As she pulled them on the button came off. She picked it up; it was cheap, the front metal but the back made of plastic. She reached to the back of the shelf for her sewing kit. It wasn’t much; just a spool of cotton thread and one needle, but it was enough for the infrequent repairs she needed to do. She had convinced the man to get it for her a few years back; at first he had refused, but he seemed to like the idea that she could use it to reduce the number of clothes he had to buy, and so, one day, the spool and the needle had been left on the tray.

That was all she had. Other than the bucket, bowl, and mattress, all he had brought her were some clothes, the Duplo Lego, and the sewing kit. No knives and forks, no shoelaces, no blunt objects. It was wise of him. The last thing he needed was for her to have a weapon of any kind. There were times – many of them – when she would have used it.

There wasn’t much you could do with a needle and thread and some Lego, though. She’d thought about it often enough.

She’d thought about everything. Tried some things; in the first few weeks she was here she had attacked him when he opened the door, clawing at his face with her nails, feeling the skin break and blood flow.

But he was a man and bigger than her and stronger and he threw her across the room then advanced on her, his face puce with anger, his cheeks lined with scratches. He screamed at her and for a moment she thought he was going to kill her – he could, no one knew she was here – but then he breathed deeply and turned around and walked out.

And a few minutes later the lamp went off.

The only light source was gone. She had assumed that the only switch was the one on the wall, but it turned out she was wrong. The man had one on the outside, or maybe he’d turned off the trip switch. Her dad – an electrician – had showed her how they worked a few years back, explained how they kept the electrical system safe. Since she was young he had included her in his work, and, when she was fourteen he had let her change the light fitting in her bedroom from a simple overhead fitting to an angled downlighter.

So she knew a bit about electrical work, but it didn’t help her. The room was in darkness.

And it stayed that way for a long time. Days, maybe. She lost track of time, became disorientated, screamed until she couldn’t hear herself. She lay on her bed shaking, visions swimming through the dark.