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‘I want to.’
‘Will you go, then? Get the police? Bring them back here so they can release me?’
A few weeks ago, my word of the week wastenacious. It suits Elissa perfectly. If I’d been blessed with an older sister, I’d want one exactly like this. I’m so overcome with admiration that for a while I have to look away. I focus on the candle as its flame bobs and weaves.
Once I’ve mastered my emotions, my attention returns to the girl in chains. ‘If you’ve only just arrived,’ I ask, ‘then why do you want to leave?’
Elissa
Day 3
I
His question is so bizarre that for a moment she cannot think.
Elissa opens her mouth, searching for words, for anything that might get this conversation back on track.
She’s still thinking when Elijah asks, ‘Did he explain the rules?’
It takes the space of two breaths for the full implications of his question to hit. Elissa kicks out her feet, scrambling back. She’s halfway across the floor when the chain snaps taut and the manacle chews into her wrist. The pain is sickening. Her scream fills the chamber. Collapsing on to her side, she twists and flops like a cat struck by a car. Blood pulses over her hand. In the grip of that white-hot agony, Elijah’s words play over and over.
Did he explain the rules?
There’s a pressure in her chest like nothing she’s previously experienced. It feels as if her heart’s about to burst. Moments ago, it seemed she’d been thrown a lifeline. No longer.
Elissa clenches her teeth, thinks she might dry-heave. Somehow, she manages to gasp: ‘What rules?’
Obscured behind his torch, Elijah sits down. Despite vision blurred by pain and tears, Elissa notes – from the position of the light – that he’s settled in C6, easily within the boundary of her chain. She wonders if he knows that. Guesses he probably does.
It hardly matters. She’s in no state to fight. And what, anyway, would it achieve? Although he’s revealed his involvement, he’s disclosed nothing of his intent.
‘You’re the same age as Bryony,’ Elijah says. ‘But you don’t look like her.’
The pain in her wrist comes in waves. At its peak it smothers her senses.
Time passes. Perhaps five minutes, perhaps an hour. Carefully, Elissa pulls herself upright. ‘Bryony,’ she says. Her voice sounds like she’s speaking through a pillow. ‘Is that your sister?’
‘Uh-uh. Bryony was my friend. For six whole months. She was pretty, just like you. Except when she was crying, which, towards the end, was quite a lot.’
Elissa’s eyes wander to the crimson-brownish stain in C4. ‘Was Bryony here?’
Elijah’s torch flicks to the door’s damaged soundproofing. ‘She did that. I told her not to. Told her it’d bring trouble. That’s when he sank the hoop. Things got bad after. I was so scared I hardly dared visit.’ His throat contracts noisily. ‘I’m not a coward. But by then, Bryony … She’d turned sorta crazy. Wouldn’t listen to anyone, not even me. Still, she got her tree. I made sure of that, even if I couldn’t make sure of anything else.’
‘Her tree?’
‘Picked out a tall one, just like she asked.’
Elissa tries to focus her thoughts. She doesn’t have a friend here, not yet, but she senses an opportunity, however small, to create one. ‘Why did he bring me here?’ she asks. ‘What’s he going to do?’
II
For a minute or so, Elijah is silent. Then he says: ‘Nothing bad. Long as you follow the rules.’
Suddenly, it’s an effort to hold up her head. ‘What’re the rules?’
‘They change.’
‘Can you tell me who he is?’