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Johnson takes a step and slips gently into the bath with us. He stretches his lithe arms out along the far edge of the bath and just sits there with a lopsided grin on his lips.

I ease back while my green top and soaking jeans cling to me.
This is what we are
, I think.
Teenagers, just kids, and this is what we should be doing. Stupid things. Fun
things.

GG is still cuddling me and I can feel his slippery skinny body close to mine. ‘I’m making a humungous lasagne for dinner,’ he says. ‘Hope you’re hungry.’

But I’m not really listening because all I can see is Johnson’s bright-eyed grin rising above the foam. He wants me, I know he does. Before I would have cried out in utter delight,
but now I’m hiding from him. On the surface everything probably looks normal to Johnson but underneath, where it really counts, I am no longer the girl he thinks I am.

The way Other-Johnson kissed me . . . the way he touched me. There’s no forgetting that.

Maybe not ever.

I must have fallen asleep in the warm bath, because the next thing I know I wake up alone in the tub and the water has turned cold. GG has left a bathrobe for me and a pile of
the softest lushest towels I have ever felt. I wrap myself up and pad over to the open bathroom door, looking in to the main room. Johnson is standing at one of the large windows that looks out on
to the dark city. The sun is setting, dipping behind the monolithic shapes of the buildings, taking with it the last remaining light. Johnson’s in his wet jeans and still topless.

‘Anything out there?’ I ask as I walk over to him.

‘Nothing.’

We both stare out of the window.

‘I can’t figure any of it out, Rev.’

‘The Moth’s got the papers now – he can do all that.’

‘So did he tell you anything?’

‘The other you?’

Johnson nods.

‘Just what I said earlier, that here’s not actually here,’ I tell him.

‘So where is it?’

We fall silent again because it’s a question neither of us can answer.

‘That kiss,’ says Johnson.

‘Yeah?’ I tense a little.

‘You were very brave.’

‘Brave?’

‘To go that far.’

Brave had nothing to do with it
, I think.

‘He made it happen,’ I say, falling back on my old explanation.

‘He could actually do that?’

‘Oh, he could’ve made me do just about anything,’ I say just a bit too keenly, then quickly try to backtrack. ‘Least I think maybe he could have.’

‘Weird how he helped you. Killed his friend to save you,’ says Johnson.

‘He was confused, because I’m like the other Rev or something.’
It sounds so weak
, I think.
Anyone can see through my lies
.

But Johnson either chooses not to see or he really believes me. ‘You must have made a big impact on him.’

‘First time for everything,’ I say with another failed attempt at a smile.

‘First time?’ says Johnson, looking quietly surprised.

‘Think so.’

‘What about Kyle?’

I give myself a moment and then look honestly at Johnson. ‘That isn’t anything.’

‘No?’

I shake my head. ‘Have barely thought about him since all of this happened.’ I don’t mean to sound this harsh but it’s the honest truth – apart from right when this
all started I haven’t considered Kyle once.

Johnson nods then looks back out at the city. ‘Part of me likes it like this. Empty.’

‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘Yeah, me too. Though maybe not the near-death experiences.’

Johnson laughs. ‘Those I could live without.’

I feel him turn and look at me. ‘Want to know something funny?’

‘Absolutely,’ I tell him.

‘I didn’t get detention.’

I turn to him, surprised. ‘What? How come you were there then?’

Johnson raises an eyebrow. ‘You kidding?’

I shrug. I have no idea what he means.

‘You really don’t know?’ He grins and turns to face the starkly empty city. The smile remains on his lips.

‘You going to tell me?’ I urge him gently.

He turns back to me. ‘Because I knew you’d be there.’

My heart has leapt mightily these past few days, but the leap that happens when Johnson says this sets a new world record. It sends a rocket through me, or at least that’s what it feels
like, as every bit of me comes alive again.

He’s broken through the numbness. Just a tiny gap, but Johnson has made contact with me. He takes a breath and is about to say more.
This is it
, I think,
this is what
I’ve been waiting for even though I didn’t even know I was waiting for it
. Then the bedroom door opens and Billie walks in. She sees me in my lush towel, looking like some faux
Hollywood starlet and then takes in Johnson in his wet jeans and bare torso, and has to take a moment to gather herself.

‘Sorry, didn’t realise you were . . . busy.’

‘It’s cool,’ says Johnson. He angles himself slightly away from me. It’s a small shift, but I sense it.

‘Oh. OK,’ she responds. ‘GG’s found something he wants us all to see.’

‘What is it?’ I ask.

‘He didn’t say, but he’s excited.’

Johnson raises his finger to his temple and gives her that slow one-finger salute he gave me way back in detention. ‘We’re coming now.’

Billie is eyeing his bare torso a little too keenly. ‘You’ll need a shirt,’ she says.

‘I guess,’ he replies, but he’s looking at me the whole time.

It is well past nine o’clock in the evening and GG has lined us up as if we’re in the army. He inspects each one of us in turn as he moves down the line. He picks a
strand of pink hair from my shoulder, he points silently to a dark spot on Johnson’s Palma Violets T-shirt and tuts, he reaches for the Ape’s grimy Ben Sherman top but the Ape bats his
hand away.

‘Shocking. There’s no other word for it. Yes, you all have your excuses, but to be blunt as a blunter you all look a mess.’ He’s wearing a plush towelling bathrobe and
has taken slippers from the honeymoon suite and on the back of the bathrobe is the words HERS. ‘We may be the only people around – well, except for those ghastly others – but that
doesn’t mean we shouldn’t make an effort. I’ve made us a lovely dinner, and I think that you can at least dress appropriately.’ GG elaborately bows and then makes us watch
his fluttering fingers as they draw us towards the row of high-class five star boutiques that populate the centre of the huge hotel. ‘I’m throwing open the doors to you but if you need
advice – Ape, Moth, I’m talking to you specifically – then all you have to do is whisper my name.’

Carrie raises her hand.

‘Carrie?’ says GG.

‘This is ridiculous. We’re supposed to be running for our lives.’

‘And we’re safe now. We’re in a city, a massive city, and there are a million places we could be hiding. We are a needle in a concrete haystack.’

I glance at Johnson and he shrugs as if he agrees.

‘But the Moth should be reading that thesis. He should be going through every single page until he can tell us what is going on.’ Billie turns to the Moth. ‘We need the answers
more than we need a makeover. You agree, don’t you?’

‘I do, yes.’

‘So get reading.’

‘I have been. But it’s not easy to grasp.’

‘I knew it. I knew you’d be useless.’

‘Billie, easy,’ I tell her.

‘Don’t pick on Hawkings.’ Carrie squares up to Billie.

‘That’s all you ever do,’ Billie responds.

‘I’m allowed to, you’re not.’

I can see the Moth enjoying having two girls squabbling in front of him. He has probably never had this much attention in his whole life before.

‘Ladies, please,’ he says. ‘I’ve started reading but it’s not sinking in – I need time to let it settle.’

‘I want to be back in a world I know,’ counters Billie. ‘That’s all. And I want that to happen as quickly as it can.’

‘Which it will.’ GG claps his hands together. ‘After some retail therapy.’

‘I’ll go read,’ says the Moth, guiltily.

‘Oh no you don’t, Timothy. This’ll only take five minutes,’ says GG. ‘I’m already seeing you in a cravat.’

‘A what?’

‘It’s a sort of tie thing,’ explains Carrie, who then climbs onto the back of his motorised wheelchair. ‘C’mon, Hawkings, I’ll show you. You steer, I’ll
tell you where to go.’ Carrie and the Moth motor slowly past me and as she does I can see the bruise turning purple on her head. I’m starting to think I hit her so hard she’s had
a personality change. Can you do that to people? Beat niceness into them?

The Ape has no idea what he’s meant to do because I see him looking down at his clothes and his giant-sized designer rip-off trainers, like he’s wondering what exactly is wrong with
his ‘look’.

GG turns to him. ‘I’m seeing Hugo Boss.’

‘What’s that?’ the Ape asks.

‘It’s you, is what it is. Now let’s see what we can find.’

‘I ain’t going with you.’

‘Yes you are.’

‘No.’

GG lowers his voice and whispers to the Ape. ‘Indulge me.’

The Ape takes an interminable time to process GG’s offer. ‘Might need fresh boxers I guess.’

To his credit, GG doesn’t so much as grimace as they head off together, the oddest of odd couples ever. Which leaves me, Johnson and Billie. She touches her face self-consciously –
it seems the scars are bothering her as much as they have ever done.

‘I’m going to sit this one out,’ she says.

I’m about to respond when Johnson becomes the gentleman you can only ever dream about.

‘No you’re not.’

Billie looks up and Johnson offers his hand and I know she needs all the comfort she can get.

‘I bet you don’t even like shopping,’ she half smiles.

‘I’m open to persuasion.’ He grins wryly.

With that Johnson leads Billie into the tiny shopping mall.

I watch them go and don’t know if I should follow or not. I’m standing in a bathrobe and all I have to do is slip it off and select some new outfit. But I’d like someone to go
with me, to wait outside the changing room while I emerge in a series of increasingly gorgeous dresses. I want to see them captivated by my radiant beauty, like some cheesy movie montage.

I head towards the boutiques and pass a bespoke gentleman’s outfitters with cashmere suits in the window modelled by tall lantern-jawed mannequins. The Johnsons would never wear these
clothes, they’d always be in T-shirts or a cool top. And they’ll wear skinny jeans until the day they die. I’d insist on it. I’d make it part of our wedding vows.

Did I say wedding? I’m becoming delirious. I need to stay focused and remember where we are right now.

I look at the mannequins and for a moment I imagine the people they are supposed to represent. If this truly isn’t our world, then whose is it? And where have they gone?

A scream rings out and I jolt, alert again.

‘Monster!’ A half-dressed Billie charges out of a chic fashion boutique with Johnson following her.

‘He didn’t see anything, I swear,’ Johnson says.

I then see the Ape lumbering out after them.

Johnson raises an eyebrow at me – he looks tired and like he doesn’t need this as he chases after Billie who is still striding away. ‘Billie. Wait.’

The Ape stops beside me. ‘Who wouldn’t try and get a peek? C’mon, Rev. Who wouldn’t try and cop a look?’

‘Billie’s totally fragile, Ape. And people want privacy.’

‘So why was Johnson in the cubicle with her?’

The breath catches in my throat.

‘He was what?’

‘Helping her out of her clothes.’ He lumbers away and I’m not sure if I can hold back the shock that’s trying to take a hold of me. Johnson was in the cubicle
with
Billie? Were they . . .? Even after what he said to me in GG’s hotel room?

The Moth whirrs out of the gent’s outfitters with Carrie behind him. He’s wearing a cravat around his neck. ‘What d’you think, Rev?’

‘Yeah. Great.’ My words are hollow, numb.

GG comes flouncing. ‘Where’s that gorilla gone? One minute I’m trying to squeeze him into a long dark overcoat, the next he’s disappeared on me. C’mon, Moth,
I’ve seen just the thing for you.’ The two head off towards more shops leaving me alone with Carrie.