"Hey. You got time for a coffee? Or, better than that, a drink?" Gregor caught up with me just as I left the Assembly for the day. It had been a pig of an afternoon—the opposition politicians demanding an inquiry into the incident at the estate and suggesting there should be a vote of no-confidence in me and Cheryl.

Gregor's offer hung in the air, too tempting to resist. The atmosphere in our home made it an uncomfortable place to be, Kyle and I tip-toeing around each other. He hadn't withdrawn the threat; I hadn't asked if he meant it, but he couldn't have, right?

"Are you okay?" Gregor asked. The fact we were siblings had still to sink in. I scanned his features once more for familiarity—facial features or expressions that we had in common. Nothing.

"Just assembly business. And you're buying, by the way."

As I fired off a message to Sharon explaining that I would be an hour later than expected and would she mind looking after Mirac, Gregor's phone rang

"Yeah? Oh, but..."

I heard furious female yakking at the other end.

"Okay, that's fine. Don't worry about it."

He hung up. "Change of plan. Ever been to Eazee Jumpies?"

"No. Cool name, though. Is it some—"

Gregor specialised in sardonic looks. He shot me one now. "It's a soft play area for little kids. Angus's mum wants me to swing by and pick him up, as she's got a hot date tonight."

I stared at him. The most info Gregor had ever volunteered on his love life. "Any chance you tell me who Angus's mum is," I asked, "seeing as you're my brother?"

"Half-brother," he replied, smirking at me, "and no."

According to everything my once best friend Safi had told me over the years, brothers were beyond irritating. Here was the proof right in front of me. I dug my elbow in his side. "As an MA," I said, "Dunrovia's Special Branch Agents answer to me. I could ask them to investigate your entire life if I wanted. Uncover every single dirty secret."

"You won't," he said, an infuriating and yet accurate statement.

Eazee Jumpies was on Argyle Street, a ten-minute walk from the Assembly. I kept silent, saving up my questions—I wanted to find out what he remembered of our father, and if he had any idea why Daddy Dearest had surfaced after all this time—for when we were sitting down. Any hope that Angus's mother might meet us at the door (finally revealing her identity) was dashed the minute we arrived. A staff member nodded knowingly when Gregor introduced himself.

"Angus!" she said. "Ah yes, his mum's left a few minutes ago, but your wee boy didn't notice. He's too busy having fun!"

A wall of sound greeted us as we pushed the door to the main room open. Hundreds of kids yelled their heads off as they threw themselves onto off bouncy castles, inflatable slides and huge, shallow pools of blown-up balls in multiple colours.

Gregor pointed at one pool. I spotted Angus, his little face creased up in joy as he scooped up the balls and threw them into the air.

"He's only been able to come here the last six months," Gregor said. "Y'know. After he got vaccinated."

I nodded. I should bring Rosie here if Sharon hadn't done it already. She would love it.

Gregor found us a seat. Tables and chairs lined the perimeter of the room, almost all of them occupied by adults gossiping to each other as they drank coffee and paid little attention to their screaming offspring.

I sank into my seat. Gregor, one eye on Angus, retrieved a hip flask from his jacket, and unscrewed the cap. The unmistakable peaty smell of whisky hit my nose.

"Want some?"

"No. I'm still breastfeeding, and, God almighty, whisky. The world's worst drink."

Gregor tutted. "And you call yourself a Dunrovian. Never let the opposition find out you can't stand whisky. They'll hang you out to dry."

He glugged down a decent portion himself. "Our father then."

At that, I turned to face him. It struck me afresh how astonishing this whole situation was. No-one in the world would look at Gregor and me, and think to themselves, 'yup, brother and sister for sure'. Gregor—tall, muscular, blonde and blue-eyed. Me, just about the opposite of all those things.

There should be benefits to having an older brother, right? Could I tap him up for money, for instance, or get him to babysit for free?

"No," he replied to the thought. Damn it, I must have dropped my guard. I filled my lungs once more. You needed to take deep breaths and concentrate to stop people from getting into your head.

"Why aren't you called Dupont?" I asked a question that had been bugging me ever since I'd found out about our relationship.

"My mum never married him. And he didn't tell her his real name. I knew my father had been called Jonno, short for Jonathan, but Mum and I thought his surname was Brown. Ever tried finding a Brown in the electoral records?"

He kept his voice light, but I knew what it signified. The young Gregor—perhaps his mother too—must have tried to search for the vanished Jonathan Brown and come up with a big fat nothing. Well, not nothing. A common name like that would yield hundreds if not thousands of results. Almost all of them dead ends.

"Good," I said, "because it would bug me if I thought you suspected you were my sister and never let on."

That garnished a proper Gregor Firth grin. To show solidarity, I reached for the hip flask (maybe whisky-flavoured breast milk would send Mirac to sleep faster than he usually managed) and slugged it down, coughing only a bit when the fire hit the back of my throat.

"I, for one," I said, handing the hip flask back to him, "am delighted to be related to you. Do you think we have to buy each other birthday and Christmas presents from now on, because if so, expect nothing wow as I'm rubbish at buying stuff for men."

Gregor rolled his eyes. But nicely. Angus finally noticed Gregor—his face breaking into a broad grin. "Daddy!" He hurtled towards us, Gregor hastily handing the flask to me as a couple next to us tsked in disapproval. Gregor whirled Angus up. "Hello, wee man. Have you been having fun?"

Angus nodded—my nephew, nephew!—smiling shyly at me. Greeting of his father finished, Angus wriggled free of Gregor's grip and ran off again, flinging himself back into the middle area filled with soft balls.

"I checked with Nell," Gregor added. "To see what she knew because, like you, I wasn't that keen on the idea that other people knew our father was alive and kicking when we didn't."

The way he said 'we' touched me. Last night, I'd woken up at three o'clock in the morning, stared at the ceiling as Kyle took deep breaths beside me, and blinked back tears. Everyone thought my life sorted, fixed, and inspirational for young, ambitious girls all over Dunrovia. Who could I confide in—tell them I was an imposter?

A Member of the Assembly who had achieved none of the things she'd set out to do. The young mother who handed over the care of her child to other people as often as possible. A married woman, who was finding it increasingly difficult to deal with Kyle's seesawing moods and whose thoughts drifted far too often to a vampire.

I was all those things.

Not that I could talk to Gregor about Justin—his loyalty would lie with Kyle, for sure, and he'd stood firmly with Cheryl when she'd told me to back off pursuing a cure for vampirism. But the 'we' thing cheered me up.

"Did she know?" I asked. Nell was omniscient—someone you guessed had worked out your personality long before you managed it yourself.

"Nope, though she said that certain mind control abilities are genetic, and she noticed the coincidence of you and I being so good at at the time. Thing is, I didn't believe her when she claimed ignorance."

I raised an eyebrow.

"As you know, I'm one of the best mind readers in the world."

My brother. Modesty personified.

"She was holding something back. She admitted she knew him years ago, but that she hadn't known he was alive or what he's been up to for the last eighteen years. We should tackle her together. When are you free?"

"In ten months' time. Approximately. Possibly longer. My schedule is crazy, crazy busy. But you're right. We should talk to her. What about after Christmas?" I shrugged off my coat and sighed in relief. The temperature in Eazee Jumpies was on the upper scale of sub-tropical. Angus ran back once more, a bar of chocolate clasped in his hands. Too late. He skidded to a halt in front of us, chocolatey fingers grabbing for my cream-coloured coat.

"Oops," Gregor said.

Angus wrinkled his face up. "Sorry, Maya."

"Don't worry about it," I flapped a hand. The coat always made me feel ancient. When the electorate voted us into power, a team of style consultants had offered their services. The style they came up with for me included trench coats, chignons and blouses. Clothes a woman in her late 30s, who might seem more persuasive than a twenty-one-year-old, would wear.

"After Christmas it is then." He stood up. "I've had enough of this place."

Angus didn't share our keenness to depart, Gregor needing to resort to bribery by offering him yet another screening of Minions, muttering to me that Angus must have watched the film 350 times already.

"Will you come to ours for Christmas?" Impulse made me throw the question out. Kyle and I planned a quiet one—when bad guys have tried to poison your kid and you've fought off vampire attacks, you want no more excitement in your life—with Sharon and Rosie, Cheryl, possibly, if I could bring myself to forgive the harsh words. Gregor and Angus were now family too; they should come.

"Yeah," he said, the wide smile far too like Jonathan Duponts. "I'd like that."

He wrapped his arms around me, two women nearby staring at him with their tongues hanging out. "Take care, little sis. Don't go doing anything silly, will you?"

Outside, I found a taxi, and offered to run Gregor and Angus home too. Gregor refused, saying the walk would do them good. Perhaps he still enjoyed the novelty of having Angus outside without the risk of vampire attacks.

The taxi driver was the same guy who'd picked me up that time I'd met Justin and who'd run Kyle and I to the hospital when Mirac was ill. Not a coincidence then, as he was one of the regular drivers we used. Something, though, made me vaguely uneasy. I waved him on—I'd walk to Sharon's.

It started to snow—the flurry of white flakes coming on suddenly. Sod it, the car would be warm. I jumped in the back. "Hi, can you take me to the Argist Academy, please?"

The driver pulled out, a white van honking its horn in fury at the manoeuvre. I flattened myself to the back of the chair.

"Hey!"

"Sorry. Didn't see it."

Great. My journey home lay at the mercy of a short-sighted driver wearing no glasses. As the car trundled along without further incident, I blew out the tension in my chest. Soon, I'd be back in the flat, feet up in front of the TV, a plate of buttered toast resting on my chest and my phone on silent. Sod Dunrovia. Tonight, the country would need to manage without me.

Like Eazee Jumpies, the driver had cranked up the heating in the car. My eyelids fluttered against my cheekbones. I drifted off for a few minutes, waking with a jolt, the surroundings unfamiliar for a second or so until I worked out where I was. In the back of a car, heading to Sharon's flat.

Except we appeared to be crossing a bridge.

There were no bridges between the assembly building and the Academy. This was north bridge—the main through route to the docks. Beyond it, a few run-down compounds where only the desperate lived, old factories and warehouses and other deserted buildings.

"What's going on?" I asked, struggling to sit forward. The broken springs in the back seat made the job tricky.

The driver said nothing, putting his foot down on the accelerator instead. I wouldn't have thought the old car capable of such speed, but it shot over the bridge and past the sign warning that beyond this point, Vampire Security patrols didn't operate .

"What the fuck?" I shouted, the reediness of my voice alarming me. "Where are we going?"

Ever since the attempted poisoning, Gareth and his Special Branch team had guarded Mirac. But I had turned down the offer of a personal guard for me, scoffing at the idea as an unnecessary use of taxpayer funded resources. Me, Argist trained and more than capable of taking care of myself. If I had a Special Branch officer with me now, I would not be sitting in a car being taken God knows where.

The driver didn't answer me. I channelled the Maya of the other week—the one who'd got inside vampire heads and stopped them from killing children.

Do a U-turn. Take me to the Academy. Stop driving. Return me to the city centre RIGHT THIS INSTANT!

Nothing. The bastard must be Argist trained too, or he'd picked up the techniques that stopped another person from penetrating your mind and taking it over. Physical techniques would need to do the job instead. I unfastened my seatbelt and thrust myself forward to try to wrench the steering wheel out of the driver's hands.

I hit an invisible force-field, the solidity of it shocking me as my face and hands encountered the block between the seats and the driver.

The car sped up again, the streets and houses around us flying past at an alarming rate. I checked my phone. No signal. Perhaps I could fling myself out of the car. The coat I wore was thick enough to protect me, wasn't it? I'd seen the move done in movies countless times, where the escapee threw open the door, tucked their chin into their chest, and did their best to roll along the ground.

Deep breaths. One, two, three...

The doors did not budge. Of course they were fucking locked.

"Sorry, Miss," the driver glanced at me over his shoulder. "Won't be long now."

"Where are you taking me?"

No answer again. I settled for kicking the back of his seat. When I tried again, the force-field appeared once more, making me curse as my toes encountered what felt like a solid brick wall.

Around me, the buildings had thinned out. Out of the darkness, a sign loomed. Merchiston Industrial Estate. I recognised the yellow and black sign that warned of nuclear waste. Great. If I didn't die the minute the driver opened the door, yanked me out, shot me and buried me on site, radiation sickness would finish me off in a few years' time.

The industrial estate housed sheds, warehouses and the odd Portacabin which once must have doubled up as a small business office. It didn't look like a nuclear processing plant, but one building might have processed waste for shipping out.

The driver slowed down—the man peering at various signs outside the buildings, almost all of them covered in rust, their black lettering incomplete where letters had dropped off or been rubbed out.

He stopped in front of a large warehouse, the corrugated iron roof newer and fresher than the rest of the buildings. A solitary street light outside illuminated a door that swung open as the driver got out.

A man exited the building. He walked towards the car and opened the back door for me.

"Sorry about the melodramatics," he said, offering me his hand.

I refused it. "I'm not getting out."

"Please, Maya," my father asked. "If I could have done this anyway differently, I would have done, but this was my only choice. I need to show you something."

AUTHOR'S NOTES - thanks for reading! Next update, Tuesday 8 June 2021. Have a lovely weekend, everyone!