Alarm suffused Shannon Reid’s delicate features as she came into the bedroom. Her husband, normally so rugged, sat on the bed like a wounded child. She shifted her gaze slowly from his face down to the thing held between limp fingers. It was a letter. A letter bearing the Donnachaidh crest.

He looked up at her, his pallid face emphasised by the dark red shirt she loved to see him in. He looked scared.
“They want Erica?” She asked the question, but she already knew the answer.
He nodded mutely.

She sat next to him, leaning in to him for mutual support, and read the letter.
“What do we do?” Her voice was barely a whisper.
“We’ve got to take her. You know that.”
“Dave. We can’t. We can’t go there. You can’t go there.”
“I know. But we must. They may hate me, but we are Clan and, more importantly, she is Clan. I guess she was going to find out at some point what that means.”

They both looked up at a slight sound from the doorway, in time to see their daughter slamming her door.
“Erica!”
“Shit.”