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‘Yes! It all adds together: what Aiden said, about the AGT re Levos The pills block the link between brain and Levo They must’ He catches my hands in his, his eyes search mine ‘Think about it, Kyla: what it would be like to just be ourselves Feeling ant’

He gathers me in, holds le, s I’m told to avoid because of my Levo What would it be like without it? We could be whoever ant to be; stay together No one could say ere destabilising our levels We could be as happy or as sad as we like

But this is a fairy tale There would be no place for us, here, in this world

I pull away ‘What are you planning, Ben,’ I whisper

‘I’ to take a few of these pills, then cut off my Levo and destroy it’

Fear twists inside No Ben, no ‘What? Are you insane?’

‘No I have been insane; buying into what I was told Now I’h he didn’t go far enough This is wrong, what they’ve done to us Look at what happened yesterday If Jazz and Amy hadn’t been there, then…’

And he doesn’t finish the sentence My ht I escorted that particular memory to a little door in ht I don’t want to think about it in case it finds a way out

‘No Ben, you mustn’t!’

‘Aiden said the AGT have done it: it has worked’

‘But he also said they had a lot of failures You don’t kno they did it And the pain, Ben: you still felt it when you twisted your Levo I saw it on your face Not all the links are cut’

He shrugs ‘I’ll get through it’

‘If you get it wrong, you could die’

‘What is the point in being alive like this?’

‘You don’t mean that And you can’t just cut a Levo off with a pair of scissors: they are ale’

‘Mu metal I help her all the time, I kno to use it’

My uet it off, what then? You can’t stay with your family, or at school Everyone would look at your wrist and knohat you’ve done The Lorders would come for you’

‘I have a plan,’ he says, but when I question hih He wants to join the terrorists

‘You’re not thinking…no You wouldn’t Not the AGT’

And there, in his beautiful eyes, is admission, confirmation He wants to be a terrorist My throat clenches He doesn’t know the things they do, he couldn’t and still be thinking of this

‘It’s the only way to s Don’t you see?’

I shake my head, back away Is this Ben, or is it the pills? Have they made him think like this?

‘Look at you,’ he says ‘After yesterday, you didn’t even want to look atI was six feet of useless’

‘That wasn’t your fault, and it’s not that!’

‘What is it, then?’

‘You’re just proving it all over again’

‘What?’

‘You’d be better off if you never met me’

‘How can you say that? Kyla, don’t you kno I feel about you?’

But I don’t want to hear If how he feels

‘No No! You mustn’t do this Promise me you won’t’

He shakes his head ‘I have to think for ht like to’

And I stare back at Ben in shock Sht needednow, and he doesn’t want it He doesn’t want to knohat I think, or the i

What else is there to say?

I turn away and head back towards the school My Levo vibrates: great I glance down 42

Ben follows behind ‘Here Take one of these’ He holds out his bottle of ‘headache tablets’