Chapter 29
TWENTY-NINE
Scarlett’s teeth were chattering so hard she worried she was about to chip her front tooth, then realised that she probably wasn’t getting out of this alive and it wouldn’t matter if she ground her teeth down to little nubs.
Her life was over. Who cared if she had teeth or not?
Then she realised that she cared and she wasn’t going to die like this, locked in some freak’s cage and half frozen to death so he could get his kicks.
Dawson’s body collapsing to the floor made her gasp as she saw it happen all over again in her mind; the sound as his head had shattered chilled her and she knew there was no way he could be alive.
Wouldn’t he be in here with her if he was?
Tori had run and she was part mad and part glad that she had legged it out of there as soon as that tall freak had attacked them.
‘Hey, hey, it’s freezing. I’m so cold and hungry.’
Her voice echoed around the room, and she listened for any sign of the guy who had put her in here and locked her up like some stray dog that had been found roaming the streets.
She squeezed her eyes closed, determined not to cry in case he was watching her.
She could barely see her fingers in front of her face when she waved them around, so she wouldn’t be able to see the creep if he was sitting a little bit away from her in the all-consuming darkness.
‘Fuck you, dickhead. Let me out, my dad will strangle you when he gets hold of you. He’s a bodybuilder, he has muscles you could only dream of and he’s a cage fighter.
Just you wait, he’s going to kill you with his bare hands, he will beat the living crap out of you, and I’ll stand by and watch him. ’
Her voice felt flat and she was about to scream in frustration and fear when she heard a low groan.
Scarlett was sitting bolt upright, her back against a rough wall, and she listened, not daring to breathe, scared to move an inch.
It happened again, so quietly she would have thought she was imagining it, but she knew that she wasn’t, and she scrabbled towards the sound and whispered, ‘Dawson, hey, is that you?’ Nothing else happened and she wondered if she was hearing things.
‘Tori, are you here, did he hurt you too?’ The silence was too loud, and she swallowed down the lump that had formed in the back of her throat. She was hallucinating, hearing things. She was going mad inside of here with nobody to hear her scream, even if she screamed until she lost her voice.
Another low moan made her freeze to the spot.
‘Hey, who are you, do you need help?’
‘Where am I? Who are you?’ The woman’s voice was strained, croaky and confused.
‘I wish I knew. Are you okay? I’m Scarlett.’
‘I’m going to…’ The sounds of retching filled the air, and Scarlett grimaced, she hated being sick, hated the sound, the smell of puke and didn’t know if she could bear to be locked in here with that smell filling the air.
Scarlett scrabbled around and found the plastic water bottle the creep had thrown in earlier.
She pushed it through the bars hoping the woman would be able to grasp it.
‘Here, I have water. Can you reach out and feel for it.’ Scarlett pushed herself against the bars, pressing her entire body against them and leaning out as far as she could, and felt the tiniest movement from the bar she had all her weight on.
Icy, slender fingers grabbed at hers.
‘Ahh, oh my God. You scared me. I’m sorry.’ She pushed the bottle towards her. ‘Drink it, you might feel better soon.’
What Scarlett meant was please don’t puke where I’m going to have to inhale it.
The woman took a painfully slow time to uncap the bottle and drink from it.
Scarlett pushed against the bar again and there it was, the slightest movement.
She didn’t do it again, she needed to know where the creep was and where she was before she tried anything.
She’d watched more horror films than she could count, and weren’t the killers always hanging around in the background, dancing around wearing a wig and their dead mother’s clothes?
She had this irrational urge to laugh out loud because that crap that she’d thought was made up clearly wasn’t, and now she was stuck in her own horror movie, but she wasn’t ready to curl in a ball and die – that much she did know for sure.