And with that he’s gone, leaving me standing in the kitchen, wrapped in a blanket, still feeling the pressure of his lips and the scratch of his stubble against my cheek. I put a hand to my face and hold it there. The anxiety keeps buzzing within me, like a fly hovering over decomposing meat; I can’t bat it away and with every second that passes without Will returning it just grows louder and louder until it’s an incessant hum in my head. My stomach is tied in knots and even though I’m shivering from the cold I can’t move from the back door, peering through the glass to see if I can spot Will outside in the dark.

Why isn’t the outside light on? I wonder, blithely. It’s a motion sensor security light. It should have come on when Jet raced outside, and when Will stepped into the yard too. That’s odd.

The anxiety I’m feeling cranks up another notch. My fingers dig into my arms. Where is he? Where’s Jet? I glance at the oven clock; he’s been gone for ages.

I move across the kitchen towards the counter where the knife block sits, but just then the back door opens, and I let out a gasp of relief as Will walks in.

‘Oh, thank god!’ I say, a warm smile spreading across my face. ‘I was getting worried. Did you find—?’ I break off, my smile fading.

Will’s expression is blank; his eyes are wide and filled with terror. He stumbles inside the cottage, tripping over the doorstep. I look up and see, over his shoulder, the shadow of a man, his hood pulled to hide his face.

He’s holding a knife to Will’s neck, forcing him inside.

I draw a breath, my knees going weak, and stagger backwards as the man forces Will towards me, gripping him by the shoulder and moving the knife to point into his back. He kicks the door shut with his heel and then he turns to look at me.

‘Merry Christmas,’ he says.

Oh, dear god, no. My mind scrambles, thoughts dissolving into blankness, as I stare at the man I now recognise as Ethan. How is he here? How did he find me? He has a knife in his hand. My eyes flick from that to Will’s face to Ethan.

‘Hello, Mia,’ he says, smiling that familiar smile, one muscle twitch away from being a grimace. ‘Did you miss me?’

My mind is white fog; a distant primal urge to flee or to fight stirs in my gut but my body has entered a state of paralysis. I am floating outside of myself. A sluice gate opens, and adrenaline floods my veins, but all it does is make my heart pound violently, while gluing my feet to the floor and sealing my lips shut.