The floor was cruel and cold beneath my cheek.
I opened my eyes to a shifting blackness, a void that moved and breathed around me, soon giving way to shape and form as my eyes adjusted to the gloom.
Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore, Ghost Tom whispered in my ear.
He always used to say that. It had become one of those in-jokes that repeated on a loop throughout our whole relationship. Jokes, phrases, words, so many things to tie us together, things that only we would say. A thread of familiarity that excluded everyone else and that only belonged to us. His and mine. Ours.
What was ours now? What belonged to us? What belonged to me?
Whereas once I had certainty, now I only had confusion. Now I only had betrayal and broken memories.
I remembered them – Tom and Lena. The Great Hall. Everyone looking up. The sound of the Grey army getting closer and closer. And the orbs, so consuming in their brightness, so... alien. What the Hell were those things?
You know.
But I didn't. I didn't. How could I?
I pushed myself to sit up, rubbing my fingertips together and feeling an oily sheen on my skin. Tentatively, I reached down and touched the floor again, recoiling as I felt the slickness on the surface, and I wiped my hands on my shirt to try and remove whatever residue was there. It didn't work. My hands still felt oily, like I could wash and wash and it would never come off.
Wherever I was, the floor, walls and ceiling were all the same, made from some strange rock-like material that wasn't smooth like metal. Instead, the surface was bumpy and slick, like an underground cave, and dark – so dark – until I saw the blackness shift again close to my feet, which I withdrew quickly, pulling them in tight to my body. Nothing crept out of the darkness to grab me, instead, whatever it was swirled and snaked onto the wall behind me, climbing under the surface until it reached the ceiling. I spied another and this time, leant forward as much as I could bear, straining my eyes to try and identify it.
It was a light. Dull and muted, but a light nevertheless, moving under the surface, swirling and shifting, turning what was black to a dark indigo. The darkness wasn't moving at all, not that it reassured me about my situation, but I was at least glad to know I wasn't imprisoned here with something moving in the shadows. It was just me.
Me. Evie. Evie.
I climbed to my feet and stood there for a moment, feeling shaky and unsteady. I wanted to block everything out. All of it. The stench of blood. The softness of a shattered skull. The face of a man I could barely remember. The dead eyes of a woman I'd fought to forget. A woman standing by a canal, emptying a small box of belongings into the dark water. Tom's heels hammering against the ground. His muted cries. Tom. Tom. Always Tom.
Feeling faint, I leant against the wall and tried to just breathe.
'Not quite the happy ending you had hoped for, Evelyn?'
I spun around, eyes wide, heart pounding.
Lena.
There had been no door, none which I had seen anyway and yet here she was. Had she been hiding in the darkness the whole time, watching me? The irony of that hit me then – how she had been in plain sight all this time and yet I hadn't seen her. Or maybe I had seen her, but I'd been blinded by him. By Tom. My husband.
Only he's not your husband, is he? And you're not his wife. You never were.
I clenched my fists, digging my nails into my palms. I couldn't let her see me unravelling.
'I take it you've come to gloat?' I said.
She stepped forward and the light seemed to swirl stronger, giving the room some dim light. Her arm was bandaged where I'd caught her with my shot.
'Hmm,' she said, wrinkling her nose and brushing her long, blonde fringe back from her forehead. 'Gloating is such a human trait. So shallow and pointless. And yet, I can't deny feeling somewhat triumferende, yes? Especially when you were so close and yet lacked the courage of your convictions. This could have been over, if only you had been brave enough to do something about your suspicions. Instead, you did nothing.'
'Suspicion led my world into a civil war. Suspicion killed us before your kind did.'
Lena gave a small, smug smile. 'My kind. Your world. Except it is not your world, is it, Evelyn? And I think you cannot look upon my kind, as you call it, with such disdain. Your father was my kind. You, however, are neither one thing nor the other. Do you think your world would look upon you favourably? Or do you think you would be considered with as much hatred and distrust as they view us?'
Fuck, I was unravelling.
I couldn't stop it. The thread was coming undone, twisting around me, winding around my throat. I turned, pressing my hands against the wall.
'What's the matter?' Lena said. 'Is your hypocrisy choking you?'
'Shut up,' I croaked. God, it was weak. Pathetic. But it was all I had.
Lena moved to stand beside me, leaning her back against the wall and casually inspecting her fingernails one by one. 'I can only imagine how utterly devastating and embarrassing this must be for you. It's tragic, really it is. Imagine spending the past two years despising us to your very core. Fighting us. Killing us. Doing everything in your limited power to destroy us. Only to discover that you are like us in so many ways.'
'I am not like you,' I hissed.
'No?' she said, with a shrug. 'Are you sure about that? Remind me again, how many humans did you kill to reinvent yourself? How many times did you extinguish a life to save your own? How many times, Evelyn? Did they beg you not to kill them as you stole everything from them?' She turned to look at me. 'Do you despise yourself as much as you despise us? You should.'
'Stop it! Shut up!' I shouted, grabbing at her throat and pushing her against the wall. Lena curled a hand around my wrist but didn't fight me off. Instead, she smiled and with that one smile, the fight left me, and I let go instantly, throwing myself into the corner of the room, rubbing my hands down my shirt again as if touching Lena had left a residue just like touching the rock-like floor had.
Or maybe it was me. Maybe my skin felt oily and slick because I was not who I'd thought I was. Maybe Lena was right. Maybe I was like the Greys.
No. I wouldn't believe that. I couldn't believe that.
And yet, I had all these broken memories to contend with. Images of faces I shouldn't have remembered. Places I was sure I'd never been. Feet hammering against the ground, but they weren't Tom's. They belonged to others... to Evie.
Except, I was Evie.
Wasn't I?
'I'm not like you,' I whispered.
Lena's gaze swept over me with revulsion. 'No. You're not like me. You're an abomination. An anomaly. But that's okay. Anomalies can be dealt with.'
'Is that what you're here to do?' I said. 'Deal with me?'
She laughed. 'Oh no, as much as I confess to wanting the honour, it is not mine to take. The Hive will deal with you. I have simply come to escort you.'
'To where? Where are we? What is this place?'
'We are on the ship, of course. The one that sits above what's left of London.'
It made sense. Of course, it did. Whatever this room was made out of, it was similar to what I'd seen of the strange, monstrous craft hovering above the city. Panic lodged in my throat.
'How did we get here?' I said. 'I... I don't remember...' My head hurt, a deep, reverberating pulse that beat hard inside my skull.
'Most don't.' Lena shrugged again. God, she was so fucking casual about all of this. 'The orbs took you. They took you all.'
I looked sharply at her. 'All of us? You mean the others are here too? What have you done to them?'
'Nothing yet, but yes, they will be dealt with too, albeit not in quite the same way as you.'
'You don't need to hurt them. You could let them all go.'
It was futile. A ridiculous statement to make. Of course, the Greys weren't going to let the others go. They weren't in the habit of sparing humans and it was all my fault that they'd ended up here. I'd let them walk into the trap when I could have said something. I should have told them. I should have saved them from all of this. Instead, I'd let my feelings for Tom – my belief in Tom – get in the way of everything.
Lena just smiled at me, that same smug, arrogant smile as always. I closed my eyes to it and pressed the palms of my hands against the sockets, desperation setting in.
'Poor Evelyn,' she crooned. 'There is really nothing you can do now, you know that, yes? There is nowhere to run this time. No human here for you to claim. You are all on your own, just as you have always been.'
I dropped my hands and glared at her.
'I want to see him,' I said. 'I want to see Tom.'
Lena pushed herself away from the wall, rolling her eyes. 'Oh, Tom, Tom, Tom. Honestly, your obsession with him is such a foolish endeavour. Surely you know that now? He is no more Tom than you are really Evie.'
I am Evie... I am Evie... I am...
I saw her then, standing by the canal, holding that box in her arms, staring into the water. She looked so lost. So alone. Like a ghost, really.
I clenched my fists. 'I don't care. I want to see him. Is he scared to face me? Where is he?'
'Scared? To face you?' Lena shook her head, laughing. 'He is not scared of anything, especially not a half-breed abomination like yourself.'
I laughed back at her then. 'Tom was scared of a lot of things. He was scared of losing his hair, like his Dad did. He was scared of getting sick like his Mum did. When he was a kid, he was scared of his sister Tania, because she had a right temper on her.' I paused, remembering. 'Bats. He was scared of bats.'
Lena's face twisted darkly. 'Tom was scared of those things. He isn't Tom.'
'No, he's not. But Tom is part of him now. There's no denying that.'
She sighed, but I could see her anger, bristling below the surface, as if the very notion of what I'd said had irritated her.
'You think because he looks like him and pretends to be him, that he is him? Tom is dead, just as Evie is dead, because that is what happens to humans. We survive, they die. That is the new natural order of this planet you claim as your own.' Lena's sharp gaze swept over me, her lips curling into a sneer. 'Whoever you think he is, forget it. He is neither as weak nor as disappointing as your father was, or as you are. It's the human disease, I'm afraid. Zero was infected and you were the product of that. Tom – or who you think is Tom – was never susceptible to the same sickness.'
I scoffed at her. 'And you're really certain about that?'
Lena looked at me then, her head tilted to one side, staring at me as if I was the most pathetic creature she'd ever seen. 'Certain? Oh, Evelyn, it's an impossibility.'
'Why is it? He's been here a long time. I know what that does to a Grey. I know what it's done to him.'
She moved closer to me again, amusement glinting in her eyes. 'It's done nothing to him. How do you think he has managed to keep hunting you all this time? You did well, I will credit you with that. Somehow you managed to evade him at every turn, but he knew he would find you in the end. He never gave up, not from the moment you realised what you truly were in Kabul and fled like a coward. Now, you tell me, does that sound like someone who has let humanity infect him, in the same way your father did?'
The force of her words reached out, like a fist embedded into my chest. It punched through flesh and bone until it gripped my heart in the palm of its hand and squeezed out every last bit of me.
'W-what?' I stammered. 'What the Hell do you mean since Kabul? Tom wasn't in Kabul.'
I searched for the memories, these damn broken memories that were screwing with my head. All these things I could remember that didn't make much sense to me. Things that scared the fuck out of me. No. Tom hadn't been there. He hadn't.
Lena stepped even closer, her eyes brightening like a predator realising its prey was crushed and weakened beyond recovery.
'No, Tom wasn't. But he was,' she said. She dragged her gaze over me again. 'Goodness, Evelyn. Please tell me you've worked it out by now? I had hoped someone of your intelligence had at least worked out who he really is?'
I blinked, searching fractured images, hearing discombobulated voices from inside my head, seeing ghosts wherever I looked.
I gasped. 'He... he was the General. The one in the General's uniform, the one that chased after me? Is that what you're saying?' My voice trembled and I hated it. Hated myself for not realising. For being so fucking blind to it all. 'He was in charge of the team that came to take Zero. He...'
No. No. It couldn't be. Not him.
'He's the reason my mother got killed. Zero didn't do it. One of the Greys did. When I came back to the house, they were there. They had my mother and when I came in, she tried to get to me, she tried to struggle free and they shot her. They shot her in the back of the head.'
Tears slipped down my cheeks, the shock and horror hitting me harder than her words had.
Tom. Not fucking Tom. Him. The Grey. I remembered then. All the times I'd been found. All the times I thought I'd manage to elude them, and they always found me, and there had always been one in charge – the same Grey, but a different face each time.
Him. Always him.
'He's been hunting me since then?'
'Of course, he has. Your father was the first kink in the chain, and he was eliminated, just as many of the other traitors were. But, you? He couldn't let you just go, Evelyn. Not when your very existence threatened his whole plan! He spent too long putting this whole thing together, just for you to destroy it all.'
I frowned. 'What plan? What is he planning to do?' Fear crept under my skin, making the hair on the back of my neck prickle with unease.
Lena's eyes widened. 'Planning? He's not planning to do anything. His plan is done. It's a success. The Earth belongs to us now. And humans, thanks to him, will soon be no more.'
I shook my head, my breath coming in short, shallow rasps.
'I don't believe you,' I said. 'You're lying. He didn't do all this. This is not down to him.'
Lena moved until she was just a few inches away. The light in the room had dimmed again and the blackness seemed to reflect in her eyes, making them look like pools of the darkest oil.
'Ha! And there it is... poor little Evelyn finally understands,' she said. 'He is our very own Commander, the mastermind behind the invasion of your pathetic little planet. He planned it all, right down to the very last detail. The First Wave, the infiltration, the civil war, and the Final Wave itself. That, Evelyn, my dear, is the reason why the concept of him being infected by Tom, or indeed any human, is an impossibility.'
She reached out and touched a fingertip to my face, making me flinch as she wiped away a stray tear that had remained.
'What did I tell you? Ugler i mosen. Your precious Tom is the reason we are here.'