The duvet rustles, and when the lamp flashes on, Emily is sitting up with eyes too wide for this time of night.

“I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“Fuck that. Tell me everything.”

“Michael sent the messages and smashed my window, because he wanted to make a better show. He didn’t think I could do it, so he wrote a different script. But it means I wasn’t even close to catching the killer. Everything that happened was fake.”

“So what now?” Emily asks.

“I don’t know. Danny thinks we can still get the full three months, but it’s pointless anyway.”

“It’s not pointless. You’ve got people talking. They are thinking about you, Jess. So what if Michael was faking it? It’s not over.”

Emily swaps beds and pulls me into a hug, and I don’t bother pulling away.

“How hard did Jamie hit him?” she asks.

“Hard.”

We sit in silence for a while until she says, “He’s saved you twice.”

“I guess,” I say, and it’s not until Emily makes a face that I realize I’m grinning from ear to ear.

Chapter 69

We all sit in the living room in silence, our goodbyes said, our tears cried, the feelings we have in the real world already coming back hard.

Living here would be so much better, so much easier, but for how long? Eventually, wherever you are, your history catches up.

Andrea claps, and as we’re preparing to be kangaroos, she asks us to sit in a circle, and one by one, the volunteers pick someone at random to talk about.

When it’s Reg’s turn, he looks me in the eye and says, “I think Jessica is incredibly brave. I hope she realizes that.”

This is how they prepare us for home, by pumping up our egos, and I guess there are worse ways to say goodbye.

Afterward, they turn up the music and let us hang out, and whenever I check the clock, it’s an hour later than I thought it was.

I watch Jennifer move from person to person, whispering in their ears, and when she gets to me, she says, “We’re having a party in my room tonight. Keep it on the down-low.”

I laugh because she sounds ridiculous, and she smiles and says, “We have plenty to drink.”

She leaves before I can reply, spreading the message to the rest of the room. She looks so suspicious, but Mr. Humphries and Andrea are talking quietly in the corner, and the other volunteers aren’t paying attention.

When they turn the music down and tell us to leave, I start to make my way back to our room when Emily stops me and says, “Where are you going?”

“To bed.”

“Or…”

“Or nothing. I’m tired.”

Emily leans in so close her breath tickles my neck. “Jennifer…is having…a party.”

I shrug, and she sighs and says, “One drink.”