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chase him out of the apartment to the rickety communal stairs. If these apartments had been finished, we’d’ve had lifts, but whoever owned the island before Sol’s dad only got as far as putting in the shafts. Hope’s maintenance crew have boarded them over so no one falls down them.
    Outside, the slowly lightening sky is iron grey, an icy wind gusting off the sea, and I can hear the waves crashing against the shore. Sadness tugs inside me. Despite the cold, winter used to be my favourite time of year before we came to the island. Mum and Dad’s too. Now, it just means me and Jori wearing every item of clothing we own in bed to keep warm because I can only spare enough fuel to light the stove for a few hours in the evening.
    ‘There’s Sol!’ Jori says, breaking into my thoughts. I look up and see a tall, broad-shouldered figure walking across the courtyard. My face heats up, and all thoughts about Mum and Dad are driven from my head. Damn.
    ‘Sol!
Sol!
’ Jori shouts. Sol turns, and my heart sinks a little.
    ‘
Jori
,’ I hiss.
    ‘What?’ Jori says. I sigh inwardly. I can hardly tell my seven-year-old brother that last night, after we’d been to our final Junior Patrol meeting, Sol asked me to go for a walk down to the jetty, and despite the sinking,
here-we-go-again
feeling in my stomach, I’d agreed. Or that, when we got there, pink-faced in the light from his lantern, he stammered, ‘Cass, I was wondering if . . . that is, if me and you might—’ He cleared his throat, his Adam’s apple bobbing, then gazed at me with a helpless expression while I wondered what on earth to say.
    The thing is, I
like
Sol. But the thought of us being a couple – of Captain Denning marrying us at the Meeting Hall, of having his kids and us getting old together – makes me feel restless and trapped.
    It’s ridiculous, I know. Even if I make it through my assessment, I’ll never leave Hope. The barterers have to come to us, bringing their boats over to a specially reinforced area by the jetty where we trade goods, scavenged from the abandoned towns and cities and empty houses or swapped with other barterers. This place is going to be my home for ever, so why
not
settle down with Sol? With no one from outside allowed onto the island – a consensus reached once we hit one hundred residents to try and conserve resources – who else is there? Sol and I should be like a pair of boots so battered and old they’ve moulded themselves to the shape of your toes and heels. We should fit perfectly.
    And yet, for some reason, we don’t.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ I told him gently as the waves slapped against the jetty behind us, the boats creaking and rocking. I was uncomfortably aware that I was repeating the exact same words I’d said to him last time he told me he wanted us to get together. ‘I just don’t feel ready yet.’
    I could see in his face that he was thinking,
why not?
A lot of the other Islanders our age were pairing up. ‘I’m sorry,’ I repeated. I didn’t want to stick the knife in any further.
    Sol’s face hardened. ‘Forget it,’ he said. ‘I’ll walk you back to your apartment.’
    And I couldn’t argue because he was the only one with a lantern, and on a cloudy night the island’s too dark to find your way around without one.
    Jori skips across to him, grinning. With a stiff smile on my face, I follow.
    ‘Hey.’ I look up, searching Sol’s face for any sign of bitterness or resentment. A few years ago, he started shooting up, going from a scrawny kid whose nose was level with my shoulder to a six-footer who could easily pass for twenty. His eyes are a clear, pale blue, he still has a light dusting of freckles sprinkled across the bridge of his nose and in summer his hair, eyebrows and eyelashes are bleached almost white by the sun. No wonder Marissa thinks I’m crazy for not being interested in him.
    ‘Hey,’ he replies. His tone is as neutral as his expression.
    As we start walking again,