‘Someone please,’ Shayla whispered into the dead darkness. ‘Please find me.’
As if they’d hear that. Her voice was raw from screaming. Her hands throbbed. Her fingernails were pulpy and bleeding after hours of trying to prise open the steel door. She knew it was steel by how cold it was, and by the way her fingers slid across it. It might as well have been solid rock for all the good her hammering did.
Her legs sagged beneath her like noodles. She hit the floor and slumped forward, her stringy hair falling over her face. She opened her mouth and tried to squeeze out a few more tears, but it was a no-go. It was as if she’d dried up inside like one of the old sponges her mother tossed into the yard.
Her stomach rumbled. It must be time for the food. Often it seemed it didn’t come for ages, although she had no way of measuring time. Maybe some days she was just extra-starved and her hunger made time drag.
Shutting her eyes, she curled on her side and thought of pizza. Normally she went for thin crust, but from now on she would go for thick. The kind with cheese in it, so when you bit into it the bread squelched and filled your mouth with salty mozzarella. She’d go for the meatlover’s too, something to sink her teeth into. Her fingers and hands might be shot to bits when she – if she – ever got out, but at least she still had her teeth . . .
She sat up. Tucking her throbbing hands in her armpits to warm them, she stared wide-eyed into the blackness. Before being in here, she remembered lashing out at someone. Hearing them grunt as if in pain or shock. And then she’d run, lurching and stumbling, not knowing or caring where she was heading, just that it was away. And that for a while, hours maybe, she’d been free.
She raised her hand to her lips and rested her teeth on her knuckles. Bit down a little to test her new weapon. And when she felt the nip of sharpness on her skin she heard her mum’s voice.
You listen to me now, Shay. If I’ve learned one thing from all the crap I’ve taken in my life, it’s this. You don’t just lie down and let the pricks stomp all over you. You fight back, okay? Scratch and kick and bite, ram them with your head. Any way you can, you fight back.
‘Yeah, Mum.’
The raspy croak must have come from someone else. It sounded nothing like her voice, all whispery and dried up. But it didn’t matter. She got the message loud and clear.
Fight back, okay?