Sometimes it’s the secrets we keep that could destroy us all in the end…

Chloe was a normal girl.

That is until the one night that took everything away from her.

Suddenly, life has become everything but normal. And Chloe isn’t quite sure who, or even what, she is now…

A story of family and love. Of right and wrong. And discovering who you really are.

Under My Skin

Zoë Markham

Copyright

HQ

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2015

Copyright © Zoë Markham 2015

Zoë Markham asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

E-book Edition © March 2015 ISBN: 9781474031974

Version date: 2018-10-30

ZOË MARKHAM

Having recently pulled off a dramatic escape from the rat race, Zoë now spends her days endlessly monkeying about with words.

In a tiny, tumbledown bungalow in the wilds of West Oxfordshire she creates, destroys, giggles maniacally and cries dramatically whilst consuming epic amounts of builder’s tea and trying to keep the cats off the keyboard.

Her husband has learned to ignore her fictional delusions, but her five-year-old son still thinks they’re pretty cool, and often offers helpful advice – usually involving dragons.

Find out more about Zoë at her website: http://www.zoemarkhamwrites.com/

I’d like to thank my editor, Victoria Oundjian, for her infinite patience in helping me find my voice. I’m also hugely grateful to everyone at HQ Digital for taking a chance on a newbie, and wouldn’t have made it anywhere near this far without the kind support of my fellow HQ Digital authors who never let me panic, or run away.

For Ollie, who reminded me how powerful stories can be.

Contents

Cover

Blurb

Title Page

Copyright

Author Bio

Acknowledgement

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Endpages

About the Publisher

PROLOGUE

You know that split second when you wake up and the line between your nightmares and reality is blurred? The darkness and the icy burst of fear in my stomach tell me it’s a dream; but the damp, decaying smell and the unfamiliar sound that I can’t quite put my finger on feel horribly real. I don’t move, and I try not to make a sound. I even hold my breath, and just listen. There’s a faint beeping noise close by, only it’s distorted somehow and I can’t focus on it. As I’m trying, I notice something else behind it, a harsh sort of rasping, rising and falling in the background. The more I try to isolate the sounds, the harder they get to hold on to. Maybe if I just lie still, and try not to panic, I’ll slip into a different part of my dream; a nicer part, one involving Tom Hiddleston reading to me in bed or… only I don’t know because I can’t lie still, I’m starting to shiver with the cold. The beeping sound is changing – it’s getting louder and faster now; uneven, frantic almost. I shiver harder, and then the rasping stops and the beeping switches down to just one, low, continuous tone and it’s panic one, Chloe nil. I shoot bolt upright in what doesn’t feel anything like my bed, and force my eyes open, except… I don’t. They don’t. I don’t move. My brain’s screaming: Up, UP! Get up! But nothing happens. I can’t move.

It’s the worst kind of nightmare, the kind where you’re trapped inside your own head, only I don’t think any nightmare could feel this real, for this long. I should’ve woken up screaming by now. And someone should be here: Mum, turning the light on, telling me it’s all right; or Dad, shouting What’s all the noise about. Only there’s no one.

And then the beeping stops, and I think maybe it’s over.

In the sudden, brief silence that follows I hear Dad’s voice after all, and he is shouting, and the relief is almost as intense as the panic was, but it’s hard to make out what he’s saying. I don’t know if it’s Chlo, or No, and then after a few seconds of him saying it over and over I’m not even sure it’s really him at all. I don’t know what to feel any more, until light explodes around me, light a million miles away from the warm yellow glow of my bedside lamp, and I get my answer: Pain. I feel pain. It’s everywhere, all at once, and I don’t know where I end and it begins. I don’t know how I’m going to feel anything but pain ever again. The light’s coming from inside me, ripping me into a thousand burning pieces and I don’t know who or what I am any more, only that I don’t want to be.

My mind must have been the last thing to shatter. A tiny of piece of it comes back with the same, steady beeping. The voice is there too – closer, clearer this time: a voice as torn and as broken as what used to be me. It’s Dad, but it’s not Dad.

‘I can’t do this,’ it says. ‘I can’t do this on my own.’

CHAPTER ONE

I’ve been lying on the backseat of the car, hidden under a heavy blanket, for over an hour now – and all he’s worried about is the kettle. I’m not entirely convinced he’s got his priorities right.

I can’t feel my legs and I’m shaking with cold even though it’s the middle of summer and roasting outside. For anyone else it would be unbearably hot in here; a death sentence even. For me? Well, sore subject. Don’t think about it. Don’t.

So, apparently I was supposed to pack the kettle and all the tea stuff in an easy-to-get-at box. To be honest, given the fact that we had to move under the cover of darkness, like thieves in the night, I really think he should give me a break. It’s not like any of this is my fault. Not directly, at least. Anyway, how does he think it feels, having to hide in here like some kind of dangerous freak that people need protecting from? Don’t, don’t think about it. Be angry, take the mick, do anything but think about it.

‘It’s for your own safety, Chlo,’ and ‘I’m doing all of this for you, Chlo,’ is all I’ve heard all morning – but it doesn’t feel like it’s ‘all for me’ at the moment.

‘The one thing I ask you to do,’ he hisses, as he slams the door.

‘Wait!’ I hiss back. ‘Dad! How much longer are they going to –’

Too late. He’s gone.

I genuinely don’t see why it’s such a problem. If I was a removal man, well, woman, I’d bring a flask if I was that bothered. And what the hell is taking them so long?

I roll over onto my stomach to try and get more comfortable, but fail.

‘It was not the “one thing” you asked me to do,’ I mutter angrily. Anger is good. Anger means you don’t have to think.

You need to pack up your room, Chloe … You can help with the rest of the house, Chloe … Most of this stuff up in the loft is yours, Chloe. It’s been endless. There was hardly any stuff in the basement flat, packing up there took less than an hour. Our old house, though, that was a different story. Seventeen years’ worth of memories flooded out as soon as he opened the front door. I could still smell Mum’s perfume when we went inside. You’d think he might have realised how much something like that would hurt. It’s only been six months. I still cry every day; still have the nightmare every night. The sodding kettle was the last thing on my mind.

He didn’t even want me to go with him at first, ‘If anyone sees you, Chloe…’ Yeah, it would have been Game Over for both of us. But I wanted to say goodbye to the place. I had to practically beg him. In the end, he took me when it was dark; when all our old neighbours, who we never knew anyway, were fast asleep and dreaming sweetly. Government agents too, I imagine, if they even sleep (they never sound human when he talks about them.) I sat in the shell of our old living room, where everything felt damp and musty from being empty for so long and nothing like the cosy, family space it used to be. And I thought of all the nights me and Mum had sat on the sofa under a blanket, armed to the teeth with Pringles and Coke, watching vampire flicks. The cheesier and sillier the better. Mum even liked the ones that sparkled.

He never thought about that, did he? He actually expected me to be thinking about tea bags. Bloody men.

It’s another half hour before the lorry starts up and I finally hear it roll away down the drive. I can hardly pull myself up from the seat, I’m so cold, and Dad has to help me out of the car like I’m a toddler, not a teenager, dragging my blanket along behind me. Both my legs are numb, and walking is agony. I catch sight of my reflection in the window as I stagger into the cottage, and get a painful reminder of just why I had to stay out of sight.

I look … well, let’s face it … I look like some kind of dangerous freak that people need protecting from.

Don’t. Don’t think.

I look away fast, but not fast enough. The image of the dangerous, unthinkable stranger in the window stays with me.

Dad doesn’t say anything, he just goes straight through to the big fireplace in the living room and starts artfully arranging logs, like he knows what he’s doing; like we’re the kind of people who’re comfortable with large open fires and not the sort who regularly deal with crappy economy seven night storage heaters.

I just hope he gets it going quickly. I’m freezing.

There’s a wide, expensive looking rug right in front of the fireplace, and I awkwardly kneel down on it as I try to wrap the blanket back around me. There are boxes piled high to the side of me, and I send one of them flying as I swing my arm around. Dad flies off the handle. Again.

‘Chloe! Can you try to be careful – Oh, Christ,’ he bellows, fumbling with the firelighters before petulantly throwing the whole packet into the fireplace. He storms out of the room and starts noisily clattering around with boxes somewhere else.

And I thought it was supposed to be us teenagers who were the stroppy ones?

I don’t say anything, there’s no point, he’s not exactly in a listening mood right now. I shuffle forward and grab the matches from where they’ve fallen on the rug, and with a shaking hand I set light to the crumpled newspaper sitting temptingly underneath the greasy pile of firelighters. A bright, dancing inferno forms in front of me as they quickly catch, and I feel the intensity of the heat slowly starting to come through. I close my eyes and bask in the warmth, like some kind of freakishly oversized, domesticated lizard.

When I can finally feel my extremities again, and when I think Dad might have had enough time to calm down, I part company with the blanket and shuffle down the hallway to look for him. I find my way through into the kitchen, taking two more boxes down with me en route. I’m wearing two XL hoodies which seriously bulk me out, and still limping hard on my left leg; it’s a wonder I don’t take a load more out for good measure. I wait for fresh shouting, but when none comes I shove the fallen boxes to one side with my good foot, and stumble further into the room.

There’s no sign of Dad, but the back door’s wide open and I slam it shut against the unwelcome coolness of the air. ‘It’s warmer out than in!’ he’ll say when he sees it. Well, not to me it isn’t.

There are at least a million boxes stacked up in here, and it looks like I’m on my own. I suppose I’m going to have to get used to that. I sigh, and aim a boot at one of them, which doesn’t help. I’m wearing my classic black, eight-hole DMs. My ‘shit kickers’ Tom used to call them, Watch out, Chlo’s got her shit kickers on! I’m not good for kicking much of anything any more, I don’t have the balance. I still like wearing them though. I suppose they remind me of how I used to be.

I miss Tom so much. That seems to be all I do these days, miss people. Oh and cry; I do a lot of crying.

I have a quick look around to try and distract myself, and end up thinking how much Mum would’ve loved this room. This is what she always dreamed of: a big, detached cottage out in the country, far away from all the noise and hassle of London. She would’ve been so excited, even though it’s just a rental. Dad would never have considered renting when she was alive, ‘dead money’ he always called it. I bet he wouldn’t call it that now. It’s a bit too close to home.

Mum would’ve kept the kettle and the mugs and everything out too. She probably would’ve even made a little picnic for everyone – sandwiches, sausage rolls and crisps and what have you. Everyone would’ve been laughing and joking and drinking tea. No one would’ve been shouting, or swearing. Or crying.

I rub my eyes with my sleeve, furiously trying not to dissolve into tears and then wincing as I get a painful reminder that I’ve got my new contact lenses in. I can’t stand the things; the cringe factor of actually putting something on my eyes like that totally freaks me out, which is pretty ridiculous considering everything that’s happened. That’s me though: ridiculous. I’m part tragedy, part freak show, and my whole situation is just too unbelievable for words.

Be angry. Take the piss. Don’t think.

I make a half-hearted effort to focus on the unpacking, but it feels pointless. We’re only going to be here for a couple of months, and I’m not really sure why we’re even bothering.

If Tom was here, he’d be legging it out back to the wood Dad told me about, the one at the end of the garden. He’d scope out the best spots for camp fires, like we were ten-year-olds; or he’d be up in the attic Dad mentioned, going crazy over the view and trying to climb out of the skylight to take a selfie with all the sprawling fields in the background. We’d have a box-unpacking race, and whoever finished last would have to order the pizza. Then we’d eat our way through mountains of it, burning the boxes in the fireplace as we went, and I could catch up on six months’ worth of school gossip in one glorious all-nighter.

But I’m never going to see Tom again.

Come to think of it, I’m probably never going to eat pizza again either. So it’s a pretty pointless line of thought, all things considered.

I pick at a thick line of packing tape on the biggest box, and try to guess what Dad might have done with the scissors.

*

I lose myself in slowly emptying the boxes until early afternoon. I don’t have a watch, and I haven’t unpacked the clock yet, but I’m going by the noises emanating from my stomach. I can’t see anything of outside because Dad’s pulled all the blinds and drawn all the curtains, and I daren’t touch them. We’ve got the fire, the heating, and the lights on, all in the middle of the day in the middle of the summer. He’ll have a fit when he gets the bills. Or, I suppose he won’t, not any more.

‘You need to keep out of sight at all times, Chlo.’ ‘Don’t draw attention to yourself, Chlo.’ Like there’s any way I’d actually go out of my way to draw attention to myself, looking like this. To be honest, I’ll be quite happy if no one pays me any attention ever again.

I unbox our battered old microwave and struggle to haul it over to the countertop. I’m out of breath when I drop it down; I definitely need to work on strengthening my muscles. I’m still so feeble, almost embarrassingly so, if today’s anything to go by. Dad says in an ideal world I should join a gym, do a proper induction and work out a tailored fitness plan with some skinny, Lycra-clad dictator, but that’s never going to happen. I mean, he won’t even let me out of the cottage. But even if he would, there’s no way I could face the thought of being somewhere like that – a room filled with noisy machines, loud music and sweaty people – it’s my idea of hell. I wouldn’t even have gone before this all happened – back when I was a normal (ish), confident, cheery soul who pretty much wasn’t afraid of anything or anyone. A lifetime ago, it feels like. Anyway, I’m really not equipped to sweat heavily in public any more; it plays absolute havoc with my skin. I’d terrify all the hordes of toned souls clean out of the building. It’s a pitiful thought, really, but it does kind of make me smile at the same time. Teenage zombie sends yummy mummies flying.

When Dad finally reappears with armfuls of logs for the fire, he’s still muttering on about the kettle.

I keep my head down and start to get things semi-organised in the kitchen, and when I limp back through it looks like he’s already pretty much got the living room sorted. The empty cardboard boxes are neatly folded and stacked, presumably ready for when we leave. And I realise I’m going to be in trouble because I just kicked in all the ones from the kitchen and chucked them by the back door. I’m tired, and I ache, and I really don’t care any more. If it’s that big a deal then I don’t get why we’re unpacking in the first place.

My arms are feeling almost as heavy as my legs now, and I slump down onto the new sofa. The fire’s blazing, and I lie back as I watch Dad plug the TV in and monkey about with the settings.

I want to close my eyes for a bit, but I don’t want to fall asleep with my lenses in, and I daren’t ask him if I can take them out just yet. He’ll do the resigned parental sigh, and then tell me I need to get used to them, and I’ll ‘never get used to them if I don’t wear them.’ So I look around the room instead, and try to understand why he’s rented a place this big just for the two of us. I know money isn’t a problem now, not after his ‘keep quiet or else’ pay-out from the government, but the cottage is immense. There are no neighbours for a mile or so in any direction, there’s an actual wood at the end of the back garden, which may or may not contain a Magic Faraway Tree, and out front there are two double garages (ideal for our one car), and an epic driveway, which is basically half a mile of twisty private dirt track leading up to the cottage. All it needs is a moat, and we’ve got our very own castle.

It’s mad that it’s actually ours; until Dad finds out what he needs to know.

If I’d been younger, if Mum had been with us, if our lives hadn’t somehow turned into a surreal, waking nightmare, this place would’ve been the most amazing thing ever; like actually waking up in the middle of an Enid Blyton novel. Even as a cynical, broken teenager I’m still half expecting Dad to bump into Silky and Moonface when he takes the bins out. It’s not home though, for all its storybook qualities. I don’t think anywhere can ever really be home again.

Dad heads upstairs, and I know I should be helping him, but the heat in here is delicious and I can’t make myself move. I stare hard at the flames, trying to find patterns, images, anything that I can lose myself in. It’s like one of those 3D magic pictures, I stare until my eyes water but I don’t see a thing except orange. My eyes were pretty ruined by what happened. I can see a lot better with Dad’s drops, and my contacts in, they’re way better than the clunky glasses he got me, but it’s never going to be like it was before. Nothing’s ever going to be like it was before.

Muffled swearing drifts down from somewhere above, and footsteps thunder down the stairs before Dad bursts into the room waving two mugs and a box of tea bags at me.

‘In the box marked ‘Bathroom’! Honestly, Chlo!’

Well, I don’t know what he expected, to be honest. I’m not exactly organised at the best of times, and it hasn’t been the best of times for a long time.

‘They both have sinks in,’ I tell him. ‘I wasn’t that far off. Give me a break.’

That earns me raised eyebrows and a pointed look. I suppose I’ve been on a break for a while now. At least he’s not shouting at me. That’ll be the thought of imminent tea working its magic.

‘How many boxes are left in the kitchen?’ he asks.

I shrug, and slowly, painfully unfold myself from the sofa to follow him through. He starts rummaging through the impressive layers of mess that I’ve heaped onto the kitchen table. He’s going to whine at me any minute now about – yep – here we go …

‘Oh Chloe, how hard is it to collapse the boxes and stack them? This lot are useless now.’ He starts flinging the crushed boxes over his shoulder like some kind of deranged terrier. ‘They’ll have to go out for the recycling. I need this all cleared by the morning. I’m going to have to leave early until I can figure out the traffic, and the best way in, and I don’t want to be tripping over all this lot in the dark.’

I want to make a comment about the wicked sorcery of electric lights, but I stop myself just in time.

‘Come on then,’ he sighs. ‘Pull your finger out Chlo and let’s get this lot cleared between us. The sooner it’s done, the sooner we can settle down and have a rest.’

He sighs as he starts straightening out all the crumpled newspaper that I’ve flung about. Like they won’t recycle it unless it’s in mint condition. Why does he do that?

This has all got to be crazy for him too, I know that. But it’s no picnic for me, and this was all his choice when it comes down to it. His fault – although I’d never say that; not to his face anyway. He’d say it wasn’t a choice at all, and that any parent would’ve done the same in his shoes. I don’t know about that. It’s not something your average parent would think of. Thank god. All this time together, and I can easily have our conversations in my head now. We barely used to speak, before.

We’re both throwing stuff into drawers, and getting in each other’s way, and the silence outside of my head starts to feel oppressive. Dad cracks first.

‘Just… finish up in here as best you can, will you. It’s almost done.’ he snaps, rubbing red-rimmed eyes heavily underlined with dark shadows. I feel bad, noticing for the first time just how tired he really is. It was a long drive down, and we left before it was even light. He’s got to be running on fumes now.

‘I’m going to go up and put your bed together,’ he says, heading for the door, but then he turns back to look at me. I suppose I must look pretty rough too, even more so than usual, because his voice softens as he says, ‘Once I’ve got that done, I’ll find us the nearest Chinese and order in a massive takeaway, ok?’

I’ve been meaning to ask ever since he first told me about the cottage, but I kept forgetting and it looks like I’ve run out of time now, so I just blurt it out and hope for the best. ‘Can I have the attic room?’

He sighs, and I know I’ve already lost. ‘Chloe, it’s just an empty shell up there. There’s no storage space, or heating even, and you need the en suite. I had the removal men put all your things in the master bedroom. You’ll be much better off in there. And it’s the nicest room in the house.’

I sigh back.

‘I’m not saying you can’t go up there, but you’re going to struggle with that ladder, and you need to be warm.’ He rubs his eyes again. ‘We’ve got those fan heaters you could use up there, but I haven’t unpacked them yet and god only knows where they are. I picked you the room that’ll be easiest on you.’

He’s trying, I know he is. And I’m trying too, mostly. He’s risked everything for me, and I know I need to meet him halfway, but it’s hard sometimes. And I can’t help thinking that if he’d been like this before – this caring, protective figure who’s always around, instead of the work-obsessed, distant parent who never came home – none of this would ever have happened in the first place. It’s all his faul– Don’t, don’t think.

He crosses the room and pulls me into a bear hug, and I can’t think of a thing to say.

‘Can we just try and make the best of it?’ he asks. ‘As soon as I get settled in at the hospital I’ll be working on the vaccine every spare minute I can find. It could only take a few weeks, Chlo, if I can just catch a lucky break. As soon as I can get you some long-term supplies made up, we can think about getting out of the country and really starting over. We just need to get through this bit first, and keep our heads while we’re at it. I know it’s not going to be easy, but we’re so close, Chlo. We’re almost there.’

He goes to kiss my forehead but I flinch and pull back. I’ve been by the fire with both my thick hoodies on, and I’m so self-conscious like this. I don’t feel like I’ve been sweating, and he always says there isn’t any smell, but… when I think about what I am… I mean, there must be. You never think about… them… being fragrant. I can’t bear the thought of it. He gives me a sad smile and squeezes my shoulder before heading off up the stairs.

I work hard at sorting out the last of the kitchen things, and there, right inside the very last box at the bottom of the pile, is the kettle. If kitchen implements could talk I swear this one would be laughing at me. As I pull it out, I spot the UHT milk tucked in neatly underneath it.

I get the kettle on at last, hoping that tea will maybe go some way towards an apology for how whiny and useless I’ve been today. I wrestle the last of the cardboard and newspaper over to the back door while it brews, and then head slowly and awkwardly upstairs with a full mug in each hand. I don’t know where anything is up here yet, but I follow the swearing to the room where Dad’s attacking a bed frame with a screwdriver, and park his mug on the windowsill before flopping onto the mattress lying on the floor with mine. I take slow sips, and try to get my breath back. I’m so unfit now. I’ve done way more today than I have since it happened, and I’m really struggling now. It makes me tired just watching Dad. He doesn’t stop until my bed is bed-shaped once more, and then he drains his mug in one go, and sighs in appreciation.

‘Oh, god, that’s better,’ he says, and I can actually see him starting to relax right in front of me. As if someone’s released a valve somewhere, and he can breathe again. I wish tea could do that for me.

‘Up you get then,’ he tells me, and as he hauls my mattress up onto the frame he catches sight of the longing look I give it. ‘Go on then,’ he says kindly. ‘Why don’t you lie down and have a nap, while I try and find somewhere we can get ourselves an enormous takeaway. I think we deserve it.’

He pulls a contact lens case from his pocket and hands it to me, and I fire him a grateful smile in return. I couldn’t remember to put the kettle in the right box, but he somehow remembers to keep everything I could ever need close to hand at all times.

He pulls my duvet up over me, and I’m asleep before he’s even left the room.

CHAPTER TWO

The crunch of tyres on gravel outside wakes me in a panic, and my heart races as the familiar cold, sick sensation spreads through my stomach. I roll awkwardly off the bed and crouch down beside it, my hands and knees trembling. There’s a loud rap on the front door, I hear voices, and the blood starts to pound in my ears so loudly it scares me. I feel dizzy, and I close my eyes tight, hating myself for being this afraid, but not knowing how to be any other way any more. They’ve found us. The voices stop, and the door slams, and then, nothing. Have they taken Dad? Where do I go? How am I supposed to survive on my own? A new kind of pain tears across my chest and I’m sick with terror. I only have a few months’ worth of vaccine left, what happens to me when it runs out? Don’t think doesn’t always work, however hard you try. My head races and the room starts to blur around me as the bad thoughts multiply.

Dad’s shout shatters the silence and makes me jump so hard I smack my head against the sharp corner of the windowsill, but I’m almost laughing with relief even as warm blood starts to run down my face.

‘Chlo! Food’s here!’

It takes me a minute just to relax my limbs enough to stand up. I wipe the blood away with the back of my hand. I won’t bleed for long, no matter how bad the wound. I run my fingers up to the pain and feel the small patch of torn skin on my scalp. It’s not deep, or wide, and I can probably hide it from Dad. I heal so slowly now, and he gets so frustrated at my carelessness if I hurt myself. It’s the last thing he needs today.

Chinese. I just nearly had a heart attack over a Chinese. I have got to get a grip.

My legs and back are stiff as I make my way down the stairs, squinting hard as I try to focus on each step as I come to it. When I get a whiff of the food my stomach cramps hard enough to make my head spin. Dad’s found a lone candle for the table, and he’s even got the little wood-burning stove in the corner going, so it’s gorgeously warm in here. The food’s on the table, and he pulls my chair out for me with a flourish. My glasses are sitting next to my plate, and I put them on, gratefully, as the room comes into focus.

I don’t realise just how hungry I am until I take that first mouthful. There’s an actual mountain of chicken satay in front of me, and I dig in with gusto. He’s poured me a pint of water too, as if the spice would bother me. I suppose old habits die hard.

‘What did you get?’ I ask between frenzied mouthfuls.

‘Rice and chili beef, with broccoli and spring rolls. It’s beautiful.’

It does look good. I feel a quick pang of jealousy, but I can hardly even taste the satay, eating rice and broccoli would be pretty pointless for me right now.

I attack the skewered meat steadily and feel my body slowly respond to the food. The cramps ease, and my head clears, and the more I eat, the more I tear through the pile like some kind of rabid carnivore, the more human I begin to feel on the inside (although god knows what it looks like from the outside). Even the dull ache in my back is beginning to subside, and I feel stronger with every mouthful. Dad’s told me, endlessly, that I need to eat every four hours or so during the daytime now, and it’s been well over double that since I ate this morning’s mound of cold bacon under the blanket in the car.

Dad chats away as I eat, and I try to nod and smile in all the right places. All I can focus on now is the food, and the effect it’s having on me. After a while, I catch him staring at me with an eyebrow raised, and I realise he’s waiting for something from me. ‘Hmm?’ I murmur thickly through a mouthful of chicken.

‘I said, are you any feeling better now?’

I swallow and take a long drink of water. ‘Yeah,’ I sigh contentedly. ‘Loads better. Thanks.’

‘I really should have got you something to eat sooner, it’s dangerous to go that long without protein now. I’m sorry Chlo, it’s just been a hell of a day. I’ve not been at my best.’

I drop an empty skewer onto my plate, and sit back in my chair, only just starting to feel full even though I’m over three quarters of the way through the huge portion he’s given me.

‘It’s ok,’ I tell him. I didn’t realise how late it was getting, and I thought I was just tired from the unpacking. I should be taking more responsibility for myself. I need to learn the signs of this messed up body of mine better. ‘It’s not your fault.’

‘Well, it’s something we both need to watch out for. Especially now. I’m going to be putting in some long days at the hospital, Chlo, and I need to know you’re going to be all right here without me.’ He reaches down under the table. ‘So, I got you this.’

He passes a small, white box across to me, and I wipe my greasy hands on my already grubby jeans as I recognise it: an iPhone 6. I dig into the box with glee. A phone is a big deal for me, any kind of phone, never mind an iPhone. It’s a big deal for both us. After the accident, my old phone went the way of my old life. Dad getting me a new one now, regardless of how shiny and cool the brand is, is a real sign of trust. I don’t know what to say.

‘You still need to be careful,’ he says, presumably thinking exactly what I’m thinking. ‘You can’t ever go back, Chlo. Things can’t ever be how they were.’ He pulls another, identical box from below the table and sets it next to his plate. ‘But we need to be able to keep in touch, all the time. In case… Well, just in case. And the lad in shop said you can set alarms on these, for reminders and what have you; so, once we get yours up and running you can program one in for your meals. And then you won’t have to worry, well, I won’t have to worry about you forgetting.’

I get up and go over to give him a hug. Because it’s more than a phone. It’s him trusting me to be smart, and trying to keep me safe. And as I hug him I start to cry, because I’m not sure I deserve either.

*

While Dad gets the phones registered in some fake name, and starts them charging, I close the door to my new room with a sigh of relief. I know he only wants to help, but I really don’t want him in here with me, going through my things. Not that I have much stuff any more, but still, I need to do this by myself. Three large boxes are neatly lined up for me, and I grab the scissors and dig in.

This is my life now. Three boxes.

I start with the books. The built-in shelves in here are gorgeous, and crying out for some literary love. I couldn’t keep all of my books when we left, there were way too many; but he let me make a list of fifty, and he went through and packed them up for me. There were a couple he couldn’t find, but he did a Waterstones run to pick up the AWOL titles. He can be amazing like that. I need to remember him like that, that version of him, not the way he is in my dreams. I wonder if Mum could ever have done that, pushed that version of him aside… but… well, it doesn’t do any good to wonder.

I kind of thought it was the end of the world at the time, with the books, I mean. I’ve been collecting them since I was a kid, and I lost hundreds of them to whatever charity shop Dad thought best. Loads of them were signed, too. But now it doesn’t seem so bad. Taking the ones that made it out of the boxes and finding places for them on the shelves feels almost like kicking back with friends. And these are pretty much the only friends I’ll ever have now. At least we won’t fight.

They’re mostly all urban fantasy novels, or classics, all far removed worlds that take me well away from my reality, which is everything I need right now. When I read, I can completely forget what I am, or why I am. I didn’t get to spend any time with them at the flat, I was out cold for most of it, and working through exercises and body function tests with Dad for the rest. My head totally wasn’t in a place where I could’ve read even if I’d been given the chance. I don’t want to think about those six months ever again. I need to find a way to let them go, but I’m not there yet. Now, well, I’m going to have plenty of time on my hands; so maybe they can be my escape. Maybe they can put me back together. Because I’m not really sure Dad did it right.

Once all the books are out, there’s hardly anything left other than my sad collection of jeans and hoodies. There are a couple of photos, my ancient teddy bear, Archie, and a first generation iPod that only ever works when it feels like it. The room feels almost as empty as I do.

Back when Dad moved us into the basement flat, he hardly took anything except his notes and his computer. And as much of the vaccine as he could carry, of course. Most of the stuff back home got sent around to various charity places. Dad said it would look better that way. Like he was clearing out and moving on. Like people would expect. It’s all about keeping up appearances with him; I resented that at first. All I wanted to do was grieve, and wallow in my guilt. I didn’t care about what anyone else thought. Now though, well, let’s just say I’ve kind of finally caught up. Keeping up appearances means Dad gets to stay alive. As for me, well, I suppose it’s not really that simple.

One of the photos in the box is of me and Tom, taken just a few days before the accident. I look so young, and so happy. My eyes are shining. I don’t think I’m quite ready to have this one up on display just yet, because it pulls at what’s left of my heart when I see it. I hardly even recognise myself. I slide it under my mattress for now. The other is of me with Mum and Dad when I was thirteen. We were on holiday in Spain, and we’re all sunburned and tired and smiling. That was the last family holiday we ever had. When we got home, things really ramped up for Dad at the Agency, and he never took more than a day here and there away from the place again. That one hurts too, but it also reminds me of a better time so strongly that I force myself to stand it up on the shelf, and take a good look. I don’t know why it seems more important to face up to it than the Tom photo. Maybe because it was taken longer ago. Maybe because Dad and I are there, and we’re both still here and in this together now, regardless of what happened before. Maybe it can somehow help me to remember who I was. Who I am.

I look for safer ground, I don’t want to start crying again for fear that I won’t be able to stop. Don’t think. I sort my clothes out next. They don’t even take up a quarter of the built-in wardrobe in here. All my old clothes got boxed up and thrown in with the charity run, and Dad’s had to do all my shopping for me since. Given that today is only the second time I’ve ever left the flat, and also that he’s probably the only person you’ll find who’s less fashion conscious than me, it’s pretty much just a small pile of jeans, t-shirts, lumberjack shirts and hoodies. Comfort clothes. It’s not like I need anything else. I’ve been losing weight steadily since it happened, and most of them are pretty baggy on me now, but I kind of like them that way. It feels like big, heavy clothes cover a multitude of sins.

Dad’s worried about the weight loss thing. The problem is that it’s hard to know anything for certain any more. Seeing as I’m such an honest-to-goodness, real life guinea pig, all we can do is wait to see what happens to my body, and hope for the best. Part of me really wishes he hadn’t quit the Agency, however dangerous he says it was; because now if anything goes wrong… well… I’m not supposed to think about it. Don’t think. I’m waiting for that reaction to become automatic, but I suppose I’m not quite there yet. Nothing good ever comes from thinking about it all. A person could go mad pretty quick that way. Anyway, he’s got this research post at the hospital down here now, something to do with stem cells, saying it’s the nearest he can get to having the same kind of resources as before, so I suppose I just have to sit tight and hope that he’ll work it all out. Somehow.

‘I do know what I’m doing Chlo,’ he’s told me, more times than I can remember, but I worry that he does it as much to convince himself as me. ‘The Royal has some of the most up-to-date equipment available, and one of the biggest research budgets in the country. I didn’t just pick this place for the views.’ He’s put so much effort into it all. All the time I was sedated he never stopped working. And he still never stops. He must be confident this job will give him everything he needs, even though he’s going to have to do all his ‘Project Chloe’ work in secret. I mean, it’s not something you’d want to have to explain to your new boss. Oh, this? I’m just trying to perfect my death vaccine! Ha. Awkward.

He’s kind of like a twisted superhero these days. Tirelessly working to save me. I feel bad sometimes that I don’t feel better towards him for it. I know why he’s doing it though, risking everything the way he is: Epic Guilt. He’s trying to make up for what he did to Mum. And I can’t stop myself from wishing that he’d put even a fraction of the effort in when she was still alive. The accident was his fault; I do think that, most of the time, but other times I convince myself it was mine. We never talk about it though. It’s like if we don’t say it out loud, it didn’t happen, and that way it can’t destroy us. It has destroyed me though. And here I am trying to hold it together because I don’t really know what else to do; I keep as much of it all on the inside as I can, trying not to let it show, but there isn’t a single day that goes by where I don’t wish that he’d brought Mum back instead of me. I don’t know if I can ever forgive him for that.

I find my diary in the last box. I never kept one before all this, but when I was first starting to get better, Dad thought it might be a good idea for me to start writing one. It was a pretty poor substitute for being able to talk to someone, but I suppose it did help, in a way. It was all the emails and texts and tweets I could never send. Flicking through the pages my stomach twists as I see how weak and spidery my handwriting was. I close it again quickly, but not before some of the words leap out at me: frightened, confused, weak, alone. They’re like ghosts. I don’t want to see them. I don’t want to remember how I felt. And most of all I don’t want to admit that really, nothing’s changed. I’m still all of those things, I’ve just got a little better at hiding it. I wear my mask, even when it’s just me and Dad. Hell, I wear it even when it’s just me. I don’t dare take it off. Act happy Chlo, take the piss Chlo, don’t think Chlo. I slide the photo of me and Tom back out from under my mattress, slip it into the diary, and shut both of them in the bottom of the wardrobe.

With the boxes all empty, I fold them down flat and fling them out of the window. It’s easier than carrying them down the stairs, and I’ll ask Dad to go out and move them later; if he falls over them in the morning I’ll never hear the end of it.

I’m starting to ache again from bending and stretching, so I treat myself to a long soak in the elaborately sunken bath in my en suite. Dad had to help me in and out of the narrow, cracked tub in the flat, it was pretty manky and he was always worrying that I’d fall, always hovering outside the door just in case. Having a bath on my own like this, well, it’s a rare treat. Dad shouts in that he’s heading down to try and sort things out in his ‘office’, which means the creepy, cobweb-filled basement. It was on his list of must-haves for the new house – not the cobwebs, I mean, but a basement. I don’t know what it is with him and them, I’d be happy to never see one again. I yell back a ‘’kay!’ and then sink my head under the water and lose myself in the heavy, salty warmth.

The salts I have to use each day feel like heaven while I’m in the water, but if I don’t use the shower to rinse off properly before I get out they scratch like crazy through the night. It’s such a bloody complicated process. Dad developed them himself, but, like everything, he’s still ‘tweaking’ them. I’m still running as ‘Chloe 1.1’ – he says there’s a long way to go yet. If I soak in them for at least thirty minutes a night, my skin looks clearer and brighter in the morning. An hour’s better, but some nights I just can’t be bothered, even though I know I should. It’ll be easier here, in a warm bathroom that isn’t crawling with mould. It’s my face that needs the salts the most, which of course is the one part of me it isn’t really easy to submerge for long. I soak my flannel in the mineral-enriched water, and lay it over my face, recharging it every few minutes as much for something to do as anything else. The heat of the water feels good on my back and legs, and after my meal and my soak combined I feel better than I have done all day as I shower off and then towel myself dry. Better than I have done in months. If I could feel like this all the time, I don’t think it would be so bad. It would be maybe a little easier to forget about things, at least. Not thinking might come a bit more naturally. I keep wondering if I should ask Dad if he can make me a pill for that.

When I finally part company with the water there are two creams I need to douse my skin in. The first one’s fine, it’s just one of those water-based over-the-counter moisturisers. The second is a nightmare; it’s thick and oily and takes forever to sink in. And the smell, god. If there was one reason I had to give for why I’ll never be able to get a boyfriend, it’s this. No one in their right mind would want me sliding into bed next to them in this state. And the worst part of it is that if I don’t use the cream, I’ll look even worse in the morning. Even more of a monster. Damned if I do…

Of course, there’s really a much bigger and more obvious reason for why no one would ever want to be with me than the smell and state of my skin, but it’s never going to come to that anyway, so why worry.

Dad’s tried but he hasn’t been able to do much to help with the scar. I wipe the condensation from the mirror over the sink, and there it is, plain to see even in my horribly blurred reflection: a raised, white, jagged reminder, running across the bridge of my nose, over my eyelids, and then out in almost a straight line to just above both my ears. It runs further, but my hair hides the rest. It kind of looks like I’m wearing these weird comedy glasses, only it’s really not funny. I hate looking in the mirror, I don’t know what possessed me to wipe it. It starts playing in my head again. Glass flying towards me, shattering as it finds my face. I don’t feel it slice my skin open, the pain comes much later, now there’s only the warm wetness of the blood and the coppery taste of it as it fills my mouth. I smell the rain, mixing in with the burnt, rubbery tang of shredded tyres, and I hear the sick cacophony of crying and screaming and twisting metal, and then that awful silence that followed. The silence is always the worst part. The silence means she’s gone. And this is the moment, right there, when my world ended.

I turn away, too late. Seeing the glass of the windscreen in the glass of the mirror like that, well, it’d mess with anyone’s head, I think. I’m frightened I’ll totally lose the plot if I look for long enough. Why would I want to look, anyway? I’m a twisted, broken mess. If I don’t see myself, I can sometimes almost convince myself, just for a little while, that I’m not a freak – a perversion of nature – a nightmare in my own right. When I see myself, I don’t know what I am. It’s better not to look.

Dad said it’s a miracle my eyes made it. I used to feel sick thinking about what it would have been like to come back like this, but not to have my sight. It’s the only way I can imagine my world could be any darker. But now, a lot of the time I wonder if it would have been a blessing in disguise. See no evil… it works the same for ‘see no freak’ I’d imagine.

After the cream, it’s time for my all-important injection – the one thing keeping my body under the illusion that all is well – before a variety of tablets get chased down by my bedtime cuppa. I hate injecting. I mean, I get that no one would enjoy it, but I really, really hate it. My hand shakes so badly when I push the needle in. I make a right mess of it. It almost doesn’t hurt when Dad does it, but I know I have to get used to it, especially with him starting work tomorrow; tonight though, I wimp out at the last minute. I clamber into a clean pair of PJ bottoms, pull on two pairs of thick socks and a fresh hoodie, scoop up my portable medkit – which is basically an enormous, glorified makeup bag filled with all the twisted things I need to keep myself alive and kicking – and head downstairs to find him.

The kitchen’s sparkling, and the living room’s empty. I really don’t want to go down any further; I’ve had enough of basements to last me a… Well, a good long while.

It’s either that, or a shaky-handed skin-stab, and I sigh as I slowly make my way down the narrow staircase.

‘You know,’ I say, picking my way across the cold stone floor and wishing I’d gone for an unprecedented three pairs of socks, ‘the living room up there is huge, and there’s masses of room in the kitchen, or even the hallway in that little eaves-y bit under the stairs. Why do you want to hide away down here like some kind of… mole martyr.’

He’s in the middle of hooking his computer up, and he laughs as I curl up on the big, flattened cardboard box next to his desk, enjoying the minor respite from the damp flagstones. ‘It’s freezing down here, and it smells… funny.’

‘You know what would smell even funnier?’ he asks, not laughing any more. ‘If someone dropped by unexpectedly, to welcome me to the area, or read the meter, or who knows what else, and while they’re standing in the hallway they catch sight of this lot.’ He points to a towering pile of battered files, and a whiteboard covered in sprawling equations.

‘So?’ I shrug. ‘It’d look like you’re a scientist, which you are. No biggie.’

‘Well, it would depend how closely they looked, wouldn’t it?’ he counters. ‘And whether or not they recognise what they’re seeing. We can’t be too careful, how many times do I need to say it? I just don’t see the point in taking any chances, Chlo, not when we’ve come this far.’

‘I suppose,’ I concede, yawning as I hand over my kit and raise my hoodie to expose my stomach, hoping my ‘please do this for me, you know I hate it’ pitiful expression will do the trick. He tuts at me, but does the honours all the same.

‘You know you’re going to have to –—’

‘Yes, I do know,’ I snap, cutting him off. ‘Just… not tonight, ok?’

I stay put and watch him work for a while, knowing he won’t let me help with anything because he’s totally OCD about everything being in exactly the right place. And given that every file, memory stick, and hand-scribbled equation down here is because of me, I’m not going to be the one to disturb any of it.

It’s pretty hard not to think about the vaccine in here. That’s probably the real reason I don’t want to be down here. I’d be a psychologist’s dream right now. We’ve got so little of it left. I look over to see the case he keeps the vials in, and there are so many empty slots that my insides turn around and I start up a slow, cold sweat. I can’t function if I let that particular thought roam free in my head – the obvious one – What’s going to happen when it runs out? See, that’s the most messed up thing about it all: I can’t even say to myself, Well, you’ll die Chlo, and that’ll be that, because it’s a million miles from being that simple. I have something arguably worse than death to look forward to.

Dad’ll find a way to make more before we run out. Of course he will. However clueless he can be at emotions and life in general, he’s a genius in the lab; the Agency proved that. They don’t hire anyone who isn’t a total Einstein. It’s a shame that they don’t actually treat their Einsteins a little better while they have them, but then isn’t that always the way. I reckon you’re far better off being completely mediocre in this life – that way, people don’t notice you, don’t expect anything of you, and tend to just leave you alone. You stay under the radar, and you really can’t go wrong. That’s what I’m all about now: staying under the radar.

‘Chlo, you’re making me nervous,’ Dad mutters, tugging a little too forcefully on some cables under the desk. ‘Plus you’re right, it is cold down here, and I haven’t got to grips with the thermostat yet. You’d better go on back up.’ He straightens up and stretches, stifling a yawn. ‘It’s been a long day. Why don’t you get an early night, it’d do you good.’

I’m not sure I’ll be able to sleep after my nap earlier, but he’s told me a million times that sleep helps my cells regenerate, or at least helps them think they’re regenerating, so… I guess it’s worth a try. The trouble is, more often than not, with sleep comes the nightmares, which is why I prefer to put it off for as long as possible.

‘It’d do you good too,’ I tell him. ‘You’ve got a big day tomorrow.’

‘Oh, I won’t be too much longer. I just want to get this all hooked up so I’m ready to crack on as soon as I get in tomorrow night.’

‘You said you’d need to keep your head down at the hospital for a couple of weeks before you could even start researching… stuff. You won’t really need much down here for a bit, so why not ——’

‘Chlo…’ He puts his hands on my shoulders. ‘Just let me get on, ok? We’re working against the clock here.’

I suppose it doesn’t occur to him that I’m the last person who needs reminding, that maybe it would be nice if just for once he could pretend there wasn’t a great big timer counting down to my imminent… whatever. Maybe we could sit and watch a film together, or something, anything, if he could just drag himself away from his research long enough. What difference would a couple of hours really make? But if I say anything, I’m going to look like a sure-fire contender for worst-daughter-of-the-year, so I nod, and smile, and wish him goodnight as I make my way back up the stairs. This is us now, our life: Dad hiding in the basement, me hiding upstairs, the clock ticking on us the whole time.

There are three compounds he needs to finish the vaccine, compounds he had access to in the Agency but wasn’t directly involved in engineering. He has a tiny sample of each of them, and needs to figure out a way to create them, from scratch, before the supplies he managed to smuggle out of the lab run out. If he can’t, I suppose late nights and cold rooms will be the least of his worries, just like lonely nights will be the least of mine.

I get the kettle on and make some tea, taking his down and hugging him tight, before downing my pills with mine, hauling my tired body up the stairs and crawling into bed. I leave the bedside light on, and dig into a book, reading until the last possible moment, when the words start to dance on the page in front of my eyes, and I can’t hold sleep off any longer. The nightmares don’t come, and I sleep peacefully for the first time in months. Maybe they can’t find me here. I dream that Dad keeps me hidden in the basement with all his research. I’m cold, and alone, but I’m safe.

CHAPTER THREE

It’s pitch dark when the shouting wakes me, and for a second I don’t know where I am. I hear my name nestled in amongst a flood of swearing, and recognise Dad’s as the only voice before panic takes hold completely. The boxes. I wince as I remember throwing them out of my window. Fumbling for the light switch, I let rip a mini swear-fest of my own – why would he have come in and turned the lamp off? He knows I hate the dark. I pull back one heavy curtain and see him out on the drive, furiously gathering them up. I sigh, and brace myself as I open the window.

‘Chloe! I just went arse over wotsit over these! What did I say yesterday?’

‘Sorry!’ I shout back down. ‘I meant to say…’

The look he gives me speaks volumes, and I hold my hands up in surrender.

‘Just…’ He sighs, ‘Can you please try and keep things a bit tidier? I’ve got enough to deal with right now as it is.’

‘Yeah, sorry Dad, I will. Are you leaving already? Weren’t you even going to say goodbye?’

‘I left you a note,’ he says, leaning the boxes against the garage door. ‘I thought you could use the sleep, and I could use a head start.’ He wipes his hands on his jacket, then looks back up at me. ‘Don’t wait up for me. Keep the blinds and curtains closed, and don’t even think of answering the door to anyone. Even if it’s the police. Especially if it’s the police.’

I get that kick of fear in my belly that I narrowly avoided when I heard the shouting. It’s never far off.

‘Your phone’s all charged up,’ he says, his voice softening a little, ‘and I’ve put my number in it for you. Text me if you need anything, ok?’

‘Ok,’ I try to reply lightly, but my voice breaks and betrays my sudden terror at being left alone. I try again, and do a little better with a faux-cheery and not entirely appropriate ‘Good luck!’ Good luck finding the thing that will save me before we find out what the hell happens to me if you don’t.

I actually thought I’d be fine about it, I’ve been on my own in the flat a few times over the last few weeks, when Dad had his interview, and when he went to sign the lease on the cottage, but when I close the window a massive wave of anxiety hits me, hard. I have to physically steady myself, and I’m just about to pull the curtain back across when a second wave, packing an even harder punch, crashes over me as I see the car’s taillights disappear down the drive. I’m on my own, in the middle of nowhere. Anyone could be out there, watching the house, watching me from the darkness right now. I pull the curtain closed so hard that a couple of the hooks ping out and it sags heavily in the middle. I duck down next to the wall, and sit with my back to it, knees pulled tight against my chest, trying to get a grip. Agents could be watching Dad leave from anywhere down the lane, getting ready right now to come in and take me; and all that stands between me and them is a front door that I’m pretty sure would give with a swift kick or two from a decent enough boot. How could he leave me alone like this? What was he thinking? After everything he’s told me about them…

God. I can’t breathe. Don’t think, dontthinkdontthink.

Day one. Hour one. And it’s not going well.

Take the piss. Make it funny. Poor little rich girl cries for Daddy when she’s left alone in a beautiful house all day to do whatever she wants. Someone forgot to put their big girl pants on. What are you, six years old? Are you really so special that anyone would go to this much trouble to get hold of you? Self-important much!

It starts to work, slowly. It’s a pretty thin veneer, and it doesn’t hold up to too much questioning, so I don’t. I just try and go with it. It’s either that, or hide with my back to the wall all day. And I’m already getting cramp.

I pull myself up, take a deep breath, purely for effect, and shuffle over to get another hoodie from my wardrobe. I think about getting back under the covers for a bit, but my head feels light and cramps are slowly starting to make themselves known in my stomach as well as my back and legs. I need to eat, and I need to take my mind off things. This is a job for bacon.

I get through two packs of Danish before I cast a guilty look over at the frying pan, wondering how the hell I’m not the size of a house by now. I suppose it should be a bonus, but I can’t help wondering what all the fat and salt is doing to what’s left of my insides. I’ll have to try and talk to Dad about it again soon. I should probably at least switch to grilling the meat. Or maybe there’s a way I could just get some protein shakes, like those gym maniacs, instead of being such a carnivore. I’ve asked him about it before, and he didn’t exactly say no, as such, just gave me a kind of mutter that it’s ‘not quite that simple.’ No, well, nothing really is any more.

I contemplate a third pack, before realising that we don’t actually have one – we didn’t bring much shopping with us and we’re going to need to do a grocery run PDQ. I say ‘we’ meaning Dad, obviously. You do see a lot of frightening sights in Asda, I know, but there are limits. Resigned to a bacon-less environment, I set to work de-greasing the kitchen from my fry-fest, and before I know it, I’ve got the Marigolds on. Dad’s ‘keep things a bit tidier’ must still be swimming around in my head, because I have a sudden vision of cleaning the whole place from top to bottom. Or, almost the whole place. I don’t want to go into the basement. Being down there alone would bring back… well, I don’t know if there are words to describe the memories. The accident was horrific, but it was an understandable type of horror. I mean, it’s the kind of thing that happens every day, you just always hope it’s never going to happen to you or yours. What came after, well, that’s a whole different story. Not something I think the human brain is really equipped to deal with just yet; I know mine isn’t at least. I should be worrying only about shoes and hot boys, according to the books and magazines I’m supposed to buy. Not whether or not I’m some kind of soulless demon who has absolutely no right to exist.

Take one broken girl. Add a generous helping of pain and terror.

Simmer for six months.

Needles, a homemade drip attached to the frame of an old standard lamp, the dimmest of light bulbs, and a bright, blinding torch for when he needed to check my eyes. A room that never got warm, blankets that scratched and burned at my skin as my cells imploded and pores bled. Scrap metal, boiled, sharpened and seared through bone to force it back into place. Limbs that jerked uncontrollably one minute, and seized completely the next. Wires, everywhere, pretending to be veins, trying to trick my body, trying to make me into something I should never have become. Lying flat, not seeing anything other than a damp, water-stained ceiling week after week. Pain. Endless pain accompanied by endless doses of morphine that never touched it. Fear – of what the pain would do next, of what he would do next, of what I was turning into. A hideous, stumbling experiment, brought to life in the darkness. Screams. A million screams in a place where no one would ever hear them.

It wasn’t really me. That’s what I have to tell myself, or I can’t handle the flashbacks. That person, that thing, down there, wasn’t me. But I still can’t go into the basement. It doesn’t matter that the equations, the test tubes, the conical flasks and the bottles of god only knows what are all hidden away underneath this beautiful cottage in the middle of this beautiful countryside – that’s just a matter of aesthetics. There’s no more damp, cramped flat in the arse end of London, but the principle remains. And it’s a nasty principle, however you look at it.

A distraction, that’s what I need. It was never easy in the flat, because there was no room to move, no space to think. Here though, I’ve got nothing but room – and I obsessively, determinedly, clean and tidy every damn inch of it until everything looks nice; until everything looks normal. I find the radio and turn it up far too loud, wanting the inane chatter and cheesy, commercial music to fill my head, willing it to take up as much room in there as possible. I dust, I polish, I hoover. I fluff cushions. I sweep the fireplace. And I don’t stop until my arms and legs start to tremble and my heart starts to pound so hard in my ears it blocks out the radio. And when I can’t do any more, I sit and I cry like a baby – for a thousand different reasons. I even cry for the fact that I’m crying.

‘You’re pathetic, Chlo,’ I tell myself. ‘You’re absolutely bloody pathetic. What was the point of coming through it all, just to end up like this?’ I don’t want the end-product to be this whiny, self-indulgent, sickly creature. I know that I need to heal mentally as much as physically; but I just don’t know how the hell I’m supposed to do it. I lie back on the sofa, refusing to think about anything at all until the pounding in my ears eases, and the trembling in my limbs settles. I lose track of time, but as my body slowly recovers in its own way from the morning’s unusual exertion, angry growls start to bellow forth from my stomach. It must be protein o’clock, and as I realise that I’m going to have to go and mess up my now immaculate kitchen all over again, I start to laugh. And it feels better than crying.

*

I throw a pack of chicken breasts into the oven this time, thinking it’s probably healthier than frying them. I mean, I don’t actually have a clue what I’m doing; Mum always used to cook for us, or if she had to work late she’d leave money for pizza. It suddenly hits me that I’m going to have to cook for us tonight – that I’ve been somehow shifted into the role of housewife here, and I couldn’t be any less qualified for it. I see a panic attack racing across the horizon towards me, and I desperately look around for something to fight it off with. My new phone’s sitting on the windowsill, still attached to its charger, and I make a grab for it. I could text Dad, tell him to get a takeaway on his way back tonight. Or maybe I shouldn’t disturb him on his first day. I could save him some of the chicken. I’m starting to get dangerously close to setting off an ‘I can’t do this’ loop of destruction in my head, when I see the note he said he’d left; it was neatly folded up and tucked underneath the phone. Not the most obvious of spots, but he must’ve known I’d be playing with the phone at some point.

Chlo,

I’m getting an early start. Didn’t want to wake you. Don’t open the door, don’t answer the phone, keep the curtains closed tight and ring me if you need me. Eat well, and stay warm. I’ll pick up groceries & a takeaway on my way home.

Dad.

Well, that’s my dinner worry solved for today at least.

If we had the internet, it’d be easy; I could just look up some simple recipes. Dad doesn’t think I’m ready to get back online yet though. And he’s right. The temptation to email Tom and tell him everything would be pretty hard to resist. I mean, I write emails to him in my head every day:

Dear Tom, you’ll NEVER believe what happened…

I can remember his email address, but not his phone number. He was on speed dial on our landline, and just ‘Tom’ on my mobile. I can’t dredge up any more than a zero and a seven from the tangled mess of my memory. Some days I try, for hours at a time. Other days, I try for hours at a time not to.

I look down at the phone in my hands, and I wonder…

No… he wouldn’t be that careless, or that clueless…

… would he?

My fingers fumble through the options almost of their own accord, and as I press the web browser symbol, I get that familiar panicky sensation of ice flooding my stomach.

Mobile data is disabled for this device. Please check your settings.

That should be where I stop, but I follow the prompts and check the settings all the same. It’s like drinking, or smoking, you know it’s bad… you know it’s only going to hurt you… but you do it all the same. When I see Please enter your password to change your mobile data settings I’m genuinely relieved, glad that he’s taken the choice away from me, because I don’t think I would have been strong enough to make the right choice on my own.

I can’t stand the thought of anyone seeing me like this; I don’t want to catch the look in their eyes: revulsion, fear, disgust. I’m genuinely terrified of what their reaction would be. And it’s not just the look, it’s what they’d say. Would they call out? Cover their mouth with their hands just a split second too late to stifle their gasp of horror? Or would they just fire a horrified whisper to the friend beside them, pulling them in close and hurrying by? Maybe there’d even be some pity there, which I think would somehow be even worse. I could never go out, never talk to someone the way I look now. But if I was behind a screen… well, I could be anyone. I could make a fake profile on Facebook, friend Tom and see what he’s doing, find out who he’s hanging out with now, if he still thinks about me. I could open a Wattpad account and share everything that’s happened to me, pretend that I’ve got this crazy, twisted imagination and it’s all just fiction. Maybe people reading it would get hooked, and become as curious as I am to find out how it all turns out. Or maybe they’d just think I was sick in the head and move on to safer ground and some One Direction fan fiction.

Either way, I don’t have to worry, because Dad’s locked me out of the internet as securely as he’s locked me in the cottage. It keeps me safe. It keeps me so lonely that the coldness inside is actually starting to burn. And I’ve got nothing in the world to do but stare through the little window of the oven and wait for my chicken to cook.

*

When I’ve eaten, and cleaned up after myself (‘keep things a bit tidier’), I head up to my room before I get too tired or shaky to be able to manage the stairs. I wonder about maybe taking out my diary and making myself read through it, if only to see how far I’ve come. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do? Look at how far you’ve come rather than how far you’ve still got to go? I’ve done nothing but dwell on my own sorry self all morning though. If I’m going to be stuck here, like some twisted effigy of a Disney princess up in a tower, then I need something else… someone else, or I’ll go insane within a week. I can already feel the danger. I need an escape. And if I can’t go out, I’m going to have to look within.

I go to the bookshelves and scan through the titles until I find what I need, what never fails, and it brings a little twist of irony that makes me smile and lets me know what I need to do next. With my ancient, battered copy of Jane Eyre under my arm, I drag a thick blanket from the airing cupboard on the landing, and then stab viciously at the trapdoor above with the hooked pole that I find inside. As it swings open, I make a couple of failed attempts to hook the ladder, my co-ordination is pants these days, and finally wrestle the narrow, pull-down ladder into position. And then the real challenge begins. The ladder sits at a steep angle, and my knees buckle as I try to climb it whilst pushing up the heavy blanket and keeping the book wedged safely under my arm at the same time. Step by painful step I haul myself up, and finally pull myself, breathless and sweating, through the tiny hatch into the attic. Because what better place to curl up with Jane and her demons?

Once I’ve got my breath back I pull the hatch closed behind me, which makes me feel even more isolated from the world, but now that I have a book for company I don’t feel half as lonely. In fact, as I settle down and cocoon myself into the blanket, for the first time since leaving the flat I actually feel safe. It’s like hiding from the world physically is one thing, but without being able to hide mentally as well, I’m still totally vulnerable. Here, if there are footsteps on the drive, or a knock at the door, I won’t hear them – they can’t frighten me. No one can peer in through a gap in the curtains, no one can see movement behind a blind. And I realise that this place could be my saving grace. It’s freezing up here, but completely bare of anything that could remind me of who, or why, I am. The sunlight flooding in through the skylight is beautiful, there’s no need for a blind here, and the sloping ceiling is panelled with heavy, dark wood that makes me feel like I’m in a whole different house. I can’t imagine a better reading cave. Settling down with the blanket tucked tightly around me, just where the elongated rectangle of sun hits the floor, I open my book.

‘There was no possibility of taking a walk that day…’

Ha! You and me both, Jane.

And I take her hand and leave my own demons behind for a while.

The hours melt away from me. I don’t hear the tyres on gravel, or the heavy bang of the front door. I miss the first frantic cry, and the second, before the hammering of feet on the stairs startles me out of Thornfield. I can’t move; I’ve got so cold up here that my legs have seized completely, and my hands and feet are painful blocks of sharp ice. My heart seizes not from cold but from terror. They’re here, they’ve found me.

As the frenzied shout rings out, Dad’s voice registers, and relief mixes itself into the cocktail of panic that was building inside me.

‘I’m up here! I’m all right!’ I shout back, letting go of my book and awkwardly rubbing my legs, trying to encourage some life back into them. I’m supposed to be getting stronger, not giving myself hypothermia.

‘Hold on! I’m coming down!’

I drag myself over to the trapdoor and push it open, narrowly missing Dad’s head as he stares up at me.

‘Christ, Chlo.’ He exhales, ‘I thought…’

He thought they’d found me. He thought they’d taken me.

‘I’m fine!’ My teeth pick a really inappropriate time to start chattering. ‘I was just reading up here, I’m coming… I’ll be… down in a second…’

I can’t come down while he’s standing there. My legs still won’t work right and he’ll be angry if he sees the state I’ve got myself into. He’d probably lock the hatch so I wouldn’t be able to get up here again, and I’m not ready to lose this space now that I’ve only just found it.

He looks at me, head to one side, suspicion in his eyes.

Go… go downstairs… I’m fine, I’m fine…

‘All right,’ he finally relents with a sigh. ‘It’s late, Chlo. I’ve brought you a curry. Come on down and get it while it’s hot.’

‘’Kay!’

I move back from the opening and wait until I hear him go back down the stairs before I shake painful life into my frozen limbs. I leave the blanket where it is, and promise myself that tomorrow I’ll bring up a duvet, some cushions, and a couple of those little electric heaters I always used to have aimed at me in the flat – if I can find them.

He’s at the table when I come down, and the rich, spicy smell of the curry sends my stomach into a noisy growl-fest that kills the tension and makes him laugh, instead of lecture like I was expecting. I sit down to a plate piled high with riceless chicken madras, and tuck in. It’s still weird, being able to smell the spice but not taste it. The warm chunks of meat are heaven. There’s a pint of water set for me, which I down almost in one as I’m around halfway through my plateful. I hate to think what I must look like: some drunken rugby fan woofing down a massive curry and necking a pint after a game. Not exactly the most ladylike of approaches; yet another reason I can’t see myself ever being girlfriend material. One meal, and I’d be dumped. Plus I dread to think what Mum would make of me if she saw me like this.

‘How’s the chicken?’ Dad asks, presumably noticing I’ve stopped stuffing myself senseless.

‘It’s fine,’ I say, reloading my fork. ‘I just… my taste…’

He looks thoughtful for a minute before replying.

‘I think we can get it back,’ he says, although he looks down at his food instead of at me, which isn’t a promising sign. ‘There must be a way we can regenerate the cells on your taste buds. Once we’ve got everything else taken care of, I’ll work on it, I promise.’

‘It’s fine,’ I lie. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to fuss about it. It’s just… everything tastes like… chicken.’

He’s laughing again, and it’s contagious this time.

This is nice, spending time together like this. We’ve been so on top of each other for so long lately that getting some distance like today – however bad it felt this morning – is probably going to do us both the world of good. We might actually learn to enjoy each other’s company rather than just putting up with it.

I attack the rest of my chicken with renewed vigour.

‘I might get you a vindaloo next time,’ he chuckles. ‘See how far gone those taste buds really are!’

I see that drunken rugby fan again, and try to sit up a little straighter and eat a little slower. I’ve never been much of girly girl, but I mean, there are limits.

CHAPTER FOUR

My relationship with Dad, one that was never strong to start with and that disintegrated into a hateful, unspeakably broken thing when it happened, starts to improve a little every day. I think that’s the main reason the loneliness and frustration take a while to build up. Once I get over the initial shock of the changes, and with the cottage really being a million times nicer than the flat, it starts to feel a lot more like freedom than I was expecting. I spend most of my days locked up in the attic reading, where nothing in the world, inside or out, can get to me. It’s like having my own ‘tallest tower’; metaphorical dragons circle the roof above me, and no prince, however charming, could ever get near. This is an infinite comfort rather than a cause for tears. Disney would hate me.

The hatch feels like a steel door, and I leave my worries at the bottom of the stepladder every time I clamber up it. And as the days begin to pass with no sign of trouble, I eventually start to grow a little braver, and begin to widen my territory, like some kind of nervous woodland animal. I don’t really have any way of keeping track of time. My days are structured around the growls emanating from my stomach, but in terms of the number of days that are passing, I have no idea. Dad works as many weekends as weekdays, it seems, and without being able to see outside, or feel anything other than cold, it could be mid-winter, or early spring for all I know. The number of books I get through becomes my only way to guess at the time passing. I read one, sometimes two novels a day, and as my ‘read’ pile grows I can make a rough guess at how long we’ve survived here. I try not to look too closely though, because the more books that teeter on the pile, the more times I remember reading each one, the lower my supply of vaccine dips.

When I can’t take the cold of the attic any longer, I start to read down by the fire, keeping low on the sofa under a blanket, and tensing at every sound from outside to begin with, but with each chapter I make it through safely I begin to relax a little more – and eventually I come to enjoy the warmth and the comfort. The windows and doors are locked, the curtains are pulled tight across heavy blinds, and I finally start to feel safe in the house itself, rather than just in the attic. The urgency and the panic Dad manages to maintain more quietly now starts to slowly, dangerously, slip away from me.

I start to do exercises every day to help with my limp and my general level of fitness. They’re ridiculously repetitive and boring, but once I get comfortable having the radio on, enjoying the company it provides without worrying too much about every little outside noise and threat it could be masking, they don’t feel so bad. And the worrying dwindles with every song I start to sing along to; because if they were out there, surely they would have come for me by now?

With my new muscles (ha, ok, not quite) I drag the furniture around in the living room so the TV faces away from the window, that way none of its tell-tale colours can possibly shine through to the outside world, and I can watch back-to-back DVDs all day long, never even needing to change out of my PJs. My life is one long, open-ended sick day. After a full rotation of my books, and an impressive run at Buffy on DVD, I feel myself kick down a gear, and relax more thoroughly, to settle into it – to enjoy it even. The more days that pass with no one hammering on the door, or hassling Dad at work, the safer, and the more untouchable I feel.

I should have known the feeling could never last. Holidays, sick days, anything like that, they should all come to an end. If they don’t, they eventually up end being every bit as frustrating as whatever it is they were an escape from.

*

I don’t see much of Dad, but when I do, I can tell by his outfits that summer must be drawing to a close out there, and that’s around the time when I inevitably start to get tired of my own company. The pattern of the days and the weeks becomes all too familiar, and the DVDs and books follow suit. No matter how much you adore a book, there’s a limit to how many times you can re-read it in quick succession. Same goes for your favourite films and TV series, there are only so many times you can re-watch them back-to-back before they start to lose their magic. Dad’s always offering to get me more – he’s never happier than when I’m reading or watching TV because I’m ‘resting’. That’s all he ever wants me to do. Stay still, stay safe.

He leaves before six in the mornings, and he’s rarely home before ten in the evening. We eat together whenever he gets in, and then he quietly heads down to the basement to put in even more hours, while I make my way up to bed. It’s become a strange existence; like being in limbo almost, just sitting here waiting to see if he can create the compounds and produce the vaccine from scratch. There’s this big, invisible timer ticking away in the background the whole time. Sometimes I can turn it right down, like when I’m reading; not just normal reading, but when I totally, one hundred per cent lose myself in a book. The problem is that it’s getting harder to lose myself in ones I’ve read a hundred times. The less immersed I am, the louder the ticking becomes. The louder the ticking becomes, the more it stops me losing myself, and the vicious circle begins, and self-perpetuates.

I’ve started to wear the same clothes for too many days. I still have a bath every day, but that’s only because my skin falls off me in terrifying chunks if I don’t (yeah, I tried it). I eat regularly and plentifully because if I don’t my vision swims and I can’t read. I chat cheerfully to Dad for a few minutes between mouthfuls each evening because if I don’t, he’ll worry. I basically do the absolute minimum to get by, in terms of expected behaviour: enough to convince Dad that I’m ok, but it’s tough enough to do to let me know that I’m really not ok. I’m not sure exactly at what point this all happened, but I feel it all the same. And I know that it’s not good.

When I hear the car leave in the mornings, I find myself heading straight for the attic again, and I feel like I’ve come full circle since we’ve been here. I’ve explored my territory, and exhausted it, and now I’ve come back to the beginning and there’s nowhere else to go. I read up there until my stomach complains so loudly that I have to come back down and cook bacon, or eggs, or steak, or chicken. It all tastes the same so it doesn’t matter to me which meat comes at which time of the day. The only person I ever speak to, other than myself, is Dad. And our couple of hours or so in each other’s company from the first week we were here has steadily disintegrated into what’s typically now no more than twenty minutes on any given day. We never really talked to each other before all this. Back when things were ‘normal’ he was always at work – always pulling overtime evenings and weekends. It actually wasn’t much different to now I suppose, except now, he’s all I have.

Most weekends he still goes to the hospital to work, and if he does stay here, ‘here’ tends to mean ‘in the basement’. He never stops working. He keeps the race-against-time vibe going, although it’s quieter now, and that makes it feel more dangerous, more sinister somehow. Like he doesn’t even have time to talk about it. He used to tell me about his day when he got back, about the things he’d been working on and how they were bringing him closer to replication. I never understood any of it, but it was comforting to hear all the same. It felt like he was keeping me involved, not letting me forget that he was on the case, that it was all going to be ok. Now he hardly mentions a thing about it; the most I get is a vague, passing reference.

‘I’m getting closer every day Chlo; I’m getting two, sometimes even three hours a day in working on the compounds in the lab, plus four or five at home most nights.’

‘That’s great, Dad. How about sleep though? How much of that are you getting?’

‘I’ll sleep when we’ve got a backlog of vaccine behind us, Chlo. You watch me. I’ll sleep like a baby.’

He’s so driven, that some days I can’t help but believe he’s going to do it; of course he’ll figure it out. Other days, I think to myself that if he hasn’t done it by now, this scientific mega genius recruited by a super-secret government agency, then he never will.

The threat of my ever-dwindling supply of vaccine, coupled with my ever-increasing difficulty in finding any kind of escape to my days is starting to make me go a little bit… odd. I talk to myself a lot now. I talk to Mum all the time too. And Tom. I’ve typed a million texts to him, and I save them all, even though I can’t send them. I wrote him a letter too, acres of real words on real paper, telling him everything, and then I fed it to the fire and watched it burn.

I’m starting to think I really need to get out – somehow. Dad worries himself half to death thinking about would happen to me if I did, and I used to do the same, but now I find I’m starting to worry more about what will happen to me if I don’t.

*

Lately Dad keeps bringing home these Living France magazines, and whatever glossy women’s mags are featuring anything at all to do with Paris. He’s trying to fire up my enthusiasm, give me something to hold on to, I know, but Paris is his ultimate solution to all this, not mine. I feel lousy thinking like that, because it’s a solution that’s totally for my benefit – and the whole situation is just so messed up that it’s beyond a joke. Neither of us actually want to go there, but it looks like that’s where we’re headed all the same.

‘Christophe was always the closest thing I had to a friend at the Agency,’ he tells me, every time the subject comes up. ‘He knew exactly what was going on, and that’s why he got out when he did – before it got too late for him, like it did for the rest of us.’

‘Yeah? Then why didn’t he tell you?’ I argue. ‘If he was such a friend, why did he leave you there?’

‘He didn’t leave me, Chloe. He sent me his address. Do you have any idea what he risked in doing that? Everything. He risked everything to give me a way out.’

‘Yeah? But what if he’s a double agent? I mean, if this whole thing was so top secret, and so intense – if he was the only one who got out, and he knew how dangerous they were, isn’t it just a little bit weird that he got in touch with you and left the super-secret details of where to find him in his covert new life?’

‘It’s not like that,’ he always says with a shake of his head when I bring it up, or when I used to – I don’t bother any more because he doesn’t listen.

‘Christophe gave me that address for a reason, and it’s not the one you think. I trust him. He’s the only one there I ever did trust, and I don’t have any reason to change my opinion of him now.’

There are two problems I have with that. One is that if this indisputably trustworthy science-genius Good Guy colleague really is a Good Guy, then why didn’t Dad get in touch with him on day one? Why isn’t he helping Dad with the vaccine right now? And two – why didn’t he talk things through with Dad before he left? Why leave and then send the contact details on? Because they found him, that’s why. They found him, and re-recruited him, and now he’s a plant – a trap we’re about to fall right into. I watch the films, I read the books, I know that it’s never that simple.

And I don’t want to go. I don’t want to run away to France, and I don’t trust this friend. It’s just another one of the awkward, corrosive secrets that Dad and I have started to keep from each other now.

I don’t tell him how much I wish I was dead instead of Mum, and he doesn’t tell me half of what goes through his head. The secrets are probably the only things that keep us both anywhere near sane.

As the days close in and even I start to notice it from behind the blinds, and as our ever-present background timer runs lower, the guilt that I constantly feel only seems to get heavier. It should be Mum here with Dad instead of me. Some days I can convince myself that it’s an absolute godsend that she’s not here, not like this. Others, I wonder how much harder, how much faster Dad might be working if it was her, and not me. It’s a nasty, dangerous thought, but it’s there, and it forces me to acknowledge it. Dad and I were never close, I never really felt like I meant that much to him. It was always Mum who was there for me. She was the one who helped me with my homework, drove me all over the place, and picked up the pieces whenever Tom and I fought and the world was ending. Dad was always at work. Now everything’s flipped around and I’m somehow his entire world, and that doesn’t always make sense to me. Sometimes I wonder if he just pretends as much as I do.

But then I remember… I never had a choice in any of this. He did.

And he chose me.

*

Trying not to think, or feel, is how I get through my days. I pretty much live in the attic now. I have a huge beanbag up there, an extra duvet which is like the War and Peace of the quilt world, and three electric heaters that, combined, can fry an egg at a hundred paces.

Whenever Dad goes into town to do the food shop, he always asks if there’s anything I want, and I spend a good part of the week trying to think up things that might make my strange prison-but-not-a-prison more comfortable. I don’t know much about what new books are out there any more, so I ask him to pick me up some old classics that I know about but have never read. It’s weird how now I’m out of school for good I’m suddenly reading “better” books than I ever was before. No more fluffy paranormal romances for me, or gore-fest horrors. I’ve started to become obsessed with the complicated language and kind of… aching darkness of old books. The things I used to read feel almost like when I try and watch TV now: garbled nonsense playing in the background that isn’t loud enough to compete with the fears in my head. I need stronger stuff. I read The Castle of Otranto, The Mysteries of Udolpho, The Monk, and this one called Varney the Vampire which is fast becoming my favourite book of all time. The more I have to concentrate, the harder I have to work to follow the language and the plot, the less room there is in my head for anything else. The days blur outside the high windows of my attic, and I don’t even look up at the sky any more.

Drawing more and more into myself, the biggest change I notice is in my nightmares. Ever since it happened, there’s only ever really been one – the same scene playing out in the same way every night. There was a brief respite when we first moved in, but now it’s back, and it’s starting to feature a whole new opening scene that makes no sense. Dad and I have talked about the dreams, because it’s kind of hard not to when you wake up screaming most nights. I’ve been trying to get my sleep during the day, to keep the tears and the terror away from him. Sometimes it works, sometimes I can read all night and sleep up in the attic most of the day, but it seems more and more that the only place I can really settle to a book is up there, and sleep tends to find me after my bath and my meds no matter what.

There’s another reason I’d rather not wake him: when I wake up terrified, and he’s there beside me trying to comfort me – when I should feel safe and secure in his presence – I really don’t. I feel the exact opposite. He’s the last person I want to see; I’m scared that if there was anything dangerous in my room, or if I was stronger, or faster, I could really hurt him in that one, painfully clear moment when I remember what he did to us.

I never hear him have nightmares. I’ve always wondered why.

The dream has only ever starred me, Mum and Dad, but now a new character has found his way in, and I don’t really know what to make of him. He feels like some kind of doctor maybe, wearing a long, dark cloak with a hood that falls down low over a breathing mask with heavy ventilators to each side, and the combination of the two completely obscures his face. I don’t know who he is, or why he’s there, and it’s weird because everything else I dream about is so personal, and so real. He doesn’t speak, or even do anything. He’s just there. The only thing I hear is his breathing, rhythmic and ragged through the ventilator. I can’t see his eyes, but I can feel him watching me, and that’s all he does, watch, and breathe. He’s only ever there at the very start of my dream. He’s waiting for something, I think. I’m not sure I want to think about what.

He makes me feel even more ‘unclean’, even more repulsive somehow. Like my body is such a perversion now that even the air around me has become dangerous. Like no one could ever be safe near me.

The point at which he melts into the blackness around him is when my dream begins in earnest, and from here it’s always the same. Back to normal. I have to live through the experience over and over, every time I fall into a deep sleep.

Don’t think.

I try not to think so much, for so long, that sometimes it feels like there’s nothing left of me.

CHAPTER FIVE

Going by the number of times I’ve re-read Jane Eyre, and by the thickness of Dad’s sweaters, I think we must have been here for about two months or so when it happens. Summer has left us, and autumn is moving in. I’m following my well-trodden path through the days like a compliant lab rat, and Dad’s becoming ever more the quietly mad scientist with each day that passes without a breakthrough.

I have an exercise bike now, so I can work more on my fitness – a new wheel for my cage – and I decide to watch some TV while I put in some time on it. I pedal hard for almost ten minutes before the shaking starts, which means I’m finally starting to see some improvement. The first day he brought it home, I couldn’t even manage five. When I ease myself off the saddle and make for the sofa, I start to shiver. The fire must have died awhile back without me noticing, and when I stop moving the coolness of the air hits me. I think of my ‘nest’ up in the attic, but don’t fancy a double dose of stairs, so I try and warm myself up with the thick blanket on the back of the sofa instead.

The woodpile is just outside the back door, and there are matches and plenty of old newspapers folded and stacked in the kitchen. I should get up and sweep the ashes, and relight the fire so I can slump in front of its crackling, cosy warmth – but a deep lethargy seems to have set into my limbs, and I can’t make myself move. I stretch out on the sofa and bundle myself as tightly into the blanket as I can manage. I know I shouldn’t sleep like this, because I’ll only wake up even colder; I should go and put another hoodie on at least, or grab my thick duvet and burrow under that, but the longer I think about it, the less capable of moving I feel. I stare into the grey emptiness of the fireplace, and my mind drifts. My eyelids become heavy, and before I can do a thing to stop myself, I slide down into a cold, uncomfortable sleep, and the cloaked stranger brings me my nightmare.

Everything leading up to the crash in the dream is exactly the same as it was for real, but it all feels different. Things are dark and blurred around the edges, almost a little out of focus in places, and all the fear and confusion I felt at the time gets replaced by this overwhelming feeling that everything is about to change. When the nightmare starts for real, I know what’s going to happen, and how it’s going to happen, but I still have to go through the whole process. There are no shortcuts. And this time there’s no hope at all that somehow things might turn out ok. Because I know that Mum and I are going to die.

It starts out right where everything began to go wrong, on the day that Mum found out what Dad really did for a living. I come home from school, only I’m not really me in the dream, I’m outside of me… watching. There’s heavy darkness around everything I see, like I’m watching things through a tunnel. And it’s cold; so cold.

I see myself unlocking the front door and I can’t shout at me not to go in, to turn around, to go to Tom’s, to the library, anywhere but there. I can never do anything to change it, I can only relive it. I hear Mum shouting before the door’s even open, her tone and her words are venomous; raw anger and disdain drip from every syllable and she doesn’t sound anything like herself and I’m scared before I’ve even set foot in the house. I can’t make out everything she’s saying, some of the words fade in and out, but the me that’s watching already knows every argument, insult and counter-argument by heart, because I’ve been hearing them in my head since the day it happened. Because I don’t know how to make them stop.

‘…twenty years thinking I was married to someone decent, someone with morals and a bit of backbone – twenty years and I never realised what an evil, messed up Frankenstein you really are. You bastard, Martin. You complete and total bastard. “Project Rise”? How do you sleep at night? How do you live with yourself? You sick, twisted…’

‘The project was classified for a reason, Alma. What the hell do you expect?’

‘What do I expect? I expect you not to have anything to do with something so –’

‘Medical research! You knew that, I never once lied to you –’

‘You never once told me the truth either! You never once got anywhere near!’

‘How the hell could I? This is government work, MOD classified at the highest level. Do you have any idea what they’ll do to me –’

‘I don’t give a damn about what they’ll do to you, just like you don’t give a damn about the men you killed – or their families – or anyone other than your own precious self and your revolting little career. You can go straight to hell for all I care… the whole lot of you.’

‘What do you think has paid for all this? Eh? The house you wanted, the car you wanted – you can thank my revolting little career for that, you hypocritical, ungrateful…’

Around and around they go, the insults getting deeper and the point of no return becoming a tiny speck in the distance. And all I can do is watch.

‘Sick, twisted abomination…’ Those are the last words I hear from Mum before she flings the kitchen door open and storms through it. She’s white as a ghost, paler than I’ve ever seen her, but somehow she manages to go whiter still when she sees me there in the hallway.

I try to speak, but my throat’s too tight, and she grabs my arm and drags me up the stairs behind her before I can get a word out.

‘Quickly Chloe,’ she urges, pulling me into my room and grabbing clothes from my drawers. ‘We need to go. Now. Hurry.’

She leaves me piling clothes into a bag with no idea why. I hear Dad pounding up the stairs, and there’s more shouting, and crying. I don’t know how much I’m supposed to take; I don’t know where we’re going, or for how long. So I keep going until the bag is full, then I sit on the bed, and wait. Wait for the shouting to stop, wait for the footsteps to thunder back down the stairs, wait for the front door to slam, and for that final silence to descend. This is my last chance to stop it all, and there’s not a thing I can do.

I follow Mum down the stairs, dragging the heavy bag behind me, and then we’re on the driveway in the rain, getting into her car. Mum’s all raw, burning emotion, and I’m a ghost at her side. I let her shout, I let her tell me what an immoral, lying, evil monster my dad is. How medical research and military research are worlds apart, and how everything he’s ever told us is a lie. How what he was doing to those soldiers was unthinkable, unforgivable. And I stand there, not understanding, terrified, and try to defend him.

Then Mum’s driving too fast and the rain is getting heavier. The fear inside me is building. It won’t be long now. I still babble madly on, like it could make a difference. Maybe Dad was saving lives, in a way. He was saving others from having to give their lives in the first place. Surely that was a good thing? It only makes her angrier, and the angrier she gets, the harder she squeezes the accelerator.

‘You’re like him,’ she says, disgusted. ‘My god, Chloe, you’re just like him.’ She flicks a frantic look in the rear view mirror, and whimpers. ‘It’s too late.’ She doesn’t take her eyes off the mirror, as if they’re right behind us, these undead soldiers Dad apparently has at his disposal, come to chase us down, bring us back. “The project was classified for a reason.”; “Do you have any idea what they’ll do?” Tears stream down my face, mirroring the rain that floods the windscreen faster than the wipers can clear it. And faster we fly through the narrow streets, darkness pressing in all around us, the lights blurring in the rain-obscured glass. It’s coming. I scream and shout myself hoarse but I know it can’t make any difference. Mum makes the turn that’s going to kill us. I can’t tear my eyes from the speedometer; I want to look at Mum, tell her I love her, tell her I’m sorry, but all I can see is the glowing ‘70’ on the display. I hear the brakes lock up, feel the back end of the car start to slide. Steel twists and splinters around me. My seatbelt crushes three of my ribs, and the impacted passenger door breaks my left shoulder and hip. A slice of shattered windshield tears into my face, but I don’t feel it, I don’t feel any of it. There’s no pain. There’s just the warm blood on my face, and the cold rain around me. And the car spins… flips… flies… landing heavily on its roof. I hang upside down from my seatbelt and two more of my ribs crack. My leg smashed against the footwell as we flew through the air, and is broken in two places. And now it’s quiet, and still. And I look over to see Mum’s lifeless eyes staring straight ahead, and my world ends.

I’m screaming in the dark, my body ice cold and tangled up in something, and I don’t know where I am. I scream harder, and fall to the floor, my limbs trapped and useless. Brightness explodes on my face, and I feel arms around me and panic even more. Until I hear his voice.

‘It’s ok, Chloe. It’s over. It’s ok, you’re ok.’ Over and over he says it, and finally I understand that it’s true. Except it’s not, because it’ll never be over. And I keep on having to relive it like this. And I don’t know if I can do it any more.

‘Chlo, you’re all caught up in the blanket, here, hold still.’ Dad lifts me awkwardly, trying to untangle the twisted fabric from my legs, and I let him. He rests me back on the sofa, putting a thick cushion behind my head, and fussing over me all the while. ‘Christ, you’re like ice,’ he says, as he lifts my feet and swings them round. ‘Why were you sleeping down here? Why did you let the fire go out?’

I can’t form an answer, not yet. All I can see are Mum’s dead eyes. I don’t even feel the cold that’s making me shake so hard I could be having a fit.

‘Don’t move,’ he says, pulling the blanket back up over me and running for the stairs. As if I even could.

You’re just like him.

He runs back down with the thick double duvet from his bed, and piles it onto me. Then he stands beside the sofa with his head in his hands.

‘I shouldn’t have left you. I thought… Christ. I thought things were getting better. I thought this was all going to stop.’

I close my eyes and turn my head towards the back of the sofa.

How could he think it would ever stop?

*

I must have drifted off to sleep again, although it can’t have been for very long. When I wake the second time I’m warm, and I turn my head to see a bright fire dancing in the grate. The duvet’s so thickly folded down on top of me that I have to fight hard to get out from underneath it.

‘Dad?’ I call, disorientated and not understanding how I could have gone back to sleep after that.

He comes in, calmer now, although still deathly pale. He’s drying his hands on a towel, and the smell of warm spices follows him into the room.

‘I’m sorry Chlo,’ he says in a voice heavy with resignation. ‘I’ll call the hospital in the morning. I shouldn’t be working full-time, leaving you like this every day. I thought by now things would… I don’t know what I thought.’ He sighs. ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘No, Dad, you don’t understand.’ My head’s still spinning but the warmth and the brief sleep seem to have accelerated my return from the nightmare, and I’m almost coherent. ‘I’m fine,’ I lie, ‘I just… I was using the bike and I got tired… I didn’t notice the fire, and I must’ve fallen asleep because of the exercise, and… it was just… I’m fine.’ It’s a weak finish, but it’s all I have.

‘Was it the usual?’ he asks.

I nod. He doesn’t know about my strange new ringmaster, but he knows everything else.

‘It will stop, Chlo, I promise you it will. It just takes time. It’s your brain’s way of dealing with things, and with the way your brain’s been… rewired… it’s only natural…’

There’s nothing natural about it, we both know that, but neither of us say it.

My eyes hurt from having fallen asleep with my contacts in, and the tears have made them doubly painful. With a bit of help, I get up from the sofa and trudge upstairs to take them out. Then I stand under a scalding hot shower until my skin starts to burn. Showers aren’t good for me, they dry my skin out even more – but I dry and dress without putting any of my lotions on. Because I’m finding it harder and harder to care. If Dad’s thinking of quitting, what’s the point in me even bothering?

He calls me down to eat; food’s the last thing on my mind but I’ve got no choice but to go because my stomach is doing its usual dance of desperation. He still won’t let me try out some protein shakes. I’m sick of having to chew my way through mountains of meat and eggs all the time, but he’s always so busy. His hours are starting to stretch almost as thin as my sanity.

‘You can’t quit your job,’ I tell him as I sit down. I don’t know why I said it, because it’s the exact opposite of what I’m thinking: you have to quit your job, or I’m going to go insane here on my own.

He chews his food slowly, buying himself time before he replies. Which gives my mouth time to dig me in even further. ‘I just need to stay awake in the daytime, that’s all. I can do that. And I’ll take things easier tomorrow. I was on the bike for too long. I just wanted to see how much I could do.’

I feel totally pathetic at this point. All I have to do is stay inside and take things easy while he works all hours to keep me alive, and I can’t even manage that.

He takes a long drink of his beer. ‘I thought…’ he trails off, struggling. ‘I thought maybe you’d turned a corner,’ he says, finally. ‘I don’t hear you cry in the night so much any more. I thought things were ok.’

Things will never be ok.

‘I have,’ I lie earnestly. ‘It’s just, maybe it was a small corner. Maybe this whole thing is about small corners. There are just so many of them.’ I’m getting dangerously close to the truth here, and I catch his look. It’s not a promising one; it’s challenging, defensive even.

‘You think you have corners?’ he says, eyebrows raised. ‘Chloe, do you have any idea what my days are like?’

‘Well not really, no, because I’m stuck here by myself all day every day, aren’t I? I don’t know anything about anything any more. I read books that are hundreds of years old, and I clean the house.’ My mouth genuinely has a mind of its own, but I’m a teenager. I’m supposed to be moody and confrontational. It’s expected.

He drains his beer, and sighs. ‘So what is it that you want? Do you want to go hang out in town for a while? Maybe have a few drinks and go dancing? Is that it?’

Well, I’ve never ‘gone dancing’ in my life, although probably this isn’t the time to mention it.

‘No, of course not, I –’

He’s angry now, and I don’t think the beer is helping. He sounds almost as petulant and childish as me when he interrupts.

‘No, come on, what is it that you want to do instead of lying around all day reading? Am I really making this so very hard for you?’

‘No, that’s not what I’m saying, if you’d just listen –’

‘I do nothing but listen, Chloe! You want to be able to taste more, you don’t want to have to eat so much food all the time, you’re tired of the bad dreams, you’re always cold. I listen. But I’m not your personal wish-granter. I’m kind of occupied just now with trying to keep you breathing.’

He bangs his fist down hard on the table at the last word, and I flinch. I haven’t seen him angry like this since the night it happened, and with the nightmare fresh in my mind it’s too much. Tears sting the back of my already sore eyes and I stare fixedly down at my plate. Whatever I say is going to piss him off now; it’s like we’ve been slowly simmering away inside this house-shaped pressure cooker, and now it’s starting to whistle and shake and someone needs to let all the steam out or it’s going to blow us both clean away.

‘I’m lonely, Dad,’ I confess, embarrassed and desperate all at once. ‘I was never exactly Little Miss Popular or anything, I know, but I had friends, I had people I could talk to –’

‘You’ve got me!’ he shouts, and I’m scared. I push my chair back from the table and I don’t know whether to run upstairs, or outside, or what. So I just sit there, staring at my feet, waiting for this to end.

‘All of this,’ he waves a hand at the house in general, ‘it’s all for you, Chlo. So you can be comfortable. So your recovery can be as pleasant as I can possibly make it. To make up for the way things were… in the beginning. And in the meantime, I spend every waking moment trying to fix you – trying so damn hard to fix you – and now I’m not good enough to even talk to?’

He doesn’t normally drink, and I wonder if it’s the beer that’s making him like this. I don’t even know where he got it from, I never see any in the fridge. What if he has a stash of it down in the basement? What if he drinks more and more, gets angrier and angrier…

My head’s telling me to shut up and back off, but my mouth is off again before I can stop it.

‘What am I even supposed to talk to you about? There’s… nothing. I have no life!’

He stands up and kicks his chair back in one fast, aggressive move, and crosses to the sink, turning his back to me as he stares out of the window. I see his knuckles tightening and whitening against the sideboard.

‘You have a life, Chloe,’ he says coldly, quietly, and it’s scarier than when he shouts. ‘Don’t ever call it “nothing”. Not after what it cost.’

Mum was terrified of him that night, and I was scared for her, but not scared of Dad as such. It’s my turn now though. I want to be sick. I want to run. He’s angry at me, and he’s frightening me; my mouth opens, and I know I’m only going to make it worse, but I do it anyway.

‘I can’t stay like this… be like this. It’s too much. You have no idea what it’s like, Dad. You can’t keep me locked up forever. It doesn’t make it all just go away. It just traps it all in with me.’

He doesn’t say anything for so long that I start to wonder if I actually said it out loud after all. And then finally he says, ‘If I let you out, what do you think will happen?’

‘I don’t know,’ I fire back automatically. ‘You tell me.’

This is something we’ve skirted around so many times. Maybe we can finally get it all out in the open now. Maybe this is the way to put the nightmares to bed. I suppose there’s only one way to find out.

Dad sighs, and his shoulders drop. It’s as if all the tension goes out of him at once, and I’m not sure if he’s stalling, or if the discussion is over before it’s even started. He fusses around the sink for a bit, rinsing a couple of mugs, and taking deep breaths, and then he finally comes and sits back down. I scoot my chair back in to the table. We’re right back where we started, but everything has changed.

‘They’d kill me,’ he says, simply.

I look up and see that he’s deadly serious. I always thought, I don’t know, I mean, they’re the government. You don’t think about them killing anyone. Not here, I mean, this is good ol’ Blighty. Maybe a fine, or a few months in prison for breach of contract or something. But killing?

‘But Dad, they’re…’

‘Yes, I know. They’re the Good Guys. We’re all on the same side. Only they’re not, Chloe. Your mum was right about that. There’s absolutely nothing good about them.’

Well, clearly I need to think more carefully about whether I actually want to know the answer before I ask a question. Bloody hell.

‘And that’s nothing,’ he goes on, ‘compared to what they’d do to you.’

Oh. Well, good, that helps.

He moves his chair closer to mine and puts a hand on my arm. I pull away from him.

‘I don’t want to make things worse for you,’ he says. ‘But when it comes to things like leaving the house, or talking to people, you need to know. You need to understand. Nowhere’s safe from them Chloe, not really, not yet. When it comes down to it, yes, this house is still a cage for you – but it won’t be forever, I promise. Right now though, you need to be invisible. You need to not exist. For both our sakes.’

I take a deep breath in, and nod slowly, giving him what he wants because I suddenly have a question to ask. A massive question.

My voice drops almost to a whisper. ‘Why did you do it?’

I don’t think I even really expect him to answer. But he does – without hesitation, like he’s been practicing… justifying it to himself in his head all this time.

‘Because if I hadn’t, someone else would have. Because I wanted to know how far the boundaries of science as we know it could be pushed. Because I could. There are a thousand reasons Chloe. Because I thought I could make a difference, a positive difference. Because it was an opportunity I’d never get again.’

He’s misunderstood me completely. I didn’t mean why did he work for them – although it is a good question, and I don’t interrupt him. Because if there’s ‘absolutely nothing good about them’, then yeah, why work for them in the first place?

‘They told us the project would save lives, potentially millions of lives. It wasn’t until we were a couple of years into the work that things started to go sour, and by then, we were all in far too deep to ever get out. But you need to understand Chloe, it started out as a group of people trying to do a wholly good thing. They showed us video footage, wave after wave of soldiers being wiped out en masse – IEDs, poisonous gas, machine gun fire, a hundred different ways, all of them unforgettably horrific. Things that none of us could ever un-see. And then they asked us the question: what if, instead of sending fresh troops out to replace them, more lambs to the slaughter, we could just reanimate the fallen? What if. Whatever you want to think about the morals of doing something like that, of controlling a dead body, of all the things you’d have to put a person through… that’s someone who’s already dead, Chlo. That’s someone whose life is already lost, and has been lost trying to save the lives of others. If they could finish their original mission, no one else would need to be sent out after them. No one else would have to be killed. It was a beautiful concept. It was flawless.’

I think I’d draw the line at beautiful, and I don’t think I’d go anywhere near flawless, but I can understand his thinking at least. And I think Mum could have done, as well, if he’d explained it like this.

You’re just like him.

‘Then why didn’t you tell Mum? If you honestly believed it was a good thing… why did you never tell her about it? You lied to her for years Dad, decades even –’

‘I signed the official secrets act Chloe, that’s not something you can take lightly. It’s not a contract you can brush off, it’s a law in itself. And it’s a dangerous one. I’d have been insane to tell her. She knew who I worked for, and that I was involved with medical research. I never once lied to her.’

I’m desperate to blurt out the parental staple that he was definitely being ‘economical with the truth’, but at the same time I don’t want him to stop talking. I want to get all of this out in the open at long last, and this could be my only chance. I bite my tongue, and wait for more.

‘My job was to focus on brainwaves for the first few years, she knew I was involved in neuroscience, and cardiac arrest interlinked with it all later on, she knew that too. She knew every area I was working within, even if she didn’t know the reasons why. And she never once had an issue with it until the day she found out that it was for the military. You know how your mum feels… felt… about war. If she could’ve just calmed down, thought clearly past it…’

He trails off, sadly, but I don’t want him to stop.

‘How did she find out?’

He drops his head into his hands on the table, and tries to wipe away a rogue tear without me seeing.

‘My laptop. I must have left it unlocked, I still don’t know how… it auto-locked… but she jumped on it to use the internet for something. Said she couldn’t be bothered turning hers on, and mine was just sitting there.’ He stops and takes a few breaths before carrying on. ‘One of my browser links went to a video of our latest field trial. Project Rise. She said she clicked it accidentally. I don’t understand any of it… it was like she went looking.’

I catch his eye, wondering if he’s really suggesting that Mum hacked his work laptop somehow. Mum, whose only involvement with computers was solitaire and the odd email where it couldn’t be avoided. He looks away, and goes on.

‘Without any context Chloe it would’ve looked… vile, abhorrent, inexcusable, all the things she yelled at me that night. She wouldn’t let me explain.’

He stops again.

‘Explain what?’

He doesn’t answer me.

‘Dad, I’m listening. What wouldn’t she let you explain?’

He covers his eyes with his hands before answering.

‘We had to test our work, under carefully controlled conditions. We couldn’t just follow some soldiers around and wait for them to get shot. There had to be a rigged simulation. There was no other way of doing it, no other way we could know. Five lives were lost that could potentially save five million. And we almost had it working – almost got it right on that first run. No one had ever done anything like it before, it was ground breaking, we didn’t have any test cases to look back over, no past trials to consult. There was no other way.’ He doesn’t even try to hide the tears now. ‘Three of them got back up, just like we hoped, but when we gave them the first basic command they wouldn’t… they couldn’t… there were some… issues… with control. It looked awful, really awful, but it actually saved us years of theoretical research – seeing it… being able to test it like that. We got some incredible data, took comprehensive notes. They didn’t die for nothing, Chloe. They gave us everything.’

Wow. Well, there’s not much you can say to that really, is there.

Mum watched Dad’s government cronies kill some soldiers, try to reanimate them, and fail.

No wonder.

No bloody wonder.

I feel sick. Sick everywhere, not just in my stomach. My whole head is just full of… sickness. What he did. What I am because of what he did. All of it. In fact, I don’t just feel sick, I am sick. A sick perversion. A fallen, failed weapon. Created by evil, for evil. Because it’s never just about saving lives with the military, is it? It’s always as much about ending them as anything else. My head’s spinning. It’s too much, all of it, too much to take in. What did they tell their families? How the hell would they have got volunteers for something like that anyway? Oh, my god, were they volunteers? What if they didn’t…? I close my eyes and clamp my hands over my ears because if this is how the world is, how my world is, then I don’t want to see or hear any more. I’m rocking backwards and forwards in my seat slightly, and I feel like I’m caught up in a terrible storm: seasick and scared, only it’s not water that I’m riding on, it’s a sea of dead, decaying bodies and it’s all my fault.

Dad reaches out to hold onto my shoulders, to keep me still, to keep me from losing it completely I think, but I duck under his grip and push away from him, taking my hands off my ears in the process and he’s quick to jump in.

‘It isn’t how it sounds, Chloe, it isn’t. You have to listen to me; this is the problem, this is what she wouldn’t let me explain!’ He sounds whiny now, as if it’s everyone’s fault but his. As if the universe has dumped a great big pile of ‘unfair’ right into his lap. He watched them shoot people, kill people, and what did he do? He sat and took notes.

‘If I hadn’t done the work, they would have just got someone else. I couldn’t have stopped it. I could never have stopped it,’ he pleads, and I don’t know if he’s trying to convince himself, or me.

He took notes.

Don’t think.

There’s a long, painful silence. I feel detached from myself somehow – like this is all just a new nightmare, something that could never actually happen. Not to us. Not to me.

‘I risked everything to get away, Chloe. And if I hadn’t been involved, I’d never have been able to –’

Oh, no. No. I can’t let him have that one. ‘If you hadn’t been involved, you’d never have had to.’

I look him right in the eye as I say it, and watch the tears fall.

‘I didn’t pull the trigger, Chloe. I was just there to observe, so we could adjust the formula. So we could make it better. I didn’t kill anyone. I would never kill anyone.’

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