– Chapter 1 –

Jamie Carter stepped out of the clinic into the afternoon light, squinting as his eyes adjusted to the brightness of the city street. For the first time in weeks, he felt lighter. Not happy, exactly, but steadier—as if a gear deep inside had finally clicked into place.

He’d lived with depression for most of his adult life. The pills helped; therapy, less so. He’d never seen the point in talking through his problems. To him, the only thing that mattered was getting through the day. Dissecting his feelings in front of a stranger felt like picking at a scab—painful and pointless. But his mother had pleaded, her eyes red-rimmed from too many shed tears, and Jamie didn’t have the heart to disappoint her. So he went every Thursday, at the same time, in the same room, enduring the same weary routine.

Until today.

Today, a new therapist appeared: Dr Keller. He had a calm voice, a sharp suit, and eyes that didn’t blink quite fast enough. Jamie gripped the door handle as panic rose inside him, urging him to flee. But the doctor’s reassuring tone pulled him back from the edge. His grip slowly loosened as he stepped onto the deep carpet.

Keller had a different approach. He abandoned the usual endless talking in favour of something new—something he claimed would be more effective. Jamie had never tried hypnotherapy; the word alone made him think of stage tricks and swinging watches—cheap theatrics. But Keller’s voice was low and certain, and before Jamie could find a reason to object, he found himself sinking into the chair, his breath slowing.

The doctor administered bitter-tasting drops that made him grimace. The metallic taste tightened his jaw before calm enveloped him, washing over his body in gentle waves. He sank deeper into the warm pool of the doctor’s suggestion, his mind growing heavy and dull.

When the hour ended, Jamie felt transformed: clear-headed and focused. It was as if someone had swept the clutter from his mind, leaving it clean, orderly, and sharp.

He walked home with a quiet certainty that everything would be fine. He barely registered the heavy sag of the backpack on his shoulder. He couldn’t recall Keller’s final instructions—words murmured just before Jamie awoke, calm, but with a vague sense of missing time and a dull headache.

Inside the bag, hidden beneath his dog-eared notebook and water bottle, lay a Browning 9mm pistol. Loaded. Silent. Waiting.

– Chapter 2 –

At 9:30 a.m., the temperature was already edging upward, dispelling the lingering cool of the early morning. It was going to be a perfect day. People had begun to gather across the park for what the news media had billed as “the largest anti-fascist march ever held in the UK.” The organisers estimated attendance at over one hundred thousand, and the police seemed to be taking this seriously; at this early hour, they outnumbered the protesters ten to one.

Hastily erected stalls lined the park entrance, stacked with T-shirts bearing slogans from “Fight Fascism” to “Free Tibet.” Every facet of progressive discourse was represented in the items on show—at least the items that would turn a profit. Even at a gathering like this, capitalism was out in full force. The punters passed by, young and privileged, marching with banners held high and handing over fifty pounds for hoodies proclaiming “End World Poverty,” blind to the irony. By ten o’clock, the rhythm of the day had begun to take shape. The park, hemmed in by Victorian terraces and the distant hum of traffic, was filling with bodies: the young, full of purpose and ideals; the middle-aged, resolute and determined; and the older generation, bowed by the weight of experience, all united by a common goal.

The air buzzed with anticipation. Occasional mistimed chants broke out and faltered quickly before the slogans could gather momentum. Near the bandstand, a group of students from Bristol unfurled a massive banner reading “We Are the Future.” The font was bold: red on white. Dressed in coordinated black, they scanned the crowd with stern faces. One of them, a wiry young man in a “Living Wage” hat, adjusted his designer sunglasses as he searched for his sister. She’d promised to bring more of their homemade placards—slogans they’d debated heavily during meetings fuelled by pints and roll-ups.

Further down the path, an older couple stood beside a stall selling vegan wraps and iced herbal teas. Margaret had marched against apartheid in the seventies. Now, in her seventies, she felt the same tremor of history beneath her feet. Her husband, Alan, wore a faded “Coal Not Dole” badge on his lapel—a relic from another era.

The police presence was impossible to ignore. Officers in high-visibility jackets stood in clusters, radios crackling, eyes scanning. Some leaned against vans, sipping coffee. Others walked the perimeter with the practised detachment of those trained to expect the worst. Their numbers still exceeded the protesters’, but the tide was starting to turn as the morning wore on.

From tube stations, buses, and bicycles, more people arrived. With them came the noise: the drums, the whistles, the megaphones—the sound of a movement waking up. The march had been advertised for weeks. The speaker line-up had changed weekly as confirmed names dropped out under pressure and celebrities stepped up for a taste of the limelight before their agents pulled them out in case they upset a sponsor. Eventually, it settled into the familiar mix of activists and politicians, each ready to tweak their speech to suit the occasion.

As the crowd swelled, so did the counter-protests. Groups gathered near the entrances, shouting slogans at the incoming marchers. Verbal clashes that threatened to turn physical were held in check, for now, by a thin veneer of tolerance that wouldn’t last the day.

Amid the swelling crowd, one figure moved with quiet intent. Jamie Carter navigated the mass of people, his pace deliberate. The insults hurled by counter-protesters drew no response from him. He passed the stalls, the clusters of people forming around large banners, and the professional volunteers wielding clipboards, hunting for sign-ups for whatever cause was the flavour of the day.

Jamie wasn’t interested. He had one goal: to reach the front of the stage before the crowd thickened. He was twenty-one, an apprentice plumber working with his father. Five-foot-ten and stocky, he had the kind of build shaped by manual labour, not gym reps. His chestnut hair was cropped short, usually hidden under a cap. His blue-grey eyes held a guarded expression that softened when he joked or focused on a task. Today he wore jeans, a heavy cotton hoodie, and scuffed brown work boots with an uneven heel, the result of his lopsided gait. His rucksack hung from one shoulder, his hand gripping the strap. Jamie moved with certainty, his gaze locked straight ahead, the periphery ignored.

The smells from the food trucks gathered around the park’s edges were intoxicating: frying onions, sweet candy floss, spicy curries. The aromas mixed into a heady cocktail as they drifted through the crowds, but Jamie paid them no mind. He was early and determined. Near the stage, the crowd was still loose. He found a spot close to the front, dropped his rucksack, and sat on the soft grass. Around him, others did the same, staking their claims even though it would be over an hour before the first speaker took the stage.

When the speaker finally appeared, the applause was raucous. He was the political version of a warm-up act. Moving quickly from one side of the stage to the other, he worked to involve the crowd as he spoke about the dangers of authoritarian governments, trying to create a call-and-response rhythm. “When they go low?” he yelled. “We go high!” the crowd responded, though they lacked enthusiasm and sounded more rehearsed than passionate. It was an old line, better delivered elsewhere, but he pressed on. Getting the early crowds engaged was always a challenge, but he was making progress. “Who deserves a living wage?” he yelled. The response was louder, more intense: “We do!”

The speaker, Nigel Williams, was a popular member of the Green Party. He was up-and-coming and had seen significant growth in support recently, given the troubles the new government had found itself in. Nigel was slick—he looked every inch the young revolutionary leader crossed with a seasoned politician. He’d even appeared on a televised debate to answer the question, “Is Britain too far right?” That appearance had earned him the first spot at the protest. Nigel believed there was no such thing in politics as being overexposed, and he’d taken every opportunity to spread the party’s message, carefully wrapped in his own personal branding.

With the crowd warming up, becoming more involved and vocal, he handed over the stage to the next speaker. She was, unusually for this position in the speaking order, one of the main headliners. Nigel explained that she was appearing in the second spot only because she had to return for an emergency vote in Parliament. Walking onto the stage, Susan Dalton was a picture of confidence in a light grey suit and red heels. She was the newly appointed Environment Secretary. Getting a cabinet member to appear at the march was a major coup, and the crowd erupted as she stepped forward.

Susan Dalton was the most popular member of the current government by far. Her ability to explain complex reforms in plain language without sounding patronising made her a regular on debates and morning news shows, where she acted as spokesperson not only for the environment but for various other policy areas. She was calm, assured, and knowledgeable, which made her a favourite with supporters and interviewers alike. She was also striking, her long dark hair normally held back in a ponytail, accentuating her high cheekbones and strong jawline. Her skin was smooth, framed by bold lipstick and a flick of eyeliner. Perhaps it was unfair that her physical attributes had contributed to her success. After all, as she always stressed, she wanted to be judged solely on merit. But she was a realist and had learned early to play the hand she’d been dealt.

“Hello,” she called, her head snapping back and a distinct grimace appearing at the microphone’s high-pitched whine. “And welcome to this, a march that we hope will be just the start of a movement that spreads throughout the country.” The crowd cheered enthusiastically.

Jamie Carter wasn’t cheering. He ignored the speech and the raucous crowd. Only one voice mattered—a single instruction looping endlessly in his mind. It had been with him all day since he left his last therapy session, and it was what had driven him to attend the protest. Jamie knew nothing about politics. He had no interest in the event and would have ignored it entirely, except for the voice. That persistent, nagging voice told him to bend down, open his backpack, and pull out the pistol hidden inside. Though Jamie didn’t recognize it as such, it was the voice of Dr Keller.

As Susan Dalton’s speech soared, drawing cheers that punctuated every well-rehearsed bullet point, Jamie held the gun in front of him with both hands, pointed toward the ground. A few people nearby screamed when they saw the weapon, but their cries were drowned out by cheers from the rest of the crowd. He raised the pistol to aim. A scream rang out. Then the first shot. Then eight more. Nine loud bangs shattered the afternoon, sending the crowd scattering in terror.

It took Jamie Carter only seven seconds to empty the magazine. When it was done, his arms dropped limply to his sides. He stood there, silent and hollow, holding the gun in his right hand with a blank expression. The voice—Keller’s voice—was finally quiet. Susan Dalton lay dead on stage. Four bullets had struck her: two in the chest and one in her shoulder that spun her around so violently the final round entered her skull from behind, erasing her life in a millisecond. She lay face down on the stage, her notes scattered around her, flapping like wounded birds in the light breeze. Her speech and her life had both been cut short just when they were beginning to show promise.

Jamie stood for a few seconds, slowly becoming aware of his surroundings. The voice was gone. In its place was silence and a growing sense of something broken. Protesters who moments before had been enjoying their day now stood in a wide circle around him, mostly in stunned silence. An occasional sob rose from the crowd, mainly from those who had fought to escape as the shooting began.

Seconds later, he was tackled to the ground. The crowds parted to let the police through. His body took a flying tackle from one side, and Jamie collapsed like a sack as the wind left his lungs. Someone grabbed him and forced him onto his front, pinning his arms behind him as the handcuffs locked onto his wrists. The skin pinched and cut as the ratcheted locks snapped shut. The shock of the takedown left him even more confused, and he struggled to comprehend what was happening as he was dragged away and shoved into the back of a waiting police van.