His eyes flared and he slammed a fist into her belly. The room burst yellow and she whimpered under the pain. Controlled the nearly overwhelming urge to vomit.

‘Do not speak to me that way. Do you understand?’ He grabbed her hair and brought his mouth inches from her ear. He shouted so loud that her ears stung. ‘Do you?’

‘Okay, okay, okay! Stop please,’ she cried. Then, ‘Who, who are you?’ she whispered, but tentatively, afraid of another blow. He seemed capable of murder; his eyes were possessed.

He pushed her away. Pam collapsed on the floor. He pulled her roughly onto the couch, duct-taped her hands behind her and rolled her over on her back.

‘My name is Billy Haven.’ He continued to set out some jars and assemble his tattoo gun. He glanced at her and noted the look of utter confusion.

‘But I don’t understand. I talked to your mother on the phone, she … Oh, yes, yes: It was your aunt.’

He nodded.

‘But I’ve known you for a year. More.’

‘Oh, we’ve been planning the attack for at least that long. And I’ve been planning to get you back into my life forever. My Lovely Girl.’

‘Lovely Girl?’

‘Stolen from me. Not physically. But mentally. You’d been kidnapped by Amelia and Lincoln. By the wrong thinkers of the world. You don’t remember me. Of course you don’t. We met a long time ago. Ages. We were young. You were living in Larchwood, the militia run by Mr and Mrs Stone.’

Pam recalled Edward and Katherine Stone. Brilliant radicals who’d fled Chicago after advocating a violent overthrow of the federal government. Pam’s mother, Charlotte Willoughby, had fallen under their sway after her husband, Pam’s father, died in a UN peacekeeping operation.

‘You were six or so. I was a few years older. My aunt and uncle came to Missouri to meet with the Stones about an anti-abortion campaign. A few years later my uncle wanted to solidify the connection between the Larchwood militia and the American Families First Council, so Stone and my uncle arranged our marriage.’

‘What?’

‘You were my Lovely Girl. You’d grow up to be my woman and the mother of our children.’

‘Like I was some kind of cow, some kind of fu—’

Striking like a snake, he jabbed his fist into her cheek, bone to bone. She inhaled at the pain.

‘I won’t warn you again. I’m your man and I’m in charge. Understand?’

She cringed and nodded.

He raged, ‘You have no idea what I’ve lived through. They took you away from me. They brainwashed you. It was like my world ended.’