When I step outside the door, I must cast aside the old me and become someone new. I must harden my resolve and stick to my guns. There won’t be any turning back. But it’s easier the second time. And it’s easier now I have something to avenge. I will make Ethan pay. But before I make him pay, I will make him suffer. I swear this to Will and to myself. And then I leave the house.

I plot my route carefully, making sure that no one will see me. Luckily, it’s Boxing Day – at least I think it is – and no one will be out in this weather. I can cut across the fields, circumnavigate the village and walk the five miles to Kirkby Stephen, where I’ll catch a bus to Kendal and then take a train from there. I need to disappear without trace.

I’ll head north, to Scotland, I think. Then I’ll go to the hospital and get my arm treated. I’ll need to give them a fake name and make up a story; nothing too suspicious in case they think I’ve been the victim of domestic violence and call the police. I’ll tell them I fell off a ladder taking down Christmas decorations, that I hit the edge of a table when I fell, which caused the cut on my cheek.

I’ve fled my life and started another before; I can do it again.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Day Seven

Laura

The ghost in the wood is a woman. And even at this distance, with her hood up and the lashing rain creating black and white static between us, I can make out her blonde hair. It’s Mia.

She strides towards Liam, laid out on the ground, a high-pitched keening sound escaping from his lips as he tries in vain to pull apart the steel jaws clamped around his leg, and she crouches down beside him.

He looks at her and his mouth falls open. He stops screaming and falls silent. It’s not as though he’s seeing a ghost, but like he’s staring at an avenging angel.

‘Hi, Ethan,’ she says to him. ‘You should have made sure I was dead.’

Chapter Thirty

Mia

Ethan stares up at me like he cannot fathom that I’m real, his expression racing between disbelief, confusion and horror.

‘Surprised to see me?’ I ask.

His face twists into a grimace of pain. ‘How …?’ he pants, clutching his leg.

‘How am I alive?’ I help him finish. ‘A miracle. The police and the papers reported me and Will missing, as you know. They never found either of us,’ I tell him. ‘But in my case, that’s because there was no body to be found.’