'Are you okay?'

I glanced back to look at the lifeless body of the Grey on the cellar floor struggling to process what had just happened. What he had done. He'd killed one of his kind. Plunged a knife right through its throat to stop it from attacking me.

Tom was still holding onto my hand, and I was acutely aware of his other hand pressing against the small of my back, keeping me steady on my feet.

He was so close now, our bodies barely a few inches apart.

'Evie, are you okay?' he said again.

I hated the unease in his eyes. Hated the fake concern.

Hated the fact he looked exactly like my husband.

There was not one small detail that wasn't Tom. I'd hoped to see something, anything, that would show me what he really was, but everything was exactly the same.

The shape of his mouth. The line of his jaw. The way his ears stuck out a little. He hated his ears, why did I have to think about that now? His eyes. Oh god, his eyes. The way he smelt and how it always made me want to press my face into his neck and just inhale. The way he would hold me and make me feel completely safe, just like he was holding me now, except I wasn't safe. Not anymore. None of us were.

'You're not hurt, are you?'

I blinked. Took a breath.

'N-no.' My hand trembled against his waist. Why was I touching his waist?

I shook my head, firmer this time and took a small step back, dropping his hand from mine.

Tom frowned, an imperceptible gesture to Jace and Lena, who were behind him, but I saw it and felt a stab of something that felt ridiculously like guilt. Loathing swelled fast and deep. None of this was real. I needed to keep reminding myself, every time he pretended to care, every time he faked his concern, every time he looked like an injured puppy with those damn eyes of his, nothing he did was real. It was an act. A cruel pretence. He didn't deserve an ounce of my guilt. That guilt was reserved for Tom alone – my Tom – not this thing pretending to be him.

Over his shoulder, I could see Lena climbing to her feet, the blood seeping through the bandage in her shoulder. I wasn't sure whether the Grey had done that when it had knocked her flying, or whether it had been my mad attack that had split open the wound again, but it didn't matter either way. She was pissed. Seriously pissed.

'You fucking idiot,' she said, advancing towards where we stood, thunderclouds in her eyes, and I took another step back, feeling the anger rolling off her in tumultuous waves.

My foot nudged the leg of the Grey and I gasped, sidestepping away from it as if it might rise from the dead and grab at me, although in that moment, I wasn't sure what would be worse: an undead alien or the mad-as-Hell Norwegian police officer. From the look on Lena's face, I probably would have bet on the alien as a preferable foe.

'Look what you did!' she said, doing her best to keep her voice as low as possible, something I had clearly failed to do. 'Are you completely insane? You could have got us all killed!' She leant forward as if to grab at me, but Tom held up his arm, barring her way and preventing her from reaching.

'Enough, Lena,' he hissed. 'We don't know how many more might be out there. We need to be vigilant.'

'It's a shame she didn't think about that before she went half-crazy at me,' Lena said, jabbing a finger in my direction, her face twisting into a snarl that ironically gave her a half-crazy look.

'You were antagonising her,' Tom said, 'You know you were.'

He stepped back to include Jace, who had moved towards us.

A sheen of perspiration glistened on Jace's forehead and he wiped it with the back of his hand and exhaled a long, weary breath as he looked at me. I could see his despair and anger and recoiled inwardly from it, knowing that whatever trust we'd rebuilt between us over the Rico thing, was probably now destroyed once more, our bond again fractured as it lay in the rubble of this whole mess I'd help to create.

'Look,' Tom said, holding up his hands to try and calm the situation – infuriatingly, such a Tom thing to do. 'I get that you guys have some history, albeit pretty recent, but this is never going to work if you're at each other's throats all the time.'

He shot me a brief warning glance. 'None of us here are enemies. At least, we shouldn't be, anyway. We're all fighting on the same side. Rico played the long game, okay? And he was really bloody good at it. He fooled everyone and now the rest of Lena's crew are either taken or dead. Now, I can get us farther into the Black Zone. I have a target. A legitimate target that we can hit and destroy, but that's only going to happen if the survivors work together. It's way too big for one group alone. So, whatever beef you guys had with Lena or with any other group for that matter, it has to be put aside, otherwise you're never going to win this war.'

God, he was good. Never mind Rico. This Grey was clearly head and shoulders above the rest, and the scary thing about it was that I knew once he was back with the group, they would believe him too. He was playing at being Tom, after all, and Tom had been likeable. Lovable, even. He'd been the man that everyone knew they could rely on. The man I knew I could rely on. Lovable, friendly, reliable Tom. Everyone's friend. Everyone's ally.

Nobody's enemy.

Jace whistled through his teeth as he tightened the band holding his hair back. 'Love and unity, eh?' he said. 'This is the human race we're talking about, mate. Pretty sure we ran out of love and unity a long time ago.'

'We haven't run out,' Tom said. 'We've just forgotten that it's there.'

We've forgotten. Not you. You're not one of us.

'So, what do you think?' asked Tom, looking around at us all, his gaze coming to rest firmly on me. I was the wild card here. The one most likely to thrust a spanner well and truly into the works. The one most likely to tear his plan into little pieces.

Jace shifted uncomfortably, his gaze flickering my way.

I knew Jace. I knew he would have given anything to get to this target Tom was talking about. This was the type of thing he lived for now. The buzz. A kick of adrenalin straight to the balls to make him feel alive. It was the chance for him to fight back, not just for humanity, but for everything he'd had to experience and suffer at the Greys' hands. Each time he'd killed a Grey, I'd seen that gleam in his eyes and knew that little by little it was somehow making up for having to destroy the Grey that had looked so much like his brother when he'd killed him.

But, Jace also knew how I felt about Lena.

I held onto a small thread of hope that he'd veto Tom's plan, but the thread snapped too easily when I saw the look in his eyes.

'He's right,' Jace said, shrugging and fixing me with a look that bordered on a guilty apology. 'He's right, Evie. I mean, what are we even doing anyway? We're just getting through each day, feeling lucky to still be alive, but each day our chances of surviving are become slimmer. Simply being alive, doesn't mean we're beating them. It just means we're not dead yet, but we will be. Eventually another Rico is going to find us and kill us, just like what happened with Lena's crew.'

'Not if we're careful,' I said, all too aware of Tom's stare boring into me. 'Not if we make sure we vet anyone who comes our way. Or better still, we don't allow anybody new into the group.'

'And how do you know that you aren't already compromised?' Lena said, with a derisory sniff. 'Rico was with me practically since the beginning. I never once thought he was anything but human.'

I raised a brow at her. 'Maybe your detective skills aren't quite as hot as you thought they were?'

'Evie...' Tom said.

My eyes found his and I swallowed back what I saw there, feeling it stick in my throat.

I'd expected another warning glare. Maybe even a little of that Grey I'd seen in the storeroom, the one that came with a coldness that had repelled and scared me. Instead, I found a softness and warmth in his gaze that reminded me so much of what I'd lost these past two years. I ached for my husband. Ached for his embrace and his kindness and the way he'd always say the right thing, just when I needed to hear it. I yearned for the way he would look at me, just like the Grey was looking at me now.

Fuck, this hurt.

Jace stepped closer. 'Evie, this could be our chance. How many times have we said it, yeah? How many times have we wished Taj would fight back instead of just surviving? At some point, supplies will run out. You know it as well as I do. It's already becoming harder and harder to scout for food. We're seeing less survivors out there on the streets. Are we just meant to sit and wait, while those bastards take out each group one by one? When's it going to be our turn, eh? Tomorrow? Next week? Next month? It's going to happen, Evie, and I don't know about you, but I'd rather at least do something, instead of hiding out in the tunnels waiting for them to find us.'

They all stood facing me now, and there I was, on my own, save for the dead Grey by my feet.

God, I wanted to scream. 

Instead, I let my shoulders drop, feeling the tide of their united resolve washing over me, the current pulling me under.

'Okay,' I whispered, weakly. 'Fine. Let's do it. So, how do you know about this place anyway?' I looked directly at Tom, noting a tiny glint of triumph in his eyes, the candlelight catching it like a sliver of steel. Bastard.

His mouth twitched. 'I was with another group, there was only a few of us. We'd been based on Battersea for a couple of months, but one of group was sick and we needed medical supplies, so we decided to try our luck over the river at the Lister Hospital. Long story short, we ran into an ambush and got separated. The others got taken and I was able to follow the squadron back to the facility.'

'And you're sure?' I said, frowning, wondering how much of this was fictional or whether he'd been the one to lead his Battersea group to their fate. 'You're sure this is definitely one of their storage facilities?'

It sounded insane calling it a storage facility, when the only thing it stored was humans. Humans that would be harvested for God knows what. Humans captured and imprisoned. In my head, visions surged strong of some Matrix style facility, with people stored in pods, all umbilically hardwired into an alien power plant.

'We're sure,' Lena said, her lips pinched thin, her tone tight and bitter. 'I've seen it for myself. I watched people being taken inside. Men, women, children. I saw it, Evie, and I vowed then and there that I had to do something. Even if your people won't, I will.'

'They will,' Jace responded. His face was all hard angles and shadow. 'I know they will. And, even if they do vote against it, which I'm pretty sure won't happen, but if they do, I'm in anyway.'

Lena looked at him, her lips poised in an amused smirk. 'Voting? Interesting to see democracy is alive and well.'

'We prefer that to a dictatorship led by jumped-up police officers and their pervert sidekicks,' I retorted, enjoying the way she stiffened, letting her fists clench by her side.

Tom looked around at us all, exasperation starting to show in his expression. 'For goodness sake, I had an easier job keeping the kids under control in my old teaching days.'

I faltered, my eyes snapping back to his.

Not you. That wasn't you.

Fighting to keep my anger simmering under the surface, I exhaled slowly. 'Okay, so say Taj and the others are all up for this too, whereabouts is this place? How far into the Black Zone do we need to go?'

Tom scraped his teeth over his lower lip. 'Central Hall.'

My mouth dropped open. 'Central Hall in Westminster? That Central Hall?'

He nodded. 'Yup. That Central Hall.'

My heart juddered in my chest. 'You've got to be kidding me? That's a seriously prime location. It's fucking huge. How in the Hell are we meant to get anywhere near that place?'

'Didn't you hear what I said?' Lena stared hard at me. 'I've been there. We've been there. As big as that place is, we can get close to it.'

'More than that,' Tom said, raising his chin almost proudly. 'I can get us inside. I was able to scout around and discovered a way in.'

'You've been inside?'

How was no one questioning this? How was no one looking at him with complete and utter suspicion? Getting into Central Hall, slap bang inside the Black Zone? Tom – the real Tom – had been a schoolteacher, for fucks sake. Not Special Forces. Not some kind of secret agent operative. Not even a police officer. He'd been a primary school teacher – a bloody good one, I had to say – but he'd taught mostly KS2, not counter-espionage. The inner-city schools he'd taught at had presented all kinds of challenges, not all particularly pleasant, but that didn't suddenly turn him into James Bond.

'Yes,' he replied. 'Briefly, but yes.'

Of course, he'd been inside. He'd probably had a hand in harvesting humans in that place.

'What did you see?' I said. 'What's inside?'

I wanted him to say it. I wanted to hear it from his mouth. I wanted him to tell me all about the horrors enclosed inside that building so I could hate him some more. So that I could think about it when I finally got the chance to kill him.

'I didn't get that far, but I do know they're alive. The people in there are alive and they're shipping them out daily in smaller groups, taking them back to their crafts.'

'Why? Why are they taking them there?'

He stared at me, a split-second of darkness infiltrating his gaze, before his brow crinkled, his eyes softening. 'I have no idea, Evie, your guess is as good as mine.'

'Look, whatever it is they're doing with the taken, we can stop them,' Lena said. 'I am not saying it is going to be easy, but Tom is right. If we can band together with other survivor groups, we can do this. They think we are weak now. They think they have broken us. They will not expect us to attack them in such a way.'

'It's gotta be worth a shot, hasn't it?' Jace asked, looking at me. 'We can do this, Evie. I know we can.'

Jace's optimism was breaking me. He wanted this so badly, and what's more, he needed it. He needed to do something before it drove him half-mad. I knew he wasn't going to let this go, not know he knew what was at stake, and he was going to do it whether I agreed or not. How could I possibly let him run headlong into this without me? At least, if I agreed, I could try and keep us both safe. I could try and keep him safe.

'Okay,' I said again, feeling my shoulders drop even more. 'Personally, I think this is utter bloody madness, but okay. Let's get back to the group and see what they have to say.'

Tom's grin widened just a little, just enough for me to see it for what it really was.

He'd won this battle, just like he said he would. He'd manipulated everything to be just the way he wanted it to be and there was nothing I could do but play along with his crazy, twisted game of lies and pretence.

I smiled back, watching how his eyes narrowed slightly in response to my compliancy.

He was suspicious and rightly so. He might have won this time, but the Grey's luck wasn't going to last forever. Somehow, I would find a way to bring his game to an end and when I did, I was going to make damn sure he regretted the night he took Tom from me.

I was going to make him regret every single second of this life that didn't belong to him.

Right up until his last breath.