Free Ring Around Rosie by Emily Pattullo

so
close Rosie could see the tiny hairs above his lips breaking the surface of his
skin. His breath smelt of cigarettes and evil. Rosie hardly breathed as he held
her against the wall, his body pressing against hers. Then he let her go and
she slumped onto the floor.
    Rosie held her neck where his hand had
been, it felt so small beneath her own hand it must have felt like a twig to
him; easily snapped. She gulped back the vomit that had entered her mouth. Her
family: she hadn’t even thought they might get hurt.
    Rosie looked up and saw Zaydain leaning
against the wall, his eyes roaming hungrily over the others as they tried to
keep themselves from his gaze. His eyes then flicked angrily in her direction
and she started putting on her clothes, staying seated on the floor in an
attempt to keep her body hidden too.
    She wriggled into a small lace top with a
bra sewn inside it, then a short skirt with a split up the side. There was also
a brown wig cut in a bob with a straight fringe. It reminded her of the Barbie
doll girls at the school she used to go to. She brushed her hair under the wig;
pushing herself aside to make way for the other person they expected her to be.
She felt numb now. Robotic. She couldn’t fight anymore, or even entertain the
idea of escape. Not if it meant her family might get hurt. She’d caused them
enough pain.
    Rosie stood, pulling sheepishly at the
skirt in an attempt to make it longer. It didn’t seem to want to oblige so she
gave up and just shivered. Zaydain stared at her, his eyes distant blue pools
of desire, and then, as if coming out of a trance, he blinked and reached into
a bag full of coats.
    “Put these on, we don’t want you to catch a
chill now do we?” he sneered. “And brighten up your miserable mouths with
this,” he said, tossing them each a lipstick.
    Rosie’s was called Orange Sunset and it
smelt of her old history teacher.
    Griff suddenly appeared in the doorway and
they each slipped on a pair of shoes and were marched out into the cool night.
    Rosie’s shoes pinched her feet as she
tottered along at the back. She noticed Baduwa stumbling ahead of her,
desperately trying to master a confident, sexy walk, but her drooping shoulders
and frightened, darting eyes gave her away, and Rosie realised that Baduwa was
beginning to lose her beautiful plumage.
    As they were bundled into the car, Zaydain
cursed under his breath and ran back towards the building they had just left.
Griff sat in the front seat shifting nervously. Rosie was alarmed to find she
pitied him; he was like a child in every way except for his size, and she
wondered whether he felt just as trapped and helpless as the rest of them.
    She looked up and caught his dark eyes
watching her in the mirror; there was an unnerving yearning in them that made
Rosie gasp and look away. Baduwa shot her a look but Rosie just shook her head.
    “Put these on,” said Zaydain, getting back
into the car and passing each of them a small drawstring bag.
    Rosie opened hers tentatively, expecting a
large spider to crawl out and bite her hand, but instead found a small key on a
chain. She looked across at the others and saw that they had the same. They
weren’t plain door- or car-style keys; they were more ornate than that, like
keys to a treasure chest. Rosie turned hers over in her hand wondering where it
might let her in to, or, better still, out of.
    “Put it on,” Zaydain ordered again.
    “What’s it for?” asked Rosie.
    “Access all areas,” Zaydain laughed.
    Rosie did as she was told and then sat back
to gaze out of the window at the streaking lights, her flickering eyes desperately
searching the passing shops and houses for a spark of recognition, a clue that
she’d been there before. For ages there was nothing familiar and she began to
fear that she’d somehow got it wrong and they weren’t in London at all, but
soon the buildings got denser and higher and Rosie suddenly saw a department
store she’d visited many