Vienna Castanoza. November 2nd. Basil Dearden Theatre.

For what could very possibly be the first time in Grams history, the theatre is warm, well-lit, and by all accounts alive. It's unspeakably jarring, apparently, because nobody else seems to want to talk about it. It seems that yesterday's communal hangover was pushed back a day and I was the only one that missed the memo.

"A temperature above zero Kelvin?" A hand claps onto my shoulder. "Miracles never cease."

Maybe not the only one.

I turn to face Louisa Magowo with a boundless grin and she rewards me with a fond onceover, her eyes lingering tellingly on the skin poking out from under my shirt collar. 

"See something interesting?" I ask. I spent twenty minutes dabbing concealer on the hickeys dotted over my chest, so I know for a fact that the view there is as disappointing as ever.

"Your uniform?" she replies teasingly. "It's one of a kind, never seen anything like it."

I rake my eyes over her spindly form. "I can't help but feel like you're giving me a hint."

Gramsters have been trying to get the attention of our board of governors for the past decade. As such, it's a sixth form tradition to inconspicuously break dress code in a private fuck-you to whoever might be watching. Rather than gouge out the neckline of our school jumpers like previous years, we've gone for a much more non-conformist approach. My own attempt at rebellion is a pair of weathered combat boots: an ode to my Tumblr days and one of the few things in my wardrobe that didn't once belong to Katie. Louisa decks herself out like a Christmas tree, opting for dozens upon dozens of glinting gold bangles. 

Now, it seems, she has also adopted a general Barbie: Princess Charm School slant. Half-sleeve white shirt closed with bejewelled snake cufflinks; velvet tie in navy and red, knotted loosely enough to pop her shirt collar; artfully distressed tights that she swears are all-natural. I nod approvingly, tugging my sleeves over my wrists.

"Speechless?" she asks.

I bark out a laugh and she tucks my elbow around hers. "Lost for words."

We beeline for the third row from the back, close enough to the door to make a hasty exit but not so bait that we'll have wary eyes on us. She's watching me curiously - the word 'debrief' might as well be scrawled across her forehead in permanent marker - but we both know that Senior Assembly is the worst possible place to try and have this conversation.

"Where are the others?" I ask, settling into a wobbly plastic chair with a grimace.

"Evie's not coming, can't be fucked," Louisa sighs, dropping her tasselled bag between her creepers with a satisfying thump. "Deeps is probably late."

And that, to be honest, is a comprehensive summary of their personalities. 

The projector screen angled at stage left flickers to life, rousing a weighty groan from the students unlucky enough to have arrived on time. It might be the biggest show of solidarity since the arson threats when they tried to collaborate with Crossley High for our Year Eleven prom. Not that the Highers would've ever agreed, stuck-up bastards that they are.

"Another uni assembly?" Jonah whines, flopping into the seat next to me with all the poise of an off-duty ballerina.

Louisa's eyebrows disappear under her sweeping fringe in a show of unmistakable contempt; Jonah Wilson has been known to test her patience. I flash her a look. Behave.

Nudging Jonah's arm gently, I cross one leg over the other. "Where's the rest of the Suicide Squad?"

"Suicide is definitely rife on the brain," Lou mutters lowly.

"Am I not enough for you?" Jonah asks indignantly. "Don't expect to copy my notes in Philo later."

Louisa snorts. "Philo?"

Jonah's smile deepens. "Yes, darling. It's short for Philosophy. I think you could have gathered that from context."

"How are you not severely bullied?" Lou wonders from behind the cover of her fingers. I can only assume that her jaw's been rendered slack by helpless laughter, and I bite the inside of my cheek to shield myself from the same fate.

The ball of electricity making its way towards us does wonders to sober her up, her elbow shooting like a bullet into my ribcage. I follow her eyes, pretending not to feel the self-same crackle. Dale Miller, the closest thing to a man you could hope to find within our student body - and the closest thing to a prince you could find outside the pages of a fairy tale. 

My stomach turns and Lou and I glance guiltily at each other. The sheer scope of objectification. We might as well write for Cosmo.

"Hey," Louisa says softly to him, leaning around my head to catch his eye. "I'm Louisa, Vienna's best mate."

Dale smiles like it's free. He really should charge for it. "I'm Dale. Weird that we've never met."

He's right – not just because our year only has a hundred and eighteen students, but because Louisa finds boys like iron filings find poles. She turns back to the front with a graceful nod, pointedly ignoring Jonah's aghast expression, and swallows a scream of mammoth proportions.

"Hey man," Dale says, hooking my gaze with bright eyes. "What's happening?"

It's all I can do not to liquify on the spot.

"Not a lot," I grin. Fuck, he's like the human incarnation of a Victoria Sponge. "Just counting my blessings that I'm not having the worst morning here."

Dale follows the direction of my chin jut and his eyes alight on the group of half-snoring, half-swaying muppets draped over the three front rows.

"Diavolo and his mates?" A muscle in his criminally-sharp jaw twitches. "Yeah, poor them."

He's not even trying for empathy. I'm about to steer the conversation firmly away from Halloween and towards solid ground when James rakes a hand over his face and I pause. Weeks of sleepless nights seem to be catching up to him. 

"Isn't he your ex-boyfriend?" Dale's eyes are glued to my face. God, I could stumble right into their depths if he wasn't currently playing L.A. Noire with my love life.

"From ages ago, yeah," I say softly, hoping to guilt him into a subject change.

"You only broke up in April," he frowns.

I hitch an eyebrow. Mission failed. "You been keeping tabs?"

"It's when Zen and Savannah broke up." Jonah swoops in, ever the saviour, and Dale catches his eye gratefully. 

"I know, Joe," I mutter, winding my calves together. I cough, swallowing the rest of my sentence before it can thread a noose around my neck, and we fall into an uncomfortable silence because this is the one story that wouldn't fail to divide us. I wonder if Zen's told them about Monday. I wonder if he even remembers.

"Something wicked," Louisa breathes just as I feel a prickle between my shoulder blades. I don't have to turn around to know what she means. I inhale deeply, drawing my hair over my shoulder. Not a moment later, Zen slumps into the chair next to Dale, sending my soul stumbling to the guillotine.

"Alright?" he murmurs, eyes slipping over Louisa and me and settling on the safety of his friends' faces.

I turn jaggedly back to Lou, my eyes embarrassingly wet. She squeezes my knee and kicks up a conversation about everything wrong with J.K. Rowling. I know she has enough material to carry it all the way into break - don't we all - but our Head of Year, Ms McCarthy, clacks up to the centre of the stage before she has a chance.

"Not Linda McCartney," Lou breathes lamentingly.

Mr Whitman, my Maths teacher, follows in her wake. He's wearing an unfortunate knitted vest that could probably be colour-matched to a pot of English mustard. The worst thing is, you can tell he's really proud of it. Already at the lectern, fingers hovering over the trackpad of the laptop, stands Frau Heinrich, impeccably dressed in a crimson power suit and clearly very bored of the whole affair already.

"It's like looking at a deconstructed hotdog," I whisper.

Louisa lets out a strangled snort, biting the edge of her hand as she casts me an amused glare. In my peripheral, Jonah shakes his head in violent exasperation. I sit back in my chair with a self-satisfied smile, ignoring the cold burn of somebody's eyes in the side of my head because every comic has trolls.

*

I don't catch up with Lou again till after Period Four, and when I find her at last, she's knee-deep in the trenches.

"All I'm saying, yeah, is that maybe I don't want him to just kiss my cheek when he drops me home," Louisa argues, crunching defiantly on her sour cream and chive Pringles.

Julie scoffs. "Why can't you be the one dropping him home?"

"Because I don't have a fucking car," Louisa snarls, tapping her temple with a single chrome fingernail.

"So?" Julie asks, scrunching her nose far enough to dislodge her knock-off Ray Bans. They clatter to the ground, scraping across the lilac-flecked linoleum. Julie gropes around the floor blindly until her fingers clasp around the black frames.

"I am so lost," I mutter, snatching Lou's 7Up from where it's balanced on her hip and glugging it down disinterestedly. For mental health reasons, there's only so many of her debates that I can emotionally invest myself in.

Lou crosses and uncrosses her legs, causing the ladders in her tights to widen exponentially. "For fuck's sake, Julianna." 

They hold each other's gaze stonily until Louisa huffs in annoyance and Julie sighs, turning away to talk to somebody else with a dismissive flick of her dip-dyed silver ponytail.

"Intergalactic space cow," Louisa whispers as she turns to me, shoving another Pringle into her mouth.

"In her defence, I had no idea where you were going with that," I confess, suppressing a grin because 'I hate that cow' roughly translates to 'thank God someone in this school has a brain'. 

"Whatever," she grumbles, sending a stream of salty crumbs into her mouth with a tip of the Pringles can. She makes a face, washes them down with a hefty slurp of 7Up and then lobs the bottle in my general direction. I force myself not to pounce on it. "D'you know where Eevs is?"

"I haven't seen her yet," I reply, absentmindedly thumbing the broken seal.

Louisa heaves herself to her feet, tugging her skirt back down over her thighs. "I'd better see if she's in. See you later."

She's off before I can get a word out of my suddenly parched mouth, bobbing through the corridor without so much as a glance over her shoulder. 

I look over at Julianna and her mates, draped over each others' legs and wrapped up in heady conversation, and I swallow roughly around the tightening in my chest. It takes a moment for me to teeter to my feet, wondering what in the hell happened to Operation Debrief. I'm so wrapped up in navigating the Maryland wrappers and bucket bags that I don't see the figure barging towards me until his shoulder collides with mine, sending us both spinning out like Beyblades.

"Are you alright?" I ask, glancing down at the mess of folders on the floor. I tuck some of the dislocated papers back inside and stack the ones closest to me into my palms.

"Leave it," Zen mutters, shooting to his feet. "I can do it myself."

I swallow uncomfortably. "I know-"

He snatches the folders from my grip and I shove my hands into my jacket pockets. "You've done enough."

Irritation flickers in the space between my lungs. "Listen, mate," I say, glaring through narrowed eyes. "You bumped into me. I'm sorry if you're hurt. But not everything that happens to you is  part of some devious plan of mine." 

Zen scoffs, lip curled in derisive amusement. "Stay out of my way, Vienna. You have no idea what I'm going through."

"Yeah, well, I did, once upon a time," I fire.

He cocks an impressive eyebrow. "Still believe in fairy tales at your big age?"

"You're two months older than me," I snap.

"Stalker," he smiles chillingly.

"You're the one who weaselled your way into Vincentive after proclaiming us strangers," I snap, my voice on the verge of a quiver. I level my gaze at him. "And you're the one who won't leave me alone," I say crisply. 

"I won't leave you alone?" he repeats. "Wow, the Sun better watch out. Didn't realise the world was revolving around you now."

I snicker. "Friends in high places, is it?"

Zen sneers. "What?"

"Good luck, Icarus," I tell him solemnly.

"Nothing you just said made sense."

"I was working with your shitty material," I point out. "Blaming me for your problems is becoming a real habit, huh?" 

He growls, and it lodges in his throat. "You know as well as I do that you're irrelevant, Vienna," Zen says roughly. "You're zero-impact to me, you got that? I've got other shit on my plate."

"My God," I groan. "You're a fucking stuck record, you know that? Don't you tire yourself out?"

"Not as much as you do, apparently."

His smirk is so wide that it takes everything in me not to knock it off his face.

"You wanna talk about Monday?" I snap. "Fine. Yes, I hooked up with Naman."

He snickers. I narrow my eyes, willing him to choke.

"Yeah, it's hilarious," I say tightly. "Almost as funny as you stumbling through the door, sobbing down the phone to your ex-girlfriend's voicemail, and then yelling at me because girls 'always win the breakup', and then-"

"I know what I said," Zen bites out. "I'm... sorry for crying."

I damn near gawp. "The crying was the only inoffensive thing that you did. How 'bout you're sorry for constantly projecting your breakup on me-"

"I knew  I should never have told you about her." He shakes his head fiercely, eyes flitting to the people passing us in the corridor. "I knew you'd do this."

I almost laugh. "How many times are you going to flip this on me?"

His jaw tightens, and for a moment I think that I might have broken through. But then Zen squares his shoulders and smiles thinly, and I'm smart enough to brace for impact.

"Stop worrying about me," he says softly, "And start worrying about what you should bring to Lacey's baby shower."

He pushes past me, his shaking hands giving more than everything away. When the fury boiling in my gut quietens into a simmer, I tuck his books under my arm and make my way to Jonah's locker, my mouth clamped shut around the venom settling on my tongue.

*

Brazen Williams. November 2nd. Vincentive.

J: I have ur History textbooks

Z: Savannah blocked me

J: Is this news 2 u?

I exhale on a scowl. I'm beginning to remember leaving the voicemails - long, sappy, rambling things whispered from inside what I'd thought was an airing cupboard - but I can't for the life of me remember if I brought up the Polaroids. 

"Brazen," a lofty voice calls from behind me.

I scowl at the sound of my poor excuse for a name, turning towards the voice that could understudy my alarm tone. It's Lily, leaning against a book trolley like it's her own personal stage prop.

"You know it's just Zen," I say flatly, pocketing my phone. "What are you doing here?"

"Well, I'm the manager," she answers. It takes a beat for her to crack a smile, and it draws one out of me as well. "Rahul's sick."

I roll my eyes, jabbing a thumb towards the tills that I've so discreetly been avoiding. "Well, I should-"

"Actually," she says, cracking her knuckles absentmindedly, "Boss wants you."

Never has a day been so clearly not mine. 

I steel myself as Lily leads me down the corridor that leads to the stock room. You haven't done anything wrong, I tell myself as my fingers curl in agitation. The tip of my thumb grazes against something hard (shut up) and I fumble around my trouser pocket in confusion. My fingers close around something slim and rigid (shut up) and I yank my hand out, the back of my neck prickling as the pieces fall into place.

All this for a fucking Windsor closet? I seethe inwardly. Fucking Megamind you are, Zen, what do you think stuffing a book into your trousers looks like on tape?

Lily stops in her tracks, almost sending me careering into her. She steps away from the wall to jab a thumb at a dark wooden door, varnished just softly enough to look expensive.

My entire body becomes a hotbed of panic. I've never stolen anything in my life, and now I'm walking into my boss's office with the evidence against me slapping around my fucking pocket.

"Good luck, chicken," Lily says, and she bites her lip hesitantly before stalking back down the corridor with a toss of her ginger ponytail.

What terrifies me most is that I think she might actually mean it.

I rap on the door three times and take a steadying breath, reaching for the familiar feeling of iron gliding through my gut.

"Come in."

I swallow thickly, fingers trembling over the doorknob, and then I head inside before my survival instinct can get a word in edgeways.

I'm greeted by a shoebox-shaped room, brilliantly lit by three overhead beams, and what must be the most obnoxious table in the history of carpentry. The surface is a panel of inky glass, glossy enough to showcase my disdain in 4K resolution, standing atop three wrought-iron legs that curve out onto the carpet.

"What a psychopathic design choice," I murmur, digging my hands back into the pockets of my hoodie.

The door slams shut behind me. I glance over my shoulder only to instantly wish I hadn't.

"Zen," Ink says graciously, taking a seat on one of two high-back leather chairs. The motion has all the charm of drawing up a chair at a sleeping plasma screen. "Have a seat."

"Alright," I say heavily, "But only 'cause you said 'please'."

"Ah, we're all powerless to the magic word," Ink chuckles. My own mouth freezes in an uncomfortable grimace. When a shark smiles, all you can see are its teeth.

You've seen the headshots, watched the interviews. First gracing our screens as one of the youngest millionaires in the UK – and not one of the worst-looking, as anyone with eyes can testify – Vincent Gallagher been making headlines since he was twenty-one. Ten years on and he's no Akshay Ruparelia, but as far as Crossley's concerned he's in his own personal tax bracket and his pride and joy, Vincentive, is the only reason this town ever gets any publicity.

To us, he goes by Ink - but in my mind, a loaded shark with a gift for grousing couldn't ask for a better nickname than Quidward, and I'm generous enough to bestow this on him whenever the opportunity presents itself. Behind his back, of course. I'm not generous enough to lose my job over insubordination.

Quidward is entirely inaccessible apart from one day a week, where he works almost every shift. He offered to pay us the living wage without anyone asking, and not once since I started have I heard a word about commission. Bets are on as to what this store is a front for - or at least, they would be if I were brave enough to bring it up in the break room.

Ink clears his throat, his eyes boring into mine, and no amount of iron-based thoughts can silence the din in my stomach. I let my gaze flicker up towards his hair. It's fluffed up and smoothed back in a way that can only be described as aspirational. Why does good hair only come to those who don't deserve it?

"I use wax," he says, and his voice alone sets my temper simmering. It's retained just enough of a Yorkshire twinge to take the sting out of everything he says. "Just the slightest pinch of it."

My fingers twitch. It's almost funny how much I want to punch him. "What brand?" I bite out.

"TIGI," Ink says languidly. "Bedhead."

It's familiar enough to make me narrow my eyes. "A bit beneath your budget, no?" I find myself snapping. It only takes a second for me to shrivel inwardly. Zen, you idiot, he's about to fire you. You can't play nice for five minutes?

His lips curve into a smile and my fingers twitch again. It's not quite as funny anymore. "It was my first," he drawls. "I guess I'm sentimental."

I rock back in my chair. "The matter at hand, Sir?" 

Quidward sighs dramatically. I wonder if he was a theatre kid. "Not much of a sweet-talker, are you, Mr Williams? No wonder the Undead have been whispering about you."

Ice trickles into my bloodstream. The Undead are the Priestess's lackeys. (The person who coined these names was clearly swimming the depths of creative starvation.)  I blink through my shock; Ink is surveying my face like a laser scanner. 

After a moment, he leans away. "Interesting," he murmurs. It's too gratifying for me to respect myself. "We could make a decent poker player of you yet."

"I don't gamble," I say bluntly. "Gambling is for idiots."

"Losing is for idiots," Quidward smiles. "Gambling is for gentlemen."

"With more money than sense," I say unthinkingly.

He looks over me coldly. "Moral superiority isn't a good look on anyone, Zen, least of all a seventeen-year-old boy who's probably never even left this town."

I am rapidly losing my grip on this conversation. "Did you really ask me in here so you could shame me into being well-travelled?"

Ink bristles with indignation. "I'm not- fine. I heard about what happened, alright?"

From who? I muse.  

If he catches the glint of suspicion in my eyes, he ignores it. "Since you clearly think you're above gambling," Quidward barrels on, "How do you intend to pay back the Priestess?"

I shrug tiredly, trying not to give away the relief coursing through my blood like Night Nurse. Apparently, not getting fired is the win I needed today. What a world. "I dunno, rob a bank?"

Ink scoffs. "Classy. And foolproof, as I'm sure Ms Castanoza will tell you."

Miz. I've never hated a man more. "What does Vienna know about blagging?"

He raises a perfectly-tweezed eyebrow. "I was talking about her mother."

I narrow my eyes. "Well, that clears things up."

Quidward's mouth twitches in what might actually be genuine amusement. "If you're so keen to get to know her, you could try doing your own research." 

I hold his gaze evenly. Apparently he realises what a brainless suggestion this was, because it only takes a moment for him to cave. "Her mam's serving time for something... similar. Well. Was, if rumours are to be believed."

My jaw slackens before I can help it and Ink is smiling that smile again. "Are you- is this a joke?"

He shrugs. "I don't consider myself a comedian."

"But Vienna never-"

"Her dad took off years ago, too," Quidward says conversationally. Now, as always, he's showing off. "Maybe you could bond over that. Rumour has it that you two aren't the thickest of thieves."

I grunt gratingly. "If we were thieves, I feel like you'd have a different set of problems right now." I ignore the little brick of guilt stabbing into my thigh through my trouser pocket.

Ink arches a brow and juts his chin like he's tipping the brim of his hat. "To be fair, her dad didn't leave her with three hundred thousand pounds of debt. I understand why it might be a sore point."

I narrow my eyes. "Yeah. My dad's financial ineptitude has definitely struck a nerve."

Ink's nostrils flicker as he forces down a laugh and I grapple for the stoicism that keeps slipping through my fingers.

"So, Mr Williams," Quidward says, leaning back in his chair, "At the risk of sounding like I care... why don't you tell me about your father?"

*

"Well, it's not like he was playing in Macau," Ink argues. "Three hundred grand is nothing. I once won half a million off Broken Tooth in a treehouse behind a soup stand."

I groan into my hands. Honestly, the only thing I've learned over the past half an hour is that Quidward is a gambling snob. The moment he slung his suit jacket over the doorknob, I knew I was in for it. I feel like I'm therapising the Riot Club.

"Great," I say flatly. "I'm happy for you. But I work in a bookstore, and I go to a zombie school, and my life isn't worth three grand, let alone three hundred."

He cocks his head concedingly. "Right."

I sigh and rake a hand through my hair. I regret this dramatic manoeuvre immediately because tiny crumbs of pomade come away on my fingers. Stupid Ink and stupid James with their stupid magazine hair. "If I don't find the money, d'you think she'll kill me?"

Ink stills. "What?"

"The Priestess," I say impatiently, discreetly wiping my hand on my trousers. I bet Diavolo never has this problem. "Will she kill me?"

"Um. Well. When's your cut-off?" he asks.

I push away the image of my limbs being severed. "Dunno."

"In my experience," Quidward says thoughtfully, "She'd rather make an example of your dad. It's easier to teach someone a lesson if they're alive."

"Tell that to my Maths teacher," I mutter glumly.

"Zen," Ink says seriously, "We'll figure it out. Trust me."

"I need to keep my family out of this," I tell him, my stomach turning like the tide at the thought. "My mum would never survive a kidnapping. She's so annoying. They would not cope."

"I'm looking into it," Quidward says firmly. "Don't worry."

"Why do you even care?" I ask eventually, drumming my fingers on the desk. "What happens to me, I mean?"

Ink shrugs. "I'm not about to waste my time training up a new employee when I've got a perfectly decent crew in place."

"Whoa, boss, no need to get all mushy," I grin.

A ghost of a smile flickers across his face. Luckily, Peter Venkman arrives on the scene before it can grow into anything more. 

"Yeah. Well. It'd be rather unfortunate if you were all to die on me."

I furrow my eyebrows. "What do you mean, 'all'?"

"Well," Quidward muses, "Somewhere along the line, if your family were out of reach, she might set her sights on your friends. The Undead might take Rahul and Lily and Vienna. You'd be emotionally distraught and unfit to work, and half my workforce would be absent."

"She wouldn't take Vienna," I assure him. 

Ink looks at me with distilled disbelief. 

"What?" I ask, more to humour him than because I care. 

"Well, for starters, that wasn't my point," he says, his scrutinising gaze slightly narrowed. "Second, she always targets women first. I thought you said you'd read a book on her?"

I repress a shudder. I'd been tailed for two weeks after borrowing that book; I'm surprised Grams even still has it. "Well, yeah, but there's no point taking someone who I'd pay to never see again."

Quidward surveys me pityingly before pressing his fingertips together. I'm affronted before he even speaks. "That's got nowt to do with it, but alright," he murmurs eventually. "We'll see. I mean, anything could happen in six months."

I scoff. "Not that much."

Ink smiles wryly at me. "Okay."