Captive

by A. J. Grainger

  I kick.

  I scream.

  I bite.

  His grip loosens. It’s enough. I jam my elbow hard into the space between his ribs. He lets out an oomph, and I surge forward. He snatches for me, not managing to get ahold of me, but it’s enough to knock me off balance. A pair of arms comes out of nowhere and catches me before my face can connect with the cold, hard pavement. I’m pinned to the ground, and someone leans over me. Someone new, someone who seems to have come out of nowhere. I can see his eyes through his mask. They are bright green, like light hitting deep water. His mouth moves through a word that I can barely believe is “Sorry” as he lifts a strong-smelling cloth to my face. The harsh chemical is a whoosh in my lungs; black moths cloud my vision, and consciousness recedes into darkness.

  • • •

  Addy is cranky. She’s lying on the sofa at our flat in Downing Street, covered in chicken pox. Mum is beside her, holding both of her hands in an attempt to stop her scratching.

  “We’re not going, are we?” I say, leaning against the door frame.

  Mum’s eyes are dark pips in a white face. “Oh, darling. I’m sorry. I just can’t leave her like this. We’ll go later in the year. It has been a terrible January there anyway. They’ve had snow like you wouldn’t believe. Maybe during summer recess . . . We could try again then. If your father ever takes any time off, we could maybe go—” Addy whimpers, trying to tug her hands from Mum’s. “You mustn’t scratch, darling,” Mum says gently. Addy pulls harder, letting out a thin whine, her rosebud mouth puckering into a sulk. “Shh.” Mum peels a sticky, featherlike strand of hair off my sister’s forehead.

  I push myself off the door frame and head down the corridor. “Don’t be too disappointed, sweetheart,” Mum calls after me.

  I wave vaguely over my shoulder.

  The kitchen is dark, the winter sun barely piercing the cloud cover. I don’t bother turning on the light. Instead I flick on the TV. Its screen casts a sallow glow over the room. Outside, the sky is gray. It’s snowing in Paris. Poppy and I checked the weather report this morning. I was trying to get her to look at these amazing photos that Henri Cartier-Bresson took of the city, but she was totally disinterested. She mainly wanted to know if I was taking my new T-shirt to Paris and if I wasn’t, could she borrow it. I refused to answer her question until she looked at three of the photos. There is one in particular, taken in black and white from one of the viewing platforms on the Eiffel Tower, that looks like a spider or some other huge insect is crawling up the side of the building. It is incredible, but Poppy just asked why it wasn’t in color. I called her an ignoramus and said I was reconsidering our friendship. She stuck her tongue out at me.

  “Are you ready to go?” Dad asks. He’s standing in the doorway to the kitchen.

  “We’re not going.”

  “Says who?”

  “Mum, because Addy—”

  “Is sick, yes, but you’re not. So, my darling daughter, how do you fancy three days in Paris with your old man?”

  CHAPTER THREE

  The sound of my heart is loud in my ears as I rise up through the layers of unconsciousness. My eyelids flicker—bright white light—red inside my eyelids—bright white walls—red inside my eyelids. I force my eyes open and will them to stay that way. I am lying on my back in a small, cold room. My mouth is gagged, and my arms have been pulled up over my head and secured to a metal headboard behind me. Where am I? Why am I . . . ? The memories rush in like a tidal wave. Trees, dirt, and road flying upward in a catastrophe of noise . . . Mum. Addy!

  I try to move, but the plastic cuffs are tight, and they eat into my skin. Gray squares blur my vision and I have to lie still for a few moments, sucking in as much air as I can around the fabric that’s been stuffed into my mouth, to keep from passing out again. My tongue aches from pulling it far back in my mouth to avoid touching the fabric. I must have been doing this even while unconscious. I want to cry, but I am not going to let myself, because that will mean they’ve won. Whoever they are.

  But of course I already know: the AFC. The extremists who shot my dad.

  And I realize it’s happened again. All it takes is one lucky shot, one tiny security breach, for everything you love to be ripped away from you. Well, this is the second lucky shot. A momentary anger washes over me. Where the hell were the security forces? How did this happen again? Then I am so overcome with fear that my brain short-circuits, and for a few seconds I think nothing at all until one image forces its way through. A slab of meat no longer recognizable as a human lying still and bloodied on a white tiled floor. I don’t know if this is something I have seen in a film or on the news, or if it’s just the worst thing my imagination can conjure up. Either way, I know with absolute certainty that these people are going to hurt me, torture me . . . kill me even, to get what they want.

  Panic rises up from my belly and explodes out through my mouth in a scream that is muffled by the gag. I wrench my arms forward and arch my back at the same time to get maximum pull, to try and break the plastic ties. The pain in my wrists is excruciating. I let myself drop down onto the bed, still whimpering, sucking in mouthfuls of cold air as my vision blanks again and then slowly clears. I need to calm down. Fainting is not going to help me or Addy or Mum. They need me. I can’t afford to fall apart. I have to get out of here; I have to find them. I have to save them.

  I force myself to lie still through ten counts. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale.

  My name is Robyn Elizabeth Knollys-Green.

  I am sixteen years old.

  I am the daughter of Stephen Knollys-Green, the prime minister.

  I am still alive.

  I intend to keep it that way. I repeat the words over and over in my head, until I feel calmer. Then I look about me. The room is small, with white walls and a white tiled floor. A bare bulb burns above me. There is only one window: a high slit up on the wall opposite the bed. There’s a single door and, aside from a small wooden chair and the bed I am lying on, no other furniture.

  I test my bonds again, clenching my jaw against the pain. The cuffs are secure and tight about my wrists. There is no way that I could get them free without help. That panicky feeling threatens to overwhelm me again. . . . Focus, Robyn. Inhale. Exhale.

  My legs are unbound. That is good. It means I can kick, and run, if the opportunity arises. My left knee twinges as I bend it, but otherwise my legs move easily. I flex each muscle and joint in turn, working all the way up my body. My focus slips a couple of times, but I drag the air down into my lungs, burying the fear and the panic deep below my rib cage. Aside from the pain in my knee and wrists, some deep scratches to my calves, and a thumping headache, I am okay. I have all four limbs and my head is still attached to my body. These are good things.

  As I stretch, I listen. At first I hear nothing beyond my own breathing. Then I begin to pick up small noises: a rustle from the window, a short, high-pitched cry of a bird, the scrape of wood on wood—a chair being pushed back, maybe—and then finally the stamp of a boot on a hard floor somewhere above my head. It is followed by another hard tread and another. Louder. Coming closer.

  Seven more thuds, rhythmical and steady. Someone walking down stairs. There is a scratching sound somewhere just beyond my room. I hold my breath. Is someone coming . . . ? Please, don’t let . . . I hold my breath as I try to grasp any sound. A thud, farther off. They are moving away. . . . Then five quick slaps, and a clink of a key in the lock, and the door to my room is wrenched open.

  Heavy footsteps cross the cell. Then a man’s eyes stare down at me from behind a balaclava. His mouth is visible, and a tongue peeps out of rotten yellowed teeth like a slug slithering from rocks. His breathing is fast; his breath smells like something burned to death inside him. His whole body stinks of dankness, mold, and sweat. It is the man who kidnapped me. The one who threatened me with a knife. Not the green-eyed one who caught m
e.

  Sweat gathers in the hollow of my back as I realize how vulnerable I am. This man could do anything to me down here and no one would know. No one would ever find me.

  “You’re prettier than you look in your photos, Princess,” he says, pulling the gag from my mouth.

  I scream as he runs a finger along my hairline and down my cheek. There is something wrong with his finger: there are seams and ridges where smooth skin should be. As if reading my mind, he pulls away so I can see that there is a half-inch cut on the tip of each finger that has then been sewn together with thick black thread. “Fingerprints are tracers. Without them, I’m no one,” he explains.

  Now is not the time to suggest that what he’s actually done is create the world’s most unique fingertips. But that’s good. That may help me to identify him if—when—I get out of here. Even though I can’t see his face, he wouldn’t be hard to pick out of a crowd. His eyes are dark brown—nothing so unusual there—but he is also the largest man I have ever seen, with broad shoulders and muscles threatening to break free of his tight T-shirt. His arms are veiny, and it occurs to me that he might be on steroids.

  He grips my throat, squeezing the air out of me, and then his mouth is so close to my ear that his tongue flicks inside as he whispers in a singsong tone, “No one can hear you.”

  There is a clunk of the door opening, and then a voice says, “What’s going on, Scar?”

  A man, also in a mask, is standing in the open doorway. He is tall but thin, and his eyes are bright green. I immediately recognize them. He is the man who caught me before I hit my head on the pavement, the one who apologized. After a brief glance over his shoulder, the first man—Scar? Is that a name? Not his real one, surely—turns back to me. Still holding my throat with one hand, he brushes the hair back from my forehead with the other. “Just getting to know our guest.”

  My head is almost burrowing into the mattress in an attempt to put as much distance between us as possible.

  The green-eyed man comes into the cell. “You need to get away from her.”

  Scar sniggers. “Oh yeah? What are you going to do about it?”

  “I’m— I’ll—” Green Eyes pauses and stands up straighter. “Feather won’t like it.”

  “Ooh, Feather won’t like it,” Scar mocks in a singsongy voice again, but he lets go of my neck. I cough as I breathe in, my throat sore.

  The men square up to each other, and for a moment, I think there will be a fight. Then Scar laughs and prods Green Eyes in the chest. “You’re not worth it,” he says, and leaves, knocking into Green Eyes’s shoulder as he passes him.

  When Scar is gone, Green Eyes cuts the cable ties off my wrists. “Did he hurt you?” he asks. His voice is soft, with large round Os and gentle Rs. It’s calming somehow.

  I shake my head as I rub the blood back into my hands and fingers. Outside, a bird chirps. We both automatically look at the window, even though there is nothing to see. “A goldcrest,” he says, moving back to let me sit up.

  “Where are my mum and Addy? Please.” My voice is as fragile as a bruise.

  “They’re safe. We didn’t take them. Only you.”

  Only me.

  “Why?” I rasp.

  “Because you’re going to help us save the world.”

  • • •

  Green Eyes helps me to the bathroom and tells me his name is Talon. “We are named for the Earth,” he says. A blindfold is pulled down over my face, but I sense the change in flooring through the thin soles of my Converses. My cell is tiled and slippery. The floor outside is rougher and more solid. Cement, maybe? My feet scuff against its hard covering.

  After seven steps, we turn a corner to the right, then take ten more steps. “Here,” Talon says, touching me. I flinch, but he is only guiding my hand to a door handle. “Wait until you are inside and the door is shut, and then take off your blindfold.” His breath is bringing up the hairs on the back of my neck.

  Without the use of my eyes, I fumble with the handle. It turns, and I push the door open and step inside. My arms flap as I try to find the door again to push it shut behind me. Finally I manage it. Then I pull the blindfold up onto my head.

  I am in a small and dirty bathroom. The sink is chipped, the bath yellowed, and the tiles stained. The walls drop paint like dandruff, and one corner of the ceiling is black and sagging with water damage. It is freezing cold in here, an icy blast coming from a rectangular hole covered by metal grates just below the ceiling, above the loo. It is too small to crawl through, even if I could get the grating off. There is no window.

  I go over to the sink, above which is a tarnished and cracked mirror. A girl with enormous dark eyes, made larger by the intense shadows under them, and waxy skin stares back at me. There is a bruise on my head, and some blood from a cut to my eyebrow has crusted in my hair, which is falling over my face as usual. I turn on the tap, wincing at the pain in my wrists. The plastic cuffs have left matching blackberry-­colored circles. I look bad, and it scares me. I’ve been worried for three months, but always about Dad, or about another shooting. I never thought someone would kidnap me. The thought is so overwhelming that it makes me dizzy.

  The water runs brown, but I splash it over my face anyway, rubbing as hard as I can bear at the gash on my eyebrow to clean it. I force myself to concentrate on getting out any grit. My ears are alert the whole time to any noise from behind me. The water is bitterly cold, and I am shaking by the time I have finished. Then I draw in a long gulp of water. It tastes moldy, but I am so thirsty I don’t care.

  “Are you nearly done?”

  Talon’s voice makes me jump.

  “Yes,” I shout. Don’t come in. Please don’t come in.

  I turn off the tap slowly. I don’t want to go out there again. I need to get away from here. But I am not strong enough to fight those men. I need a weapon. I scan the bathroom again, sighing when I see nothing that can help me. There aren’t even any cupboards that might be hiding aerosols or a toilet plunger.

  Talon bangs on the door again. “You need to hurry up.”

  “Please, give me a moment.”

  I look at the loo. I have to go, and who knows when I’ll get another chance. What if Talon comes in? What if Scar comes in? I shiver as I remember the look in his eyes as he held me down on the bed.

  A thin shower curtain runs around the bath. I hold it up and shield the toilet a little from the door. And then I pee as fast as I possibly can.

  When I am washing my hands in the sink, I notice that there is a tiny crack in one corner of the mirror. A wedge is loose. After wiggling the end of it, the whole thing comes off with a snap, opening a shallow cut on my index finger.

  Another pounding on the door. “Come out now.”

  I open the door. The shard is gripped tightly in my fist.

  Talon is angry. “Wear your blindfold.” He pulls it down over my eyes, securing it tightly behind my head, but not before I see the stairs behind him. They are about halfway down the corridor; five, maybe six, paces away.

  “You took a long time,” Talon says.

  I don’t answer. Head ducked, hair forward to cover my face, I am busy counting my steps. Two. Three. Four. Five. I put my hand out to my right. The wall is slightly damp. Six. Six and a half. Empty space where the wall should be. I’m here. Now’s my chance.

  Still blindfolded, I slash at him. The glass meets resistance. I push harder. He cries out and lets me go. I rip the blindfold off. He is leaning against the wall, blood gushing from around the piece of glass that is stuck fast in his arm. I fly up the stairs two at a time and out into a kitchen at the top of the landing, where Scar is sitting at the table, drinking from a mug.

  We stare at each other for a second. Then he is running at me, his mug smashing to the floor. I dart sideways, ducking under his arm and spinning around the table. I reach the door at the other
end of the room and grab the handle.

  I get no farther. Arms come around my chest like straps, tugging me backward. I am still holding on to the door handle, but my grip is slipping. Scar is too strong. Then I realize that maybe I can use his strength against him. Waiting until I feel him tugging back on me with everything he has, I suddenly let go of the door handle. The momentum sends us both crashing to the floor. I try to make myself as heavy as possible, forcing my bony elbows back just as we land, so that they pummel him in the chest, winding him. While he is still dazed, I scramble to my feet and run for the door again. My hands are sweaty and fumbling, and it takes a second longer than it should to tug the door open. I can hear Scar standing up behind me. A scream rises in my throat but I push it down, darting through the open door and then shutting it behind me as fast as I can.

  There is a key in the lock on this side. It is the first piece of luck I’ve had. I hold my breath and I turn the key, willing it to work. There is a click as the bolt locks into place.

  The dimly lit corridor beyond the kitchen stretches off in both directions. I have no idea which way I should go. Where would they be keeping Mum and Addy? I don’t believe that they’re not here. Why would the terrorists take only me, when they could take the PM’s whole family? The basement is the obvious answer, but I can’t go back there now. If they are down there, their best hope is for me to escape and raise the alarm. I dart down the right branch, praying that it is the way out.

  It isn’t. The hall twists and turns, becoming darker and darker until it ends in a large room. A sheet of metal has been nailed over the one window, but I can just make out lumps of what must be furniture. It’s all been covered with sheets that glow ghostly white in the gloom. Weaving quickly between everything, I try tugging on the metal sheet. It’s been secured by a nail in each corner and another one, halfway up each side. I can get my fingers underneath it, but I’m not strong enough to do much more than that. The metal makes a dull thwack as I slam my palms against it in frustration. It’s drowned out by the louder sound of splintering wood coming from farther down the corridor. There is a roar of triumph. Scar has escaped his prison.