She watched helplessly. The knife continued to twist and jab and the obscenely squishy flap of skin was deluged by another welling of blood. At least she’d managed to pour boiling water over the knife and sterilize it first, but at this rate, it wouldn’t matter because he was bound to go into shock at any minute.

With a pent-up scream of frustration, he hurled the knife away from him, where it clattered against a skirting board, smudging red on the paint.

‘It won’t budge.’ He put his head in his hands despondently while his shoulders heaved. ‘How does it do it?’

Thea pressed a dishcloth to his temple. She had come prepared. The dishcloth had been folded neatly in a cupboard, so she guessed it was clean and she’d cut another one into strips to wrap around his head once the bleeding stopped. She’d also brought up the whisky, to dab at the edges of the wound primarily, but there was too much blood for that. So she wiped the blood away from his cheek and neck with a towel and he took a swig from the whisky bottle instead.

She edged the dishcloth away from his skin, had a look, stopped herself from heaving, and pressed it firmly back.

‘It doesn’t look as if it’s attached itself into the temple,’ she said. ‘It hasn’t drilled down with a prong or anything. I don’t get why you can’t just lever it off.’

Thea got off her knees and sat next to him, their backs against the wall. He offered her the whisky, but she shook her head.

‘What can they do with these discs? Can they work at long range? Could they …’ He stopped and his shoulders drooped. He spoke softly. ‘Could they even kill us with them? Zap us with some kind of electrical charge?’

Ted’s empty stare flashed back into Thea’s mind.

She dunked the towel in a bowl of hot water she’d brought up. Ethan’s blood swirled into it, spirals and curlicues of red drifting lazily out across the surface. He closed his eyes and rested his head back against the wall, still holding on to the dishcloth.

‘How were we so stupid?’ He sighed. ‘To get involved in this?’

‘Because we were desperate, that’s why.’

They sat there for a few moments. A fresh trickle of blood ran down Ethan’s cheek. Thea shifted uncomfortably, her shoulder throbbing.

‘Ethan, there’s something you should watch.’

‘Is that …?’ Ethan glanced up from the laptop.

‘Yep. Our Delores.’

‘Wow.’

He went back to watching intently.

‘Wait, wait, wait.’ He paused the video. ‘So people were trying to buy Moses’s tech, and they were going to use it to put adverts in people’s dreams. Correct?’