Free Captive by A. J. Grainger

naked.
    I dunk my head, then grab the soap and lather it over my scalp. I wash quickly, pulling my clothes away from my skin. When I’m done, I clamber out, fabric sticking to me. Feather has
already started banging on the door and telling me to hurry the hell up. At the sound of her voice, my hands start shaking and it is an effort to wrap the towel around me. I remember something the
therapist I saw after the shooting in Paris said about breathing from the belly to calm anxiety, so I try it now: sticking my belly out and imagining tugging the oxygen right down into my lungs. In
my mind, I go over all the things I know about these people: Scar’s slashed fingers, Talon’s green eyes, Feather’s dark ones and how she is so small. And the most important thing:
the reason I am here is because Feather wants her brother, Kyle Jefferies, freed. That means I know her surname as well. Next I remember the layout upstairs and how many steps it is from my cell to
the bottom of the staircase. These are all things I can use, if not now, then later. They will either help me escape or they will help the police catch these people.
    My hands have stopped shaking. I work my way out of my own clothes and into the new ones. Feather bangs on the door as I am pulling the hoodie over my head.
    I am staring dumbly at the red light of a video camera. My cell has been made into a makeshift studio, with a blackout curtain pinned to the window and a lamp angled on my
face. On the floor in front of the bed is a sheet of paper with the words I am supposed to have memorised. I can’t remember a single one, even though I have spent a long time looking at them.
My brain is in panic mode, where it just keeps saying ‘Remember this, remember this’ over and over again, until the words are blurring on the page and adrenaline is surging through me,
making my chest hot. I’m getting a tension headache too and the sick feeling is back. Never mind remembering the words on this page. There’s a very real possibility I will throw up all
over them.
    All three of my kidnappers are here: Talon and Feather by the door, Scar working the camera, his hulking frame bent almost double to be at the same height as the tripod. It is the first time I
have seen him since I tried to escape. His eyes still slither over me and I sense his excitement as he flicks his slimy tongue across his lower lip. There is something else beyond desire in his
look now. Anger? No. It is more like resentment; the others don’t trust him to guard me any more. Neither do I. It could be the one thing the three of us agree on.
    ‘What’s the matter, Princess?’ he scoffs. ‘Can’t read?’
    ‘We’re waiting, Robyn,’ Feather says. She and Talon are standing close together. I wonder how he can stand being so near her.
    ‘I . . . I can’t remember all the words.’
    Feather mutters a series of obscenities at me and about me.
    ‘It’s a long speech,’ Talon interrupts. ‘Give her time.’
    ‘Marble doesn’t have time.’
    ‘We’ve time,’ Talon says quietly, touching her arm. A look of understanding passes between them, and Feather’s fingers flex and relax.
    After retrieving the sheet of paper from the floor and holding it out to me, Talon tells me to divide it into sections. ‘We’ll film a bit at a time.’
    ‘Won’t work. It’ll look like shit,’ Feather says.
    He persuades her to just give it a go. ‘Read the first few paragraphs over to yourself, Robyn, and then we’ll record them,’ Talon says.
    I look at the paper, letting my hair fall in front of my face, like it might protect me from them.
    Hi, Dad,
I read to myself.
I’m safe, but I’m scared and I want to come home, even though they’re treating me well. My kidnappers want to make it clear that they are
not terrorists. They just believe that this sort of decisive action is the only way to bring public attention to their cause.
The next few paragraphs are about corporate greed and