Time To Play by KA Richardson (free children's ebooks online .txt) 📕

bathroom and heard the woman in the shower. She’d pegged it into the canteen and hidden beneath a pile of jackets and the like, certain that her luck was out and that she’d be caught now.

She’d jumped herself when the man had come into the room and spoken to the woman. She really needed to learn to check people had gone before coming out from under the stairs. When he’d started laughing though, for a moment Elvie had wondered if maybe these police weren’t the same as back home. Maybe she could ask them for help and not be punished. I just don’t know what to do. I need some help. I miss you, Noni. You’d know what to do.

She stayed hidden beneath the coats until she heard the cars leave, then slowly emerged. The pile consisted of jackets, waterproofs and kit. Most stations had one similar somewhere. Since the dive team’s headquarters didn’t have locker rooms, it accumulated in a corner of the recreation room.

Elvie felt a stab of guilt as she pulled open the fridge. No matter how much she tried to sugar-coat it, stealing was wrong. But she had to eat.

She opened the top of a Tupperware box that had been left on the shelf and sniffed suspiciously. It was a rice dish, with lumps of chicken and vegetables. Grabbing a fork from the draining board, she tucked in, her mouth watering as she tasted the tang of chilli. When she was done, she flicked through the magazines left on the table. One thing she could say about being holed up with no one to talk to was that it gave her time to read. And her reading skills were improving rapidly. She was even starting to understand some of the slang terms used. She made a conscious effort to listen whenever she heard conversation, then when everyone had gone home, she’d been practising her words.

She wanted to be able to leave the station, venture out and find help, but to do that she knew she had to be able to speak. Noni had taught her, but she wanted to be better, and reading helped her learn. Besides, there wasn’t a whole lot else that she could do cooped up in the police station.

Ryhope, Sunderland – 10 November

Nita was confused. The whole situation was just surreal. One minute the man who came in was hurting her, then the next he was stroking her face, talking softly and feeding her painkillers.

In the time she’d been there, he’d gotten her off the drugs she never even wanted to be on, broken bones, beaten her and then dressed her wounds to alleviate her discomfort. She had no idea what he wanted, or why he was keeping her there. And she was losing track of time: the lack of natural light made the days indistinguishable from the nights.

The last few times he’d visited, he’d taken to staring at her, his gaze what she could only describe as compassionate. It was unnerving. She’d tried talking to him, but he never understood. He seemed pleased when she didn’t show the pain she felt, so she’d started not crying out when he hit her, not whimpering and crying despite the fact the fear kept her chest so tight she thought it might burst at times.

Right now, the room was pitch-black, even the portable heater wasn’t giving off any light that she could see. She couldn’t hear a thing either, except the ticking of the clock on the wall above the workbench. Not that she could see it: she remembered its position from the times the lights had been on. She hated the clock: it ticked so loud that sometimes she found herself twitching in time with it. Given half the chance, she’d rip the horrid thing off the wall and smash it to smithereens.

Nita had taken to trying to sleep whenever he wasn’t there, but it was uncomfortable. Even now she could feel the metal bars of the cage digging into her skin, causing bruises on bruises. She couldn’t stretch out fully, couldn’t even stretch her legs out if she sat up. Her neck ached permanently from being bent at an angle, and many of the grooves to her skin off the cage had started getting sore and weepy.

She was lucky if he was in the room for a couple of hours over the day, and she felt like she was slowly going insane. She had full conversations with herself, dreaming about when she would escape, then arguing with herself and saying that it would never happen and that he would kill her in this little dark room.

Truthfully, she didn’t know what to think. She knew he had had plenty of opportunity to kill her if that was what he wanted, and she had no idea why he kept her alive.

Turning slightly, Nita repositioned herself on the other side, and fumbled in the dark for the water bottle she knew was somewhere near the cage door. Taking hold of it in the crook of her bad hand she used the other to subconsciously rub at the welts on the leg that had been against the base of the cage.

There’s only me, no one knows I’m here. No one will ever find me. If I’m going to get out of here, I need to do something.

She fought as tears of desperation threatened to fall again. The tears did no good, they couldn’t help her.

Angrily, she swiped at the salty rivers on her cheeks. No more. Whatever happened, this situation was down to her to resolve. If she didn’t help herself, she would die. It was that simple.

Next time he comes in, I’ll be friendly; I’ll make him understand that I won’t tell anyone. I’ll look for an opportunity to escape. Maybe when he puts me in the chair, I might be able to distract him.

Resolve made,