There's a girl in my year called Chantelle and there's no nice way to put what comes next. She's got the biggest mouth ever, she's a bloody chav down to her core and, to be honest, a bitch too. But there's no way she won't know what's happening.

I'm very close to texting her, I know exactly what to say to be casual enough to seem like I don't care but urgent enough to get a response straight away.

But I can't.

Like I said, biggest mouth ever. The news will be all over our year within minutes and the thought of the gossip. makes my skin crawl. I can see the message: Eve Hayden is borderline stalking Josh Hartley and asking about him- are they getting back together or is Eve just reviving an old crush? But it would much more crude of course. And despite the fact that we should all be revising, the gossip and rumours will spread like wildfire.

I click off mine and Chantelle's Snapchat conversation and stare at my phone for a bit.

Josh still hasn't replied. I shouldn't be worried, right? He'll be revising or out with his mum or playing some video game on a break that stretches from five minutes to ten to fifteen to whenever he's killed everyone in the server.

A text from Ravi lights up my dimming screen.

hey, you haven't seen josh, have you? we were supposed to meet up in sutton but he hasn't shown.

I feel sick.

I tap out a reply to Ravi.

sorry i haven't. i texted him a while ago but he hasn't replied

i'll ask jenny

Jenny is Josh's younger sister in Year Nine. Her gang are the kind who walk around with claw clips on their blazers, hair in messy buns. She's fine, as far as Year Nines go.

[ Ravi sent a photo ]

It's a screenshot of their exchange, Ravi being utterly polite as usual.

hey jenny, how are you? do you know where josh is? we were supposed to meet up and he isn't here, he also isn't replying to any texts.

he left a while ago. pretty sure he went to stockland lakes or somewhere near there?? with some girl i think.

Some girl. Eden must be that some girl. And Stockland Lakes? Stockland Lakes with the bridge and the jagged rocks. Stockland Lakes. Stockland fucking Lakes.

how quickly can you get to stockland lakes?

getting on the bus right now, 30 mins tops

Thank God today isn't one of the days where some of the buses decide not to show up. Ravi and I meet up just outside Stockland Lakes just twenty-five minutes later.

"Why are you so worried?" Ravi asks. "It's Josh. He'll probably be eating a slushie and playing Subway Surfers."

I shrug. "Just a feeling. He'd text us back if he was on his phone. And his watch would send him the notification too."

Stockland Lakes is crappy. It's not even a lake, you have to go to Brookvale or Witton to see one of those. The playground stuff is falling apart and the teens loitering on the rocks and the bridge put most parents off bringing their kids there. And the rest is private land, often trespassed.

"Come on," I say.

Ravi seems frozen.

Of course, he's from Four Oaks or somewhere. He grew up with clean parks with green grass and swans in the river. Not just cigarette butts and crumpled cans floating in the water, whatever animals that had once resided there long gone.

"Come on" I repeat. "It's not scary, I used to come here when I was six."

"There's something in the water," he whispers. "Don't you see it?"

I walk towards the river, clenching my fists. She wouldn't have been so crazy to do it. She wouldn't.

This is going to be some horrible prank from Josh and Eden. While Eden made that phone call, Josh would be listening to my voice on speakerphone wile struggling to stifle his laughs. They're going to jump out and scare us and make fun of us for actually believing Eden murdered Josh.

But there's a boy in the river.

A boy with Josh's sandy hair and Aston Villa hoodie and ratty black Converse.

And the water is running red.