Prologue

I had to put my bag down before I could unlock the door. The keys were in the wrong pocket, caught in a fold of my coat's lining, and my fingers wouldn't close around them. Under the hallway light, I worked them free and left a dark smear on the fabric. The lock turned on the third try.

The flat was cold from the window I had left open that morning, and the smell of rain had crept into the rooms. I closed the door, turned the lock and stood with my hand flat against the wood, listening to nothing. Then I slid my fingers beneath the straps of my mask and peeled it away. Cool air touched the damp skin around my mouth. Twelve hours of it, and the strap had dug a groove behind my ear.

I set the mask on the bench and started on my gloves. One came off easily. The other had torn across the palm, and dried blood had glued the fabric to my skin, so I eased it back an inch at a time. Keys into the bowl. Coat on its hook, damp at the shoulders, stiff down one side, shedding grit onto the floor. Boots left beneath it.

At the kitchen sink, I pushed up my sleeves and held my hands under the tap. The water ran brown, then pink, then clear. Most of it wasn't mine. I had checked anyway before leaving the base, in the locker-room mirror, the way you pat your pockets for a phone you already know is in your hand. I worked soap into my palms, and when my thumb passed over the place where the glove had torn, my hands remembered the knife.

The team's readings on my watch were already climbing too fast.

I ran between the shells of buildings with broken glass shifting under my boots, trying to catch up with a team that wasn't waiting. Through my earpiece, they called out positions further ahead, and every corner I reached had another impact sounding beyond it. They were using their abilities as though none of them would ever have to stop. When they finally needed guiding, I would be expected to bring every one of those readings down, whether I had anything left or not.

A scrape came from the gap between two buildings. I slowed, and the skin beneath my collar crawled.

It was out before I could see how big it was. I fired as I backed away, and it veered sideways, then came straight at me again. The gun clicked empty as my hand went for another magazine. It lunged. I twisted, and its fist struck the wall beside my head and showered my hair with plaster. There was no time to reload. I let the gun drop against its sling and drew the knife.

"Contact," I said into the earpiece. "I need someone back here."

Someone ahead asked for an update. Another voice answered him. I had to repeat myself twice before anyone acknowledged me, and then it was only to tell me that nobody was close enough to come back.

Behind that came our team leader. He sounded pleased, almost, in the way of a man who had just been proved right about something small. "Keep moving, everyone. She can handle it."

They could hear each other perfectly well.

He went on giving orders. Whatever the fuck he was saying could wait until I'd dealt with the thing trying to kill me.

It drove me into the broken wall before I could reach the gap. I got my forearm under its jaw to keep its mouth off my face and brought the knife up between us. My shoulder screamed as it forced my arm back, and I shifted my feet and fought for every inch. The blade skidded off tougher skin. I changed the angle and pushed beneath the jaw, into a softer fold, exactly where I had been taught to look, and blood poured over my fingers. When it jerked away, the handle nearly left my hand, and I stumbled with it rather than let go. I forced my other hand over the first and drove the blade deeper while its claws raked my coat. It made a sound I would hear in my sleep, wet and high and almost human, and then it stopped.

I stayed where I was, breathing, my back against the wall. Nobody called to ask if I was alive.

Water splashed against my wrist. I looked down and found my thumb pressed into the place where the knife handle had rubbed my palm raw. My other hand had closed around the soap dispenser, and I had pumped it without noticing, leaving far more soap than I needed. I rinsed it away. Blood still clung beneath one nail, and I scraped at it with my thumb until it came free and the skin around it went pink. I turned off the tap and dried my hands slowly, pressing the towel between them before I hung it back on the rail.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out and found another reminder from the base about the unfinished records, and, beneath it, the earlier message. My thumb hovered over that one. I let the screen go dark without opening it and set the phone facedown on the counter. The records could wait until morning.

I stood in front of the fridge with one hand on the door, hoping something inside would make me want it. I ate most of my meals at the base these days, but there were still a few things on the shelves for evenings when I made it home. A bowl sat under a plate on the middle shelf. I lifted the edge and looked at what was in it, and the thought of food did nothing at all. I put the plate back. On the counter, the open bottle of wine still held an inch. I took a glass from the cabinet and poured what was left.

I lowered myself onto the sofa without changing out of my clothes. My legs ached, and my shirt pulled at my shoulder, a reminder that I should have showered first. I could feel dried dirt against my neck. I leaned my head back and closed my eyes.

The fridge started up again in the kitchen, and I listened to its hum while my breathing evened out. After hours of voices in my earpiece, it was a relief to hear something that asked nothing of me. I could sit here for a while without listening for my name. I took a sip of wine and rested the glass against my knee.

On the bookcase to my left, the photograph was still slightly crooked from the last time I had brushed against it.

We were crowded together in the picture, an arm across my shoulders as I turned towards someone beside me. I could see the edge of my own smile, and I stayed looking at it, trying to remember what they had said to make me laugh. I could still picture the room around us, bright and crowded, and the person who had hurried into the frame just before it was taken. We had shifted to make space, pulling each other closer so nobody would be left out.

The ache beneath my ribs broke the memory. My eyes had begun to sting, and I set the wine on the table and pressed my palms against them. A breath caught painfully in my throat. I didn't try to pull myself together. Outside, a car passed beneath the window, followed by voices somewhere along the street. Someone laughed. I listened to the quieter reply until the conversation drifted out of earshot.

When I lowered my hands, I looked at the arm around my shoulders. I remembered leaning into it, comfortable enough to let someone else hold me up.

Eventually, I reached for the blanket and pulled it over my legs. A second car went by, and its headlights swept across the bookcase and lit their faces one after another before the dark closed behind it. I left the photograph crooked.