I love you Mum, but I just can’t be around him any more.

Becky

She folded the letter and slipped it under her pillow. Later her mother called her down for supper. She went because she didn’t want to arouse suspicion, and because she was hungry, and because she didn’t know when she’d be eating again. She tried not to look at Craig at all, but their eyes did meet once, and she stared at him, telling him with that one withering look just how much she loathed and despised him. She hardly said a word to anyone all through the meal, and afterwards went upstairs just as soon as she could. When her mother came to say good night, she pretended to be asleep. Hidden away in the bottom of her cupboard was her rucksack already packed, and all the clothes she was going to wear later that night were ready under her bed.

It was a long wait. Becky needed to be quite sure they were both fast asleep before she made a move. When she got up at last, she trod lightly down the stairs. There was a blustery wind that night, that shook the house and rattled the doors and windows, so any sound she made was well camouflaged. She slipped silently out of the house. It was a clear, moonlit night. As she crossed the yard she began whispering to the dogs to let them know it was her. The last thing she wanted was for them to start barking. There was a whimper or two from them as she let Brighteyes out of his kennel, but nothing more. She put on his coat, and then, with Brighteyes close on her heels, she was running up the farm track and away. At the top of the hill she stopped for one last look at the farm below her. “I’m sorry, Mum,” she breathed. Then she hitched up her rucksack, and set off down the road that would lead to wherever she was going. Where that would be she had no idea.

Up to this point her plan for their escape had been very specific in its detail. But now they were in unknown territory. All she knew was that she and Brighteyes were walking the road that led to the rest of the world, and they would follow wherever it went. Just so long as she didn’t ever have to see Craig again, just so long as Brighteyes was with her and safe, she didn’t mind.

For at least a couple of hours no car came by. The wind was chilling her to the bone, and up on the moor there was no shelter from it. She hadn’t thought it would be this cold. She had her coat on and Brighteyes had his jacket on, but neither was enough to keep out the biting wind. And Becky had other worries too, that her mother might already have discovered she was gone, that Craig would be coming after them in the van. She knew she was going to have to hitch a lift, something her mother had always told her never to do. So when at last she saw headlights in the far distance, her first instinct was to duck down in the bracken at the side of the road and hide. But as the lights came closer, she could hear it wasn’t a van, but a lorry of some kind. She felt confident enough then to run out and try to hitch a lift.