There was something hypnotic about the sheer concentration required to move with a rocking van, especially if your other senses are muffled. I stopped being afraid after a while. Nobody seemed to be trying to hurt me; I was being ignored with a capital I.
Then someone spoke. Male voice, older adult, gruff, like maybe he smoked a lot.
"Pull over. We need to reattach the number plate."
"There's a lay by up ahead." Another male voice. Maybe younger than the first. "Watch the girl." The van slowed, and stopped. One of the front doors opened, and a sudden tilt in the floor I sat on signalled that someone had climbed out. A few minutes later the floor tilted again, and a front door closed. The van started moving again. It took a few moments for the implications of what had happened to hit me. No number plate. I had been kidnapped in a generic white van with no distinguishing markings and no number plate. How was anybody going to be able to find me?
I was suddenly and paralysingly scared again.
Angus
I know I should have insisted that Mark get out at the school. I didn't, though. I'm not sure exactly why I let him tag along. It could have had something to do with the images that flashed across my mind as he sat cowering defiantly in that seat. Images of me having to drive for hours with my rage my only companion, trying not to imagine what they were doing to Rebecca with every passing minute. I knew I would have to keep a level head, or as level as was possible for me. Mark could help me do that. He would have to help me do that.
Mark
About half an hour into the journey or trip or pursuit or whatever you wanted to call it, I started worrying. About my mother and how she would be spinning out about Rebecca's kidnapping. And maybe they'd have realised that I'd disappeared too. I would have to contact Mum, and let her know that I was OK, and that I was with Angus and we were trying to find my sister, the needle, in a great big British haystack. Maybe not.
I looked across at Angus. His knuckles were white on the steering wheel, his face looked like it had been carved from marble, or some sort of more angular stone.
I had questions, but I also had doubts. Angus looked like he was about to snap something in half, and I didn't want that something to be me.