Another corridor lined with eyes. Circling.
Pip kept her head down as she stumbled through, towards her locker. It was the end of the day, enough time for that article to have spread around the entire school, clearly.
But she couldn’t get to her locker. A group of year elevens were standing in front of it, talking in a tight circle of bumping backpacks. Pip drew to a stop and stared at them, until one of the girls noticed her there, eyes widening as she elbowed her friends, shushing them. The group immediately disbanded, scattering away from her, leaving their whispers and giggles behind.
Pip opened her locker, placing her politics textbook inside. As she withdrew her hand, she noticed the small, folded piece of paper that must have been pushed through the gap above the door.
She reached for it, opened it.
In large, black printed letters it read: This is your final warning, Pippa.
Walk away.
The scream inside her flashed again, climbing up her neck. How imaginative; the exact same note Elliot Ward had left in her locker last October.
Pip’s hand tightened into a fist around the note, screwing it up. She dropped the ball of paper to the floor and slammed her locker shut.
Cara and Connor were standing just behind it, waiting for her. ‘Everything OK?’ Cara asked, her face soft with concern. ‘I’m fine,’ Pip said, turning to walk with them down the hall.
‘Have you seen?’ Connor said. ‘People online are actually believing it, saying they thought it was all a bit too elaborate. That it felt scripted.’
‘I told you,’ Pip said. Her voice came out dark, remoulded by her anger. ‘Never read the comments.’
‘But –’
‘Hey,’ Ant’s voice called as they turned the corner past the Chemistry block. He, Lauren and Zach were just behind them, coming from the other direction.
They waited for the others to catch up and slot in between, Ant’s steps falling in line with Pip’s.
‘Whole school’s talking about you,’ he said, and Pip could see him watching her out of the corner of her eye.
‘Well the whole school is full of idiots,’ Cara said, hurrying to walk on Pip’s other side.
‘Maybe.’ Ant shrugged, with a glance back to Lauren. ‘But we were just thinking that, I don’t know, it does seem kind of convenient.’
‘What seems convenient?’ Pip said, and there was a growl in her voice.
Maybe no one else could hear it, but she did.
‘Well, the whole Jamie thing,’ Lauren spoke up now.
‘Oh really?’ Pip shot her a warning look, trying to hurt her with her eyes. ‘Connor, has it felt convenient to you that your brother is missing?’
Connor’s mouth opened, but he was unsure how to answer, and all that came out was a croak between yes and no.
‘You know what I mean, though,’ Ant carried on. ‘Like, the whole catfish thing, so you don’t actually have to name a culprit because it’s someone who doesn’t really exist. Everything happening the night of the memorial for Andie and Sal. The missing knife, and you just happening to find it by that creepy farmhouse. It is all a bit . . . convenient, isn’t it?’
‘Shut up, Ant,’ Zach said quietly, falling back to keep his distance like he could sense something was coming.
‘What the fuck?’ Cara stared incredulously at Ant. ‘Say the word “convenient” one more time and I will end you.’
‘Whoa.’ Ant chuckled, holding up his hands. ‘I’m just saying.’
But Pip couldn’t hear what he was just saying, because her ears were ringing, a hiss like static, broken up by her own voice asking her: Did you plant the knife? Could you have planted the knife? Is Jamie missing? Is Layla Mead real? Is any of this even real?
And she didn’t know how she was still walking because she couldn’t feel her feet. She could feel only one thing. The scream had wound itself around her throat now, pulling tighter and tighter as it chased its own end.
‘I won’t be mad,’ Ant was saying. ‘To be honest, if this is all made up, I think it’s a genius idea. Except, you know, that you got caught. And that you didn’t tell me and Lauren.’
Cara snapped. ‘So, you’re essentially calling both Connor and Pip liars?
Grow up, Ant, and stop being such a dick all your life.’
‘Hey,’ Lauren chimed in now. ‘You’re the one being a dick.’ ‘Oh really?’
‘Guys . . .’ Connor said, but the word was lost as soon as he uttered it. ‘So where is Jamie?’ Ant said. ‘Holed up in some Premier Inn
somewhere?’
And Pip knew that he was just prodding her, but she couldn’t control it, she couldn’t –
The double doors swung inwards at the end of the corridor, and the headteacher, Mrs Morgan stepped through. Her eyes narrowed, and then lit up.
‘Ah, Pip!’ she shouted down the hall. ‘I need to speak to you, urgently, before you go home!’
‘Busted,’ Ant whispered, making Lauren snort. ‘Go on, it’s over now.
Might as well tell us the truth.’
But everything had turned to fire behind Pip’s eyes. Her feet twisted.
Her arms swung out.
Hands against Ant’s chest, she shoved him, pushing him with all her strength across the width of the hall.
He crashed into a bank of lockers. ‘What the –’
Pip’s elbow drew up, her forearm against Ant’s neck, holding him in place. She stared him in the eyes, though hers had burned to ash, and she finally let it out.
She screamed into his face. It ripped at her throat and tore at her eyes, feeding itself from that never-ending pit in her stomach.
Pip screamed and they were all that existed. Just her and the scream.
