It was filled with clutter and camping equipment and bags of stinking, rotting rubbish. Sunlight dappled the top of an old blue tarpaulin, mildewed from being long exposed to the elements. It was stretched out from one tree to another by ropes, to form a makeshift roof. Underneath this, there stood a sagging fortress of bedding. Mattresses piled up against each other to form doughy walls, bed springs erupting from their stuffing in mad, vicious coils. A random assortment of carpet scraps were littered across the ground, and a few sheets of rusty corrugated iron leaned haphazardly against nearby tree trunks to act as weatherproofing. A tattered groundsheet, rubber tyres, and large, wind-felled branches completed the structure.

This was it, she knew it. She knew it in her bones. This was where X was living, maybe this is where he had been living all of his life, when not in prison. The shelter was not a new structure. Mature saplings thrust themselves up between gaps in the tarpaulin, and brambles and ferns entangled themselves protectively around the entire mess in a well-established, thorny embrace. Discarded propane cylinders lay all around, years’ worth, and a makeshift laundry line hung across one side of the clearing, over which a worn pair of boxer shorts, some black, threadbare socks and a sheet of torn plastic were hung. They steamed faintly as the morning sun gathered in strength and burned away the night-time dew.

She imagined him, hunched over, meaty fists wrapped around a cheap pen, writing letters to her from his mattress cocoon and folding them into dirty yellow envelopes while the trees shook their leaves overhead in judgement.

This was his home, his turf, his front door.

And this was where she would find Bobby.

She gently lowered her backpack to the ground, seeing no sign of anyone who could be X. The place was eerily peaceful, but if she had her way, that peace wouldn’t last.

She slid a hand inside her pack, and brought out the towel-wrapped gun. It was Frank’s gun, a family heirloom that had belonged to his Grandfather. She knew little about such things, but she did know it had seen some action in the Second World War. It wasn’t loaded, according to Frank, and she wasn’t even sure it worked properly anymore, but it was enough. Enough to threaten a man, and drive her point home. All Laura wanted to do was scare X the way he had scared her. All she wanted to do was see fear in his eyes, and fight back, let him see he no longer controlled her. Scare him away from her life and her family. She didn’t want to hurt him, because it wasn’t in her to harm another, and besides- that would make her no better than he was. But she was owed fear. And much, much more besides.

Quid pro quo, you suffer, I suffer, she thought, and slid the gun into a pocket, eyes constantly scanning the clearing, looking for X. Where was he? Was he hiding? Then, she changed her mind, and took the weapon out again, deciding she would hold it loosely by her side, a more obvious deterrent there, the solid weight of it comforting in her hand.