‘Stuffed it in an old safe after they were done. Put it in a lead-lined safe. Thought it would protect em. Made me put it there. After.’ May gasps like she’s struggling to breathe under water.

‘Troy did this.’ Rhi lets it hang there and I shake my head.

‘Who cares about blame now? They’ve got her and now they want me,’ I say, standing.

‘Tace?’ Rhi asks.

‘This won’t bring her back.’

I swing around to look at the traumatised woman.

‘They won’t give her back, not now. They don’t give back what they took.’

‘But I don’t … I can’t … what else can I do?’ I yell at her, at them, at everyone.

No one will look at me. I’m staring at my future and she has no answers either.

‘Do they ever stop?’ I ask, hopeless.

May looks confused for a bit. ‘Lately, I think. I been clearer, less scared. Maybe, they been leavin me alone. Not too sure.’

After forty years maybe it’s getting to the point that she just doesn’t know anymore if the monsters are in the room or in her mind.

Dropping to the ground, I draw my knees to my chest and take my first look at my ankles. I have some scratches and puncture wounds that I try not to see as claw marks. Picking my way up my legs and over my body, I find all the scrapes and new bruising that I didn’t feel before. Why do these things never hurt until you see them? I brush it off as best I can, put my chin on my knees and stare out at the shadows. Betrayal sits heavy in my gut. This is my country, I am supposed to be safe. All I’ve done is pick up a necklace. And for that I’m to be hunted, and my twin and I are possibly eternally fucked. What kind of justice is this?

Rhi makes a little squeak and I can’t look at her. This is all my fault. Pressing my forehead into my knees I try to just breathe.

‘This might be a dippy question,’ Sam says, ‘but can’t we just throw the necklace to em?’

May gives a short, sharp cackle. ‘They’d take it and then they’d wait. Wait for the one who last touched it. Someone’s gotta to be punished.’

I wince.

Rhi’s sobs get worse and I press tighter into myself, searching for courage.

‘Don’t do it,’ Sam says.

My head comes up and I meet his steady gaze.

‘Don’t do it. There’s another way, you just gotta think.’

I laugh, and it hurts. ‘Me? I’m the one that got us in this mess.’