‘Let me try,’ Holly whispers. Julia steps back. The rhythm in their ears is pounding faster.

It won’t turn.

‘They’ve changed the lock,’ Becca whispers.

‘What do we do?’

‘Get out of here.’

‘Let’s go.’

Holly can’t get the key out.

‘Come on come on come on—’

The terror leaps like wildfire among them. Selena has her mouth pushed into her forearm to keep herself quiet. The key rattles and grates; Julia shoves Holly out of the way – ‘Jesus, did you break it?’ – and grabs it in both hands. In the second when it looks like it’s really stuck, all four of them almost scream.

Then it shoots out, slamming Julia backwards into Becca. The thump and oof of breath and scrabble for balance sound loud enough to call out the school. They run, flailing clumsy in slipping sock-feet, teeth bared with fear. Into their room and the door closing too hard, clawing clothes off and pyjamas on, leaping for their beds like animals. By the time the prefect drags herself awake and comes shuffling down the corridor to stick her head in at each door, they have themselves and their breathing all neatly arranged. She doesn’t care if they’re faking or not, as long as they’re doing nothing that could get her in trouble; one glance around their smooth sleeping faces, and she yawns and closes the door again.

None of them say anything. They keep their eyes closed. They lie still and feel the world change shape around them and inside them, feel the boundaries set solid; feel the wild left outside, to prowl perimeters till it thins into something imagined, something forgotten.

Chapter 29

Chapter 29

The night had turned denser, ripening with little scurries and eddies of scent, things we couldn’t trace. The moonlight was coming down thick enough to drench us.

I said, ‘You got that, what she gave us. Yeah?’

Conway was moving fast back along the path, mind already leaping up that slope to Rebecca. ‘Yeah. Selena and Rebecca go to their room for their instruments. Either Rebecca’s pissed off enough with Selena that she hides Chris’s phone to frame her, or she gives it to Selena – here you go, your dead fella’s phone, just what you’ve always wanted – and Selena stashes it to deal with some other time.’

We were keeping our voices down; girls could be hidden like hunters behind any tree. I said, ‘That, and Holly’s out. Rebecca was working on her own.’

‘Nah. Holly could’ve stashed Chris’s phone when she took Selena’s.’