After at least twenty minutes of Libby and I kicking at the back window, then the right-hand-side back window, I was ready to throw in the towel. The back window grille had bowed, but it was still intact. We hadn’t made even a dent in either window. Plus every time I kicked out at the window, a jolt like dirty lightning ran up my body, gathering momentum before racing down to my busted ankle, jarring it mercilessly. Maybe if we had another few hours we might’ve been able to kick out at least one of them, but we didn’t have that kind of time and we both knew it.

‘Is there some non-obvious way to get past the childproof locks?’ Libby asked, examining her door more closely. ‘Don’t some vehicles come with a latch or a hidden bolt, or something that—’

Sirens! Getting louder, closer … They were probably going to flash right by us. I opened my mouth to answer Libby when the noise of the sirens stopped right before the garage door. Libby and I exchanged a look of terror. How was it possible to feel such relief and yet such dread at the same time? Of all the moments since we’d been snatched off the street, this was by far the worst. We were mere metres away from being rescued and mere seconds away from being blown to bits.

‘DON’T COME IN HERE! DON’T OPEN THE GARAGE DOOR! THERE’S A BOMB!’

Libby joined in, screaming out her own warning. Between the two of us, all we were doing was making a noise. I put a hand on Libby’s arm.

‘Shout the same as me or they won’t be able to make out what we’re saying,’ I told her. She nodded.

‘DON’T OPEN THE GARAGE DOOR! THERE’S A BOMB!’

Libby joined in, calling out the same thing at the same time. With the car doors locked and the windows up and the garage door closed, could they even hear us? Probably not, and yet we didn’t stop shouting. We couldn’t stop. This was our only chance to save ourselves.

But it wasn’t working. Before us, the wide garage door began to open as it was pulled upwards.

fifty-six. Libby

‘DON’T OPEN THE GARAGE DOOR! THERE’S A BOMB!’ I yelled until my throat felt like it was being rubbed with sandpaper. I yelled against my mum and Pete and the world that had brought me to this point, mere seconds from my death. Troy grabbed hold of my hand as we both kept yelling.

The door stopped opening about half a metre off the ground. The wires leading from it to the back of the garage were as taut as hell. If the door opened even one more centimetre, Troy and I were toast. So we kept shouting the same words, over and over.