I can’t help wondering why he’s singling me out. I guess it’s because I look so like Rose, or perhaps it’s the canon, dragging me along again. I follow him from the room, casting a quick glance over my shoulder to Nate, whose mouth remains fixed but whose eyes blink firmly, reassuring me, lending me strength.
Thorn leads me down a dark staircase. The Imp with the rifle follows me, so close I can hear the rattle of phlegm in his chest. We step into the main body of the church. Just like I remembered, hundreds of night lights bathe the stone in a warm glow – a glow which never reaches the ceiling, giving the appearance that the roof is missing and we stand beneath a dark, empty sky. Most of the rebels have returned to their nearby shelters to rest. I suddenly feel very small, except for my heart, which feels all swollen and ready to split my chest in two.
Thorn stares at a boarded-up window, and I imagine how it once looked, filled with stained glass, a kaleido-scope of colour. But the Gem bombs put an end to that. A plaque rests beneath the window, roughly engraved with the words: Apes became Imps, Imps became rebels – the pinnacle of human revolution. I recall this from the book, a play on the old Gem motto: Apes became Imps, Imps became Gems – the pinnacle of human evolution.
‘You like our motto?’ Thorn asks. He asked Rose this exact same question. The threads are twisting together again.
‘It’s very clever,’ I reply, just like Rose did. It makes me feel safer, knowing the lines.
‘And what about our cause? Imp emancipation, equal rights,’ he says, again, straight from canon.
‘Your cause is the same as mine.’ I know it’s optimistic, but I can’t help hoping that if I just keep saying what Rose said everything will be OK. He’ll invite me to meet Baba, and I’ll say yes – just like Rose – and then I can ask Baba how we get home.
Thorn continues to stare at the boarded-up window. Slowly, he pulls my smartphone from his blazer pocket. ‘What’s this?’
Shit. Those threads have just diverged, big style.
‘My phone,’ I answer numbly.
‘Saskia thought it was Gem technology. But it isn’t, is it?’
‘No.’
‘It’s old technology. Very old. And I’m guessing it’s Imp.’
I nod.
‘Care to enlighten me how you and your little friends have ancient Imp technology in your possession?’
I swallow. ‘You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.’
‘Try me.’
‘We’re ancient Imps.’ It must sound so ridiculous, but I can’t think of anything else to say.
He scowls and taps the phone against his chin. ‘A comedian, hey?’ He slips it into his blazer pocket. ‘So why kill Rose?’
This sudden change in conversation throws me, and I have to replay the words in my head several times before I can extract their meaning. My hands start shaking, my nails bite against my palms. ‘We didn’t kill Rose,’ I reply.
‘Not directly, I agree. But your presence got her killed. Saskia told me. Your pretty red-haired friend alerted the guards.’
‘I know. I’m sorry . . . We never meant for it to happen.’
‘So what were you doing at the Coliseum?’
I stare, transfixed by that single eye. In canon it was grey, like a piece of broken slate, like the city itself festered inside him. But current-Thorn’s eye is lavender blue . . . and full of hate.
‘Well?’ he asks.
I try to formulate some clever response, something that will keep us alive if not get him onside. But it’s like the rags sucked all the words from my mouth. ‘I don’t know.’
He moves towards me. A candelabrum sends an angular shadow scudding across his face, making him all the more terrifying. He holds my face with his gloved hands, the leather cool against my skin. ‘Saskia swears you could be Rose’s sister. Are you?’
‘No,’ I whisper.
His voice hardens. ‘Were you sent by the Gems to replace her and infiltrate the rebels?’
‘God no. I was at Comic-Con.’
His hand drops from my face and it’s like he’s pulled the rags out all over again because the words start tumbling out of me. ‘I’m from the past, well not the past, from a different reality, which is your past. That’s how we’ve got the phones – the Imp technology. You see, in my world, Rose is a character from a book, which they made into a film. She’s this really cool heroine – she’s brave and strong and beautiful and everything I’m not. That’s why I’m dressed like her, so I could pretend to be her, just for one day.’
He chuckles. ‘You don’t think you’re beautiful?’
I shake my head, and my eyes drop to his boots.
My vulnerability must rile him – he grabs me by the shoulders and pulls me forward. The sudden movement extinguishes several night lights; their thin lines of smoke escape towards the ceiling. I find myself envying that smoke.
‘Stop playing games,’ he shouts. ‘Tell me the truth or I’ll bring your little friends downstairs and slit their throats, one by one, as you watch.’
‘No!’ I feel a stabbing pain in my head. A layer of sweat coats my skin and the rat meat churns in my stomach like it still has claws and teeth and attitude. I must look a little peaky because Thorn slips his hands beneath my elbows, taking my weight.
‘Darren,’ he shouts over his shoulder. ‘Go and fetch the boy.’
He sounds like he’s far, far away, and I suddenly feel strangely detached, like I really am about to watch a scene from a film.
‘No, not Nate,’ I manage to say.
But Thorn doesn’t even look at me. ‘You heard me, Darren. Bring me the boy.’
Darren darts back up the stairs. I watch him go and this shapeless, horrible emotion rises up my throat. ‘No, no please. I’ll do anything.’
Thorn clasps my hands into his chest as if forcing me to pray. ‘Tell me the truth.’
The emotion takes form: fear. ‘I am telling you the truth, I swear it. I don’t know what else to tell you. In my world, you’re a character from a book set in the future, a dystopian one, you’re this . . . this flawed hero.’
He throws his head back and laughs, revealing the ridges of his palate. ‘A flawed hero?’
I know I’m babbling, but the adrenalin seems to have dulled my brain and roused my vocal chords. ‘Yes, a flawed hero. You’re brave and strong, but you’re also mean and blinded by revenge.’
I hear Nate before I see him; a muffled cry followed by a series of thumps as Darren hauls him down the stairs. Nate looks so young, so helpless, his eyes revolving in their sockets like a hunted animal’s. Darren shoves him to the ground. Nate trips on his own feet, and with his hands still bound behind his back he’s unable to break his fall. I rush to catch him, but Darren pulls me back, digging the nose of the rifle between my shoulder blades.
‘It’s OK, Nate, I can fix this, I promise.’ I feel my tears, cold against my skin.
Thorn moves behind Nate, swamping his torso with a heavily muscled forearm. With his spare hand, Thorn pulls a switchblade from his belt and presses it against the smooth stretch of Nate’s throat.
‘Please, don’t!’ A high-pitched wail I barely recognize as my own.
‘The truth,’ Thorn says.