Someone Who Isn't Me, Danuta Kot [good books to read for adults TXT] 📗

along the base in the pitch black until she found it.

Her mind seemed to be working in a place that was far away, that was paying no attention to the darkness, the wet, the stink. Her brain was telling her that the catch operated from the front of the car. There was a button, or a lever, or something. And that meant a cable.

She had to find the cable, pull it, get the lock to open.

Frantically, she felt around the lock again. It was protected by the trim. The way out was just on the other side of this thin sheet of plastic, but she couldn’t reach it and she didn’t have any time left.

Wait! The trim was loose along the bottom of the hatch. She forced her fingers under it, feeling it pinch her hand against the metal edge of the door. Her hands felt slippery as she pushed them further behind the trim.

It wouldn’t give.

The car lurched, and turned again down another bumpy track. She could feel tears of terror running down her face, but tears couldn’t save her now. It was close. Any minute, the car was going to slow down, stop, the people in the front were going to get out. And then…

She was sitting on the floor of her bedroom and Matt was carefully putting a picture frame back together, one that Becca had smashed in a room-wrecking rage. He looked up and smiled at her. ‘See?’ he said. ‘Take your time. Good as new.’

Her mind was playing tricks, taking her away from this place, trying to make her less scared, trying to take her to somewhere safe.

Take your time.

Her hands, that had been grabbing frantically, slowed down. She closed her fingers around the plastic and pulled as hard as she could. This time, it gave. It moved enough for her to slip her hands behind it. Now she could feel the lock mechanism.

She ran them carefully round, trying to feel her way. Take your time. A cable. There had to be a cable. There was nothing! Panic started to bubble up, and she forced it back down. No Becca here!

Again.

Try again. It was here, it had to be.

And she found it. A thick wire, running away from the lock. She got her hands round it and pulled.

Nothing.

She tried again, the panic rising up in a way she knew she wouldn’t be able to control. Once it took her this time, she’d start screaming and screaming and she wouldn’t be able to stop until—

Locks move two directions – one to lock, one to unlock. If she’d been pulling the cable the wrong way… She gripped it with a hand that was now so slippery it was hard to get purchase, and pulled in the opposite direction hard as she could.

There was a popping noise and the boot lid unlatched.

Becca froze, then grabbed at it before it could fly fully open.

Now her breath was coming in short, sharp gasps and her heart was thumping.

She had to get out.

And then get away, that was the thing. Get away and get help.

It was dark. The driver wouldn’t see what was happening. OK. Now! She shoved the boot open, swung her legs, still tied, over the edge. There was an old newspaper on the floor of the boot, and, acting almost on instinct, she grabbed it before she rolled out, landing on hard ground with an impact that knocked the air out of her lungs.

She raised her head. Just a few feet away in the moonlight, water flowed by, fast and silent.

The estuary. They were that close.

The car slowed to a halt on a hardstanding. In the headlights, she could see a low mesh fence with warning signs attached. The fence was broken and sagged away in front of the car.

The car doors opened, and two people got out. The moonlight caught Alicia’s long, fair hair that gleamed as she stretched, like someone taking a short and welcome break after a long drive.

Becca ducked her head down so her face wouldn’t catch the light. She was working frantically on the binding round her legs, tearing off her trainers and socks, and now the tape was loose enough, now the wet was making it less sticky and she was peeling it off as fast as she could.

She pulled the last of the tape away and spider-crawled backwards to keep herself in the shadow.

‘Okaaay.’ Alicia drew the word out. ‘Let’s get this done.’

As Becca watched, the man, just a silhouette against the car lights, opened the back door and dragged a small figure out by the arms. Lewis. Lewis was struggling and shouting. ‘Get off me! Get off me!’

‘You talk too much. Come on, Stoner, get him in the boot.’

Lewis’s scream was cut off as the man clamped a hand over the child’s mouth. Alicia moved to the back of the car then stopped. ‘It’s open. She’s gone!’ Her voice rose to a shout. ‘Fuck it, Stoner, what did you do?’

‘I didn’t do anything. She’s gone? She can’t… Look! She was bleeding. She can’t be far away. We’ll find her.’

Bleeding? Becca looked at her hands and saw they were covered in something that shone dark in the moonlight. She must have cut herself when she…

But that didn’t matter. She couldn’t run away. They’d just dump the car into the water with Lewis, just a kid, trapped in the boot to drown. She would have to fight and she had nothing to fight with, except… the newspaper. Just hit him with a newspaper. She was rolling it up in her hands almost as she thought of it, rolling it up tight, folding it over.

It seemed like nothing, it was nothing, but it was all she had.

She heard that laugh again, the same one she’d heard in the yard that night, and understood something about Alicia.

She wasn’t doing this because she needed to. She wanted to watch the car sink slowly under the water, knowing that someone was trapped inside. The only thing