Donia was next to him, standing up, but her hand was tethered to the bedstead by a metal chain, padlocked around one of the metal struts. She was trying to put some distance between her and the old man, and Charlie could tell it was because of the stench coming from the bed.
Charlie went towards her. Fresh tears ran down her face, and when he got next to her, she wrapped her free arm around him, sobbing.
He pulled her close. The enormity of it was too much to take in, but in that moment, something passed between them, the sudden knowledge that they both knew what they were to each other. It didn’t have to be said.
‘We need to get you out,’ Charlie whispered. ‘I promised your mother.’
Donia bit her lip at that, but then nodded vigorously. ‘I think they’re going to hurt me,’ she said, and her voice cracked.
Charlie looked at the chain. It was a solid metal chain looped around her wrist, with a padlock fastening the other end to a metal strut on the bedstead.
‘I won’t allow that to happen,’ Charlie said, and when he said it, he meant it. Except that as he looked at the clasp, he didn’t know how he was going to live up to it. He tried to prise it open, but it was solid, as he knew it would be. ‘I don’t how to do this,’ he said, despair in his voice.
Donia looked at him, scared, hope wilting, more tears running down her face. Then there was a noise from the bed. Charlie looked down. It was the old man, his head turned towards him. His eyes were yellow, and as Charlie stared into them, he saw fear.
‘Who are you?’ Charlie said.
The old man tried to shake his head, but it came as a tremor, nothing more. His eyes went towards a cup on the other side of the bed and he nodded, his eyes widening. A plea.
There was a cup with water in it.
‘They taunt him,’ Donia said. ‘They put the water where he can’t reach, and put food in front of him and then take it away. That’s what they’re like. And there’s other stuff too. I heard it.’ Her breath caught as more tears came.
Charlie looked at Donia, and then at the chain, but he caught the desperation in the old man’s eyes. Charlie went quickly to the other side of the bed before putting the cup to his lips. The old man gulped at the water, his arms not moving, as if he was too weak. As he leaned forward for the cup, Charlie saw his skeletal physique. The sharp edges of his collarbone, the rack of his ribs. They were starving him.
‘We’ll come back for you,’ Charlie whispered to him, and as the old man nodded, his eyes closing, Charlie went back to Donia and tried to work out how to get her free. The bedstead seemed the easiest way. Then her eyes went wide. ‘Someone’s coming.’
Charlie turned back to the door. He heard them too. Footsteps. Excited voices.
He looked around the room. It was sparsely furnished, with just a dresser in one corner. There was only one place to go.
He went to the floor and pulled himself under the bed.
He closed his eyes and tried not to gag as he got underneath. The smell of shit was overpowering now. His eyes watered, his mouth filled with saliva.
The door opened. Charlie peered along his body and saw heavy boots appear in the room. Steel-toecapped, covered in mud. He pulled his feet up to make sure he wasn’t seen.
Charlie lay still, trying not to breathe, hoping that he could trust the old man not to give him away.
The footsteps were loud and they clomped slowly towards Donia. She shrank back, obvious from the rattle of the bed and the way one foot crossed onto the other. Was it a ringleader? If he took him by surprise, would it give him a chance with the others?
But what if he got it wrong? Donia was secured in the room. He could mess it up for her. He had seen what they could do. If they were still waiting for him, perhaps she still had a chance, as long as he didn’t give himself away.
The feet stopped in front of Donia. The bedstead clanged as Donia pushed herself against it, in an effort to get away. Charlie’s stomach rolled and he gripped the bedsprings so that they cut into his knuckles.
‘Please, don’t,’ Donia said. He closed his eyes. He could hear the fear in her voice.
There was a chuckle, low and mean, and then the rip of cloth. ‘I just want to see what you’ve got,’ the voice said. Charlie heard a slap. Donia cried out and then whimpered a small sob. ‘You’ve got some time. I won’t kill you without having a party with you first.’
Even though Charlie’s eyes were still closed, the scene was all too vivid. He could hear the shuffle of the man’s feet as he got closer to Donia, his breaths quickening, Donia’s panic rising. He felt impotent, unsure what to do. When she cried out, Charlie knew he had no choice.
He started to slide out from under the bed, on the other side, so that the man would have to move away from Donia to get to him. Charlie’s hands gripped the springs underneath as he pulled himself across the floor, and then when he was free of the bed, he got ready to spring up and surprise him. Charlie knew he would have to fight, there was no choice, because he was trapped and he knew what the group could do.
Then he stopped. There was the sound of running feet outside, excited voices. Something was happening.
Charlie pulled himself back under the bed and heard someone burst into the room.
‘They’ll be here soon,’ a voice said, a young woman.
A pause and then, ‘Who?’
‘The police. They are bound to be on their way. If Ted Kenyon was here, he must have told people where he was. We need to get ready, we’ve got a fight ahead. And we need to get Dawn in the ground, and Ted Kenyon.’
Charlie closed his eyes. Why did you do it, Ted?
The silence stretched too long, and then the heavy boots left the room. Charlie could hear excited shouting outside.
He slid out quickly. He knew he didn’t have much time.
Donia was against the wall, her arms covering her chest, exposed by the rip of her clothes. There was a swelling under her eye and blood on her mouth.
Charlie tried to control his anger, because it wouldn’t help. He had to work a way out of this.
He looked again at the padlock. It was too solid to break. His eyes went to the bedstead. The chain at the other end was around a metal strut. Perhaps that was the weak point.
The old man was lying underneath where the chain was fastened. Charlie didn’t want to hurt him, and so he ran to the other side of the bed and pulled at his arm, so that he was dragged away from the chain. Despite his frailness, the old man seemed heavy, as if he was wet. Moving him displaced some of the bedcovers as they wrapped around his body, and Charlie dry-heaved as the sheets were exposed. They were moisture stains on the edge of the sheets and the cloth was smeared in shit. Some of it old and dry, some of it fresher. The backs of his legs were sore and red, with blisters running towards his soiled pants.
‘Do they just leave you?’ Charlie said, his teeth gritted against the smell and what he could see.
The old man grimaced slightly but then nodded, his eyes closing. Charlie felt his shame.
‘I’m sorry,’ Charlie said to him, and then ran back to Donia. He rested his foot against the strut, to make sure he could reach it. Donia pulled her body away, her arm outstretched, the metal padlock at the top of the strut.
Charlie slammed his foot against the strut. It rattled in the frame but didn’t bend. He grimaced and kicked it again, except this time the strut didn’t rattle; the frame did. There was some distortion.
Charlie kicked it once more, and then he saw a bend in it.
He felt a surge of inner strength, the knowledge that he could do it, but he had to move quickly. Charlie gritted his teeth as he kicked the strut hard, each blow denting it a little further. The old man was trying to shield his face and Donia was grimacing.
He was stamping out with his foot, the bedstead banging against the wall. The strut bent in even more. There was shouting coming from outside. He had to go quicker. Perspiration popped onto his forehead. He hit it twice more, and then he heard the metal strut clink against the wall, the top of it popped out of the frame.
Donia pulled the handcuff up the strut so that it came loose at the top, the metal chain hanging down from her wrist. But she was free. She gathered the chain in her arms and walked towards the door.
