She launched herself at the door like a bull on full charge. I slammed into the wall as she shoved past and watched in horror as she got her head and arms through the gap and reached out for Mother. Mother screamed and shoved Olivia’s head back down into the shelter with a force that sent Olivia flying backwards, arms outstretched and flailing for the door opening. With a scream of rage, Mother slammed the door shut, trapping Olivia’s right hand.

Olivia gave a blood-curdling scream, ‘My fingers! My fingers!’

‘Oh no, oh no – what can I do?’ I gasped.

We were engulfed by darkness. I groped for her arm and trailed my fingers up towards her trapped hand. Mother was laughing manically on the other side of the door. She was trying to lock it, twisting the key in the lock and laughing but Olivia’s fingers were stopping the door from locking.

Olivia screamed.

Still laughing, Mother opened the door an inch and Olivia whipped her hand out with a wretched groan. The door shut and metal scraped metal.

‘Evil deserves punishment,’ Mother shouted through the door. She banged twice on the wood and crumbs of dirt fell in my eyes.

Olivia moaned, ‘My finger … is … hanging off,’ then she slumped onto my lap.

I stared at the place where the light had come in, heart pounding at what felt like two hundred beats per minute. I ought to have been terrified but I wasn’t. I was angry, yes. Frightened, a little. But my strongest feeling was excitement.

When the light had shone in it had revealed things inside the shelter that I did not know were here. Things I could use. A plan began to unravel in my mind like thread from a torn dress – or the ladder in a pair of ripped tights. The plan depended on a couple of things going my way, but if they did go my way, it might just work. It might save us.

Chapter 46

The air was full of the sickly-sweet scent of Olivia’s blood and her body was like a dead weight. I heaved her off my lap and moved her down the steps as gently as I could, one step at a time. I was glad she was unconscious but worried about how much pain she’d be in when she woke up. I didn’t have a clue what we were going to do about her hand. The only way to tell what kind of damage had been done would be to touch her hand, which would be agony for her. Her words rang in my mind, hanging off. Could shutting your hand in a door make that happen? Had Olivia imagined that or was her finger really hanging off? There was nothing down here to clean and bandage her hand with. Nothing to kill the pain. She was going to be in a lot of pain when she woke up.