We didn’t ditch the Subaru like I thought we would. Addie told me, once the shooting was over, what had happened. He’d launched a wheelie bin into their way, and they’d crashed against a wall swerving to avoid it. I didn’t respond. I could have, I just didn’t speak. Addie realised that soon enough, and we drove the way back to the shop, a long and convoluted route, in silence.

When we got back to the shop it was like a light had switched. Katrine looked worried as anything.

“What the fuck were you thinking?” she said, to Sid.

“That the job needed to be completed” Sid’s voice was steely calm

“No history book is worth a dead teammate, Cassidy.” Katrine took the metal briefcase and went to her desk, Sid didn’t respond. The two took a hammer and chisel to the locks, while everyone else disarmed and collapsed on the sofas. Jodie came back from the fridge with five bottles. “Celebratory drink?” Addie thanked her for one, and I found myself sipping on one as well.

“That was fun, wasn’t it?” Addie was noticeably exhausted, whatever magic he’d gotten to boost himself had clearly faded. Jodie, in response, took a deep gulp of beer. Addie looked over to Sid and then in a hushed voice leaned in.

“You need to talk to her, Jodie”

“We’re all still alive, aren’t we?”

“Barely. What if they hadn’t missed you that first time round? What if they’d chased us down? What if Chloe-” he cut himself off, his eyes flickering to me. “She takes too many risks.”

“They did, they didn’t and she did,” Jodie answered, and I noticed the slightest tremor in her hand lowering the bottle from her mouth. She didn’t look at us, gazing at the blank TV instead.

“Look, Addie. Sid is our leader, she’s not our fucking nanny. The danger comes with the job, you need to learn to deal with that. Or...” She let the threat hang in the air.

Addie tried to respond, But Katrine interrupted him.

“You lot, over here!”

Jodie was the first to get up, and we all crowded around Katrine’s workspace, the book was open to a page a mess of geometric patterns; some concentric, some random-seeming, all squares and triangles.

“It’s in Latin, so it’ll take me a while to translate it properly, but these shapes?” she pointed to the centre of the diagram, “It says it’s a healing spell.”

Nobody spoke for a second until Jodie piped up, “I can already do that, though.”

Katrine didn’t take her eyes off the book, she was reading it as she spoke, “It’s not that it’s a healing spell, it’s that it’s a spell. The geometry, it isn’t random, it’s a design, every shape does something different. Look, this one it calls a Vigilem” she pointed to a triangle, “A… a gate, or a sentry, something like that”

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“What she means,” Sid continued, “is if that this...” she grimaced slightly, “this spell exists, then there’s probably more like it. Power and effects more complex, more reliable than what we can do.”

“We need to find more. I need as many of these as I can, then I can start developing our own” Katrine was running her fingers over the page almost wistfully. I cocked my head slightly, one of the patterns, a circle connecting to a triangle, looked almost like a person. No, it couldn’t be, peoples’ necks didn’t sit at those angles. Not alive people. I turned my head a bit further, seeing if I could get it into that position. No, I’d have had to break something. What had that person looked like? I was sure I’d seen their faces, they weren’t masked, but I couldn’t see that person’s face. No hair, no skin colur, only the neck, twisted with a bone pushing the skin out of place from the inside. I felt like throwing up, but I just took another swig of beer.

“-should focus on getting this spell working first, see if it isn’t just some overexcited monk who thought it was fun.” Addie’s voice cut through my thoughts. How long had I been drifting?

“I can do that.” an unfamiliar voice chirped up, it was slightly nasally and sounded exhausted. Everyone turned to me, and with a silent shock I realised I’d been the one to talk. “I have some metalworking stuff back at my flat,” I continued, “I’m good with that kind of stuff. Not the magic, obviously, but the-”

“Sounds good,” Jodie interrupted me and put a hand on my shoulder. I silently thanked her for stopping me from rambling like an idiot, “You do the metalwork, I’ll fill it up with magic.”

“Sounds good.” I repeated her. It was clumsy, but I was talking, and that was a win.

“In the meantime, It’s half four.” Addie yawned, “I’m exhausted, we can talk more about this in the morning, but for now we should all get some sleep. Maybe meet up for a very late breakfast while we’re at it”

“I can do that, eleven at KFC?” Katrine finally took her eyes off the book and I could see the lines under them, magnified by silver-rimmed rectangular glasses.

“We’ve earned more than some scuzzy chicken.” Sid replied. “Oh, I almost forgot, Chloe,” she went over to her backpack and pulled out a keyring, “you can’t stay at that flat any longer and anything you get in your name would be tracked. It’s a one-bedroom, big enough for you and your girlfriend.” She tossed the keys to me, but I was too slow and ended up sheepishly accepting them from Jodie.

“Oh, Dotty and I aren’t dating. I just stayed the night at hers the night of the attack, and then sort of never left.”

“Told you.” Jodie sounded smug as she went for another beer.

“I’ll work something out and get a two-bedroom, I think I own a couple in the area, but for now you’ve been in that flat for far longer than is comfortable, the lease is in your friend’s name, you should move in as soon as you’re able”

“I.. shit, thank you.” a lease, that meant she’d bought it, or she’d already had it. That was a lot of money to burn, who was this woman?

The address was on a strip of masking tape on the fob, a membership barcode for the gym Jodie had brought me to. That had been less than a day ago, but it felt both like it’d happened a lifetime ago and like I’d just come from there. It wasn’t too far from Dotty’s flat, so I could be moved in by the end of the day. For now I was exhausted, battered, and I couldn’t stop seeing that person’s bone sticking through their neck. I needed to go.

I got back to Dotty’s flat around five, she was asleep on the bed. I’d half hoped she’d stayed up, then she could have yelled at me for whatever reason, but I couldn’t wake her. I went to the bathroom, turned on the shower, and tried my hardest to cry. It didn’t work.