And they tripped her up and they beat her, right there in the car park. People surrounded them. A couple of them cheered. And there’s one image of Seren’s face as the video stops – blood streaming from her nose.

My fingers lengthened. That’s what got through to me – seeing her like that. If I’d have been there, I’d have slit both of their throats. You don’t attack my sister and live to tell the tale. Grandad didn’t. Neither did Pete McMahon. I felt the same as I did then – lustful. Hateful. Ferocious.

Tenoch snapped the computer lid shut. ‘That makes you want to kill again, doesn’t it?’

‘No,’ I lied.

‘You have the hot sauce, gatita. Watching someone you love in pain or fear brings it out of you.’

‘I thought it had gone, when I had Ivy. The need went, overnight. But some things do bring it back.’

‘Like your sister.’

‘Yeah. And children. And animals being hurt. I think I can handle everything else now. But that still does it for me. I still get irritated by everything. I… don’t want to kill every last person I meet who moves my Pop Tarts or sneezes too loudly or says they prefer the British Office to the American one. It’s sort of polarised things. She’s polarised things for me.’

‘Your little Ivy?’

‘Just Ivy. She’s not mine anymore.’

‘It is a good thing for you to say that. What about your sister?’

‘There’s nothing I can do, is there?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘This is one battle she will have to fight without you.’

Friday, 29 March – Hacienda Santuario

1. Rich people – you do realise a fifty grand watch and a £50 watch tell the same time, don’t you?
2. John Cena and The Rock – who said you could act?
3. Noel Gallagher
4. Liam Gallagher
5. Overly woke people – sometimes, you put me to fucking sleep

When I finally looked at myself in the full-length mirror in Marisol’s bedroom that late March morning, without the bandages, without the compression suit or corset, when the scars on my stomach had crusted over and the bruising had diminished enough to be able to tell what I actually looked like, I saw what I’d wanted to see for a long time – someone who wasn’t me.

The waistband of my knickers had finally seen the light of day for the first time in years – flatness from tummy to mons pubis. I had a neat, thin scar spanning the length of said knicker line, but the saggy pouch of before had gone. It was tight. Bumpless. Like she’d never existed.