I wrapped the hem of my cardigan awkwardly around my hand and thought about infection and Mitch’s yellow teeth.

“I don’t understand,” I said. “What are you trying to do? Dave who? Where is Chris?” There was a cold particularity to how the cuts followed the lines of his shoulder blades, his arms. “Who did this to you?”

Mitch, startled, ducked his head and whined, “You said we were monsters.”

“I never did!”

“It wouldn’t have taken otherwise,” said a man’s voice behind me. Not Gary’s. “Mum wasn’t that convincing. Not alone.”

I scrambled to my feet, turning, and saw the stranger from outside the petrol station: tall, with overgrown sandy hair, but far too young to be our father. He looked at my white sandals, my sundress, my hair, and through his ragged beard I saw his lip curl. “She did a number on you, though, Tink,” he said.

It was Chris.

He was grease-stained, lean and sunburned, with bones sharp at his cheeks and wrists. All the boyishness of him had gone, and the laughter in his eyes wasn’t pleasant, but for a moment, I believed everything might be all right.

I darted forward, flung my arms around his ribs and felt a stinging in my throat, my eyes. We won’t waste tears on them, will we, Bettina? But he smelled of engine oil, blood, sweat and memory.

“Knock it off, Tink,” said my brother, ungently. He prised me away and held me at arm’s length, but I was too happy to mind.

“Have you been here all along?” I asked. “Why didn’t you come home, or call? Is— Is Dad here? What’s wrong with Mitch?” My back was to the mesh; Mitch’s fingers poked at my ankle through the wires.

“Mitch,” said Chris, glaring at our elder brother, “kept trying to get out. So I locked him in. He thought you might be useful. I told him we weren’t wanted in Runagate.”

“I wanted you!” I said. Again that snap as if a thread had broken deep in my chest. I wiped my eyes with the heels of my hands. We don’t want them, do we? “You’re my brothers! You aren’t”—I gestured around—“this. Come home, Chris. Someone should look after you.”

“You?” scoffed Chris. “You’re no better than Dad, Tink. Playing games with people’s lives.” He narrowed his eyes. “But you aren’t playing.”

“Of course I’m not!” I snapped. It felt good. I hadn’t fought with my brothers for too long. Chris let go of my shoulders and turned my face roughly up. He was tall.

“You aren’t even Tink anymore,” he said, and let go, rubbing his hands as if I were the dirty one. His fingernails were black crescents. “You’re just a shell. Well, Nerida might have got Dad and you, but she’s not getting us.”