“Even the sleeves are five inches too long!” Flynn grimaced, holding his hands in fists so the sleeves engulfed his hands completely. “I can’t wear this! I look like a child!”

Flynn apparently didn’t have any smart shirts, but Maggie had borrowed a dark red one from her older brother Rowan. In her mind, Flynn and Rowan were about the same size, but in reality, Rowan’s swimmer’s physique gave him ample muscles to fill out his clothes, which Flynn lacked considerably.

“Wait, I’m sure we can fix it,” Maggie purred, rolling up the sleeves loosely to his elbows. She motioned for him to tuck the flappy bottom part into his jeans.

“That looks much better, Flynn,” Jessa said.

“You look so handsome!” Maggie cooed.

“Fine,” he rolled his eyes. “But stop staring at me like that, it’s making me feel weird.”

Maggie herself was wearing the light pink chiffon gown her mother had bought for her to wear at Christmas, and Maggie was simply delighted to have another reason to wear it. She was, however, less enthused about Jessa’s ensemble.

“I just think it’s too casual,” she said.

“It’s the only dress I have,” Jessa shrugged. “And it’s red and white—that’s Valentine’s colours. It’s perfect!”

“It’s a stripy t-shirt dress and you’re wearing it with high-tops and knee socks,” Maggie said humourlessly.

“Mags,” said Flynn, “just be glad she’s not wearing a Since the Future t-shirt.” He playfully elbowed Jessa’s side.

“I have a three-part response to this,” said Jessa, “A) Since the Future is a cutting-edge blend of new wave and alternative rock, and I’m proud to support their endeavours, B) I can wear whatever I want, and C) this outfit is killer. End of discussion.”

#

Back at school, they couldn’t believe the transformation of the main hall. The DJ had set up on stage, and his laser light show was already casting patterns and sequences around the room. One of the corners closest to the entrance was sectioned off as a lounge, with soft red sofas and a bubble machine. By the time Jessa and her friends arrived, the hall was already bustling with students, teachers, and catering staff in white jackets preparing the buffet table.

“This is so cool!” Jessa called out over the music.

Annora and Tonia bounded over to greet them.

“Wow, Annora, that dress is very, umm...” Maggie stuttered, “it’s certainly unusual, isn’t it?”

“I made it!” the redhead replied enthusiastically. “Well, I found the dress in a charity shop and then I sewed on all the other bits. Nobody else has a dress like it!”

Tonia, meanwhile, had opted for a more demure look, pairing a simple white denim skirt with a lacy white top. It emphasised her caramel skin, to which she’d applied a delicate sprinkling of gold body glitter.

“You look nice,” Flynn said, looking at Tonia but then quickly addressing Annora as well. “Both of you, I mean. You both look really nice.”

“Thanks,” Tonia smiled. “I like your shirt!”

By 7:30 the hall was alive and buoyant. The guest-list also comprised students of Stanbrook—a neighbouring and equally prestigious lateral school—so the room practically swarmed with students dancing, posing for photos, dunking strawberries into chocolate fountains, and sloshing out servings of fruit punch and pink lemonade.

“Phew, it’s hot,” Jessa wiped the back of her hand against her moist hairline. “And I need to go to the toilet.”

“Me too,” Maggie added, taking a glance at Tonia and Flynn, who were standing noticeably close to one another. “Annora, do you want to come with us? We can touch up our makeup.”

Annora nodded.

Flynn looked completely aghast as the three girls walked away.

“Oh boy, I hope he forgives us for that,” Maggie joked.

“He’ll be fine,” Jessa laughed.

They walked up the stairs to the first-floor toilets because the queue was too long at the downstairs ones. They had to climb over the rope divider at the foot of the staircase that so prominently showed the words “No Students Past This Point,” and Maggie stressed in advance that she would consider it Jessa’s fault if they got in trouble. To Maggie’s relief, they didn’t run into any members of staff on their way up.

On the way down, however, they did.

They were about to descend to the ground floor again when Mr Fletcher suddenly appeared, rushing down the stairs from the second floor.

“Woah!” Jessa blurted as he narrowly avoided smashing right into them.

“Sorry!” he said, barely even looking at them. “Didn’t see you there!”

“Mr Fletcher? Are you okay?” Maggie said.

“Yes, thanks, Maggie. I just have something urgent to attend to. Have a good night, ladies!” he called out, hurrying down the corridor and disappearing into his classroom.

“That was weird,” Jessa spoke quietly once the teacher was completely out of sight. Maggie and Annora both nodded. The three girls followed his steps along the darkened East Wing corridor, but couldn’t hear anything through the door.

“Let’s go tell the others,” Jessa whispered, and they dashed back to the hall to inform their friends of the strange occurrence.

They all huddled in the foyer, quietly discussing the incident. Fortunately, a few other groups of students were hanging around, too, so it didn’t look suspicious.

Their conversation was halted by the clump-clump-clump of heavy footsteps sounding down the stairs as Mr Fletcher’s shiny shoes came into view, then the rest of him, all dressed up in his coat and scarf.

“Are you leaving the party, Mr Fletcher?” Annora asked innocently.

All of a sudden he appeared very calm and collected. “Yeah, unfortunately I’m not feeling too well,” he said. “I think it’s best that I head home. Enjoy the rest of the party!”

With a quick wave goodbye, he was gone.

“I bet he’s going out on secret police business,” Jessa whispered to her friends.

“What are we gonna do?” Tonia looked at Jessa.

“I say we follow him. And find out what’s really going on.” Jessa waited for reactions from her friends. She was expecting at least one of them to protest, but to her amazement, the excitement of the evening must have increased their adrenaline and sense for adventure, because they all agreed to it.

She formulated a plan quickly.

“Okay, we’re not supposed to leave without a parent signing us out. But if we get our things from the coat check and then wait until Mrs Pacey is looking away, we can probably get out without her seeing.”

They casually moseyed toward the cafeteria door and slinked in.

“You kids not enjoying the party?” asked one of the three ladies behind the coat check desk. Jessa vaguely recognised her as one of the school governors, whom she’d seen in the school newspaper. “Leaving early aren’t you?”

Jessa made up an excuse. “Oh no, not yet! It’s just a bit too loud and hot in there so we thought we’d sit in the garden for a few minutes to cool off.”

“Good thinking,” the lady said.

She took the numbered tickets and returned with their things.

Upon leaving the cafeteria, Jessa checked behind them and saw that the three chatty ladies were already too deep in gossip again to notice which direction they went, and Mrs Pacey was looking down at her puzzle book. The five friends seized their moment and slipped out through the front door before even putting their coats on.

“What now?” Annora asked quickly, shivering against the cold. They slithered into their warm attire.

“We should probably check the car park,” Flynn noted. “What if he’s driven off somewhere already?”

They walked to the end of the block and crossed the road to the private area where teachers parked their cars. It was more empty than usual, but Jessa quickly recognised Mr Fletcher’s car.

“That’s his over there, the little silver one. Wait, is that him in the car right now?”

They squinted around the corner, trying to focus their eyes on the darkened car, when the inside of it suddenly shone in a dim blue light that illuminated Mr Fletcher’s face.

“What’s he doing?”

“What is that?”

“Is it a torch?”

They whispered questions to each other as the light in the car turned into a white flicker.

“It’s a video call,” Maggie realised. “See, he’s talking to someone.”

He lifted the screen upwards in front of his face and they could clearly see him speaking. They watched as he nodded his head a lot, as if listening to instructions. The light went out and the car became dark.

The sound of the car door slam pierced the stillness. The sound of footsteps came closer.

“Quick, over here!” Flynn dashed in through the open gate of someone’s front garden and the four girls followed quickly, ducking down behind a hedge. Jessa peered up through the twiggy branches.

“There he goes!” She stood up and her friends followed, while Maggie politely closed the gate behind them.

“He’s walking so fast,” Tonia huffed. “Must be in a real hurry.”

“Everyone put your hood up,” Jessa said quietly. “And we should walk on the other side of the road.” She jutted out across the street when there was a break in the traffic.

“Why?” asked Maggie. “Why should we be on this side?”

“Because if he stops or turns around quickly, he’s much less likely to notice us on this side. Geez, Maggie, haven’t you ever followed someone before?”

“It might surprise you, but no. No I haven’t.”

They stayed back a safe distance and were glad that plenty of other people out helped disguise them into the London streets. After only ten or so minutes of walking, Mr Fletcher turned quickly into a dark passageway between two townhouses.

The students jogged to catch up.

Jessa crouched and peered her face around the corner, just enough to see down the eerie lane. “I can’t see anything. He must have gone inside somewhere. I think I heard a gate closing.”

“Let’s go check it out,” Flynn crept quietly down the dark passage.

“I’m pretty sure it sounded like a gate on a wooden fence, so it must be this one. It’s the only one with a wood fence, right?” She looked up and counted up to the building. “It’s the fourth house in this row. Let’s try round the front and see if we can see anything.”

The building looked out over a busy main road. Groups of well-dressed twenty-somethings walked by, on their way out to bars and pubs.

The five students looked at the front of the building and saw that it wasn’t housing at all, but a row of little shops. The first one, right on the corner, was a hardware store that had been locked up for the night. Next was an Indian takeaway, and next to that was an off-license, with big signs in the window for a Valentine’s Day sale on wine and cocktail mixers. But the fourth shop front was, surprisingly, nothing at all. It looked like it had once been a shop, but now stood very closed, with boarded-up windows and a chain across the front door.

“Are you sure it was this one?”

“It has to be.”

“It doesn’t look like anything,” said Annora.

“Wait, look!” Maggie pointed.

A light flipped on inside the building.

They all cowered instinctively, but then realised the window glass had been painted over in white paint, so the light shone through but nobody could see in or out.

“This place is super creepy,” Tonia said.

“What should we do now?” Annora said.

They crept round to the back of the disused shop once again.

“Flynn, can you hoist me up?” Jessa asked. He made a cradle with his hands for her to step into. She pulled against the top of the fence, lifting herself upwards.

“What can you see?” Maggie whispered through the darkness.

“Not much!”

He lowered her back down.

“There’s a downstairs window, though. And it’s not painted, just boarded up. But I can see there’s little gaps in the boards. I bet I could see through them if I could get over there.”

“But this gate is locked, right?”

“It is. But there are some bins on the other side of the fence. If I jump over, I’m sure I could climb back out.”

“Do you really want to try?” Maggie said, seriously. “You don’t have to do anything if you don’t feel safe.”

“I feel fine. I mean, there’s five of us here. What’s the worst that could happen?”

“We get caught?” Tonia whispered huskily.

“We don’t even know what getting caught would mean. We’re not at school; Mr Fletcher can’t give us detention.”

Flynn offered his hands once again to lift her up. She slipped off her shoes and stepped her socked foot into his hands, heaving herself up and over onto the other side. The only sound she made was a very delicate plop as one of her feet graced a bin lid.

“Jessa?” Maggie’s voice whispered from the outer side of the fence. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine!” she whispered back into the air. “Going closer to the house now!”

“Be careful!”

Jessa stepped delicately over the potentially-noisy gravel path and tiptoed through the dewy grass. The cold frost seeped into her socks. She heard her heartbeat thumping loudly deep inside her ears. With every step she crept closer to the window, approaching from the side in case anybody inside could see out.

Jessa knelt down on the wet ground and rested her knees in the long sheathy grass and weeds that had grown near the wall. She drew her face closer to the window and looked inside, blinking into the light that emerged through the crack.

She saw a large table in the centre of an otherwise empty room, and counted eight people sitting around it, including Mr Fletcher. Everyone at the table was looking toward a man who stood, gesturing, making some kind of presentation, while those seated took notes on netpads or notebooks. Jessa looked closer at the people sitting down, and she realised she knew someone else at the table. Dr Mortlock.

As much as she tried to strain her ears, she couldn’t hear anything they were saying.

She pulled away from the window and crawled along the grass toward the closed back door. She pressed the side of her face into the door but still couldn’t hear a thing.

Scanning the door for possibilities, she noticed the letterbox. She placed two fingers on the chilled rusty brass of the letterbox flap and gradually applied light pressure until it began to open inward.

She paused, afraid that someone inside might see the letterbox opening. Holding the flap still and dipping a finger inside, she found that it was the kind of letterbox with draught-excluding bristles on the inside, which meant she could open the flap a good inch or so without disrupting the bristles and potentially alerting someone she was there.

She lowered her ear to the letterbox.

“Sue, have you had any insights at Harnbury?” a man’s voice questioned. Jessa recognised the name Harnbury as another parapsych school in London.

“Nothing at all,” Sue replied. “Nothing going on with the students or teachers.”

“What about you, Hugo? Noticed anything at Winsbury?”

“No signs of activity, John,” Mr Fletcher’s voice responded clearly. “But let’s be honest, we don’t really know what we’re looking for. And I’m sorry to say it, but whatever we’re doing here just isn’t enough. It’s happened again, hasn’t it? None of us saw any signs.”

“Hugo has a point,” said the voice called Sue. “Maybe we need more Agents in the schools?”

“We don’t even have one Agent in every school in London. We don’t have the manpower to increase our numbers.”

“Even if we did, I don’t think it would be effective,” Mr Fletcher said. “We need to figure out if there’s a method to how these kids are being chosen. Let’s face it, we knew this was going to happen again, and we couldn’t do anything because we didn’t know when it would be, or who it would be.”

“You’re right, Hugo,” said John. “But do you have any ideas how we can predict this? Our best clairvoyants aren’t picking anything up, and until any kind of pattern emerges, parabilities are all we have.”

“Are you honestly suggesting that we simply wait for a pattern to emerge?” said the stern drawl of Dr Mortlock. “How many times does this have to occur before you notice a pattern, Detective?” She spoke the last word with contempt.

“This is upsetting for all of us, Felicia,” he replied. “And I’m sorry I don’t have more information for you. But I can only give you as much information as my intel gives me.”

Dr Mortlock scoffed.

Another lady spoke up. “John, where is Victim 2 now?”

“He’s in the same ward that Victim 1 was held in after we found her. But you should all know we’re choosing to present this one as a mugging. The media can’t find out he has the same symptoms as Victim 1. People were shaken up the first time. If the public learns it’s happened again, they’ll start to panic, and we can’t let that happen.”

“Don’t you think people have the right to know, John? Then maybe parents will be more vigilant,” another unfamiliar voice said.

“Absolutely not,” John spoke defiantly. “We can’t let people ask questions until we have answers.”

The room fell quiet.

Jessa’s mind raced. Agents in schools? Victim 2? She became distracted enough for a second that she lost focus on her fingers keeping the letterbox pried open so delicately.

Her hand slipped, and the metallic flap slammed itself closed with a loud snap.

In that second she knew her position had been exposed.

She sprang up in an instant and ran back to the rubbish bins, clambering on top and hurling herself over the top of the fence so hard that she tumbled down over the other side where her fall was softened by Flynn. The two of them fell to the ground, and Maggie, Tonia and Annora all helped them up as quickly as possible. From the other side of the fence, they heard the back door creaking open and the sound of footsteps on the gravel pathway.

The students stared at each other in horror.

Jessa spoke one barely audible word, but it was all it took to bring them back into the moment and get them moving.

“Run.”