“It’s OK,” Farah says. “I was too.”

“Why weren’t you affected?” Chiu says, looking at me.

“I was,” I say. “It’s something I’ve felt before though.”

Chiu gets up, moves tentatively towards the door. I can see him deliberating with himself. The open sky broods outside. “It’s getting late,” he remarks. “It’s at least, um … quarter-past dark grey. We must have slept most of the day.”

“Then we’ll stay here,” I say. “Leave first thing.”

The others agree readily. None of us is in a rush to go outside again. Chiu smiles and he fishes for something in his jeans pocket. He pulls out a small, battered box. “Hey! Who’s up for a game of Uno?”

*

We play Uno and gradually our fear recedes. Uno is our sacrament, the secret we keep from God. The brightly coloured cards go back and forth and we sit cross-legged on a giant king-size bed that Farah has taken as her own. We might be kids on a sleepover.

I win and keep winning, but nobody wants to stop playing so we go again and again as the whispers of the ordinary world flicker around us. Chiu is the first to call it a night. He drops his cards mid-hand and declares that he’s exhausted. He rolls off Farah’s bed and crawls heavily to the next one along and falls instantly asleep, face first.

“I’m done as well,” Farah says.

We clear the cards and I move to the next bed along. Farah flops extravagantly on to her back and pulls the large, white-and-purple duvet around her. “My bed is my best friend,” she sighs. “It gives me warm blanket hugs.”

“G’night,” I murmur.

I lie on my back and stare once again at the twisting silver pipes above my head. Sleep reaches out for me hungrily. I roll on to my side and my thoughts start to fall apart.

There’s a sound and a movement and suddenly I’m aware of Farah lying next to me. The warmth and weight of her presses against my back and I can feel the slight pressure of her knees against the back of my thighs. She puts her arm around me and presses her forehead against my neck.

“Is this OK?” she says.

“Um … yeah … of course.”

My chest feels as if somebody is kicking over oil drums inside it and my stomach twists and turns. I’m scared that she can feel how tense I am. I don’t want her to think I don’t want her here.

“Thank you,” Farah says quietly.

“For what?”

“For saving us.”

I half laugh. “It’s the Carpets that saved us.”

“You saved us,” she replies. “And I’m sorry about what you had to do to Tongue.”

I don’t answer right away. The image of him is still too vivid, the movement beneath me as he died feels like a stain on my memory that I’ll never be rid of.

“Are you OK?” Farah says.

“Honestly?” I say. “I’m a little scared.”

Farah squeezes me tighter and my body wants to dissolve into hers. “No you’re not,” she whispers. “You’re courageous.”

If I was really courageous I’d turn round now and kiss her, but I don’t move.

Farah shifts, leans forward and kisses the back of my neck. I can feel the shape of her lips, her breath scalding my skin.

Brothers? Is she serious?

“Sleep well,” she murmurs.

Not a chance, I think.

But I do sleep. I must have, because the next thing I know, I hear Farah screaming.

I sit up, staring desperately around at the rows of beds.

No sign of her.

An icy quench drops through me. I leap out of bed and I’m scrabbling on the floor but the knife is gone.

Jonah?

Chiu is up too. “This way!” he says. “This way!”

“Farah!” I shout.

We run, dodging between the beds and then between sofas and coffee tables. It’s hard to pinpoint the sound in the warehouse-like space. We stop next to a fake kitchen with a fake sink and dishwasher and listen, disorientated and panicking. The noise is nearby: a reedy, horrified noise, half sob, half moan. It’s an appalling sound – the noise of a rabbit caught in a snare, the noise of something badly hurt, dying.

“Over here,” Chiu says.

We bolt. It’s a trap, obviously. I don’t know why Jonah didn’t just kill us in our sleep but I guess he wants something else. He wants to make us suffer; he wants to punish us.

Think, Kyle. Be smart.

But my body is fizzing and crackling with fear and I can’t stop. I bolt through a fake kitchen that has a bowl of fake fruit on the dining table. There’s a fake television, a set of cookery books that have no pages, a stack of brightly coloured ceramic bowls that will be forever empty.

I wish I had my knife. Not that it would do me any good against Jonah, but I still wish I had it. I spot Farah at a desk, part of a squared-off area designed to look like a teenager’s bedroom with a single bed and a rack of storage units. She’s scrunched forward, clutching something close to her chest, rocking slowly, forwards and backwards, sobbing.

“Where is he?” I gasp, scanning the room. “Where’s Jonah?”

Chiu is at my side a moment later, his body tense, ready to fight. He’s a good kid, I think. As brave as they come.

I move closer, cautious now.

Where is he? What did he do to her?

I see the blood first.

Then my knife on the desk and the blade and handle slick with yet more blood.