Delores could join the rest of the dead for all Thea cared. The ghosts floating about this place could eat her soul, tear it apart like string cheese and suck it down slowly.

‘I don’t feel very much like keeping quiet, however,’ Delores said bitterly. ‘I don’t see why they should get to keep it all and just push me aside as if I’m nothing! Me! I’m the reason this is all here. So this is where I need you. I think you’ll like it, Thea Mackenzie – my offer. You’ve been trying to play the heroine since day one so now I’m going to give you the chance.’

Thea’s heart beat a little faster. She’d been here before, in Delores’s office, being offered a proposal. It felt so long ago, that day: a different Thea. The same Delores.

‘You see, they think they know everything. They know about you, my little white-crowned sparrow and they know about your potential. That’s why our friend Kyle was so reluctant to leave you earlier.’

Delores scanned another piece of paper and then tossed it aside.

‘But they don’t know me. They think I’m finished, that I’m licking my wounds in a corner somewhere while they clear up. But I have my own plans, as long as I can keep the Aspire watchdogs out of them. You and I, Thea Mackenzie, we’re going to get off this island together. I have a private boat moored at another hidden cove further on from the beach where you landed, have had it there since we set up on the island. No one knows anything about it. I’ve always been a big believer in having a Plan B.’

Voices floated to them from outside the office. Delores tensed briefly, but they drifted away and she snapped her satchel shut.

‘You keep the memory stick and when you get to the mainland, you expose it. Blow the whole thing open. The real reason for using the tech, the side effects … everything. Blow it apart so there’s nothing left for them. Raze it to the sodding ground. I don’t care.’

Whenever Thea wasn’t sure what to say, she said nothing. It made people believe she was thinking something over carefully. Most times though, her brain was actually leaping around like a frightened frog too far from the pond.