Chapter 40
FORTY
LINDY
Four Hours Earlier
She had very little concept of time and her heart was still thumping from the rat that had squeaked around by her thigh.
Had she been in the dark room with its drip, drip, drip, sounds for a couple of hours or a whole day?
She wriggled back towards the wall, hoping that the rat had gone.
However hard she tried, she couldn’t remove the binds.
Tears slipped from her cheeks. She felt the wetness tracing down her face until the coldness hit her neck.
She couldn’t sit here and cry in the dark.
She had to get away before he came back and killed her, but how?
Thoughts swam through her head. Why was she here?
Was it to do with Kain and the money he owed to everyone?
Was there someone in her house before Justine came over?
She didn’t see anyone but she had felt a presence.
It was weird, like the air pressure had shifted.
Last night, she felt that presence again but she dismissed it, then she was taken.
She scrunched her brows. A lot of it was still a blur.
She remembered being hit, then her house had been in darkness.
The lights had been turned off, maybe from the fuse board in the kitchen cupboard.
Kain, it had to have everything to do with him.
A loud clunk came from the other side of the door and someone opened it. She couldn’t see anyone in the darkness, just the glow of green around the eye area.
Without warning, two hands reached down and dragged her across the stone floor so fast she barely managed to process what was happening. Her head was woozy, like she was on a ship in the middle of a stormy sea. Hunger, thirst, fear – all ganging up on her, pulling her closer to death.
The beast dragged her along the floor that tore her clothes and flesh with every cold and painful bump. ‘I’m sorry for whatever I’ve done. Please, I don’t deserve this. I’ve never hurt anyone.’
He slammed her head into the wall and forced her into some sort of chair that suddenly came to life. She was on a stairlift, going up. Blood trickled down the middle of her forehead. ‘Please let me go,’ she yelled as the tears flowed.
The stairlift stopped with a jolt. Her eyes adjusted to the chink of light at the other end of the large, open room.
He dragged her from the chair, back onto the floor where he continued to pull her along.
The pungent scent of the room hit her nostrils, taking her breath away, making her want to heave.
Arms and legs still tied, she once again tried to wriggle out of the binds but they cut through her flesh.
There was no way out of this. She was at his mercy.
He manhandled her into some sort of restraint, wrapping something around her, linking what felt like thick straps through the binds and around her body.
A mechanical noise echoed through the space and she slowly began to lift from the ground, higher and higher until her bound legs dangled.
The light caught the top of his head but all she could see was a baseball cap.
He looked up and the glint of his night-vision goggles stared back at her.
All she could do was scream at the sight.
Her veins pulsed with blood as she gasped for air.
He lifted her higher and higher. The hoist mechanism jolted and began pivoting her as she dangled, then he climbed up something behind her, each of his steps clunking on metal as he ascended, until she could feel his breath on the back of her head.
‘It’s time to pay your debt. Kain has gone, Zavier has gone, now it’s your turn.’
She recognised that second name and in an instant she knew why but not who. She opened her mouth to say how sorry she was, but she didn’t get her chance. He undid the straps that were keeping her in place and she fell with a plop into a tank full of putrid liquid.