The Fandom(62)

I help him slide the cover to one side. A faint circle of light falls on a concrete floor below, but other than this, I see only darkness.

He rests his hand on my arm and his voice suddenly changes, heavy with concern. ‘I know I said you needed to see this, but now we’re here . . .’

‘It’s OK. I want to.’

‘Are you sure? Because once you see this, you’ll never think about the Gems in the same way again.’

He means Willow. I know I should probably just climb off this roof and run back to the Imp-hut. I know I should just stick to canon – safety, predictability, home. But when I stare into Ash’s open face, all soft and muted in the night, I realize it’s not just about taking a risk, it’s about truth. And I’m sick of all these secrets, all these lies, this bloody disguise. Katie’s letter feels like it’s on fire again, but I don’t care. I want to tell him who I really am. It’s like there’s an invisible wall between us, built from white lies and omissions and every type of deception known to man. I look at the weak plate of light below and I decide one less secret can only be a good thing.

‘Let’s do this,’ I say.

Ash nods, and ever so gently, he lowers me into the bunker.





Ash drops down next to me. He swings the torch around the room. I see the odd shape, the glimpse of a reflective surface, and I get the sense of things surrounding me. ‘It’s OK, you’re safe,’ Ash says. He can probably hear I’ve stopped breathing.

I force my lungs to work again. The air tastes surprisingly clean – medicinal almost. I know that smell. Then there’s the earthy scent of coffee, the freshness of star anise. And I swear I can hear Dad’s voice. Goldilocks came upon a little house in the woods. She knocked on the door, and as nobody replied, she went inside.

I spin around, staring into the darkness. ‘Did you hear that?’ I ask.

‘What?’

Silence. Just the strange sound of bubbles and the soft whir of machinery.

‘It’s nothing.’ I must be losing my mind, all the stress, the change in sleep patterns.

‘You’re sure?’

‘Yeah, yeah. I’m just tired.’

He drapes a protective arm around my shoulders. ‘You ready?’

‘I guess.’

He raises his voice. ‘Lights on.’

The lights overhead hum into action. The blueish glare stings my eyes, especially after stumbling through darkness for so long. I blink several times, a combination of excitement and fear chewing on my guts, and slowly, I survey the room.

A series of large cylindrical tubes line the walls, reaching from the floor to the ceiling. Each cylinder is filled with transparent fluid. Judging by the lazy motion of the bubbles, it’s more viscous than water. It looks almost like a giant lava lamp, the way the fluorescent light catches the shifting globules of air. My brain struggles to make sense of the shapes suspended inside the fluid – limbs, hair, faces.

Each cylinder contains a person.

Lifeless. Naked. Eyes which stare blankly ahead.

I can feel my stomach shrinking, my soft palate arching, my tongue pulling back in my mouth. I think I’m going to puke.

‘Violet, are you OK?’ Ash holds me up and rubs my back.

‘Are they . . .?’

‘Dead?’

I manage to nod.

‘No, no, they’re not dead,’ he says.

I swallow down something foul tasting and approach one of the tubes, my entire body trembling. I look at the floating person. It’s Willow. His tanned body completely limp. He has a tube going into his mouth and his nose, and his caramel hair wafts around his face, long and unkempt, disturbed by the bubbles which slowly drift by.

‘Ash?’ is about all I can manage to say.

‘It isn’t Willow.’

For some reason, this comes as a huge relief. My pseudo-boyfriend isn’t some weird alien hooked up to machines. But if he isn’t Willow, who the hell is he? As if in response, the floating boy blinks.

I step back, a cry catching in my throat.

‘It’s OK,’ Ash says.

‘They do that sometimes.’

Drawn to that face – that slack, unfeeling face – I take a step closer, the tip of my nose connecting with the glass. Ash is right, it isn’t Willow. It just looks like him. But this floating boy’s nose is a little crooked, his lips not quite so full. My eyes flick down his form. His body’s less muscled and his legs look shorter.

I can’t help but stare at his genitals. I’ve never seen a naked man before. Not unless you count the photo in my biology textbook, which Ryan kindly scrawled the word Virgin across, or the time Mitchel Smith streaked across the football pitch. But up close, in real life, I’ve never seen a naked man. It looks kind of shrivelled.

‘Are you staring at his dick?’ Ash asks. My gaze moves to Ash’s reflection. He’s smiling, his eyes full of laughter. My cheeks start to burn.

A plaque marks the base of the cylinder. Duplicate #1.

‘Who is he?’ I ask.

‘Willow’s brother.’

‘Willow doesn’t have a brother.’

Gently, Ash takes my shoulders and turns me so I look at the next cylinder along. ‘No. He has three. They’re Duplicates.’

Three floating boys. All so similar to Willow, just not quite so perfect.