64
TWILL
“I think you should stay where you are,” Twill said, still attempting to throw her voice. Unsure if it really worked.
“Why?” Langdon replied. “So you know where to find me? So you can kill me first?”
Yes.
“I’m not going to hurt you, Langdon,” she replied in a quiet voice. “We don’t have to do what they said. If you picked the lock on your chain, then you can probably pick the lock on the door. We can get out on our own. Fuck them.”
As she spoke, Twill worked her way around the bars. She crossed back to the place where she first woke. As far from Langdon as she could get. There was a soft rattle of his chain, then nothing. Near complete silence. Was he moving too? “Langdon? What are you doing?”
At first, he didn’t speak. When he did, it was clear he had moved. His voice came from across the cage and to the left, near the far corner. “They have my wife. They said if I don’t kill you, they’ll kill her.”
“You’re married? Why would you hire . . .”
She didn’t bother with the rest of that sentence because half her clients were married. He told her anyway.
“My wife and I have an understanding.”
Lovely.
Twill shuffled a few more feet to the side.
Reaching into her hair, she retrieved one of the pins. She carefully straightened the metal and gripped it between her thumb and forefinger. There was a soft nub of wax on the tip, and she peeled that away with her nails.
Not exactly sharp, and not exactly a weapon, but if she got him in the eye, she could . . .
She could what?
Blind him?
Then maybe knee him in the crotch?
Bite him?
Tear his throat open with her teeth?
Yes, yes, yes, and yes. If he tried to hurt her, she’d hurt him back.
Or maybe she’d hurt him first. Twill was many things, but weak wasn’t one of them.
“You need to try picking the lock,” she told him in the same quiet voice; timid, even.
A touch of fright. She wanted him to believe all those things.
Then she quickly moved a few feet in the opposite direction she’d been going.
Careful to walk on her toes so as not to make a sound.
“You don’t think they’re watching us?”
Twill had heard of cameras that could see in the dark.
Night vision goggles, too. Langdon was right.
Whoever had put them in here wouldn’t just lock them in the cage; they’d want to watch every second.
They probably got off on it. They were probably listening, too.
The fact that she and Langdon had talked about picking the lock aloud meant their captors had probably worked out some countermove.
Hell, they might just shoot them the second they left the cage.
“We need to work together,” Twill said. “I promise, I won’t hurt you.”
“Oh yeah, me too. I promise. You can trust me. Should we pinkie swear on it?” he grunted. “Like I’m going to believe you. You’re just some whore. A pretty whore, but just a whore.”
“Fuck you too. You’re the asshole paying for sex.”
So much for quiet, timid, and frightened.
Langdon said nothing for a moment. When he replied, it was his voice that softened. “I’m sorry—you’re right. That was a little harsh. I apologize.”
Twill stepped into another pile of bird shit. It was warm and seeped up between her toes. She tried not to think about it and forced the anger from her voice, too. “How about you stay over there and I’ll stay over here, and we can talk this through?”
“Yeah, okay. Neither of us moves and we come up with a plan together.”
“Exactly.” Silently, Twill slipped a few feet to her right.
“This isn’t exactly how I expected our night to end.” His voice had gone from the menacing tone a few moments earlier to something more reserved, closer to the way he’d spoken to her back in the car and at the party. “I’m guessing it’s a first for you, too?”
Was that an attempt at a joke?
Twill didn’t answer because she didn’t want him to know she’d moved all the way to the corner and was inspecting the bars.
While the vertical bars were spaced about four inches apart, she found there were also horizontal bars, probably meant for support.
The first was about three feet off the ground, and when she stepped on it and climbed up, she found another bar three feet above that.
Gripping it with both hands, she hoisted herself up, got her feet on it, and climbed higher.
“Twill?”
She was six feet off the ground. It took a moment, but she found the next horizontal bar three feet above the last. There was no sign of a top to the cage, at least not yet, and Twill wondered how high she’d have to climb to find it.
Would it be open? Could she simply swing over the top and come down on the other side?
Maybe.
“Twill? What are you doing?”
Like her, Langdon hadn’t remained still as promised; he’d continued circling the cage. When he spoke, he sounded like he was directly below her. She pictured him standing there, his arms out in front of himself, swiping slowly at the air, groping for her in the dark.
“Twill, you said you wouldn’t move? Did you lie to me?”
She held her breath. Went as still as she could.
“If we’re going to work together, we’re going to need trust. Lying to me is not a good way to build trust. In fact, it puts me on the defensive. That’s counterproductive, don’t you think?”
Moving ever so slowly, Twill eased her left hand up the nearest bar until she found the next horizontal run above her, then she brought her right hand up too, gripped, and soundlessly started to hoist herself higher.
At six feet, he might still be able to reach her, but if she could get up to nine, she’d be safe.
She could think. Form some kind of plan.
Twill had managed to get one foot on the next horizontal bar and was hanging precariously, about to pull herself up, when something brushed across the fingers of her left hand. That was followed by a blinding hot pain.