13 Minutes (41 page)

Tendrils from the depths, dancing in the currents. Dark weeds, octopus-like, wrapping around Tasha’s legs. As she struggled, desperate to pull free, their hold was only growing tighter.

Help me.

It was the last Becca saw of Tasha. That sudden panic. The shock. The fear. The mouthed words from lips that looked dark against the eerie white of her face.

Help me.

And then she was breaking the surface and sucking in a long lungful of sweet, beautiful, terrible air. Becca coughed and spluttered and took sharp, raw breaths. Oh, it tasted so good. She sobbed, tears she had no energy for coming anyway. She tried to swim but her limbs wouldn’t work, tired and numbing in the cold. Her Converse were heavy, pulling her feet down, wanting to sink her. The bank looked a long way off.

I can’t help you, Tash
, she thought as her head dipped below the surface again, into that dark and deathly silence.
I don’t think I can help myself.

And then there was fur, and scratching claws, and a hot mouth at her neck. Teeth sank into her hoodie and dragged. She heard the pants and grunts as a dog scrabbled and paddled, dragging her to the bank, and with the last ounce of her will to live she forced her feet to kick.

Sixty-Six

I watch them up there on the surface. So far away. A different world from this quiet endless darkness. I watch and rage. Paws paddling. Becca’s feet wearily kicking towards shore. I want to scream at the unfairness of it all. Stars blur the edge of my vision and, eventually, I release the last of the air from my lungs and let the cold, filthy water in.

The river sighs, satisfied. It’s been waiting for me. The river and the darkness from my dreams. Maybe I never really coughed all of it back out. I can’t believe I’m here again. One minute, we were on the bank. The next, I’m dying in the water.
Dying.
Like Hannah. All over in an instant. I can’t believe it. I won’t. Someone will save me. Someone will come.

And then I hear it. The voice from my dreams. The one I never remember. The one that terrifies me.

You thought you could leave me here
, the voice says to me.

It’s my voice. Of course it is.

The part of us that died. I’ve had to wait alone in the cold and dark. All this time.

My hands struggle again to touch the surface that I can no longer see,
Let me go.
My thoughts sound like I’m begging. I hate that.
I was never meant to die here. We were never meant to die here. I am not meant to die here.

She’s holding my ankles, this dead crazy me. I kick at her, I rage against her, I hate her. I can stop this. I can make it end. She has to release me. I need to live, to put all of this behind me. Even if I have to go to jail, I can survive. I’m young and it won’t be for long.
I don’t lose
, I tell myself over and over.
I never lose.
I think of the chessboard at home. The pieces waiting patiently for me.
Let me go
, I plead again, squeezing my eyes shut.

When I open them, the other me, the dead me, hair wild and eyes filled with glee, still has her pale hand clawed tightly around my foot. Even in the cold of the river her fingers are bony ice. Cold glass. She will never let go. I can’t see her lower body. It’s lost in the endless quicksand void beyond. She smiles. I hear her in my head, just like in my dreams. A whisper. Dead. Vicious.

I don’t lose
,
she says.
You don’t get to dump me and move on
.
You’re staying with me. This is the endgame, Tasha.

I want to cry and wail and scream against it all. I’m the one who plans, I’m the one who wins. My vision is darkening. I can’t see properly. But I can still see her. The me who isn’t me, who can’t be me.

I want to play with you.

I let out a moan, my last word, my last sound, one of horror, sucked away by the water.

Be my best friend
, she whispers with such cold longing as she pulls me into the terrible blackness.
Be my best friend forever.

Acknowledgements

Big thanks go to the whole team at Gollancz, but especially Sophie Calder and Jen McMenemy, not just for work on this book but for their hard work pimping Gollancz authors throughout the year while remaining so smiley. Of course, big thanks to my editor, Gillian Redfearn and my agent Veronique Baxter. And a final special thanks to Gillian’s brother who helped out with the technicalities of theatre lighting rigs!

Also by Sarah Pinborough from Gollancz:

A Matter of Blood

The Shadow of the Soul

The Chosen Seed

Poison

Charm

Beauty

The Death House

As Sarah Silverwood:

The Double-Edged Sword

The Traitor’s Gate

The London Stone

Copyright

A Gollancz eBook

Copyright © Sarah Pinborough 2016

All rights reserved.

The right of Sarah Pinborough to be identified as the author

of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the

Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in Great Britain in 2016 by

Gollancz

The Orion Publishing Group Ltd

Carmelite House

50 Victoria Embankment

London, EC4Y 0DZ

An Hachette UK Company

This eBook first published in 2016 by Gollancz.

A CIP catalogue record for this book

is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 0 575 09740 7

All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

www.sarahpinborough.com

www.orionbooks.co.uk

www.gollancz.co.uk

Table of Contents

Dedication

Title Page

Contents

Part One

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Part Two

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

Twenty-Seven

Twenty-Eight

Twenty-Nine

Thirty

Thirty-One

Thirty-Two

Thirty-Three

Thirty-Four

Thirty-Five

Thirty-Six

Thirty-Seven

Part Three

Thirty-Eight

Thirty-Nine

Forty

Forty-One

Forty-Two

Forty-Three

Forty-Four

Forty-Five

Forty-Six

Forty-Seven

Forty-Eight

Forty-Nine

Fifty

Fifty-One

Fifty-Two

Fifty-Three

Fifty-Four

Fifty-Five

Fifty-Six

Fifty-Seven

Fifty-Eight

Fifty-Nine

Sixty

Sixty-One

Sixty-Two

Sixty-Three

Sixty-Four

Sixty-Five

Sixty-Six

Acknowledgements

Also by Sarah Pinborough from Gollancz:

Copyright