For a second I can’t move, the pain is too intense. My heart keeps screaming it isn’t true, wants to beg her to tell me I am wrong. That everything will be okay. Even while my brain insists things will never be okay again. I’ve already lost Dad and Nan, I can’t do this too.

Uncle Joe turns on Mum, distracting us both.

‘Al, you wouldn’t?’

‘What wouldn’t you do for them?’ Mum’s soft voice flows out and settles us all down.

‘That’s it!’ Rhi stands, shoves her face into mine and stares me down. ‘You look me in the eye Stacey Thomson and tell me that your sister isn’t out there?’

‘They don’t—’

‘I don’t give two fucks what they do or don’t do. Answer the fuckin question!’

I take a breath. My brain tells me clearly what is real. It screams it, even when I don’t want to know. But my heart tells me different. My tears dry up and I look to my big cuzzie, confused.

‘You would know if your twin is gone, Tace. Look inside where Nan always told us to, and listen to your gut.’

‘She’s not gone.’ My whisper is a cue for everyone to release their breaths.

I can feel Laney, I’ve always been able to feel her. My rational mind has fought me on this, but I’ve known every time I dreamed. She’s in trouble but she’s alive.

Rhi sits back in her chair, satisfied. ‘Okay, so how do we bring her home, and get them off both your backs?’

A long silence greets her words, but she stays seated, quietly confident. Mum steps into the void and I feel hope jolt to life.

‘Rhi is right, we need a plan that saves … as many people as possible, but in the meantime,’ she turns to me, fury rising, ‘daughter, you will give me that necklace.’

Rhi sighs but I am too focused on my mother to notice.

Mutinous teenage attitude in full force, I cross my arms and glare. ‘No.’

‘Stacey Claire Thomson, you give me that necklace!’

‘No.’ My voice doesn’t change, my stance doesn’t waiver. Everyone’s eyes are bouncing between me and her like it’s a tennis match.

‘If you don’t give me that necklace right this minute—’

‘You’ll what?’ I scream back. ‘Die a slow tortured death? No. Fuckin. Way!’

‘I say we give it back to the pricks who gave it to Laney.’ Rhi’s voice breaks our little standoff.

‘Then what? Storm the caves and hope for the best?’ Sam asks with a heavy dose of sarcasm, earning him a glare from Rhi.

‘One thing at a time,’ she says. ‘If those things are too busy chasin after Troy, it gets them off our backs, and gives us time to figure out how to save Laney.’