If there is someone else, who could it be? A friend of Daniel’s? Another sicko he met online to help install the cameras? Or… one of the guests. The last guests, the ones who also stayed at the WeStay in Auckland. It occurs to me that it might have been Daniel with a fake account. He stayed in Auckland, installed the cameras then took me there. He must have installed cameras at the lake house too.

The gravel cracks underfoot, and another gust of wind tears across the lake, rustling the trees. The rain thins now, needles of it carried on the wind. We reach the road, and lightning arcs down somewhere. The crack of thunder is loud over the rain. It nails my bare feet to the tarmac road. We are too exposed here.

‘Come on,’ he calls. ‘Let’s keep moving.’

‘I can’t,’ I say. ‘I can’t, I’m scared.’

‘Just move,’ he growls, ‘don’t think, just act. We need to get away.’ He steps back, grabs my forearm hard and drags me along. I find my feet again, keep moving along the road, continuing to scan the road’s edge for movement.

When we get to Wiremu and Melissa’s house, the rain has eased. In the security light at the front door, with the gun, the blood, my wrist in a chaffed ring, we must look like we’re running from the apocalypse. I think once more about Daniel at the house, dead by now and I pulled the trigger. I killed him. I still hear the gurgling sound. I feel the force of the gun when I pulled the trigger. That story Cain told me comes back, soldiers being blooded by killing prisoners. You’re never the same; I’ll never be the same.

Cain knocks on the door hard. He turns back, gun still in hand and eyes the steps down to the road. The rain continues rinsing the blood from his face. He knocks even harder. Finally, a light turns on inside, footsteps and the door opens.

It’s Wiremu. ‘What’s happened?’ He swallows, leans closer to peer outside as if searching for someone. ‘You guys okay?’

‘Yeah,’ Cain says. ‘We are now.’

‘Get inside,’ Wiremu says.

He turns to let us through, his eyes moving from Cain’s bloody eye to the gun in his hands.

•

Cain shakes his head. ‘I don’t know what happened, we were at dinner and next thing I knew someone was giving me a hiding, telling me he’s going to slit my throat.’ I touch his back, rubbing the soaked cotton of his shirt. It seems like weeks ago we were out for dinner, yet it was only tonight.

We hover inside the door. ‘Let me get you a towel and Melissa can take a look at those nasty gashes.’

‘Oh,’ I say. ‘I can do it.’ It’s above his eye, the deepest cut.