Chapter 2
D rip. Drip. Drip.
I’m dreaming.
I’m dreaming about the ocean.
We went to Disneyland when I was eight-years-old—me, Mandy, Mom, and Dad.
I’d been so excited. I wanted to put my toes in the salty sea for as long as I could remember.
We rented a car and made the drive out to the Pacific ocean one afternoon, and I can still recall the way my heart was beating inside my chest with wild abandon when the ocean came into view.
I pictured Ariel and her sea sisters swimming beneath the surface.
There was magic. There was beauty.
And then I choked. I parked my butt in the sand and watched from afar as my sister and parents splashed and giggled and created memories I so desperately wanted to share.
But I couldn’t move. I was frozen to the beach, surrounded by sand castles and unfamiliar faces. The water looked so dark and ominous when I’d gotten close. The vastness of the ocean had spooked me, and I was terrified that I’d be swept away.
And then it was time to go.
“Are you sure you don’t want to dip your feet in? You were so excited,” my mother encouraged, gathering up sand toys and colorful beach towels.
I swallowed hard, my eyes carefully assessing the waves rolling in.
Maybe. Maybe I can do this .
I pulled myself to my feet, my toes digging into the soggy sand. Then I moved towards the howling sea with timid footsteps and trembling limbs. I stopped just short of the shoreline, glancing up at the gray clouds overhead.
“Let’s go, Cora!” my father shouted from a distance. “It’s about to rain.”
Wait, wait, no… I’m almost there. I just need one more minute.
I sucked in a deep, courage-filled breath and continued my sluggish trek forward. That’s when the rain started. I watched the droplets pelt the ocean, water mixing with water. My dream washing away before my eyes.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
It started coming down fast and furious. I tried to make a run for it, but a strong hand wrapped around my upper arm, pulling me back.
“Time to go, Corabelle. There’s a bad storm coming in.”
I gulped, my eyes filling with tears as my father pulled me away. I never did feel the way the water splashed at my ankles. I never felt the seaweed tickle my toes. My father promised we’d go back the next day, but we never did.
To this day, I still haven’t been back.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
My eyes flutter open, the steady drips tearing me away from a dream that may forever haunt me.
But it’s not rain I hear. And I’m not lying in my warm bed, preparing for a new day in the classroom teaching high school English.
I’m somewhere else. I’m somewhere cold and dark and frightening.
There’s a dull ache throbbing at the back of my skull, and I try to bring my fingertips to the source of the pain.
It’s then I realize that my wrists are chained together behind my back, shackled and bound like an animal.
Oh, my God.
My eyes shoot open, wide and alert. Petrified.
I rattle my chains that are attached to handcuffs, trying to gather my bearings, trying to remember how the hell I got here.
It’s dark, but it’s not too dark. My eyes just haven’t adjusted to my surroundings yet.
I blink rapidly, scanning the room I’ve been imprisoned in.
I’m in some kind of chamber or cell. Maybe a basement.
I squint my eyes, noting a small, narrow window across from me with the faintest trace of light.
Sunrise is peeking through my new nightmare, confirming that I am, indeed, awake.
That’s when I hear it. A deep, throaty groan.
I twist my neck through the pain and discover Dean Asher chained to the opposite corner of the cement room in the same position, his head lolling back and forth as he brings himself back to reality .
I don’t know if there is a sense of dramatic irony in the fact that I’ve been taken captive with the one person in the world I hate most, or if there is a semblance of relief in the realization that I am not alone in this.
“Dean.” My voice is hoarse and weak, hardly a whisper fracturing the heady silence that envelops us. I watch as Dean lifts his head and it falls back against a hard post, prompting another moan. “Dean,” I repeat—this time a little louder.
“Where the hell am I,” he croaks out, but it’s more of a statement than a question. It’s a demand. I can see his eyes narrow at me through the hazy darkness, questioning my existence, questioning if his mind is playing tricks on him, questioning everything . “Cora?”
“Dean.”
His name squeaks out through parched lips. I feel tears begin to bite at my eyes as the fear swells in my gut. I feel nauseated. Hollowed out. I start yanking at my restraints, pulling and tugging, shaking the shackles against a steel pipe.
Dean follows my lead and does the same, shouting for help and clanking his manacles as I scream at the top of my lungs.
“What the fuck is this? Where are we?” Dean is out of breath, his questions heaving out of him with frantic desperation. “Are you hurt?”
I think I should be surprised that my well-being is at the forefront of his concerns, but I’m too overwhelmed with terror and anguish to ponder it. I swallow hard. “My head…” It’s all I can manage before more tears well in my eyes and I’m too choked up to say anything else.
“Yeah, me too.”
I try to pull myself together, sucking frazzled breaths in through clenched teeth. I feel a panic attack edging its way through me, but I can’t let it take over. I’ll panic when hope is lost—when everything else has failed, death is imminent, and all options have been exhausted.
Right now, I need to stay focused. Level-headed.
I need to get us out of here.
I watch as Dean rises to his feet, his hands cuffed behind him and chained to his own pipe.
Metal screeches against metal as he stands, then he slams the cuffs against the steel with all his strength, over and over again.
“Someone, help! Get us fucking out of here!” he bellows, his voice echoing through the dank basement, mingling with the clanking chains.
I lean the side of my head against the wall beside me. “What do you think he wants with us?”
Dean continues to cause a ruckus, loud and shrill. “Don’t know. Don’t want to know.” Ding, ding, ding. Clank, clank, clank. “I’ll fucking kill you, motherfucker!” he shouts.
“He knows you can’t kill him. You’re chained to a pipe.”
Dean ceases his efforts to glare at me from across the cellar. “So, what, I’m supposed to just give up and rot down here? Not a chance.” Clank, clank, clank. “Help!”
“Do you think he wants you or me?”
I can hear Dean’s heavy breaths huffing and puffing from a few feet away. He hesitates before responding, a low hum skimming his lips. “You.”
God .
I close my eyes, forcing back a new wave of tears. A few drops slip through, sliding down my bruised cheeks and stalling at the edge of my jaw. I wipe them away with my shoulder. “I guess you’re the lucky one.”
“The lucky one? I’m chained to a fucking wall in a psychopath’s basement. At least you hold some kind of value. I’m a dead man.”
“I’d rather die than be of value to that sicko. You know what that means, right?” I curl my legs to my chest, bile gliding up my throat at the mere thought. “He’s going to rape me.”
A silence settles between us because, honestly, what is there to say?
Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
We both know what’s on the agenda for me and there’s nothing either one of us can do about it. Why he kidnapped Dean, I’m unsure—maybe because he saw the creep’s face?
A bitter anger seeps to the surface and I expel it the only way I know how. “I can’t believe I’m going to die down here with you of all people. The Powers That Be must really hate me.”
“Seriously?” Dean is quick to bite back. “We’re probably going to be gutted and sodomized, and you’re holding onto a high school grudge? Jesus, Cora.”
I try to balance myself on my high heels with wobbly ankles and pull myself up, sliding my chains up the pipe.
My knees are shaking, and I almost collapse back down to the rubble.
“Why didn’t you drive? I told you to drive.
” The rising sun continues to spill more light into our hellhole, illuminating the look of outrage on Dean’s face. I look away, my jaw tight.
“Are you saying this is my fault? I was trying to save you.”
“If you would have just stepped on the gas, he would have let me go, and we’d be safe and warm in our own beds right now.” My resentment is spewing out of me, and maybe Dean doesn’t deserve it, but it’s easier this way. It’s easier than accepting the reality of our situation .
I can see him shaking his head at me, clearly insulted. “You’re really something else, Corabelle.”
I expect him to go on. I want him to say more. I wish he would take the bait and funnel his own fear and frustrations into petty rage and throw it right back at me. Give me all you got, Dean.
But that’s it. That’s all he says, and I feel hollow again.
I slide back down to my butt, the weight of my body, the weight of all of it , unable to hold me upright any longer.
Dean sits down a few moments later, his legs sprawled out in front of him, leaning back against the pole with closed eyes.
My own eyelids feel dry and brittle, almost acidic—like lemon peels. It hurts to blink.
Silence dances between us for a long time. The sun is up, shining its happy, brilliant rays into our dungeon, bringing to light the harrowing truth of our circumstances. I almost wish for the darkness. Most things can be masked in the dark.
My chin is to my chest when a door creaks open and bulky boots pound the steps, one at a time.
Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.
I jerk my head up and glance at Dean, who is looking at me with a similar uneasy expression. Our eyes hold tight as we both rise to our feet once more.