I push everyone away and I know this. I will not let them close in case they get the chance to slip a knife between my shoulder blades. This is not because I’m afraid of betrayal. Celeste never betrayed me, unless, by being my sister there was an inherent obligation not to hurt me, which I don’t think is true. I guess I’m as worried about having a knife stuck into my own back as I am about feeling the need to stick one into someone else’s. My own bloodlust. I am so scared that I am like her. I am so scared to be her. Not her – the worst parts of her. Hell is other people and also yourself, if you look hard enough.

I smack a tear off my face.

Where did Celeste go that day? Why couldn’t she find her way out? What inside the dank dark deep was so compelling to her she had no choice but to seek it out?

I have no interest in immersing myself in the chaos of the human race. I’ve learned that I can’t interact with it or add to it in any valuable capacity, and when I try, I remember I only know how to manipulate. I need to admit I find it difficult to think of people as full people – to think of them as anything but extensions of myself. I’m not sure if that’s my fault. I hope it’s not – oh, oh, I hope it’s not.

I am bad. I deserve this. I deserve to experience the arresting and unlikely joy of living only to discover I’m an irredeemable soul.

I ride on past the isthmus, the infinite eyes of sea watching me go from every direction.

I’ll learn to love the fire.

Fine, I’m not here to save Celeste’s skin. Just my own.

I plan to start writing quietly once I’m back inside. I’m still composing myself but I don’t want to forget what Ellis and I spoke about.

I’m opening the drawer to my desk when it’s Peyton’s voice. ‘Mona,’ she mumbles behind me.

I wince, though even now there’s something pleasant about her sleepily uttering my name. She sounds sluggish enough to be lulled back to sleep so I tell her a friendly lie. ‘Sorry,’ I say gently, ‘I was looking for something.’

But she’s more alert than I thought. ‘What on earth are you doing meeting up with Ellis in the middle of the night?’

A spike of fear. ‘How did you know?’

Peyton clicks on the lamp beside her bed. Her eyes are tired, smudged with day-old liner. ‘He told me he was seeing you.’

Damn it, Ellis. ‘It’s between us.’

‘Between you? What sort of between is happening there?’