25. Jayne
I woke up, shoeless and groggy, on a hard, damp concrete floor, a round metal support pole behind me. Which I was tied to. Light filtered in from somewhere, but it was artificial light, not sun, so I guessed it was still night.
My body felt numb and disconnected from the rest of me. I was definitely not completely in charge of my faculties yet. I could barely lift my head to look around, although there wasn’t much to see. Boxes of—I squinted harder—cleaning supplies. Maybe. There was a faint tang of disinfectant in the air.
Was Isla going to kill me? It seemed a reasonable question, all things considered. Isla had drugged me and gotten me in here. She had to have an end game.
With my head hanging down, my stomach was directly in my line of sight. If she’d done anything to Jack Jr. or caused harm to him in some way, Isla would be the one who ended up dead.
I wouldn’t even feel bad about it.
Then he moved. Just the groggy shift of his foot or arm, but it was movement, and I’d take it. I wept at the knowledge that my boy was still alive. “We’re going to be okay,” I whispered to him. “Mama’s going to figure it out.”
I didn’t know how, but I’d been in similar situations before, and no one had done me in yet. I used all my strength to lift my head up and back. It lolled to one side, but I managed to get a look at the ceiling. Nothing of interest. Just a ceiling.
With my head like that, it was easier to relax and look straight ahead, so I did. Over the tops of the boxes where the wall was, I could just see some kind of strange grid. My mind couldn’t make sense of it, but the longer I looked, the more it started to take shape. Then it came together. I wasn’t looking at a grid. I was looking at a big, industrial garage door.
I was being held in a warehouse with a loading dock. More than one maybe. Good information, but it wasn’t like I could tell anyone.
Or could I? I closed my eyes and tried to feel if my phone was still in my pocket. It wasn’t. I sighed, mad that Isla had been smart enough to take it.
Slowly, I was regaining my faculties. It was easier to hold my head up, easier to think. What else might be coming back?
Since I couldn’t see my hands, I decided to test things out with my feet. I pressed my bare right foot against the floor and called on my powers.
Frost bloomed on the concrete around my big toe. That was something. Something good. But the effort left me surprisingly winded. I rested. There was nothing else I could do. Trying to escape without the full use of my powers could easily alert Isla to my efforts and would most likely lead to her overpowering me again.
If she was still around, which I couldn’t tell. Nothing I heard around me, which wasn’t much, sounded like a person.
I let my head rest against the metal pole behind me and closed my eyes. I needed more power and more information before I did anything.
I’d be okay with Sin coming to rescue me, too, but I wasn’t sure how he was going to discover that Isla had kidnapped me. Isla hadn’t been on our radar at all. A surge of despair, no doubt brought on by my out-of-control hormones, made me feel very alone.
I knew Sin was capable of figuring things out. I just didn’t know if he would. In time.
Because it was pretty clear to me now that Isla had orchestrated Charlie’s death. She’d seen Charlie as a threat to her relationship with Matt, or maybe even the reason they’d broken up, and so Isla had drugged Charlie, most likely with the objective of making it seem like suicide. Or natural causes.
Hard to know what Isla had really intended, but since Charlie had already been buried, Isla probably thought she was getting away with it.
Which made me wonder again what she meant to do with me. Had she meant to kill me but been thwarted by my winter elf metabolism? Isla wouldn’t have known to compensate for that, thankfully.
Poor Charlie. Her death had been so pointless. She deserved justice. And Isla deserved to pay for what she’d done, whatever her part had been.
I drifted a bit. It was hard to really sleep, or so I thought. I woke up to a bottle of water next to me. Had to be from Isla. Unless she had someone working with her, but that seemed unlikely.
I wasn’t going to drink it, and not just because I couldn’t with my hands tied behind my back. If she’d drugged me once, she’d do it again. I took an inventory of myself. I felt better than I had the first time I’d woken up. More alert. More in control.
I tested the restraints on my hands, tugging at them. Felt like rope, but the plastic kind, not the natural fiber stuff. I was strong, but I wasn’t strong enough to pull it apart.
Some plastic, however, got very brittle at low temperatures.
I was about to give the rope a good shock of cold when the sound of footsteps reached me. I went limp and closed my eyes, pretending to be asleep.
“Hmm. Still out but not dead. Too bad.”
That was Isla’s voice. I knew it without seeing her. I thought about sweeping my legs out to see if I could knock her down, but the space I was in was big and echoey. I couldn’t really calculate where she was just from the sound of her voice.
I didn’t risk opening my eyes either. Not yet. Not until I was at full strength.
Her shoes scuffed the concrete as she moved again. This time I could tell she was walking around me. Maybe checking that my restraints were secure?
Then her fingers pressed into my throat. She hadn’t been sure I was alive. The feel of her skin against mine filled me with revulsion. I could smell her perfume, and my stomach turned. Whatever that scent was, I never wanted to smell it again. She was a treacherous, murderous, lying, manipulative piece of?—
Something stung my arm. I flinched, unable to stop myself from reacting and opening my eyes.
Isla was on the side of me. She jumped back when she realized I was looking at her. There was a syringe in her hand. “So you were awake.”
Warmth spread through my arm. I focused on the syringe. “What did you inject me with?”
“Just a little something to finish the job. Hush now. Won’t be long.”
The drowsiness was coming back. I dug my nails into my palms, using the pain to stay sharp. “Won’t be long for what?”
She gave me a condescending look, tilting her head. “I think we both know.”
“You would really kill a pregnant woman?” My anger gave me a small boost of energy.
“Yes, and I’ll do the same to your husband if he doesn’t leave once you’re gone. I can’t have him standing between Matt and me. No one is going to stop me from being with that man.”
“You’re insane.”
Her mouth crooked to one side, and her eyes took on a fierce light, proving my point. “Am I? You’re the one who’s tied up.”
That seemed evidence of her insanity right there. “Matt doesn’t want you for reasons that have nothing to do with us.”
“Not only does he want me, he needs me. He’ll soon see.”
“Lunatic. You have no idea who you’re messing with.” I tried to fight the sleepiness, tried to conjure up any kind of magic, but what power I’d been able to grasp before no longer seemed available.
Isla laughed as she walked away. I counted her footsteps as best I could, listening for the sound of a door. Freedom couldn’t be that far away.
But whatever drug she’d given me was quickly winning. My eyes rolled halfway back in my head before I could stop them. I fought harder, determined not to give in. I struggled against the rope, pulling as hard as I could while desperately trying to freeze them.
I succeeded in knocking over the bottle of water but not much else.
I slumped down, nearly in tears. I couldn’t stop my eyes from closing. Or myself from falling asleep.