After dropping Evie at nursery, Wesley made his way towards school where he had arranged to meet the others. More than anything he wanted to return home, tiredness weighing heavy, practically demanding he turn around.
He checked the time. Only a few hours until the attack. If he went home he wouldn’t be able to think of anything else.
It was a school day, so they had arranged to meet on the corner where they could intercept Joseph on his way there. Robbie was already waiting, inconspicuous in uniform as other students filed past.
‘It’s always a relief when I see any of you,’ said Wesley, leaning beside him on a garden wall. ‘I keep thinking one of you will disappear too and start this all over again.’
‘What if you didn’t even notice? There might have been more of us but we’ve already forgotten them for good.’
Wesley shook his head. It was too awful to think about.
‘I never wanted to look for Aaron,’ said Robbie. ‘I thought finding the truth would scare us out of the idea. And I was right.’
‘Is that a bad thing?’
Robbie hunched his shoulders, tucking his head down into the collar of his oversized school blazer. ‘Focusing on the fade meant I didn’t have to think about why I wanted it. That’s why I kept doing all those stupid prayers and stuff.’ He laughed. ‘I even started doing them at home by myself.’
‘What, all that make us lonely stuff?’
‘I always knew it was stupid, but it was better than talking about feeling so wrong that I actually wanted it to work.’
They stood together in silence for a moment, watching the other students move past on their way to school, hurrying alone or dragging their feet in groups.
‘Do you still want it?’ asked Wesley.
‘Sometimes.’ Robbie swivelled his head to look up at him. ‘But I’m starting to see that maybe being me doesn’t have to be completely terrible.’
‘Hey!’
They both turned to see Aoife and Jae hurrying towards them, glancing over their shoulders.
Wesley lifted himself up from the wall. ‘Let’s find out how it ends.’
Kat had no choice but to go ahead and try to stop the attack by herself. It was due to happen in a couple of hours, and she couldn’t wait around any longer for Wesley to come back. She couldn’t just do nothing.
The people she had inhabited last night were waiting for her outside the flat. They didn’t frighten her any more; she was overwhelmingly grateful to see them. She walked between them as they talked to each other, glanced anxiously up at the flat or where she had just stood, and thanked each of them for remembering her. The boy whose body she had borrowed for her first kiss was there, and she lingered beside him for a moment, resisting the pull that she thought might draw her inside for ever. She had sampled their lives, tried them on for size, if only for a moment. Every single one of them had been so tempting, was still so tempting. Except the world inside Wesley had shown her the truth. There was so much more beneath the surface than anybody could know.
Kat no longer wished to be anybody but herself; she only wished she still had the power to save herself.
It would take at least an hour to reach the convention centre. She ran, leaving the crowd behind, the lightness of her body making every step feel as if she was gliding. The morning was dull, a blanket of grey cloud seeming to mute the streets. The venue was beyond the other side of town. At least a lack of corporeal form seemed to mean she wouldn’t get out of breath.
Still, as she skirted the town centre, a bus pulled up that she knew would take her close. While others tapped their cards, Kat jumped on through the middle doors and stayed close to the exit.
A few passengers were heading to the convention. Cosplay was a dead giveaway. The local old ladies and grumpy middle-aged men side-eyed a man in full Dothraki costume, while near the front a little girl in a Pikachu onesie was chattering excitedly to a young woman dressed as a gender-swapped Goku from Dragon Ball Z.
Kat loved nerds so much.
The bus took a longer route, wending through a retail park before returning to the main road that all but passed the convention centre. Kat got off at the corner, carefully avoiding the cosplayers. Any contact might be enough to pull her inside, and her body might not survive any further dilution. She had to save it for Tinker.
The centre was an unsightly grey building that stretched an entire block. WonderVerse Con flashed in pixellated letters from a scrolling sign, queues already formed at the doors. There were costumes everywhere, as well as geek-themed T-shirts and tote bags. How had she never had the confidence to attend something like this? Everybody was being utterly themselves, and it was celebrated. If she was going to fit in anywhere, surely it would be here.
She stayed across the road to get clear of the crowds and walked the length of the street. There was no sign of any suspicious car. If their plan was to snatch Tinker as she made her way inside, they had to be close by.
At the next corner was another bus stop, more colourful visitors spilling out onto the pavement and streaming across the main road. What looked like a back entrance was just opposite, but it was too busy for any car to stop. Kat looked further, across the junction to a row of shops and takeaway restaurants. There was a delivery track between them, and there, poking out as far as it could without conspicuously blocking the pavement, was the front of a silver BMW.
They spread across the pavement to cut Joseph off before he could pretend not to see them and keep walking. He stopped in front of them and sighed.
‘All right, but not here.’
Away from the school, back towards Wesley’s house, they followed him in silence.
Finally, he said, ‘So you’ve figured it out.’
‘You should have just told us.’
Joseph kept walking, but more slowly now, as if he needed the steps to keep his brain working. ‘How could I tell anybody? The whole thing is so strange, and there was no way I could know for sure. All I have is the feeling that he’s here.’
The group gathered closer to him, almost tripping over each other’s feet, as if they might somehow sense Aaron there. Maybe they needed to see – really see – this thing they had all thought they desperately wanted.
‘Everyone else has forgotten him, or come as close to it as possible. But I can’t forget him.’ Joseph lifted a hand to his chest. ‘At first I did whatever I could to keep his memory alive, but whenever I made Mum remember she got so upset. It’s better if everybody else forgets. It’s not like he’s ever coming back. I just have to miss him by myself.’
‘We remember,’ said Aoife.
‘Soon you won’t, not now you don’t need him any more.’
They were still walking, drawing closer to Wesley’s home, but the strange tugging on his body had shifted away from there, felt as if it was trying to lead him somewhere else. He did his best to ignore it.
‘Here,’ he said, handing back the family portrait he had taken from their house. ‘I’m sorry I took it.’
Joseph looked at the photograph, rested his fingers against his brother’s smiling face.
‘Can you speak to him?’ Wesley asked.
‘It’s not like he’s inside my head pulling levers and pressing buttons to move me around,’ said Joseph. ‘I just know he’s there, resting, not really a part of the world any more. He regretted letting this happen to him, so he went for the person that was most like him. And all I’m doing is letting him down. I mean, I’m glad he’s not totally gone, but it’s not fair either. I couldn’t save him, and now I’m supposed to give him the kind of life he thought he was missing. I have to carry that burden because Aaron couldn’t.’
Wesley thought of Kat, even now going alone to stop the attack. He had left her with that responsibility, but it was for her own sake. It was the only way to save her, to give her what Aaron couldn’t find.
They stopped just short of the railway bridge that ran beside Wesley’s block of flats. ‘He appeared to me, at the end,’ said Joseph.
Everybody gathered close. ‘He did?’
‘I think when he chose me, it meant I could see him. There was hardly anything left. He was . . . less than a ghost. Almost completely invisible. He tried to take my hand, but I just passed right through him. He didn’t even have physical form any more.’
The tug on Wesley’s body grew stronger, as if somebody was calling him from afar. He thought of the message Aaron had left for Selena, written in messily spilled food instead of with the pens that were right beside it. If the fade gradually took away their physical form, it would mean they were no longer able to hold anything, able to assert any will on the world. That’s why he would have been unable to grip a pen, take his brother’s hand one last time.
It would mean Kat would have no way to save Tinker.
Although the sight of the car made the beast in her chest thrash weakly – perhaps it too was fading out – it also made her angry. Their plan was so basic. They were nobodies, pathetic little boys playing vigilante for an empty cause propagated by more pathetic little boys behind their keyboards.
And it would work, if she couldn’t do something to stop it.
Kat looked across the road again, and saw another car pulling up as close to the back entrance as it could manage. Tinker wouldn’t have any entourage or security – she was famous, but still just a young woman who lived with her mum.
That oh-so-familiar pink hair emerged from the front passenger seat, and she waved goodbye to whoever had driven her before looking around for the right way to go. A couple of people spotted and immediately delayed her, asking for selfies.
Across the junction, the BMW began to move.
The gravity of it all left Kat’s feet rooted to the spot for a moment. There was nothing she could do to stop it. She was powerless.
Passing Tinker and her small gathering of fans was a girl wearing a costume Kat recognised. A flowing white high-necked dress, almost like a Victorian nightie, worn with black biker boots, spiked gauntlets, and a perm that would make the ’90s blush. Esme from Doctor Backwash, the girl cut out of the world.
Kat wouldn’t let it happen to her. One way or another she would fight for this life that used to be hers.
The BMW joined the traffic heading towards the convention centre. There wasn’t any time to think – Kat leaped into the road and ran.
The drivers couldn’t see her, wouldn’t do anything to avoid her. She gritted her teeth as she darted out of the path of one car, only to jump back as an overtaking moped almost mowed her down. Would it pass right through her if she was hit? It wasn’t the time to find out.
Timing a gap between two cars coming the other way, she spotted the BMW cross the junction. It slowed down to draw up beside Tinker and the fans around her.
‘Look out!’ Kat screamed.
Nobody heard her – nobody could fucking hear her – and she sprinted for Tinker as the BMW stopped, back doors throwing open.
It happened in seconds. Two boys with their faces covered – Luke and Justin, it had to be – grabbed Tinker from behind and covered her mouth to keep her from screaming. Everybody around them stood frozen as she was dragged to the back door of the car.
Only Kat moved, flinging herself headlong and landing inside the other girl’s body as the door slammed shut.