Forget Me Never

feet. After a few minutes I couldn’t take any more and slowed. I took cover behind a pile of logs, bending double and gasping for breath. Reece joined me, craning his neck to see over the top.
    ‘Don’t think we’re being followed,’ he said. ‘You OK?’
    I nodded. When I’d got enough breath back to speak, I said, ‘Let’s wait here a moment. It’s less exposed than the road.’
    Reece sat down on the log pile, wiping his hands on his trousers. ‘How long was that door unlocked, d’you think? Come to that, did you even notice Kyle locking it when he went?’
    I couldn’t remember – but surely we’d have noticed if he or Patrick had come and unlocked it. Maybe Kyle had wanted us to escape. Why? Then I remembered the conversation we’d overheard and everything began to make sense – Kyle had sounded deeply unhappy about what might happen to us. At some point he must have decided the best thing would be to take the car and get out – and while he hadn’t freed us directly, he’d given us the biggest chance he could. Wherever you are now, Kyle, I thought, thank you.
    Patrick was probably still at large though – and he was the one with the gun. For thirty horrible minutes we stayed put, ready to bolt if there was even a hint that he was nearby. But apart from the occasional hooting of owls, the wood was quiet.
    ‘Let’s scoot,’ Reece whispered. ‘It’s going to start to get light very soon.’
    Moving as silently as we could, we crept on through the wood. At one point something swooped close to our heads and we both yelped and then ducked, sure the noise must have given us away. But there was silence. After that we moved more freely, though neither of us let our guard down.
    The wood was a lot bigger than we had first thought. I started to worry that we were walking in circles, or heading back the way we had come. But then the faint hum of traffic reached our ears and, sure enough, ten minutes later we were on a minor road. The traffic was coming from our left – a little way up we found a junction leading on to a larger road. And there were cars travelling along it. We were back in the real world!
    We chose the direction we thought led away from the cottage and walked facing the oncoming traffic, hailing each car that approached. We’d always been warned against hitching lifts, but today it was a risk we were prepared to take. It certainly beat being stuck in a pantry scared out of our wits.
    After ten minutes had passed without a single vehicle even slowing though, my optimism faded. Perhaps we weren’t going to get lucky – anyone driving along this early in the morning might not think picking up passengers was safe – especially ones that looked like us. Reece’s cricket whites weren’t white any longer, his trousers splashed with liquid from at least one of cans, and I could see dust and twigs in his hair. I probably looked just as bad.
    ‘So much for human kindness!’ Reece shouted as another car zipped past. ‘We’re going to have to walk to the next town at this rate, wherever that might be.’
    ‘I’m really not liking this,’ I said. ‘What if—’
    ‘Look!’ A truck was pulling into a lay-by just ahead of us. We ran towards it, shouting and waving our arms. The driver stuck his head out of his window.
    ‘Where’re you heading?’ he shouted.
    ‘Anywhere!’ I said. Reece and I clambered inside before he could reconsider. The driver looked at us with a puzzled expression. He was a thickset scary-looking guy with a shaven head, but right now I could’ve hugged him – in fact I might have done if it wasn’t for the Staffordshire bull terrier sitting next to him. It leaned forward and sniffed us with great interest.
    ‘Blimey,’ the driver said. ‘What you been doing – running away from home?’
    ‘You don’t wanna know,’ Reece said expressively. ‘D’you have a phone we can use? We need to speak to the police.’
    ‘I think you should tell me what’s going on first. I don’t like the sound of police.’
    Reece and I filled him in, just saying we’d been kidnapped and keeping it as brief as possible. When we were done, the driver shook his head.
    ‘Bloody hell! Here.’ Reece nearly snatched his mobile out of his hand. ‘Don’t know whether to believe all this, but you clearly need some kind of help.’
    Things happened very quickly after that. The trucker took us to the nearest service station to wait for the police – it turned out we were