The tannoy screeches again, and then stops.
‘What’s this bullshit?’ Lucy stomps towards Amelia and James. She rubs at her eyes, shakes her head. ‘Why only one of us? They can’t expect us to carry on as normal after this, surely? I mean, I hope Giles is OK, obviously . . . and it’s right that Tiggy goes with him. But Scott needs help too. And Brenda. How much further do we have to walk anyway?’
‘It’s not much further,’ James says. ‘We can make it.’
‘How the hell do you know?’ Lucy points at his chest. ‘How could you possibly know how much further it is?’
‘Guys, please,’ Amelia says. ‘We need to stick together right now.’
Lucy looks like she wants to say more, but instead she sighs and her shoulders sag, deflated. ‘Sorry,’ she mutters. ‘This is just kind of messed up, you know?’
Tiggy stands up and starts to walk slowly down the hill, her leg movements jagged and irregular – maybe from crouching, or from the shock. Whatever the cause, she’s lurching like a zombie.
‘Wait. Let me help you.’ Amelia jogs after her, takes her arm. ‘Are you sure you want to go? Maybe you should stay with us.’ Something about this feels wrong. Isolating Tiggy from the rest of the group.
Everyone else is in shock, and Lucy’s suggestion that they’ve been given something through the trackers to keep them calm seems to make sense. Amelia is the only one with a clear head now, and she has to remember that to help them all get through this.
They’re almost at the bottom of the hill, and Harvey is walking up towards them. ‘I’m very sorry about your friend,’ he says to Tiggy. ‘We must get him to the medical centre straight away.’
‘Is . . . he . . . alive?’ Her words are slow and drawn out.
Harvey takes her by the arm and leads her towards the boat. ‘Barely,’ he says. ‘Come on. Time is of the essence.’
‘Wait,’ Amelia says, suddenly realising that Lucy’s outburst earlier was completely justified. ‘You can’t just leave us all here.’
Harvey looks back and shakes his head. ‘I’m sorry. Just following orders. You’ll be at the house soon, and all will be fine, OK? Just keep heading up the cliff path, then keep to the left. You’re close. You’re all doing great. I know this has been a bit of a shock, but trust me – it’s better if you carry on and let us deal with this. I’m sure Giles wouldn’t want you to miss out due to his misfortune.’
‘Tiggy?’
The girl ignores her as she lets Harvey help her onto the boat, and all Amelia can do is stand and watch helplessly.
She bites her lip as the boat reverses, then turns and pulls away. Tiggy is sitting at the back, a blanket wrapped around her, facing out to sea. But just as the boat turns, Tiggy swivels round to face her – and Amelia sees her blank expression sliding away. There’s something else there, just under the surface. Fear, maybe – or could it be guilt?
After all, Tiggy has already shown herself to be an adept chameleon . . . and she was the last one to see Giles alive.
Lucy
Lucy is sitting pressed tight against a smooth rock, arms wrapped around her knees, unconsciously mirroring Tiggy’s habitual protective stance. ‘I hate this place,’ she says, kicking a stone and watching it fly over the edge and bounce down towards the inlet. ‘I wish I’d never come.’ And she really means it. It had been fun for about five minutes, but now it’s just weird and wrong, and she can’t actually believe she signed up for it. She stands, kicks another stone, then slips on the loose gravel path. James grabs her and pulls her back from the edge.
‘You need to calm down. There’s no point in us all getting freaked out here. The boat is gone. They’re not coming back for us. We need to work out what to do.’
‘We could try getting someone else to come and goddamn help us.’ Scott yanks a small branch off one of the overhanging trees and snaps it into pieces. He throws the pieces into a bush, then roots around in the leg pocket of his shorts and pulls out his phone. ‘Right, so I can’t make any proper calls, but I can sure as hell send someone a message. WhatsApp works on Wi-Fi, right? Messaging at least, if not audio?’ He starts tapping away at the screen, angry stabs of his finger peppered with an array of curses muttered under his breath.
‘Maybe we should just keep going,’ Brenda says quietly. She’s sitting on a rock, absentmindedly rubbing her leg. She looks pale and her face is a little clammy – but then they have just scrambled up a steep incline over awkward, misshapen rocks, and the sun, although low in the sky, is still pumping out heat.
Amelia has made it back up from the bay, rosy-cheeked but otherwise unscathed. ‘I think Brenda’s right,’ she says. ‘There’s no point in us sitting around here, is there? Harvey told me we’re nearly there.’ She taps her watch. ‘Can we have some directions, please?’
‘Oh, please,’ Lucy says. ‘This is ridiculous. We can’t just keep going. I don’t understand what the hell is going on here.’
The beep that always comes before a hologram cuts her off.
‘Oh, great,’ Scott says, snapping another branch. ‘Which one of us is getting humiliated next? Maybe I should just jump off this cliff and be done with it.’
Lucy feels a wave of nausea. She’d forgotten about the memory projections. None of them are immune from the reveals, are they? She tries to make light of what Scott has said. ‘Got something juicy to share, have you?’
‘I doubt it’s as juicy as yours, lady. The more I look at you, the more I see some sort of heartless deviant just itching to burst out.’
Lucy is trying her best to laugh as the holographic letters appear in front of her. Her own secret, the one she desperately hopes is never revealed, is momentarily pushed out of her mind. She turns away, looking at the sky to get the clearest view.
THINGS HAVE NOT GONE TO PLAN, BUT PLEASE DO NOT PANIC. YOUR FRIENDS ARE SAFE, AND YOU WILL BE TOO. IT’S NOT MUCH FURTHER, AND WE HAVE SOME SURPRISES IN STORE THAT WILL MAKE ALL OF THIS WORTH IT.
PLEASE SEPARATE INTO GROUPS AS DETAILED BELOW, AND THEN FOLLOW THE MAP ALLOCATED TO YOU. YOU CAN ACCESS IT AGAIN ANYTIME – YOU JUST NEED TO ASK. REMEMBER, THIS IS A TAILORED EXPERIENCE – DON’T BE AFRAID TO ASK FOR WHATEVER YOU WANT . . . OR NEED. WE WANT YOU TO BE HAPPY.
AGAIN, DO NOT WORRY ABOUT YOUR FRIENDS. THEY ARE SAFE.
TRUST US.
. . .
. . .
THE GROUPS ARE AS FOLLOWS:
. . .
. . .
SCOTT AND BRENDA
. . .
. . .
LUCY AND AMELIA
. . .
. . .
JAMES – PLEASE SPEND SOME TIME ON YOUR OWN.
. . .
. . .
THE MAPS ARE AS FOLLOWS . . .
A series of maps appears on the screen, each one showing the sandy bay and the stony inlet where they are now, and on the other side of the island, somewhere that seems still so far away, something labelled as ‘the big house’. Although it doesn’t look particularly big, but perhaps the map isn’t really to scale.
Lucy blinks as the holographic image fades. ‘Interesting selection of groups.’
James has been isolated, which is a bit worrying as there’s something about him that seems too good to be true, and Lucy’s spidey-senses have been tingling for some time now. They’ve put her with Amelia, the person she’s spent the least time talking to so far, probably to see what happens when there’s no one else there to distract them. She looks across at Amelia, with her khaki shorts and her neat, shiny hair. She reminds her of one of those hardcore Girl Guides – the ones who knew how to read maps and could find their way back to the tent when orienteering.