The doorbell had rung for a second time. He’d tried to ignore it, another parcel no doubt. They could leave it on the step – but then it had rung again.

Again.

Again.

Somebody keeping their finger on the button.

With a start, Connor realized that after he’d locked the door earlier he had left his keys dangling from the lock. It was probably Mum on the step, furious, assuming that Connor had locked her out purposefully. He hadn’t. He stood, pulling his phone out of his pocket – had he missed Kieron’s call to tell him they were on their way back? He sprinted down the hallway, virtually flying down the stairs, two at a time, three at a time, landing heavily in the hall.

He’d unlocked the door, pulled it open. Registered the face that greeted him, familiar and angry. He’d stepped back, wary, confused.

‘Are you all right?’ he’d asked, tentatively.

The response: ‘Let’s go.’

‘Go where?’ Connor had felt the anger coming towards him, had shaken his head, not quite sure what he was refusing, but he didn’t want to leave the safety of the house. ‘Mum will be back soon.’ He’d watched for a softening of their expression.

Nothing.

Instead, a hand had grabbed his arm, pulled him forwards.

‘Get off!’ His feet skidded on the laminate floor, hip banging against the table. The smash of the vase. The splash of water from the flowers soaking into his jeans. All the while being pulled towards the open door.

‘What the fuck?’ Connor fought back. At seventeen, he was younger, stronger, but he lost his footing. Fell. His head slamming against the wall. His body going limp. And now there was here.

This.

Glowing in the darkness, a pinprick of clarity. Connor knows undoubtedly who had taken Tyler and Ryan now. Who has taken him.

He knows why.

Chapter Forty-Three

Lucy

‘The Taken’, the newspapers call them.

Tyler.

Ryan.

But Connor? How is it possible?

It isn’t.

He was at home, safe. The door was locked. Still slumped against the wall, I cast my eyes around his bedroom again as though he might spring out from the wardrobe, from under his bed. I take in his crumpled duvet, his bin overflowing with scrunched-up cans of Pepsi. Empty tubes of sour cream Pringles. His shelf of books, untouched and unread since primary, gathering dust. Everything is normal. Horribly normal.

Where is my son?

I rush through the house, checking from room to room, calling his name. It’s when I’m back in the hallway, back with the blood, that the breath is sucked out of my lungs as though I’ve been body-slammed by one of Kieron’s wrestling heroes.

Kieron.

Running towards the front door, my feet crunch through pieces of broken glass, slip through water.

Sickness is hot in my throat.

Outside, Kieron is still on the passenger seat, covered with a blanket.

Still asleep.