#panic

by Luke Jennings

Genres: Spy Thrillers

Synopsis

*The thrilling new novel from the author of the bestselling Killing Eve series*

Escaping online is easy. In real life it won't be so simple.

#PANIC is a wildly entertaining coming-of-age tale from Luke Jennings, bestselling author of the Killing Eve novels.

Jaleesa, Kai, Ilya and Dani are online best friends, and superfans of the hit TV show City Of Night. Fantasising about the show in their chatroom, they find an escape from their troubled small-town lives. Everything changes when Chloe, make-up artist to the show's star Alice Temple, enters the chat.

When Chloe tells them Alice is in danger the four resolve to save her, and make their way to California. But fantasy is quickly overtaken by reality. Alice's troubles, they discover, will shine the spotlight on all of them. And not in a good way. On the run across the American South with one of the most famous actresses in the world, the fans must evade the police, the Russian mafia and the Legion, an absurd but terrifying new far-right movement. Can they keep running for long enough to uncover the truth about Alice, and discover themselves in the process?

#PANIC is a thriller, a love letter to fandom, and an empowering tale of young adults embracing their identities and fighting back in a world that has always tried to marginalize them.

'A richly imagined, character-driven thriller' Bookseller

'Luke Jennings might just have another cult hit on his hands' Shots Mag

'All the expected high-octane thrills and spills are there' Big Issue

(P) 2023 Hodder & Stoughton Limited

Release date: April 27, 2023

Publisher: John Murray Press

Print pages: 256

Sample

After a sweaty, restless night in the bomb bay of S-Susan, Ilya wakes to discover that he’s been attacked by mosquitos. There are raised weals on his legs and chest, a couple in his groin, and a particularly anguishing, unreachable one halfway down his back. There’s also a smear of blood down one thigh, suggesting that he’s managed to kill at least one of the little fuckers.

Within minutes, and despite knowing that it will only intensify the fiery itching, he’s clawing at the bites helplessly. There’s some AfterSting cream in the medical kit in the back of the Dodge, and he resolves to hike the three hundred-odd metres to the truck, even if it means missing out on the breakfast of coffee and cactus-seed bread that Davy’s preparing.

He’s hauling the rucksack out of the cargo bay of the truck, when he hears the distant sound of a vehicle behind him. Without pausing to think, he flattens himself to the ground, and crawls beneath the low-slung body of the Dodge. As he peers between the wheels, the black SUV that was following them yesterday crests the hill, pauses for a moment, and begins the descent, leaving a thin trail of dust.

Less than a minute later it comes to a crunching halt beside the Dodge. Lying dry-mouthed beneath the pickup, his cheek pressed to the warm grit, Ilya watches as the driver’s door of the SUV opens. He sees faded jeans and military-style desert boots, soon joined by a second pair of legs, similarly clad. The two men walk around the Dodge. Neither speaks. They try the doors, but the keys are in Ilya’s pocket. One glance beneath the pickup and they’ll see him, but the glance never comes, and the men start to walk towards the airfield. They move at a steady pace, swiftly covering ground without breaking into a run.

Ilya watches them go, praying that they won’t turn round. Warily, he crawls backwards and rises to a low crouch. Moving across to the SUV, a Porsche, he kneels, and silently unscrews the dust cap from the wheel valve. Pushing a tiny pebble into the valve to hold it open, he replaces the dust cap. With a barely audible hiss, the tyre starts to deflate. Ilya’s moving to a second wheel when one of the men looks back over his shoulder.

Within seconds both are running back towards him, and Ilya, his heart racing, is unlocking the cab of the Dodge and scrambling inside. With shaking fingers, he manages to work the key into the ignition. The engine whines, and the station wagon lurches and stalls. Clutch, he tells himself, drawing on his meagre driving knowledge. Clutch pedal out, gas pedal in. And handbrake, idiot. The wheels spin, and the Dodge races jerkily forward. Somehow Ilya manages to get it under control. The two men are almost on him now, and coaxing as much power as he can from the gas pedal, he swerves between them. He catches a momentary glimpse of outflung arms and angry features and then he’s clear, gathering speed and heading for the B-52 cluster.

The others have seen what’s happening and are hurrying towards him, followed by Beanie, who’s shouldering a backpack. Ilya hauls on the handbrake, inadvertently throwing the Dodge into a shuddering swerve. He sees Jaleesa limping towards him, and jumps from the cab to help her. Kai takes his place in the front with Alice, and the others, including Beanie, haul themselves into the cargo bed, rolling among the rucksacks. Then Jaleesa’s banging on the back of the cab yelling: ‘Go, go, go,’ and they’re swerving past the two men, bypassing the static Porsche and climbing the hill in a choking plume of dust.

Ilya and the others clutch each other, every bounce of the tyres lifting and slamming them into the steel bed of the cargo bay. He can feel Dani’s face pressed between his shoulders and Jaleesa’s fingers gripping his forearm. Beanie’s hair, smelling of coconut oil and sweat, is inches from his face. ‘What the fuck, man?’ she gasps, wrenching her arm from beneath his ribs as the Dodge lurches over the crest of the hill.

‘Sorry about that,’ Ilya says. ‘Some people we’re trying to avoid.’

‘Yeah? They looked pissed.’

‘They’ve been following us. I think they’re Russian gangsters.’

‘Shut the fuck up!’

‘Seriously.’

Releasing Ilya’s arm, Jaleesa pushes herself up into a sitting position. Her face is ghostly with dust. ‘We seem to have lost them, eh?’

‘Maybe, maybe not.’ Ilya blinks and rubs his eyes.

Up front, Kai is coaxing all the power out of the truck that he can. His exhaust repairs are holding up; the knocking noises have stopped and the Dodge is running smoothly. Behind him Dani, Jaleesa and Beanie are sitting shoulder to shoulder with their backs against the cab, while Ilya is crouching among the packs and the repair tools, searching for the tube of AfterSting.

For half an hour, as the sun climbs in the sky, they move through a hazy wilderness of rocks and scrub. A triangular sign pocked by shotgun pellets reads Rattlesnake Area, and it’s just as they’re passing it that the truck’s engine cuts out. They freewheel a few metres, then come to a halt amid a vast silence.

Kai climbs down from the cab. ‘We’re out of gas. I nursed her as carefully as I could, but the fuel gauge must be crook. Said we still had at least ten clicks in the tank.’

‘You’re sure,’ Jaleesa says. ‘It definitely won’t start?’

‘You’re welcome to try.’ He holds out the key to her.

‘Let me,’ says Beanie, snatching it irritably. She climbs into the cab, stabs the key into the ignition and stamps on the gas pedal. The engine coughs and whines, but it’s clear that Kai is right.

Ilya’s eye is caught by a blue-white glint on the horizon behind them. For a second it doesn’t register, then as the faraway vehicle vanishes into a dip in the road, he hears himself yell ‘Cops!’ Amid avalanches of dust and dirt, bodies skid down the roadside slope into a long-dry stream bed. Dani’s beside Ilya, and he covers her hand with his as they press themselves into the powdery bank.

‘Where’s Beanie?’ Jaleesa hisses.

‘Stayed in the truck.’ The voice is Kai’s.

‘Shit.’

‘No, it makes sense,’ Ilya whispers. ‘They’re not looking for her.’

Above them, a heavy vehicle slows to a halt. ‘Y’awright, ma’am?’ The gravelly voice just audible over the running engine.

‘Just fine, thank you,’ Beanie says coolly. ‘Stopped for a call of nature.’

‘Then I won’t detain you, ma’am. Watch out for those rattlesnakes.’

‘That I will. You have a good day now.’

The vehicle, a silver interceptor with black state markings, speeds away. A minute later, as the others are dusting themselves down and telling Beanie that her performance deserved, at the very least, a Golden Globe award, Ilya’s standing in the back of the pickup, trying to hold the rifle-sight steady. It’s as he feared. Approximately two miles ahead of them, he can see the tiny but unmistakeable shapes of further police cars.

‘Road block,’ he announces flatly. ‘They’re waiting for us at the next intersection.’

Everybody stops talking and stares at him.

‘If we want to get to Quartz Lake, we have to walk there. Through the desert.’

‘How far is that?’ Jaleesa asks Beanie.

‘By road, half an hour. Across country? Fuck, I don’t know. You’d be crazy to try it.’

‘We don’t have a choice,’ Ilya says.

‘Then we should find somewhere to lay up till the sun goes down. Do the walking at night.’

‘There’s nowhere to hide, Beanie. No shade anywhere. And we can’t risk staying near the car.’

She’s silent for a moment. ‘Then we turn back. To Corlena.’

‘Corlena’s two hours’ walk in the wrong direction,’ Ilya says. He doesn’t add that the police will almost certainly raid the airfield when the road block proves a failure.

Beanie closes her eyes, and lets her head hang forward. ‘You people. Fuck.’

‘Why don’t you go back to Corlena?’ Jaleesa says. ‘We’ll be OK.’

‘No. You won’t be OK. You’ll die. And you’ll fucking deserve it.’

Ilya flicks a glance at Jaleesa – leave it to me. ‘We’ve got food and water, a compass, and protective clothing,’ he says. ‘Everything we need to make it to Quartz Lake and the railyard by sundown. The walk’s not going to be fun, but getting picked up by the state police or the FBI would be worse. Beanie, I’m guessing you can’t get maps up on your phone?’

‘Nope. No signal for miles.’

‘So here’s what I suggest. Quartz Lake’s due south of here, right?’

‘Pretty much.’

‘And we know the rail tracks run east-west.’

‘Yeah.’

‘So if we take a compass bearing to the east of the town, we know that as soon as we hit the railway, we have to turn right.’

‘Why not aim straight for Quartz Lake?’ Jaleesa asks.

‘Because without an exact bearing, we could miss it. We could hit the railway track and not know which way to turn. Aiming off means a slightly longer journey, but we won’t get lost.’

‘Neat hack,’ Beanie says. She inclines her head questioningly. ‘So who the fuck are you people? Seriously? Like, I know you want to avoid the cops, which is cool. Everyone does. But you’re not road people. You’re not even American, except for Miss Whatsit over there. I’d say you were spies if you weren’t all so fucking clueless.’ She eyeballs the group one by one. ‘Here’s the deal, people. I’ll walk with you to Quartz Lake, take you to the jungle, and get you fixed up with a ride. But I’m gonna need to know exactly who you are and what your stories are. I want the truth, the whole truth, and no fuckin’ bullshit.’

Ilya looks at the others. No one dissents. ‘Deal,’ he says.

They load up. Ilya volunteers to carry the jerrycan of water and the medical kit. It makes for a heavy load, but he’s spent enough time on forced marches at the cadet school to know the trick of hefting a big pack. Instinctively, he checks that the others are properly kitted out. Sunhat, shades, water canteen, correctly laced boots.

‘I’m sorry we’re dumping the truck,’ Kai says. ‘I feel bad about that. Snake was a decent guy.’

Jaleesa shrugs. ‘We don’t have a choice.’

Kai nods, and caches the keys inside the driver’s-side headrest, as Snake requested. ‘Sorry, dude,’ he murmurs, and pulls the door shut.

‘So who’s gonna be my storyteller?’ Beanie asks.

‘That’ll be me,’ says Alice, taking her place beside her. The others pair up: Ilya up front with Dani and the prismatic compass, Alice and Beanie in the middle, Jaleesa and Kai bringing up the rear. Ilya sets the compass on a south-south-easterly bearing. Lines up with a toad-shaped rock on the horizon. ‘OK, let’s move out.’

The heat encloses them, presses on them from above, rises in waves from the earth. Beneath their boots the ground has a thin, baked crust that crumbles with every step. Behind him, Ilya can hear the low murmur of Alice’s voice and, at intervals, gasps of surprise from Beanie. ‘You’re her?’ Really and truly? Oh my God.’

Ilya concentrates on walking. He tries his best to ignore the sweat running into his eyes, and the backpack straps biting into his shoulders. There are signs that people once lived here, and tried to wrest a living from the unforgiving terrain. Sagging fence posts trailing strands of rusted barbed wire. Bleached planks, half-submerged in the grey sand. Drift-blown tracks, leading nowhere.

They march into the white glare of the sun. They pass the toad-shaped rock and Ilya holds them on a steady course, moving from feature to feature. It’s not easy in this baked, unvarying landscape. The compass grows slippery in his grasp, and Ilya has to force himself to concentrate, to remind himself that if he loses his bearing, and they get lost in this merciless heat and light, they will not survive.

After twenty minutes have passed, or maybe forty, he glances behind him. Alice has fallen silent. Her neck is shining, and between her shoulders and beneath her arms her T-shirt is dark with sweat. Beanie, who by now knows who the lean, crop-haired figure next to her really is, is staring at her, fascinated. Behind them Kai is slouching along, head bowed, but Jaleesa’s step is uneven. ‘Can we stop?’ she calls out to Ilya.

‘Problem?’

‘My ankle’s giving me trouble.’ She winces. ‘I need to strap it up.’

Swinging the pack from his shoulders, Ilya finds the first aid box. Jaleesa takes out a bandage, binds her ankle with brisk efficiency, and pops a painkiller from its blister card.

‘How bad?’ Dani asks.

‘I’ll live,’ says Jaleesa, lacing up her boots and taking a swig from her canteen. ‘Ilya, can you walk with Kai. I’ll pair up with Dani.’

‘Sure.’

‘We should saddle up,’ Beanie says. ‘Longer we’re out in this heat, worse for us all.’

Has she done time in the military? Ilya wonders. She doesn’t look old enough. But she’s got a gung-ho way about her which sits oddly with her hippyish, free-spirit appearance.

‘Listen up, bro,’ Kai murmurs. ‘Need to tell you something. Jay’s telling Dani the same thing.’

‘Tell me.’

‘Chloe’s dead. Murdered.’

For several seconds, the words are just sounds. Ilya con-tinues walking, the base of the rucksack grinding against his sweat-drenched back. ‘You’re serious? Murdered?’

‘Yeah.’

‘How do you know?’

‘News broadcast.’

‘When?’

‘Yesterday.’

‘Yesterday? Why didn’t you say anything?’

‘It was impossible with those Corlena people watching us. It would have looked weird if we were in little huddles, whispering to each other. Plus . . . Alice.’

‘What about Alice?’

‘They found Chloe somewhere in Malibu, and uh . . . She’d been stabbed to death.’

Ilya’s silent. He concentrates on putting one foot in front of the other. ‘I don’t know what to say. That’s horrible. Chloe was a good person. And our friend.’

‘Yup.’

‘Did they say what the police . . . is Alice a suspect?’

‘They didn’t say. But I’m guessing yes.’

Ilya shakes his head, digs his thumbs beneath the shoulder straps of his pack, and hoists it higher on his back. ‘Why would anyone kill Chloe? Especially Alice?’

‘No idea. Doesn’t make sense.’

‘None of it makes sense.’ Ilya blinks away the sting of sweat and melted sun cream, and glances over his shoulder. Jaleesa’s face is unreadable, Dani’s tense with anxiety. He struggles to clear his mind. If the same person killed Don and Chloe, which seems like a reasonable assumption, Chloe’s murder gets Alice off the hook. Because while she might just conceivably have killed Don, given the way he abused her, there’s no imaginable reason for her to have killed Chloe. It must have been some crazy person. Someone with a grudge against the studio, or the series. But if so, why Chloe? Don’s death made a kind of sense, given that he ran the studio and conceived the series, but a make-up artist? Someone with zero power, completely removed from the decision-making process?

Just suppose for a moment that Alice did kill them both. Might Chloe have known something that incriminated her? Something so terrible that Alice was prepared to commit murder to keep her quiet? It’s possible; Chloe must have known all sorts of stuff about her boss, some of it probably quite dark. Was she Alice’s intended victim all along, and Don merely a witness who had to be silenced?

‘I can see that Don Firestone might have had enemies,’ Kai says. ‘He was clearly a nasty piece of work. But Chloe? Why would anyone want to kill her? She was a sweetheart.’

‘She was. But also, why would Alice kill Don? She’s a smart woman. She could have divorced him, gone public with the abuse, and come out of the whole thing more powerful than ever. Why stick a knife in him in the middle of Con of Night? If we hadn’t been there, she’d be in jail. As it is, she’s wanted for murder.’

Ilya fixes his gaze on the pale, shifting horizon. In front of them, Jaleesa is still limping and Dani is placing her feet with exaggerated care. He glances at his watch. They’ve been walking for almost three hours now. ‘Let’s take a break,’ he calls out.

They lower their packs, and refill their canteens. For Ilya, it’s bliss just to stand there without a twenty-kilo weight hanging from his shoulders. ‘Show me your feet,’ he tells Dani. As he suspected, her heels are skinned raw, with weeping blisters. ‘Are the boots too small?’

‘No,’ she winces. ‘My feet are too big.’

‘There’s a trick.’ He takes a tin of Vaseline from the medical kit. ‘Smear this inside the heel of your boots and on the inside and outside of your socks. It’ll stop the rubbing.’

He needs to piss, so walks away from the others and turns his back. Despite having drunk more than a litre of water, his urine is dark. A short distance away, Alice is squatting out in the open, her jeans round her knees.

They move on. The light, sharp and splintering, is reflected by mineral particles in the sand, so that the desert glitters around them. For Ilya, time blurs. Sweat glazes his body, and his back, abraded by the heavy pack, stings as if it’s been sandpapered. Ahead of him he sees Jaleesa pop another painkiller, and wash it down with a swig from her canteen. Beside her, Dani paces with grim determination, sweat dripping from her chin.

‘Warm enough for you?’ Like Beanie, and weirdly, Alice, Kai looks as if he could keep going forever.

‘Not yet,’ Ilya forces a smile.

‘Why don’t I take a turn carrying the water?’

‘You sure?’

‘’Course I’m sure. Hand it over.’

Ilya swings the pack off his back and helps Kai shrug it on. ‘How’s that?’

‘Snug as a bug.’

Without the heavy pack, Ilya feels as if he’s floating. The backs of his hands are burnt brick red, and there’s a strip on the back of his neck which feels flayed too, but the relief at not having his back pounded to raw steak is overwhelming, as is the urge to simply lie down in the desert and close his eyes. Around him, the scrub oak bushes and the cacti drift and shimmer. He has never, in his life, felt so utterly drained. He glances at the compass. ‘You OK, bro?’ he whispers, his voice thick with dust.

‘I am now,’ Kai answers. ‘Look.’

Narrowing his eyes against the haze, Ilya makes out a horizontal line ruled across the desert. The railroad.

Within thirty minutes they’re approaching Quartz Lake. There’s a Taco Bell on the edge of town, and as Jaleesa limps inside to buy food – they agree it’s unwise to be seen in public as a group, and there’ll certainly be CCTV cameras inside – the others subside exhaustedly against the brick exterior wall. ‘How is everyone?’ Ilya says.

‘Fucked,’ Dani murmurs, loosening her bootlaces. She closes her eyes, and opens them moments later. ‘And desperate to pee.’

‘Go inside,’ Kai tells her. ‘Fill your boots.’

‘I was planning on using the toilet.’

Jaleesa returns with a bag of tacos.

‘Oh my God,’ Alice breathes. ‘Those look so good.’

‘Enjoy,’ Beanie says. ‘No restaurant car on a freight train.’

‘Have you ridden them a lot?’ Ilya asks her.

‘Yeah, been all over. Union Pacific, BNSF, Norfolk Southern . . . No feeling like it, but I’m not gonna bullshit you, it’s dangerous. Kids get dragged under the wheels every year.’

Ilya watches Beanie squeeze a lemon slice over her taco. Crouched over the food, her jaws working steadily, she looks like an insect dismembering its prey.

‘Something I wanna ask you,’ Beanie says to him, lowering her voice.

‘Sure.’

‘Did she do it? Alice? Did she kill that dude?’

‘No.’

‘If you say so.’ She inclines her head. ‘And that trans chica.’

‘Dani?’

‘Yeah.’

‘What about her?’

‘Are you and she . . .?’

‘We’re friends.’

‘She really likes you. You know that, right?’

Beanie doesn’t want the group to arrive at the jungle too early, so they spend the afternoon wandering around the outskirts of Quartz Lake. Ilya walks with Dani past the town courthouse and jail. It looks deserted, with the dreamy, not-quite-real look of a film set. Crossing the street, he glimpses a black vehicle moving through an intersection a couple of blocks away. It’s there for a moment, floating in the heat haze, and then it’s gone. He stares after it. Was it the Porsche?

‘What’s up?’ Dani asks.

‘Nothing.’ He entwines his fingers with hers. ‘Where do you think everyone is? It’s like there’s been some kind of event, transporting the townspeople to another dimension where they’ll stay for ten years before reappearing with their memories wiped clean.’

‘Or maybe they’re vampires, waiting for sundown.’

‘And right now they’re sleeping in darkened rooms with the curtains drawn, bloodstains around their mouths . . .’

‘You could kiss me,’ Dani says, looping an errant strand of hair behind her ear.

Alice and Jaleesa walk round the corner, silhouetted against the white glare of the day. Ilya releases Dani’s hand and squints at them. ‘Hey.’

‘Ghost town,’ Alice says.

When they finally set off for the railyard the heat is still intense, but the shadows are lengthening. They skirt a grid of new-build homesteads and descend through boulders and mesquite shrub to a track running alongside a highway. Ilya turns Dani’s words over in his mind. He could kiss her. It would be good. Freight trucks, bound for the railyard, hurtle past them with desultory abandon, and he thinks of Valia.

Valentina Alexeyevna Bylova, the older sister of Maya’s friend Nastia. Ilya must have been sixteen, nearly seventeen, when they found themselves seated together at a Metallurg Morozkino hockey game. At the end of the game, which Metallurg lost, Valia edged up to Ilya on the wooden bench and asked if he wanted to go for a walk. Outside it was cold, five below at least, and snowing. They went to the old amusement park, where Valia smoked three cigarettes in fast succession, leaning against the trunk of a pine tree, and pulled Ilya to her. She had wide-set grey eyes, glossed lips, and frosted blonde highlights in her hair. He had never kissed anyone before. Her mouth was warm, and tasted of spearmint and tobacco smoke. Her teeth nipped his tongue, and then in a single movement she unzipped her white snow jacket and hoicked up her sweater and bra, freeing her breasts.

It’s not that these were uninteresting to Ilya. Quite the opposite, they were awe-inspiring. It’s just that he felt completely dissociated from everything that was happening. He’d watched enough porno films with his father, often featuring Maksim’s protegée Kshusha, and her favoured partner Viktor, to know what was expected of him. The blow job, the multiple insouciant penetrations, and the big finish all over her waiting face (or, as Kshusha sometimes decreed, into the shallow declivity at the base of her spine). All this demanded an interweaving of physical dexterity, mental fortitude and Stanislavskian performance which was undoubtedly all in a day’s work for the sturdy Viktor, but far beyond Ilya.

‘My tits are turning blue here,’ Valia said, her voice muted by the falling snow, and Ilya tentatively reached out his hands. Her breasts were, indeed, very cold. He cupped them in his palms for a heartbeat, but she turned away, pulled down her sweater, and started to walk back towards the park entrance.

‘Valia, please. I really like you.’

She didn’t look back. He watched her go, her footprints soundless, until she disappeared into the pines.

‘Nearly there, people,’ Beanie announces. The railyard entrance is ahead of them, with its guardhouse and electronic gates. On either side of the gates is a chain-link perimeter fence, partially concealed by trees and scrub.

‘OK,’ Beanie says, ‘we need to walk parallel to the fence. The railyard’s oval-shaped, and in a few minutes we’ll be out of sight of the guardhouse.’

‘How long’s the fence?’ Jaleesa asks.

‘Long.’

‘And the jungle could be anywhere along it?’

‘Yep.’

‘Are there cameras?’

‘Yeah, but plenty of blind spots. The jungle will be in one of them.’

‘Won’t we be picked up by the cameras anyway?’ Alice asks.

‘Long as we’re outside the wire, the bulls don’t give a shit. We’re just bored kids looking for somewhere to smoke weed or have sex. The cameras are there to warn them if the fence is breached.’

They walk for half an hour, picking their way along a stop-start trail. Signs attached to the fence read: Restricted Area, Off Limits to Unauthorized Personnel. There’s trash everywhere – discarded pallets, burst mattresses, overspilling garbage bags – and a never-quite-absent smell of shit. There’s also the ceaseless clank, squeak and sigh of the railyard, interrupted at intervals by the long groan of air horns. Through the trees Ilya can see a line of linked freight cars with battered steel sides.

‘Those are jennies,’ Beanie says. ‘They’re for transporting iron ore. They’re dirty and dangerous. Avoid.’

‘They do look kind of uncomfortable,’ Alice murmurs.

‘This was the old jungle,’ Beanie says. ‘We cut through the fence with bolt-cutters, but the bulls found the hole and repaired it.’ She points to a chain-link panel half-concealed by a spiny shrub. ‘Watch out for those thorns. They’re a bitch if they break off in your skin.’

Having snagged his hand on a trailing mesquite branch ten minutes earlier, Ilya nods in rueful agreement. He squeezes his swollen knuckle, trying to force out any remaining splinters.

‘Is that painful?’ Jaleesa asks.

‘Kind of.’

‘I’ll put something on it when we get there. Don’t want you getting a staph infection.’ She turns to Beanie. ‘I hope this place isn’t much further.’

‘Me and you both, sister. I’m not loving this any more than you are.’

Dani steps alongside Ilya. Slips her hand round his bicep. ‘Fucking Jay,’ she murmurs.

‘I thought you and her were good.’

‘This shit she tries to pull. Like she’s Alice’s chosen one, and this gives her the right to order everyone around.’

‘That’s not fair. She feels responsible for us.’

‘Nobody asked her to.’

‘Dani, she is who she is. We have to . . . you know.’

‘I know, I just . . .’

‘What? Tell me.’

‘I can’t see where it ends. Do we just go on and on? Day after day, night after night?’

In front of them, Beanie and Jaleesa stop dead. Their way has been blocked by a tall, glowering figure. A man of about forty, patchily bearded. ‘Deke,’ Beanie says. ‘What’s happening?’

His eyes narrow. ‘Who you got here, Beanie?’

‘Tramps like us, Deke.’

He stares at them one by one. When his gaze alights on Alice he frowns, as if trying to recall why she looks familiar. ‘Y’all lookin’ for Bernardo?’

‘Sure are,’ says Beanie.

‘You got tribute?’

‘Yep.’

‘Thisaway.’ He leads them along the path for several more minutes and into a scorched clearing. At the far end is a green pup tent, with its flaps closed. Mattresses and loaded backpacks are stacked alongside airtight boxes and a pyramid of canned goods. A camouflaged sheet is stretched overhead.

‘Bernardo’s walkin’ the yard right now,’ Deke says. ‘Coupla oogles catchin’ out tonight.’

‘So how does this work?’ Jaleesa asks. ‘Everyone goes through Bernardo?’

‘Naw, just the ones don’t know the system. Bernardo’s got the knowledge, see. The yard manifest, frequencies, ghost list, everythin’. It’s all up here.’ He taps his head. ‘Uses a scanner, but doesn’t need it. Listens to the air, man. Hears the squeal of those big-ass gondolas, and he knows, man. He knows.’

‘So what’s this tribute?’

Deke looks her up and down. ‘You pass through the jungle. You leave something for those who come after you.’

‘Like what?’

‘Canned food, spare water canteen . . .’

‘OK, we’ll see what we got.’

While Jaleesa is attending to the tribute, Ilya inspects the railyard and tries to ignore his throbbing right hand. The jungle is situated midway between two searchlight pylons. In front of him is a gravel bank, beyond which the iron-ore jennies extend out of sight in both directions. Beyond the jennies waits a second train, also of unknowable length, made up of double-stacked containers.

There’s a distant crunch of ballast, and a man and a woman come into view, running and keeping low. Falling to their knees a few metres from Ilya, they prise back a section of the chain-link fence, and squeeze through.

‘That was gnarly,’ the woman says. She’s late twenties, with glossy chestnut hair and a patch on the ass of her jeans reading Poor Little Bitch Girl. The guy’s pale and intense-looking. ‘We’re catching out in an hour,’ he says. ‘Heading for Fort Worth.’

Poor Little Bitch Girl looks around her. ‘Where’re you folks—?’

‘California,’ Jaleesa says decisively. ‘Oceanside.’

‘Cool. I’m Skyla, by the way, and this is Artie.’

‘No names,’ says Jaleesa, turning away from him. She walks over to Ilya. ‘Let’s see that hand. I’ve got some magnesium sulphate in the first-aid kit.’ She drops her voice. ‘We’ve got to get Alice out of here until these two are gone. They might recognise her, and I don’t trust them.’

‘Leave it to me.’

When Jaleesa’s treated his hand, Ilya sidles over to Alice and sug