“Do I even have a choice in this?”
“You always have a choice with me. A queen or a pawn.”
Of course. There’s no in-between with him. “Either I become the most important piece or the most insignificant one. How… poetic.”
Ravi was waiting for her outside. ‘Sarge,’ he said, flicking his dark hair out of his eyes. ‘I was just coming up with our crime-fighting theme tune. So far, I’ve got chilled strings and a pan flute when it’s me, and then you come on with some heavy, Darth Vader-ish trumpets.’
‘Why am I the trumpets?’ she said.
‘Because you stomp when you walk; sorry to be the one to tell you.’
Everything felt staged and stagnant. Though it had all the props of a teenage girl’s bedroom – pinned-up photos of Andie standing between Emma and Chloe as they posed with their fingers in Vs, a picture of her and Sal with a candyfloss between them, an old brown teddy tucked into the bed with a fluffy hot-water bottle beside it, an overflowing make-up case on the desk – the room didn’t feel quite real. A place entombed in five years of grief.