I stepped inside, casting my gaze around for her. Nothing. Either she was hiding somewhere, or she was where I’d left her.
Carrying the bags over to the kitchen, I debated putting the food away before checking on her, but I wanted to make sure she was where I’d left her. The chair remained wedged under the doorhandle, but she could have done that herself to make it look as though she was still in there.
I dumped the bags on the side and approached the cupboard and banged on the door.
“You still alive in there?” No response came. “Hey, answer me.” Still nothing. I tried something else. “Are you hungry? I’ve brought food.”
It bothered me that she wasn’t replying. I raked my hand through my hair and pursed my lips, thinking. She might have found something in the cupboard to attack me with and was waiting for me to open the door. Or else she was long gone, and I was talking to myself.
I had no choice but to open it.
Keeping my gun in one hand, I used the other to unjam the chair from the handle. I pushed it to one side. No one threw themselves at the other side of the door, demanding to be let out. Cautiously, with my gun aimed in case of any attack, I eased open the door.
It was dark inside, and it took a moment for my eyes to adjust. For a second, I thought she’d vanished, but then I caught sight of her sitting in the farthest corner, with her knees up to her chest and her arms wrapped around her legs. She’d made herself so small, I almost didn’t see her. Only the white of her skin caught my eye.
She wasn’t crying or screaming. She was breathing fast and barely seemed to notice my arrival. Her gaze was fixed on something I’d have thought was distant had it not been for the fact she was sitting in a relatively modest cupboard.
“Oi, sweetheart,” I said, aware I still didn’t know her name. “I brought you food.”
She didn’t respond, and I wasn’t sure I’d even seen her blink yet. What the fuck was wrong with her?
She said she was claustrophobic...
Okay, clearly that was true, but I’d taken it as a ‘I prefer not to be in small spaces’ not a ‘small spaces make me catatonic.’
Could this be a trick? Would she lash out at me if I dared to get close?
Something else occurred to me. I wanted her father to see her wrecked. This was a good start.
Employing the light from the door, I could see her pale face was streaked with tears. She rocked back and forth, but only slightly, so it almost wasn’t noticeable.
I took my phone from my pocket. I felt like a cold-hearted son of a bitch for doing it, but then I brought to mind Jodie’s face as she lay dying in my arms, the utter fear and pain and panic that had been her final moments. And I pulled up the camera app, flicked to record, and filmed the girl for her father’s viewing.
With that done, I put the phone back in my pocket and approached her.
“Hey, you can get up now. Come on. You can get out of here.”
Her eyelids flickered. I couldn’t see anything she’d try to hurt me with. Fuck. Should I just leave her here? It was tempting just to back out and shut the door again. But something—that part of me that must have remained alive after Jodie’s death—niggled at me. Was it Jodie herself? How would she have reacted if she’d seen this? She would have fallen to her knees and hugged the other girl, no matter who her father was. Jodie had been one of those people who’d made friends with everyone. While I did my best to avoid conversations with strangers, she’d strike one up, and by the end of it would know everything there was to know about another person. I always struggled, never asking the right questions, nor asking questions at all, so the person I was talking too soon got bored of the one-sided conversation.
Jodie would have hated me for doing this.
Fuck, fuckity, fuck.
I dropped to a crouch next to her. “Come on, let’s get you out of here.”
Still, she didn’t respond. I touched her upper arm, and she flinched.
What had happened to the girl who’d kicked me in the jaw earlier? She’d gone from giving me shit to curling up in the corner.
With a sigh, I tucked the gun into the back of my trousers. I scooped her up under the backs of her legs, my other arm supporting her back, and lifted her into my arms. I’d still been ready for her to be faking and spring something on me, but she remained unresponsive.
I carried her into the living area and over to the sofa. I placed her down on the cushions. Her hands were still tied. Did I dare untie her? It didn’t look as though she was much to fear, but again, this could all be a trick.
“I’ll make you a coffee.”
I left her there so I could boil the kettle. I needed a coffee myself, and about twelve hours of sleep. I wasn’t going to get that any time soon, though. I remembered that I needed to take her photograph to send to Tam so he could get me a passport for her. I could hardly photograph her like this. I needed to snap her out of it.
I boiled the kettle and located the coffee and dumped a couple of spoonsful into each cup and added sugar. I figured we could both do with the caffeine and sugar hit. I added enough milk to cool the drink down for her to have right away. I didn’t think she was in any position to complain if I hadn’t made it how she liked it.