‘You’re a dick,’ I said quietly.

A weird mewling sound, like a wet kitten, coming from Becca. Finn went and sat her down on the bench and put his arm round her.

Fraser just looked at me vacantly. Maybe he was in shock. ‘Polly.’

‘You just let him do all that.’

‘He had a gun.’

‘You knew someone with a gun.’

‘I didn’t know him. I’ve never met him. I don’t know any of the big—’

‘Don’t. Don’t even try.’

‘It was just some low-level stuff up here, it was supposed to be—’

Two stones sparked together in my stomach. ‘Low level? That was low level? Being threatened with a gun, Becca almost having her brains blown out, he bloody – fuck – he was talking about making me or Becca … and you just stood there.’ I stood up with a rush, and the whole room almost flipped upside down. ‘You are so unbelievably shit.’

‘I’m not – he was—’

‘You were. You. You’re the one at fault. How do you not see that? You’re disgusting.’ I stood up and shoved my arms into my jacket.

‘What are you doing? He might still be out there somewhere.’

‘I don’t care.’ I didn’t look at him.

‘Polly, it’s dark, don’t be stupid—’

‘Fuck off, Fraser.’ I grabbed my bag and Fraser’s little torch and left.

Gogogo. I didn’t know where I was going. Just that I was. As far away as I could, as quickly as I could, away from there. I was shaking and there was something snagged in my throat, bubbling up.

‘Polly!’ Fraser’s voice tore through the air.

‘Fuck off!’ My words sounded ridiculous out here, a gash in the hills.

I began to run.

6

The light swung. The path appeared and disappeared. Around my feet, the grass was spiky, vicious. Night was everywhere, great big punches of blackness being thrown at me, and stones on the path appeared high-focus and terrifying. After a while I stopped and looked back, shining the torch downwards. I could still see the stamp of light from the bothy’s one window.

Mountains and darkness and me. My breath was loud and coming apart. Not a single other sound. Any second now, something was going to loom up and grab my jaw and rip at my face and stick its tongue into the gaping hole of my throat and chew on my guts and—

An orange light. Blinking. I’d thought that I had to go further up and head left, but that looked like a road over to my right, a long way off. A forestry vehicle, or an AA van maybe. Ahead, a path came off the main one. We must have come from there, before. I swerved, walked in the direction of the little light. Ran again.

The path got narrower. Zigzagged. Didn’t feel quite right. I backtracked and went in the other direction. That dwindled to nothing too, the grass getting higher and higher. Shit. I shone the torch on my footprints and went back, veered a different way. I started to sing to myself. She’s up all night till the sun, I’m up all night to get some … Breathy, quiet, the words sliced up. I stopped again, looked. Three stamped-down paths, and none a proper one. Fuck. I was making my own maze.