When I awoke, when even the act of opening my eyelids felt like lifting the heaviest of weights, Tom was crouched just a few metres away, his elbows resting on his knees, the gun – my gun – pointing in my direction.

But that couldn't be right, could it? My Tom wouldn't aim a gun at me. Why would he? I closed my eyes to the madness of it all and remembered.

I hated how my mind did this to me. It never drip-fed my memories. It threw them at me, hurled them, drowned me in them all at once, violent and unforgiving. It held my head under the surface as I kicked and screamed and with every gulp of water that flooded my mouth, my chest, it just fucking hurt. It hurt just as much as it did the day after he died, when I woke up in my own bed, to see his side empty and cold. It hurt as much as it did every day after his death, when everything around me reminded me that he was gone and never coming back.

Only now he was back.

Shut UP, Evie. Not him. It's NOT him.

Except the thing pointing the gun at me looked like Tom. Same eyes. Same face.

His face. Oh god, his face.

The rage swelled; a tidal wave of anger that came at me so fast that I almost wasn't ready for the power of it as it engulfed me. I was infuriated that this thing could think to take everything away from me, then come back into my life and have the audacity to sit there, pointing a gun at me, as if I was the one who'd done something wrong. As if I was the one who'd stolen the whole world from him.

Him. It. Whatever the fuck it was.

I began to sit up, the movement too sudden, and the pain hit hard – a double explosion that tore through my head and body – and I cried out, collapsing back onto the sleeping bag underneath me. Tears of agony and frustration pricked my eyes, the heat building exponentially behind them. A ripple of nausea curdled in my stomach and quickly forced the bile up into my throat.

Rolling onto my side – an action that wrenched a cry of pain from my lungs – I grabbed the first thing I could see, a small hand-towel dampened with dark patches that looked suspiciously like blood and I retched into it. The acid burned in my throat and on my tongue. It didn't take long before I was retching up nothing but bilious air and a scalding humiliation.

I sank back onto the sleeping bag, my head woozy, my limbs weakened and shaky.

'Codeine. I gave you codeine. You don't react well to codeine.'

The word repetition sounded robotic and I hated it, because it was Tom's voice and yet not Tom's voice. I registered the sound as him, but the tone was off, creepy, like I was listening to a recording from beyond the grave.

'The doctor prescribed it when you had that...' The Grey paused, his brow creasing in thought as if trying to get his head around the right words. '... bad migraine. You said, you couldn't take codeine because it made you sick and dizzy. But it... helped.'

Raising my arm, I covered my eyes with my palm and willed the tears to just fuck right off. I didn't want to give this thingmy tears. I didn't owe Tom's murderer one ounce of my grief. My body might have been weakened, but I couldn't let my emotions weaken me too and I couldn't let him see that I was hurting from far more than my injuries.

'I thought it would help,' the Grey continued, his voice a constant stab to the heart.

Knife in. Knife out.

'It helped... before. I gave you codeine and ibuprofen. I hope it's enough. I think it is.'

Stop it. Stop talking. You're killing me. Stop.

Another memory came then, unbidden, unwanted. The Grey with his arm around me, putting the tablets in my mouth, holding a bottle of water to my lips, tilting my head back so I could drink. He'd touched me. This thing that was pretending to be my husband. My Tom. He'd held me. Put his hands on me.

God, I wanted to retch again. I kept my palm over my eyes and concentrated on breathing and on not throwing up again.

'You should probably try not to move. Moving around just makes you feel dizzier.' He paused, remembering again. 'You had to stay in bed for almost a week. I took time off work to look after you. I liked looking after you.'

'Not you,' I hissed, through gritted teeth. 'Not fucking you.'

'No. Not me.' The Grey's voice sounded flat. Disappointed almost. 'But I remember.'

The only thing worse than my memories, were his memories.

The Grey could remember things. Things that Tom had experienced. Things that Tom had said or done. Not only had he stolen Tom's life and his appearance, but he'd stolen his mind and his memories too. That felt worse somehow, like it was a step too far, because those shared memories were ours. They were private. I couldn't help but feel like the Grey had severed a bond that I'd been desperately holding on to, intruding on something sacred. He was trespassing on hallowed ground that belonged to only me and Tom.

Shame flooded me then when I realised not only could the Grey remember events like when I'd been struck down with severe head pain, Tom's marriage proposal in the Maria Luisa and the significance of The Raising of Lazarus, but that he could probably also remember all the times we'd shared – all of them. Every touch. Every time I'd whispered his name. Every time our bodies had entwined like we'd never get enough of each other. Every time I'd told him I loved him.

I inhaled and exhaled a shaky breath.

The pain in my head was the like the crack of constant gunfire, an incessant throbbing that hammered mercilessly where my skull had made contact with the marbled centaur.

Everything that had happened seemed drenched in images of him. Of Tom.

Tom holding me steady so I wouldn't fall when I hauled the laden backpack onto my shoulder.

Tom cutting down the Grey who had jumped clear of the portico at Lancaster House.

Tom pulling the trigger and saving me from the alien in the stairwell.

Tom pressing against my back, his arm wrapped tightly around my waist, his breath hot on my neck.

I tried hard to banish the images of him from inside my head, but they just kept playing over and over like an old movie projector, the filmstrip clicking round and round in the reel.

Click-click-click.

'Where's Jace?' I said, suddenly remembering, fearful of what had happened to my friend while I'd been unconscious. I knew what Tom was, but I still didn't know whether Lena was like him too. If Jace was still with her, was he okay? Was he even still alive?

The Grey's expression soured, a noticeable twinge of his mouth that made it look as if he was biting on the skin inside of his cheeks, just as Tom used to do whenever something was bothering him.

'Where is he?' I said again, my voice harder.

'He's fine,' the Grey said. 'He's with Lena. Who is he to you?'

'What?' I stared at him incredulously. 'What business is that of yours?'

'I am your...' The Grey looked almost indignant, but stopped abruptly, breaking off, his eyes clouding with confusion. 'I just wondered... you seem... close. I need to know. It's important. It could change everything.'

'What in the Hell are you even talking about?' I said.

I couldn't do this. I couldn't lay here listening to this thing while Jace was God knows where. He needed me. We needed to get out of here.

I rolled onto my side again, feeling every inch of bruised flesh where my body had hit the marbled steps. I didn't think anything was broken, but damn if this didn't hurt like I'd been kicked a hundred times.

The Grey didn't move from his position, but kept watching me, his head tilted to one side just as he had when I'd fallen, studying me with an odd curiosity.

I cast my eyes over my surroundings. We were in what looked like a storeroom. Shelves stocked with a wide variety of tins and packets of food lined the wall from ceiling to floor, behind where the alien was crouched. In one corner stood a stack of vacuum-packed water bottles. One pack had been torn open and a single bottle half-full of water sat by Tom's side, together with a neat pile of small boxes of medication. Ibuprofen. Paracetamol. Codeine. In the other corner, candles of different shapes and sizes flickered lazily, some of them in tealight holders, others fused to the hard floor with the wax that had melted down from the top. By the side of them lay a box of large matches, a few used burnt ones gathered together.

I stared at a door to the right, shifting my head slightly so not to raise it off the floor which I knew was going to send the waves of nausea surging through me again.

'Where's Jace?' I said again. 'Through there?'

'I told you,' Tom replied, an exhaustion in his tone that bordered on irritation. 'He's with Lena. He's fine. Uninjured. Alive.'

'I want to see him. Call him in here.'

'No.'

The Grey's voice was firm. Cold. I hated his coldness and couldn't understand why it bothered me so much. He wasn't Tom, so what did I expect? He was one of them. An unfeeling monster only here to feed on our planet and on us.

'No?' My voice shot up an octave. 'No? How do I know you haven't killed him?'

'Because I'm telling the truth.'

He said it almost as if I was stupid for even thinking he might be lying.

I sneered at him. 'Yeah, because of course, you things are such noble creatures, aren't you? Well, forgive me for not accepting everything that comes out of the mouth. You know, the same one that belonged to my husband before you murdered him.'

The Grey winced, although I could see no reason for his discomfort. Why did he care whether he had killed Tom or not? They never cared about any life they chose to take for themselves.

'Jace is alive,' he said. 'But I can't let you see him yet. We need to talk.'

'Talk? You think I want to talk with you? You think I have anything I want to say to you? I just want out of here. I want to go back to my people.'

Frustrated and with the anger bristling again, I gritted my teeth, steeling myself for the agony to come as I used my hands to push myself up onto my elbows. I shifted my body until I was half-sitting up, with my shoulders resting against the wall behind me. The whole action was laboriously slow and by the time I'd stopped, the sweat was sticking the clothes to my back and running down my forehead. The pain was incandescent now, a fire raging through me and I was panting, my mouth dry, my tongue thick. I eyed the water bottle by his side.

I wasn't going to get out of here without the Grey's help, that much I knew. My body was literally screaming at me and I could do nothing but glare at him, as if a glare could inflict all the pain and suffering that I wished I could force him to feel. I felt helpless. I was helpless.

The tears came unbidden, unwanted and I felt one traitorous drop spill over and trickle down my cheek.

Fuck him. Fuck this.

'Would you like some more water?'

There was something in his tone then, even a glint in his eyes maybe, that felt like he was toying with me, knowing full well what I wanted and that I would need to ask him for it.

I swallowed, feeling the burn of my thirst and anger scald my throat as I nodded, not wanting to look at him as he crept forward with the bottle in his hand. I didn't want to look him in the eyes where he could see my tears so clearly, but I couldn't look away as he neared. There was not one inch of him that didn't look like Tom. Not one detail wrong. He was a perfect clone. Too perfect.

Reaching out, he handed me the bottle. My hand trembled as I took it from him, ensuring to grab the neck of the bottle and not where his hand was. I didn't want to touch him again. I didn't want to touch his fingers as I knew it would only make me think of how his hand had covered mine when holding the gun and what it had felt like to feel Tom against me again.

I raised it to my lips, not daring to take my eyes off him. He was close. Too close.

As if reading my mind, the creature moved back to where he had been, this time, sitting down so his back was against the shelf behind him. He still held the gun between his knees, but now it was pointing at the floor, instead of at me.

'I'm... I'm not going to hurt you, you know,' he said, his voice taking on a gentler tone that made my chest ache to hear it, because it was too much like Tom and yet not Tom.

'And yet, you have my gun,' I said, relishing the water as I drank, wetting my mouth and tongue with it, before swallowing down. The act of drinking water was such a simple one, and yet, with the world now in ruins, every drop of water consumed felt somehow like a luxury.

'I'm not going to shoot you, Evie.'

Say my name again. No, don't say it, it hurts too much.

'I just don't want you to shoot me.'

I could have told him that I wouldn't shoot him, but we both knew it would be a lie. I'd come close to it out in the entrance hall. I'd thought about pulling the trigger and ending it once and for all. Revenge had burned deep, but not deeper than the need to keep seeing his face, just for a little longer.

Shame brought heat to my cheeks then, and finally, I looked away, taking a bigger gulp of water so I wouldn't have to talk to him until I was sure I could steady the shake in my voice.

'I wouldn't blame you, you know,' he said, rubbing his thumb over the handgrip of the gun. 'I understand... your anger.'

I looked sharply at him, the jerk of my head costing me as the pain thundered down one side of my face, ricocheting through my already-pounding skull.

'My anger? You understand my anger? You understand nothing,' I spat the words out at him, furious that he would even pretend to get it. 'You took everything from me. My whole world collapsed when you took him. When you killed him. Forget this planet. Forget this Earth and what you devils have done here. He was my whole world and you took him like he was nothing, so don't you even dare and sit there and say you understand.'

The pain in my chest rose, a tightening that had nothing to do with my bruised and battered body, and everything to do with the way my heart ached for Tom and for everything I had lost. The sob bubbled into my throat, the anger giving way to more tears and I pressed my face against the coolness of the wall, no longer caring that I had wanted to keep my eyes on him, no longer caring that I should be wary of his every move.

All was quiet for a few seconds, but I knew he was still looking at me. He'd barely taken his eyes off me since I'd woken up.

When he spoke, there was a catch in his voice that I didn't expect. He rubbed the palm of his hand over his scrub of beard, scratching at it, his brow furrowed in an expression I knew only too well.

Tom had never liked upsetting me. He'd hated arguments and was always the first to surrender the fight and apologise. His stepfather had been a loud and imposing man, one of those bullish, arrogant types who used his size to bear down on anyone that dared to oppose him, whether that be his wife, or the small children she had borne that were not his, Tom and his older sister Tania. After a childhood full of storm clouds constantly threatening to burst, Tom had developed none of his stepfather's behaviour, and was always uncomfortable with any kind of confrontation between us, not that there had ever been that much anyway. My tears had always made his brow crinkle with sadness in the way it was now.

'It will never make up for it, or change things in any way, but you should know that you're his whole world too.'

I glared at him, my mouth dropping open.

'Don't you do that,' I said, the anger flooding back, strong and violent. 'Don't you talk about him like he's still here. You might have taken him, you might even think you are like him in some way, but you are not him and never will be! Whatever you think, whatever you feel, it's not real, okay? You are nothing but a thief and a murderer, so don't sit there and tell me what he feels, like he's not dead. He's gone and you can look like him and act like him, but you're a monster, and he would have despised everything about you, just like I despise everything about you.'

Closing my eyes so I wouldn't have to see his face – because the more I looked at him, the more I wanted to hurl myself at him and hurt him – I pressed my fingertips to my eyelids and took deep breaths, desperately trying to ignore the pain in my side every time I inhaled. Maybe I had broken a rib after all.

After a while, when he said nothing in response to my tirade, I glanced over at him, to see he'd finally stopped looking at me and was staring down at his feet, his face a fallen mask that looked suspiciously like pain of a different kind. He didn't fool me though. This was just another act. I had to hand it to the Greys, they were bloody good at what they did. No wonder they had hidden among us for so long without detection.

'Why have you been following me?' I asked. 'Because you have, haven't you? You've been watching me. Stalking me.'

'It wasn't like that,' he mumbled.

'So, you make a habit out of stalking human women? Is that your thing? Because it wasn't Tom's.'

'I wasn't stalking you,' he said, raising his voice, a tinge of annoyance in the way he jerked his head to look at me. 'I wanted... to speak with you. That's all.'

'You wanted to speak with me? So, you thought that turning up wherever I might be would be a good way of attracting my attention? Or did you think that carving your weird symbol on Rico's chest and then writing me a message in his blood would be more fitting?' I laughed coldly. 'I mean, I know email and phone calls are out of the question now, but I've got to be honest, sending me a blood text on a work of art isn't exactly the best means of communication. Although, maybe that's how it is where you're from? You can't get hold of someone, so you just spill the blood of one of your own kind and use it as ink. That's cute, really cute.'

'He isn't one of my own kind.'

His voice was strained, the anger now clear and as virulent as my own.

I raised a brow in contention. 'Oh, really? Then I must have been mistaken when I found Rico dying in the National Gallery, half-transformed back into his normal putrid state. I remember when I saw you like that, before you became... this.Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure you and Rico are not from round these parts?'

'That's not what I meant,' he replied, seeming to struggle with the words. 'I mean... I am not like him.'

'Well, that's good to know, because he was a sadistic animal who liked to abuse people, whether alive or dead. He wasn't all that fussy to be honest.'

The Grey scowled. 'I am not like him and I am not like the others.'

'What?' I scoffed. 'Are you going to tell me that you actually have a heart beating inside that monster's chest? Hath not a Grey hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections?'

He looked at me, tilting his head, a small smile on his lips. 'If you're going to quote Shakespeare at me, at least get it right.'

I sucked in a breath. He sounded so like Tom in that moment, that I couldn't bear it. A creepy sense of déjà vu made the hair on my neck prickle.

'I did get it right,' I said, faltering. 'Apart from the Grey thing.'

'Passions,' he said. 'You forgot passions.'

We locked eyes for a moment, unspoken words and unwanted recollections hanging between us. An uncomfortable heat rose in my cheeks.

The Grey frowned suddenly. 'You... you never did get it right, did you? Shakespeare wasn't really your thing. It was mine...' He shook his head, dismissing the memory. 'Tom's. He was a teacher. A good teacher. You always said how great he was at his job.'

He was. The best. The children had adored him.

I had adored him.

'Stop it,' I snapped. 'I don't want to talk with you about him. Why have you been following me? Why did you do that to Rico?'

The Grey pursed his lips, his face twisting sourly. 'He hurt you, so I hurt him.'

A shiver rippled through me.

'How do you know that? How do you know what he did?' I whispered, before it hit me. The way he was averting his gaze now. The way his anger felt so palpable, like a balloon ready to burst.

He'd been there. He'd been watching.

'You saw?' I gasped. 'You were there, weren't you?'

'Yes... no!' he said, quickly back-tracking when he saw my horrified expression. 'I was... following you that day, from Covent Garden and then Lena's group showed up and you got separated from your... friends... you ran, and I lost you. I looked everywhere and then I found you there, in the theatre and he was...' He trailed off, chewing on his lip in frustration, his eyes darkening. 'I wanted to kill him then and there. I remember feeling so... angry. I wanted to hurt him so much. Make him suffer.'

He sniffed, rubbing the back of his hand over his mouth and nose.

'Anyway, your friends came... they saved you.' His mouth softened; his face full of confusion. 'I wanted to be the one. I wanted to save you.'

I swallowed, taking another swig of water. This was too much now. His fake anger. His fake concern. Even he didn't look convinced by it.

'Greys don't save humans,' I said, bitterly.

'I do. I mean... I would. I can. If you'll let me.'

'Why are you doing this?' I said, my voice cracking. 'Why won't you just leave me alone? You took what you wanted already. Please.'

I hated that I was resorting to this, pleading with the creature that had ripped my love from this world and brought me to my knees, but I didn't know what else to do.

'I need your help,' he said, looking over at me. 'And I know how much I'm asking of you, but it'll be worth it, I promise.'

What the Hell was his? I was concussed. Hallucinating, maybe. I had to be. There was no other reason why I would be hearing this. No other reason why this would be happening.

'You need my help? You killed my husband. I saw you. I watched you do it. And now you want me to help you? You're insane,' I accused. 'You're actually fucking insane. What makes you think I would ever help you?'

'Because I'm offering you a deal. A good deal. One that will help you and your friends. I have information. Intel which will help you fight back. I can help you defeat them. On one condition.'

The Grey leant forward a little, blocking some of the candlelight with his body, casting his face into shadow.

'I'm alone out here,' he said. 'They're hunting me, just as they're hunting all of you. I need your protection, Evie. I want you to take me back with you to your base. I want you to pretend I'm your husband.'

The creature smiled and it was so much like him that it tore me apart to see it.

'I want you to pretend that I am Tom.'