Text (Take It Off) (7 page)

Honor

The thunder rolling through the night sky wasn
’t a good sign.

“Seriously,” I muttered. “Like this day isn’t bad enough?”

I guess when it rains it pours. Literally. I had very vivid imaginations of the sky opening up to some kind of freak torrential downpour and me being trapped in this hole as it slowly filled with icy cold rainwater. Slowly freezing or drowning me…

What would be a better way to go? Freezing to death or drowning?

I’m a writer and even I never dreamed up half this shit. Well, I guess one positive would be if I survived this, I would have a ton of new material to work with.

Thunder rumbled again
, and I sighed. My stomach growled, matching the ferocity of the thunder, and I realized I hadn’t eaten a thing all day. I never ate before my early runs because it upset my stomach. I usually made a pot of coffee and some kind of egg scramble after I returned home.

Then I would spend most of my day typing away at a story, social networking, marketing
, and communicating with my agent.

I wondered if anyone noticed I was missing by now. I loved being a recluse
, but I was beginning to think that my choice of lifestyle was a serious hazard.

Maybe I should have gotten a dog after all. A companion to have around all day might have been nice.

I paused. This was the second time today I thought of a dog. Why would I be thinking of something like that at a time like this?

I was insane. More so than usual. I was probably ready to suffer some sort of psychotic break from the stress of being kidnapped. I mean really, I thought I was stronger than that.

Or maybe you’re just thinking of the things you never got to do.

I don’t know where that inner voice was coming from
, but it needed to shut up. I think I would prefer some psychotic break than sitting down here and thinking about the bucket list that was never fulfilled. I wasn’t ready to admit defeat. I wasn’t going to accept my death.

And also, I found it quite amusing that on the cusp of death
, my one regret seemed to be that I didn’t have a dog.

Of all the things I could regret
, that was what I chose?

I had a feeling a psychiatrist would have a field day with that.

I looked up toward the top of the hole, and though it was dark, I could make out the tops of the trees swaying in the wind. I didn’t want my kidnapper to come back, but I also didn’t want to spend the entire night down here in the rain.

I pulled out the phone again and looked at the signal. No bars. I decided to distract myse
lf by snooping. I called up the camera roll and started going through his pictures. They looked like pictures you’d find on any regular guy’s phone. A barbeque, a baseball game, and one featuring the kidnapper front and center, with poker chips piled high in front of him.

Again
, I was struck by how “normal” he appeared. How uncreepy and non-kidnapper-ish he seemed. He was the most dangerous kind of criminal of all because no one would suspect him. No one would be inclined to believe any accusations against him.

I flipped through a few more of the photos when one had me gripping the phone until the bones in my fingers ached.

It was of a young blond woman. She was smiling, but the smile didn’t reach her eyes. Her eyes were haunted, they were sad… and they were also a little empty.

Around her neck was the locket
I’d found in the dirt—the one now in my pocket.

My stomach roiled. Bile rose up in my throat and I dropped the phone and lurched to the side and heaved violently. Nothing came up because my stomach was empty. I made hid
eous sounds and the pain of retching had me collapsing onto the dirt floor and curling into a ball.

I
lay there for a long time, feeling the cold dirt against my cheek and keeping my eyes closed, hoping I might wake up and find this was all dream.

Eventually
, the uncomfortableness of my position made me roll over onto my back and stare up at the black sky.

Only there wasn’t just black sky to look at.

There was something pale in my line of sight.

My heart rate accelerated when my eyes made out the shape of a man.

Nathan! He’d come for me after all!

“I told you I’d come back,” intoned a voice from above.

Chills crawled up my spine and I shivered. That wasn’t Nathan. It was my kidnapper.

“I had planned on leaving you down here for the night,” he called. Funny how his voice didn’t seem that far away
; it seemed as though it was very close, and I reminded myself that he was up there and I was down here. For once, I didn’t mind being down in this hole.

When I didn’t respond to his comments
, he spoke again.

“But it seems I have misplaced something. I came back to see if you had something of mine?”

My eyes darted to where the phone lay on the ground. It was facedown and the case was black. I knew he wouldn’t be able to see it.

“Are you talking about your heart?” I snapped.
“Cause I’m pretty sure you weren’t even born with one.”

“
Feisty.” He chuckled. “I like feisty. It turns me on.”

Gag. Me.
With. A. Spoon.

“It seems my
cell phone has gone missing,” he said. “You don’t have it down there, do you?”

“If I did
, I wouldn’t still be here,” I yelled.

“Well
, that’s good. Because I would hate to have to move up my timeline and just kill you now.”

His timeline?

Something told me that being killed now versus later was probably the better option.

“I’m going to send down a rope ladder. Climb up
,” he said.

I wanted to laugh.
Yeah, right. And maybe monkeys will fly out of my ass.

It was almost cute the way he tossed
down the rope ladder and adjusted it so I could climb right up.

If pigs with mustaches and goatees
were cute.

“Come on,” he instructed.

“No.”

The silence that followed my one
-word reply was almost comical.

“What did you say?”

“I said I would rather sit down here and rot and die than climb up there and be any closer to you,” I spat.

I heard his
rough inhale and I knew I pissed him off.

Good. He pissed me off too.

“Get. Up. Here. Now.”

“Why? So you can rape and murder me? No thanks. I’m not really feeling much like rape and murder today.”

“You little bitch.”

“I thought you said you liked my feisty attitude.” I mocked. I knew I should shut up
, but I found myself with a severe case of diarrhea of the mouth.

I sat down to punctuate my intention of doing exactly what he told me not to do. As I sat
, I slowly pulled the phone into my palm and then crossed my hands over my chest, hiding it beneath my arm.

“How rude of me,” he said in a conversational tone. “I realize my mistake.”

Then he disappeared, leaving the rope hanging there, taunting me with freedom. I knew better. He probably wanted me to think he left so I would climb up to my doom.

While he was gone
, I shoved the phone up my sleeve and then hooked my thumb through the little hole made into the arm. Hopefully that would be enough to keep the phone hidden.

A few minutes later
, something hit me in the head.

I looked up only to see something else plummeting toward me
, and I ducked just in time to avoid being hit in the face.

“What the hell?” I muttered and reached out to pick up the items he chucked down the hole at me.

My hand closed around one of the slightly textured, round items. It was an orange.

The crazy ass threw two oranges at me.

“I get grumpy when I don’t eat, too,” he said, like the reason I didn’t feel like dying was because of low blood sugar.

There
weren’t enough M&Ms in the world for that. An orange sure as hell wasn’t going to do it.

My stomach rumbled
at the sight of it. I was tempted to peel it and dig in. But my writer’s brain kicked in. He might have used a syringe and injected it with some sort of deadly poison.

I think I’d rather starve.

“Eat,” he commanded.

I stood and
threw the orange back up at him.

I was a girl. I threw like a girl.

The orange came back down and made a plopping sound at my feet.

“
I would eat that if I were you,” he growled.

I didn’t bother to reply. I was exhausted
, and fighting with him made it worse. I needed to save my strength for getting away.

I sat down in the dirt
just as more thunder rolled overhead. I wished it would rain. I wished it would lightning and thunder and a storm of epic proportions would rage. It would chase him away. He would be forced to leave me here and not come back ‘til morning.

Maybe by then
, Nathan would have found me.

If he was even looking.

Let’s face it here. My situation was pretty bleak. I was depending on a guy that I met through my kidnapper’s phone. I highly doubted that he kept upstanding citizens as company. I more than likely texted his partner in crime. The pair of them had a good laugh at my expense and then creepy up there came back to throw oranges at my head and then murder me.

This wasn’t one of my romance novels.

A dashing, romantic hero wasn’t going to come riding up on his white horse and save me.

I was going to end up on the eleven o’clock news.

“Come on,” the man above demanded.

“No!” I shouted.

“Fine!” he snapped. “If you won’t come up, then I’ll come down. It’s a small space, but I’m sure we’ll find room.”

I shot to my feet. “I’m coming up.”

He was already descending the ladder. I calculated my chances of yanking him off and beating him up before he overpowered me. Yes, he was bigger. Yes, he had weight on his side.

But I was seriously pissed.

(And I wanted to live to get a dog.)

“Fine
, then. Hurry up. Or I’m coming down.”

He went back up to ground
level and stood, staring down. All I could see was the round paleness of his face against the dark backdrop of night. I walked over to the ladder and hunched over a little, acting as if I were defeated. Quickly, I pulled out the phone and shot off one last text to Nathan, taking a risk that maybe he was going to help me like he said.

“I’m waiting,” he said angrily.

I tucked the phone back inside my sleeve and started to climb. I was freezing and surprisingly weak. It made climbing hard. I wasn’t a large person, but I slipped a few times and my weight seemed like a lot to haul up a thirty-foot hole.

I took my time, trying to drag out the minutes while trying to formulate some sort of plan. The only plan I could come up with involved not dying.

I guess that meant as soon as my feet touched the ground, I needed to run like hell.

And hide. Hiding might be good.

He got impatient the closer I got and suddenly the rope ladder began to sway as he dragged it upward, bringing me with it. I started to slip and I gripped the rope tighter. The friction between the dirt wall and my fingers ripped open the skin on my knuckles. I bit my lip instead of crying out because I was still standing by my decision of not giving this guy one second of satisfaction.

When I got to the top
, he gave the ladder one great yank and I spilled out over the lip, landing hard against my side and sharp pain radiating through my body. I was pretty sure at least a couple of my ribs were broken, and I was staring at the reason why.

Black boots (or shit
kickers as some people might say) stepped into my line of vision, and anger swelled within me. It was those boots that nailed me in the ribs; it was those boots that snapped my bones.

I ignored the fierce burning of my scraped knuckles
and pushed up onto my knees. He grabbed my hair and yanked me to my feet.

“This isn’t the
Stone Age,” I griped. “You aren’t a caveman. Quit pulling my hair.”

Surprisingly
, he let go of my ponytail.

Then he backhanded me across the face. I really, really hoped my other eye didn’t swell shut. I kind of needed it to see.

“I’ve had enough of your attitude.”

I’
d had quite enough of his hitting, but I decided against saying so.

He moved to strike me again. My reflexes were faster. I threw my arm up to block the hit and then I kicked him in the shin.