“There were stumbling blocks,” said Bill. “Carolyn proved to be just as difficult as James, in the end. But we learned. Then you came along, naïve and blinkered and so obsessed with your own self-imposed loneliness that you never for one moment questioned anything around you.”

Betty smiled again. “The perfect daughter.”

“Indeed she was.”

“You can try to play on my insecurities and make me feel bad,” said Amber, “but, once again, at least I’m not killing my own kids.”

Betty laughed. “Feisty. I like it.”

“And it actually makes me proud,” Amber continued, “to know that my big sister and my big brother were problems for you. It helps me know them, just a little. I mean, really, are you so surprised that things have worked out the way they have? Alastair’s dead. Grant’s dead. Imelda betrayed you and helped me. When you look at it, and think about it, everything I’ve done to ruin you and your lives and everything you’ve worked for … well. I’m just carrying on the family tradition.”

Her parents weren’t smiling anymore.

Then something hit Amber right between the shoulder blades with the force of a wrecking ball, and she flew forward. Betty dodged out of the way as she went sprawling, and Amber didn’t even have time to look back before someone was grabbing her hair.

“You little bitch!” Kirsty screamed, and slammed Amber’s face on to the road. Through watering eyes, she glimpsed Kirsty stand, and then her boot came in. Scales formed, but even so the kick almost took her head off. Amber tried to roll away, tried to ward her off, tried to speak even, but her body was slow to respond and Kirsty wasn’t giving her much of a chance. Another kick flipped her on to her back, maybe broke another rib, and now Kirsty was straddling her, her fists coming down like pistons.

Then those hands wrapped around her throat. Amber’s scales formed, but it was no use, Kirsty was just too strong. At first, Amber thought this strength came from anger, but there were pieces of bloody meat in Kirsty’s clenched teeth. Kirsty was sizzling after eating, but, unlike Amber, that strength hadn’t been used up healing gunshot wounds.

Amber tried to slice through Kirsty’s fingers, but her claws tapped uselessly against Kirsty’s own scales. She blinked away tears, looking for help, holding her hand out to her parents who were standing there, looking at her. Laughing.

“He liked you,” Kirsty snarled. “Grant actually liked you. And you kill him? You kill him?”

Darkness closed in on the edges of her vision. All Amber could see now was Kirsty, every muscle bunched and her eyes burning with hatred. Amber had no strength of her own left. Every moment that passed without oxygen sapped her reserves.