Half Bad by Sally Green

Author:Sally Green
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Tags: Juvenile Fiction, Fantasy & Magic, General
ISBN: 9780141350875
Publisher: Penguin UK
Published: 2014-03-03T00:00:00+00:00

codified

I’m in Celia’s van, face down on the metal floor. It’s nearly two years since I was last here and yet the rusting paint seems familiar.

Kieran has begun to heal his broken nose but it’s well mashed. He is holding a chain that is attached to my handcuffs and wrapped round my ankles, and he jerks on it to pass the time.

Clay is sitting in the passenger seat at the front, Tamsin is driving, Megan is following in the 4x4 and I guess Celia is still at the cottage.

The only thing to do is rest, but as soon as I doze Kieran yanks at my ankles or lashes my buttocks with the chain. When he’s fed up with that he shouts to the front of the van, ‘Hey, Tamsin, I’ve got another.’

‘Yeah?’ she shouts back.

‘What’s the difference between a Half Code and a trampoline?’

She doesn’t answer and I get a heavy stomp on my back as Kieran says, ‘You take your shoes off to jump on a trampoline.’

His next joke he says quietly, just sharing it with me. ‘What’s the difference between a Half Code and an onion?’ He lifts my shirt up. I feel his fingers scratch over the lower part of my scars, his scars, as he says, ‘Cutting up an onion makes you cry.’

After four or five hours the van stops. From the few voices I hear it has to be a motorway service station. They fill up with petrol and then sit around eating burgers and chips and slurping drinks. The smell would be tempting but I’m desperate for a piss and don’t want to think about food and drink.

It probably isn’t going to be worth it, but I say it anyway. ‘I need a pee.’

The chain whips across the top of my thighs. I have to clench my teeth and breathe through my nose.

When the pain eases I say, ‘I still need a pee.’

The chain hits my thighs again.

The van sets off. Clay is giving mumbled instructions to the driver but I can’t hear them.

Twenty minutes later the van stops. I’m dragged backwards by the ankles and out of the back of the van, which is backed up into some bushes. There is little traffic noise. They’ve found a quiet spot.

‘Any trouble. Anything. And you’re dead.’ Kieran says it so close to my ear I can feel the spray of spit.

I don’t acknowledge him.

He undoes my handcuffs and frees my right hand.

I piss. A long, long wonderful piss.

I’ve hardly zipped up and I’m back in the cuffs and shoved into the van again. I’m smiling inside at the relief, and because I’m thinking of Celia. She is tougher than these idiots.

The journey just keeps joggling along. Kieran must be sleeping cos he’s not bothering me. The nail is still in my mouth but there’s no chance of escape with three Hunters round me.

The rust of the van’s floor scratches across my cheek as I’m pulled out of the back end of the van once more.

‘On your knees.

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