First published in the UK in 2023This electronic edition published in 2023 by Ink RoadINK ROAD is an imprint and trade mark ofBlack & White Publishing LtdNautical House, 104 Commercial Street, Edinburgh, EH6 6NFA division of Bonnier Books UK4th Floor, Victoria House, Bloomsbury Square, London, WC1B 4DAOwned by Bonnier BooksSveavägen 56, Stockholm, SwedenCopyright © David Fenne 2023All rights reserved.No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form by any means,electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior written permission of thepublisher.The right of David Fenne to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by him inaccordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.This is a work of fiction and not intended as a historical or factual account. Names, places, eventsand incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously.A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.ISBN (PBK): 978 1 78530 472 9ISBN (EBOOK): 978 1 78530 473 6eBook Compilation by Data Connectionwww.ink-road.comOceanofPDF.com For John,My doofus, my butthead, my everything.*book boop*OceanofPDF.com ContentsAuthor’s NoteChapter 1Chapter 2Chapter 3Chapter 4Chapter 5Chapter 6Chapter 7Chapter 8Chapter 9Chapter 10Chapter 11Chapter 12Chapter 13Chapter 14Chapter 15Chapter 16Chapter 17Chapter 18Chapter 19Chapter 20Chapter 21Chapter 22Chapter 23Chapter 24Chapter 25Chapter 26 Chapter 27Chapter 28Chapter 29Chapter 30Chapter 31Chapter 32Chapter 33Chapter 34Chapter 35Chapter 36Chapter 37Chapter 38Chapter 39Chapter 40AcknowledgementsAbout the AuthorOceanofPDF.com Author’s NoteOVEREMOTIONAL is a story about friendship, love, and loneliness. It’sabout finding who you are and where you fit in the world. There aredepictions of violence, drugging, and references to medical experimentationconducted on pregnant women in the past. While it is my hope this book isfor everyone, I am including this note so that those sensitive to these issuescan make an informed decision from the very beginning. After all, emotionshave power, even if they aren’t magic.OceanofPDF.com 1StevenThe first time I kissed another boy was probably the worst day of my life.One moment I’m waiting for the upstairs loo at a yay-we-did-our-first-week-of-mock-exams party, the next, I’m being led into a bedroom, and I’mmaking out with a total stranger.And then his head exploded.Like, actually exploded. I was dressed like a zombie at the time, whichbasically meant I’d ripped some old clothes and let Freya squirt me withfake blood. Unoriginal, but at least it disguised the real blood.Oh god. The real blood.Just what the hell was I supposed to do? I couldn’t exactly explain to thepolice that I’d snogged someone’s head out of existence. I had beencareless. My powers had been getting stronger, but I thought one partywould be fine. That I could keep my emotions in check. And now they’ve. . . killed someone. I’ve killed someone. So, I did what any seventeen-year-old walking atom bomb would do.I ran.Ran home, packed a bag and kept on running. Okay, there were somebuses in there too, but I think it’s safe to say no one will find me here.Grunsby-on-Sea: the official arse end of nowhere.I need to stop thinking about it. I can’t let myself get overemotional.Whenever I do, things . . . happen. It’s weird. Whatever I feel seems tomanifest in some strange and horrific way. I can’t be happy withoutinflicting misery. It’s like the universe is conspiring against me – constantlyplaying cruel tricks. I try not to indulge it. I try not to feel anything.That’s why I’m alone. No one around to hurt. It’s safer for everyone else if I just stay here bymyself and keep my emotions (and these damn manifestations) undercontrol.It’s 11 a.m., but I just woke up. I say “woke,” but I don’t think I actuallyslept. My body was exhausted from lugging boxes around, but my mind justdoesn’t want to stop. Every night, I replay that party – that popping noise –over and over. Can’t remember the last time I got eight hours.I throw on some clothes and head into the kitchen: bread in the toaster,kettle on. It’s a revolting kitchen, but not because it’s dirty; it isn’t. Themoment I feel even a whiff of disgust, I draw all the dirt and dust in the flattoward me like a human vacuum. I guess I attract what disgusts me. Handy,but showering it all off is a pain. No, the kitchen is revolting because ithasn’t been redecorated since 1954. Busy floral wallpaper is peeling fromthe walls, and the pink paint that once coated the cupboards is chipped andflaky. I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole flat were made of asbestos.I’ve been considering calling myself an emomancer. Makes sense.Pyromancers control fire and necromancers bring back the dead – at least inDungeons and Dragons or whatever. So, emomancers have emotion powers.I mean, it sounds like I should dye my hair black and wear a trench coat,but what else can I call it? I don’t think there are emos anymore anyway – acasualty of the noughties. I was too young to be one, but I do rememberFreya’s older brother straightening his hair within an inch of its life at thetime.The kettle boils, and I scoop some instant coffee (the supermarket own-brand kind that tastes like someone blended up topsoil) into a mug. I don’ttrust myself to have anything nicer. Two weeks ago, I tried a pumpkin spicelatte and shattered every window in the high street. It was delicious, though.The memory of the spicy-sweet drink rushes to my lips, and my toastcatches fire, yellow light fizzing around my hand.Great.At least burned toast might mean sunshine today. But sunshine mightmake me happy and cause a sinkhole in Grunsby town centre . . .I stop myself thinking. It’s something I learned from one of thosemeditation apps. Not sure super-powered teenagers were their targetdemographic, but it works. I just picture white and nothing else, and usually everything balances out. No thoughts, no emotions, no tricks. I call themthat because they are rarely treats.I try to scrape the burned bits from the toast, but it’s completely charred.My tricks seem to be getting stronger and more frequent lately. Used to be,I’d only cause a trick if there was a particularly strong emotion, and eventhen, there were long periods between them. Now I run out of fingerscounting all the ones before lunch.I thought a job might take my mind off things and keep my tricks undercontrol. Plus I could use the cash. When I came to Grunsby-on-Sea, a weekor so ago, I tried to be a bartender in a run-down pub called the LazyCough. I was keeping everything together until some middle-aged hagdemanded I make her a Porn Star Martini. What even is that? She keptshouting that Millennials were “entitled slackers” despite the fact I wasborn after the millennium, so I haven’t touched a pair of skinny jeans in mylife. She just kept going on. I could feel the tricks bubbling up inside me,feeding off my anger until I just couldn’t take it and told her to shut up.That was when I realised my anger manifests as fear in other people.Everyone fled the pub in terror like I’d brought an emotional support lionwith me. I was banned from the premises and told I was lucky they didn’tcall the police.Since then, I’ve been unloading cargo at the wharf when the ships comein. It’s hard, manual work, but at least I don’t have to think. Or worry aboutfeeling. There are surprisingly few emotional reactions one can have tostacking crates and lugging boxes.Thus far, no tricks.As I pull on my boots, my triceps burn, and back muscles I didn’t knowI had grind like rusted gears. If the tricks don’t kill me, then my sheerunfitness in the face of manual labour will. Why couldn’t I have gone to thegym more often? The one at school was free for all sixth formers, but I felttoo embarrassed to go. What if everyone laughed at me for standing on theelliptical the wrong way round? Someone might film me, and I could endup on TikTok. Freya loves watching videos of people hurting themselves.How I would love to laugh at someone else’s misfortune for a change. Butany rogue laughs could cause a thunderstorm or an old woman to slip andbreak her hip. I don’t know if there are any others like me. And if there are, wouldthey make good things happen when they are happy, or would they bebroken like me? I wonder if they can . . . relieve their “teenage urges”without causing a hurricane.I did that.I finished, then looked out the window to see next door’s shed flyingaround like it was about to drop on the Wicked Witch of the West. At first, Ididn’t connect the dots. My powers were still developing, and my handsweren’t glowing different colours yet. It wasn’t until puberty really had itsclaws around my hormones that I began to see the trail of devastation.Earthquakes, lightning strikes – I’m pretty sure I even caused a foot-and-mouth outbreak across the county when I bunked off school.I was probably the most sexually frustrated teenager to ever walk theplanet. I learned to stop thinking about it. And it works. It was workinguntil a guy I had just met kissed me, and I made his head pop like an angryspot.But it’s not just sex stuff. Other tricks happen depending on how I feel.Things often go in pairs and opposites, and the stronger the emotion, thestronger the trick. I keep a little chart in my pocket to keep track: my cheatsheet. I’ve left some empty boxes because I seem to develop a new trickevery couple of months. Just the other day, I pushed a convertible into awall by admiring it.I used to live my life and ignore whatever occasionally manifested.Now I don’t have that luxury. All I can do is try not to feel – go about myday with mechanical efficiency, like a passenger in my own body. But it’sso hard. Every time I slip up, something terrible happens.At this point, all I want is to feel nothing.Jacketed and booted, I step out of my gross time capsule of a rental flat,and the November sea breeze bashes my face. There’s somethingparticularly cruel about the seaside in winter. The wind is extra cold, and itcarries salt that licks your face like a cat’s tongue.Grunsby-on-Sea is a dump. That’s partly why I chose to come here:some vague sense of altruism. If I torture myself, then maybe nothing badwould happen to anyone else. This place topped every BuzzFeed listicle forworst places to live and was even voted “Most depressing town in the UK”.Not that the Grunsbians have noticed. It probably wasn’t always like this, though. Back in the forties, this was probably a lucrative holidaydestination. People would take their kids to play at the seaside with jamsandwiches and ginger beer like something out of an Enid Blyton novel.Now the only visitors are film crews looking for the saddest looking placein England and emomancers hiding from the law, I guess.At some point, some optimistic soul tried to liven the seafront up with apastel-pink coat of paint over everything: railings, buildings, the old, ruinedpier. Obviously, they didn’t maintain it as everything in town is cracked andflaking from the sea air. Even the town’s crown jewel, the Grand RegaliaHotel, which now offers “colour TV in every room”, looks like it has a badcase of eczema. The hotel, situated just next to a rickety old Ferris wheel,overlooks the sunken pier like a post-apocalyptic art deco monstrosity. Noone ever seems to be staying there, but I can hardly blame them. Any parentwho willingly brought their child here today would have social servicesround faster than a seagull on chips.One good thing about Grunsby-on-Sea is that no one bats an eyelid atyou. It’s the perfect place to hide away and have zero questions asked. Youcan walk to the corner shop without anyone sparing you a second glance.Speaking of which, I pull my coat up over my mouth and head down thehill.*The shopkeeper grunts at me as the beeping door heralds my arrival. I’mthe only one who seems to come in here, but it’s not hard to see why.Plastered to every inch of the glass door are scraps of paper saying “nochildren”, “no loud talking”, “no browsing”, “no old people” and “nophones”.I flash him an awkward no-lip smile and pick up a basket. Much like therest of the town, the corner shop is frozen in time. Worn boxes of Jaffacakes sit limply on the shelves; their sell-by date seemingly older than I am.I pick up a bottle of what I assume is Pepsi – the label is coated in so muchdust, it is hard to see. My thumb streaks across it, and a handsome man withway too much gel in his hair looks back at me. Apparently, he’s a footballplayer from the 1998 World Cup – not that I have any clue about footballdespite my dad’s repeated attempts to teach me. I wonder what Mum and Dad are doing right now. They’ve beenvisiting my uncle in Madrid for the month – supposedly to “give me roomto revise” for my mock A Levels, but I’m pretty sure they just wanted tosunbathe for the whole of November. By now, they’re probably the colourof tanned leather and haven’t worried about me once. I’m sure Freya’sworrying, though. We’ve been best friends since we were six. She saw myBen 10 lunch box from across the playground, marched straight up to me,and demanded we play together. We pretended to turn into aliens and fightbaddies together almost every lunchtime. Since then, she’s always been inmy life, except for that brief few months in Year Seven when we decidedwe hated each other. She’s in my form but we don’t have any subjectstogether. I tell her everything . . . Well, almost everything.Recently – well, before I went AWOL – she’d been boring me withevery intimate detail of her new boyfriend, Marcus.Prick.I’ve never felt such an instant dislike for someone. He always insinuatesthat he’s a lot smarter than me, just because he’s already got uni offers forengineering. He can basically fix anything; it’s super annoying. “Stevie,you’re doing this wrong . . .” “Stevie, I passed my driving test first time. . .” “Stevie, I’m a prick who has biceps and a car . . .”Some people assume that I’m jealous, but I’m honestly not. Freya is likemy sister – I imagine. I don’t have any siblings. But I can safely say ourrelationship has only ever been platonic. I guess certain things bind you tosomeone for life. And, apparently, running around the playgroundpretending to be alien butterflies with freezing breath is one of them. God, Imiss her so much . . .I catch myself, but it might have been too late. I stare at my fingers,hoping that nothing happens, but of course, it does. A faint yellow auracrackles around my hand. I’m manifesting happiness. The sky outsidedarkens, thunder crashing overhead. Long, spear-like rain plummets to theground, and a powerful wind rips open the door to the shop.I grab some milk and pay for it quickly, the shopkeeper too distractedby the sudden downpour to notice my glowing hands. Wrestling the doorshut, I turn my face against the storm and trudge back up the hill.By the time I am at the foot of the rusted metal steps to my flat, theworst of it has passed, but I am entirely saturated. Why couldn’t I have packed a jacket with a hood? I didn’t have much time to think. I just had toshove everything I could into a bag and leave before anyone noticed. Beforeanyone could stop me, and by anyone, I mean—“Freya!”Stood outside my little shabby door, almost completely dry under anobnoxious frog umbrella, is a copper-headed young woman. Her outfit is acoordinated event of oversized woollen things and bright-pink wellies, andher hair is piled up on her head in a messy bun.“Alright, Percy? What does a girl have to do to get a cuppa aroundhere?”OceanofPDF.com 2Freya“You look like crap,” I say.And I definitely mean it. Steven Percival has always been built like aracing snake, but today he looks like a miner who got trapped underground.Skin and bone with eyes dark like a murderer. His wet, brown hair isunkempt and starting to curl at the edges.“Nice umbrella,” he says with a sneer. “Steal it from a primary school?”“Marcus got it for me, actually.”Nothing. That’s weird. I usually can’t mention Marcus without Stevenpretending to retch.“Are you going to let me in? Because I don’t fancy pneumonia, to behonest.”He mutters something under his breath, probably about the wellies, andfetches the keys from his coat.His flat is probably the worst thing that I’ve ever seen. Wallpaper!Actual wallpaper . . . in a house. Ew. I’m all for retro stuff – my earringswere my mum’s in the nineties – but this is just way too old and way toougly. No one wants to live in a place that was decorated when they werestill doing rations.While Steven busies about in the kitchen making tea, I perch on thevinyl-wrapped sofa in front of the deepest TV ever known to man. I checkmy phone out of habit, but it’s been dead for the past three hours. Troy stillhas my charger. Lucky I wrote down everything before I left.“Three sugars and strong enough to stand the spoon up,” says Steven ashe plonks a bone china cup on the coffee table in front of me. No bourbonbiscuits, which is strange; we always have a packet with tea. He sits down on a worn armchair and eyes me suspiciously. He opens his mouth, but Ihold up my hand. We aren’t even going to consider talking until I havefinished my tea. He stares at the floor, avoiding my gaze. His eyes seemhollow, like they’ve been drained of life. Creepy.“Right. We are out of the cold, and tea has been drunk. First things first:have you gone full Norman Bates? Should I be checking this flat for deadold ladies?”A flicker across his face. So, he is still there somewhere.“The only old lady here is the one on the sofa.” His voice is as dry asever, but his face is stern and impassive.“Great, now I guess my follow-up question is – what the actual hell,Steven Percival?”He stares at me. He knows I am serious because I didn’t call him Percy.Nothing passes his stony expression. Eventually, he shrugs and looks downat the tea gripped in his hands.“That’s it? Nothing to say? You disappear completely for over a weekand don’t have anything to say? I have been beside myself with worry, youtit. That little cover story you told school about a family emergency was aload of rubbish. I texted your mum, asking if everything was okay, but shedidn’t have a clue what I was on about.”Steven blanches at that. I can see a hundred panicked thoughts behindhis eyes as his breath catches in his chest.“Y-you texted—”“Don’t worry, I just pretended I was talking about their holiday,” I say,rolling my eyes. Honestly, what kind of best friend would I be if I didn’t lieto his parents? “I figured it was the pressure of A Levels or something.Mock exams or too many books to read or something – I don’t know whatyou do in English Lit. I assumed you would text me eventually, and I wouldcome over with a pack of bourbons, and we would talk everything through.But no. You ignore my texts, reject my calls, and pretend I don’t exist. Evenwhen we hated each other at the end of Year Seven, you never ignored me.”“That’s because you kept telling people I cried during Inside Out.”“Percy, you did cry during Inside Out. A lot.”“You didn’t have to tell everyone. Liam Stalworth thought I was such aloser.” “Oh, what a shame, the kid with a criminal record before he was tenthought you were a loser for crying at a Pixar movie.”“He made fun of me for months!”“Whatever. The point is, you dropped off the face of the Earth, and Iwant to know why.”Steven pauses, a muscle flaring in his jaw. He mutters, “It’scomplicated,” gets up and takes his empty cup out to the kitchen.Ugh, I hate when he does this. If Steven Percival can do one thing, it’ssweep out of a room when he wants to be dramatic.*StevenI take my cup to the kitchen because I don’t know what to say. Freya willprobably say I swept off dramatically. She’s always saying I do that. Whatthe hell is she doing here? No one was supposed to find me. I had been socareful. I took all the cash I could out of an ATM and left no paper trail. Ibet she asked her dad to help. He’s a police officer: probably got access tofacial recognition software or some other equally unsettling tool for privacyinvasion.As I wash up my cup, I can feel Freya’s eyes boring into me from thedoorframe. She isn’t going to let this go.“I’m not going to let this go,” she says.Knew it.“I can understand running away if exams got too much, but why here?”she asks, trying a different tack.I consider the wool-clad figure by the threshold. Fierce hazel eyesscanning every inch of the revolting kitchen. Good thing Freya isn’t anemomancer: she’s so disgusted by the decor the whole flat would probablyimplode. I give her a bit. Mainly to just shut her up.“Didn’t think anyone would think to find me here.”“You’ve got that right. I’ve been in this town for half an hour, andalready I want to throw myself into the sea.” “I think there’s already a pretty long queue,” I say, smiling weakly.“You might have to take a ticket and come back.”I probably shouldn’t be cracking jokes, no matter how small. They leadto joy, and joy is very dangerous. Hopefully, the storm I just caused willmean no tricks for a little bit. My batteries have to recharge – at least that’sthe theory. But almost every time I think I understand this emomancy, itthrows another curveball at me.Freya smiles but then peers at me like she can’t really see me.“What is it?” I ask.“Nothing, you just seem . . . muted.”I feel muted. But if I want to keep Freya and everyone else safe, thenthat’s the price I have to pay. I have to be a diet version of myself: lessemotional, less engaged, less sugar.I shrug noncommittally, which just annoys her.“Okay, if you won’t tell me what you are running from or why you arehere, then at least tell me when you are coming back?” she says, hopping upon the counter. Her legs idly kick the paint-chipped cupboards.“I’m not coming back, Freya. I can’t.”She rolls her eyes again and says, “You always have to be so bloodydramatic.”“No, you don’t understand—”“Then make me understand. Tell me. Talk to me. Say something!”“FREYA, I CAN’T!”I shouldn’t have shouted. I try to stop it, but it’s too late: a red shimmeris curling around my fingers, the temperature plummets, and Freya’s facegrows fearful. She jumps to her feet, backing out of the kitchen. I’ve neverseen her so afraid in my life.“Freya, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean . . .” I trail away, not sure what to say. Iclose my eyes and think desperately of nothing but white. Pure white. Noanger, no colour, just white. Breathe in for four and out for four. My heartslows down from its furious pounding.“N-no, it’s o-okay,” she stutters, lingering at the doorframe. “Gave me afright, is all.”“I shouldn’t have got angry.”“It’s fine. My fault. I shouldn’t have come. Obviously, you are goingthrough something and want to be left alone,” Freya says as she heads