Time To Play by KA Richardson (best book club books of all time TXT) 📗

So, she backed away and curled up on the floor of the shed with tears streaming down her face.

She’d done this. It was her fault.

Chapter One

Present Day

Ryhope, Sunderland – 1 November

H e bent down at the cage door and glanced inside.

The girl was curled up in a ball, her eyes closed. He knew it had taken her a while to fall asleep. Her belly was empty of food and fear inhibited the natural instinct to rest. He purposely hadn’t fed her much in the two days she’d been his.

He smiled because he knew hunger gave them an edge, kept them more alert. And when they were alert, the pain they felt became more acute.

Normally they lasted a few months in his care, each experiment different to the last. Their eyes, so terrified to start with, slowly grew accustomed to the tests and they eventually became accepting. To a point anyway. Their screams lessened, the pain grew less acute, but eventually he pushed them too far and they died.

Such is life. Everything dies.

Once their screams lessened, he started to get bored, began looking for the next experiment. The lack of screams meaning they were finally becoming accustomed to the pain, which was, after all, the whole purpose of the experiment.

It wasn’t that time yet, this one still had plenty of fight in her. Plenty of time to realise he was trying to teach her that life was pain, and to accept the fact.

Standing upright, he reached for the metal bar that was sitting on top of the cage. He felt his heart quicken as he ran the bar across the cage loudly.

‘Time to play,’ he said softly, as the girl jerked awake with a gasp. She shot to her knees, huddled in the furthest corner from the cage door, and started begging. Her native tongue made no sense to him.

He slipped the bolt to one side, reached in, and grabbed her arm, tugging hard until her body followed. She was crying now, and she tugged back from his grasp.

His anger simmered. He would make her understand that pulling wasn’t allowed.

Forcibly, he placed her into the chair in the centre of the room and secured her hands and feet silently. Placing a section of material over her mouth, he tightened it and knotted it at the back. Then he stood back and stared.

This one was a beauty.

He hoped she would last.

Depressing the record button on the camera set up on a tripod in the far corner, he began to speak. ‘Subject six. Day three. The bruising from day one’s injuries is starting to yellow at the edges. When ejected from the cage today, the subject has been reluctant and screamed. She sits before me now, shaking but still somewhat defiant. She doesn’t understand the rules of the game yet. Today I will break three bones. She will receive minimal pain relief and then will be fed this evening for the second time.’

Turning towards the girl, he grabbed the thumb on her left hand and forced it backwards, waiting for the crack to reverberate around the room. As it sounded, the girl screamed loudly through the gag, her breath laboured and staggered as she gasped through the pain he knew was now shooting up her arm.

Time for break number two.

He liked doing them quickly, before the body had time to adjust to the pain sensations and become accepting. Clenching his fist, he slammed it hard into her nose, listening as it crunched, and blood spurted from her nostrils.

Her eyes rolled back in her head as a steady stream of the red liquid fell from her nose. She was almost unconscious.

‘Last one,’ he whispered, his hand stroking the back of her hair gently.

Kneeling, he took hold of her left ankle and gave it a sharp twist. It was too much for the girl, whose body went limp and sagged in the chair.

The third one always made them pass out.

Untying the restraints, he placed her back inside the cage, put a sandwich and a bottle of water, and a strip of paracetamol beside her, and locked the cage door.

‘I’ll be back in two days, sweetness. Then it’ll be time to play again.’

Shincliffe, County Durham – 2 November

It had been a good night.

Grant Cooper, or GC as he was known to his friends, had been out since early afternoon. He’d managed to drink his weight in alcohol, draining dregs from half-empty glasses and swiping drinks when people weren’t looking. What little money he’d had been spent on some Es. At some point during the evening he’d even managed to slip a pair into the drinks of a couple of lasses. He’d laughed hysterically from his perch in the corner of the bar as the effects had set in and the girls had got high.

Now though, he wished he hadn’t wasted some of the pills on girls he didn’t even know. It felt like he’d been walking forever. The city centre of Durham seemed so far back it might as well have been in another country. The winding road to Shincliffe was like a marathon tonight. And he was tired.

The effects of the drugs and alcohol were wearing off, not that it was obvious as he stumbled his way down the road towards the lights of the village ahead.

He finally made it to the edge, then veered left into one of the side streets. As he neared his destination, he felt anger bubble to the surface. Who the hell does she think she is, dumping me? Stupid bitch even phoned the cops on me last week. He chose to ignore the fact the police had also told him to stay away from the address or risk getting locked up again. What the hell do they know anyway?

He couldn’t stay