‘And your mum loves you so much,’ Kat says. ‘If she could go back in time and choose – to either have you and her illness along with it, or to be well all the time and not have you, what do you think she’d say?’

And I know what she’d say, so I don’t answer cos I feel stupid and embarrassed.

‘You make her happier than her illness makes her sad,’ Kat says. ‘And I’m sorry that I wasn’t there for you when you needed me.’

‘Me too,’ Mak says. ‘I got a bit carried away.’

I look at Chets, hoping he’ll back me. What he said hurt, but we’ve been through so much together that I’m not gonna hold a grudge. I haven’t always done right by him either.

‘Remember when you wanted to stop me from being friends with Trent?’ Chets huffs. ‘Because you thought I was too good for him?’

‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘Because you are.’

‘This is the same as that.’

‘It’s not. Karim is not like Trent.’

‘Seems very similar to me.’ Chets folds his arms. ‘Wait, are we talking about that goon from your last school who was basically the worst human being on the planet?’ Karim says. 202

‘That’s the one.’ Ade picks at a thread on her chair so hard that one of her plastic nails pings off.

‘You know I’m really starting to regret coming along today,’ Karim says. ‘And it’s not even because of the risk of dying or becoming an alien.’

Kat puts her hand on Chets’ arm. ‘You know I think you’re brilliant, Chets, but you’re wrong about this – Karim isn’t like Trent.’

‘I’m pretty hopeful that there is only one Trent in the world,’ I say. ‘Cos that’s more than enough. Karim is a good friend and a good person. Sure, he gets in trouble sometimes, but didn’t I always do that, too? It didn’t stop you from being my mate.’

‘That was different,’ Chets says.

‘Why are you being like this?’ I say. ‘This isn’t like you.’

‘No, it isn’t.’ Ade raises an eyebrow again.

Chets looks at Ade, then at me again, and slumps into the seat a bit more. ‘I’m just being cautious. It seems that he came to Straybridge at the same time that all this trouble started.’

‘Because my mum works for XGen,’ Karim says.

203 ‘That’s very convenient, isn’t it?’ says Chets. ‘Look, I’m just trying to protect Lance, that’s all, in the same way that he protected me.’

‘You’re protecting him from the wrong thing, mate,’ Mak says. ‘The threat isn’t in here, it’s out there.’

And he points out of the glass door, just as someone comes pelting out of the trees.

18

Trent