I heard Connor's fists slam against it from the other side, but nothing gave. I stopped, straightened up, then stepped back.

I waited, again, feeling for something there existing within the silence between Connor's pounding fists.

But there was nothing. I shut my eyes.

If there was something in here, this is how I would sense it, feel it, without ever needing to see it. It felt the room in my mind, built it, filled it, and spread out through it, tightening my grip even more around the handle of my knife.

'Anna, are you okay?'

But there was nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

'Its not in here!' I yelled back, 'Connor, it's not in here. The door… it must have been…' going out.

'Oh, shit…' I heard him mutter. 'Why's it always me?'

With the sound of slamming on the other side of the door, out in the hallway, my eyes snapped open. I could hear furniture shifting, crashing down from the walls to the ground and I looked around for a way out to get back to them, but I couldn't get through the door.

My gaze fell on the sash windows.

Oh dear. I rolled my eyes at the irony of it. Sorry Nick.

As I ran to them, stopped in front and raised a leg about to kick through and smash it, before I froze. What am I doing… I reached forward, pulling a face, and promptly just lifted it open it. And I had to remind myself that it was the ground floor and technically this wasn't jumping so there would be no reason for him to get cross.

Once I was out on the porch I ran around to the front door.

'Con!' I yelled, as I slammed my hands against the wood.

'A?' he called back, 'err, you got any ideas?'

'Yeah,' I replied, 'but, you're not gonna like it.' Then, as I realised these slats of wood were already crumbling apart, I had another stupid moment where I just pulled a face and shouldered my way quickly through the wooden screen door.

It put up no fight.

As is stumbled back into the hallway I saw Connor at the bottom of the stairs, Ryan behind him, before his head whipped around to me and he held up a finger. 'Wait!'

I tripped through the rubbish and upturned bits of furniture to join him at the bottom of the stairs. 'It's up there?' I asked.

'I think so. You okay?' he replied.

'Yeah.' We shared a brief look. 'After you,' I said.

'Thanks very much.'

Once we reached the top of the stairs, we moved silently down the hallway, passing several rooms that didn't seem to be of interest to either of us before Connor finally stopped outside the bathroom.

This one.

I paused for a second, trying to feel rather than think, and nodded. This felt right.

We moved in, surrounding the bath, and as Connor stood back, aimed the gun, and nodded to say he was ready, I reached for the edge of the shower curtain and ripped it back.

There was a scream, so high pitched it startled me and took me a second to shake off the shock, before I lunged forward, shoving the estate agent up against the wall, forearm of my knife hand against his neck, and slammed the other over his mouth.

'Shush,' I hissed in warning, 'listen, we can get you out of here, but you have got to stay calm, and not make any noise. Got it?'

The estate agent nodded.

'I'm going to take my hand away now.'

I pulled my knife out the dry wall it had gone through, an inch or two from his arm, before I released the pressure on his neck, and started to slide my hand away.

I had barely taken one step back before he screamed again, barging past me and to the door, and my shoulder hit the wall, knocking the wind out of me. I had just enough time to look to Connor in frustration before I pushed myself off the wall again and we both went after him.

The scream changed, just as we stumbled out onto the landing, transforming from a cry of fear to an agonising pain, and he was dragged suddenly down the staircase.

Connor threw himself to the edge of the landing, peering down, wide eyed the where the estate agent was laid.

I wasted no time in flying down the stairs after him.

I dropped down beside him, immediately spotting the deep claw shaped gash in his leg. 'Shush,' I repeated, whipping off the scarf from around my neck and looping it twice around his leg before I yanked, severing his blood flow, 'you're gonna be fine!'

Then out the corner of my eye I saw figure blocking out the daylight in the doorway, and for a second I felt the relief wash over me because I'd assumed that Becker had finally checked his voicemail. But, when the man stepped inside out the early morning sunlight, I saw it wasn't Becker at all.

Quinn.

He didn't seem at all interested in me, in fact, I doubted that he'd even seen me there on the ground, or heard the estate agents weak sobs of pain, because his gaze was red hot and immovable from something behind me.

Ryan.

I quickly looked between the two.

'What did you do with the others, Ryan?' Quinn demanded.

Ryan paled. 'There was a creature–'

'What did you do with my brother!'

I didn't even see the gun until I'd jumped up and interposed between the two of them.

'You've got it wrong,' I said calmly. Quinn tried to move the gun off me but I matched his movement with steps of my own to keep it on me.

'Stay out if this,' he warned.

'Anna,' Connor called anxiously as he stumbled down the staircase, 'what you doing! Get out of his way!'

I didn't listen. 'You're out of your derestriction, Quinn,' I continued. 'Back off. You're dealing with things that you don't understand.'

'I understand that this creep killed my little brother.'

'Just wait there's–'

'Shut up!' Quinn turned his gun, aimed up to the ceiling and fired a shot.

The fear rippled through me, my eyes shut, and I saw the dining room floor flash in my head in the time it took me to blink.

Suddenly, there was a focus in me that I had never experienced before.

My eyes opened, and I saw it all in slow motion: his arm coming back down, the gun that would soon be aiming at my head again, and I reached, my hand slamming down around Quinn's wrist to hinder his movement further, before I lunged forward into a punch. The first one was to his ribs, which made his grip on the weapon fall to the ground, the second one went right to his nose and it cracked.

He fell back, cupping his face and I kicked the gun away across the floor.

'Now,' I continued calmly, 'the fuck!?'

There was a silence that felt expansive, where even the estate agent blinked at me in astonishment. I bit down on the inside of my cheek.

Quinn groaned again, bringing his hands down from his face to reveal one thin trail of blood dripping down from a nostril. 'He killed my brother.'

A noise escaped Ryan's mouth and instantly it shot through me like static electricity. And my heart ached for him. 'I didn't,' he replied like a broken man, 'I didn't. I didn't do anything I swear.'

'He's telling the truth.'

Quinn didn't have a chance to respond. A moment later he was tackled by some invisible force that flattened him to the ground.

Connor snapped his own weapon up.

Whatever this creature was, it was fast. It went from one side of the room to the other in a second, billowing curtains and dustsheets, knocking furniture, chairs, tables, lamps.

Connor groaned. 'Urgh, stay still! How do I shoot an invisible thing when it won't even stay still?'

There was a beeping, a noise that was familiar and I didn't know why until I reached into my coat pocket and pulled out a P.H.D. 'The anomaly?'

We'd been right all along.

A moment later, a light caught my eye, flashing beneath the doorway of the room I'd been trapped in earlier, and I immediately made for it, kicking it in and stepping into the room.

The others followed.

Connor stopped beside me, weapon trained on the anomaly but I reached up semi–consciously and pushed it down. 'It's probably been waiting years for the anomaly to reappear,' I said, before he had the opportunity to question me. 'Let's give it the chance to go home.'

'How do we know?' Connor said, 'when it's gone through…'

I opened my mouth to respond when the anomaly flashed, the brightness of the yellow–gold glowing brighter inside it just for one second before it was gone.

'Like that,' I said.

'You know what this means?' Connor returned.

'We built that matrix right after all,' I answered with a nod.

'No,' Connor said, and I turned my head questioningly towards him, 'you were right, Anna, about all of it.'

Beside us, Ryan took a tentative step towards the anomaly. 'This is it, right?' he questioned, 'this is what I saw that day, the light…'

I nodded.

'What is it?'

'That's classified,' Connor answered, '…sorry.'

It didn't seem to bother him. 'But it's gone now, right, whatever that thing was…'

'Yeah…'Connor nodded, 'well we think–'

There was one more brief flash of the anomaly that I only saw out the corner of my eye because a moment later Ryan went down, his legs came out from under him and he started sliding across the ground back towards the anomaly.

All of a sudden Quinn was there. He dropped down behind him, grabbing a hold of his shoulders and trying to counteract the movement as Connor snapped into action, aiming the gun down at the empty space by Ryan's feet and he pulled the trigger. For the first time in his life he didn't hit anything.

The creature stopped pulling, but we turned back–to–back.

It was in the room now.

No doubt.

I could feel it.

And I knew that Connor could too. 'A…' he started, 'what was that idea you had, before…'

'Close your eyes,' I returned. Immediately I felt him prickle with discernment. 'I know,' I echoed, 'but it's part of our instinct to sense it, not see it. We have to shut our eyes.' And I snapped mine shut. 'If you sense it, shoot, don't think.'

The inside of my eyelids was like static TV. The grey was fuzzy and flickering, but within it I drew the room again. And this time, I could tell there was a shape in there that was moving. I tried to follow it, I tried to locate it within the greyness, before I remembered I needed to feel where it was with my instinct.

I felt my hand flip the grip of my knife– it was there– and before I'd realised my arm came up, the knife pierced through something, and I opened my eyes.

The creature slowly started to turn visible right in front of me.

Its face was inches from mine, its mouth open and snarling through rows of tiny, razor sharp teeth. And its arms were outstretched reaching for me with a clawed hand.

It was bigger than I thought, maybe half a foot taller than me, and its body was a basic humanoid shape. Scrawny. Malnourished perhaps if it had only lived off the sausages Emily had fed it, with the added occasional household pet.

I pulled my knife back, out from under the creature's chin and with it came a torrent of black blood that splashed down over my hand and ran down my forearm to my elbow.

The creature went down, hitting the ground with a heavy thud.

I finally exhaled a long breath.

There was a brief kerfuffle of noise somewhere outside, Connor slapped a hand down on my shoulder as he passed me, continuing towards the window.

Ryan took Quinn's hand, helping him up to his feet, and Ryan dusted himself off.

'You okay?' I asked.

Ryan managed a nod. 'Yeah,' he said, 'I'm fine… I… um… okay, so this is a long shot I know, but are you busy later?'

I felt my lips curl up into a polite smile. I knew what he meant. 'Yeah,' I returned, 'sorry.'

He shrugged. 'No, that's fine. I would be confused if you weren't.' He flashed me his own smile as he turned back to Quinn.

'I suppose an explanation's out the question,' Quinn asked.

'Absolutely.'

'I thought so.'

Behind us, Connor pulled the net curtain aside. 'Guess who's here?' He called across to me.

I walked to join him in the window just in time to see a large group of soldiers from the A.R.C storming over the bridge towards us. I rolled my eyes.

I made it back to the door just as Becker burst through. 'My hero,' I quipped sarcastically.

Becker glanced around, first at the anomaly, and then at us, before he saw the dead body of the creature on the floor. He blinked in confusion. 'We–' he started, 'you said– the creature–'

'Oh no, don't worry,' I continued airily, 'we've sorted it.'

His eyes landed back on me. He sighed in relief. 'Well, I'm glad you're okay,' he said.

'Of course you are,' I returned smartly, 'you'd have been sacked otherwise.' As my own amusement echoed through his eyes, I took a breath. 'We keep our phone's on in this job,' I told him, 'always. Even when we fuck, got it?'

'Got it,' he nodded.

'Alright,' I responded. 'So, we've got a guy in the hallway who's gonna need to go to hospital, three vertical lacerations to the gastrocnemius, missed the artery, he'll be fine. And a broken nose, over there.' I pointed in Quinn's general direction. 'I can handle that though.'

Quinn snapped his head up from the ground and frowned. 'Uh, what?' he demanded.

'Shut up,' I returned. 'Let's bag up the creature, get it back to the A.R.C, I'll send it through the post–mortem after the cleaner. It must be my lucky day.'

'Okay.'

As Becker moved forward towards the creature, a movement of a body in the doorway claimed my attention. It was a shock to see Nick come through and cross the hallway towards us. 'Cutter!' Connor echoed from somewhere behind me.

His head turned towards the voice, and as he saw us both he visibly relaxed.

'Oh, thank god,' he said. He made straight for me, wrapping me up in his arms and giving me a quick squeeze.

'Nick, you came?' I asked in surprised, as I returned the gesture.

'I heard your voice on the message– the one on the Captains phone– I had to… I had to know.'

I tightened my arms around him reassuringly, just for a second, before I pulled back. I looked up at him, held his gaze for a moment before I leant in and kissed him. Then I pulled back. 'We're both fine,' I promised. 'Well, better than fine,' I rescinded, 'because…' I turned around to the anomaly in way of explanation. 'We were right after all.'

'Of course we were right.'

Ryan was still there in front of the anomaly, and as he stepped back to my side, he nudged me. 'Is this your boyfriend?' he asked.

I didn't bother to correct him; I didn't want to be that person. 'Yeah,' I confirmed, 'why?'

He leant forward to look past me to Nick. 'Um– I mean, wow, right?' he said.

'Oh aye,' Nick returned, 'I know.'

Out the corner of my eye, I spotted Quinn trying to slip out the exit out the door while our backs were turned, and I spun around. 'Oi,' I called.

He froze and turned back towards us. 'What?'

'Got to fix that nose, remember?'

His brow furrowed. 'I assumed that was a joke.'

I made my way past him into the hallway, needing to find a soldier with a medical kit since I'd left my backpack in the car. It wasn't far too be fair, could always I'd drag him back across the river.

'Why would make that joke, it's not even funny?'

I leant him back against the railing on the porch, guiding one hand up to pinch the bridge of his nose, as I tucked his chin into his chest. 'What's your name?' I asked suddenly as I realised I didn't know.

I reached into the medical kit and grabbed an instant ice pack, cracked the sachet inside, then shook the pack.

'Danny,' he answered.

I raised an eyebrow. 'Danny,' I repeated. It suited him much better than "Quinn"– to be honest.

I slipped off my coat, laid it over the railing beside for a second so that I could pull off my cardigan over my head. I wrapped it around the ice pack before I handed it over for him to press against his face. The sun had just started to come up, but the air was still bitterly cold and I didn't want to waste any time before quickly pulling my coat back on.

'Thanks,' he muttered.

'You're welcome.'

'They never found my brothers body, maybe the creature didn't get him,' he said, lifting his head, and immediately I put a hand on his chin and pushed it back into his chest. 'Maybe he went through the… err…'

'The anomaly,' I told him. His head snapped up again, and I tutted in disbelief I pushed it straight back down to try and save the blood from trickling down his throat. 'Stop doing that,' I said. 'Listen, I would usually wait a few weeks before resetting a nose but… you really don't want it healing like that, believe me.' I was glad he hadn't seen it. 'I'm gonna put it back in place. It's gonna hurt.'

I reached up to pull the ice pack away from his face momentarily, and my other hand went to his nose.

As my fingers made contact with his skin, he hissed. 'Okay,' he replied, 'on the count–'

I snapped the bone back into place, he groaned, and I guided the ice pack back to his face. I pretended I didn't notice how he glanced up at me through his eyelashes in annoyance.

Then, sighing, I reached out the close the medical kit. 'I'm sorry about your brother Danny,' I told him.

'You can't really be sorry, Ace;' he responded, 'you don't know what it's like.'

A lopsided smirk made its way onto my face. 'You have no idea.' Don't feel sorry for yourself. '14 years is a long time, and I know that you probably don't care what I have to say, but I think you'd feel better if you let go.'

He slowly nodded back at me. 'You know what, you're probably right.'

The A.R.C was quiet, almost everyone had gone home by the time I came out my medical lab at the end of that day – whatever day it was– having finally finished that list of things as long as my arm.

I headed straight to my office.

I knew he'd be there. He hadn't turned up at the medical lab to tell me he was going home.

I stopped in the doorway for a second, trying to deduce whether or not my presence would be a welcome or unwanted distraction. Before I could reach a conclusion Nick glanced around to me. It wasn't a surprise that he'd heard me coming.

And since he knew I was there anyway, I greeted him with smile. 'Whatcha doing?' I asked casually.

In response he waved me in. 'Hey, come here.'

I walked over to him and he shifted, spinning the chair so that he could trap me between his legs. His arm wrapped around my waist, hand resting above my hip, thumb tucked under my top, and he lowered me onto his lap. 'You're cold,' he noted.

And though I couldn't really feel it, I knew I must have been because I'd been in the morgue with the aircon on to keep the bodies preserved for almost 12 hours now.

'I've come from the morgue, can you smell it?' I asked. I felt like he should have been able to because death had the sort of smell that lingered, the more I thought about it the surer I was that I sense it. 'I feel like it's on me is it on me?' I continued somewhat dramatically.

He dropped his head to my neck, nose pressed against my skin, and inhaled.

It tickled. I couldn't help but laugh.

'I can just smell perfume,' he answered. He dropped a kiss to my neck before he pulled back. 'Why were you in the morgue dressed like this?' he asked.

'Danny Quinn has my cardigan.'

Nick frowned. 'Why?'

'Because I broke his nose,' I explained. I knew it didn't really make sense but I couldn't be bothered to explain it any further, so instead I picked up the top few pages of the papers he'd been looking at and glanced through them. 'You're inputting more into the matrix?'

He nodded. 'Well,' he said, 'if this anomaly was accurate within one day of your calculations then we know that all of the ones we hypothesised from the past must be correct. I've been going through, adding all of the ones we know about from us in that first year, and Helen before that, from the exact moment we knew they either opened or closed and… that should all fit with an intersection within the matrix.'

'And if any of them don't?' I asked, knowing it would mean that something had gone wrong somewhere, and things would need reworking.

'They will,' he answered confidently.

He had more faith in me than I did in myself.

I laughed. 'Alright,' I agreed, 'we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.'

He looked down at his watch. 'Do you want to go home now?'

I nodded and stood up, holding out a hand for him to take as we made our exit from my office. 'Yeah, leave all that for the morning.'

I was talking when we came through the door, about something to do with the creature and Tom's story when–just as Nick threw the keys onto the dresser–I cut myself off and instantly forgot what I'd been saying.

It brought Nick's attention somewhat questioningly back to me.

'Anna?' he asked.

'Hmm?' I looked up, found him halfway up the stairs even though I was still standing in the hallway, looking into the unlit lounge suspiciously. 'What?'

'What are you doing? I want to go to bed, come on.'

'Yeah, okay…' I took a couple of steps into the lounge, flicking on the light switch, as behind me I heard him sigh and quickly come back down the stairs to retrieve me.

There was nothing in the lounge, but I wasn't really sure what I'd been expecting. And I guessed I'd probably moved on autopilot because I'd thought about a research paper or something, but consciously forgotten it even though unconsciously my body was looking to collect it.

'Come on!' Nick repeated again, as he grabbed my hand and started pulling me back out the room, flicking the light straight back off and heading for the stairs.

'The door, the door!' I called, noticing we mustn't have shut it properly when we came in, because it was now slightly ajar. I had to quickly pull my hand out of his to go to it. 'I've said before: we've got to watch out; this thing's got a mind of its own.' I slammed it shut, made sure I twisted the dead bolt, and quickly went back to grab his hand and let him lead me up the stairs.