All The Lonely People - David Owen Page 0,48

They probably wouldn’t lose all sense of coordination and be forced to use the kerbs on either side of the road like children’s rails at a bowling alley.

‘Watch out for that post!’ shrieked Safa, and Kat wrenched the steering wheel, bumping up onto the pavement.

‘Rock, rock, rock!’

Some kind of malformed decorative stone loomed in the headlights and Kat managed to swerve around it with all the elegance of butter in a hot pan.

If video games had taught her anything (and as much as she loved them she really hoped they hadn’t) it was that driving recklessly should summon half the city’s police force into her rear-view mirror, send pedestrians swearing and screaming, and ultimately see the car catch fire for no apparent reason. Luckily the streets were largely quiet, the only onlookers a couple of guys safe on the opposite pavement who whipped around at the sound of groaning suspension, but hardly seemed to see the car at all.

Adrenaline surged through her veins, foxtrotted with the panic, a comingling that made her giddy. She could get used to this. Not driving a car – twenty or thirty more lessons were required there – but delivering vigilante justice, using the power of the fade to make the world a better place. Tomorrow, TrumourPixel would arrive at the garage and find it empty. Kat wished she could be there to see his face. Just the thought of it made her—

‘Red light!’

Kat snapped out of it in time to see the red traffic light and the rear lights of another car stopped there flare through the windscreen. She stamped on the brakes. Their wheels screeched, and Kat braced herself as the car skidded irrepressibly onward.

BANG.

The impact threw them forwards, seatbelts crushing their chests. Metal crumpled and glass broke, tinkling onto the tarmac.

‘Are you okay?’ said Kat.

Beside her, Safa was slouched back in her seat, hair plastered to her face. ‘I think I shit a lung.’

Ahead of them, the driver door of the other car was flung open.

‘Okay, now I definitely did.’

An older guy got out, glowering over the top of a heavy beard and rubbing his neck, before stomping to the back of his car.

‘Do you think he’s going to be angry?’ asked Safa.

The guy took one look at the car’s crumpled rear and threw his hands in the air.

Kat gulped. ‘I think there’s a very good chance.’

Finally he turned to them, face set with rage. He took one purposeful step closer, the advance of a one-man army. And all at once he forgot them. His anger softened into confusion, and he stopped short of his next stride, glass scraping under his feet. Their car – and most importantly the two terrified girls sitting inside it – had ceased to exist for him. He took out his phone and began making a call, turning away from them completely.

Safa cleared her throat. ‘Will it still go?’

When Kat tried the ignition it stuttered for a long moment, and they both looked up, expecting it to bring the wrath they deserved down upon their heads. The guy didn’t hear, and the engine caught, allowing her to reverse away from the crash. ‘We should—’

‘Get out of here? I couldn’t agree more.’

They gave the guy – now swearing explosively into his phone – as wide a berth as possible, and Kat guided them away at a crawl.

‘Ha!’ Safa slapped the dashboard. ‘We can actually do anything.’

Every molecule in her body was shaking, but Kat couldn’t keep the smile from her face. Oh, it would be so easy to get carried away, to lose herself to the powerful transience of the fade. And she wanted to, if only for the night.

She put her foot down, and sent them roaring away into town.

*

Wesley had always felt the simmering threat of violence with Luke and Justin, as if they might decide to turn on him if he made a single wrong move. Until now he’d thought of it as something to overcome, a challenge to be surmounted before they accepted him. Until now, it had never frightened him.

They smiled and, cornered against the shop shutter, he saw in their eyes how they wanted to hurt him.

‘Leave me alone,’ he said, for all the good it would do.

‘You made us look like idiots,’ said Luke.

‘I didn’t mean to.’

‘You don’t understand the risk we were taking to introduce you like that. We were trying to do you a favour.’ He looked rattled. ‘You don’t know what he’s capable of.’

Even though they were just