But other than the words ‘test centre’ and some GPS coordinates, the paperwork had contained no useful clues. The time had come for Ewan and Shannon’s final piece of research: finding where those coordinates led to.

Shannon found the technology section, and ran through the item list with a finger which brushed away the dust as it went. Ewan glanced too, and saw the prices on some of the items.

‘Three hundred quid?!’ he asked. ‘People paid that much for a GPS thing? They could have just downloaded an app.’

‘There are always people who want quality,’ Shannon answered. ‘Photographers didn’t stop buying professional equipment just because their phone could take a few snaps. Right, how about this one? “Purpose built for the great outdoors, accurate to within one metre, contains 1:50,000 Ordnance Survey maps—”’

‘Can you use it to search for coordinates?’

‘Only one way to find out. Ewan, grab me some batteries.’

She ran for the warehouse, leaving Ewan to turn and head for the pound shop next door.

She just commanded me, the Underdogs ’ head soldier, to obey her .

Why aren’t I uncomfortable? Shouldn’t my PDA kick in or something?

As Ewan walked into the pound shop, he wondered how much Shannon knew about his pathological demand avoidance. She must have seen the diagnosis on the list of names she had first brought to Spitfire’s Rise, but a three-word diagnosis was no description of lived experience. The words ‘pathological demand avoidance’ weren’t enough to summarise a childhood of being frightened by other people telling him to do things, or the loss of self-control that came when people’s demands made him uncomfortable. A year ago, a command as blatant as ‘Ewan, get me some batteries’ would have switched on his defiant instincts as an act of self-defence, but somehow it was different when the command came from Shannon.

Shannon had done a good job of climbing up his friendship rankings during her time at Spitfire’s Rise. McCormick would always hold the number one spot thanks to his life-changing compassion and influence, and ever since Charlie Coleman had been gunned down by a red-haired assassin, the runner-up spot had been occupied by Kate. But Shannon was now in third, which wasn’t bad for three weeks of friendship.

There was something else though: something which numbers and rankings couldn’t account for. Shannon was fiery and determined. Uncompromising yet vulnerable. There was too much common ground for Ewan to ignore. For most of his life he hadn’t liked people who were similar to him, and he wondered what that told him about his opinion of himself. But at that moment he was met with a young woman whose anger and passion pointed in the same direction as his own, whose fiery nature aligned with him rather than fought against him.