All The Lonely People - David Owen Page 0,76

sister. Wesley joined them almost as soon as his head hit the pillow.

Kat approached home, determined to get a few hours sleep before turning supernatural vigilante.

‘That would be a good TV show,’ she muttered to herself as she walked up the path to her front door.

The keys passed through her hand when she tried to grab them. She tried again, but there was only the slightest resistance, like a needle puncturing skin, before the metal fell through her palm and jangled against the path. Nor could she retrieve them or grab the door handle.

‘No, come on,’ she said.

She threw herself at the door, expecting to phase straight through, but she somehow lacked the necessary weight and seemed to flatten against it, like a vampire without an invite.

The sky was being diluted with the pale light of morning. Kat held up her arms to it. The night’s exertions had spread her too thin. Like butter over too much bread, she thought. It wasn’t a lack of substance that plagued her now. It was a lack of plain existence.

Kat hurried away from the house. There was no way she could save Tinker in this state. Even if she was successful piggybacking to wherever TrumourPixel took her, she would have no way of cutting her bonds or fighting them off to escape. She would be just as helpless.

If only she could warn somebody, call the police or even leave a message for Tinker. If only somebody would hear. The anger churning inside her, the impotent rage, wasn’t enough to bring back her physical form. It only made her feel more helpless.

The plan had to change. It should never have been left to her, and now it couldn’t be.

Morning arrived in earnest as she made her way to Wesley’s block of flats. With every step she expected to sink into the pavement, fall away into the Earth, and for the last of her pixels to be burned away to nothing.

She crossed the car park towards the front entrance, and as she did it clicked open. An older boy emerged, letting out a shivering breath in the cold. Kat hurried through the door behind him.

The boy fumbled in his pocket for some keys as he approached an old red car. As he found them, he seemed to think better of it and strode away towards the road instead.

Kat took the stairs up and found Wesley’s front door. Nobody would be coming out for hours yet, so she settled on the concrete floor with her back flattened against the wall, only registering the idea of the cold but not its bite.

30

Dawn of the Final Day

Angry voices rattled Wesley awake, the kind of strained whisper that’s supposed to be quiet but only carries more venom. He rolled over, sleep still dragging at the edges of his mind, and saw Evie sitting up in bed with the covers over her head.

‘It’s okay, Eves,’ he said, though he wasn’t sure it would be. He put his bare feet on the floor, crossed to poke his head into the hallway.

‘I should call the police!’ Dave’s voice from the front room, his footsteps pacing across the floor.

‘Please don’t,’ answered Mum. She sounded defeated.

There should have been more time before the missing car was discovered. Not that it would have made any difference. Wesley took a moment to find the courage to move. To go and find out if they had discovered the truth.

When he entered the room Dave stopped pacing, but hardly looked at him.

‘What’s going on?’ So little sleep made it easy to affect grogginess, as if finding them like this was a surprise.

‘Some people will take advantage of anything you offer them,’ said Dave.

‘A car was stolen from the dealership last night,’ said Mum calmly. She was sitting in the armchair, half-dressed and pale.

The best thing Wesley could do was say as little as possible, until he worked out exactly what they knew. ‘Somebody broke in?’

Dave turned on him and smiled mirthlessly. ‘Oh, he tried to make it look that way. I went in early to finish that paperwork and found the window broken. He tried to make it look random, like I wouldn’t know he nicked my keys!’

It felt like walking a tightrope, trying not to fall. Wesley arranged his face into as neutral an expression as he could, realising far too late who was missing from the room. ‘Who?’

Mum exhaled. ‘It looks like Jordan did it.’

Wesley swallowed, heart beating in his throat. ‘How do you know?’

‘As if