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dissipated.
    After her father died, there was so much anger. She was lucky that she only had to attend counselling as punishment for what she did. It could have been a lot worse. The solicitor for the school had suggested six months in juvenile detention. Kara suspected that this was just to scare her.
    The counselling had been a condition of not prosecuting her. With no other options open, she’d agreed to go. It was all she could cope with at the time. Anything more and she might not have made it, drowning, disappearing under the waves of anger, caught in the rip-tide of grief.
    The accident had reopened old wounds, left her too much time to think, to reflect.
    She looked out of the window into the distance, trying to remember something, anything concrete that she could focus on. It all seemed such a blur now, session after session of words and talking, of labelling emotions, of trying to understand, of listening to someone else interpret what she was meant to be feeling. When you took all of that away, there wasn’t much left except two base feelings.
    She wasn’t sure which one scared her most, the never-ending well of anger or the pit of loss.
    ***
    Strangulation. That was probably the easiest way to do it. The easiest and the cleanest.
    Once the person was dead, he knew the blood would die too.
    Then there would be no risk.
    No chance of further contamination.
    ***
    Day Forty-six:
    â€˜Get the hell away from me. What are you trying to do, kill me? Finish the job?’ Kara paused to catch her breath, black dots swimming in front of her vision. The evening’s physio session was not going well. ‘I bet you’re sorry that car didn’t roll over me a few more times. Then you’d be rid of me for good.’
    She was shouting with such force that the vocal cords at the back of her throat quivered under the strain. Hot tears of frustration streamed down her cheeks.
    Rosemary stood a few paces away at the end of the recuperation walkway, looking pale and strained. She’d aged ten years in the last few weeks and Kara felt a momentary twinge of guilt, but it was buried in an instant under the force of her anger.
    â€˜Kara, of course I don’t . . .’
    â€˜Shut up! This is hard enough without you talking.’ She tried to take another step; her hands squeezed tight around the practice bars. Every time she put her weight on her right leg a searing pain shot up through her body, lodging in the base of her skull.
    â€˜If I could help you with the pain, you know I would.’ Rosemary folded her arms across her chest, her lips pressed in a tight line.
    â€˜Like you helped when Dad died? Like you helped then?’ Kara had no idea where the words were coming from. It seemed never-ending, the hurt and the loss and the anger. She thought that this was buried deep within. She thought she’d dealt with it. The counsellor said she was better. They’d talked about it, over and over again, until she capitulated. Agreed with what they had written in the police report. She’d conceded, believed what the coroner, the senior detective and the judge had declared.
    When she said the words,
I believe
, it felt like a release. She didn’t have to fight any more. Her truth had been replaced by their truth, a different, more painful one.
    But now, with the hours alone in the hospital, her mind free to think as her body regenerated, she realised that she had been lying to herself all along. She didn’t believe. Not for one second. The pressure on her chest increased.
    â€˜Your father . . .’ began Rosemary.
    â€˜What?’ Kara snapped, her knuckles white where her hands wrapped around the bars. ‘My father what?’
    â€˜The report.’ Rosemary took a step towards her.
    â€˜I know what’s in the report,’ she shouted, her knees weakening. ‘But it’s a lie. It’s always been a lie, only I got distracted.’ Her right leg gave way