning to normal, and squinted around. She put her arms out in front of her and pushed gawkers out of her way until she found a wall, then followed it a few feet to her left until she stood with the corridor stretching off to her right and a green fire exit to her left. There was much more light along here, courtesy of the harsh fluorescent tubes overhead. They were making Katie tired and she realised with a jolt that being under the fairy lights of the club or in the murk that seemed to follow her everywhere, she had felt more awake than in the light.

She twisted left and faced the fire door. Déjà vu.

Katie sucked in a lungful of stale air and pushed down on the fire bar. For a few terrifying seconds, she was sure the door was going to open on nothing but bins and metal stairs. Bu she knew this was where she was meant to be. Unless her dream had been all another lie. Or a mistake. What if she had been meant to let them all out in her dreams? What if she didn't know how to help these Shades? There might be nothing left to do and she had no right to be standing here, expecting to open this door and-

\- find herself staring down the barrel of a gun.

# Chapter seven

Okay. This was new. Katie had never been on the business end of a gun before.

"She's not here," rasped a voice. It was somehow familiar at a very basic level but the raw edge to it made the voice made it sound alien and broken. It was as though the speaker hadn't had anything to drink in a very long time. "Find her."

Katie forced herself to swallow the lump of terror in her throat but couldn't drag her eyes away from the barrel of that gun. But it was important she did. Keeping close watch on the weapon would only drive her fear deeper, and fear was one thing she had quite enough of thank you. "Oh God," she breathed.

"He's not gonna help you. If he's out there, he doesn't care."

Katie wrenched her eyes away from the dark cylinder and peered through the night to the holder. If her heart hadn't been jackhammering before, it was banging like Tico Torres on crack now. For behind the semi-automatic was Jaye. Harmless, always happy Jaye was pointing a deadly weapon between her eyes and looking like she was fully prepared to pull the trigger. The fact that the gun looked far too big in her dainty little hand or that she had to stand two steps up the fire escape to gain some height over Katie didn't even seem amusing, as it would have been under different circumstances. No. It just made the whole thing scarier. Why hadn't any-one noticed and come to stop this yet?

Jaye laughed, throwing her head back. It sounded forced. "I'm a ghost, babe. No-one can even see me."

Getting a handle on thoughts seemed to be a trait Jack and Jaye shared. She thought back over recent weeks – only strong feelings, thoughts intensified by mortal fear or lingering dread had got a response. "Jaye, this isn't you."

"No?"

"We've been so worried about you. I'll-"

"Find her."

"How?"

"Find her or I'll shoot you. I'm not kidding."

"You won't hurt me." It was more of a prayer than the statement it came out as. "Or I'd be halfway to heaven by now."

To answer, Jaye clicked the safety off and cocked the gun. She meant it. "Call him. Call Jack." At that second there was nothing Katie wanted to do more. Only her brain was in too many shocked pieces to know that, and the survival instinct had kicked into top gear. Pride wouldn't allow any white knight to save her. Pride was an arsehole. "He'll find them." And then Jaye shot her.

The instant slowed right down. She saw the thin finger squeeze the trigger as far as it would go, saw her hand bounce off the recoil, a lick of flame around the edges of the barrel as the bullet burst out, leaving white drag marks as it screamed through the foot of cold air between them. Then it sank into her forehead and Katie dropped to the floor wanting to go there voluntarily before agony forced her down. She expected he entire body to explode in white-hot pain but there was nothing. A dull ache began behind her eyes.

"Ghost bullets." Jaye grinned and let go of the gun which disappeared the moment she stopped touching it. Well, that couldn't be right. Maybe the light was just playing tricks on Katie. The last thing she saw before her eyes fluttered shut on this blessed world of killers who could kill without you feeling a thing was Jaye backing away from the door and smirking a grimace that just wasn't her. It just _wasn't._

Maybe a few moments had passed and maybe it was hours before Katie woke up curled up on a tatty leather loveseat, looking at a blonde man hunched over some papers on his desk. It was more of a trestle table with an office chair behind it but she guessed it was better than the floor. Speaking of which... hadn't she been on the floor when she closed her eyes? And also, why had she decided to take a nap on the floor of a busy club in the first place?

"Where... what happened?"

Shimma glanced up from his papers at the sound of her voice and then took them over to the filing cabinet, unconcerned. "You're awake."

"Sadly." And it was. She had the strangest feeling that opening her eyes was the biggest mistake of her life. She put a hand to her aching head and tried to swing around into a sitting position. It didn't quite work the way she had planned and the room swam for a moment, forcing her back into the embarrassing, lying down position with her long legs dangling over the arm of the loveseat.

"I found you spark out by the open fire door. Told them to keep that closed. Can't get the staff these days." He paused in his rambling to slot another file home in the top drawer. "Are you on something?"

"What? I... hell, no!"

"Just asking. You know how things are. Pretty sure Mother Theresa'd get dope checked if she worked in a club."

"She'd be thrilled."

"Take tomorrow off, yeah. See me Thursday."

"You were serious?" A proper job! And Katie hadn't even been looking for it.

"As long as you don't go round fainting after every fight you see."

How cool did she feel? "I'm tougher than I look."

"It'll mostly be coats and wrist stamping but you'll be filling in here and there too. Get to do a bit of everything."

"Where's Leo?"

"You mean that scrub-ass boy toy you shouted out?" Katie nodded and bit the inside of her cheek until the feeling of her brain rattling around her head with every movement subsided. "Left them to it but security said they bounced the lot of 'em. Plenty of street to fight on." He shrugged, wrestling with the open filing cabinet which didn't seem to want to shut. "Hate these things." He proved his point by delivering a swift kick to the bottom drawer which finally slid shut but sounded unhappy about the way it had been treated.

"Nicely done. Shame you can't do that with computers."

"You can. But it's an expensive way to get your kicks."

"Isn't technology a wonderful thing?" She sighed and tried to get up once more. Her legs tried to disassociate themselves from the rest of her but she managed to stand. "I have to go."

"Hey, no. Stay there until you can promise I won't be getting new carpet in here."

"I feel fine now Mr..."

"Shimma. Don't be doing no misters here. Just Shimma."

"My housemate's a nurse." Or, she was. Once upon a lifetime ago. "She'll check me over."

"Can't make you stay, really, but I want it on record I think it's a bad idea."

_So do I. Unfortunately, it's the only one I've got._ "Noted. And thanks."

Shimma covered the room in fractions of a second because he was suddenly at her side and holding the door open for her. "You be careful now, Katie. Real careful."

"Okay. But I always am."

He moved into the corridor with her and walked down with her until the opening that led into the club proper. It sounded much rowdier than when she had left it. Kate wondered again how much time had passed. She felt somehow naked without her watch, although her bedside table was fully stocked with her watch _and_ her alarm clock. Lucky thing. She carried on to the fire exit and pushed it open. A feeling of remembrance came over her, formless memories but ones that demanded attention. They didn't feel like they were going to be good memories. On the other side of the fire exit Leo stood leaning against the metal railings by the stairs. He sounded bored when he asked, "what happened?"

Katie said nothing and looked up at the sky. It looked close to midnight dark now but when she grabbed Leo's wrist to see his watch, it was not quite ten. "Jaye was here. She shot me. In the head. It didn't hurt." She fed him each piece of information as it dropped into her head

"So, what n- hang on, you got shot?"

"You were in a bottle fight." _Tit for tat, how d'you like that._

"And which one of us was more likely to get killed?"

She paused for half a second, pointed at Leo then resumed her walk back home. The puzzled look he adopted made Katie smile for a minute until she decided she was really too tired to mess with his head. "They were ghost bullets. Not the painful kind. I do have kind of a headache but that's it."

"Jaye? Shot you?"

The boy was really having trouble with that idea, want he?

"She was here?"

Honestly! It wasn't really that hard to believe that Jaye had chased the same strings or power here that she had, or that she had attacked Katie in a blur of fury, driven by blind rage rather than reason. Katie pushed her hair back behind her ears and grouched as the sharp wind whipped it straight back in her face.

"She's not..."

"I'm going home."

"You don't wanna finish this thing?"

"I want to sleep without waking up every five minutes; I want to have friends who don't up and leave when things get tough; I want to be an athlete who only runs to win. Mostly, I just want to go home and pretend things are normal." A chill had sprung up in the autumn night. Young people were still hanging around outside the club with next to nothing on – tiny skirts, cropped tops and the boys had muscled in by wearing vests and cut off denims. It made Katie cold just watching them shivering for the sake of looking good, although she knew she would probably do the same.

She zipped up her baseball jacket against the wind and trudged on towards Newton Street. It was only five minutes walk but in the polar silence that fell it seemed like forever.

"I'm warning you now," Leo murmured as they neared he front door. "Tell anyone what happened tonight, I'll never help you again."

"Oh, and you were so very useful giving us all the Testosterone Show."

"I'm serious, Katie."

"Forget it then. I don't need your help."

She got the door open but Leo threw his arm out to block her entry. "Was it really her?"

"Yes. She's frustrated, confused. She just wants to come home."

"Why doesn't she?"

"I'd tell you if I knew. Now, please, can I go?"

She could see the wheels turning in his head. He eventually came down on the side of letting her go with a promise. "This ain't over."

No. She didn't dare imagine it was.

# Chapter eight

Nine hours later, Katie woke up to the heartless buzz of her alarm clock with possibly the worst headache she'd ever had. The hours she had been asleep were among the best she'd ever had. Nine hours of solid sleep uninterrupted by dreams – well, none that wee scary enough to remember. So that was good. It would have been too much to ask to wake up feeling refreshed and in tiptop condition, she supposed. Typical. But her headache would fade away once she started doing something. It felt like a too-much-sleep one anyway. Figuring that an extra tem minutes couldn't hurt, Katie slapped the snooze button and rolled over, falling straight back to sleep. So it was a bit of a shock to find her alarm buzzing again what felt like a minute later. She shoved an arm out and flailed an arm around, trying to turn the thing off once and for all. That only succeeded in sending the alarm clock crashing to the floor and the buzzing winding down like a warped cassette. Well, it was one say to shut the noise up. Katie pulled the covers over her head, wanting to both hide from the cold outside and mentally prepare for it. Inch by torturous inch, she slid the covers down her face.

"Katie!" someone yelled up the stairs, sounding louder than it should. Two reasons for that. First, her bedroom door was open. Second, her headache made even her own breathing sound like being caught in a wind tunnel. "You planning to go to college today?"

"No." Because she didn't plan on it. Planning should involve only things she wanted to do – yeah... wishful thinking. But everybody knew that she would.

"Okay. Say goodbye to your scholarship."

That got Katie out of bed fast. Just the thought of being chucked out of the academy and being forced to slink back to her parents house admitting she couldn't make it on her own was more than enough to propel her into action. Going back was... it was going back. Back to being scared to leave her own house, back to the sixth form at Arthur Claymore High where the teachers had all known her since she was eleven, back to being pitied and protected until she wanted to scream. No. Katie definitely wanted to stay here where nobody knew or really cared about her past and where her mistakes were her own. Telling Mom and Dad she was moving back because she wasn't really ready for this much independence would _not_ fill them with confidence when she decided to try again. They would always be expecting the worst.

It was then, as she rummaged through the medicine cabinet for painkillers that she realised she was still wearing last night's clothes. She had been so tired when she finally got back that she had fallen right into bed fully clothed. Rumpled and a bit skanky but with a change of underwear and plenty of deodorant Katie decided she could squeeze another day out of them.

"Morning, Sleepy."

"Morning, Dopey," Katie yawned back and slid into a chair at the kitchen table. The lemon yellow walls seemed just a bit too cheerful this morning and, as appetising as the honey sweetened Reddy Brek Adam put in front of her looked, every mouthful was a chore.

"Too tall to be a dwarf. Shortcake." Although, Katie was fast catching Adam up in the height stakes. While she might never quite reach his lofty six two, she was going to end up model tall. She'd already grown half an inch since moving here.

"Lainy?"

"Bed. It was a tough day yesterday. I told her I could handle you pair for one morning." Male domesticity was always doubtful. Adam had always seemed competent though. "Look, I don't know what you think happened but it wasn't... it wasn't what you think."

_Oh, it's exactly what I think._ Katie knew what had happened in that room but letting that slip would not do anyone any good right now. She remained non-committal. "Oh. What do I think happened?"

"You know I would never do anything to hurt Lainy or any of you guys, don't you? You believe that?" This was the closest to begging Adam had been. It was a bit heartbreaking to watch. "Things just got out of hand. She started crying and then things just started flying around. I didn't do anything and it'll never happen again."

"Won't it? You can promise that?"

"Katie, I promise I'll never hurt her."

"You can't protect me- her," she corrected as quickly as she could. "You can't protect her forever. You might want to, probably think it's for the best, you've got her best interests at heart. But she needs to hurt sometimes. She needs to feel the pain and work it out in her own way. And if that means not talking about it and smashing up everything in this house... then they're only things." Expensive things, true, but she reckoned this house was mostly designed by Ikea. Not exactly the top of the financial spectrum.

"I don't know what I can do to help. Is there a girl code for emotions?"

"Chocolate, tissues and hugs. And strictly no talking." So, exactly the opposite of what she was offered by the police and their damn counsellors – basically drug reps for Valium.

"That's what you wanted isn't it?" Adam asked. "That's how you wanted to – needed to – deal with things. But they didn't let you."

""Talking didn't help. And they never caught the bastard anyway." Kate pushed her bowl away. "Insufficient evidence, they said. I still have the God damned pictures they took!" A pause as she allowed the sudden flare of anger to die down. Was she ever going to stop feeling angry about it? It wasn't even the attack that hurt the worst – it was the way she had been treated afterwards. And she would never forgive her attacker for subjecting her to that. "Against my will I talk, I held still for tests, I relived every second of that..." _(rape)_ "... that ordeal over and over again."

"If things had been different, would you still have come here?"

That all depended on whether Katie would have been offered a place under other circumstances, but probably not. There would not have been the desperate need to escape her once-safe little bubble of existence now ripped apart. She could be looked after and unchallenged at every turn... and really, really bored.

Adam took her thoughtful silence as a cue to change the subject. Or, at least, to go back to the original one. "I meant to say thanks. For helping yesterday."

"Glad I could."

"I've never seen Lainy get that out of control. It scared me a little bit to be honest."

"She's never lost two kids before," Katie pointed out, assuming the fact.

The clock told Katie she was going to miss registration if she didn't hurry and ditching in the first week didn't really hold much appeal. "I'm already late. Taking your bike." It had been just over a year since she had ridden a bicycle, having outgrown the red BMX she had ridden every day for four years and handed it down to Dan, but it was true what they said. You never forgot. It wasn't quite as exhilarating as it used to be but that was likely due to not having traffic to dodge. Balancing her heavy backpack at the same time made it almost as much fun but she only fell off once. She glanced around the grounds outside the academy as she cycled through the gates. One or two security-conscious students had chained their bikes to the chainlink fence but most just leaned them against the wall or stood them in the racks by the corner. Nobody else seemed to be that bothered about keeping their things safe. Perhaps they didn't really need to worry. Katie couldn't imagine what it must be like to have that much faith in her peers. She was too used to having to nail everything down so no-one nicked it. But that was modern society. Sucked. Better off out of it.

"Cartwright... Cartwright... Miss Cartwright?"

It took Katie a few long moments to remember she was Miss Cartwright and suddenly looked up to answer. Big mistake. The sharp movement sent a bolt of icy pain behind her eyes and shocking out through her brain. "Sorry, sir. Here." She was too pre-occupied by this headache to more than half-listen to Mr Conroy finish listing names and reminding the class to quietly continue with any work they could be doing while he attended to the older half of the group... Katie fumbled through her bag and made an impressive dent in her maths work. A brief flick through revealed the rest of the book to get much harder very quickly but it was probably no worse than her GCSE work had looked at first glance. She managed to sit through an hour of art while the teacher rambled on about some brilliant artist of the1700s she had never heard of, then her first sports science session grabbed attention. It wasn't hard to dismiss the nuisance in her head when she was interested in a subject, but as far as it dulled, it never quite went away. Lunch was the first chance she had to drop the smile that felt like a vice on her skin. It wasn't a bad headache as far as pain went. No woodpeckers trying to get out of her skull. Just a kind of light, cool pressure all over.

"You look like shit," Katie muttered to her reflection as she used her compact mirror and hair rush.

"You look like shit."

"I'm fine, thanks for asking, Leo. Wait... you didn't."

"About last night... you got shot."

"Did I? Well, I never knew that."

"You don't get it." There were too many people within earshot for this conversation. Not that the other kids were likely to listen to them, or care if they did, but even so... he grabbed Katie by the hand and tugged her over to a marginally quiet. Not that quiet here resembled quiet anywhere else.

Katie clung to her table for as long as she could. "I'll lose my seat."

"You're not eating."

"My bag?"

"You think any of these losers wanna steal a load of textbooks and tampons. Come on." Oh, that was just so wrong for Leo to be saying.

Oh, Christ, she did _not_ want to be having this conversation with him right now. Or ever, actually. Call it more a bad feeling than physical dread.

"You got shot, right. Messed up but it happens."

"Either I'm an accident magnet or God hates me."

He quirked an eyebrow at her and almost smiled. Almost. He was far too grouchy to ever crack a proper Cheshire Cat grin. "You were shot. There's no blood, no scar, nothin'. It ain't right, Katie, ain't right at all."

"Name one thing in this place that is right."

"What's wrong with you?" he demanded, stopping just short of grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her. One invasion of her personal space was enough for today – another was likely to send Katie screaming bloody murder. "Your life has been threatened so many times in less than three weeks and you act all 'okay, whatever' about it."

"I've got a monster headache, Leo. I haven't got the energy to give a crap so tell me... how should I react?"

"Act like this is serious," he ordered. "Your friend put a bullet through your head."

"Our friend."

"Whatever. You're sure it was Jaye?"

Katie thought about things. This pressure in her head had started right after she had been shot and it felt like it was spreading slowly. No scarring, no shattered skull or damaged grey matter. No damage anyone could see but what had it done to her insides? The bullet had been a ghost bullet, Jaye had said, when she could have easily taken physical form and used the real thing. It seemed that it had the same qualities as a Shade and could pass through anything solid without making any bodily impact.

"Is this guy annoying you?"

Katie glanced up. And up. She only knew one person here who was that tall and sure enough, it was the red haired young man who had helped her yesterday. He turned to Leo. "She's a kid, dude. Back the hell off."

"She can take care of herself."

"Sure she can. Sure she'd do it a lot better without you in her face too."

Leo shrugged. Maybe Katie would find things a lot easier if he wasn't at her side all the time, wanting to know what she was up to. Well, he was only trying to help. And he knew Katie wasn't exactly happy about any of this – just doing her best to hold it all together when any lesser person would have had a full-on breakdown. Accepting help obviously didn't come easy to the girl but God she _needed_ it. And if being a Christian wasn't about helping people, whether they appreciated it or not, then he was in the wrong religion. "We're just talking. Cool it."

"Talking. Talking does not leave bruises."

Katie looked down at her arm. Tiny red patches were darkening where Leo had held on to her. She bruised quite easily on her arms anyway, the limbs not being quite as road-hardened as her legs, but the marks were the least of her worries.

Filled with a sudden need to get out of this confrontation, Katie slipped past them without either noticing, grabbed her bag and rushed outside. Air. Cool, clean air. And it was everywhere. Now that the chaos of the cafeteria was not masking her headache, she realised how bad it still was. Katie set her back down on a bench under a tree, popped a couple more paracetamol and dry swallowed them. Urgh! Disgusting things. She wondered if Leo and the tall one had finished their fight, and then if it had remained a war of words of had devolved into fisticuffs. Much as the idea of two men fighting over her appealed, it would be a distraction she could do without. Too hard to explain both here and at home. But it would keep him out of the way for a while... that was important somehow. A few minutes before she had to head to her next class, Katie locked herself in the nearest toilet and looked in the mirror. She was pale, lined and shadowed by painful memories. The girl staring back could _not_ be Katie. And yet, it was. All she wanted was to forget the trauma of the last fortnight had ever happened and carry on trying to carve out a life for herself. Just be an ordinary girl on a running scholarship. But however screwed up this town was, it was hers and it was home.

She filled the sink with freezing water and splashed it all over her face, trying to shock herself into life. It helped a little. A memory of the previous night descended. Katie was looking down at her eerily still body on the floor of Shimma, feeling a wind from the open fire door. Only she wasn't there. Not really. Jaye was pointing a still-smoking gun at the air where Katie would have been standing. The grin she gave, the words she said, they were all too careless. They were all wrong. The shot Katie's eyes started fluttering and began to roll back in her head. She fought an impulse to sink to the ground and try to help, reminding herself that this was just a replay and she knew everything turned out alright. It was hard to convince herself that she wasn't just watching herself die but she had to force it to the back of her mind. She tried to focus on Jaye but it only made it harder to believe that she had been shot through the head by the girl she had thought was her best friend.

"Ghost bullets," Jaye said and backed off. For the briefest of instants there was a flash of something so completely and utterly horrified at what she had done. Then that emotional centre shut down and an unseeing hardness settled back over her.

Katie drifted after her. There were metal steps leading up the side of the building but Jaye was going around the side of the club. She glanced back at her physical body, still and pale, and told herself somebody _would_ come. "Does Dina really mean that much to you that you'd kill for her?"

"What do you think?" Jaye replied. A question for a question.

"Well done. She'd be very proud."

"Find them. Find where they're all hiding and take me there. I know you can do it."

"Why do you have to go there? I can find her. I'll bring her back Jaye, you know I will."

She smirked. Jaye knew that too. She took a step back and gripped one of the railings of the fire escape. She reached a hand out and gently pressed the spot in the centre of Katie's forehead, smiled the sparkly Jaye smile and then her teeth turned from enamel to metal shiny and grew points. And then this daydream world blipped away and Katie was back in the bathroom, frowning in the mirror. She put a hand to her face and checked everything was still where it should be. The reflection didn't seem entirely trustworthy. She didn't even fully believe that there wasn't a perfect round hole blasted through the centre of her forehead until her fingers poked and prodded it. Then something even more unexpected than sinking her fingers into the front part of her brain happened. Her eyes went completely black and shot through with purple streaks. Even when she took her hand away, the dark, inhuman eyes remained. Information began to clamour for entrance into her mind but Katie blinked before she realised that and her eyes went back to their ordinary dull brown.

"How is she?" The moment she asked that question of Mr Bayliss, Katie wished she could take it back. It was a stupid thing to say but hospitals didn't really seem to bring out the best in her.

Mr Bayliss, to give him his due, didn't seem to have taken her words on board, merely the fact that she was here and she had said _something_. Hours of nothing but beeps and buzzes probably made a guy glad of any human contact. "Waiting. It used to drive Dina crazy, you know. Waiting for the exam results over summer was worst, she always said. I thought coming out to visit me might help but the day her exams finished, she wanted the results. She did brilliantly, I knew she would, but she said waiting was the worst part. Even if she'd failed, she wanted to know straight away. At least it'd be over then."

A breeze of understanding touched her face. Was it the waiting to die that had driven to do this? According to Jaye, she had known when and where it was going to happen, and she definitely knew that she was coming back. But rhyme and reason were not things she could afford to worry about. Getting Dina back, if not completely fit and healthy again then at least back in this world and not lost in the End Place and standing on the edge. A realisation had come over her as she had been watching herself working the cross trainer to its limits in the huge mirrored wall at the gym. She had already figured out that getting Dina back would likely bring Jaye back home too. And she knew where the spirits were – or, at least, where they had been last time. Touching her head where the ghost bullet had buried itself deep inside activated some kind of sixth sense. It sent her eyes black and lined with purple every time, and she could see things. Things no person was ever mean to see. Things like dark clouds of energy, roughly humanoid in shape, lined up at the edge of a cliff. Only there was no sea or city below this cliff. Just a pit of nothing – a nothing which smelt of fire and blood and hate. Hate had never had a smell for Katie before.. a look and a horrible slimy feel sure, but she could add a bitter, acidic smell to that list. Every once in a while, the darkest of the shadows would move backwards and the closest Katie could come to describing it was that they just stepped off the edge and fell into that nothing. She had seen it happened twice, out of the thousands she could see crammed onto that clifftop of nightmares and the snail speed of it made the event all the more horrifying when it happened. There was silence when the dark shapes fell, a hush of respect or terror of _please don't let me be next_ and it was the worst silence she had ever heard.

Things like Dina against a backdrop of storm clouds and screams – a scene Katie recognised all too well because it had nearly been the last one she ever saw. She held her hand out into the angry storm, one foot in that world and the other on the calm grass leading to the cliff. The cloudless, blue sky of perpetual spring on the cliff spoke of perfection and tranquillity and she saw Dina suddenly step back into the figurative arms of the dark clouds of energy, buying into the dream it was showing her. Did she really believe this was some kind of Paradise?

Welcome to the End Place. It will be your turn soon.

Katie had woken from her vision with only one thing in her mind. She couldn't let Dina be next.

She walked over to the girl in the bed, only distantly aware that she was now alone and not really minding because she would have done this whether anyone had been there or not – it no longer felt like something in her control, or something that could be put off until later. Katie glossed over the chair and knelt at the bedside, taking Dina's hand in hers. If anything it felt even thinner and more breakable than a few days ago. If being in a coma was doing this to her body then what might it be doing to her mind? Her soul?

"I'm trying to get to you, Dina. I thought I found you but..."

You were so close. You were there, standing right next to us.

"Then, why couldn't I feel you? I dreamed you were there."

And we were. We are. But then she came looking for us and we had to hide. He hides us. He gave us shelter when she started searching.

"She?" There had been a hundred or more people at the club last night. She could be any one of them, but... "Jaye?" A low crackle like static buzzed in her head and Katie was sure this was the sound of Dina thinking – whatever mechanical process passed for thought in her drugged out state.

Not exactly. She is just... wearing her.

"I don't understand."

We know. And we wish we could explain it all to you, there's so much you need to know, but there are rules here. There isn't time.

"Dina, where are you?"

Too close. No-one said it would be like this.

The mix of voices fell apart and rejoined over and over as the next part came out. It was confusing for Katie to hear. Trying to understand each of these voices putting their contributions forward was a little disorienting but she knew that ignoring a single syllable would be a very bad idea.

Find us...

Thinnest part of your world...

It hurts...

Standing on the edge...

Too young to fall...

Know you can...

The possibilities...

Get to us first...

Don't trust her...

You can't give up...

Need rescue...

No-one tries...

Just don't look down...

A rush of wild power hut Katie like an invisible lightning bolt and she rocked back on her heels. She was glad she hadn't been sitting on the chair because a concussion on top of this headache would be just what she needed. "I'm coming, Dina. I'm coming." At least she already knew where she was going this time, even if she had no idea what to do once she got there.

Please hurry. Time is running out.

# Chapter nine

On her way out of the medical centre, she stopped for some reason at the vending machine, hit with a craving for something very bad for her. It wasn't often that chocolate or sweets won the battle over healthier snacks – much as she would love to give in to her sweet tooth more often, running demanded discipline which included diet as well as putting in the hours exercising.

Katie plugged coins into the machine and pressed buttons for a Twix. It was so simple. Just push a couple of buttons and something tasty came out the flap in the bottom. Everything should be that simple. Everything _had_ been that simple the previous morning for just a few precious seconds. Spending time with Jack felt so natural and so... so singular. The rest of the world had faded into the background and she had been driven by lust and hormones. There was him and there was her and then they touched and there was something wonderful. Wonderful and somehow terrifying. _What are we risking? And is it worth it?_ Why couldn't every minute of every day be that easy? Could there be no death or hurting each other? A world without running from one fight to the next, without secrets, without knowing things and remembering things she wished she could bleach out of her head. The pressure of everything finally built to breaking point on Katie. She caved in and cried. Shamelessly, helplessly, hysterically. Just stood there, hands pressing sweaty prints on the glass front of the vending machine, wailing loudly and trying to squeeze all the hurt out through her eyes. There was so much to do before she could let herself rest. No reason why she shouldn't cry. Katie was perfectly justified. But she didn't do any of it. A single tear rolled down her pale cheek.

"It's not your fault."

She turned around and leaned back on the machine, blinking back tears that threatened to fall, and saw Mr Bayliss sitting on one of the low blue seats opposite with a polystyrene cup in his hands. He was idly picking at the edges, looking rumpled and exhausted but not in the least worried. It chilled Katie to the bone to see him so calm.

"Sorry?"

He jerked a thumb in the direction of Room 4. "I don't mean this in a bad way but sitting in that room... it's so boring." Not in a bad way? How many ways were there to take it when you got bored of your only daughter? "I mean, she won't wake up. That doctor – de Rossa, is it? He said there's virtually no chance of that."

Katie just stood there watching him and nibbling her chocolate bar. Was it disrespectful to be stuffing her face when having such a grave conversation? Probably but Katie reasoned that she was of next to no use charging to the rescue on an empty stomach. She also felt that she should say something but figured it was better all round if she kept her mouth shut. The wrong thing might come out. Things didn't need to be any more complicated.

"I don't really know why I stay there all the time."

"Because she's your daughter. Being there is what a dad does."

"What about yours?"

"He'd come if I ever asked for him. I'm still his little girl, if he was two streets away or two hundred miles." And that was true. Her family would always come for her and she realised for the first time in at least 24 hours that one day they would come for her funeral. Somewhere along the way, that knowledge had stopped hurting. Not good not good not good.

"I guess I think that every bleep of that heart monitor will be the last one I hear, that every bag the nurses change will be the final dose of nutrients she ever needs. And I'm tired of it."

"You just need sleep. In a proper bed. With pillows and a mattress. You've been sleeping here, haven't you?"

"It's not too bad. The nurse lets me use the other bed in the room sometimes. I'm just scared to leave her, you know. Just in case."

"I know." And Katie did sympathise. It must be the one of the hardest things in the world to watch your own flesh and blood wasting away in a hospital bed and not even know the real reason why. _It was because of Jack,_ she suddenly remembered and stamped down a horrible sick feeling that her boyfriend had almost killed her friend. Or housemate, even though they hadn't really known each other well enough to be friends. _Yes, but remember why he put Dina in intensive care in the first place._ It was her. It was Katie. Jack had wanted to be near _her_ and had drawn the necessary energy from the nearest source. And that made her feel sickly responsible Katie resisted the urge to pour all these thoughts out to Mr Bayliss. There wasn't time. "Promise me you'll get some proper food if nothing else."

He held up three fingers in a mockery of the Boy Scout salute and dry washed her face, patting the seat next to him for Katie to sit down. She sat opposite, wanting to keep eye contact. "I know nothing can bring her back now and I just wish I could switch the life support off. Make it over. Because I think that where-ever her mind went to, it's just getting more and more lost."

"Sir," Katie swallowed and covered his hand with hers. She was a child. How was she meant to comfort this man with about 30 years on her? "It hurts everybody." And that was all she could think of to say without making things infinitely worse.

"Thank you, Katie. You're wise beyond your years."

Yeah, well, the madness she had walked into in Northwood was making her grow up real fast.

"If she won't wake up for me, then maybe she'll do it for you."

That was the plan.

What could he have meant – Dina might wake for her? What about telling her nothing was her fault? Did he know more than she thought? Dina could have told him any number of things over the summer. And he might, just might, have believed them. He may have bought into this tale of Shades and darkness and energy so bright and silver it made your eyes water just to look at it. No, Katie yelled inside her head, suddenly angry and upset. She was reading way too much into his empty words of comfort. They were just things everyone said in that situation.

There was a bin at the edge of the carpark and she threw her empty wrapper in that rough direction. Not having the best aim in the world, or even in the grounds, she walked over and picked it up from where it had fallen. Not leaving her rubbish all over the floor was something Mom had drilled into her since birth and she felt her mind drifting back to her old hometown of Worth. What were her family up to and were they thinking about her? _TV, homework, making dinner, playing on the computer. All so normal. All so used to be. Good memories. Moments so predictable and perfect and sepia-toned. She conveniently forgot about the rows and the tears and the miscarriage of her baby brothers. The hurt wasn't worth remembering. Not that. Not the violation under the bushes in the park. The carefree way she had been bouncing over the grass on her evening run; the terror as some man she could barely see silhouetted against the sun grabbed her and pushed her to the ground; the desperate need to push him off her and run far, far away. But he was too strong, too heavy, his grip was too tight. There would be bruises. Her brain fast forwarded through the worst parts, having just enough mercy to know she didn't need to see it again. But the screaming rang through. The high and panicked screams of pain and hate, the quiet whimpering when it was over. It sped through the moment when she glimpsed his face, when he lifted himself off her and turned to walk away as though nothing had happened and Katie blinked and he was gone. These were her memories, dammit, and she wanted them! There was something... Katie blinked and that was gone too. She was in a cold, white room feeling chilled and ashamed. A woman in green scrubs was fiddling with vials and tubes and swabs, putting them all into evidence bags and airtight tubs for the lab, while someone with a tiny digital camera for a face snapped images of her bruises and scratches. This felt somehow worse that the rape. The doctor pushed a sunshine yellow leaflet into her hand. VICTIM SUPPORT, it read. And the first line? IT'S NOT YOUR FAULT. Fast forward... crying, anger, hate, escape plans, pity, people trying to get into her head. This was worse again. A faceless man had raped her body, the police had raped her dignity and now saggy-faced therapists were raping her mind. Her brain tape jumped back to her snapping off the hospital ID band, putting on her old school uniform and walking into her second GCSE exam. Then there was a shot of Katie hugging her family goodbye when she moved to Northwood, hoping vainly for a way out of the dark._

And then the memory was over and Katie was bent in front of the bin gasping for breath. There wasn't enough oxygen in the world. She pushed the pain back and threw into the jumble everything that still haunted her from that stormy night, and slammed a mental door on them. Let all the bad things cook together. Maybe one would get antsy and kill another. A minimum of one less bad thing to deal with when she opened the door. She grabbed the top of the bin and pulled herself up to her full height. However tempting it was to curl in on yourself, cramming all her internal muscles in on themselves was never a good thing at this time of the month. The old school nurse had given the girls in her class a talk on the menstrual cycle once – and yes, it had been as embarrassing as it sounded – and the only thing Katie remembered was that she was meant to keep her body stretched as much as possible. Not even why. All she did know was that her womb felt stretched to its limits and that she felt she might just snap back in on herself like an elastic band. Crawling into her bed and closing her eyes for about the next day and a half sounded just great. No time for that either.

Katie closed her eyes and took a couple of deep breaths, trying to calm down and mentally prepare herself for what was coming next. It didn't work and all she got was the stench of decay and mould sticking to the insides of her nostrils. Katie moved away and tried again but inner peace eluded her grasping fingers for how can a person ready themselves for what they were about to run into when they did not know what the hell was waiting for them? She just felt cold, burning, still, leaping dread. That filled her with confidence. Katie didn't give herself time to wonder what she might see when she got... where-ever she was going in case she thought herself out of it (or into more trouble) and started cycling towards Shimma. A few streets away, she felt a sharp tug on her insides and nearly cried out. The first instinct was that Jack was trying to come with her. She so wanted it to be true. She knew it wasn't. Jack's pull was gentler, cooler, more of a question. This was just insistent. It had no feel to it; no texture or temperature.

Look and follow what you see. It's right here.

An invisible hand settled over her burning cheeks and stroked some of the heat away, cooling it a degree or two and pushing her headache down with it. The pain was still there, bubbling away under the surface and ready to pop back up as soon as she had time to sleep it off. It could stay there as long as it wanted. The hand travelled up to her head, traced the outline the ghost bullet should have blown in her head and, sensing Katie's fear and confusion at being touched by alien hands, pressed down. Her eyes went black and her vision turned in on itself, viewing her insides. She heard her own scream echo around inside her head.

Because everything was black.

Not decaying or dying – just black.

Brain, heart, liver, all the important organs. They were all functioning perfectly but red blood and white lines of tissue were just... black. Transfixed, she watched her lungs expand and retract as the oxygen rushed in and out of them. She watched the pulse in her arteries as fresh blood began its journey around her body. Counted her ribs, one, two, three, twelve pairs of them all protecting her vital organs from any nick or bump that might break their surprisingly thin membranes. Watched as her vocal chords vibrated with every sound she made. It was completely fascinating and absolutely disgusting. It was easy to see how Lainy had begun a career with the human body after seeing how complex yet fluid the process was. Imagine how this would all looking covered in the right layer of gore. It was also simple to see how she had just turned her back on it because life was such a fragile thing. Supported by thin walls of tissue and translucent blood vessels – it was so...

...so...

... breakable.

Katie watched one heartbeat, then a second, and then she waited. Nothing happened. Dead.

She didn't even have a moment to scream because, somewhere outside herself, she felt a seismic shift in the air. It just stopped moving.

Concentrating on restarting her heart, getting her lungs pumping again, Katie tried to keep her eyes closed and focused on the dark organs inside her. But they were wrong. Dark and lifeless and wrong – just functioning, passionless, and she had to open her eyes to keep from going crazy. A sinking feeling started in her head and travelled down her body. Katie was in a place she never wanted to be.

"Where am I?" But she knew. She was kneeling on even, green grass that was just a bit too perfect. Looking up, there were hundreds, maybe thousands, of patches of dark mist. They were still and silent to the world. They were almost watching her in their creepily human shapes. Beyond the first line of shadows Katie could not see and for that she was eternally thankful. What lay beyond... no. There was no sense in thinking about it. She was thinking about the smooth blades of grass and grains of soil that should be but weren't imprinting themselves in her knees. Thinking that she was on the bottom of a cliff and staring at all the spirits who had been speaking to her. "How the fuck did I get here?"

_The only way we knew how._ Well, that was specific.

"I'm dead," Katie muttered very calmly. It was only to be expected. After all, these Shades had only gotten to this God-forsaken place by dying before any master plan had meant them to; the same rules should apply to Katie. It was only fair that she should behave to come here by the same means that they had, and if that meant being temporarily dead then... wait, this _was_ temporary, right? Uncertainty bubbled over. "You killed me! You fucking killed me!"

Did you think this would be easy? Just walk up to the wall, the very edges of our power, reach through and hold tight then just pull us back. You thought you wouldn't have to work for this? There wouldn't be some price to pay?

"I didn't expect it to be my life!"

_It won't last. You might be dead but the world still turns, still thinks you are in it. This is confusing but trust us._ Why is it that people who ask for your trust usually don't deserve it? After these dark things had saved her last week, Katie felt obliged to put her confidence in them. _Your body is still walking, talking, watching TV, but your mind is here with us._

"You've practically turned me into a zombie? Thanks ever so much."

Not exactly disbelieving what they were telling her Katie reached down to her wrist and felt for a pulse. It was faint and far too fast to last. She was dying. Her heart was beating hundreds of times every minute and that speed could only lead to a massive, fatal crash.

We need to tell you things. No, stay down. You might fall. None of us belong here, Katie, but we have to stay until... that can come later. We stay here, and we have to know the edge is close. It used to be that we just stood there and waited and every so often, one of us would jump off and go to the Other Place. Then she came and the process is quicker. She points at you and you step back. Because she demands that the Other Place gets its fill.

"She? Does she have a name?"

Maybe it will be simpler if you think of her as Jaye.

Think of this shit-scary She as her friend? It was wrong on so many levels that she didn't want to consider. "You said She was just wearing her."

We're so glad you're here.

"Yes. We truly are." Jaye strode across the too-green grass and whispered the words. They carried over the still, lifeless air and reached Katie's ears as clear as a bell. She was wearing black combat trousers, muscle shirt and looking for all the world like a girl on a mission. Her tiny five feet one could easily have been six feet. No weapons, none of the usual make up, nothing but herself and a steel edge all around her and rippling out towards Katie. "We've been waiting ever so patiently."

You will find a way. You must. See, you're the one who listened. We called and you answered. But your sheriff came and everything changed. We don't have to stay here any longer. All you have to do is get us out before She picks another one.

"Tick tock tick tock. What's the time Mr Wolf?" said Jaye. Thinking of She as Jaye was heart-breaking because She was only using her friend's body, but Katie was finding it a bit too difficult to keep the two separate. She looked like Jaye, She sounded like Jaye, that was good enough for now.

"My watch broke. Tell me."

"Not yet, babe, not yet."

"Huh. The big scary can't even tell time. I'll put that on your list of weaknesses."

"Fight me with time?" Jaye laughed in a very fake way. A patronising sound. "Good luck with that. Beat me to death with the giant hands of a clock? Maybe empty a million egg timers over my head?"

Okay, bad situation quickly turning worse.

"Why are you killing them now, Jaye." You never know. The sound of her own name might bring Jaye out of whatever corner of her own mind she had been shoved in. "Jaye, listen to them. They were fine just waiting here. You don't have to change that."

_But She does._ They sounded sad about that – sad and honest. And as she watched, she felt Jaye raise a finger and release a stream of absolute nothingness behind her and she saw the edge of one distant dark shape move back and then drop from view. Katie could understand how She made them do that. Even with this dead flow passing within inches of her right ear, it was making her want to lie down and curl into a foetal position, shivering and trembling and as frightened as a newborn. _You don't understand yet but She does. Nothing She does is beyond order._

"Where is he? I told you to send Jack."

"I'm here now, and I'm the best you're getting."

"You can't find her."

Katie shrugged. "Watch me."

Then Jaye started to walk over the grass towards her and Katie had the most sensible idea she thought she'd had in days, before the Shades, or future Shades, or whatever the hell these were, had the chance to roar it at her.

RUN!

Because that didn't seem like a harmless grin, and those arms weren't pumping for a hug.

Katie turned on the heel of one well-worn pump and sprinted off in the opposite direction. In every direction was smooth green grass and empty blue sky – everywhere to run and nowhere to hide. Fantastic. She could sense Jaye somewhere behind her, maybe miles back at the cliff, maybe right at her heels. She slowed a little, knowing that Jaye couldn't be right at her back without transport – hoping but the word knowing made everything sound a bit more hopeful. She put her hands on her knees and bent to catch her breath. Sitting down and resting sounded good but Katie resisted for two reasons. First, she did not want to be out here on the open ground for longer than she needed to be. Second, she knew she would have to continue in a minute, so letting her muscles seize up wasn't an option. Pumps weren't the ideal running shoes but her trainers were in her locker. With the homework she still had to do tonight. _Sorry, sir, I was dead last night._ Would her tutors buy that excuse? Probably not. Not since other dead students managed it. She was turning herself in circles over the dilemma when she felt a thin breeze push the left side of her back and blew a few strands of her hair vaguely left. Katie didn't even pause to wonder where the breeze had come from in this dead air; she just followed it on instinct and ran in a roughly north west direction. Sure enough, after about ten minutes of jogging, a thin line of trees sprang up. However sparse they were, they were big and droopy enough to provide cover for a while. Katie was so relieved to see them that she almost got down on her knees and wept. It wasn't the running that had tired her out – she had been in longer races and still been full of beans after – or the knowledge that somewhere behind her were a thousand dark spirits just waiting to be sent to the Other Place. It was pretty much everything else. It was knowing she was dead in the real world and dying in this one, although no—one else knew apparently. It was feeling this air of absolute nothingness all around. It was knowing she was all alone out here. It was the thought that she might not be able to save the shapes up on the cliff.

It was the thought that that she might not be able to save herself.

"How the hell do I get out of this place anyway?" she asked the calm, unanswering sky. Not that Katie was expecting an answer.

Save us and we can show you.

She jumped. Having some ghostly voices talk back to you when you had just resigned yourself to being completely and utterly alone had that effect. Katie shook her head and fixed her gaze on the thin line of trees – willows, she reckoned, weeping willows. They were recognisable as the same types as the pair that had so often had FINISH banners tied to them in the old park. It made her nostalgic for her childhood, the simplicity of youth. Homesickness threatened to creep in but Katie breathed deep, held her head high and stalked over to the leafiest of the trees, determined not to give in to this wash of sadness. At least, not where anyone could see her.

Knees brought up to her chin and branches dropping low enough to the ground that no-one could what or who they were hiding unless lifted, Katie let herself relax just a tiny bit. Let tension trickle out of her, little by little. It wouldn't do to let go of all that tension though. She could rest, not be on the alert for Jaye following her for a while, but she couldn't forget that something small but so incredibly powerful was coming for her. "Why? Why is She after me?"

But that was pretty obvious. Jaye, or whatever had control of her, knew she could save those (not-quite) Shades and was gunning to stop her from doing that.

She put her hand up to her head and touched the place where the bullets had sank through her head. It still didn't hurt, there was just the familiar cool pressure on the front of her skull. It was a strange sensation. Jaye hadn't wanted to hurt her, just scare the bejesus out of her. And that meant she was still important. This was still possible.

Something made Katie peek out of the gaps between the branches – some sixth sense that danger was not too far away – but no-one was in sight. It didn't necessarily follow that nobody was around, Katie thought. She knew, or suspected, that Shades could drift unseen through the mortal world, so maybe they could in this one too. Maybe she was just making this a whole lot more dangerous than it needed to be. This was the world of the Shades – or some seriously messed up part of it – so they couldn't have superpowers in their own world. It just wasn't sensible.

No. What Katie needed to do was very simple.

Work out how to save the spirits.

Work out how to get this She out of Jaye's body.

Work out how to get out of the End Place. Go home and let everything get back to normal.

So simple and yet... it wasn't going to be simple at all, was it?

"Why does it have to be me that fixes everything?"

_Because you listened._ What was wrong with a straight answer? Old fashioned, sure, but a lot easier. _You know this, Katie. She knows you can save us. She knows how strong you can be. But if you take us away from here, then She has no-one to send over._

"And then She's out of a job? Boo frikkin' hoo."

You know it's not that simple. None of us are ready to go yet but She doesn't care. It could be in five minutes or five months but we all go over. We need you to get us out of here before it's anyone else's turn.

So... she was on a schedule too.

_And it might be mine._ That was Dina's voice. In all the stress, Katie had forgotten that she was the one she had primarily come here to save. That sounded awful, so cold-hearted, that a dead friend should just slip her mind but there it was. She wanted to cry but there just weren't any tears left for her to find. Enough tears had been shed over Dina. Katie sat back and rested her head on her knees so she was staring at the grass, slightly darker and more uneven here due to the shadow of the trees. She had the feeling that she was quite a distance away from the dark shapes at the edge of the cliff but she could feel the power radiating from them as strongly as if they were right next to her. Obviously, getting a more safe hidey hole to use was a priority, but once Katie had caught her breath she felt ready to go outside again. She trusted that a new place to rest would show itself when it was good and ready.

Pushing the branches out of her way and scrambling to her feet, Katie scrunched her eyes up against the brilliant blue sky – even in such a short time her eyes had grown accustomed to the cool gloom under the trees – and discovered that she could see the edges of something dark and thready looking in the distance. Shades. Lining up to fall into the pit. Katie had not run as fast or as far as thought. _Maybe it's just getting closer._ Whilst she was scanning that dark line, she hardly felt the cool, dead feeling creeping all over her.

"You can't hide."

"Shit! What..!?" When Katie turned, there was no-one in sight.

"You can run but sooner or later I _will_ find you. And her. And it will be your turn."

Jaye may not be saying these things but it didn't make sense. "Can't you even say her name? Dina's your best friend, Jaye, your best friend. The least you can do is say the name of the girl you're so eager to kill off. And you can tell me why this is so damn important."

"Because the order changed. Some people were meant to die and they didn't. So, if the Other Place can't have a living soul..."

"Then it can have some dead ones," Katie finished.

A slow handclap ghosted through the air. "Babe, you catch on fast."

"Dina is still alive. You can't have her."

"Alive, yes. See what you can do about that."

"I'm not killing anyone for you. You're not hurting anyone I care about." But She was gone. Katie felt the still air settle into an absolute peace, and Jaye drift away as casually as if she was just bored with the conversation. Katie walked around to the other side of the tree and looked straight ahead. The willow she had used for shelter was on the edge of, not thick woodland, but a kind of forest a dozen trees deep and stretching out in circular clumps as far to the left and right as she could see. Every slow step she took through the undergrowth was taking her further away from the people she needed to help and that hurt. Made her so sad. She couldn't resist a look back when she got almost to the edge of the circle of trees. They were so far away now. So far. She couldn't even see them anymore. Blocking her vision were trees, distance and... she had to get there. Had to be near them. Had to save them, no matter the cost. There was only her. Nobody else knew what she knew, could see what she saw and oh God it was so beautiful.

Katie was barely aware that she had folded to her knees and was on her way to kissing mud until she felt strong solid arms grabbing her waist and holding her upright.

Christ, I didn't know this would happen.

Before Katie even knew what she was doing, she latched on to that edge of panic in that thought and pulled herself out of this well of nightmares and silent threats she was drowning in. but she could see pictures, remember every detail but it was as if her mind was on mute, her nerves turned to numb. And then one sentence penetrated her mind and screams came out of her mouth like they were going out of style.

"Shush, Lady Katie. Everythin's okay now, I'm here. Hush now Lady Katie." It took another few minutes of Jack holding her and trying to whisper the ache away before she was calm enough for him to stop worrying some-one would hear them.

"Jack?"

"The very same."

"You shouldn't be here." It was wrong. There was just something about Jack that shouted how uneasy he was at being here. It was more than that. There was a solidness to Jack that had never been there before, his touch had human weight, his eyes had true fear in them, true and human and very real.

"No." That was all there was to say on the subject. Or, at least, all he was prepared to say for the moment.

He stood up and dragged Katie up with him. "And they chivalry is dead."

"Sorry. Should I let you get up yourself and get concussion on the way back down?"

"Wow. The cowboy comes back shooting."

"You're impossible."

"One of my finer qualities."

"What I mean is, you're gonna get yourself killed one day."

"One day. Not today."

"You seem confident 'bout that."

Katie stopped her run across the next stretch of grass, quite surprised that Jack had been able to keep pace with her, and hugged him hard. She never wanted to forget what he felt like as a solid person. "I'm like Dina, the way I figure it. I flirt with fate, dance with death, all that poetic crap but the world will find a way to keep me alive until it's time for me to go."

"And how can you be sure that won't be tonight?"

"Call it a feeling."

They went back to running, joining hands somewhere along the way, not knowing exactly where they were going. Without speaking, they both knew what they were running _from_ though. It felt as though they had covered miles and miles of this untouched beauty dotted with only the occasional weeping willow searching for water below ground level, but it was probably less than one mile.

"Stop. Katie, stop." Jack dug his feet in to the ground and touched her right arm, bringing his girlfriend to a reluctant halt. "Where are we going?"

Katie didn't know. Not a clue. All that she knew was she needed to get far away – far away meant safety, far away meant civilisation. But she turned and pulled her arm away from Jack. Even here, his touch sent an icy fire through her, tickled every nerve ending, made her want to cuddle into his embrace and never move again, and that was a distraction Katie clearly didn't need. No matter how much she actually _wanted_ it. "How do we get out of here?"

"Find a thin place between your world and this one. Break through that wall."

"Break through? Just what – punch a hole in it? And how will I know when we find it?"

"You'll know. It shimmers."

"Helpful." As in, not at all. "Why are you here? How did you get here?"

He took her face in his hands and tilted her down until she was locked into his ocean deep eyes. What he was about to say would hurt less this way. "I couldn't find Jaye in my world and I called for you to tell you. But there was nothing there. Not just too little for me to hold on to but just nothing. And there's only ever one reason for that. I'm sorry, Lady Katie... you're dead."

Her jaw worked for a few seconds and a hundred emotions flitted through her mind from anger to confusion to fear to a vague sense of _oh._ Finally she settled on a response she though was highly inappropriate but so irresistible it was the only one which made sense. She laughed. Really let out her amusement at the complete absurdity of it all. She fell down to the ground and let rip. Jack stared down at her, not understanding how a person could be so blasé about their own death. But her giggles were infectious and within minutes he was stretched out beside her and laughing too. Katie had a flash memory – _her running, falling, Jack chasing, so scared he might hurt her, laughing in his face, him laughing with her, calling her beautiful_ – and dropped flat on her back. She shouldn't be remembering that. Over the last couple of days she had been remembering a lot of things that she hadn't even known were in her head.

"Jaye's here. Well, some-one wearing her body. That's why you couldn't find her."

"She's here?"

"Yeah, and I think we need to save her too."

"You did hear me? You're dead, Lady Katie."

"I know." She shrugged. What could she do about it now? "But no-one knows except us. So...."

"I don't know how you can be so calm about this."

"If you knew the shitstorm raging in my head at the moment – being dead is kind of a relief." However melodramatic that sounded, it was true. "I know I have a job to do but here... it's easier. I know I should be stressing and everything but I just don't feel anything."

"Nothing?"

"Nuh-uh. Nada."

Oh.

Jack wriggled closer and stretched an arm over the grass to hers and laid his fingers over hers, entwining her fingers with his. It made him nearly smile when she responded, her fingers grasping without conscious thought. "You're sure about that?"

"Jack," she muttered, breath catching just at his touch.

"Yes Katie?" He turned his head on his side to face her. God, she was pretty. Not in the model way or airbrushed to death way but by looking so ordinary, so average and yet not average at all. Her brown eyes held shadows that had no right to haunt a girl so young; her skin which should be marked and bloody was unblemished; her smile was bright and real where others might never have smiled again.

"No fair."

He was well aware that he brought something out in her, something she once told him she feared she would never feel again. She trusted him.

"You know you make me feel things, Jack. Whether they're good or bad, you make me think my nerves are on fire and that my skin will peel away where you touch me. This thing between us... I don't know what it is but part of me died a bit after the attack. I hated getting close to people in case they hurt me, I couldn't talk to anyone because they were _my_ problems, I was ready to run from anybody I didn't know, I ran from you... and you let me. And I fell a little bit in love with you for that." The hand that wasn't tangled in Jack's shirt dug into the ground, grinding fine soil beneath her nails. It felt wrong after the clots of dirt the academy grounds offered. She reminded herself that it _was_ wrong. Not one single thing in this place was-

The thought never even got finished. As if time had jumped a scene or two, Jack was suddenly on top of Katie, one knee on either side of her stomach and stroking his hands down the lines of her neck and shoulder blades. Then he thumped his closed fists above her head and growled. A low animal sound of barely contained lust.

Go with it.

It's okay.

Katie lifted her head to him and frowned a question. Not that she was entirely unhappy with the current state of events but an explanation of some kind would be handy. Just a summary. None was forthcoming, though Jack put one hand over his mouth and put a finger to his lips with the other. Obviously he could hear something she could not.

"Trust me?"

Katie stared up at him, wishing he would tell her what he was hearing. Instead she nodded against his hand. What happened next was just a mish mash of earthy colours, greens and browns and sandy gold all running into each other and morphing into a deep green igloo structure. She recognised it as the shelter of a willow tree but not the one she had used earlier. Jack frowned as if his feeling had gotten stronger, not faded now he was hiding. The tension running through him was seeping into Katie and making her breathe hard and fast. Not hyperventilating. She had hyperventilated before, the day she had moved to Northwood, and feeling as though there wasn't enough oxygen in the world was nothing like this. This was trying and failing to regulate her breathing.

"Relax, Lady Katie. We're fine. Just relax."

Easier said than done. "Why the trees?" she asked to distract herself.

"Everywhere needs hiding places." He curled his fingers up and traced her lips, leaning closer and closer until he was just a twitch away from kissing her. "And we're gonna need hidin' places."

Why?

_Don't get me into any more danger. Don't take my memories. Don't tell me everything's going to be okay. I know things are screwed up in_ so _many ways, I know you're scared to be here. Tell me what I can do to make this better. Tell me how I can fix this so our friends come back. Most of all tell me why._ Jack didn't do any of that though the old shadows in his green eyes told her he had heard her silent pleas. They were deeper, purer. He kissed her. Just one chaste brushing of their lips but Jack thought it might be enough. Too much. His body was screaming for more but he refused to give in again. It cost too much.

Katie pulled away an inch or two, licked her lips and raced through the last few days. Was the hurt still there? Did she remember what she was here to do? For the moment, she didn't care. Katie put her hand on Jack's chest, wrapped her hand in his t-shirt, pulled him in and lost herself in his kiss. There was one alarming second when Jack was the one who didn't respond but it did not take long for him to yield to her, close his eyes and pretend he was seventeen and still alive in America. Back then, falling in love had no strings, no price to pay. He didn't exactly have bundles of practice with women but with Katie... it was so easy. They were breaking rules and making more up. He frisbeed his hat to the floor and ignored every single rational thought in his head that screamed how dangerous this was.

Together, the pair didn't really notice the ripples going through the air. The first thing Katie saw was a Dark shape falling across the leaves, only her brain did not register it as anything important enough to worry about. So she forgot about it. And then the sagging branches were either pulled back, pushed aside or plain broken off. A dark figure crouched down in the gap. It was dark inside and light out and therefore impossible to see any features, but there was only one person it could be.

"It'll never work," said Jaye.

Katie and Jack pulled apart, trying not to stare at each other but not doing a very good job. It was so easy to get lost in his sea green eyes. But there were more important things than their (strange) relationship. She turned to face her friend.

"Whatever you're thinking of... it won't work. You can't save everyone, babe."

"I'll die trying."

Jack grabbed her hand and knew in one touch that she meant it. Whole-heartedly and fundamentally, Katie would give her life to save her friends, even the shapes on the cliff. She didn't know them, couldn't know them but she knew their fear and their desires for freedom. And whatever Katie thought about those who had hurt _her_ , she would never see an innocent get hurt. He let go of her and slid a few inches away, looking between her and Jaye. Who smiled, snorted and shook her head at the floor.

"No, you won't."

Katie put her knees to one side and rested on the balls of her feet, hands clasped n her lap. Her brain was... tingly. Could a brain be described as tingly? Sparks were jumping, connecting, coming to life and then dying and she could feel it all. Like she could feel her heart beat fluttering like a panicked bat, or blood rushing through her veins as though her veins were fast flowing streams. No longer was she just academically aware of her body functioning in a heightened state. No more did she just know she was dying – now she could feel it. She could feel everything. And everything was not good.

Jaye raised her head and fixed her gaze in the curve of branches behind them. "Sooner or later, you'll have to choose. Make it a good choice. But then, I have every confidence in you."

"Tell me something."

"Say please."

"Please. All of this. Why? Why did it ever come to this?"

"Hmm. I guess I could tell you. I won't. But I could."

"Thanks for the help. You were my friend, Jaye."

"Yeah. She's not coming back, none of them are, you might as well give up."

"Dina's my friend too. You know that won't happen."

"Uh-huh, thought so but you can't blame a girl for trying. Besides," Jaye duck-walked further into their shelter and reached out. Katie scrabbled back, not wanting those fingers anywhere near her face, but Jack sent her a look. _I won't let her hurt you. I'll kill her before she even thinks it._ That, coupled with the overwhelming aura of peace that radiated from those grasping, gasping, somehow grieving ( _for what?)_ digits made Katie hold still and let whatever was about to happen, happen. They stopped short of actually touching her though. "I'm hardly your only problem, am I?"

"What? If Jaye is anywhere in there, she wouldn't hurt me."

"She's a fighter," Jaye grinned. That was Jaye's smile; that was her sparkle. This thing in Jaye's body had simply squashed itself in and pushed Jaye to one side. She was still there. But the intensity of power Katie could feel from the girl made her wonder how much longer her friend would be able to hold on. "I was all for real bullets but no, she said that was dangerous. Said it might hurt you and really, it wouldn't do me any favours to kill you just yet."

Katie let her mind flash through a hundred different realisations. The most important two were the knowledge that Jaye was still strong enough to have some control over what She did. The second was that She needed Katie alive for some reason.

"Why? You need me. What for?"

"It won't do you any good but I'll humour you. There are a thousand Shades on that cliff. All lined up like lemmings. Aww. Where one jumps, the others follow. They're all going over. How quickly that happens is neither here nor there really."

"As long as the Other Place gets their souls eventually."

"You _do_ catch on quick, girlie. One spirit who shouldn't be here, one soul who should have fallen, somewhere in that mess. And you can – and will - find it." Jaye paused. Katie watched her carefully, painfully aware suddenly that this snake who had taken her friend over was capable of pretty much anything if she took her eyes off you. "And, believe me, I'll be watching."

# Chapter ten

Things had just got infinitely worse.

It hadn't seemed possible a few moments ago but barriers had broken and worse had flooded out.

"And if you don't find her... well, let's hope it never gets that far." And then Jaye was gone. No gradual misting away or cinematic puff of smoke. She just rose and walked off as if they'd just had a casual conversation.

"I'll make you a deal." Katie called after her.

You will?

The words were out before she had thought them through. Making a deal with Jaye could seriously backfire on her but she was thinking positive. Mostly _I'm positively screwed_ but at least there was no doubt there. "Just hear me out, okay. A trade."

She stopped, a black figure in the distance, too far away for human ears to hear. Still air must carry sound very well although it ripped from Katie's throat like a desperate whisper. "A trade? How... cliché."

"I'm fresh out of originality Jaye. And you know you need to deal if you want your way."

Jaye turned and started to dawdle back up to the tree igloo. Treegloo? She was walking very slowly as if thinking about each step before taking it.

"What are you thinkin' of?" Jack hissed as they waited. "You can't make a deal with her. You can't trust her."

"Give me another choice then. Seriously, if you've got any better ideas... no? Look, making some kind of bargain is the only way to do this." Katie shifted position and straightened her long legs out in front of her, leaning back on her elbows. She looked a lot cooler and calmer than she felt. "I'm not kidding myself here. A lot of those Shades up there probably need to be here. Most of them likely don't have bodies to go back to any way but Dina does. And when we find her, we'll find a way to get her back in it."

"We will?"

"Yes. _We_ will. I hate to remind you, Jack, but you put her here. You took energy when she was at her lowest and tipped her over this edge."

"I came for you! And she tried to commit suicide. She must have known this was a possibility."

"She didn't try to kill herself so don't tell me she wanted this! It was a cry for help!"

"With blood and broken glass?"

"No-one was listening!" Katie yelled. And the she couldn't stop the tears that clogged her throat and turned her voice heavy and thick. No tears escaped her eyes even though Katie wished to God they would. Just so they weren't inside any longer.

"Ooh, the blame game. Can I play, or is this a private argument?"

"It's not an argument. Or a game."

Jaye stayed hunkered down between the broken branches.

"You can't find Dina on your own, right?"

Jaye nodded. "That's why you're going to do it for me."

"No, that's _what_ I'm going to do for you. The why – we need to talk about that." Katie took a deep breath and hoped she sounded like she knew what the hell she was doing. Not even her brain had decided what this deal should be and was starting to curse her for ever mentioning the word. "We'll find her. And you can have her."

"Katie-"

She waved Jack quiet. "You let us go home, unharmed, and take all the Shades that we can."

"One way in, one way out. Okay, I'll let you go... if you can find it."

"You get Dina, you get all the ones I leave behind. And you get my promise not to fight when my time comes. In return, you also get out of Jaye's body and let her come home too. We miss her."

"Bodies are easy to find. I'm not particularly attached to this one anyway. She was so vulnerable. Really, it was too easy to take this one." Jaye slapped her thigh and rose to leave.

"Do we have a deal? Jaye, do we have a deal?"

"This is crazy. She's never gonna keep to her word."

Jaye turned and grinned at Jack. "Don't think I've forgotten. Getting a kid to fight your fights. Tut tut tut."

Katie resisted the urge to ask what was going on. There was no mistaking the sparks jumping between her two friends. Not the good kind either. Instead she put out her hand for Jaye to shake, braced for the dead temperatureless flesh. The girl paused, weighing up her options and then took it. Obviously, She had decided She was getting the better end of the deal.

"What's wrong with you? My girl is smart and strong and –"

"I'm not your girl. I'm my girl. I'm your girl _friend_ and we need to make that official. Go on a date, misuse the backseat of a car. Find somewhere cars work." She laughed and snuggled in close to Jack. This moment would be short and, she feared, not very sweet. "You're losing your touch, cowboy." She sensed more than saw him turn his face to her. "I remember stuff I didn't know I knew. I forgot Mom was pregnant before Dan, that's how young I was. Mom lost the babies and that was the first, maybe only, time I saw her cry. But here I remembered that. I think I knew it but I kind of blocked it out."

"It was a dead memory. It comes back to life here."

"I remember you." Katie cupped his cheek in her palm and stroked his cheekbone with the pad of her thumb. "The first time we met, the first time we kissed. All of it. I thought you wiped everything but it's come back."

Jack frowned, then brightened, drawing the same conclusion Katie had. "You'll forget when you go back."

"Maybe. Probably. But, don't you get it?"

"We're safe to be together here. I can kiss you and you'll know who I am."

Katie scooted out of the half globe of the tree and rolled to her feet, stretching out the muscles and joints that had stiffened while they sat. Being able to kiss Jack and not have him mess with her memories, whether he meant to or not, sounded great on the surface but deeper than that..? She was remembering more than she wanted to. Things she had worked hard to block out of her mind. And now all those things were coming back. She wanted those memories, needed to know the things they had to show her, but they were frightening. Frightening because they were real; frightening because she wanted more and more; frightening because they were the most painful home movies. And they didn't hurt a bit.

She looked younger. Happier. A brown haired girl in grey cargo trousers, a tank top and pumps. All grey, uniform grey. She was running. Her rubber soles slap on the gravel, thud on the grass and she half-closes her eyes and slows her breathing to fit her steps. It's so easy to get lost to this beat. Sometimes, the girl brings her MP3 player – the one her parents had given her for her birthday and had engraved with KATIE RUN WHERE YOU WANT BUT ALWAYS RUN HOME – but not tonight. Tonight, the only music Katie needs is her own body. It is not the only music she gets though. Another set of footsteps has joined hers. They are walking, too light and close together to be running. But they're close. There is a chase, a struggle, and Katie suddenly finds herself pinned to the ground and staring up at a man looming over her. She takes a breath to scream and then never uses it. Something catches her eye but she can't focus on it. Not just yet. There is a thick aura of hate, pure and bloody hate, that she must wade through first. It is thick as glue and as corrupting a battery acid. It is suffocating her. But, through the black and red fury, Katie sees something metal glinting in the late spring sun.

The man on top of Katie growls something and she knows she must listen, must do everything he tells her to. So she is still and quiet as the pain begins; as his rough hands paw at her skin and rip at her clothes. The sun catching on metal gives her something to focus on and let this horror happen to some other Katie Cartwright. And then he is gone and the metallic gleam is gone and she lies curled there, tattered clothes and all, shivering and skirting the edges of shock until someone finds her and helps her to hospital.

Oh, they ask. The police want a description, a blow by blow account of the attack, any details she might remember. So many more questions she couldn't begin to answer.

Katie shook herself free of this memory, knowing it had shown her something important but also that she could figure out what it was later. She pulled Jack up with a lot more grace than he had shown and flung her arms around his neck. "Jack, I want you to take these memories away. I just want them to stop, okay?"

"I wish I could. But you're only remembering the things you need to know."

So why did she remember her mother having a miscarriage? It didn't seem important.

She hadn't even formed the thoughts into any coherent sentences but Jack read them clearly. Maybe it was a sign of their deepening connection. Maybe it was just because this was pretty much his home turf. "You said it yourself – you were too young to un'erstand and I'm guessin' it was never explained to you. But they were your family. You need to grieve for your brothers."

"Let's just hope I'm not grieving for dead friends too at the end of the day." Katie shielded her eyes with one hand and squinted out into the endless blue. "Right, objective one, find Dina. You go that way and I'll go this." She pointed him to her right and smiled. It felt good to have some kind of plan. Mostly because, even if it all went horribly wrong, there was a clearly defined statement of intent. A quick kiss for luck – man, she wasn't getting tired of _that_ – and they both turned in their opposite directions.

Jack stopped but didn't turn around. "You can't trust her. She wont keep to her word."

"That's why we're going to double cross her first."

# Chapter eleven

All along the cliff edge were dark shapes. They edged the crumbling precipice as far as the eye could see and were lined up a dozen deep. Just waiting in line to take a dive.

Which one of these writhing masses of shadow was Dina? They all looked the same. But their voices were oh so different. Some cried, some screamed and some sang. And some didn't make a sound. It felt as though Katie had been half-jogging past these figures all day but the sky never darkened and she never got tired. That was undoubtedly a bonus but it also meant that there were thousands more souls trapped here than she had ever imagined. Unless, and Katie was already hoping, she had been walking around in circles and was seeing the same Shades over and over again.

At one patch of grass that looked identical to every other patch of grass on this slope, Katie stopped to suck in more empty air, figuring that the more lifeless oxygen she took in, the more chance there was of shaking her lungs back into life. Pulse was still racing. Muscles felt stretched to breaking point. Only the ache deep inside was easing. The bathroom was becoming a significant problem now. Katie was starting to feel uncomfortable. She looked behind her, fumbled in her pocket for tissue and headed for a tree to go behind.

You're still too far away. You won't make it. But you should keep trying.

She yelped and whipped around. Of course there was nobody there. The voice, loud as it had been, had not come from any flesh and blood person but from inside her head. Or, more philosophically, from one of the souls near the edge. Dina.

I tried to hold on. This pull is too strong.

The pull? It had to be whatever was below the drop, maybe a physical tug, maybe just a promise of an end to all the suffering. Either option sounded tempting at the moment.

I can sense you, Katie. Your energy burns so bright it's like a flare. A flame of violent, vital life and it gets brighter, hotter, with every step you take. I can't see the others here, their energy is dead, but I can see how hard you're trying, everything you are risking. But you can't save me. I'm nearly there.

"I'm not giving up on you, Dina. Not now."

We thought there was a way.

"There is a way."

It won't be soon enough. You might be able to save the others. Hug my dad for me?

That, Katie thought, was the cruellest goodbye ever. Her last thought was her father. No tears, no protest, nothing. Just one last request and then Dina was gone.

_NO!_ Katie roared it at herself. Those wouldn't be Dina's last words. She'd eat worms before that happened. Fuelled by a sudden rage, Katie stormed up to the slope of the cliff and started to thunder through the dark shapes, back the way she had come. They all reached for her, dark energy curling out to touch her and Katie didn't want those things anywhere near her. Yes they had saved her once and yes she was meant to be returning the favour but suddenly, being touched by dead things, not fit to be ghosts and too weak to be corpses, sent shivers right through. So she tore her way through. Pushing through this suffocating black mass where she could and clawing her way through, dark tangles ripping free and being shaken to the ground, when necessary. She hated these things for keeping hold of Dina. It was wrong. Deeply and desperately wrong. What gave them the right to keep people against their will? What made them think they had to end everything and just resign themselves to that fate? It was weakness. Sheer bloody weakness and Katie had seen way too much of that.

In the middle of the group, one dark shape twisted to her, seeming to perform a perfect Exorcist spin. These things might have been human once but any shred of human behaviour was long gone. It opened its' mouth, or something moved slightly where a mouth should be.

You promised.

"No, I didn't." Had she though? Katie did not remember making any vows – only being told that there was a way to get them away from here, and that she would find it. Even the coming here hadn't been her choice. "I told you I couldn't do it. I told you that but you were insistent." Were they taking her mere presence as some kind of promise?

We suffer and you stand there.

Said with a venom Katie had never heard from the Shades before. Perhaps they could tell how close to rescue they were and were simply not going to accept that their freedom would never happen. She'd be angry too if someone had taunted her with the prospect of saviour and then turned their back. "I'm not abandoning you. None of you. But there are lives at stake here – lives that still belong in the human world. And, whether you like it or not, I'm saving those first." She turned to the black lined clifftop and took a step towards it. Then one thready figure shoved out and sent Katie thudding to the ground. Obviously, they didn't like it. For bundles of dark energy and shadow, they were sure solid enough to hurt. _Okay, I'm going to pretend that was an accident._

_It was no accident._ Shape after shape crowded around her until everything was a squirming purple-black blanket. The sky was black, the ground dark, and they were everywhere. For a second, an awful, eternal second, she waited for one of them to make a move. It felt as if the world was holding its' breath. Nothing stirred. No breeze rustling the distant trees, no insects or birds scurrying around. It was not until now, lying flat on the floor with the wind knocked out of her and with darkness surrounding her completely, that the strangeness of this place hit home.

This is the End Place.

The end of everything. The cliff and the figures stepping over it didn't just represent the end of the world, the end of their time in purgatory, but the end of life itself. It was the one place no-one could survive. And that begged the question – why was Katie still alive? Thinking too hard about that was irrelevant. Her body in the real world was a walking, talking corpse – likely all it took. She was alive and active for the moment – a small blessing but hey. Katie braced her hands under her back and pushed up. "This is not my fault! If I can fix it, I will, but you can't blame me for any of this. I'm trying to help. Maybe you should appreciate it." Quickly, she thought of home, of her friends and family, of her budding athletics career, and it made her smile. God, she wanted to be back in the arms of people who loved her and damn if she wasn't getting back there. However she did it, whatever it took, Katie was going home.

Apparently, no-one else was like minded. She began her way through the surging masses but they kept closing her down. Kept trying to touch her. They weren't outright trying to attack but they were pulling together. Cutting Katie off at every turn. Letting dark tendrils brush living flesh, recoil from it as though it they no longer recalled warm, solid skin, then pushed and prodded once more. Not gently. That might have been dealable, maybe even soothing if she could fool herself into thinking they were just curious, but they were uncaring about whether they caused her harm. Katie glanced towards the cliff edge and could just about make out a line of still black shape, not joining this mass movement. They were right on the brink. She glared at the Shade nearest her. "I can see why you're here. You don't deserve peace or heaven or even a second chance to live. You deserve to die. You deserve everything that's coming to you."

It – there was no way to define the thing as male or female – backed off for one moment, and Katie used it to shove it to the side the only way she had ever touched a non-solid Shade – by sinking her hand through its' chest and bodily fork-lifting it – and try for the edge once more. They seemed to be trying everything in their power to stop her getting to the top. God only knew why but it was suddenly important to find out what they were keeping her from. It was like wading through toffee sauce. It happened to be a feeling Katie knew well, and hitting The Wall was something she was confident she could beat. Then the shit hit the fan.

_You will stay!_ It whispered the words but they bounced around Katie's head like pinballs. It launched itself at her. Katie danced away from it so it only grazed the backs of her trainers ( _the trainers with blood on them_ ) but it was enough to bring her crashing down to her knees. One Shade jumped on her, then another, and another, until she couldn't tell where one ended and the next began. All pulling at her clothes, pawing her face and every inch of exposed skin, trying to hold her down and press their dead spirits ever closer to hers. That sent alarm bells ringing. Having yet more darkness poured in... yeesh! It made Katie shudder to think about what that might do. And that made it even more important that she was as far away from this ghostly attacking force. There were too many of them pressed in to get up and run. Katie wrenched herself up to her knees, feeling the crushing weight of these should-be weightless shadows. "Get the hell off me or I will Tazer the whole God damn lot of you," she managed to huff out as she crawled a few precious inches forward.

A slow hand-clap rang out from behind. All as one, the shapes fell away from her and stood still, looking at the ground. Evidently, who- or whatever was waiting there was scary enough to cow these things. Katie should be scared too. And she was. Beyond terrified was probably the right phrase. But the need to know what horror lurked won out.

The waiting terror didn't look threatening in the least.

The waiting terror looked like Jaye. Dressed in black and sitting cross legged on the ground like an innocent child, drawing patterns in the soil. She glanced up and seen at the distance, her baby blue eyes were so hollow, so devoid of humanity that the tiny girl was, for the present, the most frightening thing on the planet. "You think you can hurt me?"

Katie said nothing.

"I am eternal. I am unkillable. Your mortal weapons won't work. You can't hurt me. Noting of nature can touch me."

"I'm guessing your last experience of human weaponry was round about the time they discovered fire. We've upgrade since. Tazers run on electricity, not nature. You have heard of electricity right?" she goaded.

Jaye went silent for a moment. "Ah, yes. It makes the lights go on and off. It's most dreadful."

_I love you, Jaye. You rock._ And if Katie had needed proof that her friend was still clinging on in there, that was it. She had yielded to the memory search just enough to tell her body snatcher one of the things electricity could do. Just not the use She wanted to know about. "Trust me. It gets better."

"I must say, I applaud you for trying. I never really thought you'd get this far without giving up."

"You don't know me."

"Hmm, no. But I think we could become great friends. Well, business partners. You seem like a determined young girl." Where was this going? Katie had a feeling she didn't want to hear the rest of this but fear told her to keep her mouth shut. Jaye, or her body, rose and began pacing as she spoke. "See, people die all the time. And some people are meant to die and they don't. Which is annoying, you know. Maybe you can, I don't know, see that they do."

"You're asking me to kill for you?"

"Only when necessary, Katie, only when necessary. People trust you, they open up to you. You could subtly encourage them to-"

"Shit! That's just as bad. You know what you're suggesting? Some kind of suicide campaign. That's – well, I was going to say sick but it's probably normal for you. What made you think I'd even think about it?"

"You're thinking about it now," She pointed out with a satisfied grin.

Christ, She was right. Katie was thinking bout it. Not seriously, not about accepting the proposal, but about how guilty she would feel at having held so many lives in her hand and snuffed them all. Surely, that was not the only argument. \but it was, heart breakingly, the first one to come to mind.

"On another note, where's your dead lover got to? We must have words."

"About?"

"He missed an appointment. I don't tolerate truancy."

"You make it sound so schoolyard."

"Oh, this is much more serious. But," She sighed and shrugged, "later always comes."

"I know Dina's here somewhere and Jack's trying to find her too, so I know you won't hurt either of us until you have the chance to get her."

"You think too much of me, babe, you really do. I won't _kill_ you. I never said a little bloodshed was beyond the rules."

The dark things around her looked slowly up, interest tingeing the air where there had been nothing. The Shades weren't bad people. They had never said a mean word to her until - Oh, crap. They moved when Jaye instructed them to, did what She ordered of them, and now She was instructing them to kill her. Or, at the very least, draw her precious lifeblood, the only thing Katie had that was still her own. But their reactions were slow. A little worried but mostly annoyed that this was coming down to a life or death battle _again_ , Katie looked up at Jaye. _You're controlling them._

She just grinned in an answer, and sent her a cheeky wink that was pure Jaye.

"Don't do that." She raised an eyebrow and the gesture was all too human. She was playing with Kate, messing with her head... and She thought it was funny. "Don't look like Jaye. Don't act like Jaye. You're not her!"

"Oh, it upsets the child. Another life you couldn't save."

"Give me time. I'm trying to do what you want. If it's the only way I can go home... Just give me time."

"It's always time with you people. Guess what, babe. It's running out."

And then the girl was gone, hidden behind the slowly moving masses of energy.

Nothing survived this onslaught of absolute nothingness. Nerves flared and then died. Lungs inflated then didn't move again. Hormones flowed and then froze. Eardrums vibrated to breaking point with the songs of agony and accusations. And somewhere, muffled and lifetimes away, an apology.

You're stronger than this. Stronger than She thinks.

The voice hadn't come from any of the Shades next to Katie, who were all too busy trying to break her skin and bones, but she heard it as though it were right beside her. Eyes closed against the terrible and featureless faces surrounding her, she visualised a strong and sure hand and reached out to the purple-black stream of sound in her head. A Shade who had not yet been affected by Jaye? Stranger things had happened. She held onto it and wrapped her fingers in the dark power, using it to pull herself out of this blissful numbness. Staying here, drifting forever in this vacuum, this void, would be so easy. If Katie wasn't careful, she could get used to it. Whilst she could remain here and know pain would never penetrate, she would also never feel the good things – love and winning and working for a living. None of the things she wanted to miss out on. The hair-thin but steel-strong thread of shiny jet pulled her up and up and the pressure started bearing down, but Katie couldn't break the surface.

Let go.

She loosed the thread, dimly aware that she had pulled that source of (hopefully) help closer, maybe deep into herself, and opened her eyes just a crack. The bodies were everywhere, nudging her, staring down at her, dangerously close to probing her alien abduction style. There was a weight on her ribs, pressing down and threatening to crush the structure. It was getting difficult to breathe. Her vision was blurring at the edges. They were only ghosts but so so heavy... _Maybe it's all the chains,_ she thought bizarrely. _Random._

With the dregs if her energy, Katie brought herself into the tightest ball she could manage and then flung her limbs out as forcefully as she could, letting out a soul-ripping scream as she did so. Every single Shade that had been on her was blown backwards at least a foot. She felt strong, invincible; wonderful and frightful in equal measure. Glancing around, this End Place took on swirling, vibrant colours that couldn't be more different from the flat blue and green land with the occasional clump of weeping willows. The songs of suffrage and sorrow were purple-black streams of sound; each Shade was alive with blue sparks, a sick, yellow power misted over the cliff edge; the ground was a patchwork of greens and browns and golden patches where the sun should have bleached it. The sky was still a calm blue but the echoes of squawking birds cut through the endless day. Katie tilted her head to the side, seeing everything tinged with blood and resignation. It was bitter and now she could feel it corrupting her, blackening her soul. Slowly, the Shades regarded her and sent a silent _thank you_ spinning through the air and returned to their positions on the grass. One tried to touch her as it passed and, although Katie knew there was no longer anything to be frightened of, it thought the better of it, turned the touch into a mangled thumbs up gesture and took its own place.

"How d'you do that?"

Katie made her way through the rest of the black shapes – they moved aside and allowed her straight through – and headed for Jack who was standing, coincidentally she hoped, in the exact spot Jaye had been sat in. God, he was so beautiful in this new kind of sight. A transparent image of him was covered with black shadows and silver spirals ran through him like the letters on Blackpool rock. They looked hot – a fire of oil and ice. Angry red lines lanced his back, writhing and twisting with hate his killer had whipped into him. And the sound... a steady buzz of life and ambition. It hurt to be in the presence of such an old yet innocent soul.

She pulled out of the pain; let herself bask in the cool sea of acceptance that surrounded Jack for a second and then retreated until only the strange surface world existed.

"How'd you do that?" he repeated, his human transparency frowning and concern coming off his other self in waves.

"I don't even know what that was."

"You look pale. I don't like you looking like this."

"I'm fine," she lied. She was anything but fine. Nothing seemed to obey the rules of logic around here.

"Come on, I know when you're lying to me."

He didn't. Or if he really did, he had not shown it until now. Kate had lied to him quite a few times - mostly over the last day or two and been unchallenged. Promising to call if she needed him; she had not kept that one. Telling him the shot to her head had been nothing; it was still making its' presence felt. And she sure wasn't planning to tell him about the business proposal Jaye had made; it was simply idiotic to even consider it.

"I found Dina."

"Where is she?"

"There's a bit of a problem." Wasn't there always? "She tracked me there. Jaye. I can't think of her as Jaye – I'll stick to She okay."

"Do you always ramble when you have bad news?" Katie forced a smile. As far as she was concerned, Jack could ramble as long as he liked to put off the words she was dreading.

"She has her."

"Didn't see that one coming." Katie glanced up at the ranks of Shades ahead of her and knew what she had to do. Where she had to go. Something burrowing deep inside her told her. It was driven right into her core. "One way in, one way out, right?"

"You're not thinkin' straight. What about Dina? Wasn't the whole point of being here to rescue her?"

"Jack, She doesn't have her. All She has is a shadow. And if we stay here much longer, she'll have ours too. I'm dying, Jack."

He followed her sad brown eyes as they skimmed the tops of the black shapes and settled on the perfect blue that stretched beyond them. Perhaps she was seeing something different. "No! You can't." It was going to be useless to try reasoning with this kid but he had to try. "You don't know where you'll end up. You don't even know if you'll get there in one piece."

Katie shrugged. He was speaking perfect sense. It would be madness to try it. Oh well. "Trust me?" She offered her hand to him, tried to turn this warm, human feel of him into a memory and knew that she would never feel it again, and ran up the grass slope and dove off the edge.

If they were together when they died, when they jumped from the cliff and ended up in some other hell then that was okay. Katie looked down at the hand she was holding, saw it turn to mist and steam and then it was gone. Alone. One girl falling through this sizzling hot air, trying not to scream. Flesh was one degree away from peeling from her bones. Something icy cold and blurred beyond recognition cooled her core to an almost normal temperature. Whatever she had brought with her, it was keeping her from burning to death. Hopefully, she wasn't taking it to meet a fiery end itself.

There was a ripple and then a young man staggered through a green fire exit with his friends and threw up more alcohol than any sane person would drink. He looked up, knowing himself that he had drunk way too much and yet also knowing he would carry on until midnight. Maybe longer if they didn't cut him off. A shiver ran through him. Something was happening. There was a _movement_ in the air and the barrier of fluorescent lights and late evening dusk in the doorway was shimmering. _Definitely laying off the tequila tonight._ A thin circle of purple light hung, pulsing, before him. He stared at it.

"Come on, man. Let's get some air."

Wordlessly, the boy let his friends take him by the shoulders and propel him outside. The owner of the building, Shimma – no last name – watched the young man leave. He didn't like people in his club with too much drink in them. The people on the bar would have booted the lad if he had started getting rowdy but a lot of his clientele tended to police themselves. He wasn't the guy you wanted on your bad side.

Katie touched ground and scared at Shimma. He was looking right at her but didn't seem to see her at all.

"He can't see you. You're just energy. Until you find your body, no-one can see you or hear you." Whatever had happened to Jack during that journey from the End Place to here had not been permanent. He was standing at her side, blazing even brighter than he had before.

In fact, everything was bursting with colour and sound and energy. People had energy; the same silvery threads of it Katie had once had deep inside, but Shimma... Shimma was a beacon of it. Thick beams of pure silver-white light shot out of his mouth as he yelled orders to a back room boy. It poured from his chest and thinly rimmed his entire body. "He's gorgeous. So powerful." She moved forward to touch him but Jack moved until he stood between them.

"No! You can't touch him."

"I have to. Just once. Just to know."

He put his hand out to stop her and then stopped. Katie wasn't a physical being yet. His touch would not hold her back – if she even felt it. "It'll kill you."

She stopped short and just froze, scared to move in case she touched something.

"Energy as raw as yours and energy as strong as his. In this state, it'd be like wrapping your hand aroun' a live wire."

As soon as she turned her attention away from Shimma – who helped by frowning and wandering off – she discovered something was missing. There was a big whole inside. The darkness that had regulated her temperature when she thought she might be on fire, the string of utter trust and hope – gone. Just drifted out of her somewhere between here and there and God only knew where it was now. "Fuck!" The force of her silent words made the strip lights overhead flick and spark. It hurt. She had never imagined a pain quite this intense. It wasn't the burn that followed a whip lash – she remembered that agony vividly – or the itch that came from knowing you had a scab that you really shouldn't pick at. This was an empty kind of feeling.

"Let it go, Lady Katie. Whatever's wrong, just let go."

"You feel this every day?" Everything was so intense, so _present._ There was no ignoring any of it or pretending it wasn't there. "How do you stand it? I feel like this is eating me up."

"What do you see?"

"Everything." Vague, true, but... true. "I hate it. The whole world... inanimate objects have this energy, like a residue of people who touched them or even went near them. And I think that's bad and then I look at you – you know, people – and it's worse. Or better. I can't decide. Because I can see inside." And the sight would haunt Katie until the day she died.

"It's okay. It'll go away when you get back in your body." Jack hoped. Certainty had become something of a luxury but he didn't need Katie to know that. There were a few things he needed to investigate first. "Call for her. Touch her with your mind and she will come."

"I better listen to myself this time."

Katie closed her eyes and pictured herself and zeroed in. The physical Katie was at her desk doing homework. Something good had come from her temporary death, or whatever – could it be called death if she was still moving around? – because tackling maths and science textbooks before bed really held no appeal. Touching the empty mind and bidding her come was easy enough – just a brush of her soul to the shell it belonged n – and she pulled back, letting the solid Katie do whatever was necessary to get out. It wouldn't be instant.

"She's coming?"

"Oh, yes. Wait, you're not talking about Jaye She, are you?"

"I wasn't but I sure am now. She's comin'? Here?"

A nod. She was hesitant to make this into a problem when it might never turn into one. But that was a foolish hope and they both knew it. Fear was radiating from Jack in waves, not of colour or sound this time but more a slow wave through the frigid, air-conditioned corridor. "I stole Dina away and I brought her back with me. She was inside me. You remember I said Jaye only had a shadow? Well, sooner or later, she's going to figure that out and she'll be _pissed._ And then she'll come looking for us. For her." _For revenge,_ she suddenly knew.

Jack weighed up his options and opened his mouth to speak. "Can we go into the club? I want to be there when I get here." Which was probably the strangest sentence eve uttered.

It was only a minute or two before the physical Katie became visible through the crowd by the door, saw a shimmer of energy near the far wall, glowing through the dimly lit building, and made her way over. She had brought a tail with her. Ghost Katie could see a familiar head of dark stubble bobbing just behind one of scruffy blond locks. Adam and Leo. Obviously not here as a welcome home party. They were a problem to deal with later. The two Katies stood side by side and wondered what to do next. Well, brute force had a tendency to work.

"Wait!" Jack shouted out. "You can't do this. I risked you going through that thing and I'm not doing it again."

"I jumped, I'm home, I'm fine. It's my risk."

"It's Dina's too. You might be playing with her life too. If you try to squash her spirit in with yours... who knows what'll happen?"

Just then, a girl tripped on killer heels about five inches high – about four and a half inches _too_ high for clubbing – and bumped into Katie, knocking her into Ghost Katie. And, just like that, they were one complete person. No pain, no squeezing. She just fitted.

She held her hand out to Jack, seeing him just as waves of colour and tornadoes of emotion, felt him take it and watched every new dimension she was experiencing fade as he solidified. "Wow. That was a rush!"

"Don't get used to it."

"Have to get my kicks where I can." The music was synth and electric, sounded like eighties night, the worst of the eighties. Katie pulled away from the corner and headed for the bar. "I need a drink."

When they were sat down with glasses of juice, Katie scanned the crowd for her housemates. They were still looking for her near the bathrooms but she was hardly going to wave and shout. Not that she needed to because Adam found her through a badly timed break between surges and started moving her way.

"Promise me you're okay. I-"

"Jack, things are fine. It's us I'm worried about. We've been through hell recently and, even though I know I've known you ages, I don't know you well enough to guess how you feel. I've scared you. I made you think you were losing me."

"You thrill me, Lady Katie. I only came back once or twice since I died. Both times were," he touched the scar on his head. Katie unconsciously touched hers. "Less than pleasant. I thought mortals were brutal and angry and I was better off out of the whole thing. So I stayed in my world."

"You never came back?"

"There was never anyone worth coming back for."

"Sweet. Bullshit, but sweet."

"The best things grow out of horse crap."

"That line ever work?"

First time tonight.

She caught the thought and blushed. Jack brushed her hair out of her eyes, cupped her cheek in one cool hand and pulled her close for a kiss. They were dangerously close to making out like any other couple when a voice cut through the dark.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" _God yes... no... who cares?_ "So this is where you skipped off to."

"Adam. Never had you down as a voyeur."

"Hidden depths. Actually, Lainy wanted me to 'discretely' follow and make sure you were okay. I mean, it is a school night and you're underage."

"A little louder next time? It's okay, I work here. Officially, I start tomorrow but I figure I might as well see what a normal night here is like."

"At the club? You're a brave puppy." He creased his brown and chewed the inside of his cheek. Man, it was cute. Hadn't the horny hormone spike faded yet? Whatever Adam had been contemplating saying never made it out of his mouth because his phone rang just then. "Hello? Lainy, calm down. Speak slower. More tests? What kind of tests? Uh-huh. What does abnormal readings mean? Brain activity. Does it matter if it's low level? It's something. Okay, I'm on my way. Yeah, she's here, she's fine, just go. I'll meet you at the hospital in five." Adam was already moving when he signed off but, almost an afterthought he pointed to Leo then at Katie. "You two. Watch each other. Home by eight. Dina's showing signs of waking up."

Okay. The knowledge should have surprised at least one of the trio but it didn't. Maybe the boys were a tiny bit taken aback and just too macho to show it. Katie, though... in some part of her that was still linked to the End Place, she had expected it. What had the Shades said when she first found their world? _Then your world will begin to mend. It will start to heal._ Perhaps they meant everything would start to go back the way it was. She doubted it was going to be that easy. The huge void inside where she had secreted that darkness had disappeared. In this world Dina didn't belong in any body but her own. So the transition had knocked the other girl free and some connection had reeled her back to the hospital. And now there was a hole in Katie where Dina had hidden. But it would heal. They had told her that much and even though they had tried to kill her, whether under Jaye's control or not, she still believed them.

You know you're crazy?

Completely.

Good job I got a thing for psycho girls with a death wish.

_Hey, I never said I was a_ normal _girlfriend._

And yet here I am. Normal girls... just too boring.

"Yo! Us mere mortals use words."

Being able to converse with only their minds was amazing. It was as though everything Katie and Jack were sharing was a secret only they knew. It was an ability leftover from their time in the End Place so she was positive it would soon begin to disappear like her multi-sensory world view.

"You were acting all weird at home. Not that I expect anything else but seriously."

"Weird how?"

"I dunno," Leo shrugged. "Just like you weren't you. Plus you didn't swear at me when I came in your room."

"You're right. Doesn't sound like me. Maybe I've finally realised-" and she bit off these last words with a flare of passion she didn't like. At all. "You're just not worth it." But she didn't really mean it. Not that Leo was a waste of breath sometimes. That part was true enough. But she couldn't bring herself to hate him as much as her voice told. Leo might be kind of a dick, but he was just a kid. Like her. He was probably still as scared as her, lonely, stressed out, confused. The only problem was that where Leo should have been more mature and example-setting, he wore a foot-deep cloak of attitude and bile.

"Don't screw with me, bitch. You weren't there. Where were you?"

So she told him. spent the rest of her drink and the walk home – Jack had elected to hang back in case Jaye showed up although it was much more likely to get out of the line of fire – info-dumping him with her stories. Where she had been, who she had seen, how she had kept the Shades at bay when they turned on her, how she had brought Dina back and that was why she was showing signs of life. It didn't look like he believed a word of it.

Fuck it. That's his problem.

# Chapter twelve

The house was creepy quiet when the teens made it back. Not that they hadn't expected it to be locked up and dark with Lainy and Adam both at the hospital. It just would have been nice, Katie thought, to be able to wander back into a house full of warmth and love.

After much pleading and whining, Leo finally gave in to the puppy eyes and agreed to shove some burgers in the oven and throw a salad together. If that was what it would take to get Katie to eat properly and try to function like a regular human being instead of Supergirl, he was more than happy to do it. He just liked to make her work for it. He opened the freezer to rummage for a box of frozen burgers and a blast of icy air slammed into her. Man, it was good. The air conditioning in the club and the chilly night they had braved had done wonders for Katie but any increase in temperature felt dramatic and stifling. Leo began to swing the door shut and she rushed over and grabbed it from him, sticking her face close to the door. She couldn't stay like it forever.

"When is it?"

"What?"

"The day. The date. I need to know how long I've been gone." Time was different in the Shade world. It may be a week since she crossed over. It may be a year. Just because she hadn't slept through a night there didn't mean none had passed.

"Wednesday. Third day of college. You had a whack on the head or something?"

"Or something," Katie murmured and turned her back. She had stuff she could be doing in her bedroom while dinner cooked. Things that were plentiful and very demanding of her time, but things that made her feel like a normal girl. With a normal life. Her computer confirmed it was Wednesday but the clunky borrowed phone seemed to have frozen in shock at jumping between worlds. Taking out the battery and putting it back in reset it but the old handset had a battery the size of a brick. Therefore – not the easiest thing to remove and put back. A couple of broken fingernails later – they needed cutting anyway – the fuel cell was shut in and she was scrolling through her contact list. MARCIE. Eventually, a young voice answered.

"Hi, Freddie. Is your mom there?"

"Are you a stranger? Does Mom know you?"

"Well, I might be strange but you both know who I am. Can you guess from my voice?"

"Aunt Katie!" he yelled after a thoughtful moment. It was so loud that she had to hold the phone away from her ear while he yelled out for his mother Marcie to come to the phone. And then he proceeded to babble away about his day and his latest football match. He had scored two goals and was very pleased with himself. "Oh, I can hear they stairs being all creaky squeaky. She won't be minute."

The phone sounded like it was swinging on its' cord, then Marcie picked up.

"Katie?"

"The very one."

"Freddie been giving you earache?"

"Trust me. I've listened to worse."

"How're things?"

"Could be worse." It could be better too. Katie didn't say that, though. "Thought I'd call, try to arrange a day out before I forget again."

"Choose a day. I haven't exactly got a full diary." Marcie let a smile creep into her voice. It instantly made her sound so much younger. Maybe having a child just added a few years.

"Well, I have athletics trials on Saturday but I could be around yours by..." Katie hastily checked her calendar for a finish time then added in time for a change and shower "...about two – two thirty latest." They spent another ten minutes chatting and making plans then Katie made her excuses and hung up. She could shower before bed even though she felt grubby and disgusting. What she really needed was to get out of these clothes and into her scruffiest old PJs. Pyjamas, slippers and burgers and hot chocolate in front of the most mind-numbing film she could find.

Once changed and with her hair scraped back into a greasy mess in and elastic band, Katie hopped down the stairs feeling mostly human again. There was still the nagging feeling that things would go tits up again at a moments notice but she couldn't live her life according to fear and possibility. That was insanity. No, the next few hours, days if her luck held, were going to be normal and safe. Safe was the most important part.

"Cooked yet?" Katie ducked low and peeked under the grill at her burgers. They were browning up nicely.

"Still a way to go." Leo got a carton of juice and two glasses out of the cupboard, set them on a tray and pushed them across the table to Katie. He was treating her very carefully. Looking at her with an eye that didn't quite trust that she wasn't going to suddenly turn and throw herself out of the window. "Go sort these out in there, find a DVD or something."

As if she was going to complain at being told to do nothing. Leo could be sensitive at times – but she knew better than to expect it again before Christmas. Obviously, something had rung true and he didn't want to put any more demands on her. Or he just wanted to show off his cooking prowess. Over the next five minutes, he went to and from the kitchen with cutlery, condiments. Anyone would think he was preparing a fine dining dish. Katie decided she could get used to this being waited on lark as he set down her tray before her. Sitting up was far too complex and tiring so she ended up half-horizontal on the sofa with the remote for the portable Adam had found in one hand.

"You okay?" Leo asked all of a sudden.

"Psycho on the telly, a full belly and my jimjams on. This is living."

"You know what I mean."

Sadly, yes, she did. "For tonight, at least, I'm just Katie – student. Not Katie – saviour."

"Fair dos. Just long as you're not, you know..."

She waited for him to finish the sentence but he didn't. A cushion carefully aimed at his head seemed to wake Leo out of his trance. It looked like he had straight forgotten he was speaking. Full stomach syndrome. "Long as I'm not..?"

"Dead."

It was sad in such a flat, monotonous way that it was almost just a word. But it wouldn't have taken so long to get out if it had been easy to say. The shutters were firmly down on his face which meant he was keeping something close to his chest.

"Katie, I'm not screwing around." Leo put his tray on the floor and faced her, a serious expression on his face. "We've lost Dina." Katie opened her mouth to correct him but Leo shushed her with a flap of his hand. "Jaye's MIA. And if you were gone too... I already don't know who I can trust."

"You can trust me. I'm not going anywhere."

"I wonder how many people have said that?" It was a good thing to wonder, if a little morbid. "I been researching that badge today. Library lady nearly threw me out for not using academy approved sites."

"What did you find out?"

"You're welcome." He reached into his bag and dropped the silver pointed badge over the back of the settee. Katie fumbled the catch but eventually grabbed for it. As soon as she touched it, she regretted it. It felt... evil. Dark and angry and hateful. The man who once wore it may be dead but the power he left behind crawled all over the silver star.

I'm gonna make you scream, little girl.

Katie yelped and flung the badge across the room. Blood. She remembered blood.

Leo began to walk over to retrieve it but then hearing her convulsive sobs that were more like failed attempts _not_ to cry, he turned back and sat beside the young girl. He didn't try to comfort her or give her the sweet nothings you were meant to tell a crying woman. "It came from the late 1800s. The little insignia is from somewhere around Texas. Couldn't get the search down to a town or village. There was old blood on it."

"Mine and Jack's," she recalled. The man had whipped them both and naturally some had splashed on the badge. Without the scars Jack was forced to keep, Katie had let herself forget he had drawn blood from her too.

"More than that. It was from the 19th century. Before you ever ran across him."

"From the first time he killed Jack."

"Could be." He didn't sound convinced. It was likely Jack's blood was somewhere in the mix but... "I'm not sure but if I believe what you told me about Sheriff man, and I do, then he's been killing a long time. There might be traces here of everyone he ever hurt."

"You think there was more than us."

"Maybe dozens. Maybe just one or two."

"How did you work that out?"

"There were layers underneath – spots, really. He'd tried to scratch most of it away but there were flakes stuck in the grooves."

"I can't believe it stayed on there for a century and half. I guess it doesn't decay the same way as it would if it was a mortal badge."

"If this guy spent a lot of time in some other... dimension, there wouldn't be any wear and tear. Nothing to wear it away." He wasn't putting a lot of faith in this Shade world theory. Whether it was possible or not, whether he believed it or not, a world where people could come back after death and continue living as though nothing had happened was beyond the reaches of his reality. It defied logic.

"I wish there was something we could do for them." Katie let herself dwell on that thought for a moment, then turned back to the film. There was nothing better than a decent horror movie on a dark cold night. A boyfriend to snuggle with when the scary parts came would have made the night perfect but Katie was happy to settle for uneventful. The Shining was up next, the announcer had said. That was the last thing she remembered until the door slammed shut with an icy blast of night, and Lainy and Adam dropped onto the opposite chair in an uncomfortable looking pile of tired arms and legs. "Hey," she yawned towards them and tried to figure out a way to sit up without having to move out of her warm, sleepy bubble. "Chairs are meant for one. Lainy, come over here."

"We're fine."

"I'm not. I could use a hug."

Lainy couldn't ignore that request. Katie was a child and anything she could do to give her comfort and security, she would. If she was used to cuddles because they made her feel safe and wanted... Besides, Lainy needed the closeness just as much. She tucked her under one arm, idly trailing fingers through Katie's messy hair. "Did we wake you up?"

"Yes. But I wouldn't sleep tonight if you hadn't."

"That's good."

"Was it horrible? The hospital, I mean."

"It was hard. Harder than you'd think. Ad told you about Dina?" She waited for the teenagers to nod. "They were doing final tests before they... before they did anything. It's hospital policy. So, they found brain activity. Not much, but it's enough to give us hope."

"That's a good thing, right?"

Lainy didn't look like she thought it was a good thing. "Hoping... that's the worst part. I'd forgotten how horrible it is to tell a father their daughter is still fighting, watch them expect everything to be alright, and then nothing happens."

"Will she be okay?" That was Leo, showing his last bit of concern for some-one who wasn't himself.

"I honestly don't know. Sometimes people flicker into life first like their body is just getting rid of its' last bit of energy."

_Energy._ That word set far off alarm bells tinkling inside Katie but there was nothing more she could do. She had brought her spirit back into the world and let it float back to its' rightful place. She made a mental note to stop by the medical centre after classes tomorrow but she didn't think there was anything left she could help with.

"She'll be okay."

"Anyone heard from Jaye?" Lainy nodded at Leo to throw a blanket over Adam, who had fallen asleep in his chair and was quietly snoring. The guy looked absolutely shattered. Lainy didn't look much better. Neither of the pair had slept much over the last day or two – first worrying about Dina who had taken her life in her hands, and then about Jaye who was still missing. As far as she knew.

Katie thought about what she knew. If she told Lainy what she knew about Jaye and her current other-wordly status then maybe she could help. "I don't know where she is." It was the truth too. Katie really didn't know where Jaye was at that moment, body _or_ soul. She could still be in the End Place, nursing a shadow She thought was Dina. Or She could be hunting her down already. _You have darkness in you now._ Yeah, she would know if the barrier between that world and this had been breached. How that knowledge would come was another question.

"House seems empty without her. Quieter too."

"She did kind of liven everything up. Where do you think she is?"

"Not a clue. I think losing her best friend just rocked her to the bone and she just needed space and time. If only we could tell her she's getting better. I know she'd come back."

"Not that simple," Leo butted in again. "You can't think that being finally dead or alive will make it all okay. You can't say 'oh, Dina's gonna be alright' and Jaye's gonna come home and be just like before."

"No-one's expecting that." Katie swung her legs off the seat and wrapped her arms tightly over her stomach. A chill had just rippled through her. "I just want my friends back." It had been difficult to make friends until now. The kids in her old city were concerned with make-up and smoking in the toilets and getting out of daily detentions. None of that stuff had ever seemed important. Sure, they were pretty much teenage rites of passage and she had been through the girly phase – it had lasted precisely seven weeks when she was 14 – but none of the kids she had grown up with had shared her view that hard work was important. And now, she lived in a house full of others who worked hard and were teaching her to relax.

"You know what?" piped up Lainy. "You look done in. You need to go to bed Katie."

"I'm awake." It had been a long day, longer than anyone realised. First there had been a long day at the academy, then a trip to the hospital, an adventure to the End Place, then back to the club, and then home. She did feel kind of zombified. But it wasn't just the physical exhaustion that was making her feel that way. It was knowing that at least two of her friends were in trouble and knowing she was powerless to help them now. It was this cold sensation deep inside that her body was healing itself; still recovering from its short-term lack of life. It was having to trust forces outside herself to fix whatever was wrong with the world.

# Chapter thirteen

Levenson Academy for Sports and Action was mostly quiet when Katie left. She had only ducked into the changing rooms to put her street clothes on when the final bell went but it seemed as though most of the student body had better places to be that afternoon. She didn't want to be left in the silence today. It made her feel all alone. Anyone could be lurking around this building. Her footsteps echoed up and down the corridors and she had to keep checking behind her to make sure her steps were the only ones there. There were a handful of teachers in the building and the few students who had stayed behind to study in peace but even knowing help was just a shriek away did little to calm the fear that someone might jump her from one of these corners. She hurried her pace a little but the end of the corridor seemed no closer. In fact, it seemed further away with every step. The vision from yesterday, the colours and sounds, the _life,_ even in these cold, breeze block walls was faint but still there. She had been too tired to realise it hadn't completely disappeared the previous night.

She took a minute to stand and breathe. Working herself up over nothing was helping nobody. It definitely was not helping Dina, which was the goal here. Dr de Rossa and Mr Bayliss were probably thanking God Dina was the right side of the life/death divide, and hailing her as a medical miracle. That was okay. This could be a miracle. Taking credit for giving a dying girl her soul back sounded – well, kind of heroic if she was honest – but it would be cheap. What if Dina had already woken up and... urgh, she didn't want to think of the ands. There were too many of them and most of them were bad. Mostly, they all boiled down to the same thing.

What if something went wrong?

She had to trust the Shades when they had told her everything would begin to put itself right. Had to.

There were things to look forward to; a day out with Freddie and Marcie, athletics team trials, finally getting to grips with her course texts. Most people would dread that part but, at the moment, coursework represented normality. Given that study way the main thing she had come to Northwood, neglecting her education even to save people was a risk she didn't want to take. Skipping school work meant her grades would slip, her scholarship would be threatened then cancelled – no way could her parents afford to keep her here, so off back home she would go. That suddenly filled her with an arctic terror. She might die early here but at least she would ( _might_ ) come back: back home, she would die and be dead dead. No coming back from that. Such a comforting thought.

The footsteps became squeaks when Katie had the bright idea of swapping her shoes for the trainers she had just taken off. Still noisy but at least she would hear anyone behind her. You can match a footstep in shoes or boots but you can't match a good old squeak. She looked down and saw spots of blood on the dirty white toes. As she walked, the spots of dry blood spread and liquefied. Fresh red liquid covered her trainers and it began to creep in through the top of her trainers and the air holes by her toes. It was beginning to soak through her socks and her feet were squelching through blood. The desire to sit on the stairs and strip them straight back off was dampened only by the certainty that something awful would happen if she stopped for even another second. She had left a trail of bloody footprints behind her and Katie was watching them pool and wondering who would clear them up when it happened.

Something huge and black slammed into her.

It came with almost enough force to knock Katie off balance. As it was, the sudden blast winded her and she had time for one coherent but non-sensical thought.

There should be pain.

Katie awoke with a jolt sitting in front of her laptop, staring at a barely started essay on the benefits of stage drama over screen. Awoke was the wrong word for it. More like she shook herself out of a haunting daydream. It was fading from her memory already.

Her first evening at Shimma began in a couple of hours. Gym clothes weren't really appropriate for work – not entirely professional – but there wasn't really much in her wardrobe that qualified. Shimma had told her the job would entail a bit of everything and a powersuit probably wasn't suitable club wear. A plain t-shirt, jeans and flat boots seemed okay. She put her trusty baseball jacket over the top and headed downstairs. There was time to shovel down a quick sandwich and a bag of crisps before it was time to go.

"You've got a long day today."

"Home by midnight. I had a nap just. The pay cheque'll be worth it." Katie opened the fridge and looked for some cold meats to make a sandwich. Somebody really needed to go to the shops. "I'm starved. Want anything while I'm making?" she called to Lainy.

"Erm... no, I'll have some crisps. Spoil dinner otherwise."

"Anything nice?"

"Ah. Pot Noodle. One of the five main food groups."

Lovely.

"I wanted to-" they said together. "You first."

Katie busied herself spreading and slicing, taking more care over this sandwich than she ever had before. Thinking of just the right words to say was hard. The silence went on a little bit too long. Lainy took it as a cue to speak. "Just be careful tonight. Shimma looks after his staff pretty well but, sweetie, it doesn't mean you shouldn't look after yourself."

"Self-preservation's pretty high on my list."

"You really shouldn't be there at all, you know."

"He thought I was working anyway. Then he just kind of assumed I needed the job. Which I do." It hadn't been quite that simple and she reckoned being found unconscious on his carpet might have encouraged the offer a little. "I'll be fixing drinks and counting heads – nothing dangerous."

"Oh, I trust you. I'm sure you wouldn't put yourself in harms' way."

"Not when I have a choice," Katie muttered. Lainy looked at her, puzzled. "I meant to go see Dina tonight but I don't have time."

"I doubt she'll mind."

"Still." She had worked hard to get Dina back in her body. If no-one could know about that then she could at least go and see the girl and congratulate herself.

"Things seem stable. There's this dim awareness in her but activity hasn't increased or anything. There are sometimes these, like, spikes of activity but nothing is happening. It's like she's in there but..."

"Will she be brain damaged?"

"We won't know until she wakes up."

Katie liked the way her friend was saying 'we' instead of 'they'.

"The other day? When you went..."

"Postal?" Lainy supplied helpfully.

"It's forgotten. You had a temper. It happens. Everyone does stupid stuff when they're upset. So, I'm not going to keep on about it." She could practically hear Lainy think _PHEW! Wasn't looking forward to explaining that one._

You don't need to explain. I understand.

The two girls forced smiles at each other and then it just got too hard to meet the others gaze. Lainy wanted to tell Katie everything that was different about this town. Katie wanted to tell her she didn't need to.

There was a rule that children and teenagers under the age of 18 weren't allowed to know that half the town was already dead, and most of the others were on some grand plan to die before they reached their potential. So they ended up here if God or some other higher power decided they were worth saving. Katie had found out that she was destined to die young too, but not how or when, and the Levenson Academy had recruited her because her sporting career was apparently too promising to let a little thing like death halt it.

Shoving the last handful of Cheese Curls in her mouth, Katie gulped it down and dumped her plate in the sink. "You're washing up later, right?"

"I guess. I mean, I wouldn't trust Leo with breakable plates. Would you?"

"I wouldn't trust him with paper plates."

"I'll remember that one! Love it!"

Katie stuffed her phone, keys and purse in her pockets and walked out into the night. It was starting to get cold and dark fast in the evenings now. Winter was definitely on its' way. She let her feet wander to the student club – they knew the way better than her brain – and let her mind wander to... anywhere it felt like. And it felt like drifting into another world. A world where everything was simple and safe. Nobody died of anything but old age. Everyone was nice to one another. Her friends stood by her side. No trauma stained her outlook on life and the only things people had to worry about was where they could have the most fun. But what jolted Katie most was realising that the world she was fantasizing about was Northwood – not Worth where she had grown up. Northwood was home – stressful, maybe, but it was where she belonged. Worth had raised her. Worth had taught her well. It had killed the child in her.

So soon was Katie gazing up at the smart SHIMMA sign in red and black that she almost jumped when the crowd of people appeared in front of her. The front doors were still closed to people. A sign on the door advertised some visiting DJ she had never heard of. MC Flex seemed popular judging by the amount of people outside. Katie quickly realised it was a former student who had invited all his friends to see his first set. She bypassed all the revellers – most of whom looked frozen half to death – and strode up to the guy on the door. It was the same guy as on Tuesday – skinhead, more muscles than teeth, beady eyes sunk into the folds of face. She dug her student ID out and moved to go past him when the bouncer put an arm out and blocked away.

"There's a line over there. It's there for a reason."

"I need to get in though."

"Yeah. They all do. Join the queue."

"I'm working here."

"Right. Line."

"It's my first day. Ask Shimma."

"Haven't heard that before." He jerked his head towards the sign. It was easy to figure out the name of the owner when you name your business after yourself. A heck of a lot of people must try that blag.

"It really is. I don't know any other way in. It's supposed to be like an orientation thing tonight."

"Baptism of fire, more like." Although the guy looked less than convinced, he obligingly got out his little radio, pressed a button and waited for the crackle to pass. "Got a girl out here, says she's working tonight." Another burst of static burst forth but it obviously meant something to Skinhead, because he frowned at Katie and looked her up and down. "Dunno. Maybe five seven. Brown hair, long. Don't look like she'll last two minutes." Another burst of noise and Skinheads face softened. "Yeah, Shimma says you're alright."

"Can I go in, then?"

"Not yet. DJ's got wires everywhere. Couple of minutes."

That was fine. She'd rather be chilly and not electrocuted than warm because she had just been fried to a crisp. "Is the line always this long?"

Skinhead shrugged and leaned back against the door. A couple of chancers tried to rush past him but the bouncer was far too quick – he looked relaxed but it was obvious he was on high alert. "Uh uh uh. Don't know where you thing you two're going but it ain't in there."

"How come she gets to jump the line? Teachers pet or something."

"That's right. Good puppies get in but bad dogs get bounced."

Katie kept her gaze fixed on her feet. It wouldn't do to get into a confrontation on her very first shift.

"But-"

"Move it." He kept his voice low and steady but there was no mistaking the fact he meant business. Footsteps clomped down the street. "Freshers week. Think they'll never party again."

"It's... I didn't even think there were this many people at the academy."

"Yeah, we won't get everyone in tonight I don't think." A voice crackled through his walkie-talkie again and Skinhead opened a wooden door set in to the wall next to the man doors. It was dark enough to be almost invisible to the casual eye.

It opened on a little hall with stairs leading up and down – up for staff areas and down to storage, Katie guessed – and a half open door to her right. Through the door she could see chaos. People flitting across her chink of light, a voice doing a soundcheck, an unholy crash of glass. It was that which made Katie open the door and step into hell. The speeding bodies were staff members and DJ lackeys running around with light and sound equipment. The crash of glass had been from one of the bartenders whose mind had been on the DJ and not on his job. It took a few minutes to realise that the guy who had just broken half of tonight's wages was, in fact, Shimma himself.

"Ready to make yourself useful?" he said when he saw her. "Got a long night ahead of us. This guy, this MC Flex, brought half of Northwood with him."

"I saw. The queue's a mile long. Not literally but as good as."

"There's a brush under the bar. Clean this glass up would you?"

"Okey doke."

Katie had been working for two hours and hadn't stopped taking orders, mixing drinks and robbing students of their loans.

The DJ crew had set up really quickly and the main doors were letting in a flood of revellers within half an hour. Names were a luxury and Katie was identifying her friends in war by the people who didn't look ready to fight or fall over. MC Flex was not exactly brilliant but the young man was making a decent go of it and was playing a passable mix of dance and garage. There was a line of speakers hidden behind the bar which were starting to give her earache and the darting multi-coloured lights were burning into her retinas. If she hadn't been here the past two nights and known it was normally less of a sensory assault, she might have quit there and then. In a rare lull in bar customers, Katie took a handful of coins out of the tip bowl, put it in the till, grabbed the coldest Red Bull in the chiller and propped herself against the bar with it. The adrenalin was pumping and sweat was coating her forehead. There were hundreds of people in, it seemed like, and they all _wanted_ stuff – drinks, snacks.

Shimma had decided he was needed on the club floor more than keeping the books in the back. It was probably more to do with keeping an eye on his new member of staff than making up the numbers. "Katie! Grab some paper towels from the back! Damn, dude, you throw up good."

The rest of the can slid down her throat in one gulp, and she instantly felt the rush of caffeine and carbonate wake up her flagging muscles – running five or ten miles in one stretch was one thing, but walking the same few feet and keeping ever increasing drinks orders straight in her head was something else entirely. Katie lifted the hatch of the bar and squeezed through the gap, being sure to lower it behind her. It seemed that clubbers sometimes thought they were being extremely helpful by helping themselves. She shouldered her way through the dancing bodies and passed under the doorway into the air-conditioned corridor with the green fire exit on one side of her and the corridor stretching off to her right. A bolt of déjà vu flowed over Katie and she might have allowed it to make her feel sick and tired if she had been on her own time. But she wasn't. Instead, she opened the door a few metres down the hall, grabbed a roll of paper towelling and let the dark, pine-scented cupboard chase away the nausea. It seemed more than a few days since she had first been here – so much had happened – but there was a job she was here to do.

Snap.

Katie jumped back and slammed the door shut as though the action would shut the voice away too. She turned on her heel and half-jogged back to the main room.

A space had cleared around the area Shimma needed to clean up. There was a crowd in front of Katie but people started clearing a path once they saw she meant to clean the floor. "Here." She shoved through the rest of the people, already being fed up with the constant apologies and politeness, and handed the towels to Shimma, ripping a few lengths off and crouching to begin mopping vomit.

"What you doing? You ain't no cleaner tonight."

"Might as well get used to it."

"I'm perfectly able to clean vomit. Not scaring _you_ off on your first night. Sides, my boys need you back on bar."

Puke was not her favourite bodily fluid – and how disturbing would it be if she actually _had_ a favourite – so Katie wasn't complaining. She left the towels on the floor and backed up a step.

"Take a quick break. Don't want you dropping on me, girl."

She smiled her thanks at the man whose hair shone almost silver under the swirling lights. _The club called Shimma, owned by a man called Shimma, and he shimmers._ It felt as if everything was falling into place – that things were starting to turn out how they were always meant to be. She backstepped a bit more and felt her spine smack into something slight but solid.

Everything went to hell.

"I _told_ you I had a job to do."

Oh, bugger.

If there was one voice she hadn't wanted to hear tonight, it was this one. Far from sounding angry or ready to launch another attack, Jaye sounded cool and matter of fact. Not vindictive at all. It didn't fool Katie for a second. She froze.

"Oh, relax, babe. I'm not here to fight. Well, not at the moment anyway."

"What _do_ you want then?"

"A puppy, a Porsche, an Olympic gold in the butterfly, my parents' unconditional love. The list is endless. Mostly, though, I want what should be mine."

Katie forced herself to turn, working on keeping her muscles loose. Attracting attention wouldn't be a wise move. "Which is?" She took the smaller girl by the elbow and marched her through the club, trying to act like two friends on a night out.

"So many things. You took a lot of things from me. It was quite unfair."

"You can't show up here just because you want to... balance the books. Especially not looking like that. What if some-one recognises you?"

"Let's start with a dead girl." They stepped into the harsh, fluorescent corridor. Katie found a darkened recess and threw Jaye against it with more strength than she knew than she had in her. She winced as the girl grunted with the impact. She had to stop thinking of her as Jaye – it was something evil wearing her face – but it was so hard. "Well, a should-be-dead girl. Goes by the name of Dina. Your boyfriend found her and then you took her."

"I said I would take whatever Shades with me that I could. Dina just happened to be one of them."

"She wanted to die. That was the plan. Who finished her off, how she got to the End Place, didn't matter. Dina was meant to die and you brought her here. You messed with the order, Katie."

"So, you want her back?" Katie shrugged. "Sorry, she's back in her body now. Take it up with her."

"Oh, I intend to."

The chill of those words had barely sunk in when Katie felt her mouth making shapes and heard sound coming out. Man, she hated it when her mouth didn't warn her brain first. "Hold it. There are people here. You can take one of those, can't you?"

Jaye – She – tilted her head to one side as though considering the idea. Unfortunately, it gave Katie too much time to think over what she had just proposed and begin to hate herself for it. It was a cruel solution. But a necessary one. She bit her lip and did her best not to tangle herself up in complications, giving a heart-breaking back story to the hypothetical person she might have doomed.

"I suppose it _would_ make up the numbers. I could always hang on and wait for Dina to die. She's still really close to the edge." She watched Katie frown and giggled. "She's still hanging on, I can feel her. But I'm holding her as deep down as I can."

Katie loosened her grip. Didn't completely let go but she had relaxed enough for the other girl to slide free. "Why?"

"It was meant to be her. And, one day, I will have what I want." She blew Katie a kiss and skipped away.

Once alone again, Katie tipped forward and rested her forehead on the cool painted breeze blocks. It had been a long night. Suggesting She took the spirit of one of the anonymous clubbers was the coldest thing she had ever said and letting her loose into the crowd to choose her victim was a mistake. It was done now. It didn't shock her as much as she thought it should.

"Oh my god."

It hit her like a brick. She was giving her exactly what the Other Place demanded – a living soul. Dina was too close to death still to be useful. So why was She so intent on having Dina? It couldn't be as simple as the fact that it was just her name on some list. Could it?

Katie took a step forward and pressed herself flat against the wall and let the deep chill sink into her body. It distracted her from the disorder that was her mind. She stayed like that for a couple of minutes. When her mind began to go into shutdown, Katie decided to get back to work. Knowing there was nothing to be done for tonight helped a lot but she had to ask how true that was. Surely there was _something_.

Her first shift finished an hour later. It was a good job because Katie was fit to drop. She was tired, her feet hurt, and her hands reeked of dirty, sweaty coins. The night was still young. MC Flex was shouting at the crowd and they were all yelling back. The music was getting louder but Katie was glad she was getting out now, before her eardrums started to bleed. She hadn't gotten the code yet for the staff room upstairs, so she head for Shimma's office to get her jacket and wash her hands. Anti-bacterial hand gel was currently the best invention ever. There was a big bottle on the window sill and Katie pumped a big blob into her hands. The door opened behind her and creaked a little way shut but not fully closed. She was alert for those sounds, now – always listening to her escape routes being shut off.

"Long night?"

"And I've only done a few hours. I feel for you guys – here till closing."

Shimma padded across the room and stood at the side of the window where he could see her face. "You'll get used to it." It had taken him a while to handle a busy club for a whole non-stop night. That's why he always started new people on half shifts and worked up.

Katie finished rubbing her hands, sniffed them, grimaced, and offered them to him. The stink had faded a lot but it was a sweet, lingering metal smell that seemed to fill the room. "That's not coming out, is it?"

"Try lemon juice."

Of course the nearest source of lemon juice was wedges kept in ice behind the bar. And that would mean going back out into that migraine. "I'll try it when I get home."

Shimma let out a laugh, seeing her eyes flutter to the door, the noise coming through the gap. "Don't blame you, chick. Loud, right/"

"Ear-splitting is closer to the mark. It's not always this manic, right?"

"No, sometimes it's busy. Joke... joke. This is a busy one. Anything else you need?"

"A caffeine shot straight into my veins."

"Probably kill you. Have a policy about it."

"Comforting. How about a Tazer?" she asked instead, aware only that she had talked about them the day before, but not why the thought had just popped into her head.

"Same thing. 50000 volts is more likely to kill you than wake you up."

"Dammit."

He opened his top drawer a few inches, slid out a pen and a sheet of paper, not bothering to close it after. "Don't forget to sign your timesheet before you go. I'll set you up on payroll tomorrow."

Katie leaned over and scribbled a signature on the bottom of her sheet. He left her to fill in the blanks – name and date. "Put it back in the drawer when you're done. I guess you'll be going out the back way so thanks for tonight, well done for not having a meltdown and I'll see you tomorrow." He touched her shoulder in goodbye, just the lightest brush of his fingers, then left. It was nice to feel useful and appreciated. It was also a novelty for Katie who was starting to feel that she was working her arse off trying to keep hold of something resembling a normal life and never really managing it. But she wanted her friends back; she wanted Jack by her side; she wanted to save all those Shades on that cliff edge – and she couldn't do that as well. Something had to give.

She filled in the details the timesheet asked for then clipped the lid on the pen. Her shift was officially over.

Jacket on and already zipped up as high as it would go, Katie slid the drawer further open to put the paperwork back in. It was the typical pile of junk she kept in her own desk – a confusion of pens, pencils, paper clips and elastic bands. Why hadn't she noticed these before? Or, rather, why hadn't she asked? Katie held her hair back in one hand and reached in for one to tie her hair up. Her hand hit something long and chunky. She gripped it and pulled, letting go of her hair, tying it back a forgotten idea. The object she brought out was bright yellow and wider at one end. A Tazer. It wasn't very heavy either. About half a pound if she had to guess. What the hell was Shimma doing with a controlled weapon in his office? Not only did Katie not want to ask but she was suddenly sure he had meant her to find it. It had a comfortable grip and it slid into the inside pocket of her jacket with barely a bulge. No-one would ever know it was there. Not unless the towns' non-existent police force decided to do a stop and search. She tied her hair back, blew her breath out and decided to head home. Life would carry on. There would be study and races, cooking and cleaning, friends and a psychotic teenager who might strike anywhere and when.

And anywho.

That was a nice thought.

"Knackered! Going to bed!"

There were noises coming from the kitchen of their old house on Newton Street, and the door was closed. Katie remembered the times when her parents had sat in the kitchen with the door closed. It either meant they were having a quiet argument, or they were discussing something important that they didn't want the kids to know. Which, in turn, meant she _had_ to know.

"Adam, we're gonna get fired for sure."

"Whatever happened wasn't our fault. They can't blame us for an accident."

"An accident. One of our girls nearly killed herself because we didn't spot how much she was hurting. We didn't give her the help she needed."

"We couldn't have-"

Lainy must have cut him off because Adam stopped speaking and she continued. "And then we focussed so much on her that we didn't support the ones still here. So much so that one of them ran away."

"These things happen, Lainy. It's got nothing to do with us being bad guardians."

"I don't think the academy will take that as a valid defence. God, we are fucked. Completely and utterly screwed."

"Calm down. Dina's going to be fine-"

"If she ever wakes up."

" _When_ she wakes up. We're house parents, not these kids' parents. Nor are we psychotherapists. The academy expects us to take care of our kids while there with us, not fix them."

"And if we do get sacked." Lainy sounded incredibly calm and collected, not even upset really, but Katie could imagine her sitting at the table, chewing on the end of her messy braid. "If we get disciplined. What happens to the others? I mean, Katie – she's young and nervous and she likes it here. It's a new start for her. And – and Leo. He's just starting to turn into a human being."

"Maybe we should be sacked. Stop giving them false hope."

"Bullshit, Adam. You love all these kids as much as I do."

"Yeah, I do. And maybe we just need to let them make their own mistakes and not feel so damn responsible when they get hurt."

She stood back from the door and swallowed back a sob. It was impossible to miss the implication in that sentence. They were talking about her. Katie had gotten hurt and was still working herself harder than she probably should – but nobody else was going to do it! And it wasn't her fault if Lainy and Adam felt responsible for her. She might be the youngest student they had probably had in the house, but she was still old enough to make her own decisions – good, bad or almost certainly suicidal.

"You need to remember that we might be looking after these kids but they are smart and tough too. They can take care of themselves." He paused. Lainy would be sitting with a steaming mug of coffee and staring at Adam with love and tears in her eyes. It was understandable – Adam was speaking a lot of sense and Katie herself loved him for being so logical but gentle and caring. No mistaking the fact he adored his job as man of the house.

"I know they can. The trauma some of them have seen, I'd never have left the house again if it was me. And we do our best."

"Course we do."

"But what if-" – _the best isn't good enough?_ Katie imagined the end of the sentence, shivered as a tingle of something dark and dead crept through her and headed for bed.

She was too tired to process the feeling she was getting. Too tired even to do anything about the roaring vortex in her stomach. Too exhausted to fully change into her pyjamas. She changed her jeans for PJ bottoms and crawled into bed wearing the work-sweaty t-shirt and thick socks. Katie was asleep before the duvet had even settled over her shoulders.

The deep and dreamless sleep was over much too soon. The room was still mostly dark when Katie awoke, although once she had pushed the curtains back and allowed morning sunlight to trickle in, it was light enough to dress by without switching her lamp on. Someone had closed her bedroom door at some point during the night.

Lainy, Adam and Leo were already in the kitchen by the time she got down. Adam was frying eggs and bacon, Lainy was sitting at the table enjoying the sight, Leo was being his usual grouchy self and making tea. Apart from the strange chill she felt - cold coming, maybe – it all looked nice and normal.

Which should have been her first clue.

Because when she stepped further into the food haze and slid into a seat, she noticed a fifth person at the able. A short, slim, dark haired wonder by the name of Jaye.

"Erm..."

"Oh, isn't it fantastic, sweetie. Jaye came home."

"When?"

"Late last night, after you went to bed. We're all so glad to have you back."

Jaye picked a slice of toast from the rack and started to butter it. "I'm glad to be back. You have no idea how cold it was out there."

"You were sleeping rough? Oh, well, it's over now and your nice warm bed's missed you, I'm sure."

"Believe me, I missed it right back. And I missed you guys. I wanted to come home before but... I didn't think there was anything to come back for."

"Oh, sweetie. There's always a reason to come home."

"Uh-huh. The house wasn't the same without you," Adam called over his shoulder. The bacon fat was spitting at him but he was doing that completely insane macho thing of staring at it until it agreed to simmer down. Apparently, he hadn't got the memo that angry, spitty food was generally done by that stage. "I'd welcome you back with a hug but hey, I'm feeding you"

"I'm honoured. Truly."

"You should be. Cooking is not manly."

"But you look so good in the apron. And plenty of men cook. They just don't look quite as sexy doing it."

"I know," Lainy agreed. "The kitchen is most definitely on fire." She leaned close to Jaye and smiled as though they were sharing a secret. "The more people in this house, the more normal it feels. You're glad Jaye's back too, aren't you Leo."

"S'pose," he mumbled, barely glancing up from stirring. A one word answer seemed to be pushing the limits of his conversational abilities this morning. Katie wondered if he had just got as little sleep as she had.

Jaye rolled her eyes at him and groaned. "Chatty as usual, I see."

Kate stretched her arms out and circled them around the dainty little person beside her, pulling her close in a fierce hug. God, she'd missed her. A thought occurred that Jaye had come home a little too conveniently, when sane people were well asleep and after their meeting in the club. But she thought the knowledge that Dina was close to waking had shaken the real Jaye into fighting She. And everything Jaye had just said and done was her real personality and not just a quite good imitation. "I'm so glad to have you back. I love you, Jaye."

Jaye pressed her cheek close and whispered. "Do exactly what I say or I tear the fucking roof off this place."

And that wasn't the real Jaye after all.

Katie felt her eyes widen and her face try to draw in on itself but she forced her face to be still, the smile to stay on her face. "Where were you?"

"Oh, here and there. Most of it's a blur. Tears and tissues."

There went that plan. Trapping Jaye into revealing her stolen identity had sounded like a good idea all of thirty seconds ago. But now Lainy was sending her a look that said _no questions_ in stereo sound.

Katie grabbed a slice of cheese on toast, dropped an apple in her pocket, slung her bag over her shoulder, silently thanking all her years of training to pack her school bag the night before. "Got to go. Early study group."

It was a lie. She hadn't signed any of the sheets her tutors had passed around for study groups. And nor was she planning to. Just didn't think she would have the time. But it sounded a lot more plausible than I _'m just getting out of the house because that thing is_ not _Jaye and she might actually tear the place apart._ So where to go instead? Really there was only one option. It was the one place and person than might just be the key to ending this. If there was anywhere that might show her how to give Jaye her body back it was the hospital.

Katie shivered. A waterproof coat hid at the bottom of her rucksack and, while it might keep the forecasted rain off later in the day, she wasn't sure if it would do much to combat the cold. This was the debate filling Katie's head when it suddenly got a whole lot colder.

Her vision went fuzzy. Her knees went weak. An icy hand grabbed hold of her insides and pulled. For a few seconds – longer? Time warped – there was a pressure on every working organ. Katie detached herself from the pain. It wasn't anything she wanted to feel. The next thing she knew, she was being spoken to.

"...didn't see you at all yesterday."

It sounded as though Jack had been speaking for a while. Having missed the beginning of the conversation, Katie had no idea what to say, or even if she should say anything. So she stayed silent.

"Lady Katie? Are you... God, I'm hurting you when I use you."

"I didn't even feel it."

A tiny frown line appeared between his beautiful green eyes, broken by the perfect round scar. Katie rubbed the pad of her thumb over it, matching his expression. Jack reached up, took her hand and dragged it down to his lips. Kissing her fingertips gave Katie shivers that Jack could practically feel. "Even a ghost can't outfade a speeding bullet."

"What about a ghost bullet?"

"No such thing."

"Oh." That couldn't be right. Maybe the thing wearing Jaye simply had access to weapons he didn't know about.

"Why do you ask?"

"Just wondered." There were a few more things to wonder about. "Where does the rubbish go?"

"You lost me."

"Well, we put the bins out and next day they're empty again. Where does it go? Who collects it?"

"Ain't never spent long enough here to find out."

"She's back. Everyone believes it's Jaye but I know it's not. She threatened us all."

"She's in your house?"

Katie nodded. How stupid had she been – just waltzing off and leaving her at home without even warning the others? "I have to get her out of there. She doesn't belong in this world."

And she was speaking to empty air. Jack had done a runner. It figured. Leaving her alone to face the big scary was the story of her life so far. Okay, so maybe that was a little bit harsh. No-one had meant to leave her to face her demons alone – and they had tried to give her support. But in the end it was _too little, too late._

Dr de Rossa was just walking into the student medical centre when she got there. it was still early – not quite eight o'clock. "Miss Cartwright." He nodded at her in greeting. He probably wouldn't have looked out of place tipping his hat.

Katie nodded backed and hurried inside. She wasn't in the mood to engage in conversation with him. She was not in the mood to do what she was about to do either. There was nobody on reception but a woman was hovering by the staff room, pinning a name badge on her jumper and watching boredly as the teenager strode through the waiting area and through the swing doors. _She looks like she thinks she owns the place. Must work here or something. I'm not getting in her way – she might get nasty. Besides, I don't clock on for another – oh, sweet Jesus, I'm late!_ Katie marched down to Room 4 near the end and hesitated outside the closed door. Was she doing the right thing? Was she doing it for the right reasons? Was she even sure it would work? Answer – not even a little bit. But, it was too late to turn back now. She knocked to warn anyone who might be inside and then walked in without waiting for an answer. If any response came then she thought she might just run away.

The room was full when she entered. Dina, of course, was lying on the big bed in the middle of the cubicle. But she seemed to be taking up even less room than the nurse fiddling with one of the drips, the domestic assistant changing the empty bed next to her and her anxious father all put together. In less than a blink, the nurse and cleaner had slunk out of the room, leaving Mr Bayliss leaning against the window and staring at his daughter. Looking at Dina harder wasn't going to make her wake up. Katie fluttered a glance at him but he hardly seemed to have noticed she was in the room. That was okay. She was pretty sure she could make this work with him in the room.

Pretty sure.

Her voice wouldn't attract attention. She wouldn't be moving around and disturbing anyone. She would be as quiet and as still as a corpse. That sentence had never been funny until it was serious.

Katie pulled the red plastic chair away from the wall and set it close to the bed. There was a comfier chair but the cushioning might make her relaxed enough to let her concentration slip. And then Dina might be lost forever.

She took Dina's hand in hers, stroking the fresh bandages around her wrists.

Did you mean it?

No answer. It wasn't exactly confidence building when your test question fails to even garner an answer. Holding a hand was a loose connection, Katie already knew, skin was too physical. She had to go deeper. A lot deeper.

Mr Bayliss was talking to her and Katie could hear herself answering but she had no idea what she was saying. This habit she had developed since returning from the End Place was alarming. Disconnecting so quickly and so completely from reality wasn't right and Katie shouldn't be able to do it. _Never look a gift horse... blah blah blah._ It was enabling her to save her friends and that was the important part. She looked at her friend and thought back to almost their first meeting. Dina had handed her a spiked drink – which was bad enough – but then she had stood by as Katie wandered off and blacked out in the middle of a deserted sports stadium. It was going to take a while to forgive that, even if she had done it with good intentions, but that process couldn't even begin if Dina wasn't here. But most of all, Katie wanted Dina back to complete her dysfunctional Northwood family.

She closed her hands tight around the cold, thin one, slid her eyes shut, reached her mind out for the familiar thread and pulled.

# Chapter fourteen

Katie had only the vaguest idea of what she was doing. It was a plan based on _ifs_ and _maybes._ More of a prayer than a plan really. She had no clue what holding on to the steel thread that represented Dina's still far too thin connection to the human world would do to her. Only that she had to do it. Maybe it was a mistake. It shouldn't take this long to get through. And then just as she thought it, Katie broke through the final layer of Dina's consciousness.

_Dina, where are you?_ She was just a voice in the crushing darkness. Try as she might, Katie couldn't visualise a body for herself or anything for Dina. But she knew the other girl was around. There were black on black streams drifting around.

I'm all around you.

Are you safe now? I got you back here but She followed me. Why does She want you so badly?

It's just the way it was meant to be. None of that matters now. You pulled me back from the edge and She didn't like it. That's why I've been staying here... locked inside myself. If I'm not fully alive, I'm safer.

Why did She want you when you were almost dead then?

Because I couldn't fight back.

_If I can get her out of this dimension, put her back where she belongs, things will go back to normal, won't they? You_ can _come back?_

There's still so much wrong with the world. With you. And I don't want to come back into that chaos. I just can't. You understand.

_There's nothing wrong with me._ Lack of sleep, a caffeine crash and a pang of homesickness – for crawling under her duvet and not coming out until Christmas. That was all.

If everything was right with you, Katie, I'd come home in a heartbeat. But it's not. There's darkness in you. It scares me that you don't even see it.

And her vision exploded into a Technicolor assault of reds and silvers and flashes of black. There was hate and blood and he smell of burning. A fleeting image of the man she had killed just last week; the sickening grief she should have felt for her poor dead brothers; the deal made with the Jaye-wearer; a beautiful cowboy who could never kiss her; the friends she could make but was too busy trying to save; the bleak future that lay ahead. None of it looked good. But it was the guilt – the piercing and very abrupt stab of guilt – that made Katie want to cry. She thought tears might be rolling down her cheeks but returning to her physical body seemed of little importance.

Before you can save me, you have to save yourself.

"How? How do I do that, Dina?" she heard herself asking.

Mr Bayliss was sitting on the other side of the bed, holding his daughters hand with one of his own and touching Katie's arm with the other. He was stroking it and looking at her the way any concerned father would. It made the tears come all over again. It reminded her of the concern her own parents had shown her these past few months. But, no, there was something.... It made her think of the looks her new friends had been throwing her way. And suddenly Katie realised that they cared for her just as much as she did for them. Not the worry of a housemate or somebody who was being paid to care. Genuine love and fear for her. "I never meant to make anyone feel like that."

"Sometimes it helps to talk," said Mr Bayliss. "I do it a lot. Knowing she can't answer back, can't come up with more problems. Makes it easier."

"You're wrong," Katie blurted out. "Dina knows everything that's been going on and she's just _dying_ to-"

She knew it was the wrong thing to say as soon as the words were out but she couldn't take them back. There was always the chance that the man would gloss over it as an expulsion of emotion. He got up and stormed out of the room.

Smart move.

"Why did I say any of that?"

_It's okay. He'll get over it. Always does. He's like you, you know. Pretends he's fine, smiles when he needs to cry, cries when he thinks no-one can see._ Katie _felt_ her shrug. _She's coming. Coming here. Coming for you._

"Wonderful." No idea what Dina was talking about but the intense way the words boomed between them made her take the warning seriously. Now, if she just knew what the warning was about, who was coming, why it sounded like such a bad thing. "Specifically?"

That thing in your bag. It will help. Be ready for when She comes and, please, don't be merciful. That thing is in my best friend's body and I want her out. Whatever it takes.

"There's only so much I can do."

You drive her out of Jaye and we'll do the rest. Unless there is another body for her to invade, She has no choice but to return to the End Place. The Shades there will punish her justly and I'll be free.

Katie let go of Dina and stood up, pushing the chair back so hard it fell backwards and clattered on the floor. All the times over the last week when she thought she had a way to end this, thought she had a way to make everything right, and now there was another ray of hope, Katie was wary of it. It was nearly time for college. Friday mornings were free of lessons except for a few minutes of screwing around in form room. Provided all students stayed on campus, they were free to do as they wished with their free periods. Katie had planned to do some training and get ahead on her study. She was mulling over her possibilities on the way out of the hospital when a whirling dervish of fury opened the swing doors into her face and knocked Katie flat on her backside.

"Smooth."

Her thoughts exactly. The fall had been hard enough that a bruise would almost certainly form near the small of her back by the time she went to bed. Pain rocketed through her back. Focussed only on that and the little black spots dancing in her eyes, Katie blindly grabbed for the hand shoved in front of her. She used the hand to get into a crouch and then used the strength in her own legs to fully stand up. Even though Katie was only 16, she felt way too old for this.

"Don't you have somewhere to be?" a familiar voice asked.

It was a voice Katie both loved and hated. "Jaye."

"Once more with feeling, babe. You know you love me."

"I do." Katie stood her ground, arms folded and her rucksack swinging from the crook of one. "But I haven't got time for you right now. That's why I really don't want to hurt you." She let her face harden and flexed one hand into a fist.

"As if you could hurt me." The thing wearing Jaye started laughing.

Katie wasn't a fighter and she couldn't even hope to pass for one. Only that was what she was banking on. Whilst Jaye was busy laughing in her face, Katie slid her other hand in her bag, gripped something shaped like her electric shaver, switched the safety off, whipped it out and fired fifty thousand volts into her. Jaye let out a strangled cry and fell to the ground. She wasn't moving, and it didn't even look like She was breathing. That much wild electricity could kill a girl that size, right?

Very carefully, Katie tiptoed over and felt for a pulse. There was one – strong, steady and much slower than Katie's own. Anything below triple figures would be good. But Jaye was out for the count and, without really thinking it through, she checked the nearest room was empty and dragged her in, standing a DEEP CLEANING yellow sign outside. There was a small chance that a staff member would still walk in but that was a bridge she'd cross if it came to it. She had to leave for the academy now before she was officially late, but she didn't feel at all happy about this. If She woke up and started kicking off before Kate made it back... it didn't bear thinking about.

"Abrahams."

"Here."

"Ankowsky."

"Here, sir."

"Cartwright."

"Here."

She stayed put as Mr Conroy finished ticking names off and reading out notices about overdue library books and the upcoming harvest festival drive. It was boringly normal. Everything she had wanted for the year, but nothing she wanted right now. What _did_ she want? At that very moment, all Katie could think about was... Jack. And maybe it shouldn't have been. Maybe it should have been her friends and how she had to choose between killing them and saving them. Or her family who deserved to know what this town was really about. Perhaps, just perhaps, it was the fact she felt stretched in too many directions. And all of those concerns faded into almost nothing when she thought of Jack; how well they worked together, and how many secrets they already shared. He filled her mind and nothing mattered but when they would see each other again, kiss each other again, curl into each other and let the world fall away.

"Okay, classes start in a few. I know most of you are free till lunch so stay on campus, make sure your work's up to date and don't cause havoc." Mr Conroy motioned for the students to all clear the room. Katie took her own sweet time doing it, not ready to return to the medical centre – which was a student centre and so technically on campus. It wasn't because she didn't have a plan – even though she didn't – but he knew she was going to have to cause her friend unspeakable pain. And there was no guarantee the Tazer would even make any difference.

All of those concerns went straight out of the window when a tiny hand reached up and squeezed her shoulder as Katie stood at her locker, sliding books and folders into places. No mistaking that grip.

"Welcome back to me."

Katie zipped up her baseball jacket and slowly turned around. "I knew I should have locked that door."

"Yeah, probably should have. I mean... it's a hospital. Not huge, not busy, but at least half a dozen people inside. Injured, ill, vulnerable. Could have been fun."

"But you went straight past the easy prey and came straight to the challenge. Why?"

"Because I think you have a plan. And I think you need to hear some truths."

"Go for it. I'm listening."

"But alone I see. No hero. No hope. No chance."

"Oh, while I think of it, did you enjoy your first experience of electricity? Bet it stung, didn't it?"

She rubbed her abdomen as if it was still sore – maybe it was; those stun guns must leave flash burns or something – and moaned. It sounded like Jaye and Katie had to fight the urge to give the girl a hug and tell her how sorry she was. Because this wasn't Jaye. "It was interesting. And unpleasant. Don't do it again."

"And you have the right to tell me what to do?"

"Aren't you trying to control life and death right now? The answer is yes, Katie. You want everything your way. Your friends alive. Me dead. But you're not the only one who wants the choices to go their way. I just want the order to go back the way it should be."

"And that means killing my friends. I won't let you."

"No, I didn't think you would but hey – had to give it a shot." She jerked Katie away from her locker and slammed the door in both of their faces. It was so forceful that the dozen or so other students in the common room all shut up for a few stunned seconds, looked their way, and then went right back to their conversations when Jaye glared around them all. "What, you've never seen a bitch fight before?" She turned to the back of a magazine somebody had left on a chair, trying to look casual. "You and Jack... you won't last. You love him, want him, think you can't live without him. Same old story. He messes with your head. You don't know all his secrets and, believe me, he's got plenty. You can't even _kiss_ the bloke! And you want some-one you can trust, don't you?" She tapped a finger to the side of her head. "Jaye, she tells me things. Oh, she doesn't mean to. It just kinda leaks out."

Anger burnt the edges of Katie's nerves and she could feel something starting to change. What the hell right did She have to even talk about that relationship? "Are we just going to chat? Because I have homework." Katie moved to go past her and towards the door. She knew it was a bad move before she did it. When bad moves were the only ones available, what did you do?

"I'm not done with you!" And, with unnatural (ha!) strength, She planted a hand on her chest and pushed gently. Katie flew across the room and slammed into another bank of lockers. It was like being hit by a dump truck. The world exploded into violent colour, sound, smell. When the disorienting dimensions stopped moving around and Katie could stand to open her eyes again, the imaginary truck grew spikes on its' bumper and drove them into her thigh. The thing that looked like Jaye had used her moments of semi-consciousness to raid her and take the Tazer away from Katie. "Tickles, doesn't it?"

All in the same instant, while Katie was watching her leg spasm as though it belonged to another body entirely, she became distantly aware of the complete hush that had fallen over the room. Faceless, identityless bodies, had stopped mid activity and were staring at the two girls. Fascinated. Horrified. Obviously they _hadn't_ ever seen a bitch fight before. None of them moved to try to break it up. Nobody even tried to speak. After a moment of silent impasse, She pirouetted with her arms out and slammed one elbow into the fire alarm, sending shards of thin glass raining to the ground and the high-pitched bells ringing around the entire academy. It distracted all the other students and they all ran for the door, the injured girl helpless and forgotten. Instinct begged Katie to get up and join the panicked exodus: get outside to safety.

It was impossible.

For one thing, a ball of fury and determination stood between her and the door. She was waving a Tazer. And wearing the face of a girl she loved like a sister.

Getting up the courage to even attempt to hurt her was going to be hard.

"Get up. Get the fuck up!" She shouted. She was locking the door behind her, eyes partly closed. The sound of bellowing fire bells faded to a less eye-watering level. They were only ringing now outside the common room but Katie could se, if not hear, the alarm as little bubbles of sound at the edges of the room. Right leg still shaking, Katie braced herself against the lockers and pushed herself to her feet. From the other side of the room, the two were at eye level with each other. "You try to mess up the plan. You think you're more important than the rules. I'm here to tell you you're not."

"Tell me something I don't know."

"So, you know." The older girl flicked the stun gun between her finger and thumb, then put it on the nearest coffee table. She started to close the distance between them. Katie ignored the muscles in her leg, shocked taut and screaming, and started moving in a circle, maintaining a bit of distance. "I could have taken anybody by now. The doctor from the hospital, the girl who cleans the labs. But you knew I wouldn't. You wanted to fight me. Try to save your little friend."

"Well, some say I'm crazy."

"I can see why." Quicker than the eye could see, Katie felt something touch her cheek and suddenly she was flying. And then she wasn't. She felt the back of her ankle graze the top of a chair but the speed she was hurtling through the air was too great for it to slow her down. She crashed into the concrete wall, cracking the plasterwork and possibly a few bones. The room swam. The chair she had nicked was just a still, white block of inanimate foam and steel. Just like the others. But, as she watched, this one grew a throbbing black pulse. _It's the darkness. Use it._ And then darkness pulled her under.

Fighting the pull... she had to do it. No matter how good it felt, no matter how blissful this ignorance was, she had to snap out of the haze. But deeper, it was sucking her deeper. It was such a relief to stop _doing_ things. Whatever She was doing to her was irrelevant; it was happening to another Katie, a Katie whose pain she would feel much later. She felt the Tazer brush her skin once more, it hurt less but it was enough to jolt Katie back into action. This should hurt and it was _her_ pain. She should feel it. She wanted to feel it. She wanted to experience everything and live because she had earnt it – because she had gone to war for it.

And still the black hole dragged her deeper towards the edge.

Katie opened her unconscious mouth and screamed. She knew no-one would hear it but it made her feel better. It took a while – seconds? Hours? Time meant little now, meant nothing when she began to glimpse the thousands of purple-black Shades on the cliff of the End Place – but finally somebody heard. It was a surprise but Katie didn't care. She wanted it to be over now. No more.

As one, the hoards of dark masses of energy turned to her and opened their twisted mouths, singing a terrible/beautiful song. Body moving of its own accord, she stretched out an arm. Dark tendrils wrapped themselves around her wrist and propelled her backwards. Through the thick black space, past the dark cracks of absolute nothing that seemed suddenly so sharp and dangerous. The resistance pushing down on Katie was like having that truck parked on top of her while an earthquake was raging beneath her. Mack 3 at least. And then she was back in her body, looking around at the damage she had caused to the common room. A couple of nice Katie-shaped dents in the banks of lockers and a few crushed bones maybe. She was trembling from the electricity so heartlessly pumped into her body and she didn't think there was a single square inch of her that wasn't bruised. But – no blood. That was a bonus. She groaned in pain as she tried to move. Jaye was about five foot nothing, less than a hundred pounds and had never thrown a punch in her life. Except for that one time when She had tried to kill Katie... beside the point. She shouldn't have this much power.

"How?" she managed, looking around a second time. No wonder her spine felt shattered into a million pieces.

"Inside me I have the power of Heaven. And Hell. And pretty much everything in between. And you can't imagine how it feels." She tested the Tazer on the palm of her hand. It sparked but nothing happened. Out of charge. Katie wondered how much of that power She had emptied into her. She hunkered down in front of her. Katie shrank back as far as she could go, trying not to meet her innocent blue eyes, but unable to resist staring into them. Jaye was in there somewhere, seeing what She was making her do. "And what do you have?"

Katie sensed it before it happened. Only an instant before. Not long enough for her face to give away the next event. But long enough for her eyes to reveal that something was coming.

It wouldn't be a good something.

The room filled with thousands – what _seemed_ like thousands - of moving dark shapes. Threads of raw, wild, raging energy. _She has us,_ a thousand voices said as one. _For today, she has us._

"I think I have an army." An undead army, sure, but she couldn't afford to be choosy. "Us. Against you. I kind of like those odds."

"What about your precious fair fight?"

"We don't all play by the rules, now, do we?"

"That's true. You promised not to take Dina."

"I promised you the chance to get to her. Not my fault you were too slow."

"You promised not to fight me when your time came."

"You promised not to come after me. And it's not my time yet. I'd know if it was." Katie had no idea if that was true but it gave her a few seconds to shoot a question at the Shades while She thought it over. _Why are you here? I didn't save you, why are you still helping me?_

Because you tried and that's more than anyone else has done. Now make this quick. We can only stay as long as you hold on to the darkness.

What am I supposed to do? We can't fight her. I mean, you guys are incorporeal and she's already beat me up once.

One of them laid their hand over the Tazer. Katie saw blue spark jump all around it. She could see it crackle with more and more life the longer it was being touched. She could hear it buzzing – begging to be unleashed. She was sure that She couldn't see or hear it happening, couldn't even see the Shades surrounding her. Although it was clear that She could hear them by the way her eyes flickered towards them, unfocussed but searching for the voices. _Isn't this what you came for?_

"No. I came to take back what's mine. Sadly, this _child_ never learned how to share."

"Share? Like you're sharing Jaye – not trying to take her over?"

"Mm. Exactly like that."

Katie had managed to keep on her feet and circling around until she was near the electric gun and She was near the far wall of lockers. "What do I have to do with all this? I tried to save them, anyone would, but I didn't choose it. I owed it to them."

Yes. We brought you into this and we are sorry. But we thank you too.

"But I'm in this now and I'm in it till it's over."

"I'm done with this dance. You want lost souls, I want them, it's gonna be a thing." Without warning, She rushed at Katie. A wall of black mist sprang up around her. Arms of protection. Katie watched her old friend hit the wall and saw the impact like a hit on a forcefield – lilac and sky blue ripples. "You're gonna play like that, huh?"

You have wronged many people. We have waited for our turns to take the fall into the Other Place, where-ever that shall be. The girl has no place with us.

"What girl? Me girl?"

You have woken a fury more powerful than you can imagine. You think you are strong but you have committed crimes fit for nothing but nightmares.

Katie took advantage of these few seconds of distraction, keeping half an ear on it, and snaked an arm out of the dark ring, grabbed the Tazer. Part of her didn't want to use it because... well, it was still Jaye. Her body would still fry under the shocks. And she was tiny. It might even kill her. But she stamped the voice into a whisper and shot two prongs into her, wincing a bit as thousands of volts travelled through thin wires. But She stayed on her feet, even though She staggered back a few steps. A hand shape misted out of the black, slid across the wires and touched her on the shoulder. It seemed gentle. Mist could have no real weight behind it. It had enough of it though to force the girl down to the ground. Katie hadn't let go of the Tazer – an insane amount of power was still going into her former friend and She was desperately trying to disguise the pain. It wasn't working. There was a growing red patch spreading across Jaye's front. It was blazing and roaring. There was a fire inside her. And it was as bright as Katie believed her face was. Her head was telling her that this prolonged attack was more than justified, and her heart was telling her that she was electrocuting her _best friend._

Don't think like that. This is the only way.

But Katie took her finger off and dropped the stun gun to the ground, unable to keep this up.

"Giving up so soon?"

The wall of Shades closed around Katie once more, then faded straight through her, returning to their ranks. Not that their presence wasn't welcome but Katie needed to stand alone for a minute. "I don't give up."

"Oh, but you're so good at it. This year... what have you really done but give up and run away?"

A flash of anger blinded Katie to rational thought and she ran the few steps to her opponent and kicked her in the face. Her booted toes caught the other girl just below the chin and her head rocked back. There was a little bit of blood and Katie was sure that she had busted some toes. It felt like kicking a rock more than breaking a jaw. But She screamed and fell back like any human – just as breakable. And then She looked up at her, cross-legged and childlike, and smiled. With smears of blood on her teeth, the teenager sitting on the floor was unmistakably a demon, not Jaye.

"How far will you go, babe? Kill me and I'll take her with me."

_Don't make promises you can't keep._ Katie stood over the girl and dropped to her knees, one knee on her chest and the other on the floor. Using her own weight to still the wriggling form beneath, she glanced behind her. _Get into her head. Cover her in darkness and pull her out._

To touch her... to own her... She will know how it feels to be controlled by sin.

She already is. She just isn't sorry yet.

As one, a thousand dark shapes joined forces and formed a black shell over the two girls, slowly caving in and sinking into She. Katie sat back on her haunches and held the girls' arms pinned above her head and placed a chair over her legs so She couldn't thrash around and hurt herself. And thrash She did. Eyes tightly closed, she convulsed and kicked and made noises that spoke of a struggle for a human body.

Katie felt like crying again. Maybe she was losing her friend. Maybe she was losing everything. This week... this week, she had fought to keep her normal life of study and sport and Shimma. And what good was any of that if she ha no friends left to share it with? "Stop." She couldn't watch her friend in any more pain. The minute she uttered the word and the air in the room shifted – they were actually listening to her – She wrestled back control and eyes as hard as blue marble and bloodshot snapped open and bored into Katie. The dump truck was reversing and Katie was trying to stop it by staring at it.

_You have no idea what you're doing,_ those eyes said. There was hate in them, will and fury that She was being denied, but there was fear in them. A lot of fear. What that intense dread was about was anyone's guess. What the Shades would do to her? Losing ownership of Jaye? That Katie had beaten her?

I'm saving us all.

Don't do this Katie. You said yourself, you're not a killer.

_No, I'm not. But this isn't killing. It's justice._ And it should have worried her that she believed that. Killing the sheriff just last week; she told herself it was self defence – it was kill or be killed, so he deserved it. But killing someone, even if they were evil, it was still murder. Whichever way you cut it, murder was never justifiable.

_Please, babe, it hurts so much._ Katie softened her hold. Was that Jaye speaking? The eyes were still scared and confused. That should have given it away –

And it did.

Jaye was sure of herself and confident in every step she took. She had never looked uncertain in her life. Well, the last three weeks of it anyhow.

_There's my girl. For trying to kill me, my friends, making them believe you were her, you_ will _pay. Every spirit you sent over the edge before they were ready – they're here. Every single one of them is asking me – begging me – to get revenge and kick your unholy arse back to hell. But I won't do that. I have better plans for you. Babe._

Katie vaguely saw a flicker of doubt on Jaye's heart shaped face. And then it was too late. She stripped off her jacket, flexed one aching hand – _please, God, do the same for my back_ – and slammed it flat over those eyes, knowing she was launching herself into whatever torture was happening to her psyche. Beneath her hands, one of Jaye's shot down and wrapped around her wrist, nails carving deep crescents into the soft flesh and drawing thin moons of blood. Katie yelled out in pain but She kept pressing, squeezing. Her wrist felt weird when she managed to pull away and try to shake it back to life. No question it was broken. It was floppy and every movement felt like splinters of bone were fighting to pierce her skin. She sat back on her backside for a second, using her knees once more to keep Jaye from hurting herself. When she got her breath back, Katie leant forward and got back into her hand-over-eyes position. Whatever had been happening inside Jaye's head was over now. Whatever fight Katie had stupidly been about to wade into, it was finished. But it was too late. Katie was already falling through the too-calm first layer of consciousness. She reached out, trailing imaginary fingers over the furry darkness, watching as she left ripples in her wake. It was so dark and quiet here. So much so that she could hear a heartbeat. Anything – any _one_ – could jump out at her and, in the confines of a skull, there was no room to defend herself. Not that she would stand a chance.

And then that concern was made redundant.

OUT!

A herd of black shapes rushed past her and Katie found herself swept along with the flow.

_MOVE IT! YOU TOO!_ One of them grabbed her wrist, the broken one. She felt a scream bubbling up but swallowed it down, thinking that noise wasn't the best idea right now, and settled for the tears of agony streaming down her face instead. A heat was creeping into her bones, making her feel lethargic. She began to slow. _Don't stop. Never stop._ And hen it slapped her. Not just the sensation of light fingers passing through her cheek – a hard, open-handed, stinging smack. A warning Katie wasn't likely to ignore. She picked herself up and tried desperately to keep pace with the Shades. She might be faster than many humans but she still had to run on legs; couldn't even hope to keep up with the supernatural speed the Shades could use to just float forward. And she did well until she came to the calm edges. The hand holding her fell away. Almost everyone had made the jump back into the real world. Katie twisted and pressed her back to the wall – it was too creepy to think of it as a piece of skull. A ball of flame was burning through the space towards, blasting a sizzling heat into the air. Too hot. Her blood was bubbling underneath the surface and Katie knew it was over. This was She – angry and blind and death. She closed her eyes tight, reached out for the darkness that must be all around her if it was inside. She caught onto the trailing tendrils of one of the final Shades to leave, gleefully waved goodbye to the raging fire and then she was out.

Pausing for breath when she dropped back into her body was luxury Katie doubted she could afford though. She had to get as far away from Jaye as she could, not knowing what would happen next but suspecting it wouldn't be good. Logic told her to open the door and get outside where there was space. And people. No-one would dare attack in broad daylight and in public. Thinking this as she went, Katie scrambled over to the far wall and cowered between a table and a vending machine. She'd barely enough time to blink or even glance over at Jaye – for it was her now, just Jaye, tiny and vulnerable and oh so fragile – when there was a familiar heat arming along her arms and blowing her hair this way and that. Katie looked up and saw black shapes lining every wall. Why weren't they helping her? Why were they just standing there when _I could use a hand. Seriously, I can't be everywhere – I'm not Wonder Woman._ She was just a kid who didn't want to be here anymore. As though they had read her thoughts, a dozen or more Shades moved forward and linked their misty arms, forming a protective circle around Jaye. Good. That was one less thing she had to worry about. Now it was just the one drifting towards her, looking threatening. The thing that had blasted its' way out of Jaye wasn't a jungle of dark threads and purple-black glints, wasn't... wasn't anything really. Just a loosely humanoid shape, a displacement of the suddenly thick air.

And it was terrifying.

It reached across the table, looking down at it and then realising it – no, She, might look sexless but it was still She – could now go right through it. She was inches from touching Katie, who was having a very badly timed memory of killing the Sheriff. _I can't feel a life draining away because of something I did. Can't have blood – not even evil blood – on my hands again. Can't watch people think 'm an innocent when I know I'm a murderer. I just can't. I won't._ And then She was touching her, some-one was screaming, there was an incredible heat and a fire alarm ringing, and it was over.

The world was black, silent, far away. Katie was almost relieved to find that her mind and body had given up. She sank into a bottomless unconsciousness in the common room.

Unfortunately, that wasn't where she woke up.

It was daylight bright under her eyelids. The first thing Katie could think of was finding out who had just been slapping her. Mind still in the 'identify and eliminate immediate threat' phase. Only... taking action on that thought didn't seem that important after all.

"Hey. Bitch, wake up. Don't make me have to hit you again."

Katie dragged her eyes open – they felt like they had lead weights attached to them – and found herself staring up into bright autumn sun. She shivered under the jacket somebody had draped over her and shot her hand up to shield her eyes. Her wrist exploded in so much pain that stars started dancing in her vision and she couldn't do anything to stop the agonised scream that erupted. That brought things back. She didn't want to know some of those things but you couldn't pick and choose your memories. "Jaye."

"Do I look like Jaye?"

Katie sat up and put her arm through the jacket – the one she was not cradling to her chest like a china babydoll.

"I had to phone home. They'll be here soon."

But she wasn't listening to Leo anymore. Katie was staring up at the first floor common room with every single one of it's' windows blown out and sticking up in jagged triangles of shattered glass. He followed her gaze. "When I never saw you at the fire assembly point, I figured you'd found some trouble to get yourself into. Jaye screamed, did that, haven't seen her since."

Katie flung her good hand out to the wall of the building, clawed her way up and headed for the door. "Call it a bad feeling." He hadn't even asked a question yet.

In the common room, within the exploded windows were banks of lockers toppled sideways into one another like dominoes, dented where Katie had been thrown into them – the memory brought fresh waves of pain – and furniture, papers, discarded coats and bags littered the floor. Nothing was how it should be. The lockers should be smooth and upright. The windows shouldn't have glass inside and out. The other mess in the room... yes, that was pretty much the same as always. She was surveying the damage, wondering how exactly she was still on her feet if she had caused even a fraction of it when Katie felt her phone vibrate in her pocket. It stared ringing a second later. It was somehow still functional and fully intact; they had definitely built that one to last. There were no numbers programmed into the phone yet and she hadn't exactly had time to sync her SIM with the handset yet. "Hello?"

"You need to get down here now."

"Jaye?"

"Yeah. And I'm serious. Like, deadly serious. This thing isn't over yet. I thought it was, I thought I finished it when those things went away but it just got worse."

"Worse? How can it get any worse than it just was? Are you okay? And tell me where you are. I'll come find you, Jaye. You shouldn't be out on your own."

There was a sharp intake of breath on the other end, as though Jaye had just witnessed something particularly horrible. "I'm at Shimma. I followed her here and, Katie, She's got Jack." The line went dead.

A sinister dread turned the air frigid around Katie. Struck with a flash of inspiration, or maybe fright, she used her good arm to flip every chair, every table, ransack every bag, every coat, not giving a toss about privacy. Nothing but cigarettes and books. There was a nauseous moment as she realised her friend had taken it. "It's gone."

"What is?" Leo asked from his position at one of the window shaped holes. He was waving at somebody below.

"I had a Tazer. She took it."

"Okay, first, that phone was on loudspeaker, I heard every word. Second, you ain't going nowhere without me – not this time – and third, she's got a weapon to defend herself with. I call that a plus."

"Problem the first, my dear brainiac-" but she didn't get much further than that because Adam and Lainy came dashing in at that very moment. "I'm fine. We're all fine."

"Sweetie, what happened?" Lainy reached out to touch her but Katie flinched away, fearing that she was going to set yet more lightning bolts of white hot pain shooting through her arm. If Katie kept it very still, there was just a muddy brown roar in her wrist.

"Fire drill, stampede for the door, hand _in_ door, busted wrist." She slid her eyes to Leo for a confirming nod. The fire alarm and the stampede, at least, were the truth, and they nicely explained most of the chaos inside the room. Students weren't exactly known for being tidy or patient creatures.

Lainy held her hands up to show that she wasn't going to touch, then elbowed Adam forward. He inched forward, picking over the junk on the floor, and put one arm around Katie in an awkward half hug, trying to avoid touching her injured wrist. Katie turned her face into his chest, glad he was there for support because she thought she might have fallen down otherwise. While she wasn't looking, Lainy took the broken wrist in one hand and used the fingers of her other hand to feel around. Even though quiet tears were streaming down her face and Katie was biting her bottom lip hard enough to draw blood, she didn't try to pull away. God, she was so much gentler than the doctors who had seen her before. It still hurt and the lightest brush of fingers on flesh was about an inch beyond painful.

I'm so sorry I have to do this. Why do I have to be the one who causes the pain? I hope I'm not being too rough.

Katie tried a smile. It wasn't a convincing one. But she knew that Lainy meant well and telling her that tender hands alone weren't going to make her arm any better just sounded ungrateful. "It's probably not as bad as it looks, right?" Things often looked worse when they hurt. Or when there was blood. Surprisingly, there was none of that around.

"Honey, I think it's broken. We need to get you to the med centre and plaster that."

Oh... fun.

It only took a few minutes to get to the medical centre, despite her (admittedly weak) protests that she would get fixed up later. Leo had insisted on coming with them to the door, for some reason, and then had taken off back to Levenson Academy proper. Anyone would think that a boy seeing his injured friend to the hospital would at least want to see it through. But no. That would be far too logical. Lainy blew right through reception, found an empty row of seats just outside the waiting area and the trio sat down. There were the same out of date magazines on the low table, the same frayed fabric on some of the chairs – the OUT OF ORDER sign on the hot drinks machine was new. Also a blessing to anyone who had ever drunk from it. All business, Lainy walked straight back out and calling for Dr de Rossa, throwing over her shoulder, "Adam, feed the girl. We don't want her passing out as well."

Katie supposed she _was_ hungry. She watched Adam vanish out of the door and around the corner into the kitchen where the staff and visitors of long-term patients could make themselves a bite to eat. He was still ensconced in his sandwich construction when Dr de Rossa came and felt her wrist. He came to the same broken conclusion as Lainy, his shadow for the day apparently, but "I'd like to do some X-rays just to be sure where the break is."

Getting the X-rays took a lot longer than she had expected even though she was taken straight in. None of the waiting around she had done with Dan, and it didn't take half as long really as her little sisters' fractured ankle. It just felt like longer when it was happening to you. When she was out of the room and told just to sit tight until the X-rays came back, Katie excused herself from the hawk-like nurse to go to the bathroom and made her way back to the treatment rooms. Room 4. Dina was awake, sitting up and giggling with her dad over some stupid television show they had found. There was a beeping monitor attached to her thumb and a drip of clear fluid n her arm, but none of the other machines. Apart from clean bandages in her wrists, there seemed to be nothing wrong with Dina. Katie probably needed the bed more than she did. Just as Katie was beginning to slink away, Dina caught her eye and mouthed _let them fight._

What? Were her lip reading skills that bad? Dr de Rossa came up behind her at that moment and touched her shoulder, motioning her back to the waiting area. He then brought Adam into their merry little group and they headed into Room £ where Lainy was waiting outside. Room 3 was the first room she had seen of the medical centre, not too long ago, when she had near as dammit gouged her uncles eye out. At least she knew there was nothing to be scared of in this clean, sterile, but somehow friendly room. He stuck something in her arm which she didn't feel, showed her pictures of her bones which she didn't see, said words that she didn't hear and then got to work preparing plaster. Maybe it was the wicked strength painkillers she had been given. Lainy held her wrist steady and wet plaster and cotton wool packing wrapped her from elbow to fingers. She ate the cheese, lettuce, mayo and crushed crisp sandwich Adam had made without really tasting it. It was probably good.

"You'll probably feel a little light headed for a while. I advise you to stay off your feet for an hour or so." Dr de Rossa flicked the brakes on a wheelchair and Lainy held her arm out to help Katie into it. She just looked from her friend to the chair. "As you saw, your friend is awake now so I'll put you together while you rest. I'm sure you two have lots to catch up on."

"I'm fine. I can walk next door."

"With morphine in your system? I might as well run a book on whether you'd get there," Adam said. "I'm putting fifty on the floor."

"Hospital policy I'm afraid, Miss Cartwright."

"Yes, Alejandro," Katie sighed, resigned. The drugs were making her want to giggle at that. Using the doctors' first name seemed like the ultimate in bucking authority right then. She took the offered arm and lowered herself into the chair, feeling suddenly like a victim again. It was not a pleasant feeling and one she hoped would never return. Letting Lainy wheel her into Room 4 and then on to the bed next to Dina was humiliating. She felt defenceless, useless, dependant on others. And the worst bit? Katie felt absolutely fine. She didn't need all this attention.

"Elaine, I think we should have that word now." Dr de Rossa swept out of the room. Lainy squeezed Adams hand, grinned nervously at him and turned to follow him.

"We'll see you at home Katie. Come on, let's see what he's got for me."

She raised one hand to wave. The sling tied around her neck was a little itchy next to her skin, folded over the top of her t-shirt and pulled to the side Katie found she could lie back and rest her head on the pillow. Much more comfortable. Mr Bayliss had left the hospital at some point during her plastering session, so all that disturbed the peace was the steady _beep beep beep_ of a monitor and the inane chatter of some talk show on television. It was so soothing and unthought-provoking, and combined with the drugs making their way though her veins, that Katie was in real danger of falling to sleep when Dina started speaking.

"There's nothing more you can do, you know."

"Huh? Oh, hey, D. Feeling better?" Which struck Katie immediately as a stupid question but her brain was feeling a bit fuzzy.

"Tons. But you've done enough now."

"Oh, that's good. I'm kind of tired."

"I'm not sure what you actually did for me, but I know it's you I have to thank."

"I'm not sure what I did either. Can't think straight."

"They probably gave you something to help you sleep. I heard them talking. You look tired, Katie."

"I'll be okay in a minute. I just need to rest."

"Me too. We'll sleep while our friends go to war."

"War?" Katie settled her head back on the raised pillows. She had a vague idea that the word was a bad one. Her eyelids started to slide shut.

Shortly before midday, Katie woke up and found herself staring up at bare light bulbs and a clinical, white ceiling. It was suspiciously clean and there were no cracks, so it definitely wasn't her bedroom ceiling. There was a soft snoring coming from a few feet to her left. There was a thin girl lying asleep in the next bed. It was artificially warm in the room, and she couldn't move her right arm, it being strapped to her chest. But nevertheless, she tried, and as a strange tingling invaded her wrist memory came seeping back. She had broken her wrist in a fire drill, the girl next to her was Dina and she was sharing her hospital room. That was all. But there was somewhere she had to be; something she had to do. Knowing exactly what that was seemed unimportant. Her itchy feet seemed to know where they were taking her and somehow Katie was certain that knowledge would make the journey to her brain in good time. She swung herself off the bed – it was higher than anticipated – and she clung to the edge of the mattress for a minute trying to get her balance. Then she eased her bandaged arm out of the sling to pull her jacket on and reslung it inside, after a panicked moment of wondering how to zip up one-handed. She brushed hands with Dina as she passed, letting her gaze linger on the girls' own bandages.

We match.

Then Katie was out of the quiet, echoey hospital and jogging down the street. The sequence of turns and changes in ground style told her where she was going more than landmarks. It was her athlete's brain taking over again. Shimma. That's where she was heading. The plan for when she got there? Well, whatever might be waiting for her when she got to the club was unknown – it could be literally anything. So the plan... no, she didn't have one of those. Unless seeing what was on offer and deciding whether to fight or flee counted. And what if it was all over by the time she got there? Something terrible would happen if that was true, Katie was sure of it.

And then she was outside the heavy doors. She knocked on the glass, pulled on the handles even though one pull told her they were locked, and banged the door, shouting for somebody to come let her in. No-one came. Finally, frustrated, she gave the door one last yank and kicked it, sending her foot into shock and hopping backwards on the other and hoping she didn't have a broken toe as well. "OW! Oh, for the love of – shit!" And then a spark of inspiration hit and it was so obvious, she should have tried it first. Katie slotted herself into the shadowed recess beside the main doors and felt for the round hole which served as a handle in the wooden door – the staff entrance she thought. The door opened and Katie snuck in. Closing it behind her would keep the cold out but it would also mean sealing her in here if anything went wrong. So she left it open just a crack. Then through the slanted door to her right which led to the main room. She opened that next, half expecting the chaos she had walked into the first time – music, bright lights – but there was only darkness and silence and cold. She took a few steps forward, jumping about a foot when the door slammed shut behind her. There were some switches on the wall and she found on with a LIGHTS sticker on it – red stars – and flipped it. The only light it threw out was those cute blue and green fairy lights. Not brilliant. And not exactly threatening if she needed to be fearsome.

Come let's fight by fairy light.

It wasn't even funny in her head.

Katie was hunting all around for a weapon and was currently behind the bar – she had discarded the idea of strangling She with a yard of found electrical flex – when a hand rapped it's knuckles on the wooden bar. Shimma was standing there, his peroxide hair glowing like an angel on acid.

"Either you're really dedicated or –"

"It's an emergency."

"Or that. What's going on, girl?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you. Have my friends been here? Have you seen them?"

"You look like you're out for blood." He was closer to the truth than she wanted to tell him. "Guessing it's revenge on who-ever did that?" Shimma gestured to her wrist.

"I'll be fine for work. No worries about that. Have –"

"I never worry. Well, sometimes I do but not 'bout you. You's not the quitting type."

"Much as I'd like to - I haven't got time for a chat, Shimma." Every second he kept speaking to her, he was keeping her from... something. Something that definitely wasn't good, at any rate. "Have you seen anything of my friends? Heard any noises? I think they might be in trouble?"

"Three of them?" Shimma nodded and offered his hand to Katie, tiptoeing through the unpacked boxes and crates. "They'll be fine. You've got nothing to worry about."

Three? Jaye, Jack and... who? Could he see the ghostly She? Had She taken over another human body. And she still had to mention about the Tazer she had stolen from his desk and that (probably) Jaye had swiped it from her. God, she was so getting fired today."

"Them?" He pointed to three people walking out of the gloom, side by side. Jaye, Jack and Leo. Jaye looked pretty much like Katie imagined she did - untidy, exhausted, fierce. Jack - Jack looked like always – gorgeous, heroic, a little bit sad. He was, Katie realised, trying to protect her – trying to keep his beautiful Lady Katie out of his pain, his history. She wasn't that easy to protect. And then to the surprise member of the group. Leo was the last person Katie had expected to see in the middle of this. One glance at him told her that he was the last person who had expected to be here. On closer inspection she decided that Leo had enjoyed whatever he had been part of. There was a new fire in his eyes. He was a boy who had found something worth fighting for. Whether it was for right and wrong, or for his own life, it was worth it.

Until now, the three of them had not been the best of friends. Jack had drained energy from Dina, earning Jaye's hatred, Leo was basically an obnoxious shit whit made everyone turn against him; and Jaye had had the pleasure of being punched – very nearly – in the face by Leo for not believing in God. It was hard thinking of three people less likely to forge a cute little trio who trusted their lives to each other – perhaps Mr Bean, Xena Warrior Princess and Buzz Lightyear. But right now... Walking underneath hundreds of tiny blue and green lights which made the world look nothing less than spectacular. And they suddenly looked perfect.

"She's gone." Leo was the first to break the silence. "We sent that bitch _back!"_

""Are you all okay? She didn't hurt anyone, did she?" She was looking at Jaye when she said that. She was the one who had been hurt most of all. Having a huge, dark soul squashed into your brain must have been horrid – seeing what She was making her do and being powerless to stop it. It made her shudder just to think of it.

"I know what She – what I did," Jaye whispered hoarsely. "I was so horrible to you. I said some stuff, did some stuff, that I wouldn't have done if I'd been myself. I am sorry for all of that but..."

"Don't be sorry. You've got nothing to apologise for. We all know none of it was your fault."

"I know it's all true though."

But the words got lost in the confusion of voices as the menfolk started talking between themselves and Katie only half-heard Jaye.

"...couldn't really see her," Jack was saying. "But I felt this chilly bit in the air, like a hole in the warmth. So I knew she was there."

"Bitch don't like electricity."

"Oh, wait, where'd it go?"

Leo held a bright yellow thing in one hand. Shimma reached for it and plucked it out of his hand. He didn't seem to want to give it up but his grip opened when he realised, sharply, that Jack could still elbow him in the ribs and he would feel it.

"Glad to be of service. I wasn't completely sure it'd work."

As if just noticing her, Jack rushed over to Katie and took her good hand, rubbing his thumb over her knuckles.

"No," she answered before he asked anything. "I have a broken wrist, bruises from here to God-knows-where, I've been shot, I went to another world and watched people throwing themselves off a cliff, my days are an endless cycle of study, sleep, and saving lives-" and then she ran out of steam. There was much more she could say. "No, I'm not alright."

# Chapter fifteen

"Do you really wanna know what happened?" Jack and Katie were walking back to the academy, and had decided to grab a sub and eat lunch in the athletics stadium before afternoon classes began.

She thought about it. Did she truly want to know? Sometimes it was better to live in ignorance. Whether this was one of those times... she had no idea. It would just make it harder to deny any of this had happened – like that was a possibility now. But Katie had been planning to lock all this knowledge away in a mind-box and not bring it back out until she was legally old enough to know any of it, by the screwed up rules of the town. And now what had she gone and done? She had been in fights she hadn't even started, tried to rescue lost souls because they had put faith in her, given a girl free reign to kill some-one in exchange for people she loved, had faced an ugly death in a world no-one alive knew about. Katie hadn't wanted any of it. It was, however, better than festering in Worth, living in a stagnant comfort zone of the college her school-mates were attending, the town where so many people knew her and felt sorry for her; where people treated her with care and caution and censored everything they said and did in case it hurt her feelings. "Not yet."

He laced his fingers with the bits wiggling over the top of her bandage. "You're finishin' the day? Broken bones, perfect excuse for a day off."

"Tempting as that sounds, I should at least try to get through the afternoon. Besides, what could we do with the day that wouldn't get at least one of us in trouble?"

Jack arched his eyebrows and tried to play the innocent card. It wasn't working. Both of their minds had leapt to the same conclusion – that they would spend the time snuggled up together, kissing and cuddling until the moon began to rise. Which would be a fine thing if they didn't know that Katie would lose all memory of Jack and God knew what else if their lips so much as touched. She didn't believe he wanted to remove things from her head. The way he looked at her – green eyes heavy with shadows and secrets that were too much to carry alone – told her that much. It was just a rule. Another one. There was something about her still being underage that meant she wasn't supposed to know Shades existed and intimacy was a way of making her forget about them. Totally messed up, if you asked Katie. If people wanted to raid her brain then surely basic ethics would demand she gave permission first.

So why did she remember being with Jack in the Other Place? She remembered every touch, every smile, every moment they had shared. And now she knew how good, how _right,_ it felt to kiss him, she never wanted to give that up. "Jack? When we were in that place...I remember it all. The good bits and the bad."

He looked a bit sad at that. Not surprised, just sad. "Humans were never meant to go there. I can't take that away. I wish I could, there's so much you shouldn't have to know."

She could read it in his face. Under the scar and Stetson, he was a teenage boy with 150 years of pain behind him. However much he wanted to make this all better, he couldn't and Katie wouldn't have let him. She was dragged into this fight the day she got to Northwood, and she was in it for a reason. So she couldn't afford to put her clarity of mind at risk. She couldn't kiss Jack again.

"I can't believe Mom never told me I should have brothers."

"Maybe she was tryin' to protect you. Y'know, so you didn't get upset."

"They were my family! You should be told the truth about family, whether it's nice or not."

"She probably didn't really want to talk about it either. Parents shouldn't have to watch their own kids die. Shouldn't have to go to their funeral."

"Sorry, I didn't think." Katie chewed her bottom lip and started picking dirt out of her fingernails. For some reason, she felt very guilty. Jack had had a funeral and his mother had had to see her own son buried. "We did something good, didn't we?"

"Lady Katie, listen to that."

She put her sub down and listened. All she could hear was the buzz of activity from the track and field below her and snatches of conversation from the other al fresco diners. What was she supposed to be hearing? The girls sitting next to them and moaning about the lack of eye candy in their class? The absence of something nice to look at during double maths was a talking point but not exactly important. Was it the group at the bottom of the benches – a teacher congratulating his students on excellent exam results? Maybe it was the tall red-haired boy telling his coach about a talented student who could fill that empty place, right on the other side of the track?

Wait.

Why could she hear that? Katie took a breath and opened her mouth to speak. Before a sound could come out, Jack covered her eyes with one hand and out his other hand on the back of her head.

Stop listening with your ears.

Well, listening to anything was pretty difficult without ears. Katie clung to that slippery logic.

Don't fight me, Lady Katie. Relax. You're safe now.

And her grip fell away. Nothing would hurt her. Chill reality was out there, existing for other people. Her thoughts felt sluggish and syrup-thick – the remnants of the pain-killers – and detaching from the real world was hard, harder than it had ever been before. She was numb to pain in her wrist and ribs but dimly aware that it was there and that anchored her to reality. Impending pain and constant fear that somebody was going to come along and rip her world apart. But she was with Jack and nothing would hurt. He wouldn't let it.

What's happening?

Katie knew they had spoken like this before. _Knew_ it. So why did it feel so different today? Why did it feel as though they were doing something they shouldn't? Why didn't she want to stop? And then it all became clear.

I love everything about you, Lady Katie. I love how strong you are. I love how you keep fighting when anyone else would give up. It's amazing. You're amazing. And I love the fact you don't believe it.

You think I would have done any of those things if I'd had a choice.

You did have a choice.

_I chose to run away before. And my problems just chased me here._ Clarity was suddenly beginning to sound very over-rated. A thought was forming in her brain and she grabbed for it, but it slipped away. _The man who killed you... did you know him?_ Katie pushed her question against a thinning mental wall, much like the one she had used to lock her bad memories behind. There was something amid all those thoughts that Jack was not ready to think about just yet. It was something Katie herself was trying to put off as long as possible. _He didn't kill you in the heat of anger. Or he wouldn't have kept coming back for you. He hated us both._

"Don't talk like that," said Jack, snapping back into his regular voice. "Just enjoy right now."

"Why was it so hard to get into your head? It felt _wrong._ It shouldn't feel like that because... you and me, we're right. We make sense when nothing else does."

"You're wound up so tight, just waiting for somebody to jump out at you." Katie shrugged her jacket over her arm and let her boyfriend fasten it over her sling. "You never told me how that really happened."

She let her eyes drift over Jack and touched her free hand to his face. There were old shadows, lost secrets. And something new; a fresh tear ripped deep into his soul. "What aren't you telling me?" His ocean eyes were begging her to talk to him but she wasn't ready yet. She might take his advice and stop worrying, be a teenager for the rest of the day. Jack circled behind her, his arms around her waist. One hand traced around to her back and his fingertips walked up her spine, sending aches spinning away where-ever they touched with that curious/glorious coolness. Then he eased her long locks out of her knotted sling until it was cascading down her back in a poker straight but slightly messy waterfall. She wasn't picture perfect but she was Jack perfect.

She turned around to thank him.

He was gone.

"I'm ba-ack!"

Dina was allowed home a few days later, even though the hospital had advised against leaving so soon. There were forms to sign and prescriptions to collect – pain pills and ointment for her scars. She moved straight back into the big room with Jaye despite Katie offering to swap in case she wanted her own space. But the offer was declined – Dina said she never wanted to spend so much as a night alone again. Katie wondered how much she remembered of her time in Room 4. She didn't like to ask though.

"You missed tryouts the other day," Adam reminded Katie the following Monday morning. "Decided to give them a miss this year?"

"Just putting them off for a while. Work's keeping me busy." She put her hands together in a praying pose and fluttered her eyes at Leo. He rolled his eyes at her – not one for light-hearted mockery when it came to his religion, but he was starting to learn that the girls only did to get a reaction – and stalked over to cut and put ketchup on her bacon sandwich. Even the most basic things were impossible when you were one hand down. "I wanted to ask... am I still on for a free self-defence class? You know, when I'm all healed up."

"What happened to the one on one tuition thing?"

She shrugged and tried not to blush as Lainy bounded into the kitchen obviously exciting after getting off the phone. "Still hoping but, you know, team player and all that."

"Well, if you're up for personal training, I could teach you a few things, cast or not."

"Oh, I can't keep it in any more!" squeaked Lainy, the words coming out like one long word. "You're all here now and I can't wait for the house meeting tonight."

"Lainy," Katie said. "Breathe. In, out, in, out-"

"Shake it all about. Shake it, baby, shake it. But be careful not to wake it."

"Not helping, Jaye. Also, doesn't make sense. Now, why the hell are you excited at this time in the morning? It's disturbing."

"Well, that was Dr de Rossa on the phone. We were talking and... how would you guys feel if I went back to nursing? It's only a few shifts a week so I can still be here a lot. But I seem to be patching one of you lot up all the time so I figured... why not get paid for it? I was quite good back in the day and then it was... I had to stop, but I miss it every single day."

"I think it's a great idea. You should definitely go for it!"

After a long pause, which Lainy was too hyper to notice, Adam muttered "I think we should talk," then started to clear up.
About the author

Wendy Maddocks lives in Birmingham, England, with her slightly crazy family. She blames them for her twisted imagination. Sanity is not her friend. She enjoys reading and studying, working out and eating cake, which makes her fat and in need of yet another gym session. (Yes, I'm a masochist!) She also has a fear thing about sheep. After graduating from university, Wendy began publishing her own work online and is always working on new writing projects. What will happen when she runs out of ideas?

No, let's not wonder that.

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