‘You’ve brought us to the middle of nowhere and I’m supposed to walk home from here? I don’t know where we are and I’ve wrecked my ankle. How far d’you reckon I’ll get? Or would you put a bullet in my back before I’d even gone one hundred metres?’

Jarvis glared at Troy who returned the hard stare.

‘Jarvis, are you one of the kidnappers?’ Troy surprised me by saying.

‘What? What the hell—?’

‘Are you?’ Troy persisted.

‘Of course not,’ Jarvis denied.

‘If you’re not one of the kidnappers, how did you know one of the people who originally abducted us was Libby’s mum? And how did you know the other two were Libby’s mum’s boyfriend and his brother?’ said Troy.

Shock held me rigid. Troy was right. They might’ve known the woman who was shot was my mum, but neither of us had mentioned anything about Mum’s boyfriend, Pete. Or that it was them, in masks, who’d grabbed us outside school.

Silence.

Without warning, Jarvis slammed the car door shut, activating the remote in his hand to lock the doors again. Troy immediately pulled at the door handle, but it was futile.

‘Childproof locks,’ Jarvis said. ‘Troy, you should’ve headed home when you had the chance.’

He took out his phone and aimed it at us, pressing it right up against the tinted windows. It took me a couple of seconds to realize what he was doing – filming us. That meant only one thing.

I shouted, ‘What’re you gonna do with us?!’

It was now crystal clear that this man was after a payout, not our liberation. Troy scratched his ear while he stared at Jarvis. Then his hands started fluttering like birds. When I realized what he was doing, I flung myself at the grille and started pounding on it, careful not to obscure Troy’s hand gestures, but to distract our kidnapper.

‘Let us out of here right now!’ I yelled. ‘When my dad gets hold of you, he’s gonna rip you apart! You let us out of here this minute! I need to go to the loo! Let us out!’