Just Keep Breathing by GS Rhodes (good books to read for 12 year olds .txt) 📕

the floor by his bed. He quickly fired off a response to John on his phone, setting a time for the two of them to meet tomorrow evening before climbing into bed.

It was finally time for him to let Craig Peyton go.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Sarah Harper ran down the street at full pelt. She was already out of breath before she’d even started, the wind completely knocked out of her, but she needed to get away, and she needed to get away fast.

The past day had been hell. Drifting in and out of sleep, not knowing where she was, who was talking to her. She could barely remember what she’d seen, it had all happened so quickly.

So she had to keep going. She had to keep running. Her breaths were coming quick.

“Just keep going,” she told herself. “Just keep running. Don’t stop. Fucking hell, Sarah, do not stop.”

The footsteps were coming up behind her at some speed. They were heavy. She knew who it was, she knew that they were coming to get her and they wouldn’t stop until they had her. Where could she hide? Where could she go?

She managed to get away from the side streets, into somewhere that was better lit, where there were roads, where maybe someone would see her running, where someone could help her. But what time was it?

It was dark, the streetlamps were on, bathing everything in a strange orange light that made her feel disorientated. Though maybe that was from her lack of energy. Or the drugs. She felt dizzy.

“KEEP RUNNING!” she told herself again as she made her way towards the centre of town.

The fact that she’d managed to get away felt like a minor miracle. They’d sedated her, she knew that much, left her in a room all by herself, drifting in and out of consciousness. They’d left her for too long. Maybe they’d forgotten she was even there, pushed it to the back of their mind, a desperate attempt to stop themselves from feeling guilty for what they’d done to her.

She almost laughed.

Like they could feel guilt.

They probably enjoyed it.

She’d made it out of the room, she’d surprised them, and it was in that moment that she’d managed to make her escape, out into the night, out onto the streets where maybe she could find someone to help her.

But it was late. There wasn’t anyone around. Not a single soul in the whole town.

It was like a nightmare.

She’d had dreams like this before. Where you’re running from someone and you just can’t get away no matter how hard you try. You can feel them gaining on you, your legs pounding against the pavement. One trip, one slip, and it’s over.

Tears broke free from her eyes and started running down her face, mixing with the rain that was drizzling down around her, slicking the pavement, making her escape all the more treacherous.

She turned back.

They were still there.

Of course, they were.

They would never stop.

Without thinking of where she was going, Sarah Harper started through the middle of town. She barrelled past the darkened shop fronts, past the M&S with its shutters down, past the Bentall Centre that still seemed to be lit up like a beacon, even in the middle of the night.

When she carried on out of town and started over Kingston Bridge, she didn’t realise the mistake she’d made. She was running out of steam, running out of places to go, running out of ideas, if she had any ideas at all in the first place.

Then she made her final mistake.

She took a left towards the riverside, heading out of the light and into the dark. She ran down the paved road and towards the river, heading past the houseboats with their twinkly lights still on even though it was the middle of the night, even though Christmas had long since passed, and she kept going.

She kept going until the ground seemed to give way under her feet, or maybe it was her legs giving way, finally giving up.

Sarah Harper fell near the water, her head smashing onto the concrete and as the blackness enveloped her and took her away, her assailant stopped and watched her. They watched her lying there, the blood pouring from a wound on her head, her jacket covered in mud, her legs scraped and bleeding too.

They walked over, shoes squelching in the mud along the riverbank. They watched her move, slowly coming to. She locked eyes with them and moved her mouth, trying to say something, maybe even trying to scream.

It was a risk they couldn’t take.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

DI Kidd wasn’t prepared for what greeted him when he made it into the station the following morning. He’d woken up determined to get to the bottom of what was going on. They had more suspects than they could count, everyone from Norman Kaye to Dexter Black, with the headteacher and Caleb Kaye in-between. They needed to narrow it down and every second that passed was putting Sarah in more and more danger.

He’d walked into the Incident Room with that renewed vigour, a spring in his step almost as he approached DS Sanchez and told her what he had found out about Caleb. She was interested, more than interested. They broached it with DC Ravel, who dug a little bit deeper and found that he had no online connection to the family at all, his social media presence was almost nil. If he had a relationship with Sarah it was either analogue or non-existent. Which put many questions in Kidd’s head about Alexandra Kaye.

They were about to get to work on trying to narrow this down, wanting to bring people in, when DCI Weaver walked into the room.

And that was when DI Benjamin Kidd knew something was wrong.

He’d worked with DCI Weaver long enough to know that he barrelled into rooms like a bull in a china shop, knocking anyone and anything out of the way to make sure everybody knew