‘White-crowned sparrow, remember? Use Morpheus to completely get rid of the need for sleep. I was to be her star guinea pig. Couldn’t let the guinea pig die here, could she? Like the others …’

She may as well have had the axe then, because she saw him flinch. Ethan.

‘Well, we’ve got to get to this boat, then.’ Rosie tried to push herself up even more.

Rory clasped and unclasped his hands. ‘I don’t know, you’ve only just woken up from a serious head injury—’

‘She’ll be fine – we’ll help her,’ Thea snapped at him. They were on either side of Rosie’s bed and Thea put a hand on Rosie’s shoulder.

Rory gave an exasperated sigh.

Rosie looked from one to the other, stuck in her bed in the middle of them both.

‘So you want to stay here like sitting ducks and just wait for Kyle to find you—’ Thea began.

‘Kyle won’t be finding anyone. You took care of that!’

It was her turn to flinch. Thea opened her mouth to reply but found there were no words. There were images though, and sounds too, ones she would never be able to forget.

She abruptly sat down.

Kyle was dead. She had killed him. He would have killed her, and he had actually killed Richard and there were all the reasons and excuses in the world but, strip all of that away and she was left with that small, bleak sentence. She had killed him. Was she the same as them now, the ones who had dragged bodies into that room at the end of the corridor?

Rosie interrupted her thoughts in a small voice: ‘Thea? Please don’t leave me behind.’

And there it was. The need. Somehow, on this island, in these days, she had become the person people needed – to agree, to act, to help, to forgive. Such a lot that they expected her to do, little weights pulling on her eyelids.

She turned to Rory. ‘I’m sorry. Look, I don’t know what to do, okay? But we’re still alive. We’ve just got to keep making the next decision that keeps us alive a little bit longer, and then the next, and the next until we get off this island.’

Rory nodded. She’d got this far – somehow – but now it wasn’t about just her anymore. It was about the three of them. Three people to keep safe. It seemed like such a huge number.

‘Get Rosie up and out of bed. Find something warm for us all to wear. Boots if possible – there’s snow.’