Total pages in book: 59
Estimated words: 56182 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 281(@200wpm)___ 225(@250wpm)___ 187(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56182 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 281(@200wpm)___ 225(@250wpm)___ 187(@300wpm)
At least not for these two women.
There was hope.
Because my loved ones would move hell and earth to get me back, would never stop, would bash heads and blow things up and run themselves ragged searching every corner of this world to bring me back.
And take them back with me, get them help, show them love.
I knew this.
If I couldn't find my own way out, they would find me.
I just had to hold it together, keep my wits about me, refuse to lose my mind in this hellhole until then.
"I don't think we are somewhere that we can be found."
Those were the last words she would speak to me that night.
The next day, claw-face came back to take Mary again.
The next, Chris.
I couldn't get through to her after, not even what felt like a lifetime later when paint-shoes came back with plates filled with rice and beans, wanting to get her out of her mind enough to nourish her body.
I woke up sometime later, finding she had cleared her plate while I slept, then sank back inside herself.
Mary was full-on detoxing again, heaving into the toilet on and off for hours until there was nothing left in her system.
Stomach full, my mind wandered.
Not to the beach or Christmas like Chris suggested, not escaping the situation.
Just taking stock of it.
My face felt oily, my hands coming back shiny when I touched it. My hair, already prone to grease even after just half a day, felt limp and heavy. My hands inspected the injuries to my face and head, still feeling an ache, but nothing to write home about. My stomach, somewhat flat to begin with, felt almost concave already, my ribs protruding, objecting to the lack of pasta and baked good binges. For, I didn't even know. Four days? Five? I was having a hard time keeping track. I couldn't imagine what another five, ten, twenty, sixty days could do to me.
I hoped to hell it wouldn't be that long, that - like I had said to Chris - my loved ones would come for me, for us. Or, short of that, I would find a way to get us free.
I'll admit, my fire was barely a flicker as time went on, as the constant, nagging fear became my only real friend in this place, as the hours stretched long with nothing but my swirling thoughts to keep me company. And the thoughts only got more and more negative by the hour, until it banked down my resolve.
Just a couple days.
This was what just a couple days of captivity - and a bit of hunger - could do to me. Me with my certainty, my bloodthirst.
Click, slide, click.
A familiar stomp.
I didn't have to look up to know who it was.
Claw-face.
Though, unfortunately, the claw marks had scabbed over already, would likely peel off in just a few days, leaving no proof of my raging fire in its wake.
I watched as he paused at the edge of the stairs, as he often did, like he thought he was building the anticipation, the fear.
And, damnit, he'd be right.
But the air didn't start getting caught in my throat until he got to the middle of the room... and didn't turn to either side.
No.
He kept coming forward.
Forward toward me.
Oh, God.
No.
While a part of me knew it would come eventually, that I wasn't trapped down here because they enjoyed feeding an extra mouth, finding that they never came for me the other times had given me a small sliver of false security.
My stomach knotted, twisting tighter as his feet kept coming toward me, as my time got cut shorter and shorter.
My hopelessness was a noose around my throat. And as I watched him kneel down in front of me, it was like someone had kicked the chair out from under my feet.
And I was dangling.
Strangling.
Flailing.
Except, wait, I realized as a hand seized my ankle, sinking a key into a lock, the weight lifting, making me realize for the first time just how heavy it had been, hanging, rubbing, biting into my skin, ripping it off in places.
With the chain off, I wasn't quite so helpless.
"Up," he demanded, hand seizing my upper arm much like the man from the first night had, but curling in tighter, purposely inflicting pain even though I wasn't struggling.
Yet.
I would go along with it until I was closer to an escape.
As I was half-dragged forward, I felt a stab of guilt at my potential freedom.
But, I assured myself, even if I did get away, if I escaped, if I could put this place behind me, I would come back. I would find a phone, call my dad and Lo, and get them back here in force, have them take down the bad guys, free Chris and Mary, get them help.
As I passed, my gaze slid toward Chris, finding her watching me, finding that - for once, her eyes weren't blank.