She stumbled, her head was pounding and her words came out slurred. Shock made her weak, as she was walked to the white van, Malik holding her right arm the bulldog gripping her left. It was clear that there was no escape, yet still a part of Ellie refused to believe this and she began to beg. “I won’t say anything, I swear. Just let me go. Please, my mum will be so worried.” She wondered, somewhere back in the cold storage of her calculating brain, where she had learned this script. She must have been taught it from so many films where girls begged to be freed even as the audience knew it wasn’t going to happen; and the logical part Ellie’s brain was of the same mind as that audience, calmly stating through the shock and fear: They have you. You just need to survive, find the time for escape. But this isn’t it. Not now she was on the bench in the back of the white van, her arms restrained at her side by Malik, being driven by the bulldog to God knows where. “If you fight me, I’ll have to use the rope,”
