While her mom was distracted, she moved down through the planks and poles of the scaffolding as quietly as she could, then jumped down into a clump of long, springy grass. Yet another ’wolf raced by to join the fray, but too quickly to register her presence. She caught a glimpse of its bleeding leg and realised it must be the man Tom had attacked up above, out for revenge – and it sounded like others were on the way. She bit her lip as she tried to decide what to do. She hated the thought of running out on Tom –but what could she possibly do for him now?

She considered heading cross-country in the direction they’d come, but it was wide-open parkland –if she were spotted they’d bring her down in moments. There was woodland the other way. At least it would afford her cover while she waited for Tom –please God –to calm down and come find her.

With a shudder, she crept beneath the bridge. It was almost pitch black, but if she could just pick her way through to the other side …

A low growling ahead told her she’d made a terrible mistake.

Looming out from the shadows came a massive ’wolf. But the shape of it, the smell of it …

Her heart lurched as she realised she was facing her father.

His glowing eyes bored into her; his salivating jaws creaked open.

Hot tears prickled Kate’s eyes. ‘Please, Dad,’ she pleaded. ‘Please let me go.’

The ’wolf that was her father went on staring at her for what felt like for ever.

Then he turned and slunk away.

Kate stood like a statue in the darkness. Maybe some things were stronger than ’wolf bloodlust. ‘Thank you, Dad,’ she whispered.

She heard the lupine baying and snarling up ahead of her grow fainter. Her father was leading the other ’wolves away.

Suddenly she could hear something else: the droning note of a car engine, and the rattling of a chassis as it bumped and scraped over uneven ground. Kate’s heart leaped. But whipped up into such a frenzy, would the ’wolves retreat – or simply attack anyone who dared come near?

She got her answer a few seconds later in the form of an ululating, animal wail close by. It was her mother, crying out in impotent rage. The strange acoustics beneath the bridge took the sound and twisted it, made it echo and re-echo unbearably –but while it half-deafened Kate, the effect it had on the ’wolves was more profound. She saw their shadowy forms shift fleetly past the bridge, answering the keening call, heard heavy footfalls and scuffling all around. They were being summoned away, back into the cold shadows that harboured them.