Captive

by A. J. Grainger

  She stands up. “You’re just like the majority of people in this country. No one gives a shit about the planet. Well, they need to be made to care. Violently, if necessary. People are so stupid. We’re trying to make a difference, and what do they do? Lock us up for crimes we didn’t commit, just to get us off the streets.”

  “Please,” I ask, “what does this have to do with me?”

  “You’re human, aren’t you? You live on this planet?” She laughs nastily. “If what you mean is what does it have to do with you being here, in this cell, then say so. Well? Is that what you mean?”

  I nod. “What—what do you want?”

  “I want many things. An end to all animal testing in the UK. I want them to stop drilling in the Arctic Ocean. I want no more deforestation. There is so much I want for this planet, but my priority right now is to secure the immediate release of Kyle Jefferies, or Marble as he is known to his family and friends.” Her eyes are jet-black in the bright light. “You want to go home, Princess? You get my brother freed.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Mum calls as soon as Dad gets back to the hotel. I’ve barely had a chance to say hello to him. So much for some time, just him and me. Dad sits in the desk chair, and I pull up a chair of my own. He puts the phone on speaker and props it up against his briefcase, so we can both talk into it. I don’t say much.

  “Are you having a good time?” Mum asks.

  “Bobs nearly caught pneumonia today,” Dad says, with a wink at me.

  Mum misses the joke and takes it as an opportunity to worry. “You need to wrap up, darling. Make sure you wear your scarf tomorrow. Stephen, make sure she does.”

  “Yes, sir,” Dad says as I roll my eyes.

  “How’s Addy?” I ask before Mum insists I start wearing thermal underwear.

  “Itchy,” Mum says. “What have you two done today, then? You’re not very talkative, Robyn. Tell me all about Paris. Wish I was there, rather than stuck in the Goldfish Bowl.” It’s what Mum calls Number 10. “Seventeen journalists by the gates this morning. Seventeen! Really, don’t they have something more important to report than whether I wore the red Burberry jacket rather than the blue?”

  Dad laughs.

  “It isn’t funny, Stephen. I am sick of this. Sick of it!”

  “Well,” Dad says somberly, “take comfort. At this rate, we won’t win the next election.”

  “Oh, don’t be ridiculous. Of course you will,” Mum replies in a tone that implies that dreams—hers, at least—do not come true.

  To deter Parental Armageddon, I tell her about the Eiffel Tower and then about the underground catacombs Gordon took me to this afternoon while Dad was in a meeting. The tombs were full of skulls arranged in all sorts of patterns and shapes.

  “Sounds absolutely hideous,” Mum says. “Good grief, Stephen, couldn’t you have taken her to a gallery or something?” Then she asks about the briefing, saying the deputy prime minister’s wife called “in a right flap” about something.

  I stop listening. Pushing my chair back, I go to peer out of the window. We’re in the small study just off the main living room of the suite. There’s no view, only a white wall opposite and a small courtyard ten floors down. For security reasons, we never get a view. All the rooms that overlook the courtyard on this floor and the one above are either empty or occupied by members of our staff.

  Mum is still rabbiting on about something completely irrelevant, like what color she should paint the Terracotta Room or did Dad know that the Fitzwilliams are spending the summer on Martha’s Vineyard.

  Dad is always telling me to make more of an effort with Mum, and I try, but . . . I don’t know. It annoys me the way she nags at Dad. I am not the biggest fan of Downing Street, and I find the fact that I am expected to call my own father “Prime Minister” in public ridiculous, but this is who Dad is. And I love him. God, that’s cheesy. But I do. Yes, he is embarrassing, and last week he called only the most famous boy band in the world the wrong name in front of the entire nation, and don’t even get me started on his dancing—it could start world wars.

  Yet he is the prime minister of Great Britain. The decisions he makes every day affect so many people. Not just Britons, but people across the globe. And that is phenomenal. I lie awake at night worrying about whether I’ll get an A in my GCSEs while he is deciding how best to deal with North Korea, or China, or the global fiscal crisis, or the NHS, or the benefit system, or . . . brain freeze.

  Allowances have to be made for having that level of stuff on your mind. Mum doesn’t agree, though, and still goes off on him for leaving his clothes on the floor, or not asking the Scotts to dinner, or not taking me to a gallery in Paris.

  I know it’s hard for Mum too, though. She hates Downing Street. She likes the parties, but she hates the chitchat and the constant backstabbing. And the press are always having a go at her. They’ve spied a chink in Dad’s armor, and they stick a knife into it as often as possible. But that annoys me too. Why can’t Mum just get it right?

  Dad says I need to have more sympathy. He says me and Addy are her everything. She had four miscarriages before I was born, and then, of course, there was my brother, Robin. He was a stillbirth. Dad says I can’t begin to imagine what they went through, especially Mum.

  I was born four agonizing years later, after endless rounds of IVF. Dad says Mum called me her “little miracle” and held me for a whole week before she would put me down. I find that hard to imagine now. I always think of my sister as the miracle baby, born to Mum when she was really old with no IVF, no nothing. Adriana is a miracle; I’m the girl who should have been a boy. Is that why Mum and I don’t always get along? Has she been disappointed in me since I was born?

  I sit back down and rest my legs on the arm of Dad’s chair. He rubs my toes absentmindedly, like he used to when I was a kid.

  • • •

  “You stink,” Feather says. “You have to take a bath.” After making sure I ate my sandwich, she’d left me to rest a bit. I actually fell asleep, amazingly, and I do feel better now. But I still have a fragile, tight-skinned feeling, like even the sheets on the bed might bruise me. I’m hoping the sickness was just tiredness, or fear. I don’t want them to be drugging me.

  After taking me back to the bathroom, Feather lets the taps run in the bath. They don’t bother to blindfold me on trips to the bathroom now. The tub is stained, making the water turn mustard yellow. The thought of sitting in it is not appealing, even if I do smell. My disgust must show on my face, because Feather asks me acidly whether I’d like the butler to clean it first.

  After she’s gone—“Don’t take too long. The makeup assistants are waiting”—I stare at the water spluttering from the tap, imagining taking off my filthy, stinking clothes and sliding down under it, working the soap up into a lather and drawing it up over my arms. I could even wash the grease and blood out of my hair. And on the toilet seat is a pile of clean clothes. A T-shirt, underwear, a pair of tracksuit bottoms, and a navy-blue hoodie. They look warm and comfortable. I desperately want to be clean, and yet something stops me. I am too afraid to take my clothes off and sit in that bathtub. Not because of the stupid yellow water, but because what if someone came in and saw me naked? What if Scar . . . ? I know what was in his mind, when he came to my cell alone, and the thought of what he could have done makes my stomach fist.

  But I am afraid of what Feather will do to me if I don’t bathe. She held my head under water when I passed out. I can’t imagine her having any qualms about holding the rest of me under when I am conscious.

  The bath is a quarter full now, so I turn off the tap. Come on, Robyn. Just do it quickly. Clothes off. In. Dunk. Wash. Out. Clean clothes on.

  I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.

  What if I didn’t have to take my clothes off? Could I do it then? Feather would hear the water swishing, and I would be a little cleaner wh
en I came out. Before I can analyze this too much, I step fully clothed into the tub. When I sit, my skirt balloons up around me and my BETWEN YOU AND ME T-shirt becomes see-through with the water. But at least I am not naked.

  I dunk my head, then grab the soap and lather it over my scalp. I wash quickly, pulling my clothes away from my skin. When I’m done, I clamber out, fabric sticking to me. Feather has already started banging on the door and telling me to hurry the hell up. At the sound of her voice, my hands start shaking, and it is an effort to wrap the towel around me. I remember something the therapist I saw after the shooting in Paris said about breathing from the belly to calm anxiety, so I try it now: sticking my belly out and imagining tugging the oxygen right down into my lungs. In my mind, I go over all the things I know about these people: Scar’s slashed fingers, Talon’s green eyes, Feather’s dark ones and how she is so small. And the most important thing: The reason I am here is because Feather wants her brother, Kyle Jefferies, freed. That means I know her surname as well. Next I remember the layout upstairs and how many steps it is from my cell to the bottom of the staircase. These are all things I can use, if not now, then later. They will either help me escape or they will help the police catch these people.

  My hands have stopped shaking. I work my way out of my own clothes and into the new ones. Feather bangs on the door as I am pulling the hoodie over my head.

  • • •

  I am staring dumbly at the red light of a video camera. My cell has been made into a makeshift studio, with a blackout curtain pinned to the window and a lamp angled on my face. On the floor in front of the bed is a sheet of paper with the words I am supposed to have memorized. I can’t remember a single one, even though I have spent a long time looking at them. My brain is in panic mode, where it just keeps saying Remember this, remember this over and over again, until the words are blurring on the page and adrenaline is surging through me, making my chest hot. I’m getting a tension headache too, and the sick feeling is back. Never mind remembering the words on this page. There’s a very real possibility I will throw up all over them.

  All three of my kidnappers are here: Talon and Feather by the door, Scar working the camera, his hulking frame bent almost double to be at the same height as the tripod. It is the first time I have seen him since I tried to escape. His eyes still slither over me, and I sense his excitement as he flicks his slimy tongue across his lower lip. There is something else beyond desire in his look now. Anger? No. It is more like resentment; the others don’t trust him to guard me anymore. Neither do I. It could be the one thing the three of us agree on.

  “What’s the matter, Princess?” he scoffs. “Can’t read?”

  “We’re waiting, Robyn,” Feather says. She and Talon are standing close together. I wonder how he can stand being so near her.

  “I . . . I can’t remember all the words.”

  Feather mutters a series of obscenities at me and about me.

  “It’s a long speech,” Talon interrupts. “Give her time.”

  “Marble doesn’t have time.”

  “We’ve time,” Talon says quietly, touching her arm. A look of understanding passes between them, and Feather’s fingers flex, and relax.

  After retrieving the sheet of paper from the floor and holding it out to me, Talon tells me to divide it into sections. “We’ll film a bit at a time.”

  “Won’t work. It’ll look like shit,” Feather says.

  He persuades her to just give it a go. “Read the first few paragraphs over to yourself, Robyn, and then we’ll record them,” Talon says.

  I look at the paper, letting my hair fall in front of my face, like it might protect me from them.

  Hi, Dad, I read to myself. I’m safe, but I’m scared and I want to come home, even though they’re treating me well. My kidnappers want to make it clear that they are not terrorists. They just believe that this sort of decisive action is the only way to bring public attention to their cause. The next few paragraphs are about corporate greed and Bell-Barkov’s drug testing program. All the stuff that Feather was talking to me about earlier. I read the page over three more times. Feather is pacing the cell, her fingers beating a rhythm on the wall; Scar sticks his finger in his nose and rummages around, and Talon waits quietly.

  “Ready?” he finally asks. His voice is kind. His eyes are gentle; it’s as if he really wants me to succeed.

  I skim the paragraphs again, and then nod. After smearing the contents of his nose on the wall under the window, Scar grins and presses record. The red light blinks at me again. My mind goes blank. I get as far as the second sentence and falter.

  Feather smacks her fist into her palm. The snapping sound makes my stomach turn over.

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” I say. “I’ll try harder. ‘Hi, Dad. I’m safe, but—’”

  “She needs to do it in her own words,” Talon says.

  Feather silences him with a wave of her hand. “No. She’ll get it muddled. We need to clearly state what we want. The trouble is that she doesn’t have enough at stake. We have treated her too well. She thinks we aren’t serious. Scar, show the clip.”

  Scar pulls his phone out of his pocket and shoves it in my face as Talon drops his head, as though ashamed. For a second or two, the camera screen is grainy, and there are blurred shapes that slowly resolve themselves into people and then what I recognize as press photographers and journalists. The image bounces and then refocuses on a sign for the London Clinic. The camera moves down and shows Mum, Dad, and Addy, emerging from the glass double-fronted doors. Mum’s arm is in a sling and Addy is clutching at her, little fingers wrapped in her skirt. Her toy lamb is caught tight in her other arm. Dad acknowledges the press with a brief nod of his head and then leads Mum and my sister to the waiting car. The image tightens, cropping off Mum and Dad, to concentrate on Addy. My heart clenches at the sight of her large, scared eyes. There is a bloody scratch just above her right eye. Suddenly she turns her head. Caught dead center in the shot, she seems to be staring right into the camera, but of course she can’t be, because she has no idea that she is being watched. Being stalked.

  I lunge at Feather, fists flying and legs kicking. I want to hurt her, knock her to the floor and punch her again and again and again until she knows what it’s like to be in pain, to be sick and hungry and lonely and tired and more scared that you ever thought possible. She goes down easily, and I manage to land a few feeble smacks to her face and arms before Talon drags me off her. The rage is in me, though, and I am a wild animal, biting and scratching and howling. My hands become claws that tear at his face, my teeth fangs that sink into any bare skin I find. You will not hurt my sister. You. Will. Not!

  Scar joins in the fight. I elbow him in the nose and then I bite one of his disgusting scarred fingers so deep the tang of blood fills my mouth. He slaps me on the side of the head, making the world somersault. After fumbling at his waist, he draws a knife from his belt—

  There’s a yell from behind us and we all turn to Feather, who is pointing her gun right at us. “Enough!” she says. “Stand up. All of you. Robyn, your little sister is cute. I imagine she would be terrified if someone were to grab her and bundle her into the back of a van. Read the speech again now. Read it and memorize it. You have half an hour, or else . . .” She snatches the phone from my hand and clicks it off. Addy is swallowed up in darkness.

  • • •

  “On the twenty-eighth of January of this year, Kyle Jefferies—known to his friends as Marble—was forced from his house at gunpoint by six police officers for allegedly shooting you, Dad. Since then he has been remanded in custody and refused bail. If he is convicted, he could face life in prison. But he’s innocent! It was all a setup. You have to let him go. My kidnappers are willing to make a deal with you. They will release me when you release Marble. Please, Dad, release Marble so I can come home. . . .” I stumble to a halt. I am shaking with fear
. I can’t remember the rest of the speech. An image of Addy being dragged screaming from her bed in the middle of the night or snatched on the street flashes through my mind, and I beg Feather to give me a minute to sort myself out before I finish the recording.

  I suck in the stale air of my cell and force the vision of Addy out of my head. At the moment she is at home with Dad and Mum, playing with her toys, stroke-slapping my poor cat, and probably bossing everyone around as usual. She’s safe. Now it’s up to me to make sure she stays that way.

  I don’t want Kyle Jefferies released from prison. He is a terrorist. He deserves to be in prison, so that he can never hurt anyone again. But right at this second, it isn’t his freedom I’m asking for. It’s mine. Dad will know I don’t mean what I’m saying, and if he doesn’t, because he is too panicked at the thought of what these arseholes might be doing to me, then his team of advisers will tell him. The special-ops police force and MI5 will already be looking for me. It won’t take them long to find me. I just need to hang on and to stop these people from going after my sister until then. Dad often says that the end justifies the means. Sometimes, Bobs, you’ve got to do whatever it takes to get something done. Use any weapons available to you. And the weapons at my disposal right now are my kidnappers’ own words. I will use them to set myself free and keep my sister safe.

  And I make a pact with myself. I am going to survive this. One day I am going to walk free from here, and I am going to see my sister and my parents again. I will do whatever it takes.

  The camera light is still flashing. I look deep into its eye, and I speak for Addy and for Mum and for Dad. This time my words are clear and I don’t falter. I am speaking Feather’s sentences but with my eyes, my lips, my tears, I am saying, I love you, Addy. I love you, Dad and Mum. I am alive and I am coming home.