Epilogue - The Safe Room

There’s commotion around me as soon as light spills in through the crack between my eyelids. I feel like I’m choking, but suddenly a great pressure is removed and I take a breath. My throat is raw, like I’ve been screaming.

“Mrs Denton? Can you hear me?”

I try to speak. A croak comes out.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

A white coat comes into view, then a pair of wire-rimmed glasses and a pink face framed by silver hair. The man smiles warmly. Mum always preferred an old doctor. She said they’d seen it all. Dad used to argue that young doctors were up to date with the new advancements. I can’t remember why I’m in hospital.

“Try to stay still, Mrs Denton. Take your time,” the doctor says.

Where’s Sophie? I try to ask but no words come out, just drool. A nurse presses a paper cup filled with water to my lips. She nods her head and leans over.

“Steady now.” Her voice is so clear and smooth.

The water trickles down my throat and the room finally comes properly into view. It’s then that I see my sister walk in, a concerned expression on her face.

“Is she okay?” says another voice.

A voice I know as well as my own. Honey. She’s here?

“It might take a moment for her to come around,” the doctor says. He carries on talking but I can’t concentrate on his words.

Am I okay? I don’t think I am.

I look around for my sister and there she is standing behind the doctor, a pensive expression on her face. She tucks a lock of caramel hair behind one ear and frowns.

The nurse takes the paper cup away and I open my mouth again. This time I manage to make sounds.

“Soph… ie?”

“She’s asking about her daughter,” Honey says. She approaches the bed and takes my hand, leaning down. My sister is almost as beautiful as the last time I saw her. Time has not eroded any of her light, but I can see that stress has given her bruises beneath her eyes. “Sophie is safe. She’s with a nurse outside the room. I didn’t want to bring her in until you’re ready.”

My heart kicks painfully against my ribs. I need to see her, but I know my sister is right. I don’t want her to be scared.

The doctor clears his throat. “I need to give Mrs Denton a quick once-over.”

Honey steps back. “Absolutely. Sorry.”

It almost makes me laugh. It’s not like Honey to apologise for anything, but I can see she’s on edge. I wish I knew why I was in here and what she’s been going through. I know it relates to Peter Harlow somehow and there’s dread sitting at the bottom of my belly.

The doctor shines lights into my eyes and asks me questions. With each question, I find more of my voice. My tongue feels less of an alien being inside my mouth. I know the year, but the day is foggy. I’m not even certain of the month. Every now and then I think of a set of screens, each showing a different room inside my house. I keep thinking about a bottle of water and a bloodstain by a heavy door.

“That’s great, Mrs Denton,” the doctor says. “You’re doing just fine. Now I’ll give you a complete rundown of everything that’s happened. But first we’ll give you a few minutes to reconnect with your family. You’ve been through a lot.”

As soon as the doctor and nurse leave, Honey swipes at her eyes with the back of her hand and lets out a shaky laugh. “You scared the hell out of me. You don’t get to do that again.”

I try to smile. I’m not sure if it works.

“Am I… a mess?” I ask.

“You could say that.” Honey’s eyes fill with tears, and she leans away for a moment, trying to compose herself. “Do you remember anything?”

“No,” I say softly. “But it was Peter, wasn’t it?”

She nods. “You had a brain haemorrhage caused by that murdering twat Peter Harlow.” She shakes her head angrily. “The doctors had to put you into a coma to control the bleed. It was touch and go there, Amber.”

“Peter,” I mutter, a few memories drifting up to the surface. Then one word jumps out at me. “Murder?”

“Yes. But he’s dead now. You were a warrior. You protected Sophie, me and yourself. You did it.” She squeezes my hand again. “He’s finally gone.”

“Gone? Forever?” It doesn’t seem possible. Peter Harlow out of my life for good? I can’t even remember the last time I lived my life without him at the back of my mind.

“Gone. I promise you. I watched them put him in the ground while you were in a coma. I even put a stake in his heart, cut off his head and salted the earth.” Her jaw tightens. “There’s no way I wasn’t going to make triple-sure that bastard was dead.”

“You did what?”

She laughs. “Oh, Amber, you really are out of it, aren’t you. I didn’t really stake him, but I did go to the burial because I needed to see it for myself. He’s gone, Amber. I swear.”

“How long have I been in the coma?”

“A week,” she says.

“Shit.”

“Yeah. It has been shit.” She sighs. “Also, I don’t want you to get mad, but I asked Mum and Dad to come up. We’ve all been living together, me, them and Sophie, in a rented house while you recover and the police collect evidence from the house. Oh, and Ed’s parents travelled up too. And your friend Yvonne has called. She’s going to pop in when you’re feeling better.”

It’s almost too much. “Are they all here? At the hospital?”

She smiles. “No. Just Sophie.”

“Can I see her?” I whisper.

She squeezes my hand again. “Yes. Of course you can.”

“Tell me what happened first. I don’t remember it all,” I say.

She pulls in a deep breath before explaining. As she tells me about the safe room, a lot of it comes flooding back to me. “While you were in a coma, the police did some investigating. For a change.” She rolls her eyes. “Peter and his girlfriend rented a cheap Airbnb outside Eel Beck. The police found a powerful set of binoculars, plans to your house, and a ton of pictures of you going about your business. They spent two weeks planning it meticulously. They even had pictures of the house that got sold down the road from you. It looks like they were waiting for the new neighbours to move in so the girlfriend could pretend to be one of the owners. They knew you’d be too cautious to let in a stranger.”

Some of it comes back to me then. Emily’s smug voice as she mocked my gullibility.

“The binoculars were to watch me at home,” I say. “He knew about the safe room and the security system.” I imagine him watching me in the study as I locked away my passcode book.

“Emily,” I say. “What happened to her?”

“The woman with Peter? She died in the cellar. He choked and beat her. She died of internal injuries.”

“Jesus,” I whisper. But I can’t mourn her. Not after what she did to me and Sophie.

I let out a long sigh of relief. It truly is over.

When Honey brings Sophie into the room, I finally let go of all the pain and fear from the last two decades. I’m just a mum with a gorgeous little girl who isn’t even scared of all the tubes and machines around me, who just wants to come and give me a hug.

I stroke her fine, golden hair. “Has Aunty Honey been looking after you?”

“Yes, Mummy,” she says. “But I had to break a rule, sorry.”

I frown. “What rule?”

“You said I shouldn’t talk to the ghost lady again but…” Sophie glances at Honey and smiles.

“Yeah, about that.” Honey gives me a sheepish grin. “I swear I didn’t mean to freak anyone out. I just wanted to see Sophie and I felt too ashamed to come to you. I’d just got out of prison, and I thought you were mad at me.”

“What for?”

She gawps at me like I’m dumb. “For not finishing Peter when I had the chance.”

“Are you serious? Why would I be mad at that? I was mad that you threw your life away for me. And because you wouldn’t let me visit.”

“What life? A one-bedroom flat fifteen minutes away from where I grew up? A part-time hairdressing job? Please. Three lifetimes in prison would have been worth it if…” She glances at Sophie and then sighs. “Well, it doesn’t matter now, does it? The police can’t deny self-defence this time. They’ll want to talk to you by the way.”

I help Sophie up onto the bed next to me. “That can wait.” I turn to Honey. “When I get out of here, we need to talk. Properly.”

“Am I getting done?” She gives me a sheepish grin. “Am I going to the teacher’s office again?”

“Honey—”

“Sorry,” she says. “I’m freaking out inside right now. It’s been so long since we… since we did this.”

“I know.” I kiss Sophie on the head. “No, we need to talk as in we need to catch up. I want to know where you’re living and if I can help.”

She reaches for my hand. “Okay. God, you sound like the big sister.” She squeezes. “Maybe you always were.”

“Honey,” I say, my eyes welling with tears. “You saved my life.”

She squeezes my hand again. “No. You saved yourself.” Tears run down her face.

I tug her closer, and she hugs me, kneeling on some tube that puts pressure on my skin, but I don’t care. I have my big sister back. Everything is going to be okay.

She withdraws and brushes tears from her face, sitting down next to the bed in the visitor’s chair.

More memories filter in. Sophie is going to need a hell of a lot of therapy after what we went through. I know how brave she was running out into the snow. I can’t even imagine how terrifying it was.

“Sophie,” I say. “What was it like seeing Aunty Honey in the snow that night?”

“I thought she could haunt Peter,” she says.

Honey laughs then sadness falls across her face. “I moved up to York to be closer to you. I just didn’t tell you.”

“I wish you’d called. I was never mad at you.”

She raises her eyebrows. “Sure about that?”

“Okay, sometimes I was. I just wanted to see you, Hon.”

She sniffs and looks away. “I was mad at me. All the time. Even before… I was awful, I’m sorry.”

“No, you… Look, we were teenagers. None of it matters. This is it. It’s the beginning of the rest of our lives. And I want you in mine.”

She dabs at her eyes. “All right, little sis. Needy much.”

Of all the pain and suffering Peter’s obsession brought into my life, driving a wedge between me and Honey might be the worst.

I think back to my time stuck in the safe room. I had something to fight for. I always have. I lived while he decayed. I bloomed while he withered.

Sophie curls into my side, warm and real. The sunlight floods in through the hospital windows, illuminating my beautiful sister, back in my life, even with so many bridges to mend. With both the Harlows in the ground, I might be able to repair the broken parts of other relationships too, like with my parents. Though that will take time.

And then there’s me, still a work in progress, still an open wound.

Peter is gone. I know that.

But even as I hold Sophie, I can still feel him there, like something buried deep that has never let go.

Maybe it never will.