Chapter 20
Emily
I crack one eye open to take in my surroundings.
I might be impulsive but I’m not stupid.
If I can assess the situation without alerting anyone that I’m awake, I’ll have more time to make a plan.
Other than a headache and rope burn from my bound wrist, I feel fine.
Good, fewer injuries will work in my favor.
I haven’t heard any movement yet, so safe to assume I’m alone for the time being.
Opening both eyes fully, I’m able to really look at my situation. I’m tied to a fucking chair in what seems to be an abandon warehouse. Well at least my clothes are still on, that’s a plus.
I start wiggling in the chair, testing my restraints and the steadiness of it when I feel it.
I can’t help but chuckle to myself. Who kidnaps someone, but doesn’t check their pockets?
Fucking amateur. You’d think if he was going to go through all this effort, he’d at least take the knife out of my pocket after he tied me up.
Honestly, he never seemed to be that bright.
Not sure why I’m surprised he can’t even kidnap someone correctly.
Everyone always gave me odd looks when I told them I always have a knife.
They said I was paranoid. Who’s paranoid now, assholes?
I’d rather be prepared in case shit like this happens than not have it when I need it.
Trevor must’ve never paid attention to that fact or he thinks I’m too fucking helpless that he didn’t even care.
I stretch my fingers out far enough to reach the cool metal of the switch blade in my pocket.
The smooth metal feels right in my grasp, and the distinct click of the blade flipping and locking into place is calming.
I take a deep breath as I slowly move the blade so it’s wedged between the rope and my wrist. I slowly move the knife up and down against the ropes.
A sharp burning pain flares in my arm where the blade accidentally grazes it.
Fuck that hurt.
They make this shit look easy in books and movies.
Well, it’s not easy. My arm hurts and blood is trickling down it while I’m barely making a dent in the fibers of the stupid rope.
Zero out of ten, do not recommend it. Okay, so the sawing motion is not helping me at all. It’s time to think of another tactic.
I place the handle under me so I’m sitting on it with the blade facing away from me, forcing my arms to bend against their will as I manage to place the rope underneath the blade without cutting myself any further.
Leaning back, I make sure my weight will hold the blade still enough and pull my wrist upwards with as much force as I can muster.
The movement feels awkward with my elbows bent at an odd angle, but I’m soon rewarded with the satisfying pop of the ropes snapping.
I can actually do this. Hope swelled in my chest but I tried to push it back down.
Hope had the power to get you killed. Hope made you sloppy.
It made you make poor choices and I planned to make it out of here alive.
I untangle the tattered rope from my arms before leaning over to cut the ropes tying my feet to the chair.
It only takes me a few seconds to free each leg.
It’s so much easier to do when my hands are free.
Checking my arms over for injuries reveals the rope burns around both wrists will probably last longer than the small knife nick on the inside of my arm.
My ankles were tied over my socks so there’s barely even a mark left behind on them.
Not too bad for my first time getting kidnapped.
Now what? So many options. I could leave, but that’d mean he would only try again.
It’d be a never-ending cycle of looking over my shoulder.
It also puts Atlas at risk. No, that just wouldn’t do.
Hmm, I got it! I’d just give him a taste of his own medicine, but I’ll be better at it than he was.
I’ll beat him at his own sick games. My mind swirls as all the crazy ideas bounce around. I was going to get my revenge.
If this happened a few months ago, I probably wouldn’t have cared, but now I have something worth fighting for.
My eyes start darting around the room, looking for anything heavy and easy to swing.
I wasn’t dumb enough to think I could ever over power him without some kind of help.
Putting my knife back in my pocket, I start searching around stacks of wooden crates for something that’ll help, when I hear what sounds like a car pulling up outside.
That has to be him. I don’t have much time left.
Panic starts to bubble up in my stomach when I finally spot it.
Wedged between a crate and a barrel is a big rusty shovel.
It’ll have to do.
I quickly grab it and dart down behind a stack of pallets close to the door.
He’ll have to walk past my hiding spot in order to see I’m no longer tied to the chair.
That’d give me just enough time to try and knock him out.
I would only get one shot at this. I can’t afford to mess this up.
My heartbeat is pounding so loud, I’m terrified he’ll be able to hear it.
I force myself to take deep, calming breaths and I wait.
I can hear the beep of a key fob locking the doors on a car and the distinct sound of footsteps stomping through dirt.
Good to know wherever we are, it’s far enough away from the city to be dirt instead of asphalt– great.
I wipe my sweaty palms on my jeans and grip the shovel as tight as I can with both hands.
The last thing I need is this stupid shovel slipping from my fingers because my hands were too sweaty.
I take one last deep breath and brace myself as I hear the twist of the door knob.
The door opens and he strolls in like he didn’t have a care in the world.
Like I said, he wasn’t that bright. As soon as his back is turned towards me I come out from behind the pallets.
I let go of the breath I was holding. Exhaling it in a scream of rage as I swing the shovel as hard as I can.
It connects with the back of his head with a solid whack, but it wasn’t hard enough.
He stumbles and tries to recover, but before he can, I swing again. This one hit closer to his jaw as he turned to face me. The ting sound of the shovel pinging off his skull was slightly satisfying. Watching him crumble into a heap on the floor makes me smile, but my work isn’t over yet.
I grab him by the ankles, dragging his heavy body to the chair I was occupying not that long ago.
I really need to work out more, or maybe he should have.
Maybe he wouldn’t weigh so much if he knew what a treadmill was.
His dead weight is almost impossible to drag.
I’m pouring sweat by the time I get him in front of the chair, and I still have to manage to get him into the freaking thing.
You know what, fuck it. I roll him onto his side and, unlike when he tied me up, I pat him down.
Checking his front pockets, I take the cash from his wallet along with his car keys.
He won’t be needing either. As I go to check his back pockets, I see the outline of a gun tucked into his back.
Yeah, I’ll be taking that. I quickly tuck it into the waistband of my shorts as I retrieve his phone from his pocket.
Finally happy he won’t have any help getting out of this, I slide the chair behind him and line it up so I can tie it to him. Figured it would be easier to tip the chair up with him already attached to it versus the other way around and if not, at least he’d be tied to the chair either way.
I grab some rope and fasten each wrist to the back legs of the chair just below the seat.
I pull the knots as tight as I can before I move on to his legs which I tie to the chairs front legs.
I then tie some rope around his torso. The less he can move, the better.
Once I’m happy with my tie job, I prepare for the hard part, lifting him and this heavy ass chair.
I flip him to where the back of the chair is lying on the ground, then I use all the leg strength I have to lift the chair until the legs are on the floor again.
Damn, I really need to work out more– I’m not made to be lifting bodies.
I can feel the panic slowly rising. What do I do now?
Do I just leave him here? He could slowly starve to death.
It’s not like he wouldn’t deserve it. But that would give him time to escape.
Should I call the cops? I could turn him in for kidnapping.
Was it still kidnapping if I was a grown woman?
Before I’m able to come up with a game plan, Trevor starts to move.
Great, I was hoping to be gone before he woke up.
I turn to face him as he groans and shakes his head until he’s fully awake.
I don’t know how he’ll react and I don’t want to give him the chance to catch me by surprise.
He starts yanking on his binds in frustration.
You can tell by his rigid posture that he’s currently trying to connect the dots of how he ended up this way.
He mumbles a curse and I couldn’t hold it in anymore, I laughed.
It was comical seeing his inflated ego shrink just a little. Sadly he didn’t think it was as funny as I did. When his head snapped to where I was standing, he grew even angrier. If looks could kill I’d probably be dead.
Too bad for him they couldn’t.
“You’re a lot stupider than I gave you credit for, Emily. He already threw you away once, you dumb cunt. You’re broken, nothing more than damaged goods. You’re lucky I even tried to love you. He’s just using you again. There’s no way someone like him will love someone as messed up as you, Emily.”
While what he said kind of stung, I knew I was broken.
Him saying that wouldn’t get him the reaction he hoped for.
I’ve heard something similar my entire life, so it wasn’t anything new.
But what did he mean by again? Who’s he talking about?
I really wasn’t sure. He’s probably just talking out of his ass like he always did.
“You’re wrong, Trevor.”
“Am I though? How well do you really know him?”
“I know him well enough.”
“He’s not going to give you the soft and sweet type of love, Emily.
No one will. Sluts don’t get the happy kind of love where a man’s touch will make you shiver in bliss.
No one will treat you the way I was willing to.
But that wasn’t good enough for you was it?
You had to go and open your legs for someone else. ”
“I don’t want soft. I don’t want lingering glances and sweet kisses. I don’t want shivering. I want his touch to fucking burn. I want obsession and devotion. I don’t want love that’s too simple. I want destruction. I want something I’d rather die than live without. That was never you, Trevor.”
“And you think that’s him? He sure as hell didn’t give you that last time? You don’t even know the secrets he has been keeping from you, yet you think he loves you.”
“What the hell do you mean by that? Why do you keep saying ‘again’ and ‘last time’? What are you hiding?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know? But that’s okay.
When I get out of here, I’ll save you the trouble and just kill him.
He can’t get in my way anymore if he’s not breathing.
You could’ve just picked me, but no, you had to go and be a whore.
You’re such a dumb bitch. You belong to me, no one else but ME.
I’ll kill you and him before I let him have you again. ”
My body shakes with anger as I pull the knife from my pocket and flick it open. Threatening me was one thing, but I wouldn’t let him threaten Atlas. He let out a sound that can only be described as a manic cackle.
“What are you going to do with that? Kill me? You don’t have what it takes. You’re nothing more than a worthless broken doll.”
My body moves instantly. The moment he said I didn’t have what it takes, was the moment he signed his own death certificate.
There’s no hesitation as I stab him with the knife.
That’s when I feel it, the warmth of his blood pouring over my clenched fist that’s now holding the knife that’s currently plunged in his throat.
It’s like my brain shuts off, the only voice I hear doesn’t sound like mine. It’s happy with what I did.
The smell hits me next, a mix of metallic and something that smells an awful lot like piss fills the air.
A smile cracks across my lips as I watch him panic.
It feels broken and cracked, like it doesn’t belong on my face.
He’s trying to speak, but it comes out in a bloody gurgle.
He thrashes against his restraints, getting one of his arms free.
His fingers wrap around my wrist, trying to remove the knife. I push it in further as he claws at my forearms. He’s fighting for his life. Not that it’ll do him any good at this point. His nails dig in hard enough to break my skin, but it only adds to his blood that already drenches my arms.
“Not so strong now are you, Trevor?” I twist the knife just a little and he thrashes with panic, but he doesn’t fight long.
His eyes meet mine for a brief second. It’s clear the moment he realizes he’s not getting out of this alive.
Several emotions flash in his eyes before they land on regret.
His hand drops limply to his side as life finally drains from his body.
I expected to feel terror– regret even– but as I stare at the man I just killed, I no longer feel anything.
Suddenly, the warehouse door is thrown open and I let go of the knife handle, quickly drawing the gun stashed in my waistband. I just killed one person. I’ll not hesitate to kill another.
I’ll be getting out of here alive one way or another.
My finger twitched on the trigger as the intruder rounded a stack of wooden crates. I pulled the trigger but aimed right next to his head. I know the eyes staring back at me, but why are they here?