Content Warnings:

  SpoilerDepictions of trauma, including body horror; Transphobia; References to suicide.

  [colpse]IX. Eternal Sheeran of the Shapeless MindI wake up in my regur bed, with Maisie’s face. There are no scratches on my body, but I can feel the bruises bloom beneath my skin - a dull ache wrapped around my fists, my shoulders heavy with exhaustion. I was this close to getting the bastard. To saving every trans girl in the city. But as.

  Listen, reader - I can already hear you compining. Telling me you want to know what happened after I let the night end on such a dramatic note. I’ll tell you, don’t worry. But first - I need to deal with the pounding on my door.

  It’s the second morning in a row that someone’s woken me up with fists against the metal. The only small comfort is knowing that they can’t get in anymore - George must’ve had the lock fixed. But it’s not much of a victory. They can still demand to be let in. Still act like I owe them a response.

  There’s no mistaking the weight behind this knock. Not Jordan again. It's heavier. More erratic. A storm in human shape.

  "What do you want, Tommy?" I groan, dragging myself to the door, already bracing for some kind of fallout.

  And there he is. Sb of a man. Shaped like a building. But right now, he looks like one that’s been condemned. His shoulders sag, his posture sck, and his face is blotchy, red, and bruised from tears. His clothes are crumpled and smell like sweat and stale beer. He looks like he hasn’t seen a bed since he left The Duck.

  He doesn’t ask permission. Just pushes past me and stands in the centre of my room like a dropped bag of bricks, his arms hanging loose at his sides. The pressure in the room shifts the second the door closes. Last night seeps back in, heavy and sour.

  I should run and sm the door behind me. Should scream for help. Should assume this is about revenge - that he’s come to punish me for destroying his fantasy with Lexi. But I’m not afraid of him. Not like this. Whatever damage he wants to inflict - it’s clear he’s already done worse to himself.

  "Tommy?" I say, my voice cautious, but not cold. He looks broken, and that hurts more than I expected it to.

  He runs a hand through his hair, across his damp face, then lets it drop.

  "Please..." he says, voice shaking. "Help me fix this."

  I frown. "Fix what?"

  "She broke up with me," he says, his voice weak.

  And I’m about to tell him how little I care, when he genuinely surprises me.

  "She broke up with me because I’m an arsehole. Because I’m a piece of shit. Because I don’t deserve her," he says, his voice gaining momentum, the shame pouring out of him faster than he can regute. "And she’s right. But I still want her."

  His voice cracks in pces I didn’t know it could. He looks devastated - and all I can see is how he looked yesterday. That ridiculous beam on his face whenever he looked at Lexi. And how she looked back at him. As much as I want to hate him, I can't shake the guilt. That was real. They were real. And I ruined that for them. No matter how much I tell myself he would’ve fumbled it eventually, it doesn’t change the fact that I pulled the thread before he got the chance.

  "What happened?" I ask, though I already know. I ask anyway.

  But he shakes his head. "Can we stop doing this? I know you were there. I don’t know which... person you were, but I’m not an idiot."

  A shiver runs down my spine. I blush, embarrassment burning into my skin. My eyes drop to the floor, fast.

  "What makes you say that?"

  "Because there was too much weird shit st night for you not to be," he says, almost ughing now. "Which one were you? The weird bck guy?"

  I almost smirk at the thought of marching into the bar as Wayfarer. That would’ve been something. But instead, I let the shift happen. Cassie comes back in a snap, body stretching upward, jaw clicking back into pce. The whole thing takes a second.

  He raises an eyebrow. There’s a pause. Then a ugh - low and breathless - as he shakes his head. "Fuck sake. All night I was confused as to why her friend didn’t like me, and the whole time..."

  "Yeah," I say, crossing my arms. "That’s why."

  There’s a flicker of something in him - regret, maybe. Confusion. Maybe just shame. He takes a moment, then speaks again.

  "That rock did get you, didn’t it? You just fixed yourself before anybody saw."

  I nod. "Correct."

  "And who was she?"

  How to sum up Ishani? A crazy maybe-vampire, obsessed with attacking trans people on the internet. And, also, my date tonight. He doesn’t really care about the answer, anyway.

  I shrug. "Some bigot. You’d get along great."

  He flinches - just slightly - and I feel that bitter satisfaction for a second before the weight of it returns. A sharp, pulsing ache behind my eyes.

  He gives me an annoyed look and sighs.

  "Look... MH... Cass... whoever. I’ve been an idiot. I’ve said stupid shit. But I’ve been working on getting better. I really have. I deserve a second chance, don’t I?"

  The truth is: I’m not sure if he does. He’s clearly trying. And it is remarkable, the change I’ve seen in just a week. That’s the power of someone like Lexi. Beautiful, bright Lexi. She makes people want to change. But she’s not a training doll. She’s not something he gets to keep breaking just so he can rebuild himself better.

  "Why?" I ask, and the bitterness in my voice surprises me. "Why do you deserve a second chance?"

  "Because I love her," he says, with no hesitation at all. "I know it sounds like bullshit. But I do. She’s funny, she’s beautiful, she’s kind... She’s everything I’ve ever wanted, and I don’t think there’s anyone else like her out there. I don’t deserve her, Cassie, but I need to try. Because I don’t think I’ll ever feel like this again."

  I believe him. That’s the worst part. It’s real. It’s just that real love isn’t always enough to stop something from going completely, painfully wrong.

  I sigh. "Fine. So why are you here and not on her doorstep begging?"

  "I need your help," he says, defting all over again. "Again."

  Of course he does.

  "What do you want?"

  He purses his lips, forming his words like they might break in his mouth.

  "I want her to meet you. As, um... Maisie. And you can expin to her that I’m not that bad. That I’ve changed. That she should give me another chance."

  My head is already shaking before he even finishes.

  "Not happening, Tommy. I’m not going to trick her."

  "But-"

  I raise a hand. "No. I’ll talk to her. As Cassie. If she says no, then she says no. We're honest, from now on."

  I brace for the tantrum. The yelling. Maybe the fsh of violence he used to wear like a jacket. But instead, he nods - quiet. A weak smile appears, like he’s grateful for the bare minimum.

  "Okay," he says. "That sounds fair. Thank you, um... Cassie."

  "No problem, Tommy."

  But it is. It’s a huge problem. I just don’t know how to stop myself from trying to fix things I never should have broken in the first pce.

  Okay, so about st night.

  I’ve never fought a vampire before, and looking back on it... yeah. It was fucking stupid. I mean, what kind of lunatic throws herself into a fight with a total stranger in a dark alley with no backup or pn? But the second I knew what they were, it was already too te to back out. And maybe - maybe - I didn’t want to. Not really.

  But still. Let the record show: lesson learned. If you’re going to fist-fight a vampire, at least know that you’re fist-fighting a vampire first.

  I won’t bore you with a blow-by-blow breakdown of the fight. They were fast. So fast. Quicker than anything human, ducking every hit with a liquid, gliding motion like they were part of the night itself. But I was stronger. My muscles had been prepped for violence - dense and bulked - and my bones felt like lead bars when I threw punches. Twice, I hit them. Really hit them. And both times, they yelped in pain.

  God, that sound. That was satisfying. I've been trying to apply a gender to it, but they masked themselves well - even in those moments of vulnerability.

  But the real turning point came when they lunged for my neck. I’d already reinforced it with bone, hard and ridged like armour. The sound their fangs made when they collided with it was like biting a brick wrapped in nerve endings. It hurt like hell - an intense, blunt crack that reverberated through my skull - but the moment I saw them recoil, blood running from their gums, shrieking in pain?

  Yeah. That almost made it worth it.

  "What are you?" they hissed, their voice a furious snarl ced with something else. Something curious.

  Their teeth were stained, their eyes unreadable behind the mask - but I could feel it. A kind of fear that they didn’t want to admit.

  "Call me Tran Helsing," I said, charging forward, ready to nd another blow.

  Okay, I didn’t actually say that. I thought of it in the shower this morning and now I want to eat drywall out of sheer regret. The silence in that moment haunts me. Because if I’d dropped that line then? I would’ve been a legend.

  Instead, I said nothing. I just attacked again. And missed.

  That’s when they ran. Backed off like a wounded animal, disappearing into the shadows they came from. I chased, but it was useless. I couldn’t keep up. They vanished into the city, and I was left alone, standing in the alley, trembling with a head that throbbed like a bruise and fists that felt more like failures.

  We exchanged blows, yes. But let’s be real: this wasn’t a victory. It was a warning shot. One I barely survived. And I don’t know if I’ll be that lucky next time.

  But it wasn’t for nothing.

  Because I learned two things. They knew about Cassie. And they didn’t know about my powers.

  Which is confusing. But I've narrowed it down to two options.

  Option one is that this vampire has been stalking Cassie for a while. Watching her. Learning about her connections, her face, her name. But not well enough. Not well enough to realise she only exists for a few hours a night, or that she's built out of someone else's time. Maybe they’re some pissed-off regur from the pub - one of the bald men we mocked. Maybe it sounds ridiculous. But somehow, it still feels more pusible than the alternative.

  Because option two is worse. Option two is that the vampire is someone I already know.

  Which sounds reasonable until you remember how carefully Cassie’s world is compartmentalised. No one from Mother’s Day knows her by that name. To them, she’s Joanna. And if any of them have figured out that Holly is Cassie, then everything is compromised. Everything. But I don’t think it’s them.

  It’s too soon for Ishani to strike again. And it can’t be anybody from The Duck. I trust Lexi, Rico, Elias, and Eleanor.

  But one name emerges like a bruise beneath the skin. Jamie. He's met Cassie and took a specific interest in her being trans.

  My chest tightens. I feel my skin go cold. I had considered him once. Briefly. But I brushed it off. Why did I brush it off? Because I liked him. Because I felt bad.

  I sm my head against the tiled wall of the shower. Hard. My skull thuds, vibrating pain through my jaw and into my teeth. It doesn’t even hurt enough. I do it again. I need to feel it. Something real. Something physical. Something to remind me that I exist - that there’s still a body beneath all these masks.

  This is what I hate the most.

  Every time I learn something new, I feel like I’m further from the truth. Like I’ve taken a step sideways off the map.

  Once I’m out and dry, I pick up my phone with fingers still trembling. I should wait. I should think it through. But I won’t.

  Niamh: hey! lunch on saturday?

  I need to know. He texts back quickly.

  Jamie: Of course!

  Great. Now I have two dates with potential vampires to look forward to.

  I figure that my morning shenanigans quota is satisfied. Until I leave my room as Maisie, ready to head upstairs to get to work - only to find a timid-looking Sadie standing in the hallway.

  My posture straightens instantly. Shoulders locked, arms folded. She’s usually so composed, so sharp around the edges, like she was born wearing a scalpel. But today? Today she looks uncomfortable in her own skin. Her standard-issue clothes hang from her frame with none of the precision she usually carries. It’s subtle - her hands loosely csped behind her back, her eyes darting like she’s hunting for something on the floor tiles - but it’s pathetic. It’s unlike her.

  There’s only one reason that she’d be down here. Me.

  "What do you want?" I say, letting the door fall closed behind me, the soft click sounding far too loud in the hallway.

  And I wish I could tell you that I was thinking about anything beyond Ed Sheeran song titles right now - but I’ve been scking. It’s Thursday and I’m only three for ten. If I want to win, I really need to up my game. Thankfully, I’ve been studying.

  "I want to say sorry," she says, not able to bring herself to look at me.

  "I don’t care," I shoot back, letting the words hit as hard as I can. I Don’t Care - an awful song. That’s number four. "I told you how much my name mattered to me, and you humiliated me."

  She winces. Just a flicker, but I catch it. The moment she hears her own voice saying "MH" again. I see her remembering it. The exact timbre, the inflection, the way she let it roll off her tongue. It sticks in my brain, like something bitter I’ll never stop tasting. And now I can see it's lodged in hers, too.

  Her face is going red now, but I can’t tell what’s fuelling it. Sadie is such a mastercss in containment that even embarrassment looks like rage on her. You can almost hear her fists curling in some distant hallway of her mind, fighting the impulse to double down. I watch, waiting to see which version of Sadie wins.

  She swallows the fury. Just.

  "I’m a bitch, Maisie," she says, voice steady. "You’re right. You told me how important it was to you and I disregarded it."

  I shake my head, tight and sharp.

  "How would you feel in my situation? Would you forgive you, if you were me? After everything?"

  And that’s five, for all you non-Sheeran-heads. How Would You Feel.

  The truth is: I’m not even sure what I want from her right now. I want her to disappear. At least until I know what really happened in that car.

  She seems to genuinely think about it. Her head tilts, gaze drifting somewhere I can’t follow. A pause - longer than I expected. Then a nod.

  "I wouldn’t forgive me. Not after everything."

  "So why are you even trying? Did you think I’d just nod my head and things would be perfect?"

  That’s six. The number sits heavy in my chest now, not pyful like before. She doesn’t look up. Her shoulders sink a little more with every word I throw. I’ve truly broken her, and I don’t know what to do with that. Anyone else, and I’d feel something close to pity. I even managed that with Tommy, for Christ’s sake. But Sadie?

  With Sadie, it’s fire. It’s memory. It’s me standing in the shadow of someone I thought I respected. Someone who kissed me - maybe - and who I’ve hated ever since for not letting me remember.

  "I just... I really enjoyed our time together on Sunday, Maisie," she says, voice frail and thin, like she’s trying not to let it crack. "I saw a different side of you... and I saw a different side of myself. I fucked up on Monday... but I don’t want to go back to how I was. Please don’t make me."

  Her voice starts to falter at the end. A soft sniffle betrays what she’s trying to hold back. She’s crying. Not that I can see it. Her eyes are still glued to the floor, as if she’s waiting for the ground to open and swallow her.

  I don’t think I’ve ever seen her cry before.

  "You think you can just take it back?" I scoff, folding my arms tighter, holding myself together with all the strength I can muster. "When I know that the second you're in front of The Man again, you'll revert back to seeing me as worthless?"

  Take It Back and The Man - that’s seven. Eight. Two in one go. My stomach clenches with anticipation at the approaching victory.

  "I’m going to save myself the stress, Sadie," I say, my voice fttening out, curling inward as I score nine. "I’m not going to let you betray my trust again. I’m sorry."

  And just like that, she nods once - sharply, a breath caught in her throat - and walks away. No more protests. No more apologies. No chance to turn nine into ten. Just the sound of her boots disappearing into the corridor.

  I watch her go and feel the guilt rise, acidic and sharp, from somewhere I thought I’d burned shut.

  My haters might say that I’ve used the Sheeran game as a way of detaching. That counting song titles is easier than facing whatever it was we had, whatever might’ve happened in that car. That it’s easier to burn a bridge when you don’t look at who’s standing on the other side and focus only on their embarrassing taste in pop music.

  Tell my critics: I already know.

  The Recuvia pill is small, round, and blue. I’ve been staring at it since Margaret dropped it into my hand, and the longer I look at it, the heavier it gets. Like if I keep holding it, it’ll eventually bore through my palm.

  I was sure, earlier. But now? My stomach feels like it’s been filled with cold mud. My fingers are trembling, and I keep telling myself it’s just anticipation - but it’s not. It’s dread.

  The conversation with Sadie in the hallway should have lit a fire under me. It should’ve been crifying. But instead, it’s left me splintered. We promised to forget what happened. And now I’m preparing to remember - without her consent. I could've just forgiven her and we could've moved forward, without looking back. Why am I doing this?

  Margaret is flicking through the leaflet that came with the drug, the paper crinkling sharply in the silence. She hasn’t looked at me much. Just the paper, her hands, the sterile tools of her trade. Scientific detachment in action. If she knows something about Holly being compromised, she’s hiding it behind that same familiar smile. The same one that used to make my skin crawl.

  "Okay," she says, finally closing the leaflet. "When you take the pill, you’ll want to close your eyes. You should start having quite vivid dreams within a few minutes."

  I nod, though something in my face must betray me. She adds, "If you open your eyes at any point - they will stop. But we can always try again. So Maisie, if it does get too much... just remember that you have an out."

  I give a thumbs-up and a weak smile. It doesn’t quite feel like my face. I have no intention of using that out. This isn’t about safety. This is about cutting through the fog, even if I bleed on the other side.

  "Do you have headphones?" she says. "Preferably noise-cancelling."

  My headphones are already in my hand, the off-white case warm from being clutched in my pocket. "Right here!"

  She nods. "Good. Now, according to this, one trick to focus the memory a little bit more is to py music associated with that memory. Now, given that you don’t remember it -"

  "I have an idea," I say, cutting her off.

  All I know from those elusive two hours is that Sadie confessed her guilty pleasure was Ed Sheeran. And I know myself well enough to know that I would’ve taken the piss out of her for that throughout the entire car ride. But I also know I would’ve used it as a bonding opportunity. My Swiftie brain would’ve reached across the aisle, tried to find some common ground. And no offence to the almighty popstar in the sky, but there’s only one song out of their colborative catalogue that’s actually good.

  So that’s the song I go with. Everything Has Changed.

  It’s one of those tracks that’s always felt like a safety bnket to me - soft, golden, easy. But now it feels tainted. An arranged wedding between our tastes, carefully chosen for the soundtrack of a dreadful moment. The idea that I kissed Sadie is unbearable. The idea that I meant it... worse.

  Margaret bobs her head lightly to music she can’t hear, flipping through the leaflet that came with the pill. She’s too cheerful about it, but I can tell it’s a mask. A different kind of survival instinct. Still, it makes me feel like a test subject again. A case study on legs.

  "The final thing to remember," she says, "is that things might get weird. This drug is designed to work on humans, Maisie. Your brain resembles a human’s very closely, but it’s... more malleable. My best guess, looking at the research, is that this might cause the memories to blend together. Just don’t panic if things get strange. And remember, if you want to keep remembering - keep your eyes shut."

  I shoot her a concerned frown. "Margaret, this isn’t going to kill me, is it? If it was designed to work on humans..."

  She waves the thought away with a dismissive hand. "I’m about ninety percent sure it won’t kill you. It’ll be fine."

  Ninety percent. I ugh. A little too hard. But my hand is already reaching for the pill.

  Under Margaret’s supervision, I slip in my earbuds, queue the song, and pce the Recuvia tablet onto my tongue. It tastes like nothing. Just a smooth, hollow sphere that dissolves with almost no resistance.

  I close my eyes. And wait.

  The music slides in like honey. A familiar guitar line, warm and nostalgic - but something in it feels warped. Or just louder than usual. The pressure builds behind my eyes, slow and blooming. Like a migraine that doesn’t quite hurt yet, just pulses. A warning.

  I try to picture the car ride. The trees passing. Sadie’s hands on the wheel. My own reflection in the gss. I want it to be stupid. To be light. I want to wake up ughing and tell myself we were just being weird. That it was a bit at the expense of our future selves. Nothing more than a prank.

  But beneath the music, I can already feel it coming.

  The windows in Sadie’s car are down, and the wind rushes through with an uncanny softness - like air that’s been digitally smoothed out. It doesn’t bite or sting. It just flows, too perfectly, tugging our hair behind us as if trying to mimic freedom. The artificial glow coating everything only adds to the dissonance, as though someone has dimmed the contrast on reality. My body feels weightless - not in the flying-down-a-motorway kind of way, but in the this-isn’t-my-body kind of way. Like my seatbelt isn’t actually holding me to anything at all.

  She turns to me, her sungsses gone - discarded at some point I can’t remember - and rolls her eyes as the opening notes kick in. Her movements are fluid, confident. She feels real, even though I know she can’t be.

  "You’re insufferable," she says, her face perfectly bnk as I belt out the first line.

  I grin, all teeth. "I’ll count you in for the second verse!"

  "You’ll do no such thing!" Sadie snaps - but she’s already breaking into a ugh, that clipped bark of hers that warms something deep in my chest.

  I let myself ugh, too, though it sounds distant in my own ears. I don’t know how much of this is past-Maisie and how much is me, now, wearing her skin. It feels like I’m watching from behind gss. I can’t tell if I’m steering the moment or just riding it out. I suspect if I tried to change anything, the whole thing might fall apart.

  Outside the window, I start to notice something strange. The countryside is gone. We’re in a city now - its yellow-orange lights blinking on around us like a backdrop being dropped into pce. Cars jam the road around us, their horns agitated. It’s not a transition, it’s a blink. One second we were coasting under open skies. The next... this. Like the memory couldn’t hold itself together and defaulted to a new scene.

  "We’re going to be so te," Sadie says, gripping the wheel and shaking her head in dramatic dismay. "Typical."

  "Late for what?" I ask, my voice quieter, this one more me than Maisie. A thread pulled tight.

  She gives me a concerned look, as if I’ve grown a second head. Which, frankly, wouldn’t be that weird.

  "For the ga?" she says, raising an upwards-facing palm in confusion. "Where did you think we were going?"

  Ah, of course. Margaret warned me about memories merging together and getting weird - though I didn’t expect to feel so lucid through them all. It seems that I’m going back to the Artists for Children’s Security Ga, though this time, I’m going there with an imaginary friend who takes the form of Sadie Cross. That’s great - because my tragic backstory was sorely cking a judgemental co-commentator in a hoodie.

  We don’t park the car. We don’t get out. We just appear inside the hall.

  Sadie still wears her loose hair and white hoodie, looking so far out of pce that it should be arresting - but nobody looks at her. Nobody ever looks at her, because she’s not really there. She stands in the middle of the golden grandeur like she’s tuned in to someone else’s reality show. Watching from a safe distance. Amused, a little curious. Definitely detached.

  I’m dressed differently. Not just in clothes - my face is different. I’m wearing the body of the original Maisie. The first identity I ever created for myself after arriving here. It feels like watching a stranger in a costume made from my own skin. The OG Maisie is taller. Sharper. More put-together. She smiles like Cassie, snaps back like Holly, struts confidently like Niamh. She’s a greatest-hits album of every mask I’ve worn since.

  But none of it feels like me anymore. Now that I’ve been stripped down to parts. I’m wrapped in a flowing red dress embroidered with golden thread that glimmers under the too-rich lighting. Every step I take feels like I’m walking through syrup. The fabric clings to my hips, my waist, my ribs - like it’s trying to pull me tighter. I feel small inside it. Compressed.

  A full orchestra pys a sweeping, cinematic version of Everything Has Changed, as if the song itself were being dragged into something it didn’t consent to. The notes sound so elegant, so utterly false.

  The ga is split down the middle - half filled with circur banquet tables covered in polished silverware and untouched gsses of champagne, and the other half a gallery of curated suffering, under the guise of charity. The air smells of aged perfume and expensive lies.

  The art is beautiful, of course. Ornately gzed sculptures. Magnificent oil portraits. Pieces of brutal modern sculpture that strip away cultural illusions with painful precision. But none of it matters. None of it means anything. Not here. Not to this crowd.

  Because this room isn’t full of billionaires - it’s worse. It's full of millionaires desperate to become billionaires. These are the people who cw at power with imitation nails and fake smiles. The ones who aspire to cruelty but haven’t yet earned the PR budget to cover it up. They aren’t evil in a theatrical way. They’re evil in the practical way. The way that builds pipelines and employs foreign children and cps politely after a tax write-off dinner. Everybody here is looking for a leg-up and they’ll climb over anybody else to get it.

  With one exception. Wendy Fox is standing by a vase at the far end of the room. She’s the only woman not wearing a dress (unless you count Sadie), and she’s all the more striking for it. A bright blue suit cuts her frame, effortless and sharp, with a crisp white shirt beneath. She looks like she walked in from another film entirely. Her short mop of brown hair flutters just slightly with the breeze from an open service door. Her jaw is square, her red lipstick defiant. Her arms hang loosely at her sides, like she’s never needed to force herself into anyone else's posture.

  I don’t want to look at her. But my body’s already moving. She doesn’t fit here, and I can feel it in my chest - the same way I never fit. She’s above the gold-pted glitz of it all. Not here to socialise. Not here to climb. The way her eyes narrow at the vase makes her look like she’s waiting for it to make a move.

  "You a fan of vases?" I say, grinning as I startle her.

  She jerks - an honest surprise - and pces the antique down. It’s a gorgeous piece: white and gold, impossibly delicate. Her fingers brush the rim a second longer than they need to.

  "I think it’s a lovely piece," she says, her voice calm, smoky. "Not that I can afford it, of course."

  I ugh, trying to keep steady even as dread twists in my gut. Did I fall this fast the first time? Her voice is so smooth it should be illegal. Everything about her posture screams casual. But I can tell she’s watching the room in mirrors, in reflections, even in my eyes.

  She doesn’t realise that she’s given herself away. That nobody else in this room would ever admit to cking the funds for something. But I don’t care now, and I didn’t care then.

  "All right, then. How much is it?" I say, leaning just enough to look like I know what I’m doing. "Perhaps we can pool our money together and split custody."

  She nods at the small pcard in front of the vase: a six-figure starting bid. If I were drinking, I’d spit champagne all over it.

  "Perhaps not, then," I grin.

  She smiles back - actually smiles, like I’m a rare find - and extends a hand. "Wendy Fox."

  "Maisie," I say, shaking it firmly. And there it is. The first lie. The same one I tell everyone.

  She raises an eyebrow. "Just Maisie?"

  "Just Maisie."

  "Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you, Maisie," she says, giving a sweeping, theatrical curtsy that makes both of us smirk. The whole motion is a parody of the ga itself, and something about the way she does it makes me feel... safe. Like I’ve already been forgiven for everything.

  Behind her, Sadie is perched against a table, watching like she’s tuned into a soap opera. Her smirk is unreadable-curious, maybe even entertained.

  We fall into step beside each other, drifting past paintings that I suddenly realise are all me. Not literally me, but versions of me. A woman with Holly’s haircut, an oil portrait of Niamh’s cheekbones, a sculpture shaped like Cassie’s stance. Art blurred through the lens of strangers who never saw me clearly - but somehow still got close enough to hurt.

  Wendy doesn't look at them long. Neither do I.

  We talk. We lie. We ugh.

  She tells me she’s here for the auction. I pretend I’m not the Coalition’s number one problem. And she pretends that she wasn’t sent by them to capture me. We both know the truth. And most importantly, we know that the other knows the truth. But none of it matters because the space between us is magnetic and light, like we’ve cut a hole through the fabric of the room and made a new one just for us.

  When I look at her, everything else blurs. When she ughs, it sounds real.

  She stops at one of the rgest portraits, standing alone on a bnk wall - rimmed with a shining golden frame.

  "What do you think of this one?" Wendy says, raising an eyebrow. "Who even has walls this big?"

  The portrait is so well done that it almost looks photographic. It depicts a young woman - possibly in her te teens - standing on a driveway in a short, bck dress. She has shoulder-length bck hair, shallow cheeks, and pale white skin. Something about her - something unnameable - makes my whole body tense.

  The shame hits first. Sharp and sour, radiating from the painting like heat off a fme. My chest caves in on itself, a crushing weight of grief and guilt with no clear origin. I don’t know who this girl is. I’ve never seen her before. And yet-

  I want to throw up. I stumble back, cold flooding my limbs as my hands start to tremble. The white noise of the ga vanishes under a heavy rush of blood in my ears. My body is screaming at me to run, and I can feel my eyes fighting the command to stay shut.

  This painting wasn’t here the first time. Which means my brain - my bastard traitor of a brain - has inserted it. Another memory blending into this one. Which means she’s important.

  But I can’t stop myself from turning away, and falling into the arms of Sadie - who is there, calm and ready, catching me like she’s rehearsed this moment a thousand times.

  "Who’s she?" Sadie asks, her voice steady, her expression a curious frown.

  "I don’t know," I whisper. The words feel like a lie. Pain zips through my chest like lightning. This girl... she means something. She means everything.

  Sadie’s face doesn’t change. She looks almost analytical now, as if trying to piece together what exactly has short-circuited inside me.

  "We should keep moving," she says, like a surgeon recommending anaesthesia.

  And with those words, the room colpses.

  The golden light of the ga peels away like a set on a stage, repced by nothing but white. A painful, sterile white that stretches in every direction. Too clean. Too quiet. It buzzes behind my eyes.

  Sadie and I stand alone in the void.

  And then the room comes back. The light above me pulses - clinical, strobing against my skin, too white, too clean. It hums in my skull like it’s crawling into me. I can’t see the edges of the room, just the figures.

  Four men in suits. Two of them are talking casually, hands in their pockets like they’re waiting for coffee. One is jotting notes on a clipboard, his expression bnk. The fourth is holding the saw.

  It’s manual. Serrated. He brings it down slowly at a point just below my shoulder. No theatrics. Just cold repetition. There’s a wedding ring on his finger - new, polished - tight on his skin like he hasn’t worn it long. A name is tattooed on the side of his hand, beside a date. His son’s birthday, maybe.

  The bde touches my arm and I scream like it’s the only thing I’ve ever known how to do. The sound of the teeth scraping against skin seems to catch the edge of the scream, distorting it. I’m trying to breathe, but the light is in my lungs. It’s all in me.

  The colr around my neck hums in rhythm with the light. My muscles don’t respond - can’t. The part of me that shifts has been ripped away by it, like a tendon snapped under a weight it couldn’t bear. I couldn’t change if I wanted to. They didn’t bother with anaesthesia. I don’t know if that was necessary for their experiment to work, or if they just wanted to be cruel. That means that I feel every tug of flesh on the teeth of the bde. I can feel every tendon ripped to shreds. I can feel the death of each individual cell, as it’s sshed in half without a second thought. I felt it then, and I can feel it now.

  And as much as it kills me. As agonising as the pain is... it hurts less than the pain that flushed through me when I saw that girl. Who was she? I try to use her as a distraction to push through the torture. To focus on trying to remember who she was and why the sight of her hurts so much. But it’s hard to ignore the white-hot fshes of your bone being snapped in half, without so much as a pause. So I forego that thinking in favour of distracting myself with screams.

  I want to yell at them, and call them monsters. To tell them that they’re the evil ones, and that I will snap them in half at the first opportunity that I get. But my brain is barely staying alive right now. It can’t form words. And they wouldn’t be true words anyway. I’ve seen this film before and I know how it ends. Every single man in this room receives commendations for their work on me. They receive great promotions and are flown off all around the world to share their research with other Coalition branches. I never get the revenge that I so badly want to threaten.

  When my arm finally plops to the ground, it nds with a sickening thud - still and limp, coated in a thick sheen of blood. It doesn’t twitch. It just lies there, pale and lifeless, like a piece of meat that never belonged to me in the first pce. The closest man jumps back in surprise, more startled by the mess than the loss.

  I half expect the pain to stop - but it doesn’t. It lingers, radiating out from the severed stump like a scream under my skin. I can still feel the saw. I can still feel it ripping through sinew, like it’s still happening. And I can’t stop screaming.

  The bossiest man in the room steps forward and presses a button on the remote in his hand. His movement is casual, as if silencing a toy. I feel the colr power down - my body loosens under their grip, the suffocating lock on my abilities lifting just enough to give me back control. But there are weapons aimed at me, waiting to punish even a hint of rebellion.

  "Regenerate it," he says, coldly. His voice doesn’t sound human anymore. It’s twisted - like a cartoon devil run through a broken speaker, wrong in tone and wrong in shape.

  I barely hear him through the snot and blood clogging my face. Then he sps me - sharply, suddenly - forcing my head sideways. It doesn’t hurt anywhere near as much as the amputation, but it brings my fury roaring to the surface. I spit - heavy and wet - right onto his lips.

  He turns away with a grunt of disgust, smming his desk hard enough to echo.

  "Regenerate it now, or we’ll take the other arm too, bitch," he snarls, gesturing to the man who just sawed through me like I was furniture. The man shrugs and starts rolling up his sleeves.

  I close my eyes. I don’t want to see their faces when I obey. I don’t want to watch them win.

  I force the change. I force the pain. The cells crawl outward in ugly spirals, a stub pushing free from the pulpy mess of my shoulder. It takes time. It takes more effort than anything should. It feels like peeling your soul inside out with your fingernails. Like becoming a monster one cell at a time. And worse than losing the arm is this: choosing to build it back for them.

  Still, I do it. I don’t think about them. I don’t think about the jokes they crack - though I can hear the low mumble of one, followed by a snort of ughter. I don’t think about the blood-soaked floor or the feeling of cartige reforming.

  I think about holding on to myself. About not letting this turn me into a thing.

  Eventually, after an hour and a half, a hand emerges. A perfect copy. Alive. Mine.

  "Not bad," the bossy man says, nodding with approval, before pressing the remote again - cutting the power to my body, snapping the leash tight once more.

  "Now," he says, his voice coated in mock enthusiasm, "let’s try some of the other limbs, shall we?"

  Things go dark again, and I’m sitting on a rooftop terrace, the streets of London humming softly beneath us. The sky is deep navy, and the cold night air wraps around my shoulders like a silk shawl - just enough to remind me I’m alive, but not enough to chase me inside. There’s a cocktail gss in front of me, glittering with condensation, and across from me sits Wendy. Still in her bright blue suit, but somehow looser now, softened - her lipstick worn off from the inside out, like she’s bitten back one too many grins.

  We're alone out here. Everyone else has surrendered to the warmth inside, but we’ve cimed this rooftop like it’s our own little kingdom. Every so often, a waitress appears to refill our margaritas - her face belonging unmistakably to Sadie. I try to ignore it. Try to treat her like scenery. Like a memory glitch I can override if I don’t stare too long.

  "So," I say, swirling my drink, my voice dipped in flirtation. "When should I start running?"

  It’s a bold question. The boldest I’ve asked all night. A step beyond the pyful dance we’ve been doing - finally saying out loud what we’ve both known since the moment I walked up to her by that vase. I expect her face to harden, to put the walls back up. But instead, she ughs. Low and smooth. Like velvet over a bde.

  "Oh, please," Wendy says, eyes flicking over me with a warmth that makes my pulse skip. "If I was going to do that, I would’ve done it back at the ga."

  She leans forward, the corner of her mouth curling. "Before you put that vase in your bag."

  I shrug, smiling out at the lights below, doing my best to look unbothered - though the satisfaction in my chest is glowing hot. I hadn’t told her about that. I’d been subtle, practised. Nobody saw. But somehow, she did. She saw through me.

  Wendy Fox might’ve been the best agent The Coalition ever had. At least until I came along.

  "Won’t your bosses be mad?" I say.

  Wendy snorts, dripping margarita down her chin. "They’ll never know. I went to the ga and couldn’t find you. I don’t think they’ll have a hard time believing that. You’re pretty elusive, wouldn’t you say?"

  I nod, grinning once more. "I would say that, yeah."

  "But you do need to leave," she says, shrugging. "You need to get out of this city and lie low, because they’re going to keep sending people. They’re going to keep sending me. And you’re not as good at hiding as you think you are, Maisie."

  "I’m more capable than I look."

  She shakes her head. "Maybe. But you have a weakness that The Coalition doesn’t have. Why were you at that event tonight?"

  I wave my palms, not really sure what answer she’s looking for.

  Wendy doesn’t hesitate in continuing. "You weren’t there to turn a profit or to get famous. You were there because it was wrong. Because you knew that it was a room full of low-life scum, exploiting sob stories to turn profits, and you wanted to give them a middle finger. Am I right?"

  "Yeah, thereabouts."

  She nods. "And that’s because you have morals, Maisie. Something that The Coalition doesn’t have. I might not have been able to beat you in a fight, but if I grabbed a random woman from the crowd and held a gun to her head - you would do whatever I told you to do. Wouldn’t you?"

  I pause, pying through the scenario in my head. An innocent person’s life at stake - could I turn my back and run? My jaw clenches.

  "From that crowd? No way," I say, trying to deflect with humour, even though I feel the weight of her words settle deep in my ribs. A truth I want to unlearn.

  She chuckles, but shakes her head. "Fair. But you know what I mean. The Coalition pys dirty. They see people like you as an irrefutable evil. They can justify anything in the name of stopping you. If they want to find you, they’ll get you eventually. Which is why you need to leave."

  The terrace feels farther away, like it’s sliding out from under us. I should want to leave. I should listen to her. But I don’t. I want to stay. I want her to keep looking at me like that, even as she tells me to run. Because I had nobody back then. I was alone and she was the first one to make me realise how much I hated that. This was before I met-

  My phone rings.

  It’s sharp and sudden, like a bde unsheathed in the quiet. My heart lurches. Wendy freezes, mid-sip - eyes locked to mine, like one memory halts to let another pass through.

  I answer without thinking.

  "Hello?"

  "Cassie?" The voice is strained. Lexi. Still inside the memory. Still somewhere in the past. "I’ve... done something stupid."

  A pause. "Please help me."

  When things go dark and I awake somewhere new, I’m immensely grateful to my brain for not taking me to the other side of that phone call. For not pcing me in the room full of vomit, and crying, and fear. For not subjecting me to the blue lights and the hand-holding and the worry of what will happen next.

  Instead, my brain pces me back into Sadie’s car - though we’re no longer driving down Scottish roads or through the bustling centre of London. We’re driving through empty space. A quiet, pale infinity. Bright white light shines around us, soft and absolute. There’s no road beneath the Fiat 500, no movement I can register - but it hums along regardless. The absence of sound feels deliberate, like a held breath. Sadie doesn’t seem to notice.

  "So, do you want to talk about who that girl was?" she asks, eyes on the non-existent road. Her voice is calm. Familiar.

  I shake my head. "No. I don’t."

  She shrugs, like it doesn’t matter to her either way. "Is that because you don’t know or because you don’t want to share?"

  These aren’t real things she said. This isn’t a real memory. It’s my brain fighting with itself, building Sadie from fragments and turning her into a question. A pressure behind my eyes starts to rise again - the Recuvia pushing against something it was never meant to touch.

  "I don’t know," I say. And it’s the honest answer. My breath is shaky. My fingers curl into themselves.

  "Would you like to?" Sadie says, almost too quickly. "Because that’s where we’re heading, MH. You’ll want to get off the ride soon if you don’t want to find out."

  Her calling me that - MH - makes me flinch. Even here, even now, it stings.

  I shake my head, bracing myself against the cool silence beyond the windscreen. "I have to find out what happened between us. I’m not leaving until I understand."

  She shrugs again. "Suit yourself. I’ll be by your side if you need me."

  My eyes are still closed, but I wake up in the softest bed I’ve ever known, wrapped in silk sheets and tangled among too many pillows, nestled in the warm arms of Wendy.

  It’s been nearly two months since she told me to get out of the city, and nearly two months since we both completely disregarded that rational advice. We slept together that night. And then just kept sleeping together.

  It wasn’t really about the sex. The sex was fine. But the way we fit into each other’s arms feels like snapping two jigsaw pieces together. Two pieces that were never designed to fit, but found a way to anyway. That clicked into something coherent, even if they made the rest of the picture impossible to finish.

  Her ft smells like it always does: coffee. Faint, warm, bitter in a way that makes my stomach ache with comfort.

  She’d lied to The Coalition, told them she’d failed. I slowed down on my viginte antics. She still warned me it couldn’t st. That eventually, they’d come for us. But neither of us cared.

  Because our time together is magic. Was magic.

  I lean forward over her sleeping form, navigating the duvet draped over her shoulder, and press a kiss to the soft skin of her neck. My lips nd gently and her body shivers beneath me, eyes still closed, but her mouth twitching into a smile.

  "Good morning," I whisper, voice barely louder than breath.

  She looks so peaceful.

  That’s the difference. Wendy’s brain is never quiet when she’s awake - always working, always joking, always strategising. But in sleep, she lets go. Her skin seems to glow. Every blemish fades. She looks unreal. Ethereal.

  And I love her.

  It’s weird being back in these memories. Experiencing something so beautiful, knowing that it is temporary. Knowing that I’ll only ever get to experience it through these dreams. Because in reality, she’s gone. Held prisoner in an undisclosed location for the crime of treason. For the crime of harbouring me.

  But despite that, it still feels good. It still feels beautiful. It still feels right.

  She rolls over, her eyes blinking open - two huge, dark orbs that nd on me with full attention. She smiles wider. I lean down and kiss her lips.

  "I’m so lucky," Wendy murmurs, mostly to herself.

  I want to hold her forever, but the other voice in the room has different ideas.

  "Is she lucky?"

  I freeze, my heart hitching.

  Sadie sits at the edge of the bed, watching us with her usual judgy therapist face, arms crossed like this is just another session she’s being paid to observe. I try to wave her away, but she stays.

  "You’re not lucky," I say, turning my gaze back to Wendy. I stroke her hair, feel her melt against me. "We’re both just crazy."

  She smiles again. But I can see Sadie in the corner, shaking her head.

  But I ignore her, staying in our connected position for as long as we can, holding her until she has to get up and go to work. Until I’m left on my own in her ft, like a pet waiting for her owner to return. And I don’t care, because I have her coming home to look forward to. I wish I could stay in this memory forever, waking up in her arms every day and getting to kiss her goodbye without it ever being the st time. The only issue is that I’m not alone.

  "What happened to Lexi?" Sadie says, crossing her arms. It's so weird hearing her say that name. "I feel like you just brushed past that."

  I try to ignore her, but she doesn’t have to obey the ws of space in my head. She’s able to appear exactly in my eyeline, no matter where I look.

  "I’m not thinking about it," I say.

  She rolls her eyes and the walls of Wendy’s ft roll with her.

  "No, please," I say, dropping to my knees. "I want to stay here."

  "Please."

  I’m in a hospital ward, wearing Cassie’s face, squeezing Lexi’s hand as she lies upright on the bed - conscious, but silent. A rare phenomenon for Lexi Fontaine. She looks so small in the bleached white sheets, her frame somehow shrinking into itself despite her usual efforts to take up space in every room. The smile she keeps trying to wear doesn’t reach her eyes. I’ve never seen her like this - never seen her so completely undone.

  The room smells like a hospital. That sterile, synthetic scent that clings to your skin. The overhead lights buzz faintly and flood the space with a distorted brightness, one that makes it impossible to know what time it is. It could be midnight. It could be dawn. All that exists here is this room. This bed. Her hand in mine.

  It’s the first moment in the twenty minutes she’s been awake where neither of us is crying, but it’s fleeting - because she starts to sob again.

  "I’m sorry, Cass," she says, her voice strained. "I’m so stupid."

  I shake my head with fury, crushing her hand between my fingers without meaning to. The guilt rises fast. I don’t deserve to hold this hand - not when everything between us is built on carefully constructed lies.

  "Don’t say that, Lex. You’re not stupid."

  "I am, though," she says, burying her face into her arm, trying to muffle her sobs. "I nearly died over that bitch, Cass."

  "You’re sick," I say, my voice soft but certain. "And Ava was the st straw. Don’t give her that power over you."

  She was fine. She hadn’t taken much, and she’d vomited most of it up before the paramedics even arrived. But they’d kept her in anyway, to monitor her. And, presumably, to make sure she didn’t try again. But I could see it in her eyes - she wouldn’t. She was terrified of what she had just proven herself capable of, and had no intention of letting that part of herself win. She was shaken. She was scared. She needed a friend.

  And I was here.

  And it’s moments like these that make me feel like an awful one. Because I have seen Lexi at her most vulnerable. I have seen her half-naked in a hospital bed, reeking of sick, and covered in tears. And I still lie to her every single day. After all of that, I still can’t trust her with the truth. And what does that say about me?

  "I really liked her, Cass," she says, sniffling. "She wasn’t perfect, but she could’ve got better."

  "You could’ve fixed her?" I say, a glint of humour in my eyes.

  She ughs and rolls her eyes. It’s a small sound - relieved, raspy, but real. "Don’t ever doubt me, Cassandra!"

  We sit there for a while, smiling at each other. There’s warmth in the room again - despite the guilt, despite everything, I feel it. At some point, one of the doctors visits to go over some of the details from her blood. I try to ignore the fact that beneath the face mask, Sadie’s face winks at me. Not mocking. Not smug. Protective, almost.

  This room feels more real than the others. The memories with Wendy felt like they were taking pce on a soundstage, with a studio audience. But this one is more recent, which means it's still raw. All of the details are still there and that only amps up the pain.

  "Don’t tell the boys about this," Lexi says, after a long pause. "They’ll worry too much. Especially Elias."

  "What about Eleanor?" I say, raising an eyebrow inquisitively.

  Lexi shuffles anxiously in the bed. "She’s kinda my emergency contact in the NHS. They’ve already told her."

  Eleanor was in Icend at the time, taking photographs of herself with whales and volcanoes. She was distraught that she couldn’t rush over and come to Lexi’s aid, though was satisfied when she heard that I was on hand. We joked, after the fact, that if the NHS had tried to put Lexi in a men’s ward, she would’ve jumped on the first flight over without hesitation to sp the nearest doctor.

  "So many people love you, Lex," I say, smiling widely. "Whatever happens. You’re not alone, okay?"

  She nods, but her face falters - just for a second, something cracks behind her eyes.

  "You know that’s true for you too, right, Cass?"

  "Of course," I say, too quickly.

  She knows I’m lying. I see it in her eyes - that flicker of sadness she tries to hide with a smile. But she has no idea why I’m lying. That while she has a squadron of people ready to rush to help, all of my aid is conditional on my performances. That if I were my true self, nobody would ever love me.

  It’s her turn to squeeze my hand.

  "Don’t cry, Cass. I’m going to be fine."

  The door to the hospital room is kicked open, and the light that shines through transforms everything. The oppressive white walls bleed away into the homely green wallpaper of Wendy’s ft. Then comes the pounding - boots on wood, thunderous and wrong - and the shatter of a vase hitting the ground. The vase. The white and gold symbol of our connection, now obliterated.

  A squadron of four men, dressed in bck body armour and wielding thick, angur rifles, storm the room where Wendy and I were sleeping just moments ago. She moves faster than I do, lunging toward the desk drawer - probably for her weapon - but before her hand can even graze it, one of them fires.

  The gun must be set to stun, but it doesn’t soften the blow. The sound she makes - raw, animal, agony - tears through the room and through me. It’s the kind of scream you don’t just hear, you inherit. The kind that coils in your chest and waits there, whispering itself back to you in the middle of the night.

  I jolt upright, every instinct screaming. There’s no time to think. I bulk my biceps, anchor my stance, drag mass through my bones like a living weapon. I want to tear them apart. I have to. Because I cannot lose this. Even if I know how this ends, I still have to try.

  Three rifles swing to meet me, all of them aimed straight at my chest. But the fourth - his - stays fixed on her. The first three men in the room are rookies, people like Tommy who believe that the best way to solve a problem is to shoot it. But Graham is smarter than that. He points his gun towards a trembling Wendy.

  He’s already looking at me when I turn to him. His face is stony, composed. But there’s something else there too - cruelty. Enjoyment. As if this is a game he’s won before it’s even begun.

  "Stand down," he says, his voice clipped and brutal, as my breath heaves and my hands curl into fists. "You might be able to protect yourself, but you won’t be able to stop a bullet going into her skull."

  This is exactly what she warned me about. This moment. This threat. Even back on the rooftop, smiling over margaritas, she knew. The Coalition doesn’t fight fair. They don’t win by overpowering you. They win by making the price of your own victory too extravagant to be an option.

  "Don’t worry about me, Maisie," Wendy says, her voice strained as she gasps to recover her breath. "I’ll be fine."

  The words barely leave her lips before Graham sms the butt of his rifle into her face. The sound is sharp - blunt force against bone - and her head jerks sideways. Blood immediately pools at her mouth as she lets out a pained, involuntary yelp, clutching her jaw.

  She doesn’t look at him. She looks at me. And she tries to smile.

  It’s all for me. All a show.

  "She won’t be," Graham says ftly, not sparing her a gnce, his eyes locked on mine. "Not if you don’t do exactly what we say."

  The world narrows. The room washes to grey, drained of life, except for one detail: the sharp, burning red of the rifle barrel pointed at Wendy’s skull. The other three guns don’t matter. I do the maths. I weigh the chances. The three guns are irrelevant, I can make my body bullet-proof. Reduce their shots down to nothing but inconvenient pain. But can I get to Wendy before he shoots? I know the answer. I stand down.

  I feel myself shrinking - literally, bodily - as the strength melts from my limbs and my mass folds inward. My fists unclench. My jaw unlocks.

  "Good girl," Graham mutters, smug now, as one of his men steps forward and secures the colr around my neck.

  The second it snaps closed, something in me goes dark. My body goes quiet. A limb I can’t name stops existing. It’s not pain - pain would be better - it’s a numb, humiliating absence. Like I’ve been amputated in a way no one else can see. I reach up and tug at the colr, half on instinct. It doesn’t budge.

  "Wendy Fox, you are under arrest for the crime of treason," Graham says, tone clipped and professional, like this is just another item on his checklist. "You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you ter rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence."

  "Go fuck yourself, Graham," she says, venom in her lips.

  She’s pulled upright by one of the men. Her cuffs clink. Blood drips down her chin, but she walks tall. She turns to me one st time, her eyes wide and desperate.

  "This was my choice, Maisie," she says, voice cracking. "Don’t ever bme yourself."

  She’s trying to sound brave. She doesn't succeed. It’s a goodbye.

  My mouth moves before I can stop it. Quiet. Fragile. Cracked in two.

  "I love you."

  That is the st time that I will ever see Wendy Fox. It hurts me deeply that she used her st words not as a means to express love, but as a means to stop me tearing myself to pieces over what happens next. And the worst part is that she used the words in vain. Because I still hate myself for it. I still bme myself for it. I destroyed her life by letting my desire for companionship trump the painful logic of the situation.

  "Well, well, well," Graham says, turning back to me - making no attempt to hide the glee in his voice. "What are we going to do with you? Your crime spree was one thing, but corrupting one of our best agents like that? I really don’t appreciate that."

  I gre at him. I don’t have anything to say that won’t make the situation a lot worse.

  "It’s interesting that you choose the form of a young woman," he says, seemingly gd that I’m letting him rant. "You could be anything - and yet, you are this. Why? Were you hoping that we’d be too scared to hit a girl?"

  I open my mouth, though I don’t know what I want to say - but I don’t get the chance to speak. Graham demonstrates that he has no issue hitting a girl, as he gives me the same smack that he gave Wendy.

  My head snaps sideways, and I stumble under the weight of the blow. It’s not pain that I'm used to - it’s cold, creeping numbness, like a limb falling asleep with knives instead of pins and needles. The sensation roots itself in the core of me, radiating outward like a quiet scream through bone. I’ve never felt damage like this before. I can't heal it. It just stays.

  "Because you’re not a girl," he says, spitting. "You’re a thing. An Interstitial entity. And there ain’t no rules against hitting those."

  And he does it again.

  The second hit barely nds and already my body starts folding in on itself, not from pain - though there is pain, sharp and blooming - but from what he said. From the word thing. The grief it opens in me is wide and raw, like an ancient scar torn open for the first time. I want to rage. I want to scream. But there’s nothing left. Not when he’s stripped me down to nothing human.

  "You’re going to have so much fun."

  Their voices ring around the room as it fades back into the white void.

  "MH seems to simute human-like emotions as a defence mechanism."

  "MH shes out when expected to take a form outside of a young woman. We hypothesise this could be due to sexual deviance."

  "Aggression from MH during experiments suggests they are unsuitable for public life."

  I clutch my ears, my fingers digging into the sides of my skull, trembling from the st memory - but the voices aren’t coming from outside. They’re inside. Inside me. There’s no way to shut them up. I can still feel the colr around my neck like a phantom limb. I can still feel Graham’s voice like a bruise.

  Behind the voices, the soft strum of Everything Has Changed begins again. Looping like it has been this whole time. Sweet and gentle. Mocking me.

  This is becoming unbearable. I came here to remember one thing - one thing - and instead I’ve been thrown headfirst into everything I’ve buried. Every failure. Every fracture. Every fucking time someone decided I wasn’t real.

  As I stagger in the bnkness of the void that surrounds me, trying to hold myself upright, I feel a cold hand on my shoulder.

  I don’t need to look. I know it’s her.

  "I’m sorry," Sadie says, and this time, it’s not detached. Her voice quivers - barely a thread. "Nobody ever told the full story. If I’d known-"

  I throw her hand off me, stepping forward. The tremble in my body becomes heat in my chest.

  "Then you would’ve done what, Sadie?"

  She falters. Her gaze drops to her feet.

  "You would’ve treated me with more dignity?" I spit, loud now, my voice cracked and dry. "You would’ve decided that yes, actually, Maisie does deserve to be called by her name? Did I need a tragic fucking backstory to earn that from you?"

  Her face goes beetroot-red. But this time, she forces herself to meet my eyes. No mask. No smirk. No composure. Just her. Small and trembling. Like she’s afraid of her own words.

  "I’m sorry, okay?" she says. "I know that will never be enough, but it’s all I can give you, Maisie. I can’t fix The Coalition on my own. I want to try, but it’s not going to be easy. It might not even be possible. But I have to try."

  I shake my head - jaw clenched, hands balled into fists. "It can’t be fixed. Why can’t you understand that?"

  "Because it’s all that I have!" Sadie screams. The words rip through the whiteness like cws. Her voice breaks, and for a moment, she just stands there. Breathing hard. Ashamed of the shape she’s taken.

  And only then do I realise... I’m no longer just dealing with an imaginary version of her. She no longer represents a nagging, judgemental piece of my brain. This is her. Some of this - I don’t know how much - is real. Or, at least, it was.

  "Speak on that," I say, folding my arms, not willing to let her weasel out of this without an expnation.

  At first, she shakes her head - not defiantly, just slow, reluctant. Like she wants to expin but doesn’t know how. Then, maybe remembering the deal we made - that none of this would survive beyond tonight - something in her loosens. Her shoulders fall.

  "I don’t have anything, Maisie," she says, voice tight, sniffling. "That metal band we spoke about? It’s just me. I tried to get other people to join, but nobody was interested. Nobody wants to spend time with me. I have no friends, my Dad’s more or less disowned me, and I don’t..."

  She trails off, breath hitching as she struggles to find the words. "I don’t have anything to live for outside of what I do. And I have to believe that what I do is good. Because if it isn’t... then what’s the point of me?"

  She cries. Not loudly, but the tears are real - the kind that shake you quietly, that come from somewhere far deeper than embarrassment or guilt. She cries like she’s afraid of the person she’s revealing. And somehow, that’s the most human I’ve ever seen her.

  I’ve never really thought much about what my colleagues do outside of work, with the exception of Jordan’s gym routine - which I’d do anything not to think about - or Tommy’s unfortunate love life. I’ve always assumed that Sadie was as popur as her bitchy confidence made her seem. But that was a mask. Just like my own. Perhaps I’m not as alone as I think I am.

  "Well," I say, offering the smallest of smiles. "For what it’s worth, I’m gd you were with me today."

  "Me too," she says, pulling back, her face blotchy but lighter. "You’re much more interesting than I thought. Much more interesting than..."

  She trails off again, but I pick up the thread.

  "Jordan’s gym talk?"

  Sadie ughs - loud, almost shocked by her own voice. She sps me lightly on the back. "She’s a menace. I think even Tommy gets sick of it."

  We keep ughing. About Jordan, about Tommy, about the ridiculousness of it all. There's still a tension between us, but we're trying to pretend it isn't there. Trying to be the person that the other needs. And for a little while, the white space around us feels less like a void, and more like a secret room carved out of time. We share something that, in the outside world, neither of us could afford to have.

  But eventually, her smile falters. Her gaze drops.

  "We’re going to forget all of this," she says, quietly.

  I shake my head defiantly. "We don’t have to. We just don’t fsh ourselves, right?"

  She rests a hand on my shoulder and steps backwards. "No. We made a promise. You wouldn’t have shared all of that stuff with me if you thought I’d remember it. It’s not fair on you, Maisie."

  "Don’t be ridiculous," I say, scowling. "Sadie, I don’t want to forget any of this. You were just saying earlier how vioting it felt, losing all of this... I can’t believe you even suggested this in the first pce!"

  "Maisie," she says, taking my hand. "Rex. We’ll be the same people we were when this car journey started. We’ll find our way here eventually. We’ll just be going the long way round."

  It's a confusing gesture, but she doesn’t wait for a response. Sadie steps closer, her voice dropping to a whisper as she leans in, warm breath brushing my ear. "Kiss me."

  I look at her with shock, as her hands come to my shoulders, and then her lips press against mine. It’s clumsy, not cinematic or graceful, but it’s real. It’s human. There's a brief pause inside me, a flicker of hesitation, unsure if I can let myself open like this. But then I do.

  I kiss her back.

  I don’t know if I press something accidentally, or if the shock makes my hand jerk - but a fsh from my crushed phone goes off. A photograph is taken. The two of us suspended in that small, strange moment.

  When she pulls away, she’s smiling - a little confused, like she can’t believe what she’s done. Her edges are already dissolving into the light.

  And the trouble is that I still don't think I understand. We dropped the masks and opened up, and then still chose to forget. Because we decided that we would up here anyway, the proper way. So what was the kiss? A memento for this moment? The result of vulnerability overdose? It doesn't matter, does it?

  "One more memory to go, Maisie," she says, her voice growing thinner as her shape begins to disappear. "Then you can open your eyes. I promise."

  I nod, even as I reach out without thinking. My hand cuts through empty light.

  And it’s only as she vanishes into the void that I realise Kiss Me was the tenth Sheeran song.

  I’m in my room, but it’s colder. Familiar, but bleached of comfort - every book, every piece of furniture, every outfit still stained with the memory of how I earned them. Rewards for obedience. Apologies in the form of trinkets from scientists who felt bad about their actions, but not bad enough to stop locking the door behind them.

  I’m sitting on my bed, facing the wall-length mirror. The girl staring back at me is the one from the painting. Not Maisie. She has sleek bck hair pstered against her head, a face slightly narrower and younger than mine. Her skin is pale, her body still. Her eyes are tired, but not with the truth - tired in a curated, deliberate way. The bags under them are false, a mask painted on by my own hand. A costume of exhaustion, not the real thing. I don’t know why I did that. Maybe looking broken would help with what comes next.

  And looking at her - me - makes my stomach twist. It’s like my brain is accusing me of something I haven’t remembered yet. Disgust rises in my throat. I want to look away, but I don’t.

  Then I see that I’m not alone.

  Graham stands just beyond my reflection, next to a tripod with a phone mounted on it - camera aimed directly at me. He looks different than he did the night they took Wendy. Older. Which makes sense, as it's been a long time. There’s a tremor to him now. His hands twitch at his sides. He isn’t afraid of me - he still holds all the power, still owns the room - but he’s tense. Hurried. Whatever this is, it has a deadline.

  "That was much better," he says, voice like scraped chalk. "One more take and we’re good, MH."

  He says it like we’re colborators. Like we’re in this together. Like I’m not a prisoner on her knees, bartering scraps of herself for something that still might not come.

  "And then you let me go?" I ask, voice so fragile I barely recognise it.

  "I said, I’ll try," he snaps - impatient, like I’ve broken the rhythm of whatever performance he thinks we’re putting on.

  Still, I nod.

  Because I’m desperate. Because it’s been years. Because maybe this time, he’ll mean it.

  Because I need to believe there’s an end to this.

  But the air feels wrong. My breath catches in my throat, and my body tries to recoil from something it doesn’t understand. I made a deal with Graham in exchange for my freedom. A deal that I can’t remember. Why can’t I remember?

  "Can I ask for something else?" I say, my voice shaking.

  Graham stops, one finger hovering over the phone’s record button. He pces his hands on his hips, already annoyed. "You can ask, but I don’t think you’re in the position to-"

  "Make me forget this," I say, cold.

  His face stiffens. Genuine confusion flickers across it, then something that almost resembles concern. "What?" A pause. "MH, if I were to wipe your memory - and I’m not saying we can even do that - how would you know if I upheld my side of the bargain?"

  "I won’t," I say, the words like broken gss in my mouth. "But I’ll have to trust you, won’t I?"

  He tilts his head, amused. "That seems foolish. The idiots down here told me you were smarter than that."

  "I’m not doing this if I can’t forget it." My throat tightens, and I have to force the lump of saliva down just to keep speaking. "I need to forget."

  He watches me for a long moment - calcuting, debating. Then he sighs, defeated. "Fine. It’s probably for the best anyway. No loose ends."

  I nod, but there’s no relief. Only dread.

  I gnce at the mirror across the room. She’s still there - the girl with the bck hair and tired eyes, the stranger in my face. The reflection is too clean, too sterile, and it revolts me. I know I’m about to hurt her. I don’t know how. I only know that I chose not to remember it. I only know that I believed it was unforgivable. That a life where I remember this moment wouldn't be one worth living.

  Graham moves back to the tripod.

  What was I going to do that was so bad that I needed to forget? Even at the potential cost of my freedom? So significant that Graham would trade it for my release? So awful that the vague memories of it make me feel so vile? If I were in a stronger mental state, I might hang around to find out. But I can’t take it. I can’t dare answer that question. My brain is screaming at me to trust past-Maisie, reminding me that she was working with more information than I have. And as much as I despise past-Maisie right now, I relent.

  So I open my eyes.

  I expect my return to reality to be a slow burn. Like waking up after a long sleep. But it’s instant. As soon as I open my eyes, I’m sitting in Margaret’s b, clutching the edge of the stool beneath me, distinctly aware of the hums of all the machinery, accompanied by the outro to the song that has pgued my eardrums for what feels like a lifetime. I think it’s going to be a while before I listen to this one again.

  My body aches. Not like I’ve run a marathon - more like I’ve survived one. My brain feels jagged, frayed at the edges, like I’m coming down from some high.

  The snap of the case for my headphones causes Margaret’s head to whip around to me, an eager look on her face. Even Edgar, who is on the other side of the room, seems intrigued - though he doesn’t dare seem too intrigued.

  "You’re awake!" she says, raising her hands as if she were Dr Frankenstein prociming life. She abandons the samples of blood she’s been working on to move closer to me. "I was getting worried there. I did not expect it to st forty-six minutes."

  The length of time doesn’t surprise me. I felt every minute of it.

  "How was it?" she asks. "Did you get what you needed?"

  I nod, but say nothing. Because yes, in a roundabout sense, I did. I experienced my kiss with Sadie - albeit a very abstract version of it. It still clings to me like static. Real or not, I can still feel her lips. I can still feel the cold shock of it, the warmth underneath. It doesn’t bring crity. Just more questions.

  I’m not sure how much of it really happened. Did I actually recount some of my most traumatic memories to her? Did she actually open up about her own loneliness? My conscious brain doesn’t know - it’s chasing its own tail, spinning through theories. But my subconscious remembers how it felt. It doesn't know the facts, but it knows the feelings - which are more important. And the feelings were real.

  It remembers that Sadie made me feel seen. That, for a brief moment, I wasn’t just surviving next to her - I was standing alongside her. Two scared young women wearing masks and calling them faces.

  The trouble is, I don’t know what to do with it. Firstly, do I forgive her? She humiliated me in front of Graham - who we’ll get to shortly, I promise. After everything we shared, she betrayed my trust. But how is that different from Holly Barton? The face I wore at the Mother’s Day meeting when I was forced to insult my best friend. The only difference between the two situations is that Lexi wasn’t there to hear it, and that my mask was sturdier.

  But the hardest question is - what do I say to Sadie? Do I tell her that I took the pill and remembered everything? We made a vow not to, and in the memory, she was very firm on this. Would she understand if I showed her the picture? Surely she’d appreciate how much that would eat away at me. Especially given her behaviour. The alternative is pying dumb. To never tell her. To lie.

  No. I don’t want to do that. I’m so sick of lying.

  Margaret seems to be growing impatient for a proper response. I should probably answer before she starts worrying that she’s fried my brain.

  "I got it," I say, no emotion in my voice. "Along with some other things."

  Wendy’s memory wasn’t one I needed. That grief doesn’t sleep. It doesn’t fade. I didn’t need to see her curled up in bed again, or watch her vanish under booted footsteps and shackles. I’ve tried to find her since. Spent so long chasing cold leads and empty files. She’s gone. Really gone. But my brain - cruel, brilliant thing that it is - decided to remind me anyway.

  The memory of Graham, though. That was new. That was rot pulled from the root. We made a deal so appalling that I begged him to make me forget it. And now, even trying to remember is like slicing through white noise. A static pulse behind my eyes. My body clenches, recoils - defending me from my own mind. And yet, I still want to remember.

  That’s the worst part. I want to dig through the muck, through the blood and the guilt and the buried girl with the bck hair and the gssy stare. I want to know what I did to her. I want to drag that shame out and name it.

  I don’t deserve the mercy of forgetting.

  So add it to the fucking list. I need to find her - the girl in the painting. The one whose face I wore, while looking terrified.

  I need to find the goth girl. Even if it kills me.

  LilAgarwal