Stolen In The Night

Chapter One

It was almost midnight. Soph was walking home along the deserted east London street. The moon could barely be seen through the amber haze; street lamp light reflecting off clouds and city pollution.
She was wearing a navy hoodie, hood up, hands in pockets, and a pink flowery string bag slung over one shoulder, containing her 'work profits'.
To a passer by, she would look like any normal girl. Drab, normal brown hair, not particularly striking features, not a girl you'd take a second glance at.
Her bag was actually her sister's, that she often used for school. Soph herself was on her second successful week of skiving school, and no-one had noticed. Just goes to show. Well, she didn't have any friends to notice. Always a bit of an outcast.
She told her mother she'd got a job. Well, she had, in a sense. She didn't even bother telling the school anything. To them it was just one less little brat to teach. Soph never did have a very high opinion of her school. Which was just as well, because they certainly didn't have a high opinion of her.
Her poor mother. She was left by Soph and her two older siblings, Kira and Marc's father straight after Soph had been born. He never actually got to see Soph. Which Soph said was just as well, because, being the stroppy baby she was, she definitely would have puked all over him, and she would now of she had the chance. Soph didn't have a very high opinion of her father either.
Her mother didn't have any money after that, so, as soon as they were 12, the children would have to get jobs. Soph, Marc and Kira all 'worked' together.

Soph continued walking down the road. She liked to think she would hear a car or a person before she saw it. But tonight was different. She was taken by surprise. She was unprepared.
Usually, to hide the goods inside her bag, Soph would cover them with stationary, usually her younger sister, Rosa's. So if questioned, she could show them inside, and pull out a pencil case or two.
But today she'd forgotten.
She gasped as the almost searching lights of a car hit her back and her shadow was printed on the road. She panicked. She started running. She didn't want to get caught, on tonight of all nights.
But running just drew attention to herself. She probably would have been fine if she had just kept walking, and turned into a near alleyway. But she didn't. She ran.
And then the car drew up beside her. A window rolled down, and a well groomed man with sunglasses on (at nighttime, in winter?) stuck his head out.
"Pardon me Miss, but may I question to what is in that bag?"