While he went hungry, I was eating trail mix that I’d hidden in my pockets. When he asked me to grab the shotgun shells at the castle, I did, but I also picked up the empty ones from the pile of rubbish and while he slept, I was the one who replaced the shells he’d loaded in the gun with blanks.

And all the while, I remembered my mother and I remembered the beatings he’d given me and I thought about what he’d done to my cat and to Will and to Mia, and who knows, maybe even to other women before her.

He thought I was weak and that I would never fight back. He got that wrong.

‘I need help,’ Liam begs weakly, flopping backwards in a river of mud.

The rain has almost completely eased; the thunder and lightning are rolling off and out to sea.

‘There’s no help coming,’ I say to him. Then I crouch down beside him again, no longer afraid that he has the strength to hurt me.

Mia joins me. Liam looks between us in disbelief, clearly still shocked that he’s fallen victim to our plot, struggling to understand how Mia is alive and how we managed to fool him.

His face crumples and he lets out an almighty bellow of rage. It’s the cry of a lone wolf caught in a trap. He knows his time is running out, and that no one is coming to help.

The Stalker

Pain engulfs me. My leg feels as if it is on fire, like it’s being roasted over an open flame. The metal teeth of the trap have torn through flesh and are sucking on the bone.

I throw my head back and howl in agony as much as in rage. When I open my eyes, Mia is still kneeling beside me. My angel. I still don’t understand how she’s here. I buried her in a snowy ditch. She was dead.

There was a big search for her and Will. I followed it online. But they never found the bodies. I study her. Is she real? She doesn’t look like herself. There’s an expression on her face that I don’t recognise. It comes to me just then what it is: defiance. She isn’t afraid of me and she wants me to know it.

I let out another howl of frustration, my hands squeezing my leg, hoping to stem the bleeding and mute the pain. The jaws won’t give though. The metal teeth keep gnawing.

With tears in my eyes I glance at Laura, my other angel. Why is she not doing anything to help?

‘Help me,’ I say to her again, as the flames lick higher. I can feel my heart straining as blood leaks out of me. My hands are hot and sticky with it.