I slept little that night. My body shivered, goosebumps covered my skin as I pulled the duvet around myself for warmth.

  But despite the thick cover, a cold twist jolted through my chest. A vivid image flashed in front of my eyes, a memory that had etched itself on my mind. It was a memory that spun around my head relentlessly, a dizzying carousel in my thoughts. The end of the evening, our final, hushed goodnights. Lela and Ingrid walking away, hand in hand. The final, sharp click of the bedroom door had echoed around the room, shutting me out. Leaving me cold and alone on the sofa.

  Those thoughts had firmly wedged themselves in my head; they had latched onto my mind like a parasite. Ingrid’s eyes peered at me with that same judgemental look she had given me when my plate had smashed on the floor. Her false, patronising words of concern and her rush to help clear the mess stung in my ears. It was an obvious charade, intended purely for Lela’s benefit. And then there was the way she spent the night fawning over my best friend. Playing the poor, distraught sister act.

  The soft touches and gentle caresses; the private jokes and the shared stories... they were all things that I wasn’t part of. Every petty act had been planned and calculated; each one was a brick in the wall that Ingrid had deliberately built up between myself and Lela.

  It was a wall that I intended to bring crashing down.

  The inky blackness of the bedroom pressed in around me. It was like a thick blanket that enveloped me in its velvet touch. Among the jumble of boxes and crates littering Lela’s spare room, a low, faint rustle began. The soft scratching sounds of tiny, clawed feet. Ruby-red eyes glinted at me from every direction, flickering in and out of view. Their reassuring presence settled on me. My guardians were rallying around me, gathering in the dark to protect what was mine.

  Their soft voices were clear in my head.

  “She is an intruder!” they hissed. “She shouldn’t be here! She takes what is yours!”

  The whispers grew louder, a chorus surrounding me. “It has always just been Heidi and Lela. Never Ingrid.”

  My muscles seized, tensing suddenly into tight knots. A dull ache clamped my jaw shut as my teeth ground down against each other. My canine tooth sank into the side of my tongue, bringing with it the sharp, beautiful surge of pain. The ecstasy was all too brief before the salty, sweet, metallic taste of blood began to fill my mouth.

  The voices just confirmed what I already knew. Lela hadn’t replaced me; she had been snatched away from me. She was the only piece of my life that Lars hadn’t managed to destroy. She was all that I had left, and now Ingrid wanted to take her away.

  I wasn’t going to let that happen.

  Gradually the inky blackness of the night got thinner. The dim morning light painted the window in a cold, steel grey. It pushed back the shadows. Reluctantly they unfurled around me, releasing me from their protective embrace. The creatures retreated back into the shadows and out of sight, but their reassuring voices had now taken root in my ears. They would become a constant, reassuring presence in the months and years that were to follow.

  For a while I just lay there on my back, looking up at the textured ceiling. My eyes finding images of animals, people and objects in the lines and swirls of the plaster. A lion standing on its hind legs, a gorilla pounding its chest, a wolf stalking a sheep, a knife...

  Eventually I threw aside the duvet and, shrugging off the gnawing chill that bit at my skin, I threw my legs over the side of the bed, my feet landing on the thin, coarse carpet with a soft thud.

  My eyes met a stark reflection in the mirror. The vivid, almost violent pink of my fringe clashed against the sleek, glossy black of my brutal pixie cut.

  Picking up the pink plastic comb from the cardboard box that acted as my dressing table, I worked it through my hair. The sharp teeth scratching a strangely delightful sensation against my scalp made me feel awake and dangerous.

  Slinging the pink holdall onto the bed, I rifled through its contents, picking out a pair of black tights and a knee-length black skirt. After stepping into the skirt and tugging up the zipper, I pulled on a close formfitting, black turtleneck and smoothed it down over myself.

  Looking back in the mirror, my mouth turned up into a smile, and my reflection smiled back at me, cold, sharp, and focused.

  As soon as I had finished getting dressed, I stepped out of the bedroom and made my way downstairs.

  The living room was cast in a heavy, leaden light that offered very little in the way of warmth. The dulcet drone of the newsreader coming from the television was the first sound that I heard. My feet froze, my head jolting up as fragments of his words registered in my ears.

  Missing student nurse... Kristina Jakobsen... police are treating her disappearance as suspicious.

  Staring at the screen, I watched a grainy photo of Kristina flicker across it. A picture of the girl who had wanted nothing more than to help me. The girl whose body I’d left abandoned in Grandfather’s cabin.

  Reaching out with a shaking hand, I grabbed the remote control and silenced the television. The screen died with an electronic pop, plunging the room into a heavy, oppressive silence. A silence that boomed with memories.

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  The sickly scent of mould and damp wood tickled my nostrils; the crash of the basement door and the echoing click of the lock snapping into place rang in my ears. Beneath my feet, the warm, soft carpet grew hard and rough. The large window shrank, getting smaller and smaller until it was little more than a tiny, grimy pane of glass behind an iron grate.

  My chest tightened, my ribcage constricting my lungs, squeezing the air from me. Pulsing around me, the walls creaked and closed in. Lars’ heavy, booted footsteps echoed off the walls. The vision of that beautiful angel falling, broken and beaten from the sky flashed in front of my eyes. That creature who had been crushed by Lars’ hand..

  “She’s gone!” the voices suddenly hissed at me. “She’s a ghost. She can’t help you now.”

  But then I heard it. Something else, a sound that cut through the darkness that was descending on me. It was a beautiful sound, a soft hum, like a shining thread that pulled me back to reality.

  My eyes were drawn to the source of that sound. Bathed in the warm golden glow of a stand lamp sat Lela. Her long dark hair cascaded forward, obscuring her face as she hunched intently over the notebook that she held in one hand. In the other, her slender fingers wrapped around a pen, its tip a blur as it glided over the empty page with a soft, rhythmic scratch.

  I watched her for a few moments as she sat there, cross-legged and totally lost in her work, utterly oblivious to my existence. Her pale blue nightgown fell open at the knee, offering the thinnest sliver of bare skin that seemed to catch the rich light.

  Other than Lela, the room was empty. My ears strained, listening for any other sound, any sign of life. The scrape of a chair, a footstep, the slightest mutter, but there was nothing. Tearing my eyes from her, my breath hitched as I glanced towards the kitchen. It was still and dark. No sign of Ingrid.

  A giddying flutter rose inside me. It started as a nervous twitch in my stomach before ripping across my whole body as a shiver of anticipation.

  “Good morning, Lela.” My voice sounded firm and confident.

  Lela flinched, her wide eyes flicking up to meet mine. Then the set of her jaw relaxed, and the tightness at the corners of her mouth eased into a smile.

  “Oh, Heidi, you made me jump,” she said with a charming giggle. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

  “Are you working on something?” I asked, nodding at the notebook in her hand.

  “Oh, you’ve caught me.” She chuckled again. “It’s just a new song that I’ve been writing. We want to get some fresh material together for the Kjelleren and, with any luck, a new EP.” Her eyes dropped then, the edges of her mouth twitching. “But I guess it’ll be a while before Asmund’s well enough to play again.”

  “Has Ingrid left?” My eyes scanned the room again as I spoke, searching for any last trace of her, although I already knew the answer.

  “She left early for the hospital. She’s going to call me as soon as she can to let me know if Asmund’s going to be allowed visitors today,” she said, looking up at me. “But until then, it’s just you and me, babe.”

  The voices whispered excitedly from their dark corners. “She’s gone! Just you and Lela!”

  The sun broke through a gap in the clouds and flooded the room with a golden morning light, chasing away the earlier chill. It caught the black Arctic Howl banner that hung from the living room wall, making the white wolf’s head shine brightly.

  My gaze lingered on that banner for just a moment. I followed the shaky lettering and clumsy outline of the logo. Despite the warmth of the sun on my skin, deep inside me something cold and icy twisted in my heart. My lips pursed and then stretched into a thin smile as an idea took root in my mind.

  “Hey, I’ve had an idea to cheer you up. Why don’t you give me a hand painting that new banner for the band that I promised you? We can head into the Sentrum and pick up some fabric and paints.” My words were steady as I turned my attention to Lela. It would be a perfect day, just myself and my best friend. “It’ll be a nice little surprise for Asmund when he gets out of hospital.”

  “That’s a lovely thought, babe,” she said, looking up from her notebook. “But I really should wait for Ingrid’s call.”

  “We shouldn’t be much more than an hour,” I interjected quickly. “Ingrid can always leave a message on the answerphone if we’re out. Besides, you’ve been kicking around hospitals for the last couple of days. It’ll do you good to get some fresh air.”

  “Do you know what? You’re absolutely right!” she spoke with a smile that lit up her eyes. “I’ll fix us some breakfast, get dressed, and then we’ll head out. If you still want to go for that ride, I’ll introduce you to Guinevere?”

  My heart fluttered inside my chest like the wings of a trapped bird. A ride, just me, sat behind Lela, the rumble of the bike beneath us and the whistle of the wind in our ears. I couldn’t imagine anything more perfect.

  “That sounds great, Lela!”

  “It’ll be good to have someone to ride with again. Ingrid doesn’t enjoy going out on the bike, and it’s not the same on my own.”

  The creatures’ laughter purred out from where they hid, repeating Lela’s words back at me in their manic cackle. “Ingrid won’t go out! Ingrid won’t go out!”

  I closed my eyes for a few seconds as the sweet, quiet tingle of triumph settled over me. It wrapped itself around me like a scarf, soft and warm.

  Lela’s long legs unfolded with a fluid grace beneath the blue satin of her nightgown, the fabric clinging to the curves of her hips as she stood.

  Making her way towards the kitchen, she looked back over her shoulder at me. Her eyes were wide and her smile was warm before she disappeared through the doorway.

  Standing for a moment, I listened to the muffled sounds of Lela moving. There was a soft thump of the fridge door closing and the rattle of plates. Then, I turned my attention back to the room.

  My gaze snagged for just a moment on the small white card sitting on the coffee table. Leaning forward, my hand snatched up the card. It felt cold. The corners were sharp against my fingers. In the top left corner was the emblem of the Oslo Police, a golden lion grasping an axe. Across the middle of the card, the name Inspector Leif Skarsg?rd stood out starkly in black ink.

  A tight knot twisted inside my stomach, my hands clenching tightly. The edges of the card bit into my palms for a heartbeat before yielding, crumpling into a jagged ball inside my fist.

  No! I silenced the panic, pushed down the churning bubble that I could feel rising up inside of me. He was only interested in Rune. He didn’t care about me. He saw me as just another messed up street junkie. Just another girl who had got herself tangled up with the wrong men. How could he even begin to imagine the secrets that I dragged around behind myself?

  He had swallowed the Copenhagen lie without so much as a question. That same dirty lie that Lars had used to cover up his secret, I now used to cover up mine. A small, satisfied smile tugged at the corner of my mouth. My secrets, the ghosts of my past, were safe, abandoned in a cabin kilometres from anywhere.

  I needed to turn my attention to the real danger, the biggest threat. A fresh enemy now gathered on the hill, and while Lars had stolen my past, Ingrid threatened to take my future. But this was a battle that I could win. It was one that I would win and reclaim what was rightfully mine.

  The clatter of pots and pans echoed from the kitchen. I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the window as I slipped the crumpled business card into my back pocket. The figure, clothed all in black and accented by a violent pink fringe, smiled back at me. It was a smile that never quite reached her cold, calculating eyes.

  They were eyes that seemed to catch the light, eyes that seemed to glint in an oddly familiar way.