He was softening. She had seen it in her dad before her mum gave one last push for the thing that she wanted.

‘We won’t tell anyone if you let us go. You’re kind. I can tell,’ another forced smile. ‘You’re not like that other horrible man—’

In a flash Doc dropped the bag onto the floor and left, slamming the door behind him.

‘No!’ Carly screamed, hurtling across the room as fast as she could. ‘Don’t leave us!’

But he had.

‘Come back. Come back.’ The girls screamed, hammering on the door until Carly felt the skin on her hands split, blood trickling down her wrists, her forearms.

‘Stop,’ she told the girls. ‘He isn’t coming back.’ She felt oddly numb, not quite able to process she had asked an adult for help and he had walked away. At a loss as to know what else to do, she crouched and looked inside the carrier bag he had left.

Again Spicy Tomato Snaps, bags of blackcurrant liquorice sweets, cans of cherry Coke. Even Marie, who was always particularly fond of fizzy drinks and snacks, shook her head.

‘Isn’t there any water?’ she whined. At home Mum could never get Marie to drink water, she was obsessed with sweet cordials and fresh juices. Fizzy drinks.

‘No,’ Carly said. ‘I’ll ask him to bring some bottles next time he comes.’

‘What if he never comes back?’ Leah asked.

Carly handed her a bag of crisps.

Hours passed.

‘I said I’ll fucking take care of it,’ Doc had said.

It?

Their ransom? Arranging to sell them.

It?

Killing them? Was he going to… No! She wouldn’t let her mind go there. Dean Malden was supposed to be the first boy to touch her and the girls were babies.

It? It? It?

She turned over theories while the clown laughed at her.

I know. He said. I know what’s going to happen to you.

Carly was exhausted from thinking. From feeling.

Lethargically she trudged around the room. Too restless to sit. Too weary to tug at the bars at the window. Too weak to rattle the door handle.

Too tired to scream.

To shout.

To cry.

‘Shall we do some dancing?’ Marie asked. Carly felt ashamed. She should be the one trying to lift the mood.

‘I’m too hungry to dance.’ Leah sucked her thumb.

‘What about… What about “I spy”?’ Carly cast her eyes around the room. P is for prison. ‘Or…’

‘I’ll tell us a story.’ Marie patted the mattress in between her and Leah. Carly padded over to them and lay in the space on her back. The twins nestled into her.

‘Once upon a time,’ Marie began in the voice she used for school plays, ‘there were three sisters who found themselves in terrible danger. They—’

‘The sisters are us, aren’t they?’ asked Leah.

‘I’m not telling. If you keep interrupting I’ll stop.’

‘Sorry.’

‘Anyway, they came face to face with two dragons and they could have run away but they knew they had to make their family proud of them so they were brave and…’