Eventually the thrum of bass faded into silence, and twenty minutes after that Emma and Callum burst through the office door with their hands stuffed in large, orange paper bags. A delicate living doll and her bedraggled cross-dressing companion.

"Heads up!" Callum called as he threw my own bag towards me. It landed with a heavy thud in my lap, spilling marshmallows and sugar-coated sweets onto the white sateen fabric pooled over my thighs.

"Kelly's gift for going through the CCTV," Emma said with a tired smile, unaware of the lie she'd told.

She perched on the armrest of the sofa, adjusting her white petticoat to try and hide her underwear while Callum flopped on the sofa beside me. The stale smell of beer and sweat permeated the room, and I knew I probably smelt just as bad. It was inevitable after a night shift.

My stomach still hadn't settled from seeing Mr R, so while they rummaged through their sweets, I picked at the fizzy jelly worms, sifting through the bag of E numbers and sugar.

"You alright?" Callum asked through a mouthful of marshmallow.

I pulled my cheeks into a smile, but I barely had the energy to keep it there. "I'm fine. Just tired."

I tossed my bag of sweets onto the table in front of us, alongside the discarded shredded wings. The thought of eating was making my stomach do flip flops.

"I know right, fucking Halloween," Callum said, wiping the sheen of sweat from his forehead. The cheap hair dye he'd used for his costume had started to leak, creating blood red tendrils that crept from his hairline. He propped his feet on the battered coffee table in front of us, kicking off the silver platforms he'd somehow spent the entire night in.

"Are you waiting for Atticus?" Emma asked lightly as she nibbled a piece of fudge.

"What? No. Why would you think that?" I asked with more venom in my voice than I'd meant.

Emma's soft brown eyes widened infinitesimally before flashing to Callum, wide and worried. The doll-like eyelashes she'd stuck on for the night accentuated the action.

"Sorry, just ever since it started getting darker in the evenings, he's been coming to walk you home, right?"

Callum nodded as he threw another lump of cinder toffee into his mouth. "A hottie with a heart of gold, that one. Hold onto him, Anna," he added as he chewed.

"He's not mine to keep hold of."

Callum scoffed. "Bitch, please."

Emma shifted again, demurely crossing her ankles as she leant towards me. "You honestly haven't noticed how he acts around you?"

The disbelief in her voice grated and itched like the cheap polyester fabric of the costume I wore.

"He just doesn't know anyone," I snapped. "He's like a lost puppy, and I just happen to be the bitch he's chosen to follow around."

The second I said it I felt bad, as if I could imagine what his face would look like it if he'd heard me say it. That just annoyed me more. What they were implying was bad enough, but somehow the fact there might have been some truth to it was worse.

"If you say so," Emma said lightly, casting her gaze down as she smoothed her black taffeta skirt. "But they say on Halloween the barrier between worlds is at its thinnest. Maybe you should take a peek behind your own. You might see things a bit clearer."

The itch sparked, and I pushed myself off the sofa, jostling Callum as the foam cushions bounced. "What's with the psychobabble bullshit?"

Emma blushed, a faint pink hue blooming on her milk white skin. "Alright, I'm sorry, we've just finished our psychoanalysis module at uni." She flashed an embarrassed smile before looking to Callum for support. "All I meant was that we care about you, Anna, and we don't want to see you throw away something good."

I stared at Callum, raising an accusatory eyebrow.

He rolled his eyes and closed the bag of sweets in his lap. "What she said, but with less feelings and more sass."

I looked at my friends as they watched me. How long had they been talking about this behind my back? Why did they think there was even something to talk about? And why did it bother me so much that they thought Atticus was around for more than friendship?

I floundered for a response. After everything that had happened with Mr R earlier tonight, and the unresolved issues with Atticus, I couldn't deal with another emotional shitshow being thrown into the mix. It was too complicated, too chaotic. I was only just gaining control of the how I felt about the Watchers, but with Mr R, and now this, I could feel that last shred of control floating out of reach. A solitary life raft drifting further and further away as I bobbed aimlessly on a stormy sea.

"I can't throw away something I don't have. I mean, something I don't want," I spluttered, crossing my arms over my chest.

Callum frowned. "Alright, calm your tits," he said, casting a confused glance towards Emma.

Now they think you're crazy.

They'll turn on you soon. Just like everyone else.

Suddenly the air in the room felt stifling, like it had turned viscous and thick.

"I've got to go." I snatched the bag of sweets from the table and rattled off an excuse as I gathered my things, fleeing the scene before they could make me question any more of my bad decisions.

"It's been a long night. I've had my ass grabbed by every fanged Fuckward lookalike in this place, and this fucking halo is so tight it's given me a brain aneurism." I yanked the halo from my head and threw onto the table next to the wings before grabbing my coat off the hook. "See you later."

I could see the surprise on their faces, the concern, but as I stomped home their faces morphed into the taunting stares I'd suffered at school. Those knowing looks that judged me and found me wanting, no matter how much I tried to change their minds. Eventually it was just easier to play the villain they all believed me to be. After all, wasn't it Shakespeare who said 'tis better to be vile than vile esteemed'.

The streets were quiet as I walked home, one of the few perks of working well into the early hours. I passed through the orange glow of the streetlights, each one creating its own bubble of safety on the pavement. They should have given me peace of mind on an otherwise creepy walk home, but instead they seemed to accentuate the shadows. And in those deep dark spaces, I saw Mr R's face. I knew he wasn't really there, but that didn't matter. I saw him all the same, and with his face came the voices. The whispers that lived in the recesses of my mind, creeping out when I was most vulnerable.

A wintery breeze skated across my bare legs and I shivered at the memory of Mr R's touch on my skin. As the cold bit at my cheeks, I felt my eyes build with tears. I told myself they were from the wind but the lump in the back of my throat said otherwise.

The closer I got to home the worse my mood became, which was saying something given it had already started off shitty. By the time I turned onto my street, and looked to my front door, I was eager to get home and close the door on this night, on the memories it had dredged up, and the questions it had raised.

My shoulders deflated as soon as I saw the three figures piling out of a black hatchback car. I couldn't hear them talking, but I could see the comradery between them.

I froze for a second too long and in that moment their attention switched to me.

"There's our little troublemaker," Aslo called with a booming laugh. Olivia shot him a look of disdain.

"You've got to be kidding me," I muttered before turning about and heading back down the street. I couldn't avoid living next to them, but I could use the back door instead.

Footsteps caught up with me easily and as they did, I felt my fists clench in my pockets.

"Leave me alone," I hissed, trying to will the tears away.

"You've been avoiding me all week, Anna. Please let me explain." The desperation in his voice was almost enough to make me break. I was already teetering on the edge of a meltdown.

"Not tonight," I grumbled with my eyes fixed on the cobbles of the back lane. "Any other night, sure, maybe I could deal with whatever new wave of supernatural shit you want to throw at me. But not tonight. I haven't got the energy."

"Why? What happened?" I could hear the genuine concern, and it was enough to halt my steps. I whirled to look at him, the darkness of the back lane doing nothing to hide the intensity of his stare.

"See! What the fuck is that?" I snapped. "Why do you sound like you care? If you don't feel like we do, then why do you sound like that? How can I trust you if you can lie so easily?"

"I said we're not meant to feel, not that I didn't," he said lowly.

"Always the bloody pedant..." I grumbled as I continued towards home. Atticus followed quietly beside me.

Loyal little lost puppy

"Why do you come to the bar so much?" I asked as Emma and Callum's faces hovered in my head. "Surely you must have something better to do than sit around watching us slowly expire."

"I like your company."

"Emma and Callum think you come in just to walk me home."

He stopped beside the back gate while I wrestled with the latch. "Would that be so wrong?"

My hand paused. It was one thing to hear Emma and Callum suggest it, but it was something else to hear his confession. I glanced to my side, sliding my eyes up to meet his. Even in the darkness I could feel his gaze burning my skin. "You know I can take care of myself. I don't need you to protect me."

"I know, but I don't like you walking home alone," he murmured into the space between us. The space that seemed to shrink as the seconds passed.

"You don't have to like it, you just have to accept it."

"There's a lot of bad in this world, Anna. I've seen it. You can't blame me for wanting to keep you safe."

If I'd heard those words when I was fourteen, I would have jumped into his arms and never left, but now I wanted to jump off a cliff just to prove a point, just to make him watch. "I'm not yours to keep safe."

"I know." The way he watched me said otherwise.

A shiver of irritation rolled up my spine and with it I shoved the gate open, breaking whatever force seemed to be pulling us together.

"You keep saying 'I know' 'I know'... But here's something you don't know," I hissed, trying to keep our conversation from the prying eyes and ears of the street.

He quietly watched me with wide eyes. His body tensed like he was caught between running for his life and daring to come closer.

"You don't know that every time I look at you now, I can't figure out if the person I'm seeing is real or just a shell." I wrenched my keys out of my pocket as the whispered tirade spewed from my lips. "You don't know that after what Olivia did to me, I didn't sleep for days, and even now I wake up with this feeling that something is coming. That I'm not safe in my own home." I missed the lock several times as my anger took control, but eventually I shoved the key into place. "You don't know that when I listen to you, I don't know if I can trust a word you're saying because I don't know if you've said it all before, and just wiped it from my head when it didn't go your way..."

I forced the door open, battling against the frozen hinges and warped wooden frame. By the time I stepped through the door Atticus was at the doorframe.

"I'm sorry I—" he tried to plead but the words died in his throat.

"Like I said, Atticus. Not tonight," I said darkly as I shut the door behind me. The thud of aged wood hitting against the worn doorframe rung out through the quiet flat. It was a cathartic sound, strong and solid, like it could shut out all shit I didn't want to deal with.

The toll of the night hit me like a tidal wave, and as its weight lay heavy on my shoulders, I leant my forehead against the wooden door. A deep sigh rattled through my chest, and in its wake an ache bloomed. It filled my chest, leaving it tight and swollen, before reaching up to grip my throat, pulling at all the words I wished I'd had the strength to say: to Mr R, to Emma and Callum, to Atticus.

My eyes clamped shut until the urge to cry dissipated into rage and apathy. I fumbled in the dark for the light switch beside the door and soon practiced fingers flicked on the light. Blinking in the bright fluorescence, I opened my eyes as I stepped away from the door and headed for the fridge. There was a discount bottle of white wine in there that would be the perfect anaesthetic for tonight's troubles.

As I turned, I dragged my weary eyes over the kitchen counter and the dishes piled in the sink, they would be tomorrow's job, if I was being optimistic. Before my gaze could reach the fridge, it was trapped by a sight that made my blood run cold.

My breathing hitched, my body went numb, and the world around me faded from view, until all I could see was her.

Static filled the silence and with it came the high-pitched din of temporarily damaged eardrums.

My heartbeat pounded in my ears, counting off the seconds.

Thuh-dum... Thuh-dum...Thuh-dum...

"Nightmare?"