They pounded the box. It took quite a beating, it had to be said, but it was no match for sports equipment swung with malice. The stand splintered and Ronnie caught the box with a sweet upswing, and the whole thing was busted open.

At that moment, lights lit up behind them and Kelly turned, gritting her teeth as the lone yelp of a siren sounded. “Goddammit,” she said.

“Goddammit,” Ronnie echoed, but quieter. Much quieter.

Kelly turned back, expecting to see the square covered in little white scraps of paper caught in the night’s gentle breeze.

Ronnie prodded the remains of the box with the cricket bat, but it was a lost cause. There were no scraps of paper. The box had been emptied long before they’d stepped out of their van.

“Put your goddamn hands in the goddamn air,” said one of the cops as he approached. Kelly dropped the bat, and did what she was told.

Chapter 17

AMBER WOKE, FULLY AWARE of where she was without having to open her eyes. The cell was dark, but not cold. She turned over, the thin blanket slipping from her shoulders as her horns scraped the wall. She jerked her head back, annoyed. It wasn’t easy to sleep with horns. She turned again, growing increasingly frustrated with the blanket, and finally she opened her eyes.

Someone was standing over her.

She roared and kicked out, shock turning instantly to fear-fuelled aggression. The black shape melted into the gloom of the cell as she jumped from the cot, and then she was flinging the blanket ahead of her. It settled on to someone, a person-shaped thing in the darkness, and Amber dived at it. Her hands grew claws and she ignored the pain as she tore through the blanket, but there was nothing beneath, and she was suddenly on her knees, snarling, her skin tightening as black scales spread outwards from the nape of her neck.

“Amber?” Milo said from the cell next to her.

She didn’t answer. There was still someone in here with her. She couldn’t make him out, but she could feel him. Then her eyes moved to the corner of the cell like they were iron filings drawn to a magnet, and she saw him, his shape, standing there. She locked on to his outline and got up, not blinking, not letting him melt away for a second time. With some part of her aware of how animalistic she sounded, she closed in. The figure didn’t move. When she was close enough, she lunged, grabbed clothing, forced him backwards to the bars. Then he was gone, nothing but smoke, and her arms passed between the bars and her horns smacked off them and the smoke became a person again, this time standing outside the cell, Amber’s fists still bunched in his shirt.