Daylight was fading. Sleep swiped for Carly and she kept pushing it away, only hearing fragments of Marie’s tale of triumph where somehow the girls turned into princesses and won medals for courage. Eventually Marie’s voice grew smaller, her breathing deeper until at last they all slept.

Carly was disorientated as she woke to half light, unsure whether it was the same day. Although her arms were numb, she lay still, not wanting to wake the girls either side of her who were using her shoulders for pillows. She gazed out of the window until she was certain the sun was rising, not setting.

They had been here another night.

A solid mass of melancholy lodged in her throat. What if they really were here forever? There was no prince riding on a white charger to rescue them but there had to be people looking for them. Their parents. The police. Maybe even Dean Malden. Why were they taking so long to find them?

A tear trickled down Carly’s cheek. She turned her head to the side, away from her sisters, and then she saw it, by the door.

A blue carrier bag.

It definitely hadn’t been there before.

Somebody had been in the room. The thought that the men might have stood over them while they were deep in exhausted sleep was chilling. She could have woken to find one of the twins missing. Both of them missing.

Why hadn’t she used the rubbish to build some sort of early warning signal by the entrance so anyone coming into the room would dislodge it and alert the girls to their presence? She must do that before tonight. She was already resigned to the fact they wouldn’t be getting out of here.

She tried to summon up some hope but she felt oddly detached as though this was all some weird dream and she was watching herself from high above, staring at the bag, while the clown stared at her.

She was so thirsty.

There could be water in the bag.

Slowly, she inched out from between the girls. Crawled over to the door. She reached inside the bag and pulled out a tightly wrapped package, grease stains seeping through white paper. A faint smell she recognized.

‘Chips?’ She looked questioningly at the clown. He didn’t answer. She was so parched her tongue was thick. Perhaps he hadn’t heard her. ‘Chips?’ she said again, cautiously unravelling the paper, staring in confusion at the thick slabs of potatoes until they danced in front of her eyes. She popped one onto her tongue.

Cold.

Greasy.

Delicious.

‘Girls! Wake up.’ Carly was delirious as she unwrapped the rest of food; a sausage, a huge piece of cod, a pie. The twins stumbled over to her, rubbing sleep from their eyes. They didn’t carry their breakfast back over to the mattress. They didn’t talk. Instead, they squatted among the dust and the rubble and the broken glass, and shovelled food into their mouths with both hands, looking fearfully around them as they chewed, half-expecting someone to burst in and take it away.