Thea didn’t have time to worry about being a god; she was too busy trying to stay alive. She tried to reach for his hand, but he refused to take it. Instead, he sniffed and wiped the tears away, smudging them into the blood and dirt on his face before squaring his shoulders, taking one last look at the ruins of the Centre from his vantage point.

‘What use am I without Morpheus? Without Max?’

‘No! Moses!’

And she lunged for him, but it all happened too quickly. Moses shot at Kyle, squeezing his eyes shut as he did so and Thea could already see that the bullet went wide, but Kyle staggered back anyway. Moses had twisted to fire the gun so when his body began to tip, his arms out as if he was going to float lazily down to the ground, he stared right into Thea’s eyes.

She would never forget his expression at that moment. It snagged onto her so she couldn’t look away, and it seemed as if it took forever for him to fall, so long that she saw it all: the pain and sadness, the confusion and then … as he dropped further away, one hand stretched towards her: the fear.

Thea felt the bar of the handrail press into her stomach as she rushed into it, leaning over, still trying to grab a hand that was plummeting to the ground below, out of reach.

When his body smashed onto the tiles, she closed her eyes, almost feeling the floor below wanting to suck her into it as well. The backs of her legs tingled as if the muscles were preparing to jump and, gently, she tilted from her waist, just a touch too far forward. If she fell asleep, right now, she’d tip and then tumble after him …

It would be easy to tilt a little more, and she was so very tired …

She heard Kyle’s footsteps coming for her.

Her body jerked at the same time her hand slipped and, with a sudden rush of adrenaline, she felt herself lurch forward in one sick, dizzy movement, until she planted her feet firmly and hauled herself back from the brink.

Kyle moved fast, but Thea was closer to the lift. Head spinning, she wrenched herself away from the handrail and ran to it. The doors shut her in, and the polite female voice came too soon: ‘Ground floor’. When the doors opened once more, she nearly raced straight to the huge glass entrance doors.

Stupid.

Kyle was still up there on the walkway, mercifully without a gun as Moses had fallen still holding it. If she got out of the lift, however, he would simply call it up and follow her. She needed a head start. She needed to be smarter.