‘Yeah, but I don’t know about you,’ Eve said. She sighed and held out her hands. ‘Fine. If I die, I’m coming back to haunt you.’

‘That’ll be fun.’ Jesse took Eve’s weight easily, even with her silver-wounded hand, and lowered her down, then released. Eve’s surprised cry echoed back up, followed by a breathless laugh.

‘All good,’ she called up. ‘Nice catch, handsome.’

‘Anything for you,’ Michael said. They may have even kissed. ‘Ready, who’s next?’

‘Claire,’ Shane said, and Myrnin nodded. She didn’t like it, but nobody looked like they were going to take no for an answer this time. She held out her hands, and Jesse took hold, winked at her and gave her a reassuring smile, and swung her out over nothing. Claire had a dizzying moment of terror, because even though she knew intellectually that Michael was down below her in the dark, ready to catch her, it didn’t much matter. Humans feared the dark, and they feared falling into it, and wow, it was scary.

Before Jesse could let go, Pete yelled, ‘Down!’ and Claire felt herself being swung away from the hole, thrown toward cover, and a lot of things happened all at once. A deafening, ear-shredding burst of gunfire in the enclosed space. Bright flashes. Yelling and screaming. Bodies moving against the bursts of light.

The only thing Claire could do was curl up and try to make herself small.

Shane fell on top of her, driving her breath away, but he wasn’t hurt, just shielding her from the chaos; she could feel the hot press of his breath against her neck. ‘Are you hit?’ he yelled, and she said no, but she wasn’t sure he could hear her.

A sudden, ominous silence fell. The smell of burnt metal and gunpowder was choking, and Claire coughed a little, even as she tried not to draw attention. Stay small, stay safe, her instincts were telling her. Don’t move.

And then Shane moved, rolling away and up to his feet, because Pete was shouting and tossing him something that Claire recognised seconds later as a large gun. Some kind of assault rifle, she guessed. Shane held it like he’d fired something like it before – and he probably had, knowing his dad’s paramilitary training – and fell in beside Pete. ‘Call out!’ he yelled. ‘Let me know you’re okay!’

‘Fine,’ Claire heard Oliver say. Then Jesse, in a clipped, tight way, affirming that she and Liz were both fine. Pete was all right. Claire said the same.

But Myrnin didn’t answer.

Claire found him lying still on the ground, eyes shut, and she thought she might have actually screamed; he was lying like Derrick, pale and still and bloodied, and the blood that was on his face dripped to the concrete.