"I'm not buying it," Kitty says as she drags me between moss-drenched oak trees and ferns, over the faint path snaking through the forest. "Why are you really here?"

She's holding my hand so hard that I can feel her nails biting into the flesh of my palm. Even though she doesn't turn around as she asks the question, I can imagine her expression. There's a growl in her voice, something almost feral.

She pulls me along behind her at a steady march, further and further away from the cabin, deeper and deeper into the forest.

My skin prickles with goose bumps as the space between the trees lessens, and the woods get subtly darker. The overgrowth is thicker, the path more difficult to see than I remember it.

Is this the way I came earlier?

Then I see it. Just a few feet away, an impossibly dark shape streaks through the trees to my left, skittering away into the gloom. Too big to be a stray cat or a raccoon, but too quick to be human. The space it passed through looks somehow different, the gaps between the trees tinged with shadow. Like an imprint of passing darkness. The scar on my ribcage sears with momentary pain, and I halt dead in my tracks, eyes darting from tree to tree.

I'm about to ask Kitty if she saw it too, when she abruptly whirls around on her heel, grabs my free hand and shoves me against the trunk of a tree. I'm pinned against the tree trunk with Kitty holding my wrists above me. She leans in close, her face just inches from my own. I fight back the urge to scream, the chilling shadow all but forgotten as Kitty pushes her body up against mine.

"Listen up," she says. "This is how it's going to go. You're going to follow this path all the way to the main trail and then the car park without looking back. Once you get home, you're going to send Felix a text saying that you are not interested in the band's little proposal. You'll tell him you never want to talk to him ever again. Then you'll delete and block his number. If you ever try to contact my brother again, if you ever try to see him, if you so much as tweet him, goddamit, I will literally rip your face off and have it made into a bloody handbag. Do you understand?"

Her eyes bore into my own, challenging me to try and wriggle free, scream for help, do anything other than give in.

She's holding my wrists above my head so hard it feels like she's shoved hot needles under my skin. She tightens her grip, and I cry out in pain, but she only reacts by squeezing tighter.

I'm tempted to nod just so she'll let me go, but some deep-seated instinct to fight takes over.

I whip my head forward, head-butting her.

There's a moment of searing pain in my forehead, a flash of white.

She lets go of me immediately, and drops down onto her knees, groaning as she cradles her head in her hands.

I'm sure my own head must still hurt right now but I'm oddly numb. All I can feel is cold all over my body, like I've been plunged into icy water.

"Why?" Is all I can say.

"You know why," Kitty says, rising slowly from the ground still holding her head and wincing. "You might have the boys wrapped around your little finger, but I see right through you. The whole fragile clueless princess act isn't fooling me. I've dealt with girls like you before. I know what you want."

"What I want?" I say, feeling the first tears prickle behind my eyelids and roll down my cheeks. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Kitty just shakes her head, and crosses her arms in front of her as she turns her back to me.

"I am so over this," she says without looking back. "Hit the road. Remember what I said about trying to contact Felix. Handbag. Now go."

Everything's still and silent while she waits for me to leave.

No way in hell.

I lunge out, grabbing her shoulder and swinging her around to face me.

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"I'm not going anywhere until you explain what just happened," I say, knowing that my voice sounds shaky but not caring much at this moment. "What did I do? Why are you treating me like I have an agenda or something? I only came here because Felix and Alastaire asked me to."

Kitty raises one eyebrow, transforming her pretty face into a sneer.

"No hidden agenda?" She says, a mocking tone in her voice. "Sure. Let's get this straight. You're going to give up your whole summer vacation to spend every day out in the middle of nowhere without anything in return. You don't want to be paid, and you can't say exactly why it is you want to help out."

She leans in close again, and her voice drops almost to a whisper.

"But I know exactly why you came here," she continues. "And before you try telling me it's because you're a massive enfabler and you're such a huge fan of the band and all that other BS, let me remind you that I'm there with the boys at every show, every event. I've met hundreds of fans. And you, my darling, are not one of them."

What the actual–

"Why would... what makes you think that?" I ask.

Kitty sighs.

"It's not rocket science. For starters, you weren't even going to originally go to the concert the other night. No serious fan would ever miss the chance to watch them play. There's also the way you act around the boys. You didn't smile once today. Most girls would be doing cartwheels, giggles and smiles and dumbass fangirling every moment they're with the guys. But you looked bleak the whole goddam time. Totally closed in on yourself, like you're hiding a secret. It's pretty obvious you don't even like them. I'd even go so far as to say... it seems like you actually dislike them. We've already established this isn't about money. You're too young to be some undercover journo after a scoop. So there's only one reason I can think of that someone like you would be trying to get close to the band."

For a moment her steely gaze turns softer, and her eyes well up with tears.

"I guess I shouldn't be surprised," she says. "I've seen it before. I just didn't think it would happen again so soon. And there's no way I'm letting another Victoria Webb get close to Felix."

Victoria Webb... who was she again?

Realization dawns on me.

Victoria Webb was a girl – or rather, a twenty-year-old woman – who made all the tabloid headlines two years ago, when the boys were fifteen. The details of the story were hushed up and pretty vague, but speculation was that she got in with Fable pretending to be a super fan. She had some sort of fling with Alastaire, but it's really Felix she was after. She got him on his own in a backstage dressing room before a show, and tried to stab him with a switchblade (or a sharpened piece of wood according to some news reports) while screaming out Biblical passages. After she was hauled away to a mental asylum, she said she was on a holy quest. Everyone put it down to religious fanaticism, some nutter with an Antichrist obsession who got fixated on a rock star. Like John David Chapman shooting John Lennon, meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Insane. Kitty thinks I'm like her?

"There's no way in hell I'm letting some psycho stalk my brother again," she says. "I don't know what you said to him to lure him in, but I'm cutting this off now. Whatever you are, whatever your motivations, one thing's clear to me – you are not a real fan. And that makes you dangerous."

I'm too shocked to even speak. The accusation stings more than any insult, worse than any stupid taunts or nasty nicknames from the Three Bs.

Because she's actually right.

After everything that's happened over the past week, I feel my head swirling. This is the final straw. My thoughts are racing erratically, and I wonder if I'm having some sort of mental meltdown – but strangely, I feel oddly clear-minded. Like I've finally woken up.

I'm not really a fan. I'm a slave. How pathetic is that?

I've loved Fable for years, and it's been a lifeline for me after everything that happened. That one final connection to Mia. To who I was before I lost everything. Maybe that's why my relationship with their music is so weird, so confused. So much more intense and complicated and melodramatic than it needs to be. At some point it went from being a harmless hobby to being an obsession. Something I probably resent just as much as I love.

It's all a fantasy.

Fable has been my escape. An unhealthy one. A safe pretend world where I could bury myself. Just like how Zee cried after she finished the final Harry Potter book, or how Jamie bases so much of her worth on the fictional version of herself that lives across a thousand Instagram pics, in the comments and likes of a thousand strangers. Just carefully constructed lies to comfort and lull. Dreams.

It's time for me to let go. I'm done living in a fairytale. You don't want me to be a part of your world Kitty? That's fine. I don't want to be part of it either. I can't believe I never saw it before. It's time to stop running. Time to face things. Time for me to rip the band-aid off. Maybe then I can finally begin to heal.

Thank you Kitty. You're a bitch, but I think you might have just saved me.

Without saying a word, I take one final look at Kitty before pushing past her and heading off.

I don't need her to show me the way out. The path to the main track in barely visible, but it's there, a lightly trodden line through the undergrowth.

She doesn't call out to me, and I don't turn back. I practically glide through the forest, slipping through the trees like a bird as the afternoon shadows lengthen. A few times I feel a slight chill at the base of my spine, and I hear a faint rustling, like crackling footsteps on the path behind me. But I don't look back, not even once.

All the way to the Chestnut track, all the way to the car park, all the way home, my mind is fixed on one thought.

I'm done dreaming. It's time to wake up.