Brazen Williams. November 5th. The Williams House.

The tabletop is sticky with the condiments of the people before us. Threads of sweet chilli sauce stretch between my fingers when I pull them apart. I feel a little like Spiderman. Or maybe just a spider. Right before it gets crushed by a flying book.

"Here."

A neatly-folded serviette is slid across the table, its edges fluttering in the dry breeze of the air con. I drag my eyes up to the hand offering it up to me. A familiar shade of charcoal painted smoothly on fingernails gives way to bony fingers slightly paler than mine, a wrist tucked away in a leathery jacket sleeve, and a long, fluffy plait looped over a shoulder.

"Thanks," I murmur. I can't remember why I needed it. I ball it up and drop it into my lap.

"So what are you going to order?"

I'm no longer sitting across from her. Instead, I'm on the other side of the deserted American-style diner, tucked into a booth with cracked leather seats and a mirrored table that barely trembles when I kick it. I stare haplessly across the miles that stretch between us as Vienna gazes at a boy who is much better-looking than I am.

Silence ticks between them. If this is a date, it's going terribly. Vienna looks on vacantly, eyes glazed over like an NPC.

"I don't know," I say slowly. The words stutter out of his mouth with difficulty.

"Turkey tetrazzini?" she suggests, laughing slightly. Her voice echoes strangely, like a windchime.

"What's that?"

"I dunno." She leans back, surveying a laminated menu that I suppose she's had this whole time. "It always comes up in TV shows."

"Are we in a TV show?" I ask.

"No," she answers absentmindedly. "What is tetrazzini?"

"I don't know." I'm back across from her now, poring over my own menu. I haven't got my glasses on and the letters look like alphabet soup.

"I like soup," she informs me.

"Okay," I say. The menu doesn't have prices on it. I hate it when they do that.

"Mine does." She slides the little plastic booklet over to me.

I drag my eyes up again. The air leaves my lungs with a quiet hiss as she smiles, warmth spilling out of her as if I'm her favourite. Dark nails, dark hair, and eyes the colour of rain clouds.

Charcoal, I realise. I wish I were this interesting to look at, instead of just one sepia wash of a human being.

"But look at you," she whispers, grinning. I am her favourite.

There is something that I need to tell her. I'm about to grab her hand in mine when a pair of shined shoes taps its way over to our table. I'm back in the other booth now, frowning on as the back of a waistcoat asks if we need another minute.

Vienna looks to the boy across from her expectantly. I open my mouth to tell the waistcoat that yes, that would be great, but suddenly his pen becomes a pistol and he's obviously with the Undead and he guns us both down, our heads falling onto our plastic menus with a single, unified thud.

I am wrenched back into consciousness by a brittle tap tap on my bedroom door. I wrestle up onto my elbows, sweaty sheets wound tightly around my wrists and ankles. "Yeah?" My voice is thick with mucous.

The door opens just wide enough to reveal a sliver of my sister's head. "You alright?" Sahana asks stiffly, eyes darting to meet anything but mine.

I grunt in assent, clenching the corners of my duvet in my fists. "Why?"

"I can hear you groaning from my room." She sets a plastic plate down on the chest of drawers by the door. "And Sumi said you have a fever."

"Sumi's here?" I say, mustering up a frown.

"I can't find the puke bowl," Sahana continues, "So it's probably still in here." And then she clicks the door shut, dousing the last whisper of light from the hallway.

I grapple out of my sheets and drop onto a pile of clothes bridging the gap between my bed and the doorway. It takes a moment to locate the motor skills to set the plate on my lap, but I do so with care.

"Mmph," I say cleverly, cramming slice after slice of hot, buttered toast into my mouth. She still loves me, I think softly, sweeping breadcrumbs off the plate with a sticky finger before burrowing sideways into the floor. The world is better from this angle, where everything is a curious shape and not a recognisable danger. The tension in my limbs begins to dissipate, tugged from my reach by the cool hands of sleep, and I twitch fearfully as sticky tabletops and brass searchlights come back into focus. I topple back into the nightmare before I can recognise the muffled vibrations pulsing through the floor like a tiny, urgent earthquake.

*

Vienna Castanoza. November 5th. Vincentive.

"Vienna!" Jonah tears into the store, yanking a cashmere scarf from his neck. A gust of November wind sends the glass door slamming back into its frame. "What's going on?"

I rake my eyes over his form. Under his black peacoat, he is wearing a matching set of flannel pyjamas and a muddy pair of hiking boots.

"Jonah," I say steadily, coming to stand behind the front desk, "Would you like to buy a book?"

"You messaged!" he splutters, gesticulating wildly. His hands and face are splotched with pink. "You said Zen didn't come into work!"

"Yes," I say. "And I also said that you should go check on him. At his house. And yet, here you are. Not buying a book."

Jonah snatches a book that can only be described as ludicrously smutty off the bestsellers table, and slams it down on the counter.

"That book's 12.99."

He returns it to its stack with grimacing care. "What happened?" he hissed, gripping the wooden shield of the desk with bleached knuckles.

"I don't know," I say through a plastic smile, nodding at an actual paying customer as they weave their way through the aisles. "I'm covering his shift. I kind of assumed you would handle the-"

"Body recovery?"

"-rest."

"Oh God," Jonah whimpers, fisting his hair in his hands so that he looks like someone Jamie Dornan would play in a movie. "Oh, God, they've killed him."

If I do not give this statement the response it warrants, it is because I simply do not believe it, not when I feel him in my chest every time I exhale. "What?"

"What if I'm too late? What if I have to hold his lifeless body in my hands?"

"Jonah!" I take two fingers to my temple, ironing out the creases in my forehead. "What the hell? Stop spiralling. Go and find him."

"I need to call the others," he says, his voice thick with suppressed hysteria. "Shit, fuck."

I draw the inside of my cheek into my mouth and wait for something to happen.

He drags out a huff. "I don't have my phone."

"Oh!" I tug mine out of my inside pocket and dial Dale's number, handing him the console.

There is a pause before Jonah says, "You answer the phone with your surname? What are you, a detective?"

The smile is tugging at my lips before I even have a chance to suppress it, and I start moving files around on the computer desktop before my face can do anything else without the necessary permits.

"Yeah, it's Zen. He didn't come into work. Yeah, I know. I'll meet you there."

Jonah pauses as Dale talks for an uncharacteristically long time. When I glance up into the silence, he is looking straight at me. I drop my head and drag Mozilla Firefox into a folder marked 'March Bulletin', wondering if one day, an actual customer might want to speak to me, rather than one of my asinine friends.

"Look, focus. If it is his dad, then we'll handle it. And if it's not, then... then we'll handle that too."

The guilt hits me like the cramps did this morning. By the time Jonah cuts the call, I have chewed the lip stain off my bottom lip and I am fizzing with the anticipation of a bad decision.

Jonah purses his lips and hands back my phone, his forehead folded with worry.

"I might be able to help find Zen's dad," I blurt out.

Jonah stares at me.

"I know his mechanic," I add, my chest tightening into a colossal knot. "I could speak to him, if that, well, if that would help."

Jonah blinks twice, as if it's some kind of code, and then nods brusquely. "Okay. Good. Do that."

He turns to leave and I let my eyes roll back in my head, wondering why I always insert myself into these situations.

"Oi." Jonah's foot and shoulder wedge the door open as he looks back at me. "Thanks. Seriously."

My shoulders slump. I nod stiffly and he disappears into the street, his unbuttoned coat whipping in the wind.

"That's why," I grumble, huffing back in my wheelie chair.

*

Brazen Williams. November 5th. The Williams House.

"Oh thank fuck."

I crack open an eyelid and find Jonah's Eiffel Tower frame bracing against the doorjamb, the back of his hand pressed to his forehead.

"Guys, he's fine," Jonah mutters darkly, yanking me out of my burrow and onto my feet. "But not for long," he adds under his breath.

I scrub the sleep from my eyes and peer blearily round his shoulder. "What you all doing here?"

"We thought you were dead," Raphael snaps, barrelling into the room. "Pick up your phone, man, the fuck is wrong with you?"

"I was asleep," I grumble, crawling back into bed and tugging the duvet up to my abdomen. I am distantly aware that I probably have a boner, and that doesn't seem to be what the occasion calls for.

"Yeah, well, you missed your shift," Jonah says snippily, tapping away at his phone like a PTA mum. "Vienna had to cover."

I let out an unholy groan. "I assume I'll be hearing about that for the next twenty-seven years."

"Bold of you to assume you'll live that long," Raphael snarls.

I smile against my will.

"You know, it kind of looks exactly the same in here," Caleb says, glancing around my ransacked bedroom. "Are you sure you got robbed?"

"Shut the fuck up, Caleb," I scowl, propping myself up against the headboard.

"God, you reek," Jonah grimaces as he plops down at the foot of the bed.

"I'm ill," I sniff.

"Princess," Caleb mutters.

"Shut up, Caleb."

"I'm opening a window," Jonah announces, heading for the sill that Dale hasn't wedged himself into and tearing open the curtains.

"Remind me why you lot are here again?" I ask, wincing at the sudden onslaught of sunlight.

Dale lifts his eyebrows disbelievingly. "Um, to solve the case?"

I pray that I've misheard him. "What?"

"Don't worry," Jonah says, his eyes gleaming. "We came prepared. Raph?"

Raphael dips into the hallway and returns with a whiteboard, which he props up on my desk. At the top are the words 'SCAM OR NAH?', outlined in a wiggly little cloud.

"A whiteboard?" I glance between the four of them with growing concern. "Do you lot not have, like, hobbies, or something?"

"We're making a flowchart," Jonah says pristinely, lobbing a marker at Raph.

Raph stares down at the pen, an uneasy expression coming over his face, and passes it to Caleb without a word.

Caleb steps up towards the desk with unnecessary intensity. "Right, well, time is money. Zen, did you notice anything about the envelope? Return address? Watermark?"

"Man really said return address," Dale mutters, dropping his head into his hands.

I try to be serious. "Um, no, not really."

"Not really?" Caleb shakes his head. "Come on, man! You were brought up under the wing of Hercule Poirot and that's the best you can do?"

"It was an envelope!" I look to Dale, but he is staring at his interlocked fingers with glassy eyes. "Literally the most nondescript thing I've ever seen. And no, before you ask, I didn't have time to dust it for fingerprints."

"So it's not distinctive enough to be linked back to a particular supplier." Caleb paces, humming thoughtfully and treading all over my clothes.

"Detective Huang," Raphael mutters with a shudder. "I hate this."

Dale smirks slightly. "And P.I. Joe." He gasps, covering his mouth with both hands. "P.I. Joe!"

Raph lets out a ghastly shriek and Dale slams himself into the wall with alarming force. Caleb screws up his eyes in disgust as their cackles crescendo, getting wheezier by the second. When it becomes clear that they're going to need a moment, Jonah, Caleb and I turn back to the whiteboard.

"How would you describe the feel of the paper?" Caleb continues. "Thick? Thin? I hate to be that guy, but- cheap?"

"It's an envelope, Caleb, not a Fabergé egg." I scrub my hands through hair. "This isn't helping."

Dale crawls back into the windowsill, face stretched wide with an aching grin as he attempts to regain control of his breathing. Raph rolls over on the floor, still convulsing slightly.

"Man probably just stole it from a card shop," Jonah says casually. "I used to do that all the time."

"Badman," Dale drawls.

Jonah's cheeks colour slightly. "Shut up."

"Fine." Caleb turns back to the board and writes, 'WHAT DO THEY WANT?' in spiky capitals.

The four of them look at me expectantly and I dip my head into my hands. "I dunno exactly," I mumble. "Money, I think? He said that the debt was point three million."

"Point three mill-"

Jonah whacks Raphael in the stomach and his face contorts into a silent wail. With a twitching eye, Raph gestures for us to proceed.

'WHO WANTS IT?' Caleb scrawls, boxing up both phrases and connecting them with a jet-black line.

"My dad? For the Priestess, apparently."

'OR WHAT?'

"Or they leak Savannah's nudes in my name."

"This isn't working!" Jonah groans, flopping onto my bed. "All this is showing us is how little we know."

"Whoever it is, they haven't been very clear," Dale frowns, drumming his fingers against my windowsill. "All they've told you is that at some miscellaneous date, they want some miscellaneous amount of money."

"It's just an elaborate prank call," Jonah says bemusedly. "This is fucking stupid."

"Well, the photos were still stolen," I point out. "Which feels like a double-back. Maybe someone fucked up, took it too far."

Caleb returns to the board. 'WHO IS DEFINITELY INVOLVED?'

"The driver," Raphael supplies.

"And the thief," Jonah adds.

Dale sets his hands thoughtfully on his knees. "You know what, guys?" he says, turning to the room with gleaming eyes. "It's a real shame that nobody saw either of those people."

I nod intently. "Yep, terrible shame. But if we hack into a police station and trace the call—"

Raphael lets out a rough groan. "For fuck's sake, man. Did you learn nothing from being dead?"

Jonah stares at him with tired pity. "So close to having a point."

"You need to leave your shit in the past," Caleb tells me. "You can't be a petty little bitch if you're dead."

"I could be a petty little ghost bitch," I mutter, picking at the buttons along the top of my duvet.

"Grow up," Caleb says flatly. "Apologise. Nicely."

"But I didn't do anything!"

Before I can say anything else, I'm buffeted back into my headboard by a tightly-curled pillow. When I crawl back onto my elbows, Jonah is stretching his interlocked fingers behind him with a peaceful smile. "You are a violent little shit."

His smile deepens. "I'm a man of the people. Now, do you need her number?"

I narrow my eyes in disgust. "I am not calling her with you lot in here."

I am not calling her at all, I think dryly.

"Why not?" Raphael asks.

"Because it's weird!"

The four of them share a look of mild amusement. I scowl, fumbling out of bed.

"Fucking weirdos," I mutter, kicking through clothes until my socked foot closes around the hard planes of my phone. "Fine, I'll call her in the shower."

"Oh, 'cause that's not weird."

I slam the bedroom door shut behind me, muttering under my breath as I walk down the hallway. Once the bathroom door is bolted shut, I look my reflection straight in the eye and pull up Vienna's contact. 

"Come on, man," I mutter, shaking away the image of her head slamming onto a vinyl table. "Come on."

Z: hey, u think u could do me a favour? it's kinda urgent

Waiting for the water to run hot, I brace against the cold tiles and start a set of push-ups. I'm twelve in when a waspish buzz sounds through the room, sending me keeling onto my knees. I stare fearfully at my flashing phone screen, finger hovering over the 'decline' button.

Come on, I think. Get it together.

I swallow the sudden excess of saliva in my mouth and lift the phone to my ear.

"Hello?" Her phone voice is warm and lilting, nothing like the two-toned magnum opus I'm used to confronting. Certainly nothing like a windchime. 

I crumble slightly, scratching the pad of my thumb with my forefinger. "Hi, Vienna. Um, it's Zen."

"I know."

"Oh."

"Is everything okay?"

"What? Yeah." I sit down on the edge of the bathtub and grip it tightly with my free hand. "Yes. Um, is this a bad time?"

"No, no, it's fine, I'm actually on my way back from your shift." She laughs slightly and I have to close my eyes. "Sorry, I'm out of texts and you said it was urgent, so."

"Right. Um. Well, yeah, I kind of need a favour."

"Right."

"So, um, you remember that envelope?"

"Yep."

"Well, the guy who dropped it off— well, that was my dad."

There's a brief moment of silence, and I suck in a shaky breath.

"Right," she says carefully.

"And I need to find him."

"Yep."

"So..."

"Did... um, did Jonah not tell you?"

I frown. "Tell me what?"

"Well, I know the guy who's fixing up his car. Not exactly an MOT. Bulletproofing and shit."

"Bulletproofing. And shit."

"Well, I don't really know what the shit is. GPS encryption? I dunno. Not my forte."

"Okay." My voice is shaking. I force myself to breathe through the embarrassment. "Right."

"Yeah. I'm on my way to see him now, I promised Jonah this morning."

"You-" I curl my fingers into a fist and let out a low hiss of air. Man of the people, my arse. "Right. He didn't mention that. Ha."

"Oh. Well, I'll text you if I find anything out."

"Yeah, of course. Thank you."

"Oh, shit, right, I'm out of texts. Shit. Um... you're not on socials, right? Do you want me to DM Jonah?"

"Yeah, that's fine. Or you can just tell me at school. I don't care."

There's a cold, crackly silence. "Right."

"Mind. I don't mind."

"Yeah, that's fine."

"Thanks. I owe you."

"You don't," Vienna says, her voice stiffening like papier-mâché. "I'm almost there, I should go."

I shake away the instinct to feel hurt. "Right. Good luck."

She snorts out a laugh. "Thanks. Bye."

She hangs up before I can say it back.

*

Vienna Castanoza. November 5th. Rochdale Street.

I lean against the opening in the corrugated walls, watching as a pair of legs wriggles cartoonishly under the belly of a sedan. I never thought I would miss this place, but as I cast my eyes fondly over the interior of Sergei's workshop, nostalgia bubbles in my chest. Memories of those stretched-out Saturdays flit through my head; hours spent entertaining Tristan while Katie slipped into her role as 'car surgeon', words that were somehow easier to teach Tristan than 'mechanic'.

I tip my head back to face the ceiling. The view is the same: wires trailing like vines across the concrete, swooping down the walls to loop over wheelie carts and steel girders. I note with a sinking heart that the old cubby desk where Tristan used to nap has been traded in for two mammoth metal storage units, chained to rings in the floor and bolted austerely across the front. I woke up this morning missing Mum, tears drying on my cheeks as I fished my work polo out of the washing basket. I know it's this feeling of faded infamy that's colouring my judgement, roping me into emotional mousetraps that I won't be able to wriggle out of once the feelings pass. Even now, the little black letters of his text are still burned into my retina, his name still saved optimistically as Zen :)

I remember the immediate sear of shame across my gut as I pulled up his contact, replacing the smiley face with Williams, and then stared at the toilet stall door until someone pounded on it angrily. This is the last time, I think. One more favour and then you delete his contact for good.

Steeling my resolve, I rap my knuckles against a metal plate. The muffled clinking from the floor subsides instantly and Sergei's suspicious, weathered face emerges from the underneath of the car.

"Vienna?" He clambers to his feet, wiping sweat off his forehead with the sleeve of his overalls.

"Hiya." I smile as he pulls me into a slightly sticky hug, the heady smell of petrol lingering over my shoulders long after he's let go. "How are you? It's been a minute-"

"A minute? Is that what passes for a century these days?" Sergei wipes his hands with a rag that he seems to have conjured from nowhere.

I prickle with impatience. He never did let me finish my sentences.

"What's going on, how's the family?"

"They're okay," I nod, eyeing the slick ground nervously. "Katie's alright, I think, and Tristan's doing well."

"You heard from Sean?" Sergei asks, pulling his dark hair from the confines of its band and scraping it back into a more structurally sound ponytail.

"He called for Tristan's birthday," I grin. Sean is Tristan and Katie's dad and Mum's sworn soulmate. He went off the grid after their stupid Whitehall heist went south, but he's been surprisingly on the ball with remote fathering.

"And, um. Your mum?"

I shrug. Sergei's shrewd gaze tightens slightly. I glance towards the metal box that Sergei is attempting to slide out of sight. "What you got there?"

His customer-service smile freezes on his face. After a moment, he relents. "Trackers."

I frown. "I thought you used hardwired?"

"We're diversifying," Sergei says, stepping away from the crate. "Not the point – I get the feeling you didn't drop in for a chat."

I laugh uncomfortably. "Yeah, I'm actually... I'm looking for one of your clients."

A smile begins to toy around his lips. "Right."

"Guy with a silver van? I know that's not very specific, but I figured you'd have changed the plate or something anyway."

He snorts delightedly, drawing himself up a little taller. My naivety always makes him feel important. "Anything else you can tell me?"

"Um, tinted back window, the guy kinda looked like George Clooney?"

"Mission Impossible?"

"No, Ocean's Eleven."

"Who'd he play?"

"Ocean."

He cocks his head. "Ah."

"Yeah. Anyway, I know, client confidentiality, but do you have any idea where I could find him?"

He shifts on his feet thoughtfully. If I were Katie, this conversation would be going very differently. A cobwebbed memory suddenly rises up to the surface: the first time I heard the phrase 'feminine wiles'. Katie was brushing body glitter onto her collarbones, holding my gaze through the mirror as I experimentally sewed denim hearts onto some over-the-knee socks. My stomach lurches as I wonder if I should have gone home to change.

Eventually, Sergei leans back against the sedan. "What's this about?"

I sigh. "It's a favour for, um, someone. That I know. The guy is his dad."

Sergei's eyebrows shoot up towards his widow's peak. "Is the favour for your friend or for your daddy issues?"

"Sergei!" I try not to look flustered, instead fixing him with a pleading gaze. "Come on, man. Please?"

You owe me, I want to say. You owe me a mother and at least half a father, and if you can't get me mine then you can at least get me Zen's.

I don't, of course. But perhaps he hears me anyway, because he pulls the skin of his eyelids taut and mutters a plea for forgiveness under his breath. With a long-suffering eye roll, he jabs a thumb towards the sticky-looking door a few paces behind him. "His van's still in the back. He's picking it up tomorrow at six."

I beam and clap Sergei on the shoulder fiercely, turning him away from the open crate. "You're a legend. Thank you."

He sighs wearily. "I don't want this looking like anything to do with me."

"It won't," I promise. "Thank you so much, Sergei. I knew you'd come through."

"Yeah, yeah," Sergei grumbles. "Thank your daddy issues. Anyway, you owe me a coffee."

I swallow my sigh of relief. "Come by Hail Mary's at three on Monday. I'll even throw in a deformed waffle."

"You're a strange girl, you know that?"

"Thanks, Sergei, I like to think so."

*

Brazen Williams. November 5th. The Williams House.

"Ma, dinner isn't even ready," I groan as she potters around the kitchen, the hem of her nightie trailing along the ground.

"Shut up and sit," she snaps, peering into the fridge curiously. "Why so many avocados?"

"How should I know," I mumble, falling into my seat at the table and dropping my head into my hands. "Why am I here?"

"Hanji, because you're so busy, right?" Ma growls. "So many responsibilities? So many-" she turns to glare at me dramatically, "-exams to fail?"

I stare at her expressionlessly, then drop my forehead onto the table.

She spends the next twenty minutes trying to decipher the cryptic instructions on the back of an Aldi pasta packet while I sit there with my forehead pressed to the table. When Sahana finally traipses into the room and plucks it from her grasp, I almost cry with joy.

I'm tasked with grating a block of slightly sweaty cheddar while Sahana attempts a marinara sauce, but I'm soon fired for insubordination because I keep hiding the wooden spoon. I skulk into the living-room to nap until my exile is over.

Ma decides that now is the perfect time to start rearranging the shoe cupboard. I jolt awake when Sahana's bedroom door slams shut twenty minutes later.

"Always taking food upstairs, of course the house bloody smells," Ma seethes, piling enough pasta to satisfy Pac-Man onto my plate.

"Ma. Ma, stop, who are you feeding?!" I snatch the ladle from her hands and she huffs.

"I'm just saying," she grumbles. "This is why everyone thinks we smell."

I do a 360-survey of the mountains she's created and scrape a third of it onto her plate. She lifts a hand, murmuring, "Bas, bas."

"No, Ma, they think that 'cause they're racist," I tell her, taking my seat at the table and crossing my legs under me. "Just light some incense, it's fine."

Her eyes narrow furiously and she snatches her plate into her hand. "You bloody do it then."

She storms through the archway into the living-room, very nearly tripping on her slippers. I sigh into the steam rising from my plate. Everything that happens in this house is dumb.

Sahana doesn't come down again until Ma's disappeared into her bedroom, poking her head through the kitchen doorway as I peer over the toaster with a dhoop stick in my hand.

"The fuck are you doing?" she asks, screeching open the tap and unleashing a torrent of hot water.

"I'm lighting incense. The fuck are you doing, rerouting the River Thames?"

"The sauce is all stuck, it needs to dissolve."

She turns off the tap and draws a star of washing-up liquid on her plate. "Why you using the toaster?"

"I can't find the matches," I sigh, raking an eye over the puddles spotting the kitchen floor. "Sahana, man, you've made a bloody beach."

"The beach is the sand, not the water. It's fine, I'll mop it up."

She shuffles her socked feet back and forth over the tiles with a shrug and I close my eyes briefly, wishing I had a happy place.

"There are lighters in the elastic band box."

"Whatever," I mutter, shaking the embers from the top of the stick and slotting it into the tray on the windowsill. We stand in silence for a few moments as Sahana washes up some empty yoghurt pots.

"Zen, dry these please."

"Right."

I spin around, looking for the tea towel. "Where-"

"I put it for wash, there's more in that drawer."

I rifle through scraps of string and rubber bands of varying thickness until I find the tea towel that I like, the one with the ducks on it. I take the yoghurt pots from Sahana's outstretched hand and she begins to scrub the frying pan with a fraying sponge.

I lean against the counter, watching her nervously. "So," I say, wrapping a corner of the towel around my fingertip to get into the corners, "Sumi's back, huh."

Sahana glances up at me reluctantly. "She left after her doctor's appointment. Get a new recycling bag, this one's almost full. Carrier bag cupboard."

I dip into the hallway, still drying the yoghurt pots. It's harder than it looks.

"Is this you tryna teach me domestic responsibility?"

By the time I return to the kitchen, she's managed to bite down the better part of her smile. "Dunno what you mean."

"Don't act shy now, you certainly didn't hold back on Friday," I say wryly, putting away the cutlery.

"It needed to be said," Sahana replies, shaking her head. "Ma coddles you. You're gonna run off to uni without even knowing how to peel a carrot."

"I know how to peel a carrot," I scoff.

She lifts her eyebrows.

"I do."

"I'm just sick of it all," she says, scrubbing furiously at the base of a saucepan, gritting her teeth. "That puja was an absolute nightmare, Zen. All the uncles were just watching their wives run around like waitresses, and their sons were sitting round a table in the garden, slagging off all the girls that were there, and then the aunties were giving everyone within earshot an eating disorder-"

"I know," I mutter, leaning against the counter. "They're awful, no argument there."

"Even Ma becomes a totally different person around them," Sahana says, her voice empty. "That's the way things have always been done - did I ask?"

I nod slowly and she narrows her eyes. "I mean, no. You didn't ask."

"It's just so problematic," she says eventually, cutting the water and drying her hands. "This power dynamic, I mean. I deserve a social life. You deserve to be able to take care of yourself."

"I can take care of myself!"

"Zen, the only thing you can make is tea."

"But I make good tea though," I argue.

"Yeah," she concedes. "Still, I dunno. We have to break this cycle at some point. I don't want our kids feeling this way about this side of their identity."

We fall into a subdued silence. I ruin it before I can help myself.

"Do you think it would've been better if Dad was here?" I blurt out.

She plucks the scourer from the dish on the windowsill. "Probably not."

My heart sinks predictably. "He was like that too?"

"What?" Sahana says distractedly. "No. I mean, I don't think so. But they were never very inclusive of him. I'm pretty sure they used to call him Gora Uncle. I know we get shit for being halfies, but there's no way it's as bad as how he had it."

"What?" She glances at me before flicking a stray pea into the bin. "Do you not think? I mean, Rupi Aunty fucking hates us."

Her words swim sluggishly in my ears. "What do you mean?"

"She said something on-"

"What do you mean halfies?"

My sister lurches to a halt. The curds forming in my stomach thicken and the hum of the fridge flickers in spots across my eyes as her mouth opens in a moment of prayer.

"Half-white."

The words echo in cold blue. My tongue is heavy and useless in my mouth.

"Dad's white."

The prickle starts in my shoulders, tiny flashes of heat that would probably be more useful behind my eyes, and stutters through the rest of my body until I itch with it.

"You don't remember," Sahana says, her voice swimming in and out of range. It's not so much a question as it is blatantly fucking obvious.

"I was a baby."

"Their wedding photos?"

"They're in black and white," I say unevenly. "I just thought he was... light. Like Sumi."

"I mean, I guess he is," she jokes, but her voice is like wet paper.

I blink, my heartbeat subsiding. "Yeah. I guess so."

Her smile fades.

"So... Williams?" I ask. She stares at me uneasily. I deflate, leaning back into the doorframe. "I just thought he was Christian."

When I catch her eye, her face crumples into a silent laugh and I smile weakly. Sahana slings an arm around my shoulder and I slam my eyelids shut, a barrage against the imminent flooding.

At least we're not fighting anymore, I think, and warmth blooms unexpectedly in my chest.

We go upstairs after that, all the doors locked tight against the darkness. Much later, when we're both huddled in our respective coyote dens peering blearily at our phone screens, Sahana WhatsApps me a raw YouTube link and nothing else. I swipe it away to focus on my text thread with Jonah, who has helpfully informed me that he's having dinner with Marie's parents tomorrow and hmm, maybe I should communicate with Vienna directly? After politely asking him to stop texting me like a therapist, I roll onto my stomach and open Sahana's message.

I grin as it opens into a white guy speaking rapid, flawless Punjabi between jump cuts. It's only a twenty-second skit, but it's more than enough time for him to double-act as both a grandfather and his ultra-modern grandson who has the bright idea of adding Quorn chicken to dhal tadka. I nod slowly as I look at the title.

Making dhal... #WhitePunjabi #BothNotHalf.

I close my eyes again against the tears that refuse to come.

Z: he's cool

Z: but quorn does not belong in dhal

It only takes a moment for her to reply.

S: ur such a purist

Z: nah ur just a psychopath

She sends back a smug-looking emoji that I didn't know people actually used. I laugh under my breath as I shut the light and slide my phone under my pillow, swiping away the alert that reads Jonah: 12 new messages.

*

The High Street is sickeningly busy, the air sharp with the smell of baby vomit and exhaust fumes. Putting a street's worth of distance in front of it dampens the stench just enough for me to get back in my head, obsessively checking the directions Vienna Snapchatted me in the early hours. (Maybe I did make an entire Snapchat account for the sake of the mission. Maybe I grudgingly pilfered her details from Dale's phone for the sake of the mission. Maybe I stared at her username trying to work out what nopainnogwaine meant for the better part of an hour. For the sake of the mission. And fucking what?)

I pull down the notification bar. 5:53. I'd barely slept all night, too apprehensive of what might be waiting for me in my dreams, so I'd spent most of the night scripting an epic father-son showdown that I just know he'll fuck up with his ad-libbing.

Now that I'm standing across the road from the shuttered back of the garage, watching the accordion door with bated breath, it dawns on me that I've forgotten all my lines. Dale and Caleb, the closest approximation to the Secret Service that I have at my disposal, are posted at either end of the street, apparently ready to dive into the middle of the road if my dad tries to take off. Raphael is loitering on one of the balconies somewhere above my head, having solemnly promised that he has this handled. As usual, every bone in my body is screaming that this is a terrible mistake.

Suddenly, a panel in the garage door opens outwards. I flap my arms frantically at Dale and Caleb, who nod at each other from across the length of the road. A figure clad in all-black backs out of the door, nodding solemnly at someone beyond my eyeline, and I swallow my anxiety, running through the one-liners I practiced in the mirror this morning. He walks around the van slowly, pointing and conversing in a language I don't recognise, let alone understand. I snatch a breath. The hue of his skin is all wrong, the colour of cold cuts and English teachers who've been plied with wine, and I think back to the frayed photos under Ma's bed. The Scorsese eyebrows alone are enough to tell me that it's him, but I dart across the road, determined to get a closer look.

"You don't happen to know any good Chinese places around here, do you?" I hear him ask as he slips back into the garage doorway. His voice is flat and wide, with none of Ma's winding Punjabi lilt. I steal a glance at him through the car windows. He has a flat cap pulled over his hair, but it peeks out over his lined forehead in chunky streaks of lead. His face is mostly bone and wrinkles, stiff and unyielding even as he awaits the mechanic's response.

"I know a guy who can help you out," a surly voice replies. "He's called Google."

"That was ice-cold, Sergei."

"Get out of here, hero."

"I'm going, I'm going," he mutters. The metal door screeches shut, and I bump my fist against my leg twice. Showtime.

"Going somewhere?" I ask chirpily, popping up from behind the bonnet. Dad whirls around, his fists raised and tightly curled. To my surprise, the tension in his arms dissolves when we lock eyes. "Zen?"

"So you remember my name," I say. "Good start. Any particular reason you've been dodging my calls?"

"I was otherwise occupied," he says, the disbelief slowly leaving his voice. His gaze slips past my shoulder, no doubt meeting Dale's hellfire glare. "I see you brought friends."

"Nothing gets past you," I drawl. "We need to talk."

He runs his tongue over his teeth sourly, the tendons in his forearm snapping to attention as he lunges for the inside of his coat. "I couldn't agree more."

A tiny, yellow-tipped dart lodges itself firmly in his cheek. I blink, slightly confused, as he frowns, reaching up to dislodge it. "What in the..." he murmurs, and then a dart pierces the webbing between his fingers.

"Oh my God," I whisper.

Two more darts land side-by-side in his neck and he sighs. "Well, that ought to do it," he says dreamily, and then he topples onto the hood of the van.

I turn to face Raphael, grinning in spite of myself.

"I'm out of practice," he admits, strapping the Nerf gun to his stomach as he swings a leg over the railing. "Don't tell my cousins."

"Dude, that was sick," Caleb whispers harshly, jogging over to us. "Raph, you're like a sniper!"

"Not even to a pacifist," Dale snickers, bumping his fist against mine, "But it worked."

Raphael, halfway down the drainpipe, rolls his eyes. "Of course it worked." He springs to the ground and slings his thumbs through his belt loops. "What now?"