Chapter 3

CIARA

My red wolf.

I don't know where she came from, but she feels safe, and after Robert's reappearance, I need safe.

It's ridiculous, I know, treating a wild animal like a pet, but there was a thunderstorm and I caught sight of her red fur out the window of my cottage and she just seemed… lost. I've never seen her with any cubs or a mate, it's just her.

Just like me, she's alone.

She pads into the cottage, pauses and turns to look at me expectantly.

"What?" I ask, as if she can answer me. She's a wolf. Wolves don't speak.

But apparently, they attack dickhead exes and destroy their phones.

There's a small part of me holding out hope that this will put Robert off. That the destruction of his phone, the sight of a wolf, will make him think twice about coming after me again. I know it won't, and that slow realization makes me retch.

Stumbling through the cottage, I reach the bathroom just in time to throw up my dinner, and then I slip to my knees, hug the toilet bowl as if I'm a drunken teenager, and cry.

A cold nose nudges my hair from my face, and it feels like the wolf's version of holding my hair back.

This is what my life has become. Hiding in the woods, with only a wolf for company. Although, I have to admit that she makes for pretty good company.

At first, I'd chuck her some trimmed meat occasionally, leftover scraps that I couldn't finish and didn't like to waste. Her eyes, dark and moody would watch as I walked back into my cottage, and I didn't know whether I was being foolish or not. But soon she turned up every night for food, and then one day I came home to find her sunning herself on a small patch of grass by my front door.

It was joyful; her on her back, the sun glinting through a convenient gap in the leaves to speckle her with light, red fur all aglow. And so, we settled into a weird sort of companionship, her and I. Alone in the woods together.

But she's never been in my cottage before. Always remained beyond the threshold.

I don't know what it means, that I invited her in.

That's a lie. I do.

It means that if Robert breaks in, he'll get a nasty shock.

Lifting my head, I look at her, tears clinging to my lashes. I blink them away and proffer a watery smile. "You'll protect me, Red, won't you?"

Red doesn't say anything, but her gaze doesn't leave mine. It feels like permission, of sorts, permission to speak aloud the fears that have plagued me in recent weeks. That plagued me all those years ago.

"I don't know what I did," I say, my voice sounding timid to my own ears. "I don't know why he hated me so. Why he loved torturing me, teasing me. He said it was a mistake, that first time, but after that it was always because I'd been stupid, or I'd messed up. ‘You're so intelligent', he'd say. ‘I don't know how someone so intelligent could be so stupid'."

That provokes a low growl from Red, and I scuttle backwards until I can feel the cool tiles of the wall against my back. Fuck. She is a wolf. How could I have forgotten?—

That cold nose again, nuzzling against the palm of my hand, and then a tentative lick.

I looked up, and I swear, Red looked sheepish—if such a thing can even be possible for a wolf.

"Come on," I say, pulling myself up. "I can't just sit and cry on the floor all evening."

She follows me, padding quietly behind me, and wherever I go in the cottage, she goes. A silent, auburn shadow, stuck to me like glue.

I potter about at first, every now and then wandering over to the window, as if feigning casualness will help ease the panic I feel inside. There's no sign of him, or his car.

That's good.

Slowly, carefully, I allow myself to remember. Not all in big chunks, just a detail here and a detail there.

If I could, I'd have the whole relationship wiped from my brain, but I can't do that right now. Each slight memory is a lesson, a warning. I'm clinging to them like driftwood at sea, trying to work out which memory will save me next time.

I make a note on my phone to get a locksmith out tomorrow for the garage. The first time I tried to leave him, I'd gone down into the garage and he'd slashed my tires. At least there I was able to walk down the road and get a bus. I can't do that here.

My cottage is remote, intentionally so. I'd picked something out in the middle of nowhere, in the woods, so that he couldn't find me.

That thought gives me pause. How did he find me? I'm not in the Yellow Pages, I'm not on social media. I work remotely. I only ever go into town for shopping.

I have no friends.

I have no life outside this small cottage that I own, and that I paid for in cash. So how on earth did he track me down?

No. She wouldn't.

My hand is trembling as I pick up the phone and dial my grandmother's number. She's the only person who knows where I live, the only person who has this address.

She doesn't pick up, but I don't panic. She never picks up the first time. Says that if it's important enough, people will call back, and this? This is the most important thing. I call me.

It rings.

Rings.

"Hello?" Her voice is frail but instantly recognizable.

"Grannie?"

"Ciara, my dear! How are you?"

I'm shaking so much that I put the call on speakerphone and place it on the table. Red lifts her head and looks quizzically at it, and then at me. She nuzzles my hand, and nudges at my legs until I sit down on the couch with a thump.

She clambers up next to me and rests her head on my lap. I can't bring myself to shoo her off and instead find some kind of solace in stroking her fur.

"Ciara?"

"Grannie, did Robert come and visit you?"

"Oh yes, he's such a handsome young man, Ciara, and so attentive. You're very lucky to have a husband like that."

I shudder, I can't help myself.

It's not her fault. She's been getting more and more forgetful—that's why she's in a residential home—but he should never have been allowed in to see her in the first place.

I go cold, imagining him in her room, his shadow enveloping her as he stood over her, asking for my address.

"He said he wanted to get flowers sent to you, at where you're staying. I do think that a month is a long time for a holiday though, dear. You should go home soon."

A tear hits the top of Red's head, and she shuffles anxiously on my lap.

"I see, Grannie."

"I do know what's best for you, Ciara."

"Yes, Grannie."

I placate her and hang up the phone. The damage is done; he knows now.

But I can't stop imagining him visiting her. She's frail; feisty, yes, but still very frail. If he so much as raised a finger to her, she'd shatter.

"She's safe," I say out loud. "She lives in a residential home. He can't hurt her." But my fingers are already dialing the home's number and when someone answers I'm almost in tears. Somehow, I manage to make myself clear, and clarify that under no circumstances is Robert Callahan allowed to visit her again, but I'm shaking.

"Oh, Red. What shall I do?"