Eventually, she went back to work, as if nothing at all of consequence had happened, her face bruised, her cheek swollen, her nose patched up with surgical strips.

And nobody much questioned her about it, because they knew she wouldn’t tell them anyway. She was mystery wrapped in silence, and sometimes, unwrapping the secret just wasn’t worth the struggle.

20.

By six in the morning, the forest was fully awake. Laura saw ponies in a clearing, cropping a patchy carpet of grass with strong, blunt teeth, tails swishing as they flicked insects away from their sensitive hides. She wished she had time to stop and appreciate the beauty of the moment. But she didn’t. She was on a tight schedule. Her proximity to her goal gave her renewed strength, and adrenaline helped her where resolve petered out. She did pause, later, just long enough to apply a fresh wound dressing to her swollen ankle. She recognised the early signs of infection, recognised them and ignored them, swallowing more paracetamol. As she returned her first aid kit to her pack, her hand brushed against the bundle at the bottom of the bag, the heavy item wrapped in a towel. She hesitated, and wondered if now was the time to unwrap it, tuck it into the waistband of her trousers, as she’d seen people do in the movies. She decided against it. It would get in the way, there, be a nuisance as she walked. The gun stayed where it was. She felt it pressing into the small of her back with every step.

As she walked, she tongued the empty spot on her gum where her back molar had once grown.

21.

After the tooth, Laura’s world descended into darkness, paranoia, and extreme caution. Her gum turned sceptic, and despite her best efforts to stay away, eventually she had to take numerous trips, via taxi, to the dentist. Trips that she couldn’t afford, to remove bits of the molar’s root that had been left behind by her clumsy extraction, causing the infection.

She carried on working, but her habits changed. She switched to day-shifts, so that more staff were on site, and even then, often called in sick, feeling too afraid to leave the house. When she did manage it, she learned to run, fast, to the bus stop. She took the bus into town, rather than walking, so that she was always surrounded by people. She never sat on the top deck alone, either, sitting down below, as close to the driver as possible.

In between visits to the dentist chair and shifts at the supermarket she waited for the clues she was owed, but nothing happened. She found this impossible to bear, particularly after the photographs. She tried not to think about what X did with the things she sent him. What had he done with her tooth? Put it on a thong around his neck? Placed it in a trinket box? Slotted it into his own mouth, pretended to be her? Thrown it away? Somehow, the last option was the worst of all, because it implied that her sacrifice was unimportant, that the only thing that mattered was controlling her.