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“Oh my god, I’m so sorry.”

Tarmac. Car headlights. Concerned woman. Everything made sense except the angle. I got up, lurching violently, my body still convinced that “up” lay at a very different angle to the one gravity had decided upon.

“I’m all right.” I didn’t feel broken, just…looser. As if all my limbs were less securely bolted to my torso than they had been.

“You’re not all right!” She reached for me, but I lurched away. I’d been running from something, and stopping didn’t seem like the thing I wanted to do yet. “Colin, call an ambulance.”

My best argument against the ambulance was the turn of speed I put on as I ran away. I wasn’t entirely sure what I’d been running away from, but at least part of it was now embarrassment.

“Red?”

My name stopped me in my tracks and nearly had me back on the ground, my balance still being out of kilter.

Olivia was coming after me. If I’d had anyone to tell back at the home, I’d have described her as drop-dead gorgeous. And now she’d nearly killed me. The undeserving Colin had his phone out, finger poised, my miraculous recovery leaving him unsure whether to call it in. I saw his eyes flit to the front of his shiny blue car, as if looking for damage.

I limped back toward her, realizing at the same time that my leg hurt. “I’m all right.”

“Stop saying that!” Olivia scolded. “Colin, call that ambulance.”

“Seriously. I just hurt my leg.” I patted the air in Colin’s direction, indicating he should put his phone away. “I was…running.” I looked at the turning I’d come from. It lay dark, all the lights out along its length. “From…It was my fault.”

“It really was,” Colin said helpfully. “You shot out in front of me.”

“Sorry.” I turned to go again.

“You’re not going anywhere until I know you’re OK.” Olivia laid her hand on my shoulder. The same shoulder the lunatic had caught in that iron-pincered grip of his.

“Jesus!” I cried out, dropping under her touch and staggering away.

“You’re hurt!” Olivia shouted, half in reprimand, half in concern, with a pinch of I-told-you-so.

“That happened…before.” It sounded like a lie even to me, and I knew it was true.

“Look, Colin was driving me home.”

“I thought we…” Colin trailed off, realizing that whatever he’d thought was on the cards for tonight had evaporated as effectively as if a little brother had come to sit on the sofa between the two of them.

“Colin is going to drive me home,” Olivia reiterated. “You come too. Have a cup of tea. And when you’ve had a chance to recover you can decide if you need taking to the emergency room or…Wait, we need to call your mum. It’s gone midnight. What are you even doing out here?”

“I don’t have…” I limped back toward the car. “I’m in care, and I’m not going anywhere. I’m looking for my sister.”

Olivia took my arm—more gently than she’d taken my shoulder—seeming worried it might fall off. “You can look for her afterward.”

I let her steer me into the back seat. I did still feel a bit wonky. Certainly not up to outrunning the nutter with the eye patch a second time.

“You’re not…bleeding…are you?” Colin asked as he held the door for me. And yes, it was very clearly his upholstery he was concerned about. The only thing he’d put in the “good” column since knocking me down was that he was about as ordinary looking a guy as I could imagine—twentyish, on the skinny side. And the fact that he appeared to be Olivia’s boyfriend gave hope to me and every other unremarkable guy out there that miracles can happen.

Even as I thought these things, another part of my mind was realizing quite how fourteen they sounded, and yet another part was excusing me on the basis that I was fourteen.

The drive to Olivia’s house wasn’t long, and I seemed to have spaced out for the duration, because exactly zero time elapsed between the slamming of the car door and its opening. I got out under my own steam, waving Olivia away and saying nothing about what were very likely symptoms of concussion. To be fair, I didn’t actually know what concussion was—still don’t—and whether it’s dangerous or more of an inconvenience. Did anyone ever die of concussion? I don’t think so. It’s not something you read in obituaries, is it? “Jim passed away after a short battle with concussion. He will be sadly missed.”

“You don’t need to hold on to me…” Somehow, we were in a house. Colin had vanished, and Olivia had two hands fastened on my right arm between elbow and shoulder.

“Start walking in straight lines and I’ll let go.” She steered me through a doorway into a living room lined with bookcases and set out with two comfortably beaten-up sofas and a coffee table lost under cups and various bric-a-brac. Xavier Books looked up from his laptop, lips compressed against the question in his eyes.

On the other sofa, an old woman, white-haired, bright-eyed, and shrunken, peered at me with undisguised curiosity. “Who dis yoot?”

“Yoot?” I repeated her uncertainly while Olivia guided me to the other side of the sofa occupied by Xavier. The old lady’s accent wasn’t Caribbean. It was familiar but I needed to hear more to place it.