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‘I can’t do that,’ I tell him.

‘He’s in your head again,’ says Johnson.

‘I’m not,’ says Other-Johnson. ‘Swear to you.’

‘Get out of the car,’ says Billie.

‘Ape—’ begins Johnson.

‘Little busy right now,’ interrupts the Ape, who’s using what brain he has to concentrate on us not crashing.

‘I want him out of here!’ screams Billie.

‘He’ll get tired soon,’ says Other-Johnson, trying to sound as calm and as pleasant as he can. ‘Just keep this pace up.’

‘He doesn’t look tired to me,’ Johnson replies.

The Non-Ape is still coming, but we’re now maintaining a distance of about fifteen metres and I’m hoping the Non-Ape can’t run any faster.

‘He’s too fat to keep up,’ says Other-Johnson.

‘That isn’t fat,’ says the Ape defensively. ‘That’s muscle.’

‘He’ll have to slow down soon.’ Other-Johnson sounds confident of this, but I can sense even he’s not sure what Non-Ape’s levels of stamina are.

The chase continues for half a mile and we don’t get any further away and the Non-Ape doesn’t get any closer. All he does is bellow Johnson’s name over and over.

No one but me is happy that Other-Johnson is in the car with us. I keep glancing at Johnson, who is avoiding looking at me – at us.

‘Shall we put the radio on?’ says Johnson after the first mile of reversing. It’s a joke and I almost laugh.

‘Could all sing a song,’ suggests Other-Johnson. Which does make me laugh. Billie sees this and rolls her eyes, incredulous that I can find anything funny.

Other-Johnson glances at Billie, again trying to seem kind and considerate. ‘What happened to your face?’

‘Your Lucas did.’

Other-Johnson takes a moment. ‘Oh.’

‘Yeah. Nice guy,’ she says.

‘Yeah,’ he says. But I detect a concern in his voice. ‘You, uh, you take care of that.’

‘Seriously, why is he even in the car?’ Billie asks me.

‘Yeah, about that,’ says Johnson turning in his seat to look at us so he doesn’t have to watch the bellowing behemoth bearing down on us for a moment. ‘Why
is
he
in here with us, Rev?’

It’s a question I don’t know how to answer with any real clarity. ‘He saved me,’ I shrug.

‘Saved you?’

‘I kind of killed Lucas,’ Other-Johnson shrugs.

Silence follows for a few seconds.

‘I don’t get it,’ states Billie, who is sitting close enough to touch Other-Johnson, but unlike me seems immune to his charm and looks like she’d rather she was anywhere
else right now.

Other-Johnson again turns and looks at her. ‘Just happened that way.’

‘You saved Rev?’

‘I guess.’ Other-Johnson is calm, cool and collected just like Johnson is. Maybe even more so.

Johnson can’t take his eyes off his doppelganger. He’s so spooked, but desperate to look in control. ‘What are you?’ he asks.

‘Could ask you the same,’ says Other-Johnson.

‘You go first.’

‘I’m me.’

‘I’m me, too.’

‘I’d say there’s a few crucial differences,’ says Other-Johnson.

‘Maybe just a few,’ agrees Johnson, with a hard stare.

It’s like the conversation between the Apes on the train all over again. Their voices are identical and it’s hard to tell who’s talking and who’s saying what. I still
have my arms wrapped tight round Other-Johnson and I can feel the taut muscles of his flat stomach. His breathing is calm and the intoxicating aftershave still makes me giddy.

‘We were in detention,’ says Other-Johnson.

‘Snap,’ replies Johnson.

‘There was a—’

‘—light and—’

‘—next thing—’

‘—there’s no one—’

‘—but then I kept meeting the others—’

‘—I didn’t see anyone until I met Rev—’

‘—everyone who was in detention—’

‘Even Carrie? That won’t turn out well.’ Other-Johnson has left my head and I sort of miss it. That connection, that closeness. I have to be careful I tell myself, careful that
he’s not manipulating me – he might be in my mind and just hiding. But if he isn’t inside me right now, making me feel things more strongly, then I’m in trouble. Because
that would mean the kiss and the ache I feel for him is very real. Way too real in fact. My Johnson has had an impact on me – I have just about come to accept that now – but
Other-Johnson did things to me, unlocked whole layers I never knew were there.

I try and snap back to the real world, watching as the Non-Ape starts to tire. He has been running for over a mile now and has fallen back a little from us, clearly starting to lag. We’re
going to lose him. Eventually.

The Ape sees this, sounds his horn at him and laughs.

‘Who’s the Ape, huh? Who’s the daddy Ape?’

The horn immediately enrages the Non-Ape and he somehow speeds up again.

‘Wouldn’t do that,’ warns Other-Johnson. ‘Irritate him and he’ll get stronger.’

‘I own you!’ shouts the Ape, who then, to everyone’s amazement, sounds the horn again, mocking the Non-Ape. ‘Come on then!’

Billie lurches forward and pings the Ape’s ear again. ‘Christ almighty!’

‘Ow!’

‘Please, just do something sensible at least once in your miserable life!’

The Ape sounds the horn again. Then again, then twice more and the Non-Ape’s anger reaches down to his giant thick limbs and they pump even harder, making him go faster.

Billie flicks the Ape’s ear over and over. ‘IDIOT!’

‘Ow!’

Despite himself, Other-Johnson laughs, but more in a total staggering bewilderment at the Ape than actually finding him funny.

The volcanic-looking Non-Ape is gaining on us now.

‘Ape,’ says Johnson, ‘leave the horn alone.’

The Ape’s hand lingers over the horn – he wants to press it again and it’s almost impossible for him to resist.

‘Ape,’ Johnson says quietly, and finally the Ape eases his hand away from the horn.

The car keeps reversing, but when I look behind us I see we’re coming to a large roundabout. It’s a major junction with roads leading into North London and also heading east and
west.

‘Ape . . .’ I say.

‘I see it,’ he says, his eyes moving past mine and out the rear window.

Billie looks behind and takes a short sharp intake of breath. ‘Give us a break!’ she moans.

Johnson and Other-Johnson have seen it as well and they both look a little grim.

‘We’re going to have to slow down. We can’t take the roundabout going backwards at this speed,’ says Johnson.

I look back and realise that we may have made it if the Ape hadn’t enraged the Non-Ape and drawn him closer, but there’s no chance now.

‘Ideas?’ Johnson asks.

No one has any.

‘This isn’t fair! It’s not. It’s just not fair,’ Billie groans. It’s a despairing whine that speaks for all of us.

‘If we stop, how do we beat him?’ Johnson asks Other-Johnson.

‘You can’t,’ says Other-Johnson.

‘C’mon, there’s always a way,’ I say.

‘Believe me, I’d tell you if there was.’

‘Weak spot?’ asks Billie, desperately grasping at anything.

‘You’d never get close enough.’

The roundabout is looming up and there’s no way we can get round it without crashing. Billie lashes out and pings the Ape’s ear again and again. ‘Why did you have to make him
angry?’

‘OK, we stop the car, then run off in different directions,’ Johnson says as the car slows. The Ape has no choice or otherwise he’ll crash. ‘He can’t chase all of
us down,’

‘That’s great. It’s going to be me, I know it. He’s going to catch me.’ Billie is dissolving into a whimper now. ‘I can’t run, I can’t do
it.’

Other-Johnson looks at the distraught Billie and there’s something about her that affects him. His voice comes back into my head.

‘This is my problem.’

He shifts in my lap and winds the window down.

‘What are you doing?’ I ask him as he breaks my grip on his waist.

‘Get ready,’ he says to the Ape.

‘Johnson?’ I say. Meaning Other-Johnson, but getting responses from both Johnsons.

‘Yeah?’ they ask simultaneously.

‘I meant . . .’ I falter as they both look at me.

‘It’s OK, Rev.’
Other-Johnson’s voice is back in my head.
‘It’s A-OK.’
He hauls himself out of the window and with that other-wordly
physical ability he possesses, he clambers swiftly onto the roof of the car.

‘Johnson!’ I shout.

‘Hope you make it home,’
he speaks into my mind and it might be the most honest thing I have ever heard. The words tighten around my chest.

‘Johnson,’
I whisper in my head.
‘Don’t do this.’

‘That kiss,’
he says one last time.
‘Never felt anything like it. Not even with my Rev.’

The Ape slows as the roundabout looms up. The Non-Ape sees us slowing and even his massively sluggish brain can see what is about to happen. He starts to grin because he can also see
Other-Johnson waiting for him on top of the car.

‘JOHNSON!’ he yells.

Even from inside the car I can sense Other-Johnson coil his muscles and get ready to jump from the roof.

‘Johnson!’ I shout, but then feel him leap from the car and go to meet the Non-Ape head on.

Non-Ape snaps out a massive paw towards Other-Johnson and catches him by the throat, leaving him dangling in the air.

‘No!’ I cry.

But the Ape executes another handbrake turn and spins the car in the opposite direction and suddenly I can’t see them. It takes precious seconds for me to orient myself as the car turns to
face the right way again. I fight the G-forces and try to look back, but when I do all I can see is the Non-Ape’s free hand punch Other-Johnson in the stomach, which makes him crease up in
agony. Other-Johnson kicks back at the Non-Ape and twists and turns to try and escape the Non-Ape’s grip, but nothing in the world could escape that.

The car swerves away and, with Johnson shouting directions, the Ape takes the road towards Central London.

‘Johnson?’
I say in my head.
‘Johnson. You there? Johnson, speak to me. Johnson.’

I strain my head until it aches, but I don’t get a reply.

There is no sense of Other-Johnson anywhere. Inside or out.

I slump back, feeling as if someone has ripped something vital from my insides.

‘Well that’s three of them down,’ says Billie as she collapses back in her seat, panting and breathless.

‘Yowza,’ the Ape says.

I can’t find the words to respond.

‘Rev?’ I look up and Johnson is looking at me.

‘Yeah?’ I say quietly.

‘He left the thesis.’ I look down and my dad’s paper is lying beside me on the seat. Other-Johnson must have left it for me. Johnson knows it’s of little comfort. He can
see it in my eyes. ‘Thanks to him we’ve got a way out of this now.’

But right now I don’t care. Other-Johnson climbed inside me and with one kiss he gave me life. I was burning so brightly and now it’s all been snatched away. I offer Johnson a muted
nod, but not even he can find a way through my loss. I watch him turn away and I swear he looks just a little more slumped than usual. I want to reach out to him but I can’t find the energy
or the strength. The Other-Johnson did something to me. And I don’t think I will ever be the same again.

Billie reaches out and puts a hand on Johnson’s shoulder. It’s the smallest of gestures but Johnson reaches up and pats her hand as a thank you for her kindness.

And suddenly there’s a worse thought nagging at the back of my head. Two Johnsons and I don’t have either of them.

I have never been in a five star hotel before. The best my mum ever managed was a seafront hotel in Brighton. That was our favourite holiday together. Bed and breakfast and
days spent on the beach and the promenade. She told me she honeymooned there and it had taken her years before she could bring herself to go back. When my dad left us he took whole chunks of her
with him. I don’t think she ever fully recovered.

But the hotel I am standing in is like paradise with a marble floor. My mum would love it. I start taking photos of it with my phone, thinking I can show her where I’ve been. It’s
such an instinctive reaction, but I’m hanging onto the hope that somehow I’ll be seeing her again. If she can see that something incredible took place and that I ended up in a hotel
like this then she’d surely understand. Someone has to know that this actually happened.

The hotel is grand and opulent and huge. There are paintings bigger than the Non-Ape hung on the walls of the entrance mezzanine. Fresh flowers sit in giant vases that look like they came from
ninth century China.

I stayed silent for most of the drive here. GG kept sending texts to Johnson, telling him he was looking for a place for us to stay. Johnson showed them to us as the Ape drove along a usually
packed A41 and down into the heart of London.

We r at Kings X – xx GG.

Walking now (carrie moaning).

Still moaning.

Found hospital. Found wheelchair batteries. Moth mobile again. Phew! Aching arms need rub down from pushing him.