before they tired. Weak from lack of food. From the surges of adrenaline that rushed through their veins before ebbing away.
‘My tummy hurts.’ Leah slunk back to the mattress.
‘Mine too,’ Marie joined her twin.
‘It’s because we’re hungry.’ Carly dully made her way over to the box. Snaps and Coke for breakfast. They were running low on food. Surely the men would come back today. The thought was terrifying and reassuring in equal measure. She was sure they’d find out why they had been snatched but did she really want to know? There was a cruelty to Moustache she could sense. He was like Stephen at school who bullied the younger kids, stealing their lunch and their branded sports kit. Punching them in the stomach for fun. Stephen’s friends hung around him because they were intimidated. Was that why Doc was with Moustache? She thought he had a gentle side. The softness of the blanket, the teddy bear with his fluffy coat and rounded tummy, which made him ‘totally cuddleable’, according to Leah.
If Doc came on his own they might have a chance. She could, perhaps, talk him into letting them go. Carly had watched her mum persuade Dad to do things he didn’t want to do with the right words, a smile. You twist me round your little finger, he would say. Could she do that to Doc?
If he comes without Moustache.
If.
If.
If.
In the meantime, Carly scanned the room again; they were stuck. Trapped. Again, panic swooped low, clutching Carly around the throat. There wasn’t enough air in the room. She had to get them out. Her feet tingled as she clumped around the room. Examining every single millimetre of the wall for the umpteenth time. Running her hands over the cold, slimy surface, feeling for something under the graffiti. A hidden exit. A loose brick.
Something.
There was nothing. Carly stared up at the ceiling until her neck ached. Why wasn’t there a hatch, an air vent?
Anything.
‘I need to wee, Carly,’ Leah said in a small voice.
Carly jerked her head towards the corner, averting her eyes, unfairly cross with Leah. The stench in the room was already unbearable.
She couldn’t breathe.
Ten paces, turn. Six paces, turn. A lion in a cage.
Waiting.
Waiting.
Waiting.
Time ticked past painfully slowly. Intermittently, Carly had doled out sweets. They had hardly any food left, and only one can of Coke that they were sharing.
‘Small sips only,’ Carly had warned. Although hunger pangs cramped her stomach, she knew they could survive days without food. Not without any liquid, though. It was only the second time that day she had needed to wee and her urine stank – she was becoming dehydrated.
Carly pulled up her pants and turned around to see the tell-tale bulge of a blackcurrant liquorice sweet in Marie’s cheek. ‘For God’s sake. I told you not to have any more.’
‘I’m starving,’ Marie said.
‘We’re all starving. Did you steal a sweet too, Leah?’ Carly spat out the word steal like it was the worst thing you could do and she thought perhaps stealing was. Not sweets though, but children.
Leah shook her head. Carly believed her, she was always the one who followed rules. Horrified when she had caught Carly forging Mum’s signature on notes so she could get out of doing PE.
Carly gave Leah a sweet, it was only fair. She hesitated before she took the last one for herself, untwisting the purple wrapper, placing the hard shell of blackcurrant that would soften into liquid on her tongue. ‘God, I’m so sick of these. I’d kill for a Big Mac.’
‘Ooh, Carly. You have to broaden your palate.’ Marie perfectly imitated her father. Carly clutched at the chance of a moment of lightness.
‘Remember when Dad ordered scallops for me in the Maldives and I thought it was some sort of berry on top but it was caviar?’ She pulled a face.
‘Fish eggs!’ Marie squealed. ‘You ate the actual eggs of an actual fish!’
‘You can’t talk. What about the frogs’ legs you had in Cannes?’
‘I liked them.’ Marie rubbed her tummy. ‘They tasted just like chicken. Don’t you wish you’d tried them, Carly?’
Since her mum had married her stepdad, holidays in damp, rented caravans and chicken nuggets for tea had been replaced with trips to Monaco and roasted game. Carly was grateful her mum was happy and her new dad was so generous – she’d never even met her biological dad, but though her stepdad treated Carly exactly the same as his biological daughters, sometimes she missed the old days. She’d only