“The bite on her leg was too infected,” the doctor explains, coming up beside me. “Even amputation couldn’t have saved her. We gave her pain relief and then she slipped away. I didn’t want you to know in case it caused too much shock to your system. I’m sorry.”

Bree and I stand side by side, looking over Molly’s lifeless body.

Dad grips my shoulder. “I’m so sorry,” he says. “We will give her a proper funeral.”

Bree leans down and kisses Molly’s cold cheek.

“Come on,” Dad says, guiding us gently away from Molly. “I think it’s time to go home.”

Home. The word echoes in my mind, feeling unreal to me. I can hardly believe we have a home again. A real home. That for the first time in four years, we will be a family again.

Dad leads us out of the hospital and through the compound. Everyone we pass salutes him. He is so well respected and it fills me with pride to be his daughter.

“So you were living in the mountain cabin?” Dad asks as we walk.

“Yes,” I say. “Bree and me. Sasha too. She was killed by slaverunners.”

He looks downcast. “I didn’t think to look for you there,” he says.

“What do you mean?” I say, frowning.

“I came back for you,” he says.

A pit opens up in my stomach. I made us leave home. I told Mom there was no point waiting for him anymore, that he’d left us for good. I’d been wrong.

“It was my fault we left,” I stammer. “I thought you would never come back for us.”

Dad squeezes my shoulder. “You did the right thing, Brooke,” he tells me. “When I got back, the place was bombed. The whole street. If you’d stayed, you would have died.” His voice becomes quieter. “I thought that maybe you had.”

I shake my head. “We were in the mountains all that time. For four years. We only left about six or seven months ago.”

“I’m impressed with how well you coped,” he says.

I shrug. “I didn’t have much choice.”

Dad falls silent. I hadn’t meant the comment to be pointed, but my anger at him abandoning us is evident in my tone.

“Here’s the house,” Dad says, gesturing to a brick bungalow. “Let’s get inside. You can wash while I make something to eat.”

I raise an eyebrow. “You cook?”

It sounds so domestic. So unlike my father.

“Badly,” he replies. “But yes, I cook.”