Dangling his feet in the water, Gordon stared at his reflection. The morning sunshine glimmered on the ripples as the heat of the morning began to rise. A haze of insect song floated on the breeze. He hadn't managed to get into the pool yet. For the first time ever, Gordon Tracy did not feel like swimming.

Nothing could distract his thoughts. All he could think about was John. Where was he? What was he doing? Was he okay? Questions swirled around in his head but there was little in the way of answers.

Earlier, he had watched the newscast online. His father had spoken with such passion and sincerity. We would not be able to bear the loss. It was so true. I don't want to think about it. I don't want to even entertain the idea that he isn't coming back.

He turned when he heard a quiet cough. He waved as Matthew approached him, dumping his towel on a pool lounger before sitting down beside him. The water undulated as his feet slipped through the glassy surface.

"Hey," Gordon said.

"Hey, yourself," Matthew replied. "How are you holding up?"

Gordon shrugged and returned his gaze to the water.

"As well as I could expect, I guess." He shook his head. "This wasn't exactly the way we had intended your first month to pan out."

"That's the last thing we're worried about," Matthew replied. "I know there's not much we can do, but whatever we can…"

His voice trailed off and Gordon gave him a smile, though it was stiff.

"Thanks," he said. Then he reached his arms up towards the pale blue sky and stretched. "What I need right now is a bit of distraction." He dropped his arms again. "Tell me about yourself. We haven't had much time for team-bonding."

Matthew chuckled and ran a hand through his hair.

"Well, there's not a lot to tell. I'm a twenty-eight year old ginger twin. I left school at sixteen with more detention slips than qualifications. Joined Óglaigh na hÉireann – that's the Irish Defence Force – though only briefly. Trained up as a firefighter, worked with the Dublin Fire Brigade for several years. Then Elijah decided to take himself off to the Central African Republic on an aid mission and I decided to follow him. Then I ended up here. That's about it."

"You and Elijah must be close," Gordon said.

"Aye," Matthew said. "We've always stuck together like paper and glue."

"Got any other family?"

Matthew turned his face down and looked at his hands. Gordon drew his eyebrows together.

"No," Matthew said. "Elijah and I were taken into care when we were five years old. We bounced around the foster system for years – luckily we always managed to stick together. They didn't mind breaking up sibling groups but if you were twins you were kind of protected."

Gordon's brow furrowed more.

"Oh, sorry," he said. "I shouldn't have asked."

"It's grand," Matthew said. "We're big boys now. You sort of reach a point where you have to tell yourself, 'yeah, you're a foster kid but that's not all you can be.' Elijah got that sooner than I did. Maybe if I hadn't been such a wee brat in school, I would have come away with something more than a rake of D grades and a lot of disappointment."

"Do you mind if I ask why you were taken into care?" Gordon asked. He knew he probably shouldn't have pushed the subject. However, curiosity got the better of him.

"Our ma and da were drug addicts," Matthew said. "Pretty heavily into heroin as far as I remember. They weren't fit to care for themselves, never mind us. It wasn't until we went to school that social services stepped in and took us out of it."

Gordon shook his head and tutted.

"That's rough, dude," he said.

He watched as the other man inspected his fingernails. Gordon couldn't imagine what that sort of life would have been like. He had always been surrounded by family; it was impossible not to be where the Tracys were concerned.

"Aye, it was rough," Matthew said. "I think it made me into a bit of a terror. I was so angry all the time. Angry at my parents, angry at my carers, my teachers, the social workers." He gave a curt laugh. "It's mostly my fault that we never got a permanent place. We'd get a new home and then I'd always screw it up and off we went again, traipsing around the country, trying to find somewhere to stay. I was at war with the world."

Gordon nodded and crossed his arms.

"I can understand that," he said. "Right now I feel like I could bust down every door in England until I found my brother – because I know he's still out there somewhere."

Matthew looked up.

"I know exactly how you feel. Elijah disappeared once."

Gordon blinked.

"He did?"

"Yeah. He was gone for nearly a whole day. We were about nine. I was going totally out of my mind with terror. Where was he? Why wasn't he coming back?" Matthew gave another self-depreciating snort. "To my unending shame, I think I was more concerned that he had abandoned me, rather than being worried about what might have happened to him. But I was only young."

Gordon swirled his legs around in the water. Ripples bounced off the tiled sides and travelled back into the centre of the pool.

"Understandable," he said. "Especially if you'd already experienced a kind of abandonment."

"He was found, though. I was furious with him for days afterwards." Matthew opened his mouth, as though he was going to say something more, but then thought better of it and. "Anyway, that's all in the past. You just need to make sure you stay positive in the moment. I never really got a chance to meet John but from what I've heard, he's a tenacious sort of bloke. He'll be grand."

"I hope so," Gordon said. "I really hope so."

~oOo~

He wasn't in the kitchen when he woke up. Instead of the knotted kitchen chair, he was sitting on a leather couch in what he assumed was a lounge. The strangest thing, after he got past the nausea and the headache, was the fact that he felt…posed. He wasn't lying as though he had fallen asleep, or sitting with his head leaning on one hand. His body was arranged with his legs and arms crossed.

"What the…"

He unfolded his limbs and sat up straight, trying to brush off the feeling of disquiet that enveloped him. He looked down to see that he was wearing totally different clothing from before. She's undressed and redressed me, he thought. His skin began to crawl again. I feel like a living doll.

Try as he might, he couldn't recall anything after Grace had shoved the medication down his throat. He probed the nooks and crannies of his mind but came up short – it was as if he had merely been asleep.

John brought a hand up to his mouth as the urge to vomit rose. He definitely had not merely been asleep.

Regaining his composure, he rose from the couch and started inspecting his surroundings. Heavy brown curtains were drawn over a wood-framed window and when he pulled one aside, there was only darkness to be seen. What time is it, anyway? He looked for a clock and, sure enough, there was one sitting on the mantelpiece. Seven thirty. I must have been out for a while.

Then it occurred to him. He was on his own and he wasn't trussed up. John went back to the window, heart pounding, and tried to lift the sash.

Nothing. It was stuck fast.

He tried again and again but nothing short of Thunderbird Two was going to lift it. Dammit!

Creak.

He spun around as the door opened and Grace appeared.

"Good evening," she said.

John couldn't bring himself to answer. This tongue was too thick with anger. Then he looked down at her waist; there were no weapons there. Bingo! he thought. She won't be so dangerous without her club or her gun.

Just as he was about to spring forward, Grace stepped aside to reveal a young girl. John stilled and felt his heart rise into his throat. The girl, who looked to be a young teenager, was staring at the ground, her hands behind her back. She had dark hair that hung about her face like thick curtains, obscuring everything but a chunk of pink forehead and a thin nose.

"John, I'd like you to meet my daughter, Amelia. Amelia, say hello to John."

"Hello, John," the girl said. She did not raise her head.

Grace placed a hand on Amelia's shoulder and ushered her into the room. John took a step back and found his calves against the couch. Nowhere to run.

"Now, John, there's something that you need to know about Amelia." Grace stroked back her daughter's hair and tucked the long tresses behind her ears. John's stomach lurched again. While the girl was still looking down, the sorrow on her face was stark. "My daughter is very important to me. She is also very loyal. She does everything her mummy says, isn't that right, dear?"

"Yes, Mum," the girl said. Her voice was high but there was a tremble in her words.

Grace turned to John and kept his gaze for a few long seconds before, without warning, she turned and slapped the girl across the face.

"No!"

John went to leap forward but Grace held up a hand to stop him. Amelia straightened up after the blow; she had not uttered so much as a whimper. Grace walked around her daughter, keeping her eyes firmly locked on John. Then, she slapped the child again.

"Stop it!" John said. "My God, she's just a kid!"

Grace placed her hands on Amelia's shoulders again and smiled, showing two rows of creamy teeth.

"Yes. She's my child and I can do what I want with her. Amelia knows. She understands Mummy's pain and she always stays obedient. Isn't that right?"

"Yes, Mummy."

The girl kept her face downcast as two red blotches bloomed on her cheeks.

"So, John," Grace said, starting to massage her daughter's shoulders lightly, "if Grace can learn, so can you. But, just to be sure, I have to tell you something more." She let go of Amelia and walked towards John, each footstep slow and calculated. "If you ever, ever try to hurt me or try to escape from this house – of you ever try to defy me in any way – I'm not going to punish you. Because, John, I don't think you would learn. No, the next time you step one toe out of line, I am going to punish her."

John felt frustration fill his eyes and he fought hard to keep it from spilling over. Don't show weakness, he thought. His fingers flexed and he looked down at his cut wrist. This was exactly why she hadn't kept him bound in chains. Now she had something much more powerful to keep him in check.

"You're sick," he said.

Grace's face darkened and she shook her head.

"You shouldn't have said that."

She spun on her heel and grabbed her daughter by the hair, dragging her out of the room. John's mouth went dry and he raced after them. Grace had pulled her daughter into the kitchen and started running the tap. Amelia didn't make a sound.

"What are you doing?" John asked.

"Punishing you," Grace said.

Then she shoved her daughter's head into the rapidly filling sink. Amelia began to flail and John cried out.

"No! Stop it! You'll kill her!"

"Is that what you want, John? Do you want her death to be on your hands?" Grace snarled. Her arms were like steel rods as her daughter struggled in the water.

"No, I don't! Stop it!"

"Say it. Say what I want to hear."

Amelia's struggling was becoming less and less violent. Something inside John shattered, as if he were made of glass and had been thrown on the hard ground.

"All right, all right! I'll do what you want! Whatever you want! Just leave her alone!"

Grace gave him a satisfied smirk and wrenched her daughter's head up out of the water. Amelia spluttered and gasped, taking in great whooping breaths as life returned to her.

"I'm sorry," John said, taking a step forward. Grace's ferocious gaze told him to stay back. "I'm so sorry."

Amelia kept her head down as she coughed.

"Now," Grace said, plucking a towel from the back of the kitchen door and handing it to her daughter, "I hope I have made myself very clear. Do as I say and she stays safe."

It was on the tip of John's tongue to lash out with another insult but this time, he stopped himself. Images of Amelia's head in the water flashed across his mind again. He couldn't. Grace gave him a self-satisfied smirk and motioned for him to sit down on one of the kitchen chairs again. He did hesitate for a moment but knew that he had no choice.

Amelia buried her face in the towel as her mother started rummaging in a cupboard. John watched; dread filled his lungs and he started to feel short of breath. What now? What next?

He wasn't expecting what he saw. Grace had pulled a battered hair shaver from the depths of the cabinet. Its silver surface was pockmarked and dull, but the razor blades looked sharp enough to draw blood. John's hand automatically went to his hair.

"Clever boy," Grace said. "Amelia, hand me that towel."

The girl did as she was told and Grace draped the sopping cloth around John's shoulders. He shivered as the cold material licked the nape of his neck.

"I think it's time for a little trim, hmm?"

Grace turned on the razor and the blades began to scream. John closed his eyes to keep his emotions at bay as the first stroke fell. Grace passed the shaver over his head in lingering lines. When he eventually opened his eyes again, his lap was full of gold.

"There, that's better," Grace said.

John brought his hand up to feel the soft fuzz that was the only remnant of his once impressive mane of hair.

No, it wasn't better.

Nothing would ever be better again.