Calm.

Carly thought of Leah and Marie. She had to keep her wits about her. The first opportunity she got, she needed to be able to run. To locate a house, flag down a car, find an adult who would help them. It was the thought of a grown-up taking charge that made Carly’s eyes burn with tears. She was only a child. Thirteen. She didn’t know what she could do. How she could possibly overpower a grown man, but she must. Right now, she was all the twins had.

She inhaled slower. Deeper. The smell of nicotine infused the man’s coat – and something else? Something earthy.

They still must be in bright sunlight because behind Carly’s blindfold her eyes flooded with red – the colour of staring at the sun too long.

The colour of blood.

The man slowed. Stopped. The hand holding Carly’s calves withdrew but she could still feel the weight of his fingers and it took her a second to realize she could move her legs. She bent her knees, drawing her heels back up to her bottom before driving her feet forward, her toes slamming into his chest. She braced herself to fall. Prepared to spring to her feet, stumble forward. To run whether or not she could see where she was going.

The man barely moved as she repeatedly kicked him.

He didn’t scream with pain, but inside Carly there were enough screams for the both of them fighting to be released.

A jangle.

A click.

A creak.

The hand returned to her calves and they were moving forwards again but this time it felt different. Instead of a crunch there was a clump-clump-clump. The sound of boots on a hard surface. The breeze kissing her skin wafted away.

They were inside. It smelled old. Musty. Unused and unloved.

Carly’s fear increased. She couldn’t pinpoint exactly what she was afraid of but she knew that without the possibility of someone stumbling across them – the potential of someone helping – the man could do whatever he liked.

The air inside felt thick and heavy. Somehow she knew they were alone in this building.

However much noise she made, there was no one to hear her.

Again, the man hesitated. Terror gripped Carly tightly as she imagined the next step forward would take them on a descent into a cellar. She’d had an unnatural dread of underground spaces since she’d watched Psycho with her dad last year, pretending to agree as she laughed along with him at how dated it was.

But Carly’s heart had hammered against her chest. She knew fear was amplified in the grey spaces between the black and the white.

The man’s fingers clutched at the back of Carly’s jumper. She was pulled away from his shoulder, which suddenly, inexplicably, now felt warm and safe and somewhere she wanted to stay. Her legs dangled helplessly until she was set down upon a soft surface. Not a staircase.

A mattress?

Vomit rose once more.