I slowly walk backwards down the aisle until I’m away enough, I turn walking down another aisle trying to find an exit or something. How much good is this helping if I’m just walking aimlessly around aisles? I stop and start to think about my next moves, Anthony isn’t gonna be distracted forever and will soon realise we’re not there. If he sees me just walking around he’ll know I was tying to escape, and I might end up like his mother, I see a woman sat at a little desk with signup sheets smiling, an idea soon pops in my mind and I quickly walk over there.
“Hi miss, are you interested in joining our weekly antiques club?” She asks politely with a smile, I quickly nod looking behind me to check Anthony wasn’t about “that’s great! I just need your full name” she smiles pulling a clipboard up with a pen, waiting for me to say something.
“Yes my name is Freya Edwards” I reply making sure to really say my name, she nods smiling but pauses suddenly looking up at me shocked.
“Freya Edwards? Wait you’re the missing girl” she shockingly replies pointing at me with her pen, I still putting up the act nod and smile looking behind me once again, but still no sign of him.
“I know my last name is hard to spell, pass me the click board so I can write it out” I smile looking with my eyes, she nods quickly handing it to me where I write a little note at the bottom, as I hear my name being called. “there I better go, I hope to see you soon” I smile walking away to look around for anything that might help me to make up an excuse, I see a bathroom where I basically run over and into the woman’s pulling a few tissues out.
I smile to one of the woman in there before exiting, right outside was Anthony who turns and immediately sees me, where he runs over.
“Freya there you are, I thought I lost you” he starts with a worried voice hugging me in a tight hug, I could actually feel him shaking as he held me.
“Sorry, Amelia was sick so I went to get some tissue, you were so engrossed in your conversation that I didn’t want to disturb you” I explain hoping my excuse would work and he’d buy it, he looks worried look down at Amelia placing his hand on her check asking if she was okay “she’s okay now, I think it’s because of this place, you can see they haven’t changed the old air vents in years, let’s hope it doesn’t break, that would be really bad for business” I continue looking down at Amelia, he freezes and looks over at me.
We start walking towards the exit, where I pass the woman’s stool again but she wasn’t there and was talking on the phone a bit away, all that was going around my mind was, hopefully she was calling the police and they were on their way.
“What do you mean doll?” He asks, looking at me with a questioning look, I turn back around as we make it to the last aisle, the doors right in front of us, inside I was hoping someone else stops us to buy me more time.
“Well as these a quite old, if something went wrong the store would be forced to close for a few days, and only reopen when they have new ones” I explain, still looking around for help as the electric doors open to the outside, people would say freedom but I’d disagree in this situation.
“How long do you think it would take?” He asks, as we start walking through the car park, I was hardly paying attention to him I was just hoping to see police cars fill the car park.
“Well to do it you’ll basically have to pull apart the whole building, due to the size I’d say a week, but if it’s bad than maybe a month it really depends” I explain, we stop outside the car, I still looking around but still no police cars, come on!
“How do you know all about this doll” he asks, while gently lifting Amelia out the sling and into her car seat, than I realised what I done, I might have just helped him plan his robbery totally by accident.
“Oh I took a course once” I simply reply, looking around the carpark as the woman walks out the shop and starts to make her journey to us, is this actually the time where we’re gonna be rescued?
Once Anthony was finished strapping Amelia in he turns to see the same woman, he takes my arm moving me to the car opening the door.
“Come on, let’s leave before we get harassed by more workers for not buying anything” he quickly laughs, I climb in the front where he closes the door “we don’t need your help but thank you” he brushes her off, walking over to his side of the door climbing in, as she appears next to him.
“There’s just something we wanna show you, it won’t take long” she pleads, trying my door but it doesn’t open, did he just lock the car “I really think you should stay for just a little while” she continues to beg, going to Amelia’s door trying to open it but that won’t open either , I look to Anthony hoping he doesn’t catch on that I helped her know who I was.
“These people really want a sale” I joke with a smile, he laughs a little turning the car on, the woman still tries the door handle so much I thought it was about to fall off.
He starts to reverse, the woman shouting at us to stop, he does the opposite and drives full speed out the car park and onto the main road. I rest my head against the window, knowing another failed attempt of our escape and how tried I was from lack of sleep.
“Are you okay doll?” He asks looking over at me, while a bunch of police cars speed down the road heading towards the store, that’s who the woman probably called back there.
“Yeah just tired” I sigh, which wasn’t fully a lie, I hadn’t slept properly in weeks.