16

VIOLET

We sleep at Thorn’s house. An old red-brick terrace with balconies which were once painted white and adorned with flowers. There’s no torture chamber, no creepy stuffed animal heads. It’s almost an anti-climax. Katie and I share a double bed which feels like a spring could burst free any moment, impaling our spines, but it’s a huge improvement on the Imp-hut from my last visit. Still, knowing Thorn sleeps only metres away makes me crave that hay-dusted bench back at the Harper estate.

I console myself with a single thought: tomorrow I’ll see Ash.

Katie turns down the paraffin lamp so I can just make out the edges of her face. She stares at me, blinking slowly. ‘Well, today sucked.’

This almost makes me laugh, but the scent of roasting flesh still sticks to my hair, and I can’t quite muster a smile. Instead, I drop my voice low. ‘The room could be bugged.’ I glance quickly at the walls, suddenly regretting how readily I flung my shirt off. The shabby furnishings, the lack of electricity, the general poverty combines to make you forget about the Gem technology which could be hidden anywhere.

‘How could it happen?’ Katie asks, her voice barely a whisper. ‘How could he do that?’

‘You mean Nate?’ I say, afraid to use the word traitor, especially now the bug idea has lodged in my head.

Katie nods.

‘Someone must be writing that third book,’ I say.

There’s a long pause. So long, I wonder if Katie’s fallen asleep. Finally, she whispers, ‘Do you think it’s Alice?’

‘No. We doubted her last time we were here, and she proved us wrong, remember? There must be some crazy author back in our world who’s turning Nate . . .’ I tail off, glancing into the blackness with paranoid eyes.

Katie squeezes my hand under the covers. ‘Let’s hope Alice works out what’s going on then. She must have at least figured out you’re not mad, now we’re back in comas again. Maybe she’ll hunt down the crazy author and make them stop.’

I instinctively touch my split-heart necklace, running my finger along the jagged edge. ‘We can but hope.’

ALICE

The first thing I do when I wake is check my views. Fandom Rising has really taken off. Russell has actually been pretty cool, helping publicize my links across all his social media channels. I can’t work out if he wants to get inside my pants, or if he wants me to write the third book. Well, he should be so lucky, on both accounts.

Spurred on by my growing popularity, I decide to post again. How else can I help Violet and Katie? What damage has Fanboy done to their universe, apart from dark-siding Nate? Quickly, I scroll through the Fandalism site, frowning so hard I swear I’ll need botox before I hit twenty. My gaze settles on her name. Baba. Of course. Didn’t Violet say the old woman visited her in her dreams? The one person who can help her, who can tell her the future, has gone. My scowl morphs into the smuggest of grins, because my next post is going to be nothing short of genius. Not only can I tell Nate’s story, I can give Violet another precog.

NATE

I stare into the embers of the bonfire, tears stinging my eyes. I didn’t want Baba to die. She was always so good to me. I’d come to think of her as a surrogate grandma. But it was me or her. And I must confess, death terrifies me, and whilst I am lots of things, I am not ready to die.

The crowd scattered many, many hours ago, but guilt and grief have prevented me from leaving, and now I am the only one left here, shivering in the dark. I’ve curled into a ball on my side. Maybe, if I curl up tight enough, I can just disappear. All this will stop. The pain, the guilt, the betrayal.

Through the smoke, through my tears, I see a figure.

And as it moves towards me, an inexplicable calmness spreads through my body.

The silhouette must belong to a precog.

I begin to visualize an old lady with no lips and sealed-up eyelids. Maybe Baba’s long-lost twin or something. But then I remember, I can write my new precog any way I please. There’s no reason why replacement-Baba can’t be a dude, hotter than the sun, with a six-pack to rival Dwayne Johnson’s. Pimp my precog. I’m quite literally cackling at my screen as I begin to write. Violet is so going to thank me for this.

He is a man so beautiful he makes me forget the ugliness inside my soul. Tall, East Asian, with black hair and piercing brown eyes. The smoke folds around his broad shoulders in layers of grey.

‘Hello, Nate,’ he says. ‘My name is Yan.’

‘Hello, Yan,’ I whisper back. I know I should run away, but I feel so calm, so peaceful. Surely this stunning man couldn’t possibly hurt me.

‘Why so sad?’ he asks.

I pause. ‘I . . . I did something terrible.’

‘I know.’

I rub my eyes, blinded by the grey and my own tears. ‘Who are you?’

Yan smiles. ‘I’ve been sent by a friend.’

I want to sit up . . . I want to sit up and walk towards him, but my body won’t move. ‘Why?’

‘To help,’ he replies simply.

‘To help destroy the Imps?’

He blinks. ‘No. To help you remember.’

‘Remember what?’ I ask.

‘To remember who you really are.’

I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to stop the stinging of the tears. And when I open them again, Yan has gone.

I close my laptop, still smiling to myself. Baba just got an upgrade.

You’re welcome, Violet.