Captive (11 page)

I turn a page of the book. I don’t much care about birds but the photographs are beautiful. I get a lump in my throat just looking at them. One of my favourites is of a bird with
iridescent blue tail feathers, pecking at a red berry. I wish I could take photos like that. The description on the opposite page tells me it is a jay. ‘A colourful crow, about the same size
as a jackdaw. Jays are sociable birds with the ability to mimic others’ songs. When out bird-spotting, listen for a
krar krar
– this is their alarm call.’ I turn the page.
My namesake, a robin, its red chest puffed up, perches on a snowy branch. ‘Britain’s national bird. Their sweet song –
twiddle-oo twiddle-eedee
– often leads them to
be mistaken for nightingales.’

I glance over a few more pages, but I can’t identify the birds outside, and really, who cares? I push the book off my lap more forcefully than I mean to. It lands face down on the floor.
When I pick it up, I notice that the jay’s page is torn and crumpled. I flatten it out and then close the book, feeling sad. I’ve managed to ruin the one beautiful thing in this
place.

The door opens and I push the book under the pillow. I don’t want Talon to know a page is ripped.

Feather stands in the doorway, a pair of scissors clutched in her hand.

Feather gives no explanation as she drags me from the cell and down the hall, into the bathroom. She doesn’t even bother to cover my eyes. She shoves me forward now and I stumble into the
bathtub. ‘What – what are you going to do?’ I ask.

‘Just a little trim.’ She snaps the scissors at me.

‘Of what?’

‘Your hair, stupid.’

I snatch my hair up into a ponytail at the back my neck. As I do so, I catch a whiff of Mum’s shampoo, which I used to wash it on the day I was taken. The smell must be in my head; my hair
stinks of grease and sweat. But I don’t want Feather to cut it. I wonder if this has anything to do with Talon standing up for me. It’s a fleeting thought, not fully formed, and it
vanishes the second that Feather moves towards me with the scissors. Then my whole attention is focused on keeping her at bay and keeping hold of my hair.

She lunges and I duck, but not quickly enough and the blade opens a thin cut down my arm. I don’t want to let go of my hair, so I only have one arm to defend myself. Feather may be tiny
but she is strong. It quickly becomes clear that I’m no match for her. She tugs on my forearm, her skinny fingers digging into the graze and making my eyes sting. She forces me to sit on the
edge of the tub and she jabs the point of the scissors into the hand holding my hair until I let go. Then she wrenches my head back.

A moment later, I hear a
snip
and feel a tug on my scalp. My hair falls to the floor in a ribbon.

‘Why?’ I whimper.

‘To show we’re serious.’ Feather stands up and puts the scissors in her pocket.

Long dark strands of my hair lie scattered across the bathroom floor. I grab a handful of it and try to stand. I have to use the sink to steady myself. It’s like I’ve been beaten.
Hands trembling, I touch my head, so gently, like it is a wound. I can’t bring myself to look in the mirror. I duck my head automatically, but there’s no curtain of hair to protect me.
The hair in my hand is soft and still warm, so I loop it around my fingers. I never realised before how much my hair was a part of who I am.

Feather smiles at me. ‘You look like a soldier now. You look ready for the revolution.’

My cell is a TV studio again, only this time it is not Scar operating the camera. A small remote in Feather’s hand does that. Oh, and this time I won’t be talking.
My mouth is gagged and I am bound to a wooden chair. The lamp is also back and it’s pointed right into my eyes. Every time I turn my head out of its glare, Feather pushes me back into it. She
could have tugged me by my hair, but there isn’t enough of it left now. Not after she hacked it off this morning. That scene in the bathroom keeps playing over and over in my mind. Every time
Feather moves too quickly, I flinch.

Feather has been talking for what feels like hours. A muscle over her upper lip is ticking rhythmically like the countdown to something. She is angry. Her voice is as powerful as a river in full
flood. I think of something Dad once told me, that some previous PM had said about a fanatic being someone who can’t change their mind and won’t change the subject. Feather talks about
corporate greed and the devastating effect humans are having on the planet. She talks about social injustice and surveillance and corruption and complicity and revenge. She talks about illegal drug
testing, not just on animals but sometimes on humans too, in poorer countries where people turn to trials in a desperate attempt to get themselves and their families the drugs they need or even
just to earn some extra money. She talks about a million other things too, but I am losing focus. A lock of my severed hair is still wrapped around my fingers and I keep stroking it over and over.
In my mind, I am at home on my bed with Shadow.
Stroke, kitty. Stroke, kitty.
My brain is foggy. It won’t cooperate like it usually does. That scares me. I can’t fall apart. I am
all that I have in here.

Feather goes on and on. ‘You seek to demonise us by labelling us as terrorists because we are threatening your status quo – your world of inherited wealth and privilege. We are not
the enemy of the people, though. We are their salvation. A revolution is coming, Mr Prime Minister. We will live together in harmony on a planet that we seek to care for and sustain, without
harming any of its creatures or resources in the pursuit of our own ends.’ Feather shakes me by the neck like a dog. ‘Do not make your own daughter the first sacrifice in the coming
war. Give me back my brother. Save your daughter’s life.’ From her pocket, Feather pulls out something shiny: a strip of silver in the lamplight.

A knife.

Oh my God.

I shriek into the gag as she slices one of my wrists free from the bindings that were holding it to the chair. Her fingers dig into my skin, and she doesn’t let go, no matter how much I
struggle. ‘And if you don’t cooperate,’ she snarls at the camera, ‘I will send your daughter back in pieces. You can have the first piece now; let’s call it a show of
good faith.’ And as the knife rips into my index finger, I open my mouth and scream.

It is the sound of Feather’s voice that brings me round. ‘I’m not a monster, you know. Whatever you think.’ My eyelids slide open just enough to see
Talon standing in the middle of my room and Feather slumping against the wall, looking as tiny and frail as a bird. Neither of them is looking my way. My arm is at my side. I don’t want to
look too closely at my hand. It hurts like hell. The bedsheets must be slick with blood. I can’t imagine how ugly the wound will be. Thankfully, I must have passed out before Feather really
began hacking at it. Through bone. Oh. My stomach turns over and the small slice of world I can see spins. I close my eyes again.

Feather is speaking. ‘I just want my brother back. Surely, you of all people can understand that.’

‘We shouldn’t be hurting her. It won’t help our cause.’

‘You still care about that then?’

‘How dare you ask me that! Jez was my brother. Marble is my friend. This is just all so messed up. Why did you have to cut her? And what did you do to her hair?’

‘She needed a trim.’

‘There is something
wrong
with you.’

Feather laughs. ‘You heard that prick on TV. We’re doing everything we can, blah, pissing blah. Well, I’m in charge here, not them, and I say they aren’t doing enough.
They needed a short sharp shock and they got one.’

‘This is not what I signed up for. You can’t abuse her like this. It’s disgusting. And immoral!’

‘You have the prime minister’s daughter tied up in the basement and you want to talk to me about morality? Get a grip, Talon. You are doing what you need to do. For your brother. For
my brother. Or have you forgotten about them?’

‘None of that is her fault.’

‘Robyn and her dad aren’t so different. They are part of the same elite. The governing force. She doesn’t care about us.’

‘You don’t know her.’

‘And you do? Damn it, Talon. This is about more than just your brother. This is about changing the status quo. We are fighting back. Come on! Look at us. Look at what we can achieve.
First, we get Marble back and then it’s all going to change. Everything. Him being released will be one almighty finger up to the establishment.’

‘But Jez will still be dead.’

Even with my eyes closed, I can sense the tension between them. There’s a long silence, broken only by a single tweet from outside, a sweet
twiddle-oo twiddle-eedee.

‘I want Marble back as much as you do, but what we’re doing here scares me. It’s too much,’ Talon says.

‘Everything scares you,’ she snaps, but there’s something like disappointment in her voice. When she speaks next, it’s gone, and her tone is efficient and cold, like an
elastic band snapping back into place. ‘Don’t forget who’s in charge here. You’re in too deep now to back out. Trust me. I know what I’m doing. This is just the
beginning. We’ll get revenge for Jez. We’ll get revenge for everything.’

Talon cuts in. ‘Maybe we shouldn’t be talking like this here. She could wake up.’

‘I don’t care if she does. A new world is coming, and you and I are going to be right at the heart of it. Those politicians, bankers and corporate arseholes won’t know
what’s hit them. Just look at her. She’s so stupid! No thought in the world that Daddy-dearest isn’t perfect. Makes me want to cut off
all
her fingers . . . Don’t
look at me like that. I’m not going to do it. But she makes me so angry. She lives in the seat of power and she doesn’t give a shit about anything. She doesn’t ask real questions.
Just, what dress shall I wear to this party? I hate people like her. The ignorance. The sense of entitlement.’

‘He’s her dad; she trusts him.’

‘Well, he’s a lying son of a bitch and we are going to expose him.’

‘We still shouldn’t hurt her any more. She’s scared.’

‘She’s the hostage! Of course she’s scared. What did you expect? But all right . . . all right . . . we won’t hurt her any more. Maybe get her a blanket and a teddy bear?
Read her a bedtime story.’

‘Don’t be like this. This isn’t you.’

‘This is me! This is exactly who I have always been, Talon. It’s you who’s changed. Now, get a grip. I need you to stop being a pussy and help me get my brother
back.’

I am alone a long while before I muster up the courage to look at my hand. The bandage is so crusted with blood that it’s no longer white but a dirty brown. But that
isn’t what surprises me. I peel off the piece of sticky tape holding the wrappings in place and then slowly unravel the gauze . . . The cut beneath is ugly and deep, but it is just that: a
cut. My index finger remains intact and more amazingly, it is still attached to my left hand. I wiggle it. The wound smarts and bleeds again, but the finger moves easily. I lost consciousness very
shortly after she had begun cutting me. I just assumed she had gone through with it. Why didn’t she? Why pretend?

I’m not a monster. Whatever you think.

I realise that it is enough for Dad to
think
that she’s cut my finger off. She didn’t actually need to do it. And that gives me a tiny shred of hope. She could have killed me
any number of times, or beaten me, or let Scar attack me, but she hasn’t. She’s shouted at me and hurt me, but she’s never totally lost control. Never done any irreparable damage.
Maybe, just maybe, I will survive this.

I flex my finger again, relishing the pain now because it means I still have feeling in it. I still have ten fingers.

Talon takes me to the bathroom. It is the first time I’ve been out of my cell since Feather cut my hair off. I feel awkward; I keep lowering my chin, expecting my hair to
fall around my face like it used to, but of course there isn’t enough of it any more. And I can’t stop tugging on it, as if that will somehow make it grow. The clump I took from the
floor is in my pocket and I slip my hand inside to hold it.

When we reach the bathroom, Talon tells me not to be too long but it’s habit now. He lets me take as long as I like. I go inside and stand by the door, looking at the floor. I need to pee,
but first I have to see my hair. I’m not brave enough to look yet. It is ten counts before I take my first step, another ten before the second, and a good fifty before I finally manage to
force myself to gaze at the mirror.

My hair hangs in dirty tangles down to the top of my ears; it’s shorter in some places and longer in others, but all shorter than my fringe used to be. Without hair framing it, my wide
face stretches endlessly, rising to the crest of my nose and then sloping into the dip in my chin. My eyes are larger too: vast muddy pools in a desert of face and scalp.

Who am I now? Is it really so easy to wipe out a personality? Will this new person that I’ve become still fight with everything she has just to survive one more day, one more minute? Will
she hold on even after every tiny shred of hope is gone? Will she protect her little sister with her dying breath if she has to?

The girl in the mirror blinks. She looks tired and lonely and scared. She doesn’t feel like me at all.

I tuck a strand behind my ear, like my mum did on that last day. It immediately falls forward into my eyes again. It stinks. There’s no trace left of Mum’s shampoo. I want my mum. I
want her to tell me that it’s okay, it’ll grow back. I want her to laugh and say she never liked my fringe anyway. But she isn’t here. There’s no one here but me.

I want to go home.

A lump rises in my throat. I try to bite back the tears, but this time a few escape and that makes more come because, out of everything I’ve endured, it is losing my hair that has finally
broken me. Am I the stuck-up princess Feather says I am? I never asked my dad enough about his work. Maybe if I had I wouldn’t be here now, waiting and hoping for a rescue party that is never
going to come.