"Good mornin'! Beautiful mornin', isn't it? Hello there!"

"Would you shut the fuck up?"

Thea smacked Nathan as furtively as she could, shooting a wide smile to the mother and son who were passing them on the sidewalk. The mother took her son by the arm, and hurriedly dragged him away. Not that Thea could blame her. Nothing more terrifying than six offenders in orange jumpsuits with two disabled citizens in wheelchairs.

"What's wrong with sayin' hello?" asked Nathan, glancing back over his shoulder. "I'm just being friendly! You know, normal? Casual?"

"Wot ya doin' is drawin' attention," Kelly complained. "So do us all a favour and keep ya mouth shut."

Nathan stuck his tongue out at her, urging Gary's wheelchair a bit faster. This made Gary's head slip forward a few more inches, which nearly dislodged the scarf they had wrapped around his head. Nathan hurriedly tugged it back into place. He slapped the corpse bracingly on the chest.

"This is fucking ridiculous," Alisha grumbled. She was trudging along between Nathan and Curtis, who was pushing Tony's body. "I mean, whose idea was it to stick him in a shawl?"

"Sorry," said Simon, trailing behind her. "There…wasn't a lot in the lost in found."

"What happened to his hat?" Thea hissed.

Simon blinked at her with wide blue eyes. "It was soaked with blood."

"…Right. Probably not the best disguise then."

"Can all of you shut up?" Curtis snapped.

The group lapsed into silence.

It was obvious why Simon had chosen the flyover as a body dump site. It took them far too long to get there, which meant it wouldn't be a likely hot spot for the investigation. And besides the occasional gang member or street artist, no one would be stopping by. Even if someone did notice a patch of fresh dirt, the kind of miscreants that hung out under the flyover would be know better than to go snooping.

Kelly dropped the duffel bag she'd been lugging from the community centre, pulling out the few shovels she'd scavenged from the janitor's closet. There were only three, but they'd agreed to take it in turns. There were six of them. It shouldn't take too long, right?

That had been something of an oversight. However easy Thea might've thought it would be to dig a hole six feet deep, it was as least twice as hard. Every time she sunk her shovel into the dirt, more dirt seemed to slide down in its place. The ground was hard and difficult to break up. Her hands were blistering, and her back felt about ready to split in two. Still, she wasn't the worst off. No one could do worse than Alisha, she figured. The party girl was trying to dig a grave in ballet shoes.

"Isn't this deep enough?" she despaired.

They'd been digging for what felt like hours, and the hole came up to her ribs. Everyone turned to look at Simon. He seemed to be their resident murder buff.

He blinked in surprise and nervously swiped the dirt off his cheek. "That should be deep enough."

"Finally! Now can one of you help me out of here?"

Alisha put her arms up, but none of them moved. No one was going to volunteer to touch the girl whose skin turned you into a rapist.

"Oh for God's sake," Thea huffed.

She undid her cuffs, rolling down her freakishly long sleeved until they covered her hands. Then she leaned down to grab Alisha round the wrists and hauled her out of the ditch. She did not say thank you. Thea did not say your welcome. But they nodded at each other, and turned back to the bodies.

"Well?" asked Curtis. "What we waiting for?"

Nathan and Kelly heaved the wheelchairs over. They counted to three and then tipped the bodies into the hole. They fell with an awkward crunch, one after the other. Thea closed her eyes and tried to breathe through her nose. It would be very, very bad to vomit at the body dump. Talk about a forensic nightmare.

It was a relief when Nathan broke the silence.

"I'm pretty sure this breaches the terms of my ASBO."

"We don' tell anyone about this, yeah?" said Kelly. "About the storm, or wot it did ta us, or anyfing!"

"Nothing?" Thea asked.

"We're about to bury our probation worker," Nathan said incredulously. "We don't need to be drawin' any attention to ourselves."

"I'm not saying we should go public or anything, it's just…this is a lot to deal with. A lot to hide. None of you have anyone you want to tell about the storm?"

"Easy for you to say," Alisha shot. "What can you do? Impressions? I don't want anyone to know about me. I cannot be a freak."

Thea held her tongue. There was no arguing with a point like that.

"Wot bout you?" Kelly asked, nodding to Curtis.

He was standing silently on the other side of the ditch. His hands were balled into fists at his sides. You could practically see the fury and bitterness seeping out of him in waves.

"There's no goin' back now, man," warned Nathan, shaking his head. "You're just as screwed as the rest of us. You're black and famous! You're probably more screwed!"

"I shouldn't even be here," he hissed, and Thea rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, so we've heard. We all make mistakes, all right? So what's it gonna be?"

Curtis glared at her. He picked up a shovel by way of answering, and began to toss the dirt back on top of the bodies.

Thea rolled up her sleeves again, nodding at the shovel in Alisha's hands in invitation. But Alisha stormed past her, spearing the trowel into the dirt instead.

"Jus' then," Kelly asked her, "when he woz touchin' ya, how were ya doin' that?"

"I don't know."

Like Curtis, the ferocity of Alisha's digging made it clear that the conversation was over. It would've been left better that way. If any of them had any sense.

"Didn't you say you wanted to piss on her tits?" Nathan glanced back at Simon, whose eyes immediately dropped to the ground. "Yeah, probably best to keep that kind of thing between you and your internet service provider."

Thea sent a swift kick at his ankle to shut him up. But Alisha had already stiffened and froze.

"You alright?" asked Curtis.

She huffed, and sunk her shovel into another pile of dirt.

"Wot about you?" Kelly asked, nudging Thea. "When ya were copyin' Simon?"

"Dunno," said Thea. "I wasn't even trying to sound like him. Just repeat it."

"It's called mimicry," explained Simon. "You can duplicate other people's voices, probably just by hearing it."

"So 'ow's it work?" asked Kelly. "She's jus' gotta repeat em? Or can she do it wheneva?"

"I—I don't know. I just saw it in a film."

"A film?" Curtis repeated. "What superhero's got that crap power?"

"No, it—it was Beetlejuice. They…also do it in Mission Impossible."

"Oh, well that's real helpful," Thea sighed. "Well we already know you can't do yours on command. Or Curtis. What about you, Kelly?"

"I can't figure it," she complained. "Is not like I can 'ear it all the time. Sometimes I jus' look at someone and i's like I'm hearing their voice in they head. Even if I don't want to."

"So maybe it's just about your focus," Thea suggested. "Like, whoever you're paying attention to."

"Well, I hate it. It's shite hearing wot people fink about ya. Ma boyfriend, ma dog…"

"You can hear dogs?" Alisha asked with a laugh. "That has got to be rank."

"Is not funny!" Kelly insisted. "It woz doin' mah head in! I thought I woz proper loony!"

If anything, this made Alisha giggle harder. Thea couldn't repress a snort. That earned her a good whack from Kelly, but when Thea looked, she was smiling.

"Oh go on, then," said Thea. She stood back, her arms open wide. "What am I thinking then?"

Kelly squinted at her, then snorted.

"That Nathan's a twat."

"Oh, hardy har har," Nathan called over everyone's snickering. "Very original. It's not funny."

"Oh, hardy har har!" Thea mocked in his Irish brogue. "Very original. It's not funny."

Nathan took a swipe at her with his shovel. "Neither was that!"

"Nah," Kelly disagreed with a smirk, and everyone around the grave giggled. "Everyone fought that was pretty funny."

"Ah, screw the lot of you. What kind of bullshit power is mimicry supposed to be, anyway? What're you gonna do? Mock someone to death?"

"Oh, my apologies, Captain Fuckwad! And what is it you do again?"

The reality of this statement seemed to hit Nathan all at once, his face dawning with absolute horror.

"No, no, no! Hang on! That's not fair! How is it that all of you have some kind of "special power" and not me? Everyone can do something, except me! He can do something—He can do something and I can't? That's ridiculous! Look at him! How does that make any sense?"

He brandished a furious finger at Simon, who flatted his bangs again. If it's been Thea she would've decked him, but Simon just shrugged his shoulders, his eyes downcast.

"Maybe you can do something. You just haven't found out what it is yet."

"Yeah," Nathan sighed, with something of relief. He promptly stopped digging, leaning on his shovel. "Right! What if I can't feel pain?"

It seemed Kelly was smacking him upside the head before he'd even finished the question.

"Did ya feel that?"

"Ow! Stop hitting me!"

"Word of advice, then?" Thea smiled, prying the shovel from Nathan's hand and making him stumble slightly. "Stop talking."

She elbowed him out of her way to take his place at Alisha's side. She kicked the shovel into the dirt with the heel of her boot, and began to dump the soil back into the grave.

Behind her, Nathan yelped as Kelly smacked him again.

"Ugh! And stop finking, you prick!"

Filling the ditch took a lot less time than making it. Still, by the end Thea felt about ready to drop. Every one of her muscles ached, and she was sure she's pulled something in her back. Her boots were scuffed, her hands were red, and she was covered head to toe with dirt. She had no idea what they were going to tell anyone if they bumped into someone on the street. All of them were absolutely filthy.

In that respect, the orange jumpsuits actually came in handy. Anyone they saw on the street immediately averted their eyes. They crossed to the other side of the street. They raised their voices and pretended not to see them. Everyone had already been programmed to avoid them. No one was going to stop a group of no good hoodlums and ask for a little chat.

Thea had been nervous about the community centre, but it was exactly as they'd left it. That is to say, totally empty. Although there was another problem that presented itself as soon as they arrived back—they had left something of a crime scene behind.

The six of them stood in the hall, all staring down at the floor in disgust.

"Does anyone else think this is like...a suspicious amount of blood?" asked Nathan.

"God," Alisha groaned. "I am so sick of cleaning."

"Aw, suck it up," said Kelly. "I ain't goin' ta prison cuz you don't wanna scrub tha floor."

"Let's just get it over with, yeah?" said Curtis.

He doubled back down the hallway, grabbing the buckets and brushes from that morning and passing them out. He pushed Thea's into her chest with more force than was strictly necessary, and nodded to the tile in the hall.

"Why don't you start there?" he suggested. "Cause I am not cleaning up your sick."

"Oh no," Thea huffed sarcastically. "My master plan. Whatever will I do?"

She started down the hall, Kelly and Alisha trailing after her reluctantly.

"You know," Nathan was musing, "now that I think about it, the men's loo was a real mess this morning too. I wonder if that had anything to do with anything."

"So were the showers," added Simon. "That's where I found Gary's cap."

"All right," said Curtis. "So we'll take the toilets, and you lot stay in the hall."

Thea held up her middle finger in acknowledgement, already on her way to the taps to fill her bucket.

Cleaning was a better directive than disposing of a body. It wasn't all that different from their morning—with the exception of Alisha's involvement, perhaps. With her life and freedom on the line, she was dutifully washing the floors. Thea cleaned up her vomit and then moved to join her. Kelly was working on the locker, the scythe, even the paint can she'd used to bash Tony's head. All three of them scrubbing, scrubbing, scrubbing away at the blood red.

The boys stayed in the bathroom for almost as long. The only time they emerged was when Nathan and Curtis carried a stall door out to the dumpster. What was left of a stall door, anyway. A good chunk of it was missing, misaimed hatch marks around the edge. Thea couldn't bear to look at it for too long.

They all cleaned until the floor was suspiciously spotless. Then, just to be sure, they toured the building top to bottom. One spot of blood would be enough to screw them over. One overlooked detail and they were done. Or as Nathan so eloquently insisted on putting it, becoming bitches in the wrong cell block.

Then there was the matter of their phones. No one would let Thea break the window to the office. It wouldn't make any sense to leave a scene like that behind after they'd cleaned the rest of the building. But no one had a good way into the office. Out of the six, none of them were in for theft or breaking and entering, so no one had any idea how to pick locks. Simon and Curtis both tried for a few minutes. So did Nathan, though his technique was pretty similar to the way he'd attacked the vending machine. In the end, they accepted that they'd have to leave their phones behind. It would probably make them look more innocent that way anyway.

It wasn't until hours later that they found themselves back in the locker room. They stood in a circle, each of them back in their own clothes and as free of dirt as they could hope to be. They'd settled for washing in the sinks. No one had been able to stomach the showers after Simon had scrubbed them clean.

"So…tomorrow…" started Curtis.

But whatever was meant to follow never came. None of them could finish the thought. It would be a wonder if any of them could form a thought at all. Thea hoped that she wasn't the only one reeling. The day had been so wild that none of it felt real.

"Tomorrow," Simon repeated. And that was the thought in full.

With one last communal nod, they all drifted out of the community centre. It was just like the day before. So similar that Thea let herself believe that it was. That it had been her very first day, and she was on her way home to watch animated children's movies and eat overpriced takeaway with Marnie. Nothing had changed. And nothing would.

She'd made it a block before she realised that someone was following her. Her panicked nausea rose again, certain she was about to get nailed, only to recognise the lurking figure several paces back. Her panic ebbed, but the nausea remained.

"What do you want, Simon?"

She regretted how harsh it came out. At the same time, she didn't. Surely he couldn't blame her for being touchy after the day they'd had. And he hadn't even bothered to announce himself.

Simon flattened his bangs, avoiding her eyes.

"I just…I—I was wondering if maybe you…wanted to watch the film…"

"What?"

"Uh…Beetlejuice…I own it, and I thought…maybe you'd like to see it."

Thea prayed that her immediate distaste for the suggestion was not apparent on her face. Not because she was worried about sparing his feelings, but more so because she did not have the energy to deal with the fallout.

"Right. Not today, Simon. I don't know if you've noticed, but it's been kind of…long."

"Right," he agreed, shaking his head so quickly it looked more like his skull was vibrating. "Sorry, that was stupid."

"And I promise, I've seen Beetlejuice," she added, with all the smile she could muster. "Not exactly a how-to on voice manipulation, ya know?"

"Yes. I just thought…"

"It's like Alisha said. It's just impressions. I think I'll be fine. I just want to go home and…pass out. Get pissed and try and forget literally everything that happened today. You should probably do the same."

Simon nodded, staring down at the ground. She resisted the urge to pat him on the shoulder. Instead she lifted her hands in a terribly awkward thumbs-up.

"Great," she said. "Um…see you tomorrow, then."

Thea scrambled to put her headphones in and started back down the road. She just wanted to put as much distance as possible between herself and that conversation, as well as the building behind it.

It was already getting dark by the time she got back to the flat. She fiddled with her keys as she approached the door, her will to open it suddenly vanishing. She laid an ear against the wall. The telly was on inside, but she couldn't hear anything else. Marnie was probably sitting on the couch, already in her pyjamas for the night, stuffing as many crisps in her mouth as she could before Thea got home from service.

Thea stuffed her keys back in her purse. Down the hall, up the stairs—she didn't stop until she'd reached the top level. She had to slam her shoulder into the heavy door for it to open, and then she walked out onto the roof.

No one was out here. No one ever was. It was a relief, but also something that never made any sense to her. What could be better than a smoke in the night air with a view? Alright, so it wasn't the Eye. This wasn't the tallest building on the Estate, and everything was still foggy and dirty and broken. Old lawn chairs laid in shambles along with broken plant pots and piles of cigarette butts. But you could look down on the street, get a glimpse of the city, even see all the way to the lake if you craned your next. At the end of the day, this was the one place Thea could come where everything wasn't grey. At sunset the world turned pink.

She perched herself on an upturned milk crate, taking a long drag from her cigarette. It wasn't the nicotine that helped, really. It was the forced normality of it all. It was just the end of another day, in a long line of days, and there would be more days tomorrow and even after that. And the smoke helped her control her breathing. Inhale, and then exhale, blowing the smoke as far as she could for as long as she could. Until it dissipated into nothing.

Fuck, smoking made her existential.

Thea snorted, hiding her face in her free hand. God, she was fucked. She was so, so fucked.

The cigarette burned down, keeping her grounded right on the verge of tears. She reached for her phone, then remembered she didn't have it. Her probation worker had locked it up and died before he could give it back.

She stamped her cigarette out on the ground.

When the world finally became too cold, she forced her legs to carry her back down the stairs. She let herself into her flat, only for Marnie to materialise in front of her instantaneously.

"There you are! I've been worried sick! I only called you six times!"

"Sorry, Mum," Thea said with a smile. "Probation worker took our phones and fucked off for the day. Looks like I won't get it back until tomorrow."

"What a wanker," she huffed. "What the hell is he thinking keeping you there this late?"

"Dunno. Suppose community service workers are a bit second class to him."

Thea wanted to hide in her bedroom, but Marnie wouldn't let her pass. She took her gently by the shoulders, peering into her eyes with unsettling intuition. That was the price of spending so much time together. It was very hard to hide.

"Is everything alright?" Marnie asked. "You look awful."

"Thanks for that," Thea snorted, which earned her a glare.

"You know what I mean. You look dead tired and just…off. Did something happen?"

Thea bit her lip.

"It was just some stupid graffiti. Someone thought it'd be funny to put a death threat on the side of the community centre. Been scrubbing at it all day. Just makes you think..."

"That people are rubbish?" Marnie suggested. "Cause they are. And I will find that person, and I will murder them if you like."

Thea's smile crept back into place. "See? I told you. Pregnancy's making you violent."

She kissed Marnie on the cheek and pushed past her.

"I've got to take a shower," she called back over her shoulder. "You feel like ordering pizza?"

"Wow, you must've had a shit day. Take away two days in a row?"

"Do you want it or not?"

"Of course I fucking want it."

Even from her bedroom, Thea could still hear Marnie grumbling to herself as she dialled the phone. She closed her eyes, focusing on the normality of it as hard as she could. Just a few more minutes. She just had to make it a few more minutes.

She grabbed her clothes and walked back out to the sitting room, pausing to raise the volume on the telly. Then she ducked into the bathroom and locked the door behind her.

She chanced a look at herself in the mirror. Marnie was right. She did look different. How stupid that everyone else could notice. No telling herself it was just what she knew. No telling herself that it was all in her head. And still, looking at her reflection, she couldn't pinpoint what it was. Her face was still the same shape. Her hair was still the same colour. Her makeup was still applied the same. But behind it all, she looked exhausted.

If she had to pick one thing, it was the feeling that her clothes didn't belong to her. Yesterday she'd taken comfort in the soft flannel at the end of the day, happy to get away from the bright orange jumpsuit. Now the flannel felt like a luxury she couldn't afford. She deserved that orange jumpsuit. That was who she was now.

Thea glared at herself in the mirror. Why the fuck did she have to make everything so melodramatic? She wasn't even the one who'd killed Tony. She'd moved the body for her own survival. How was that any different from everything else she'd done in her life? The wrong thing for the right reason. Just leave it at that.

She stripped off her clothes with just a tad too much fervour, and hid under the water. She was furious with herself. Furious for fucking up, furious for her reactions, furious for being furious. It was doing her head in. Fuck, she couldn't wait to be unconscious. When had her life become such utter shite?

She tried to regulate her breathing. She tried to focus on the normality. She tried to shut down her brain. But alone in the shower, Thea's dam finally broke. She bit down on her hand and did her best not to sob too loud.