But seeing him like this, battered and bruised, cuts all over his face, shirt torn and tears rolling down his blackened eyes… Bethany felt total pity for Olly.

  He’d been scared. He’d done the only thing he thought he could do, and he’d run.

  She couldn’t begrudge him that.

  She understood it.

  He’d panicked. And he’d done something silly. But he’d done it because he was afraid.

  Hadn’t everyone done something stupid when they were afraid at some point in their lives?

  “This is her, isn’t it?” the man right behind Olly said.

  Olly shook his head, his eyes firmly on Susan. “Please.”

  “No, this is definitely her,” the man said.

  And it was only then that Bethany realised exactly what was happening and what the man was looking at.

  He was holding Olly’s phone.

  She remembered the photo on the main screen.

  Olly and Susan.

  The happy couple.

  “So if this is your pretty little piece… then that nice little place you were telling us about? The one that’s all stocked up? Damn. We’ve already seen to that, haven’t we, lads?”

  Bethany couldn’t watch as whatever happened unfolded. She couldn’t leave Susan on the road to defend herself. She had to step in. She was in tears. Crying. Hands over her mouth. Screaming. Whimpering. This was bad. Really bad.

  “So this leaves us in an awkward situation,” Jacob said. His other friend stayed silent. Letting him do the talking. “If the place Olly-boy here sold out is already knackered… then you don’t have a leg to stand on with us anymore, do you? Unless you do. Unless you’ve got another nice little place out here you know about. I mean, you’d better have something. Or you’re in big trouble.”

  Susan shook her head. She was trying to speak, but she looked too paralysed by fear to do a thing.

  “So what do you propose?” Jacob said. “What else do you have for us, hmm?”

  “I—I—” Susan stuttered.

  “Spit it out, love. Where are they? Spit it out that pretty mouth.”

  “We don’t have anything else.”

  The men turned around. Looked at Bethany.

  Bethany wasn’t sure where her words came from. She wasn’t sure where she’d gathered the courage to speak.

  But somehow, she found that courage.

  She emerged from the woods. Dan followed her. Her heart raced. Her body tensed up.

  But she was confronting these men.

  They weren’t going to hurt them.

  The main guy smiled. “Well, hello again my love. Another one of the old gang, I see. How’s the cottage? Nice and toasty?”

  “You heard what I said,” Bethany said, standing her ground, not biting anymore. “Our cottage is gone, and you know it already. Our supplies are gone. There’s nothing for you and nothing for either of us. So let Olly go, and we’ll both go our separate ways. There’s… there’s nothing for either of us to gain here.”

  A pause. An intense stare between Bethany and this man.

  And then a laugh.

  “What a shame, hmm? Maybe I jumped the gun a bit, blowing that hole in the side of it. But it looked fucking cool, didn’t it?.”

  Another pause. It didn’t seem like these men were letting Olly go, and it didn’t seem like they intended to move on any time soon, either.

  “What do you want?” Bethany asked.

  “Why don’t you come up here, both of you, and we can talk a little more intimately without shouting at each other?”

  Bethany looked at Dan. Dan shook his head.

  But Bethany knew she was going to have to take the bull by the horns and tackle this situation head on.

  There was no time for cowering anymore.

  She walked up the grass verge, onto the road. Before she knew it, she was by Susan’s side. Olly was on his knees just feet away. Bethany looked at him, looked at the guilt in his bruised eyes, then back up at his captor.

  “Hello. What’s your name?”

  “My name doesn’t matter.”

  “Oh. I think it does. I’m Jacob, anyway. These are my friends. And we’ve got a proposal for you.”

  The mention of a proposal made Bethany’s stomach turn.

  “Those supplies our friend here had in that car. The Faraday cages, shit like that. There was some pretty exquisite stuff. Someone with real knowledge must’ve been riding with you. And something tells me young Olly here isn’t the man. So who is?”

  All of them were silent.

  Jacob stepped over to Olly and put a scissors to his neck.

  “In case you haven’t noticed, we aren’t fucking around. I happen to be one of the few people you really, really didn’t want to bump into today. Because, unfortunately for you, I also understand what’s happening. How serious it is. And just like you… I understand that if something bad were to happen to somebody, and the power did miraculously come back on, that would be okay. There would be no comeback. I think even you know it, deep down. The CME hasn’t even wiped all power out yet. But it’s about to. And when it does, people are only going to grow more desperate. And more violent. And I don’t want to be left behind when that does happen. I want to make sure I’m set up. Me and my people. And I will do what I need to do to make sure that’s the case. I’ve done it before. And I’ll do it again. So, I’ll ask again. You kids are smart. But you are out of your depth. Tell me who your leader is, so I can speak about what happens next with them. Or something very, very bad will happen to your friend here.”

  Susan sobbed. Snot and saliva trickled down her face. Olly looked back at her. Crying, too.

  And Dan stood there.

  Quietly.

  Staring.

  Staring wide-eyed at Olly and clearly realising that he too was out of his depth.

  They all were.

  “It’s me,” Dan said.

  Jacob smiled. “See. Look what happens when we have a bit of cooperation. We get somewhere.”

  He stepped away from Olly.

  “So if you’re the man with the plan, that makes me realise something. You know what it makes me realise?”

  Nobody responded. The tension stretched on.

  Jacob smiled. “It makes me realise we don’t have much use for Olly here after all.”

  He nodded.

  His friends came walking towards Dan.

  All of them but this Will lad, anyway.

  “And we need to send you a message. So you know we’re serious. And so you don’t try anything. At all.”

  And then something horrific happened.

  Bethany didn’t understand what she was looking at. She couldn’t interpret what she was seeing. It didn’t seem real. Like something out of a movie. Or out of a nightmare.

  Jacob walked over to Olly.

  He pulled back the scissors.

  Then he stabbed Olly in the neck.

  Bethany knew she screamed. She heard Susan scream, too. She saw Dan throw himself towards Olly as he bled out, but that only got him caught by the people opposite.

  But Bethany couldn’t move a muscle.

  All she could do was watch as shock and pain filled Olly’s eyes.

  All she could do was watch as Dan got dragged away fighting.

  All she could do was watch as the rain started to fall, and Olly’s body collapsed onto the road.

  Eyes still fixed on Susan.

  Blood ran into the cracked pavement.

  Everything was silent.

  FIFTY

  LILY

  DAY TWO: 5:30 P.M

  No matter how hard she tried… Lily couldn’t breathe.

  Every muscle in her body had tightened up. Her airways felt narrow, constricting all the air coming in and trying to escape. Her heart was beating so fast that she could feel her pulse all over her body. She knew that eventually, if it raced hard enough, she’d pass out. It wouldn’t be the first time that’d happened.

  But she’d felt so in control these last couple of days. In spite of the horror of the circumstances, she’d felt for the first time in a long time that it was her dictating her own life and not her life dictating her.

  She wanted that feeling to last. She didn’t ever want it to go away.

  But there was always going to be something that dragged it away.

  That something was the fact that her son, Alex, wasn’t here at the campsite he was supposed to be.

  Anxiety had been cruel to her over the years. It was vicious. And the more she had suffered with it, the more she began to realise that it didn’t only not care about her at all, it specifically honed in on her weaknesses. Starting to enjoy sewing? Her hands would shake like mad. Starting to enjoy nipping around the corner for a coffee? How about a big batch of coffee-induced nausea to trigger her anxiety even more? It was relentless. And it was terrifying. The power one’s own mind could have over… well, itself. It seemed so vicious. So counter-productive. Why would one’s own thoughts want to work against you so dearly?

  But for some reason, they did.

  For some reason, the last couple of days had really gone a long way to relaxing her, to a degree. To forcing her out of her comfort zone. Making her realise that, even in the worst of situations, she could be comfortable. Or even when she wasn’t comfortable… she could still survive.

  She’d been through so much. She’d witnessed so much. She’d done so much. And for some reason, she hadn’t frozen up. The fear, the terror, over everything she’d done, it hadn’t got the better of her.

  But she was starting to realise now that that must just have been delayed shock. She’d buried it. Everything she’d seen. Terrance, dying in front of her. And that Eric lad. Being forced to beat him to within an inch of his life. Maybe killing him. Most likely killing him.

  She’d managed to keep it down. Keep it suppressed.

  But now, it was as if it was rising up to the surface.

  And it was all for one reason.

  Alex.

  Her son.

  She’d fought her way here. She’d battled all the odds to make it this far, to this campsite. The one Alex’s school trip was supposed to be at. She’d been on a journey that had pushed her to her absolute limits. And the CME hadn’t even done its worst damage, yet.

  She’d battled this far. Fought this far. She’d told herself that things were going to work out. That things were going to be okay. That she was going to find Alex, and everything was going to be okay.

  But that was just hope.

  Naive hope.

  She tightened her arms around her legs as she sat against the side of the cabin. Images of slamming Eric over the head and knocking him to the ground spiralled around her mind. She watched the boats bob along on top of the water. She smiled when she pictured Alex on one of those boats, having the time of his life. She knew how excited he was for this trip. She just hoped he’d been able to enjoy it before chaos began to unfold.

  She took a sharp breath in. She should’ve known there was a good chance Alex wasn’t going to be here. After all, Mr Rawlinson was bound to try and get the kids away from here if he got any news that something back home wasn’t right.

  And the thought that all this time, she and her son had headed in different directions… well, that was a sickener. It tore her apart.

  She felt movement to her left. When she could bear to turn her neck just slightly, she saw Beast there. He was panting, looking up at her with big, sad eyes. He knew something was wrong. He knew things hadn’t gone to plan. He was inquisitive like that.

  She wanted to stroke him. To comfort him, and by doing so find comfort from him too.

  But nothing could comfort her right now.

  She felt broken.

  And she didn’t know if she had the strength to pick herself up.

  Not this time.

  She closed her eyes and saw Sam in her mind. She wished he was here to tell her to get up. To tell her to keep fighting. Because that’s what he’d do—when she felt lost, like she did now, he’d make her believe in herself.

  You’ve come so far already. Go a little further. Just a little further…

  But his voice wasn’t strong, not like it used to be.

  It was weak. Fading.

  Losing all its powers.

  So in the end, as Lily sat there and waited for the others to find her—if they were even still looking for her at all—she just stared at the boats bobbing along the water, and let the anxiety take hold.

  She’d lost her son.

  Her Alex was gone.

  And he was not coming back.

  FIFTY-ONE

  BETHANY

  DAY TWO: 4:30 P.M

  Bethany looked down at Olly’s body and tried to understand exactly what she’d just witnessed.

  She couldn’t wrap her head around it. She couldn’t comprehend it. The violence of what she’d just seen. She knew people were desperate. She had accepted that there were going to be fights and scraps over supplies and such. That went without saying at this point.

  But she never expected to see such a ruthless act of violence, right in front of her. And for what? For no reason. It was as if life had just been devalued. Immediately devalued. Like it didn’t mean anything to some people anymore.

  And that was dangerous.

  That was so, so dangerous.

  Because of what it meant, going forward.

  Those thugs. They’d appeared. They’d demanded. And when they couldn’t get what they wanted… they’d killed. And then they’d taken off. Like it was nothing. Like Olly’s life was nothing at all. Their Plan A hadn’t worked. So they’d fucked the whole thing up anyway. Just because.

  And then…

  And then they’d taken Dan.

  In that blur—in that haze, where her and Susan were seeing to Olly—they had taken Dan.

  Dragged him to her car and taken him away.

  And for what reason?

  Because they’d got a taste for it?

  Why?

  The clouds had formed over the country road. The breeze was cool, brushing the occasional stray piece of fallen litter across the landscape. Everything was so still. Everything was so silent.

  The only thing Bethany was really aware of was the sound of Susan’s sobs spiralling around her mind, creeping up her flesh, haunting every inch of her being.

  She stared down at Olly. She couldn’t stop staring. She’d held his hand and it’d gripped tightly onto hers. She’d seen the fear in his eyes. But more than anything, she’d seen the look of guilt. The last thing he’d said to her stuck in her mind.

  “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  She’d cried when he’d said that. Susan was so caught up in her own impending grief that she’d been unable to be beside Olly when he died. She’d just frozen. She’d just stood there, wide-eyed, frozen. And then she’d dropped to her knees and let out this horrified gasp. Started hyperventilating. The panic had set in, then. The need. The need to ring an ambulance. The need to get some sort of help for Olly. To get someone here. To help him.

  They’d tried to stop the blood.

  They’d tried everything.

  But in the end, it wasn’t enough.

  In the end, quietly, peacefully, he had spluttered.

  And then, in the end, quietly, peacefully, he had died.

  His hand had gone still in Bethany’s.

  Still, and cold.

  He had stopped breathing right there on the country road.

  She didn’t know what to think. She could barely even comprehend it. Shock. That’s what she felt more than anything. Cold, hard shock.

  This friend.

  He’d fled because he’d been scared.

  He’d got caught up by some awful group.

  And that band of savages had killed him.

  She looked over her shoulder. Susan was curled up in a ball. She wanted to go over there, comfort her. But she just kept on turning back to Olly’s cold body. To his wide, gaping eyes. To the blood drooling from the corner of his lips.

  Her friend.

  Something more?

  She wasn’t sure. She’d never know if what Susan said about Olly was true, not anymore. That he’d had a crush on Bethany all along, and that he was just trying to get closer to her. She had felt something between them, at one point. That conversation they’d had in particular. She had felt close to him.

  But even so. Even if she had experienced that, or if it was just in her imagination, Olly was a good man. She felt nothing but love for him. And nothing but sadness.

  Sadness, and emptiness, and shock.

  Total shock.

  This couldn’t be real.

  This couldn’t be happening.

  She needed to go home.

  She needed Mum and Dad.

  She wasn’t strong enough.

  She wasn’t responsible enough.

  Not on her own.

  She reached for his hand again, gripped it in hers. She hoped that if she held for long enough, it would warm his palm enough to bring him back to life somehow.

  She kept on holding, kept on hoping.

  But he wasn’t coming back.

  She had to accept that.

  She did something then that she knew wasn’t a good move. It couldn’t possibly be any kind of productive move on her part.

  But she picked up her phone from her pocket and she hovered over her parents’ names.

  She was out of signal. She was far, far from hope.

  But it was all she had right now.

  The adrenaline boost she’d felt before was gone.

  She was back to her old, over-reliant self again.

  She tried to call them. Pressed her phone to her ear. Hoped that somehow, just perhaps there would be a miracle and they’d answer. That the signal would be restored, that the power would be returned.

  But nobody answered.

  She closed her tearful eyes and gripped her phone in one hand.

  Then, she gripped Olly’s hand in the other.