"Mum, when is Lily coming home?" asked Ben. It was a good question; she was running late. I checked out of the windows, but didn't see anyone out there. We didn't live far from her school, and she hadn't mentioned any plans, leaving me with a small knot of worry. Maybe she'd accuse me of being a worrywart, but the city being what it was, I would rather be safe than sorry. I picked up my phone and called her.

The phone immediately went through to voicemail, and my small knot of worry instantly ballooned; Lily does not turn her phone off, ever. Even in school she would simply keep it on silent. I tried to tell myself that it was out of battery, or had no reception, but it didn't help. What could I do? I left the house and knocked on the doors of Lily's school friends, Alicia and Samantha, but neither of them were home either. When they tried to call their respective children and also only got voicemail, all of us feared the worst.

I left with Alicia's father to trace the steps they would take to school, but we hadn't got far before we came across a scene that turned my fears to outright panic. A couple of police vehicles were here, and policemen were going door to door.

"Excuse me!" I called to the first one. "What happened here?"

"A suspected kidnapping," he answered. "Do you have any information?"

I dropped to my knees, shaking, as Alicia's father paled beside me.

"Ma'am? are you alright?"

I opened my mouth, but couldn't speak, leaving Alicia's father to fill in for me. "We... Our daughters didn't come home from school today," he stammered. "Three girls, sixteen and seventeen."

"I'm sorry to say this, but that matches the description of the victims."

I don't remember what happened after that, the shock leaving me insensate. I woke back up in bed, hearing the voice of my husband downstairs. By the time I'd made my way down there, it was only in time to see a police officer leaving our house.

"That was Justin," my husband said. "He promises they're going to do everything they can to find Lily, and given that they have the van they used on camera, he says he's confident they can find her quickly." That lit the fires of hope in me, and I prayed every second that I would hear a knock on the door, that he would return, Lily in tow.

The days slipped by until Lily had been missing for a fortnight, and the hope slipped away with them, leaving nothing but despair. The police had made no progress, and we hadn't had a ransom demand. Lily was gone without a trace. And then Alicia's parents called in, her mum holding a newspaper and shaking. She handed it over without a word, and I didn't get past the first paragraph before dropping it. He was in our house. Pretending he was helping. That evil man who had taken my daughter from me...

My husband picked it back up and read it, frowning. "I can't say for sure, but this reads like a cover-up to me," he said.

My head snapped up instantly. "What do you mean? Are you saying she's not dead?"

"Given the time Lily finished school and the time he was here in our house, there wasn't long enough to leave the southern half of the city and get back. I suppose he could have left her somewhere, but this says he was working alone. It would have to be somewhere isolated that he controlled, and that would be difficult inside the city. But... that doesn't mean she's not dead. Just that Justin uncovered something he shouldn't have and got framed for the trouble."

I blinked in horror... So it was possible he had found her, but failed in the rescue?

"Don't ever mention this," he continued. "You two either," he added to Alicia's parents. "If I'm right, this involves people right at the top of the food chain. Try to dig into it, and you'll meet the same fate as Justin."

Stolen novel; please report.

Alicia's parents recoiled in horror, and I didn't blame them. What he was implying was... depressing, more than anything. Was there really nothing we could do? We just had to accept she was gone, and we'd never even be certain why? There was nothing we could do against the invisible forces that treated us as pawns?

The next few days were grey and miserable, despite the sun shining outside. Ben kept asking when Lily would come home, and what was I supposed to tell him? I couldn't admit the answer to myself, let alone to him.

"Who are you?" I heard my husband shout from downstairs. The doorbell hadn't rung... Intruder?! I grabbed the phone, but then thought better of it. Calling the police seemed to be more likely to result in them siding with our intruder than helping us. I ran downstairs to help as best as I could, but when I saw who he was looking at, I froze up.

"Lily!"

It was her! She really came back! She looked different, but I knew my daughter when I saw her. I ran to her and wrapped her in a hug, crying my eyes out, and grinning at the uncomfortable expression she pulled. She never did like hugs.

She tried to convince us that she wasn't really Lily, that she was just some monster wearing her face. For a brief moment, I even believed her. Ben was the one that shattered her lies. When I saw her hug her brother, my elation was palpable. Lily was home!

She told us where she'd been. What had been done to her. I should have been angry. Perhaps tomorrow I would be, but for now the joy at her return swamped everything. Who cares if she looked different, or even if she acted a bit different. She was still my little girl!

She left again, promising to return before morning, saying that we should get some sleep. Her room was still here, untouched... She didn't need to leave, but she claimed not to need sleep herself, and would rather spend the night outdoors. I watched her leave, launching herself into the air with no apparent effort.

"You do realise what she is?" asked my husband once she had gone, gently placing a hand on my shoulder.

"Yes, my daughter!" I snapped, knowing full well what he was implying.

"You aren't wrong," he replied with a sigh. "But please, don't delude yourself into thinking everything is back to normal."

I walked back inside, my mood spoilt. She had come back to us not as a human, but as a monster. She'd openly admitted to committing two dozen murders. She feeds on human flesh. The other side of her, that she calls Leona. The lion, the predator. Which of them was out there flying through the night? Lily or Leona? While I was climbing into bed, was she out there somewhere hunting a meal? Would the price of my daughter returning to me be some other set of parents losing their own child? I didn't want to ask, and I didn't want to know. I hid under the covers, shooing such thoughts away. They weren't important next to the knowledge that she'd come back to us.

I dreamed of waking up the next morning, finding the house empty, Lily having been hunted and shot in the night. I burst into her room, seeing her sitting on her bed, looking up at me in surprise. "You're really there," I said, my eyes already wet.

"Yes?" she answered, as if being there was the most natural thing in the world.

Alas, it was a work day, and Ben was in school. As much as I wanted to stay with her, I couldn't afford to skip work. We had to leave her on her own once again. She said she didn't mind, but I did! I'd just have to forego sleep tonight instead.

The evening was fun, and watching her flying around with Ben clinging to her back made me feel that maybe her changes weren't all that bad. She didn't have to kill people, right? That was just to survive, while she was on the run? I cooked her favourite pasta bake for dinner. When my husband saw what I was doing, he looked at me with pity, but didn't stop me. He was right, though. Lily did politely try to take a bite, but wasn't even able to swallow it, running to the bathroom while heaving.

That knocked me out of my delusions. Yes, she was still my daughter, but I couldn't deny that she'd been changed, that she wasn't just Lily wearing a harpy costume. Once Ben went to bed, she shared with us just what she had been through, and what she planned next. Just like she'd openly admitted to murder, she openly expressed her intention to take out the people who had done this to her. The people I couldn't touch, who I'd been forced to ignore. I should tell her not to, to drop it, to continue living her life.

I didn't. I gave her my help instead.

I had just been so angry. The people who did this to her, Alicia and Samantha... She deserved her revenge. I saw her on the news the next day, plucking the mayor straight off the road, lifting his whole car into the air with as much ease as an eagle grabbing a rabbit. Part of me was proud of her for ridding the world of that piece of filth. Another part was horrified at the casual way in which she could dispose of the most important man in the city.

Maybe this was, in some small way, how she felt as the conflicting desires of Lily and Leona battled inside her head.