Sofia tested her freedom of movement. She wasn’t hooked up to any drips or restrained in any way. A chunky plastic remote sitting on the bedside table looked like something she could use to call the nurse’s station. But she didn’t. Without being sure why, she carefully swung her legs out over the side of the bed and tried to balance her weight as she stood up. She was a little faint, and dizzy with it, but a few deep breaths saw her regain her equilibrium.

Her thoughts moved slowly. Her father’s death seemed like a great, dark mountain, with her standing at the foot of it, looking up and wondering how she could ever scale such a thing, or even move around it. As slow and stupid as the drugs made her feel, she was glad of them.

Papa.

He was gone, and she knew his loss would soon hurt much worse. Worse than the loss of an arm or even a leg. Her heart had been ripped from her chest. But for now she remained deadened to the pain. That was good. She knew it gave her the chance to get moving, to act before she was paralysed by the weight of it all. That was one of the things she had learned as they crept and sometimes fought their way free in Blackstone’s Texas. Sometimes, no matter how grave the injury or outrage, you just had to move. To stand still was to die. You’d be overwhelmed, ploughed under. Like everyone who had died in that flood on the Johnson Grasslands. They hadn’t moved, or they hadn’t moved quickly enough.

Sofia moved. She quickly stripped off her loose cotton hospital gown and began changing back into the clothes she had been wearing. They were folded neatly in an armchair in the corner of the room, a pair of relatively new Levi’s, a long-sleeved tee-shirt and a black hoodie. She was almost undone by the thought that Papa should’ve been sitting there waiting for her when she woke up. That’s what fathers did. They watched over you. They were there for you when you woke up.

But that way lay madness, she knew. Even with the numbing cushion of the drugs to protect her, Sofia knew not to poke at that wound. It would pain her soon enough. As she climbed into her jeans and boots, listening for any sound of movement outside the room, she began to gather her wits. The fog was clearing from her thoughts, if not her feelings.

Maive.

Sofia had thought her dead. But no, she was not – not yet, anyway. She had survived the attack, the two police officers had said. As muzzy and clouded as the teenager’s thoughts might’ve been, she was clear-headed on that issue. Her father and Maive had been attacked, not simply run down in some random accident. And Maive had survived.