‘I don’t blame you for wanting revenge, Carly. But this… this isn’t right. Archie…’

‘I’m so very sorry but Archie has to now die, Leah. It’s the only way.’

Chapter Seventy-Five

Carly

Now

Leah doesn’t cry but Carly can feel her onslaught of panic as her mind scrambles for a way she can save her son.

She can’t.

It tears Carly apart to see her little sister – the person she has always tried to protect – fall apart. She can almost hear Leah shatter. See pieces of her scatter to the floor.

‘Carly…’ she says, her voice a wail. She looks at Carly with mistrust and hurt. She looks at Carly as though she is a monster.

She isn’t.

Is she?

‘Leah…’ Carly wants to explain. To ease Leah’s pain. ‘I’m sorry I’ve frightened you the past few days with the letters and everything.’ Carly feels such remorse that she’d behaved so badly. ‘It’s as though I wasn’t myself and that’s the problem, don’t you see? I don’t know who I am. Who I would have been if it weren’t for Simon. If I hadn’t been abducted.’

‘I know who you are! You’re a good—’

‘You don’t even know who you are, Leah.’

‘I do.’ Leah grabs at the straw she thinks she is being offered. ‘I’m Archie’s mum. George’s wife. Your sister.’

‘Those are all labels. Names don’t define us. Our actions do. Our feelings do. Since Marie got sick in that filthy room, you’ve put yourself in a bubble with your incessant cleaning. Those bloody gloves.’

Leah raises her hands and stares at them as though she has never seen them before.

‘The rituals you carry out. Everything has to be done three times because you should have banged the gate shut three times. You don’t live, not really.’

‘I do live—’

‘You live in fear. Remember when Archie was born and you wouldn’t take him out of the house. You wouldn’t let him go to toddler groups in case he caught an infection.’

‘Yes. But he goes now and—’

‘And you worry about him every single second he’s out of your sight, don’t you?’

Leah’s silence is her agreement.

‘But it’s not germs and illness and all those other things you say, is it? Not really. You think someone might take him. Hurt him, because… because you know, Leah. You and I both know that there are bad people out there. The worst people out there. We’ve lived with them, you and I. We’ve loved them. How long do you think it will be before Archie learns the world is not what he thought? When he starts school and the children tease him about you, because the children will find out through their parents who you are.’

‘But… but…’

Leah can’t think of an argument. Carly hopes she is convincing her. It would be so much easier if she agrees to this. They could all just slip away from the world now. Together.

‘Look at him.’ Carly strokes Archie’s hair. ‘He’s so innocent. So pure. Remember when we felt like that? Before the day we were snatched? Wouldn’t it be nice if he stayed like that? Stayed asleep? We could join him, you and I. Join Marie. No more fear. No more pain. No more—’