She gave him a doubtful look, too tired to care. “What is it?”

A wooden sound reached her ears. Was that her voice?

His glasses glinted in the moonlight, giving the doctor’s face a creepy luminous quality. “It’s a leech, little skyling. They suck blood from human bodies.”

Romy froze at the mention of blood. Why was he showing this to her?

Houston pinched his fingers together firmly. The bug exploded. Red trickled down over the doctor’s hand. The leech writhed in jerking swirls and time slowed as Houston threw the bloody insect to the ground, droplets of blood flying from his hand.

To land at her feet.

It was all over her! Spurting blood! Everywhere! The floating unreal sensation had been present ever since killing Lucas. But this time she didn’t just float. Romy was flung out of herself. A drumming noise bounced everywhere, the noise doubling back on itself in an escalating clamour. And above it, a high keening. Romy looked down to the ground and reeled back.

She was high above the ground now, floating there. Below her, side by side with only a thin wall between them, sat two apparitions. Her eyes fixated on the left side of the partition.

The person there had the same blonde hair as Romy.

It was her, she realised. But this Romy’s hair hung in greasy clumps, blue eyes popping wildly from her face. This version writhed in agonised spasms, screaming and twisting, trying to escape the box she’d been squeezed into.

On the other side, the second Romy sat on a rock, frozen in the moonlight, staring at the dirt by her feet. In this scene, the Romy was musing that the dust wasn’t really red here after all; more an orange. When it was put next to human blood, the difference in hue was obvious.

Romy hovered over the two scenes. She could go to either, but not both. She merely had to choose which one to land in. She felt the choice should be obvious, but couldn’t recall why that should be. She looked from the serene Romy to the demented Romy once more.

Then, squeezing her eyes closed from high above, she chose.

* * *

The scene was wildly different from when she left.

Atlas had one hand wrapped around Houston’s throat, the other hand raised to deliver a hammering blow. Thrym was sprinting at the larger man. Atlas roared and threw him back with a powerful swipe of his arm.

What was going on?

Atlas had let go of Houston to get rid of Thrym, but he now resumed his stranglehold.

Romy could see he was going to slam his fist down onto Houston’s face. Blood.

Romy was up and had a hold on Atlas’s arm as it descended. She pulled back with all her strength. Atlas turned on her in a blur.