This is the person I am tonight. I am an outlaw. It does not matter what I was before this and will not matter who I am after. Here I am, now moving with a galloping, pounding rhythm that prophesies something wicked afoot, some new insanity, some freeing severance from reality that comes with leaving your footprints somewhere for the first time, where you may not leave them again. Solipsism makes the whole place hazy. Maybe I invented Sandown Bay. Maybe the whole place will fall into the sea when I go.

Now it’s all blue. Darkness turns white indigo-grey; I look at my hands to discover that I, too, am blue. Everything looks blue, except for the water behind me, which, when I turn to see it, looks black. And it makes me think of sisters, too much of the same thing, an oversaturation of colour running the whole pool black –

Do it.

The station looks unfamiliar in the night. I approach cautiously, check the area, left and right – no one home. Two officers, Booker had said, and as far as I could see, both of them were at the bonfire.

I learned how to pick a lock when I was nine.

Out of necessity. The first thing I learned was how to open a common door that’s locked from the outside – all you need is to straighten a paperclip, hook it round the mechanism where the door meets the lock and pull it at the right angle. Eventually I was turned on to more advanced locks. I’d always known I was too small to ever obtain any means to an end through brute force. I’d be smart instead.

And this is why, tonight, I’ve come prepared.

The tools are daunting, vague torture devices, shaped like toothbrushes except the end where the bristles would normally be is shaped and sharpened in a variety of ways, depending on what lock one needs to fit. I’ve become so good at it that I can manage some old locks with just a hairpin, if given enough time – but tonight I’m committing a crime and I won’t turn my nose up at a bit of extra haste just to prove how talented I am.

No dice from the first pick. A peal of laughter from far away makes me jump, but as far as I can see, no one even knows I exist. Second’s no good either. I’m sweating a little now and my hands tremble in an unwelcome and inconvenient way. Focus.

The lock clicks with the eight-pin and then the door is open.

No alarm. I’m inside. I’m inside and alive and breaking the law and I don’t let it bother me.