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He floated past Owain into the room and held the device out to me, shaking it wildly. I grabbed it just to get him to stop pinging at me and saw I had a million missed notifications from one number.

Ted.

I frowned at the series of messages that got increasingly desperate.

Ted

Pick up

Ted

Pick up the phone arsehole

Ted

Stop sending me to that damn pinging answerphone!

Ted

Please pick up

The please was the most alarming thing.

“What the fuck has he gotten himself into?” I murmured.

“What’s wrong?” Owain asked, stepping over and settling on the bed next to me so he could peer at the screen.

“A colleague from work was trying to reach me. I think he might be in deep shit.”

“Ted?” Owain gasped. “No wonder Popty was so upset!”

I frowned at him. “Why would Popty be upset about Ted? He doesn’t know Ted.”

“Well…uh…”

Owain and Popty shared a look between them.

“Well, the reason Popty keeps stealing your phone is because he has a huge crush on Ted and wants to stare at him all day but that’s not what’s important here. What’s happened to him?” Owain said in a rush.

“Wait, back up.”

“No. No backing up. There’s obviously something wrong. Why would he be calling and messaging you so much if there wasn’t an emergency happening? Call him back! Quickly!”

“We are circling back to this,” I said, but I hit dial.

The person you are calling cannot be reached right now. Please hang up and try again.

I frowned. “Why would his phone be off?”

I found the HQ number and hit dial next.

It rang endlessly.

“Okay, something is very wrong.”

A news bulletin popped up at the top of my phone.

Manhunt begins for Mirror suspect. Suspect named Ted…